text:
Print and Play for Busy People

    Tom Ireland

    United States
    Nashua
    New Hampshire

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    [Microbadge: Hiking fan][Microbadge: The Police fan][Microbadge: Guitar fan][Microbadge: I play with green!][Microbadge: 5 Year Geek Veteran]

    I recently tried my hand at making a few print and play games. There are a number of excellent geeklists on the subject. The number of games available is immense. They come in all shapes, sizes, themes, and complexity. Which brings me to the purpose of this list.

    I am a busy person. Probably not as busy as many of you, but my time is filled up with so many things that don't involve games. Unfortunately, I don't have all the time I'd like to spend on the games I already own, let alone time to make AND then play games. I'm not complaining, I love most of the other things that fill the time in my life, I just wish there was more time to play boardgames (and in this case, make a few too).

    From the first three games on the list, you can get a general sense of the time and materials these games took to make. I would appreciate if you could recommend print and play games that you enjoy that fit the following criteria:

    1) Component complexity must be minimal. Straight edges to cut with my trusty rotary cutter are preferred. Freestyle scissor cutting through matboard is something to avoid.

    2) Component volume must be minimal. Games with a universe of counters, markers, etc. in all shapes and sizes are to be avoided. If the component quantity isn't ridiculous, the exception to this rule may be if all components are straight edged (again I love my rotary cutter).

    3) A game that doesn't suck. Even if it is easy to make, the time and materials spent to make it will still be "lost" if the game is a loser. This is the subjective part, so if a game you have made is a gem to you, I would love to read about it.

    By the way, this is my first geeklist...

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    [Board Game: Rat Hot]

    Tom Ireland

    United States
    Nashua
    New Hampshire

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    The second made. Dschunke: Das Legespiel version. This is an excellent game. Easy to make. The game play has rewarded the relatively minimal effort to make it many times over.

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    -   Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:17 am
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    3. Board Game: Glik [Average Rating:6.25 Overall Rank:8760]

    [Board Game: Glik]

    Tom Ireland

    United States
    Nashua
    New Hampshire

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    This one I have printed but have yet to fully assemble. I like the variable board building aspect and I am looking forward to playing it. But I have not had the time to put it together.

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    -   Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:17 am
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    [Board Game: Punch!]

    Alkis Moraitis

    Australia
    Sydney Olympic Park
    NSW

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    We gotta get out while we 're young, `cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run...

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    [Microbadge: Amerigo fan][Microbadge: Trajan Fan][Microbadge: Carpe Diem fan][Microbadge: Forum Trajanum fan][Microbadge: The Geek Die Roller Hates Me]

    Try Punch! the cardgamed for two boxers. It is easy to make and takes as little time to play as 15 minutes. As for the gameplay, it is on the lighter side, but is quite fun. Check the opinions of some of the people who played it.

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    -   Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:24 pm
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    [Board Game: Dvorak]

    Michael Barlow

    Canada
    Stratford
    Ontario

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    to know when you have enough

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    Dvorak has possibilities. It's the name for a self-contained card game system. There are many game sets available to try, or you can make your own.

    The best thing to do is to go through the link and pick one to try from the deck archive. Everything will be explained on the page.

    I've been playing the Darts deck solo for kicks.

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    -   Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:16 pm
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    [Board Game: Pirates & Plunder]

    -- ------- --
         [msg]
      -- ------- --

    [DESIGNER]

    This is a P&P game based off of the Carcassonne system, but with PIRATES! [arrrh] I haven't played it, but it has a semi-decent rating, and it's all straight cuts.

    Two caveats, though. I had to mark some of the sheets before I cut them out, since there aren't enough guidelines to ensure a straight line on some of the pieces. You also need some extra bits to play the game. Here's what I included to make the game playable:

    [Board Game: Pirates & Plunder]

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    -   Posted Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:38 pm
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    [Board Game: Country Trains]

    ladawna h

    United States
    Washington DC
    Dist of Columbia

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    [Microbadge: 2-player Games fan][Microbadge: Copper Image Uploader]

    Country Trains

    I would add Country Trains as a print-and-play that meets your criteria. Two pages of rules, and three sheets of "tiles" to print and cut total. Tiles are easy to cut with your paper cutter or regular scissors - all straight edges, no funny corners. Artwork is wonderfully charming on its own, no need to produce any of your own art. Its easy to add the minimal additional materials you need to play even if all you have around is monopoly (a few coins or bills, a couple of markers (trains if you have them!) and a few cubes or other small markers to denote loads. The designer is still tweaking the game, so the rules and tile set aren't yet final, but I found it quick and easy to assemble and fun to play even though in development. A little Carcasonne-ish, but with trains!

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    -   Posted Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:00 pm
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    [Board Game: Traffic Patterns]

    Jeremiah Lee

    United States
    Milan
    MI

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    [Microbadge: Dread RPG fan][Microbadge: Ambush! fan][Microbadge: 2010 Golden Geek Winner][Microbadge: Radiohead fan][Microbadge: 'When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning' - Dr. Reiner Knizia]

    Very simple to put together (just cut out 12 rectangles), and works just as well in b/w as in color.

    This is a 2-4 player game of out-thinking your opponent. I'm a big fan of Diplomacy, and while this game isn't about negotiations, I tried to put the "will he move to Munich to attack, or to Tyrolia to have a stronger defense" aspect into this game.

    Each turn you choose where you want to move, and where you want a non-player car to move, and it's all revealed simultaneously. You can move a car out of your way, or move a car into your opponents way.

    First one home wins.

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    -   Posted Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:17 pm
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    [Board Game: Delivery!]

    Delivery is a fast-paced, fast-food game where players compete for orders and try to deliver them on time.
    So simple it barely requires dice and cash, Delivery is an easy to learn game with tough competition and fun variables: Will your restaurant be cheap or expensive? Will you invest in publicity or food quality? Will you make it on time and receive a generous tip or will your delivery boy be too slow and arrive too late?
    Build your fast-food empire by building more and more restaurants and crushing your opponents.

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    -   Posted Sat May 9, 2009 11:49 am
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    [Board Game: Cheese Chasers]

    bran mcmillin

    United States
    Houston
    Texas

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    Big Mama is out of the house, so the Mice of the Cheese Chasers are out Chasing Cheese. Fat Cats are on guard, ready to pounce and devour the Cheese Chasers. Help the Mice surround the Cheese and break the Mousetraps so that they can get to the Cheese and be the top Cheese Chasers around!

    Cheese Chasers is a SOLITAIRE OR MULTI-PLAYER, FREE PNP card game that I designed, takes 1-10 MINUTES to play. Printable on 3 pgs of 8.5" x 11" (that includes the pocketmod rule booklet). It can be played Cooperatively OR Competitively.

    Fun, quick, and quite addicting card game, fits in a wallet for traveling.

    [Board Game: Cheese Chasers]

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    -   Posted Sun Sep 13, 2009 3:37 pm
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    [Board Game: Dice of the Living Dead]

    mads l. brynnum

    Denmark
    2400 Kbh. NV

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    I don't mind tooting my own horn (someone has to do it), so here goes. Dice of the Living Dead is a zombie themed solo dice game that clocks in around 15 or 20 minutes. Or less, if you roll badly.

    All you need is a print of the play sheet, 8 normal dice and a pen or pencil.

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    -   Posted Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:04 pm
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    [Board Game: Utopia Engine]

    Nick Hayes

    United States
    Los Angeles
    California

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    "Gargoyle's Quest" Gameboy, 1990

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    [Microbadge: I tried to assemble the Utopia Engine!][Microbadge: Spirits of the Wild fan][Microbadge: I love Arizona][Microbadge: Earthbound fan][Microbadge: Animal Crossing series fan]

    A solitaire dice game that is especially easy to build: it only requires printing the adventure sheets. You supply two dice and a pencil with eraser.

    The game is about an artificer named Isodoros who is attempting to reconstruct a fabled device called the Utopia Engine, a relic of a long lost society and possibly the only hope the world has at stopping the fast approaching Doomsday. You have two weeks to recover and activate the Engine's six parts in order to assemble the Utopia Engine. If you die in the wilderness or fail to reconstruct the machine in time, the world ends in apocalypse.

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    -   Posted Fri Aug 6, 2010 6:12 pm
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    [Board Game: Fungibility]

    Paul Blake

    United States
    South Carolina

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    * Low component complexity: CHECK

    108 cards, but only 54 for a 2-player set. Also, all the cards are identical copies of the same card, pictured at left.

    * Low component volume: CHECK

    108 cards. That's it.

    * Doesn't suck: SUBJECTIVE CHECK

    Okay, I'm the designer of the game, so I'm going to be a little biased. All the same, I've been playtesting it pretty frequently over the past month or so, and the results have been surprisingly positive. As in, I was genuinely surprised that the game was playable, let alone that it was actually pretty fun. I've been doing a few playtest sessions with the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society, and it's genuinely well-received there as well.

    All that said: I don't think it sucks. I know other people (who have no reason to spare my feelings) who don't think it sucks. While I try to be objective about this kind of thing, I'm reasonably certain that it _actually doesn't suck_, and I'm just as skeptical about it as anyone else. How good can a card game with only one card be?

