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We move on to the second portion of my prospect rankings. I won't bore you with a superfluous, extensive introduction. You can view Part One of my rankings (players 36 through 25) via this link. The final article, ranking the top 12 prospects in the Rangers' system, will be published Friday. As always, leave thoughts or questions in the comments section and I'll do my best to address them. This is a reminder that the number in parenthesis is where I had each player ranked in July.

24 (21). Petr Zamorsky, Defenseman, 22 Years Old, Free Agent Signing

Zamorsky's signing was announce right in the middle of last year's Stanley Cup Finals, which has contributed to him falling under the radar. He's an interesting prospect, however. He was a standout for the Czech Republic at last year's World Championships and this year is logging big minutes for the Espoo Blues in Finland. Like Nanne, Zamorsky is a smaller defenseman but owns a huge shot. Unlike Nanne, Zamorsky turned 22 in August and thus is more refined. Despite his smaller stature, he's willing to engage physically and is a true European defenseman in how he uses stick positioning to break up rushes. For whatever reason, the offense isn't happening for him this season, with only three points through 21 games. He is taking a lot of shots, though, so he's certainly active. I've seen Zamorsky in parts of a couple games this year, so I'll again let Alex Nunn, who has watched him a fair amount, provide better information.

_"Zamorsky’s season with Swiss side Espoo has been disrupted twice by significant injury, but when he has played he’s been effective. Points have been hard to come by for the most part, but his work on the powerplay in particular has looked promising. Zamorsky has a big, accurate shot and he’s not afraid to use it, often leading all skaters in SOG attempts for his team. Defensively his game still needs some work, but the upside is certainly there."_

The biggest question with Zamorsky is how willing he'll be to come to North America. He'd almost definitely start out in Hartford and could be kept there for a full season; maybe two. Or, he could could remain in Europe, earn quality minutes on a top European team, and make significantly more money. Is he willing to make the sacrifice for the chance at an NHL future? The Rangers wouldn't have signed him if they didn't think so, and Zamorsky attended the team's training camp this year. I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll give it a shot.

23 (19). Keegan Iverson, Forward, 18 Years Old, 2014 Third-Round Pick

Drafted this past summer in the third round with the pick acquired for Derek Dorsett, I think Keegan Iverson would be the first person to tell you that the first half of his post-draft season has been a disappointment. The Portland Winterhawks, consistently one of the best teams in the WHL the last few seasons, started this campaign 2-10 under new Head Coach Jamie Kompon. Iverson was one of many players who struggled out of the game, scoring twice and adding one assist in his first 13 games. Things got better for the Winterhawks, but not for Iverson, who endured a 17-game goal drought. In his first 30 games, Iverson had only three goals and seven assists. Since breaking that goal drought, he's improved his production, with three goals and six assists in the last 13 games. While nothing special, it's certainly a big step up for him.

I think it's important to give Iverson the benefit of the doubt in a number of ways. He is far from the only player on the Winterhawks who hit some ruts while adapting to the new coaching staff's demands. The Winterhawks are absolutely loaded with offensive talent, meaning Iverson has not been put in a great position to rack up the offense as he might on other teams, where he would play more offensive minutes. He also was getting his fair share of scoring chances. They just weren't going in for him. In spite of that, Iverson was still a contributing member of the Winterhawks, and I think that's important. In many ways he reminds of me another Winterhawk alumni in Brandon Dubinsky. He's a good skater and has a really strong core, which makes him a scary forechecker. He puts a lot of effort in defensively and battles hard every shift. I haven't talked to Iverson yet, but I've talked to people who know him, and I get the sense that he almost cares too much. His body language during the goal drought was not negative, per se, but indicative of him being very hard on himself. He's very team-oriented and doesn't want to let others down. I don't think he needs much coaching from a motivational sense because he's always working hard and he's always holding himself to a high standard.

At the end of the day, he has to produce offensively. Even checking line forwards in the NHL were putting up decent numbers in juniors. Iverson is only 18, though, so there's no imminent demand. He has plenty of time to get that part of his game going. I'm optimistic he will.

22 (29). Steve Fogarty, Forward, 21 Years Old, 2011 Third-Round Pick

Former Blueshirt Banter contributor Evan Sporer and I are both fans of Fogarty and were hopeful he'd break out offensively this year after earning only nine points in 33 games at Notre Dame in his sophomore season. Fogarty was well on his way there at the start of the season, with three goals and five assists in his first 10 games. Since then, he hit a bit of a wall, with only one goal in the next 12 games. He's gotten his passing touch back recently, with two assists in each of his last two games. Altogether, it's a big step up from last season. Especially in the context of him being a true two-way center.