    [EDIT] I know how busy you people are, so just for busy gamers like yourself, I created the Skeleton Crew version. Now you're just 3 printed pages from trying the game out!

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    -   Edited Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:45 pm
    -   Posted Thu Dec 8, 2011 10:43 pm
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question: What is the author making?

answer: The author is making their own games by hand.

question: What is Rat Hot?

answer: Not answered.

question: What is Punch!

answer: It is a card game for two boxers.

question: What is Dvorak?

answer: not answered.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This article details several print and play games. The author compiled a list of games based on component complexity, volume, and if the game is fun.


split: train

text:
The aims of the hungry college student are quite similar to those of a roving animal in the wild. The goal in either situation is to get the highest quantity and quality of food for the smallest cost or effort. This, in modern times, has led to the humble burrito becoming a staple of most every student's diet. Cheap, flavoursome, quick and filling. The perfect centre of the venn diagram of a successful meal. This is important to note as the frequency with which I ate burritos in this portion of my ongoing college education contributed greatly to the unfortunate climax of this story.
The lead up to said climax began when one fateful February lunchtime, I observed a friend dripping some kind of sauce onto her burrito. Ever eager to try new foods, I asked to try it and she handed me the bottle. Angry red and leering through the glass, the sauce seemed to dare me to release it from its prison. Reading the label, I deemed this "Hot Sauce" worthy of the privilege of beginning the noble journey through my gastrointestinal tract, and gingerly dabbed four drops onto my half-devoured burrito before taking a bite.
Flavour. Sensation. Where before, the starchy fajita and rice had simply eyed the chicken and her friends salsa and sour cream from across the dancefloor, the hot sauce brought the group together in a glorious dance of heat and intermingling. The flavours simultaneously blended together in perfect harmony while also bursting out from the heavy mass on my tongue to reveal notes of fragrance and taste I had never noticed previously. Truly this was the sap of the gods, and I was helpless to do anything but sup at the slow trickle I was gifted from the tree of life.
But like so many things in life, I was left to chase that unattainable feeling of my first experience from then on. I added more and more of the sauce to each successive burrito over the following weeks, until the fateful day of my "movie night" with a girl I had been awkwardly courting for a long while. This was the important date, the deal sealer or the haymaker to my heart. Come lunchtime that day however, all nerves and knowledge of that night were banished from my mind the second that familiar warm, tinfoil bundle was thrust into my hand. I minced gleefully towards the bottles of hot sauce and soda fountain beside the register of the restaurant, and resolved that today was to be the day that I would throw caution to the wind. Today I would sit under the bodi tree and achieve burrito nirvana.
With each bite I poured the fiery brew upon my burrito with hedonistic gusto. No glimpse of white or green or tan colour from the other ingredients escaped the burning surface in my hands. It was a red dwarf, drifting slowly through space, and I the looming black hole into which it must inevitably plunge. My mouth burned, my stomach churned, the flavour made incarnate in my hand grew ever smaller. I sat back with post-climactic contentedness that would shame any denizen of Sodom or Gomorrah. I relaxed, and let my mind drift to thoughts of that night while the white noise of the city dulled my ears.
That night I was characteristically late to leave the house. Washed and fully equipped with a laptop and DVD for the night, but late all the same. This in mind, I ignored the ominous rumble deep in my core and bid goodbye to my roommate as I left. What distinctly stands out in my memory of this point in the night is how uneventful the walk was at first. A junkie sprawled in the alleyway, in his usual spot, cyclists passing by with close, passive-aggressive proximity to pedestrians such as me, the electronic bus sign displaying times and routes, the electronic bus sign, the electronic bus sign......

Oh no.....

My entire network of organs clenched at once. A battle had begun in my intestines with a spectacle only rivalled by Pearl Harbour in sudden intensity. But I had to keep going, I couldn't blow my chances.

The burning returned, I had invited the vampire into my home and now he threatened to suck away my dignity AND my chances with a member of the opposite sex.

I can fight this, I can stop at a bar on the way...

Each step threatened to cause a breach, The Red October about to surface.

I need to turn around.

Giving in finally, I rushed home at the absolute maximum haste my precarious situation would allow while still remaining precarious, while simultaneously texting the girl of my affections that I had "forgotten the laptop" and must rush home. A half true statement. With great care I opened the door to my building and ascended the stairs, each strenuous movement threatening to escalate to a Vesuvius-esque tirade.
I ignored my roommate's questions of what had happened and entered the bathroom beside his room, and oh how I suddenly saw the error of my ways. So raucous and cacophonous was the ensuing eruption that I heard through the door and walls my roommate say to himself with a tone of genuine concern: "Oh my God..."
This suddenly made the night's events better for me. I began laughing at how surreal the situation was, as though I was living a generic teen comedy. This laughing in turn led my roommate to also begin giggling, until we were both guffawing along with my continuing gastric events. My life was at the same awful and perfect. I was concurrently in a world of pure, burning pain, and happy to be there.
A half an hour after entering that bathroom, I left a new man. The ten minutes repose I had taken led me to review my life to this point, and what I had done to lead me to this toilet seat on this night.  My new outlook on life fresh in my mind, I nodded at my roommate and once again made my way to the romantic rendezvous, with the laptop in my backpack, where it most definitely hadn't been the entire time.

title: [NF] Hot Sauce

question: What did the narrator eat in mass quantities during their undergraduate years?

answer: Burritos.

question: What is meant by "The Red October"?

answer: Probably the sudden explosive onset of diarrhea.

question: Why was the narrator bringing their laptop?

answer: Probably to watch a movie with the girl they like.

question: Did the narrator inform their date of what had really delayed them?

answer: Probably not, considering they lied about the reason for their tardiness in the first place.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: When the narrator was in college, they made the mistake of having eaten a burrito with hot sauce the day of a date with the girl of their dreams. They were en route to the date when they felt a bout of sickness coming on and told the girl they had forgotten their laptop at home. Once at their apartment, they spent a long time on the toilet while their roommate voiced his concerns. After, they resumed going to the girl's place,laptop in bag-as it had actually always been.


text:
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Sam in the Morning

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Live from Los Angeles every weekday morning Sam bring you an entertaining and irreverent show that mixes a variety of the day's topics with funny and smart conversation. The show features a breadth of fascinating guests, bestselling authors and celebrities.

Enjoy your morning at the office with spicy talk and smart humor. Call in live and chat with us.

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Answers for the Family

Monday 11:00AM - 11:59AM

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ANSWERS FOR THE FAMILY will address issues such as international parental abduction, locating your runaway teen, family crisis intervention, self defense, building self esteem, addictions, new innovations in the field and specialized programs that can really help.

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The Polished Woman

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Join Jessica and her inspirational guests every Monday at 1pm PST on LA Talk Radio. And as Jessica says after every show, "Remember to give love to the next person you see".

Jessica's video show archive

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question: What does the text say about "Answers for the Family"?

answer: Answers for the Family is a radio show that airs on Monday at 11am for one hour. It discusses issues like international parental abduction, locating teen runaways and family crisis. It also addresses how to promote self-defense, build self-esteem and handle addictions.


text:
_BLOOD JADE_ is a 2016 Singaporean documentary television film, directed and produced by Ali Fowle, a broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Yangon, Myanmar, for Channel NewsAsia. It investigates into the secretive multi-billion jade mining industry in the Kachin State of Myanmar, where it is controlled by the past military elites, its cronies and drug lords, the devastation of the people and its environment, and the often fatal and dangerous working environment around the mines and links to drugs and prostitution.[1][2][3][4]

Aired on Channel NewsAsia's _Undercover Asia 3_ documentary series on April 5, 2016, it was nominated for Best Current Affairs Programme at the 21st Asian Television Awards in 2016[5] and was awarded a Finalist Certificate at the 2017 New York Festivals International TV & Film Awards in the Environment and Ecology category.[6]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

title: Blood Jade

question: What is the subject of the Blood Jade documentary?

answer: The jade mining industry in the Kachin State of Myanmar

question: Who directed Blood Jade?

answer: Ali Fowle

question: When did Blood Jade first air?

answer: April 5, 2016

question: List the awards Blood Jade received.

answer: It received a Finalist Certificate at the 2017 New York Festivals International TV & Film Awards in the Environment and Ecology category

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Blood Jade is a 2016 Singaporean documentary directed and produced by Ali Fowle. It focuses on the jade mining industry in the Kachin State of Myanmar.


text:
[Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition chief, said on Wednesday that Google had unfairly promoted its own services, like mobile search and its Chrome web browser, with cellphone manufacturers.]

Credit...Francois Lenoir/Reuters

-   April 20, 2016

Google has long stressed that Android, its popular mobile software, is open for anyone to use, including its rivals.

But the company’s claims are now under threat after Europe’s antitrust authorities on Wednesday charged the company with unfairly using Android to promote its own services — like mobile search — over those of its rivals. In doing so, regulators brought particular scrutiny to Google’s relationships with some of the world’s biggest cellphone makers, which have helped expand the reach of Android.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief, said Google had required some of the cellphone manufacturers to preinstall the company’s services, including its Google Play smartphone application store, and had given them unfair financial incentives to favor Google’s services on their mobile devices. Those practices undermined competition and consumer choice, she said.