Fogarty's not a player who will stand out particularly, but he has the potential to be an impact NHLer. He has a big frame and can skate well for his size. He combines that with a good pair of mitts to make him capable of contributing in the offensive zone. His upside lies largely in his defensive abilities, though. He's a true shutdown center. He wins faceoffs, and uses his brains and long reach to be an effective defensive player. He's a capable penalty killer. Despite being just a 21-year-old junior, he was selected as Notre Dame's captain. John Tortorella would describe him as someone who "goes about his business." It's hard to find a perfect comparable for Fogarty, but someone like Riley Nash might be close enough. I think Fogarty has a decent shot of becoming a character, two-way bottom-six center.

21 (16). Ryan Bourque, Forward, 24 Years Old, 2009 Third-Round Pick

Bourque's situation is frustrating. After having a breakout season with Hartford last year, scoring 21 goals in 74 games, Bourque came into training camp this season hoping to win a roster spot. I could rant for ages about Vigneault's decision to go the likes of Malone, Glass, and Mueller instead of youth, but it's in the past. Bourque's production has dropped off lightly so far this year with the Wolf Pack – eight goals and 10 assists through 37 games – but it's still solid production to go with the rest of his game. He has a Ryan Callahan/Dominic Moore kind of vibe going on. He leads with his actions on the ice and wears an "A" for the Wolf Pack. He's a good skater and uses that plus his work ethic to compensate for his small size. He's one of Hartford's go-to penalty killers. And, as previously mentioned, he can chip in on offense once in a while.

It's a shame he wasn't offered a chance early in the season, when Miller and Fast (supposedly) needed more time to develop in the AHL and the fourth line was a mess. Bourque is now 24, so this is pretty much it; what you see is what you get. Unfortunately, now it's a numbers game. I could see Bourque contributing as the team's 13th forward but I doubt Vigneault would buy into that. I think Bourque is going to get at least one strong look in the NHL as a fourth-line PK specialist. Unfortunately, it looks increasingly unlikely that it will happen with the Rangers.

20 (26). Richard Nejezchleb, Forward, 20 Years Old, 2014 Fifth-Round Pick

It's been an adventure for Nejezchleb so far this season. Injuries completely derailed his 2012-2013 season, which is why he was available to the Rangers last summer as a 20-year-old after scoring 32 goals and tallying 25 assists in 66 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL. The Rangers took a flyer on him in the fifth round, and they were rewarded early with... more injuries. A setback in Traverse City shelved Nejezchleb for the entirety of training camp. Nejezchleb waited around in Hartford until he was fully healed, and then was sent back to Brandon for an overage season. Unfortunately for the Czech native, the CHL has a limit on "imports." Being that Brandon already had two highly talented Europeans on the team in Ivan Provorov and Rihard Bukarts, he was given only two games with Brandon before being shipped to the Tri-City Americans.

Since then, though, it's gone very well for Nejezchleb, although he is currently dealing with a very minor injury. As an overager you want him to be a standout almost every game, and he's more or less accomplished that. He has 12 goals and 17 assists in 23 games with Tri-City and is always making things happen offensively. I see some similarities to Kevin Hayes. Big bodied guy who uses that size to hold onto the puck. He's a gifted passer of the puck and carries through the neutral zone well. The downside is that sometimes, to a more extreme level than Hayes, he tries to do too much. He'll hold onto the puck too long, or try to beat three different players. Sometimes he gets away with it in juniors, but he'll get eaten alive trying to play like that at the pro level. Can he simplify his game? That remains to be seen. But like Nanne this is exactly the kind of pick I love to see the Rangers making in the later rounds. He's going to require a lot of patience, and he has to stay healthy, but Nejezchleb has darkhorse upside as dynamic top-six forward.

19 (27). Daniel Walcott, Defenseman, 20 Years Old, 2014 Fifth-Round Pick

The second-highest riser in my rankings, Walcott has built on his surprising rookie season in the QMJHL with a quality showing as an overager for the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. A wrist injury sidelined him for a few weeks at the start of the season but has otherwise been a standout in the QMJHL. Walcott has been a true captain in every sense of the word for the Armada, and he has been the team's best player as they find themselves third overall in the "Q" despite not being highly rated by most pundits before the season; something he insisted would happen when I spoke to him before the season. Walcott has three goals and 22 assists in 35 games this season, which are very good numbers for a defenseman. And it's not as if his assist total is being inflated by the talent around him; the Armada are a strong team from top to bottom but completely lack any star offensive power.

What I love about Walcott is his versatility. Head Coach Joel Bouchard can't say enough good things about Walcott, and it shows in his deployment of him. CHL Stats estimates that he averages 31:55 of icetime every night, which is pure insanity and puts him second overall in the QMJHL among defensemen. Even if that number was completely off-target, from my time watching him I'd estimate he's good for 25-26 minutes per night at absolute minimum. He eats up a lot of even strength minutes and is matched against the opposition's top line. He's on the first unit of the PK and PP. He's out late in games whether his team needs a goal or is trying to protect a lead. He's an unbelievable skater and carries the puck well. He has a high hockey IQ in both ends of the ice. He's willing to engage physically and block shots. He needs to bulk up if he's going to hold up at higher levels, but I have no doubt he's committed to making that happen. At this point I think he's done enough to merit an entry-level contract and I'm sure he'll be pro in the Rangers' system next season.

18 (18). Adam Tambellini, Forward, 20 Years Old, 2013 Third-Round Pick

Tambellini was eligible to turn pro this year, so the Rangers brought him into training camp open to the idea of signing him and sticking him in one of their minor league affiliates. I think that Tambellini was likely to end up back in the WHL anyway, but the contract limit squeeze that forced a trade just to open up a spot for Duclair surely sealed Tambellini's fate. So, he's been back with the Calgary Hitmen for the second season in what is technically an "overage year" since he turned 20 in November. Tambellini went into the season as a focal point for Calgary's offense, and the dependence on him intensified after Oilers' draft pick Greg Chase demanded a trade from the team. He's delivered offensively. His 29 goals and 52 points in 45 games lead the Hitmen and he's fourth overall in the WHL in goals. Whats particularly encouraging about Tambellini is that, whereas last year he piled up a majority of his points on the power play, this season he is doing a lot more damage 5v5. Power play production is good, but if a player doesn't stand out adequately at even strength in juniors then the stats probably won't translate well at a higher level.

Tambellini reminds me of Rick Nash in a lot of ways, though PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS STRICTLY A STYLISTIC COMPARISON. An absolutely lethal wrist shot that makes him a threatening goal scorer, but also good size, skating ability, and vision that make him a complete player in the offensive zone. He's also improved his consistency in the defensive end; he's never going to throw big hits or block a lot of shots but he does well with his stick to tie players up and break up passes. When the Rangers drafted him Tambellini was a lanky 6'3 and somewhere between 165-170 pounds. This summer he added about 15 pounds of muscle, so he's no longer a string bean. I imagine the Rangers will still want him to add an additional 8-12 pounds to his frame as he turns pro.

All in all, I think Tambellini has taken a pretty sizeable step forward in his development since the end of last season. He's stronger and his game is more balanced. I think the quick emergence of fellow third-round picks Anthony Duclair and Pavel Buchnevich has been unfair to Tambellini in terms of his perception. Truth is that they're special cases. Tambellini is in a good spot developmentally and I believe will sign a contract with the Rangers sooner rather than later. He maintains top-six upside.

17 (12). Mat Bodie, Defenseman, 24 Years Old, Free Agent Signing

Signed as a free agent after he led Union College to the NCAA Championship last April, Mat Bodie is now dealing with the transition to pro hockey. The stats actually look pretty good for Bodie; three goals and 13 assists through 39 games with the Wolf Pack. The problem is two-fold for Bodie, however. As an offensive defenseman, he needs to stand out a bit more in the offensive zone. He certainly has presence from the point and makes good decisions with the puck, but I'd like to see him step up and be "The Guy" offensively on the back-end; particularly on the power play. But look, he's still adjusting to the pro game. It's understandable that he's not conquering the world in that regard right away.

More concerning is that his defensive work has a lot to be desired. He's not a big guy – 6'0 and 170 pounds on a good day – and that in itself isn't the end of the world. But he has to compensate for that in other ways, which he isn't right now. His slot play isn't good enough. He loses too many battles behind the net. He's too slow to react to forecheckers and make the necessary decision with the puck, causing him to turn it over too frequently.