“Google has abused its dominant position,” Ms. Vestager said on Wednesday. The company’s “behavior has harmed consumers by restricting innovation in the wider mobile space.”

The company denies it has broken European competition rules, and the charges may not lead to financial or other penalties against Google, which now has three months to respond to the accusations.

“We take these concerns seriously,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, said in a blog post. “But we also believe that our business model keeps manufacturers’ costs low and their flexibility high, while giving consumers unprecedented control of their mobile devices.”

By taking aim at Android — the mobile software that holds more than 80 percent of the worldwide market share for smartphone operating systems — Europe has opened the latest chapter in its continuing battle with American technology companies.

These players, including Amazon and Facebook, dominate how Europe’s 500 million people use digital services, including social media, online movies and e-commerce. Google is facing separate charges, filed last year, in Europe over whether it unfairly favored some of its search services over those of rivals.

Europe’s antitrust claims highlight Google’s increasingly thorny relationships with smartphone manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung, among others. Ms. Vestager said Android’s prominent role in the mobile market was not in question but that she was concerned the contracts the company signed with smartphone manufacturers had made it difficult, if not impossible, for rival search engines and smartphone app stores to compete in the European Union.

“If a company is dominant, that’s fine,” Ms. Vestager told reporters. “But if that dominance is abused, then we have an issue.” She declined to name which cellphone manufacturers might be affected, citing their right to privacy.

The device makers, already struggling against cutthroat competition, have become reliant on Google’s digital services available on Android, even as they have tried to persuade consumers to try their own mobile services or those of Google’s competitors. Some, including Samsung, have backed rival operating systems to loosen Android’s grip, but such efforts have so far proved unsuccessful.

And while global cellphone manufacturers once profited from using Android to expand rapidly, particularly in emerging markets, their growth has since slowed.

Analysts say these cellphone makers’ inability to wean consumers off Google’s popular mobile mapping, email and other services has potentially shut them out of billions of dollars in extra revenue as people’s digital habits — including online search and e-commerce purchases — shift to mobile devices.

“Their attempts at beating Google’s services haven’t worked,” said Neil Mawston, a mobile analyst at the technology research group Strategy Analytics. “For most companies that want to operate in the smartphone market, there isn’t another option but to use Google.”

Representatives from the leading smartphone manufacturers declined to comment on their relationship with Google.

The dominance of Android, at least in Europe and the United States, is almost absolute.

The basic Android software can be downloaded for free and modified by device makers and telecom operators.

But they must sign contracts that place a selection of Google’s services in prime spots on smartphone screens and link to the company’s app store, from which Google takes a cut of each application sold. The search giant also generates income from advertising from mobile search queries, though manufacturers are free to include their own applications as part of the mobile software.

In total, Google’s version of Android powers more than 98 percent of the Android-based smartphones in Europe and the United States, according to Ian Fogg, a senior director at IHS, a technology consultancy in London.

Only in China, where Google is banned, and Russia, where the local search engine Yandex holds a significant market share, does Google not dominate in mobile.

“If someone buys an Android device in Europe or the U.S., it’s almost certainly Google’s version,” said David McQueen, research director at ABI Research in London.

Google says its relationships with cellphone manufacturers are voluntary and that rival mobile services, including those from the likes of Amazon and Facebook, are readily available on its Android software, which does not restrict people from downloading competitors’ applications.

The search giant has also pointed to smartphones from Amazon and Nokia that are based on the free version of Android and that do not come packaged with Google’s mobile services as signs of healthy competition. Those devices, particularly Amazon’s Fire smartphone, have not proved popular with consumers.

Kirt McMaster, the chief executive of Cyanogen, an American start-up that makes a mobile operating system based on Android, said he was cautiously optimistic that the regulatory intervention could improve innovation on the operating system.

“There are ways to enable next-generation services on top of Android today, even within the confines of the existing relationships,” he said. “But there are scenarios that will be beneficial for the ecosystem if Android was even more open.”

If Google is found to have broken European rules, the company may face fines of as much as 10 percent of its annual revenue. Given the company’s recent annual revenue, that could be roughly $7 billion. Such a high financial penalty is unlikely, however, according to legal experts.

The company could also be forced to alter its Android software to give competitors a greater position in its mobile software or to change its existing contracts with cellphone makers.

That would potentially provide Europeans with a wider choice of mobile services than would be available to their American counterparts. Most people in the 28 member states of the European Union, though, still rely primarily on Google services for many daily activities.

Such remedies, if eventually imposed on Google, would be reminiscent of similar steps taken by Microsoft, which in 2009 agreed to offer consumers a choice of rival web browsers to end a European antitrust investigation into its dominance of Internet browsers at that time.

Paulo Trezentos, chief executive of Aptoide, a rival Portuguese Android app store that is one of the complainants in the European competition case against Google, said his company would welcome greater access to Android users.

“Google makes it difficult for people to install applications from rivals,” Mr. Trezentos said. “It’s actively making it harder to compete.”

In the United States, some lawmakers on Wednesday called on the Federal Trade Commission to more closely scrutinize Google after Europe’s charges. In 2013, the F.T.C. closed a two-year antitrust investigation into Google’s search business, citing a lack of evidence for pursuing a case. The F.T.C. said it did not comment on or confirm investigations.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said regulations and laws differed in Europe and the United States but “the spirit and goal of our laws is very similar.”

“There is now clearly a need for exacting and penetrating scrutiny,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. “Perhaps it is overdue. But it is now clearly necessary.”

question: Summarize the motivation behind the charges Europe's antitrust authorities are leveling against Google.

answer: Europe's antitrust authorities believe Google is unfairly using Android to promote its own services over those of its rivals. Google required some cellphone manufacturers to preinstall its services. This behavior has harmed consumers by restricting innovation in the wider mobile space.

question: What does this article say about consumers>

answer: Margrethe Vestager believes Google's practices undermine competition and consumer choice. The behavior harms consumers by restricting innovation in the mobile space. Google's Kent Walker, on the other hand, believes their business model gives consumers unprecedented control of their mobile devices. Android holds over 80 percent of the worldwide market share for smartphone operating systems. Device makers have tried to persuade consumers to try their own mobile services or those of Google's competitors.

question: What does the article say about the outcome of the charges?


text:
T-155 FIRTINA (English: Storm) is a Turkish 155 mm self-propelled howitzer. The howitzer is essentially a modified version of Republic of Korea K9 Thunder which is developed by Samsung Techwin, now Hanwha Systems and T-155 shares main systems[1] of the K9 Thunder, including the South Korean designed 155/52 calibre gun system, majority of the chassis, automatic ammunition feeding mechanism and the German designed MTU-881 KA 500 diesel engine. However, some modifications were made by Turkey and a few subsystems such as Fire-control Main systems of T-155 were added by Turkey as well. The first batch of eight self-propelled howitzers were made by Samsung Techwin in Republic of Korea and the rest were produced in Turkey under license, which makes T-155 a licensed product and a modified variant of Republic of Korea K9 Thunder.

Features

The T-155 is essentially a modified Republic of Korea Army K-9 Thunder as both howitzers share the main systems such as the South Korean designed 155/52 caliber gun system, the majority of the chassis, the automatic ammunition feeding mechanism and the German designed MTU-881 KA 500 diesel engine which was employed in the original K-9 Thunder, but has minor differences in its turret design, parts of the chassis, the navigation system, and electronic systems (such as the radio and fire control system), which were developed in Turkey. The T-155 lacks a commander's digital panoramic sight, which the K9 has. Through the Inertial Navigation System produced by ASELSAN, the howitzer is able to determine the coordinates of the targets at 17.5 meters deviation. Fırtına can open fire within 30 seconds.[2]

According to the licence agreement with Samsung Techwin, the first eight T-155s were built in South Korea, while the remaining batch of more than 300 units would be produced in Turkey.[3] The total reported cost of purchase and technology transfer for the Turkish government was $1 billion.[4]

The T-155 Fırtına has a maximum firing range of 40 km, depending on the type of ammunition. It can reach a top speed of 66 km/h and has an operational range of 480 km.

The T-155 howitzers are built at the 1st Army Maintenance Center Command of the Turkish Army in Adapazarı. The gun is produced by MKEK.[5] The production rate of the T-155 is 24 units per year. More than 350[6] T-155 Fırtına howitzers were planned to be produced.[7] 281 have been delivered between 2005 and 2010.[8]

An upgraded version dubbed “Firtina 2” was to begin production in 2017, featuring improvement to range and rate of fire. The new vehicles were to be fitted with remote weapons stations capable of carrying 12.7mm, 7.62mm machine guns and 40 mm grenade launchers.[9]

Poyraz Ammunition Resupply Vehicle

The Poyraz Ammunition Resupply Vehicle (ARV) is an indigenous vehicle with an ammunition transfer system similar to that of the South Korean K10 ARV. The vehicle has a boom that is extended towards the rear of the T-155 Fırtına turret, where the resupply takes place. The Poyraz ARV has an auxiliary power unit, which the K10 ARV lacks, that allows the vehicle's crew to use electronics and communication systems, and to run an ammunition transfer system economically without the main engines being turned on.[10]

The Poyraz ARV can carry up to 96 155 mm shells and is able to transfer 48 shells in 20 minutes. It has a range of 360 km.[11]

Operational history

The T-155 Fırtına was first deployed in Turkey's Operation Sun at the end of 2007 into January 2008 to fight the PKK militants in the northern part of Iraq.[12] It was used in 2012 Syrian–Turkish border clashes and again during both the Jarabulus offensive (2016) and the Afrin offensive (2018).