That all being said, I still have him rated this high for a reason. He and McIlrath are a good combination on Hartford's top defensive pairing. At face value, he's been pretty good in his first professional season and has definitely improved as the season goes on. The concern stems from the fact that he'll be 25 years old in a couple months. Late bloomers on defense happen, and particularly for smaller offensive defensemen; examples are Johnny Oduya, Brian Rafalski, Mark Streit, and Marek Zidlicky. Those guys are uncommon, though, and with his contract expiring in 2016 he has to make up ground quickly.

16 (17). Ryan Haggerty, Forward, 21 Years Old, Free Agent Signing

Signed as a free agent out of RPI last Spring, Haggerty was one of the pleasant surprises in training camp and preseason for the Rangers. He struggled in his first game, but scored twice in his second appearance against the Flyers. The overall impression from the preseason was that Haggerty could absolutely shoot at an NHL level but, fresh out of college, needed some time at a lower level to work on everything else. His play in Hartford thus far has proven that correct. He only has seven goals in 37 games, but to be honest he's had some awful luck in that department. He's averaging 2.31 shots per game with the Wolf Pack, and although that number could maybe be slightly higher it's still a decent volume of shots. They just aren't going in at the moment. It happens. I wouldn't be overly concerned about it right now.

The other facets of his game are a work in progress, however. He's big and strong, and because of that I'd like to see him battle more in the slot; especially since he's having some trouble scoring. He's by no means a huge liability from a tactical standpoint but it's clear that he's still learning how to play in a pro system. Despite the nice showing in the preseason, Haggerty is definitely not ready for the NHL right now, and I don't know if he will be particularly soon. That's fine, though. He's only 21 years old and has shown he fits in at the AHL level immediately from college. This is a learning season for him. Next season there will be more of an expectation for him to be a top player for Hartford and maybe even push for an NHL call-up, but for now Haggerty is treading water just fine and still has the potential to be second- or third-line forward who can shoot as well as anyone in the NHL.

15 (9). Danny Kristo, Forward, 24 Years Old, Acquired Via Trade

After a somewhat inconsistent rookie season in Hartford last year, Kristo came into training camp this Fall on the outside looking in. The Rangers' roster was largely set, and Ryan Malone, Kevin Hayes, Anthony Duclair, Jesper Fast, J.T. Miller, and others proved to be too much competition for Kristo to beat out for the few spots that were available.

Kristo was returned to Hartford, and while he has played alright, he hasn't done anything to make the Rangers think twice, either. Nine goals and 11 assists in 36 games with Hartford is not good enough from a player whose value lies in his offensive abilities. To be fair to him, I think he's working hard. Wolf Pack Head Coach Ken Gernander cited Kristo's limitations away from the puck and defensively last season, and Kristo has improved in those areas. I think his emphasis on being a more complete player has also contributed to the statistical fall. Nonetheless, Kristo seems to be sinking down the organizational depth chart with every passing game. It's pretty clear that Fast and Miller have Kristo beat by a wide margin.

I didn't factor this into my ranking of Kristo, but in the summer I wrote about how Kristo would be eligible to be an unrestricted free agent this summer if he did not play at least 80 games in the NHL this season. Barring something spectacular in the next few months it's improbable that Kristo even earns a call-up, much less sticks as a regular. It's hard to imagine that Kristo would prefer to stay in the Rangers' organization given the depth chart. I think he still has a chance of developing into a scoring forward at the NHL level, but he's almost definitely going to have to go somewhere else to get an opportunity.

14 (23). Igor Shesterkin, Goaltender, 18 Years Old, 2014 Fourth-Round Pick

The biggest riser in my rankings. Little was known about Shesterkin when the Rangers drafted him in the fourth round last summer. He spent most of last season in the MHL, which is a junior league in Russia. He made only two appearances at the Subway Super Series, and he wasn't even so much as named to Russia's WJC team. With the Rangers having drafted Brandon Halverson two rounds earlier, it seemed strange that they would take another one in the same draft. However, there were whispers in the prospect community about Shesterkin and him being a talented goaltender. Gordie Clark chalked it up as a value pick rather than one of need; they felt he was too good to pass up at that point.