Operators

Current operators

-   350. The Turkish Armed Forces placed an order to manufacture 350 vehicles in total, with a claimed 1.6 million USD license fee per vehicle to be paid to South Korea.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] The first 8 vehicles were produced in South Korea while the rest has been produced domestically in Turkey according to the license agreement with Samsung Techwin.[20]

Future operators

-   -   [21]

-   [22]

[1] https://www.armyrecognition.com/turkey_army_artillery_vehicle_weapon_systems_uk/t-155_firtina_155mm_self-propelled_howitzer_technical_data_sheet_specifications_pictures_video.html

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]  Savunma ve Teknoloji|access-date=2017-07-13|language=tr-TR|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170715122433/http://savunmaveteknoloji.com/tskya-firtina-2ler-geliyor/%7Carchive-date=2017-07-15%7Curl-status=dead}}

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21] https://www.armyrecognition.com/february_2019_global_defense_security_army_news_industry/turkey_to_sell_self-propelled_howitzers_to_qatar.html

[22]

title: T-155 Fırtına

question: What does the text say about the Firtina 2?

answer: The Firtina 2 was to begin production in 2017 and features an improved range and rate of fire compared to the original Firtina. The new vehicles were to be fitted with remote weapons stations capable of carrying 12.7mm and 7.62mm machine guns and 40mm grenade launchers.

question: What does the text say about the differences between the Firtina and the K9 Thunder?

answer: The Firtina and the K9 Thunder share main systems, including the South Korean designed 155/52 caliber gun system, a majority of the chassis, the automatic ammunition feeding mechanism, and the German designed MTU-881 KA 500 diesel engine. However, the Firtina possesses a fire-control main system, and minor differences in its turret design, parts of the chassis, the navigation system, and electronic systems. The K9 has a commander's digital panoramic sight, which the Firtina lacks.


text: fiffly the rabbit is a rabbit. Despite the name, fiffly is an it, not a he, not a she, an it. Fiffly has always been a rabbit and wasnt concerned with the little if's of life. Even if it hadnt been a rabbit at some point in time, had it been a diabetic czar or a pernicious algae or a distant wave of sound brought on by foggy oscillations in the retrograde orbit of neptune it was now a rabbit and it couldnt be bothered to consider its past exploits. Fiffly woke up at sunrise and fell asleep at sunset and inbetween these two occurences it did exactly what a rabbit does on any given day. Fiffly hopped and forraged for leafy greens (didnt care much for carrots, unaware of the cliche) and avoided a fox or two. It didnt know why it didnt like the fox, its negative association vaguely and tangentially related to a cloudy afternoon some inexplicable number of months ago where a sibling fiffly may or may not have had was possibly devoured by a presence with a similar smell. However, fiffly had been rather unsure of the family for quite some time. Siblings came and went. Biffly chiffly niffly all of these names are arbitrary as fiffly never fully gripped on to the existence of any of them. We humans have the expression "fuck like rabbits" because we are aware of the procreative tendencies of rabbits and their willingness to treat offspring like an amateur photographer treats digital photographs, but fiffly didnt know and didnt care. When fiffly hopped down to the lake it saw grass, it saw water and it saw sky. The concept of profundity was lost on fiffly. A great mind with an overinflated human ego can look out towards a lake and contemplate the vast calmness of an empty universe. A great mind could be inspired and awed by a lake but fiffly was not a great mind. Fiffly was a rabbit.

title: Fiffly the Rabbit

question: What is 'fiffly'?

answer: fiffly is a rabbit

question: What does fiffly do?

answer: hop and forage

question: Who is telling the story?

answer: it seems like a human offers the primary perspective

question: Where is the rabbit?

answer: near a lake

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator thinks about a rabbit they have named 'fiffly'. They think about all of the insignificant things that a rabbit does. They compare rabbits to humans and reflect on a rabbit's seeming lack of awareness of their own lot in life.


text:
Something I wrote while trying to sleep. Fuck grammar, syntax, and structure, for now.

How does someone wake up everyday wanting to shoot themselves? I wonder this everyday. I wake up. I open my eyes. I wait for reality to seep in, and I cry. I don't know why I do this or if anyone one else does this;but I do. I wait for my nerves to calm down and get ready for the sound of my perpetual fan to fill my ears, and I stop. Sure, I wonder, when is this gonna stop? Is my nose red? Will my family notice how red my eyes are? But, regardless, I wake up; I find my shoes; I put on some pants and walk out. At first I really don't notice anything. I hear the snores of my father, sometimes my mother's. I walk towards the bathroom in the hallway and stare into the mirror. My eyes are red, and my nose is red. I don't really think people notice how red my eyes are anymore. I think they just think it's normal. The majority of people don't say anything and think it's natural. You know, like when someone has a rather large mole underneath their left eye or when someone's nose has clinging mucus. I, and they, don't say anything. I just smile through the bullshit of reality and hope that they don't notice that I've noticed.
I've always wanted to meet some lovely girl with a lazy eye, you know, a really, really lazy eye. I mean, she's be absolutely beautiful. Her lips would have they radiating pinkness which would vibrate in the dark. Her hair would be eternally black and wavy, kinda like that fear you feel when you stare into the woods at night. Her body would be sharp, tight, and skinny like a ballerina that moves violently, perfectly on her toes. I would meet her somewhere...like some fucked up bench outside of an abandoned school's playground. She's be smoking a girly cigarette and pretend like I wasn't there when I'd come up to her. I sit next to her, she'd look at me and smile. At first I'd think she's just staring at the ground, modestly smiling at my presence. But I'd soon realize that I'm looking her lazy eye. She really wouldn't say anything, just mumble something like, "I used come here when my parents were beat each other up. They never really noticed I'd leave." I sadly smile and fall in love with her. She's stand up after a while, slowly tip toeing around the room, each second that'd pass her toes would move faster and faster and faster. I'd hear and watch them click across the concrete. Then, out of nowhere, she'd laugh. At first it'd shock me, I'd think, "What a deep laugh for a girl so small." Then she's begin again, moving her body. I'd tear up, a little. Then she'd whisper, I must leave. She'd come up to me, with lazy eye and all, and kiss me, half on the lips, half on the cheek. It wouldn't be sexual. It wouldn't be dull. It'd feel perfect. I'd sit there a while watching the trees sway and imitate her dance in the heavy, high wind. The moon would shine too brightly, but wouldn't be able to overcome the darkness. I wish I'd meet her.
So I rub my nose and some watery substance drains out. I look again, some minutes have passed since I started thinking about her, my nose is no longer red. I sit on the toilet with my pants still on and wait for my mood to change. After sometime passes and I realize I need to get to work soon, I shift my thoughts. I focus on my clothing, on brushing my teeth, and taking a piss. After I do all those things I sit again on the toilet. I sigh. I walk out my front door, lock it behind me, and begin walking.

title: untitled

question: Who is the narrator?

answer: The narrator is a young man living with his parents, but with a job. He has suicidal thoughts.

question: What is the narrator's relationship with the girl with the lazy eye?

answer: He dreams her up while trying to forget his suicidal thoughts.

question: Explain why the narrator sits on the toilet with his pants on.

answer: He waits for his mood to change.

question: Does the girl with the lazy eye exist?

answer: The narrator hasn't met her yet.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator wakes up with suicidal thoughts. He wonders if someone will notice. No one does. He goes to the bathroom to get ready for work. He dreams of a girl with a lazy eye, his dream girl. He wants to meet her. He waits in the bathroom until his mood changes and he has to leave for work.


text:
“Where am I? Who are these people around me?” I thought to myself when I first woke up. I slowly lifted myself up and rubbed my eyes thoroughly as if there was something in them, but nothing was. I looked over; a lady kindly greeted me and handed me a folder. As soon as the folder was within my possession I knew what must be done; it was pure instinct. I immediately opened it up and read all of the information.
I remembered that my name was Bob Lamron. I am 23 years old, have neither children nor a wife; they were only given to you if you had proven yourself faithful and intelligent enough. I asked the women who handed me the folder where I was and what events had occurred that left me in this situation. She just looked at me and smiled.
Two rather large males, who appeared to be body guards disguised as physicians, led me out the front door. As soon as I walked out, a car appeared out of nowhere. From the car came a robotic voice; it addressed me by name and commanded me to enter the automobile. As I got in the car, the voice spoke again. It asked me what my home address was. I had no clue; I could not even remember if I had children 10 minutes ago. How was I supposed to answer the voice with details of my forget life? The women who had presented me with the folder, a nurse, that I had woken up next to, ran out of the building and handed me the same folder that I had left behind in the room. I opened it up and aloud, “2534 Egareva Rd.” As soon as the words had left my mouth, the taxi immediately sped off, presumably to the address.
As I saw the things I passed by I started to remember details, like I had never forgotten them at all. Trees, Birds, people, restaurants, fountains, everything! It was all flooding in as if there was a dam in my brain and it had just been ruptured without notice. We arrived at my house and I opened the front door. I walked into my room and sat down. I could not recall the events that had occurred before I woke up. It was like the dam of knowledge in my mind had been concealed. My mind had locked away any memories of the events and I could not do anything about it. The more I thought, the more my head hurt.
It felt like one of those moments when you are mid conversation with someone and another person, uninvolved in the conversation, calls your name. You stop talking in order to address the interjection of your name, but when you try to come back into the original conversation, you can’t remember what you were talking about no matter how hard you try. I sat there on my couch and tried as hard as I could to recall what had happened.
I then positioned myself so that I could see out of the window. I saw a grey, bleak world. Everything was so average, so normal. The only color people were given permission to wear were different shades of grey. The lighter your color, the higher up your social class was. I was just an average grey.
As I was thinking through all of this, my eyes were fixed upon a section of peeling paint in the right corner of my peripheral vision. For some reason I knew I was supposed to go over to it; it was like I had some kind of cosmic urge. My hand lifted from my side and I started to peel the paint. It came off fairly easily, far too easier than any paint should have, for that matter. Suddenly, I saw something concealed under the peeling paint. I knew I had to uncover it. As I tore the paint off a fit overcame me. Next thing I knew, I was tearing, ripping, and enjoying this more than anything I had enjoyed before. I was ripping everything in sight off the wall.
I stepped back and looked at my wall and there was writing everywhere. The memories started flooding back into my head of what had happened. I had uncovered something big. The government had been spiking everyone. Now they wouldn’t just bug a room, or a camera in a park to see what was going on, they were putting microphones in you. They had put chips in your brain so that they could see, think, hear, and smell everything you have ever come in contact with. Knowing I had just remembered this I knew they would be after me. I shut the blinds and closed the door in my room.
I lightly lifted a blind cover and looked out the window. I saw a slim, black, shiny car pulled up to the front of my building. The same two men who had accompanied me out of the hospital got out of the black car. I sat there shaking, wondering what I could do. The second I saw them barge in through the front door, I jumped out of my second story bedroom and landed on the pavement. My ankle buckled and I felt a sharp pain but I knew I had to get out of here and tell someone what is going on. I screamed names but no one would listen to me. I was living in a selfish world where people only cared about themselves. I gave up. I fell to the floor, my ankle throbbing, and looked at the door to my building, expecting the two men to walk through. I was doomed.
The two men eventually came out of my building and grabbed me. They didn’t say a word; all they would do is stare straight forward. Then they put me in the back of the car and drove off. It was the exact same route that led back to my house. I had only been out for an hour, at most and here I was, being dragged back.
When I got there the female nurse was sitting there with a needle filled with what appeared to be a sedative. As she inserted it in my vein, two doctors walked into the room. The first said, “Okay, begin sedation and we’ll get ready for the micro-chip reset.”
The other doctor responded, “Looks like this one didn’t turn out to well again like the last time.”
	As they finished their sentences I realized something. They have been resetting everyone until they get every single one of us to be perfect for their society. They don’t want people to have character or personality; they are just looking to create the most generic human being, like emotionless robots. As I thought this, I started to black out.
“Where am I? Who are these people around me?” I thought to myself when I first woke up. I slowly lifted myself up and rubbed my eyes thoroughly as if there was something in them, but nothing was. I looked over; a lady kindly greeted me and handed me a folder.

Criticism is why I'm here. Wrote for a creative writing class and would love some help.

title: Deja Vu

question: What did the folder contain?

answer: The folder contained all of the narrator's personal details.

question: Was the narrator dreaming?

answer: No, the narrator was not dreaming

question: Where is the narrator going in the car?

answer: The narrator was heading to his house.

question: Who were the two men accompanying him?

answer: The two men accompanying him were bodyguards disguised as physicians.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer:
Bob wakes up with no recollection of his past. He is handed a folder with all his personal details. On his way home he starts recollecting everything he sees.

He reaches home and discovers that the government has been trying to change people by putting chips in them. At that moment, two men walk up towards him and take him back to the hospital.

At the hospital, the doctors get ready for his micro-chip reset by sedating him.
Bob wakes up again with no recollection of the past.


text:
Introduction

Before we begin, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is not important, but who I am is. I am the last and only remaining observer of the apocalypse. The story you are about to read is about you and everyone you love.

Part 1 – Heat

“I can’t wait for the winter.” Zach says to himself, staring out his bedroom window at an empty park across the street. Zach is a 20 year old human, a college drop out. He was a political science major before the announcement. He didn’t see any reason to have any ambitions given the situation.

He sits on the edge of his bed and turns on the television in his room. He grew up in this house, and he knows it intimately. The volume on the television is too low to hear, Zach still looks outside of the window. “It will be better in the winter” he sighs.

The local 6 o’clock news plays silently. The closed captioning on the news reads “farmers are leaving their crops at a quickening pace, food prices are skyrocketing”.

Zach is still day dreaming about the cold when he is startled by a knock at the door.

“Dinner is ready!”

It was obvious to Zach’s mother that she had startled him. She already knew what was on his mind.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. We’re all a bit jumpy this time of year.”

Zach’s family didn’t have to worry about food prices. Zach’s parents were both involved in lucrative careers, and he has always enjoyed most everything he has ever wanted. Today all he wanted was to go outside and run for miles. If he ever got the chance, he decided he wouldn’t plan on stopping, and that he would run until he couldn’t run anymore.  Running outside is against the law now, and has been since the announcement. Only the police are allowed to run outside, and even then only under special circumstances. A boy who lived down the street ignored these rules a couple weeks ago and there has been no word of what happened to him since. Zach envied him, and hated himself for being too scared to follow his lead.

At the dinner table the discussion was brief and short as usual. Humans don’t talk as much as they used to. Humans are funny; they will do anything to keep living. Actually almost everything has changed since the U.N. made the announcement last April. The humans have migrated to rural areas at a staggering rate, and businesses have their employees work from home whenever possible.  Air conditioning is mandated for every property. The more comfortable people are, the lower their heart rate is. This keeps them alive longer. This helps them survive.

Zach finished his food and went back to his room. He spends most of his time there, watching television and drawing. He finds peace in solitude. As an optimist he tries to keep his brain on the move, just in case there is a solution. Apathy is his death and he knows it.

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, chasing sleep. He dreams about Christmas as a child, the presents, family gatherings, and snowball fights.

title: O - Part 1

question: How old is Zach?

answer: Twenty years old.

question: What course was Zach studying in college before he dropped out?

answer: Political science.

question: Why is Zach's family not worried about rising food prices?

answer: Because they are well-to-do.

question: Where does Zach spend most of his time since the apocalypse?

answer: In his room, watching television and drawing.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: After the apocalypse, Zach dropped out of college and has been cooped up in his room. Though food prices are rising everywhere, he and his family are comfortable because of their wealth. More than everything, Zach wants to go outside and run. However, running is illegal now. Only the police are allowed to run. Zach recalls a neighbour who ignored that rule and was never seen again.


text:
George Bentley does nothing. He never wakes before midday and usually not before one. When he wakes he usually spends at least an hour just lying in bed trying to muster the energy to move. Today was no different.

After a restless hour his aches and pains force him to drag himself from his bed and he slowly lumbers through his dark room, identical to a thousand other student-halls across the country and headed towards his bathroom. George relieved himself and only vaguely considered his aim. The bathroom was small equipped with just a sink, mirror and shower cubical. George looked into the mirror and saw a gaunt man of about twenty with dark purple bags below his eyes, he looked very tired. He staggered back towards his computer no more awake than when he first he was first stirred more than an hour ago.

George briefly considered heading to his kitchen to make some food but paused when he thought he had heard his house-mates pottering about. He did not have the energy to face he rarely had the energy to face them. To call them house-mates was ludicrous because he hardly knew them and didn't have any desire to know them. They either were loud, laddy and brash or they were pompous nerdy and obnoxious either way he detested them all.

George glanced towards his supply of weed a pile of about two grams sat in a small metal tin. He would have to try and contact his dealer soon, he didn't have the energy for this either. George put this to the back of his mind and began to gather the necessary equipment needed to roll a spliff. Ultra-thin king sized hemp rolling papers, hemp tips for roach and American Spirit tobacco for smoking mix. George quickly produced a spliff conical in shape with a twisted end. He sat back and admired his work before searching his messy desk for his red clipper. Eventually he found the lighter beneath a pile of chocolate bar wrappers and sparked up the spliff.

Smoking made George feel almost normal again and indeed soon after finishing his smoke he headed for the kitchen ready to face anyone who might be there. He strode quickly and confidently towards the door not even pausing to listen for his house-mates. Once he left the room his confidence seemed to slip and the relief was evident on his face when he found the kitchen to be dark and empty. George stooped down to rummage through his cupboards which were barren except a tin of beans a pot of pickle and half a loaf of bread. George stood up straight his eyes glazed over and he walked quickly towards a dirty grey sofa which sat beneath a large bay window. His hand reached for the red clipper in his pocket, toyed with it for a second or two before sparking it twice. A tall bright orange flame leaped from the lighter and George moved the lighter to the sofa which quickly caught alight. George ran. The building burned.

title: Life. (My first so please be brutally honest)

question: What is a spliff?

answer: a cigarette containing both tobacco and cannabis

question: What is a clipper?

answer: a type of lighter

question: How old is George?

answer: about twenty

question: What is American Spirit?

answer: a brand of tobacco

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: George Bentley smokes a spliff and then lights the house he lives in with housemates (whom he despises) on fire.


text:
I kneel to the dusty sand and rock covered ground as I hide behind a graffitied white chipped and weathered brick wall. I look down at my filthy uniform and scarred hands which hold an over sized gun. It is now that the realization hits me, after years of suppressing it.

*This has come too far.*

On one side of the wall there is a brutal and bloody scrimmage of soldiers fighting soldiers. On the path that to the opposite direction is the base. If I went around the other side of the wall death was almost certain. If I went back to the base I would be labelled a coward, I would be ostracized and sent into solitary confinement. “For shame, for shame” they would say. “For shame, for shame” my father would say.

*Oh, How that bastard would hate me, maybe as much as I hate him. No, nobody could hate as much as I hate him.*

He was the one who had forced me into this, this hell. I was never good enough for him, nothing could satisfied his lust for perfection, and I was no exception. My passion is painting but he made t his life goal to mold me into his puppet, to make me a 'real man'. I was told to put down my paint brush and join the army. What other choice
did I have? If I hadn't he would of kicked me out and I would have had nowhere to go and there was no way my mother would try and interfere, she's just as much of a coward as I am. This is how I ended up in the middle of this useless battle for power.

*These enemy soldiers, they use weaponry for brains and have robot emotions from mechanical hearts that have been fueled and ready to destroy. No feelings, No emotions, Just the sound of cold gears turning slowly, constantly. Clunk, Clunk, Clunk.*

*I know what I have to do.*

I steady my hands enough to pick up my weapon and stand. I don't wipe away my tears, I want them to see them. My body takes me into my doom, my heart takes me into salvation.

title: Soldier

question: Why does the narrator hate his father so much?

answer: Because his father forced him to join the army and become a soldier.

question: What kind of force are the narrator and army up against?

answer: It appears they are fighting men who have been turned into robots.

question: Why can't the narrator just make a run for it if he doesn't want to fight?

answer: The narrator has nowhere to go. It seems he can only go forward to where the fighting is taking place, or turn around and go back to base. He'll surely die if he rushes forward and he will be thrown in jail and branded a coward if he returns to base, which is worse because his father will know.


text:
In June, construction workers unearthed more than 20 rusty barrels from beneath a soccer pitch in Okinawa City. The land had once been part of Kadena Air Base — the Pentagon’s largest installation in the Pacific region — but was returned to civilian usage in 1987. Tests revealed that the barrels contained two ingredients of military defoliants used in the Vietnam War: the herbicide 2,4,5-T and 2,3,7,8,-TCDD dioxin. Levels of the highly toxic TCDD in nearby water measured 280 times the safe limit.

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied storing of defoliants — including Agent Orange — on Okinawa. Following the discovery, it distanced itself from the barrels; a spokesperson said the Defense Department was investigating whether they had been buried after the land’s return in 1987, and a U.S. government-sponsored scientist suggested they may merely have contained kitchen or medical waste. However, the conclusions of the Japanese and international scientific community were unequivocal: Not only did the barrels disprove Pentagon denials of the presence of military defoliants in Japan, but the polluted land also posed a threat to the health of local residents and required immediate remediation.

The Pentagon is the largest polluter on the planet, producing more toxic waste than the top three U.S. chemical manufacturers combined. In 2008, 25,000 of its properties within the U.S. were found to be contaminated, and more than 100 of these were classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as Superfund sites, meaning they warranted urgent cleanup.

Although Okinawa’s main island hosts more than 30 U.S. bases — taking up 20 percent of its land — there has never been a concerted attempt to investigate levels of contamination within them. Unlike other nations with U.S. bases, such as South Korea and Germany, the Japanese government has no effective powers to conduct environmental checks; nor does the Pentagon have a duty to disclose to the public any contamination that it knows exists. To date, most incidents of pollution have only become known when individual service members have divulged details to the media or, as in the case of the barrels uncovered in Okinawa City, the Japanese authorities have conducted tests following the return of military land.

Despite their limited scope, such disclosures offer a disturbing window into the contamination of Okinawa. Over the past seven decades, the island’s sea, land and air have been contaminated with toxins including arsenic, depleted uranium, nerve gas and carcinogenic hexavalent chromium (see the accompanying timeline). These substances have poisoned Okinawan civilians and U.S. troops alike — and it is highly probable that they are damaging the health of those living on the island today. But, regardless of these risks, the Pentagon continues to do everything it can to evade responsibility for the damage its bases cause.

The history of U.S. pollution on Okinawa is almost as long as its ongoing military presence. Following the end of World War II, Okinawa earned the nickname the “junk heap of the Pacific” due to the large volume of surplus supplies abandoned there. During this period, one of the first known instances of contamination occurred when eight residents of Iheya village were killed by arsenic poisoning from a nearby U.S. compound in 1947.

The 1952 Treaty of San Francisco granted the Pentagon full control of Okinawa and, as the military seized large tracts of civilian land to convert into bases, the dangers of pollution grew. Fuel leaks saturated the ground, industrial-grade detergents flowed from runways into nearby streams and solvents were flushed away without any regard to where they ended up.

Although such lax environmental controls were common on U.S. military bases all over the world at this time, Okinawa’s problems were exacerbated by the geopolitical gray zone in which it existed. Throughout the 1945-1972 U.S. occupation, the island was not protected by American law or the Japanese Constitution, so the Pentagon stored large stockpiles of chemical and atomic weapons there — and nuclear-powered submarines made regular pit stops in Okinawa.

In September 1968, Japanese newspapers reported that radioactive cobalt-60 had been detected in Naha Port — believed by scientists to have emanated from visiting U.S. subs. Three Okinawan divers claimed to have been sickened by their exposure to the substance, which accumulated in mud at the bottom of the harbor.

The next year, the Wall Street Journal broke the news of a leak of nerve gas at Chibana Ammunition Depot, near Kadena Air Base, that hospitalized more than 20 U.S. service members. Precise details of the subsequent mop-up operation remained hidden until July this year, when U.S. veterans stationed on the island at the time described how tons of the chemical munitions had been dumped off Okinawa’s coast (see “Exclusive: Red Hat’s lethal Okinawa smokescreen,” July 27). Experts estimate that the metal containers holding these poisons corrode after 50 years, threatening the health of fishing crews and coastal communities today.

During the Vietnam War, Okinawa served as the Pentagon’s primary staging post for the conflict. Led by the U.S. Army’s 2nd Logistics Division, the military channeled the majority of its supplies — including ammunition, coffins and, it now seems, Agent Orange — via the island’s ports. This transportation was a two-way street: Surplus and damaged materiel was also returned from the war zone to Okinawa for reprocessing.

In 1969, U.S. Army Chemical Corps 2nd Lt. Lindsay Peterson was the officer in charge of these retrograde supplies at Hamby Open Storage Area, central Okinawa. In a recent interview with The Japan Times, he recalled how damaged barrels of Agent Orange were among chemicals shipped to the island.

“Agent Orange was processed through the port at Naha and trucked to the Hamby Open Storage Area,” he said. “When I arrived, there were around 10,000 barrels. Most of them were leaking, so we had to empty them into new 55-gallon [208-liter] drums.”

Peterson recalls how the re-drumming process saturated his crew with defoliants. He is among hundreds of seriously ill U.S. veterans who believe their sicknesses were caused by exposure to dioxin-tainted defoliants while serving on Okinawa. Although the U.S. government has refused to help the majority of these veterans, in 2008 it awarded compensation to a former marine warehouseman suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and type-2 diabetes sparked by handling Agent Orange-contaminated supplies brought back to Okinawa from the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.

Other U.S. veterans and Okinawa civilians interviewed by The Japan Times recall how surplus stocks of Agent Orange were sold on the black market to local farmers who valued its potent weed-killing power. The risks of the unregulated sale of hazardous substances to those lacking the necessary safety training became clear in 1971 when large volumes of pentachlorophenol herbicides — obtained from the U.S. military by a civilian company — were dumped in the Haebaru and Gushikami districts of southern Okinawa. The chemicals leaked into Kokuba River and the water supply to 30,000 people had to be halted; children attending local schools suffered from abdominal pains and nausea.

U.S. government correspondence obtained by The Japan Times reveals the reaction of the authorities to such pollution during this period. In August 1975, following a leak of detergents containing poisonous hexavalent chromium at Machinato Service Area, the U.S. consulate in Naha sent a series of updates to the State Department in Washington. Dismissing the spill as a “flap,” it concluded that “the newspapers and the leftists will certainly make good use of this issue against us.”

In September 1974, the U.S. Consulate had displayed a similar tone when Okinawa Gov. Chobyo Yara voiced his fears to the U.S. military that its aging oil pipelines might leak. In a cable, the U.S. Consulate in Naha brushed off the governor’s concerns, noting the “pipeline has now been added to leftist catalogue of evils of U.S. base system.” A little over a year later, in January 1976, Yara’s concerns were proven justified when one of the pipelines spilled 14,000 gallons (53,000 liters) of diesel into a local river.

In the 1970s, the Pentagon showed more concern over potential PR damage than the risk to human health; today, its stance toward the discovery of the dioxin-contaminated barrels in Okinawa City seems identical. Its denials attempt to protect its image of a good neighbor — but in reality, they potentially sacrifice the health of local Okinawans, its own service members and their dependents. Although the Okinawa City dioxin site is located adjacent to two Department of Defense schools, it appears that the parents and teachers there have not been informed.

During the 1970s, such neglect could have been blamed on a lack of environmental awareness. However, today in 2013, such a posture is criminal — reminiscent of the contamination of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where tens of thousands of troops and family members were exposed to toxins including pesticides, benzene and industrial solvents between 1953 and 1987.

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — the foundation, unchanged since 1960, that spells out the rights and role of the U.S. military in Japan — encourages the Pentagon’s cavalier approach to pollution. SOFA absolves the U.S. of all financial responsibility for cleaning up land it has contaminated and does not allow the Japanese authorities to conduct spot-checks on U.S. military bases.

Given these constraints on access to U.S. installations, Japanese scientists have been forced to improvise. Recently, experts from Ehime and Meio universities conducted tests on seven mongooses whose habitat included U.S. bases. Announced in August, the results showed the animals were contaminated with high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — raising worries that humans living in the same areas may be poisoned, too.

Mongooses aside, the only alternative has been to conduct tests on military land following its return to civilian control. As in the case of Okinawa City, such checks often reveal dangerous levels of contamination. In Yomitan village, for example, levels of arsenic 120 times over the legal limit were found on former U.S.-controlled land in 2008. In July this year, asbestos was discovered at a site that used to be a part of Camp Courtney. In this case, the U.S. authorities appear to have misled the civilian construction company tasked with the cleanup — leading to the suspected exposure of Okinawan workers.

But even after pollution has been detected, the new problem arises of how to deal with it. In September it was revealed that 322 tons of PCB-laden slurry from former U.S. military land in Okinawa was to be shipped for disposal to Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture — a municipality located 50 km from the stricken No. 1 nuclear power station. Critics of the plan accused the Japanese authorities of exploiting the prefecture’s need for money and worsening its already dire pollution problems.

In the coming years, it is likely such troubles will become more pressing. In October, Japan’s minister of defense, Itsunori Onodera, reiterated plans to concentrate the U.S. military presence in the northern half of Okinawa Island — a move that will entail the closure of several installations including Machinato Service Area, one of the main bases where defoliants were allegedly stored, and, ultimately, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Experts have estimated the cleanup of Futenma at $600 million — but that was before the cost of Agent Orange remediation had been figured into calculations.

Okinawa residents have long protested for a future with fewer bases. But even after their wish becomes a reality, it seems the land they’ve fought so hard to retrieve will be uninhabitable for years — if not decades — to come.

U.S. military pollution in Okinawa: a timeline

-   1947: Arsenic contamination at base on Iheya Island kills eight Okinawans.
-   1968: Cobalt-60 leaks from nuclear-powered submarine visiting Naha Port.
-   1969: More than 20 U.S. service members sickened by nerve gas at Chibana Ammunition Depot; following the accident, tons of chemical weapons allegedly dumped off Okinawa’s coast (see “Exclusive: Red Hat’s lethal Okinawa smokescreen,” July 27).
-   1971: Surplus U.S. herbicides containing pentachlorophenol contaminate civilian water supplies in Haebaru and Gushikami districts.
-   1975: Large leak of hexavalent chromium at Machinato Service Area; contamination reportedly some 8,000 times safe standards.
-   1975: Spill of Vietnam War retrograde chemicals (including herbicides and pesticides) kills sea life near Camp Kinser.
-   1976: More than 50,000 liters of fuel leak into stream near Camp Foster.
-   1981: U.S. Marines unearth cache of over 100 barrels (some suspected of containing Agent Orange) at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma; top officers apparently hush up the incident (see “Agent Orange at base in ’80s: U.S. vet,” June 15, 2012).
-   1995/96: Iwakuni-based U.S. Marine jets fire more than 1,500 shells of depleted uranium at and around Torishima island; area subsequently declared off-limits due to radiation fears.
-   1996: Land returned to civilian usage on former Onna Communication Site found to contain dangerous levels of mercury, cadmium and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
-   2000: Japan attempts to ship overseas 100 tons of PCBs from U.S. bases; vessel blocked from entry to Canada under international laws banning export of toxic waste.
-   2002: Over 200 barrels containing unidentified tar-like substance unearthed on former military land in Chatan Town.
-   2003: High levels of lead and hexavalent chromium discovered on land in Chatan Town that was previously part of Camp Kuwae.
-   2007: Almost 9,000 liters of jet fuel leak on Kadena Air Base.
-   2013: More than 20 barrels of suspected Vietnam War defoliants unearthed on soccer pitch in Okinawa City; authorities begin to search field for more buried barrels.

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question: What is the largest polluter on the planet?

answer: The Pentagon

question: How many U.S. bases does Okinawa's main island host?

answer: More than 30 U.S. bases

question: At the end of World War II, what was the nickname given to Okinawa?

answer: "junk heap of the Pacific"

question: What Treaty granted the Pentagon full control of Okinawa?

answer: The 1952 Treaty

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Okinawa city is fully polluted and one of its largest perpetrators is the Pentagon, as they are known to be the largest polluter on the planet. The relationship with the Pentagon and Okinawa throughout the years is discussed and explained. The U.S. military pollution in Okinawa is also listed out.


text:
March 30, 2017 7:07 PM ET

Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn reportedly told federal investigators that he is willing to testify on President Trump’s potential connections to Russia in exchange for full immunity.

[Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn boards an elevator as he arrives at Trump Tower where U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives in New York (REUTERS/Mike Segar)]

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn boards an elevator as he arrives at Trump Tower where U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives in New York (REUTERS)

Flynn resigned after it was revealed that he met with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 election and subsequently lied about it.

Officials close to the situation told The Wall Street Journal that Flynn made offers to both the FBI and Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, yet neither party has accepted.

[Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn boards an elevator as he arrives at Trump Tower where U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives in New York (REUTERS)]

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn boards an elevator as he arrives at Trump Tower where U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives in New York (REUTERS)

The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing Thursday on Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s possible connections to the Kremlin.

Flynn’s counsel, Robert Kelner, released the following statement Thursday afternoon:

  _General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. Out of respect for the Committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place. But it is important to acknowledge the circumstances in which those discussions are occurring. _

  _…_

  _Notwithstanding his life of national service, the media are awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo directed against him. He is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution._

_Follow Datoc on TWITTER and FACEBOOK_

question: Who is offering to collaborate with federal investigators?

answer: Former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn.

question: When did Flynn resign?

answer: After it was revealed he met with the Russian Ambassador to the United States during the 2016 election.

question: Who is Flynn's counsel?

answer: Robert Kelner.

question: What is Flynn getting in exchange for collaborating with investigators?

answer: Full immunity.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Mike Flynn and his collaboration with the Russia investigation in order to gain full immunity.


text:
The first thing you do is butter the bun. Then you drop it down the toaster. The toaster takes approximately eighteen seconds to toast. You then put the top and bottom together, place them on a red tray and then cover the twelve buns that fit on the tray, 4x3,  with another tray and place them to the side. Once you are ready to make the sandwich you place two pickles on the bottom, no more than a quarter inch over lapping. Then you place the chicken filet with the smooth, round side facing up and then place the crown of the bun on top. Finally open up the sandwich bag allowing enough room for the sandwich to easily slide in, then fold the bag over twice and place it in the warming drawer for five minutes. Any sandwich that sits there for longer than five minutes gets trashed. If you would like a deluxe sandwich then place either a slice of American, provolone, or pepper jack cheese on top of the filet, then put two, whole, tomato slices on top of the cheese and two pieces of lettuce, shiny side up, that frame the bun on top of the tomatoes. Then repeat until your soul has been crushed, pissed on, and every dream and fire that has ever existed in you has been stomped out by the ceaseless, monotonous work you subject yourself to in order to not even get by.

They, being the people who don’t work with you, will remind you that you chose to be there, just be thankful to have a job, or that it is just temporary. You know that isn’t true though. You can’t find a better job because you are working 50 hours a week and you are too tired to do anything else. You can barely even find the energy or will power to get out of bed in the morning. Every once in a while you feel like you have enough energy and fortitude to say enough is enough and move on but then you realize your life revolves around this job. All of your friends are there. They are the people that deal with all of the shitty customers who think they are the Queen of god damn England, the ones who think they own you because you stand behind a register. Your coworkers are the ones that after all the shit you put up with tell to forget the customer, he is an asshole, you didn’t do anything wrong, people like that just happen. You have a bond with your coworkers, like brother in arms who are united by their common misery. So the cycle repeats, week after week after week after week after week after week as if your days are manufactured on an assembly line.

Then you find yourself waking up in the tiny room you call an apartment. You shower and head to work and start your day off like you have the past, seemingly, five thousand days. You clock in, take your slip that shows the time you clocked in and put it your wallet. Then you say high to everyone. Then you either go to the kitchen or the front counter depending on what you are assigned that day. Then you spend the next ten hours slaving away like the robot you are. You listen to the exact same orders, make the exact same food and you have the exact same routine to live by. Then you watch your boss drive up in his new, gas guzzling behemoth of a truck and say “Hi!” to everyone as if he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. It is as if he has no idea what the people he employs put up with on a daily basis. It is as if he hopes his friendly disposition will be contagious but what does he do besides sit in that office of his in the back while you are the one who gets burned at the fryers and the one who has to choose if it is worth turning the heat on at night. You are the one that has to decide whether or not to fix your car or just walk the five miles or so. The one who should just deal with the tooth ache or dish out the three thousand dollars for a root canal because god forbid giving his employees health insurance would just decimate his profits. No one likes the boss.

Between the shitty boss, shitty job, and shitty house and lifestyle what can you find to be joyous about? You are simply a tiny little speck. In fact you aren’t even speck in the scheme of things. You are less than a pixel, you are less than even the red, blue, and green lights that make up a pixel. You are nonexistent and utterly replaceable and no one will notice if you go. Just like no one has noticed the billions of stars that have existed and perished and no one ever will. Just like no one ever notices the trillions of bacteria that are beneath our feet. That is what you amount to. At some point we have all been there. The thing is though that not all of us end there. That is the saving grace. There is a glimmer of a hope that one day you can escape the cycle of the daily grind. Get a degree if you are young enough, have a support system while you find a better job, or maybe you are stronger than most and do it all alone.

Not everyone is lucky though. Sometimes the grind wears you down and grinds you to you are so thin that you become a part of the walls there. You are an everlasting stone that will be a part of where you are stuck, just like the walls. Bills add up and sooner than you know it you are living out on the streets and left with nothing but free time. Maybe you cope with a steady dose of drugs. Maybe you cope with a healthier method. Either way it leads to the same thing. If you aren’t apart of the club, the haves, then you better get used to meaningless, mindless tasks that ask nothing of you but obedience.  The boss, the haves, will tell you that working at these crummy soul devouring jobs is fine. What would they know about what you do though? It is not a matter of them being any less hard working but it is a matter of having something to show for it. If you work at a restaurant and you can’t even afford to eat there they pay you so little then what is the point?

It gets to the point where thinking physically hurts. It breaks you just as bad as your job does. You think of all the things that you gave up, that you let slip by and you think never again will I let that happen, but it is too late. You have already buttered the buns. You have dropped them in the toaster. You have placed them on the tray. Put the two pickles on the bun, then the filet, and then the top part of the bun. You have wrapped the sandwich and placed it in the warming drawer until you throw it up for the next customer to devour or for it to get thrown away because it has been the warmer to long and has grown hard and unpleasant and unwanted.

title: A Man's Thoughts on Never Getting His Slice of the Pie in a Southern Town with Nothing Left to Live For.

question: Who is the narrator?

answer: He's an underpaid, overworked, employee working at a sandwich shop and musing about how his life sucks.

question: Who is he talking to?

answer: He's talking to anyone else who is living life the way he does and is also probably talking to himself as a form of reflection.

question: How does making a sandwich relate to the story?

answer: It's like a metaphor for how mundane and soul-crushing some jobs are, but people still do it because they don't have a choice.

question: Why does the narrator say not everyone is lucky?

answer: Some people are lucky if they manage to get a degree or have a support system, but not everyone does.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator is an overworked, underpaid employee of a sandwich shop who works 50 hours a day and wishes there were other options out there. His job is repetitive and soul-crushing, but he's too busy and tired to look for a new job. After his musings, he realizes he's making a sandwich and going through the same monotonous motions of his job, falling into the same pattern over and over again.


text:
The most important operating system developers write software for is not Windows or OSX or Linux or Android. It's Homo sapiens 1.0. We make software for _people_ first. Very wise words from a very wise soul, Bill Hill.

Bill passed away on October 16, 2012 from a sudden heart attack. We are all shocked and heartbroken. He was a very special member of the Channel 9 family and his contributions to C9, Microsoft and the industry are legendary. His devotion to learning - and to making knowledge readily available to everybody - are a testament to who he was as a person and scholar. Bill was deeply human and unusually brilliant; an iconoclastic mind with a heart of gold.

This short video clip is from 2004. It is rife with Bill's wisdom and captures the essence of his passion for reading, writing, learning and knowledge. We recommend you WATCH MORE OF HIS EXCELLENT CONVERSATIONAL MATERIAL. It's full of visionary thinking. Classic Bill.

To Bill's family and close friends, our deepest condolences and love.

question: Who recently passed away?

answer: Bill Hill

question: How and when did Bill pass away?

answer: Bill dies of a sudden heart attack on October 16, 2012.

question: How do people feel about Bill's passing?

answer: They are shocked and heartbroken.

question: What do people say about Bill?

answer: They say Bill had a heart of gold and an iconoclastic mind. He was unusually brilliant and deeply human. Bill was a special member of the Channel 9 family who had legendary contributions to C9 and Microsoft. Bill was devoted to learning and sharing his knowledge with everybody.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: Bill Hill, an operating system developer who was a special member of Channel 9 and the Microsoft family, dies of a sudden heart attack on October 16, 2012. People close to Bill are shocked and heartbroken. They say Bill had a heart of gold and an iconoclastic mind. He was also an unusually brilliant and deep human being devoted to learning and sharing his knowledge with everybody. Bill's contributions to C9 and the Microsoft family are legendary.


text:
A highly addictive drug whose name derives from the green, scaly sores that develop on users' rotting flesh was reported to have found a toehold in the United States this week.

In Phoenix, physicians told toxicologists at the Banner Good Samaritan Poison Control Center that they spotted symptoms consistent with krokodil, an intravenous drug that is prevalent in Russia and Eastern European countries, according to a statement released to the Los Angeles Times.

Although toxicology reports have yet to confirm the presence of krokodil, reports in the media sounded the alarm, prompting fascination and speculation.

"The Most Horrifying Drug in the World Comes to the US," said Time magazine. Mother Jones minced no words: "Zombie Apocalypse Drug Reaches US: This Is Not a Joke."

The appeal of news about krokodil (pronounced "crocodile") stems partly from its dramatic consequences on the human body: The drug ravages the flesh, exposing the bones, destroying internal organs and leaving users vulnerable to infection. Users quickly develop abscesses and gangrene, and often amputation is the only way to protect a patient's life.

Curiosity also stems partly from the do-it-yourself nature of the drug's preparation.

According to New York's Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, it can be made with ordinary ingredients, including paint thinner, codeine, iodine, hydrochloric acid, red phosphorus, gasoline and lighter fluid.

Krokodil is essentially a back-alley version of desomorphine, which was introduced in 1932 as a less addictive version of morphine.

But according to a study in the Journal of Addictive Diseases, desomorphine turned out more addictive and up to 10 times stronger than the drug it was meant to replace, so it was mostly discontinued. Switzerland produced the drug until the 1950s, and today, desomorphine is banned in Austria and Germany.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has been tracking use of krokodil abroad for at least two years, where the drug has surged in popularity, especially in Russia. Up to 1 million people in Russia are estimated to use krokodil, according to New York's Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

But has it reached the United States?

Absent any definitive proof that krokodil abuse has occurred, the DEA has -- so far -- labeled the Arizona cases anecdotal. Other reports of krokodil in the last two years in Alabama and Arkansas were never confirmed, agency spokesman Rusty Payne said.

"When I hear about  about these things like krokodil, I'm skeptical," Payne said. "I'm not believing it until I get a lab report."

There's still no evidence that it has entered the illicit drug market in the U.S., Payne said.

But toxicologists at the Arizona poison control center said they remain worried about krokodil usage, explaining that emerging drug habits are typically first seen by area physicians.

question: Where did physicians report thinking they had seen evidence of krokodil usage?

answer: Phoenix, Arizona.

question: What is krokodil?

answer: An intravenous drug prevalent in Russia and Eastern European countries.

question: What are some of the things the drug does to the human body?

answer: It ravages the flesh, exposing the bones, destroying internal organs and leaving users vulnerable to infection.

question: What are the long-term consequences of krokodil usage?

answer: Abscesses, gangrene, amputation, and death.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer: Physicians in Phoenix, Arizona have reported some patients who seem to exhibit signs of krokodil usage. The street drug, popularized in Russia and Eastern European countries, is injected into the vein, and results in scaly,green sores on the users' rotting flesh-hence the name. Toxicology reports have yet to confirm these cases, but there is good reason to be afraid if the drug has made its way into the United States: it results in gangrene and abscesses, sometimes to the point of requiring amputation for the patient to avoid death. Krokodil has been called "the most terrifying drug in the world" and "the zombie apocalypse drug". It's a back-alley version of desomorphine, and can be made from ordinary ingredients like paint thinner, codeine, and gasoline, to name a few. Up to one million people in Russia are thought to use it. So far, the DEA is considering the Phoenix cases anecdotal, but are keeping an eye out.