Shesterkin has done a lot since to prove Clark right. He was Russia's best player at the Subway Super Series, posting a .940 save percentage in five appearances, and that showing gave him a lot of momentum going into the World Junior Championships, where he jumped ahead of Islanders' draft pick Ilya Sorokin and worked his way into starts for Russia in their elimination games. In five appearances, Shesterkin accumulated a .938 save percentage. Safe to say that Shesterkin is now well known. He has a lot of work to do in his mechanics. He struggles with blocker-side shots and deals with rebound issues at times. However, he's an incredibly athletic goaltender and has very good instincts. If there's anyone in the world who can refine his game, it's Rangers' goalie coach Benoit Allaire. Here's what Alex has to say about Shesterkin.

_"Shesterkin has earned the trust of his coaches this season. His strong play with Russia has seen him take the U20 starting job from Islanders prospect Ilya Sorokin, while the departure of goalies Alexander Salak and Evgeny Ivannikov at SKA of the KHL has afforded Shesterkin an opportunity that he is, at least for now, grasping with both hands. Quirky tendencies aside, there’s nothing to not like about his development track."_

While the two are very different goaltenders in terms of style, I think Shesterkin and Halverson are neck-and-neck in terms of their long-term potential.

13 (15). Brandon Halverson, Goaltender, 18 Years Old, 2014 Second-Round Pick

A bit of a roller coaster season for Brandon Halverson. He stormed out of the gate, posting a .935 save percentage in his first five games, winning all of them, and was the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhound's best player in that spell. Immediately after, though, he won only two of the next seven games, accumulating an abysmal .861 save percentage, and was pulled in the first period twice. Then he got his on straight again, and won the next seven games with a .942 save percentage.

That's a pretty good representation of how the entire season has gone for Halverson. He has some very good stretches where he's being peppered with shots and holds down the fort, only to then have a few short spells where he's pulled. When he's on his game, he's one of the best goaltenders in the OHL. And when he's not on his game, he's absolutely abysmal. Not much in-between.

But look, he's an 18-year-old goaltender. Inconsistency is the expectation. The number of quality starts far outweigh the disastrous ones, so he's trending in the right direction. There's a lot to like about Halverson's game. He has a big frame, but is mobile enough that he can stop all sorts of shots. His rebound control is very good. He's very hard to beat down low and has an agile glove as well. Sometimes he becomes overly reliant on his glove and will shoot too far from side-to-side instead of framing his body square to the shooter, but Benoit Allaire will work with him on that. I cited earlier that he and Shesterkin are incredibly close in value as prospects. Halverson gets the higher ranking by the slimmest of margins, and it's because I think he's slightly more polished in his mechanics. Halverson will continue to start for the Greyhounds as they look to earn a spot in the Memorial Cup.

question: What is the main topic of this article?

answer: The article discusses the top 12 prospects in the Rangers' system:  Petr Zamorsky, Keegan Iverson, Steve Fogerty, Ryan Bourque, Richard Nejezchleb, Daniel Walcott, Adam Tambellini, Mat Bodie, Ryan Haggerty, Danny Kristo, Igor Shesterkin, and Brandon Halverson.

question: What sport does the article cover?

answer: hockey

question: How old is the oldest player?

answer: 24

question: What position does Brandon Halverson play?

answer: Goalie

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The article discusses the top 12 prospects in the Rangers' system:  Petr Zamorsky, Keegan Iverson, Steve Fogerty, Ryan Bourque, Richard Nejezchleb, Daniel Walcott, Adam Tambellini, Mat Bodie, Ryan Haggerty, Danny Kristo, Igor Shesterkin, and Brandon Halverson.


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[si-JulAug2014.jpg] I’ve a brief new article in the new Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2014) regarding Casey Luskin’s botched attack on the second episode of Cosmos. Here it follows - your comments are welcomed.

Fox TV’s Seth McFarlane has joined with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan’s widow and collaborator, to continue Sagan’s marvelous _Cosmos_series of decades ago. The new series is a splendid blend of homage to Sagan’s original one with dazzling new graphics–and new discoveries.

The second episode of the series, first broadcast March 16, 2014, covered evolution and natural selection. (Link) As expected, creationists were furious. The main promoter of “intelligent design,” Seattle’s Discovery Institute, has run several anti-_Cosmos_blogs on its Evolution News and Views (ENV) website.

In their zeal to attack Tyson and the _Cosmos_series, however, the Discovery Institute has created a stunning example of the straw man logical fallacy. This fallacy is so named because it involves attacking one’s opponent not by an honest dissection of his or her actual views but by attacking a caricature, a distorted _mis_representation of those views. The Discovery Institute’s attack on the evolution episode of _Cosmos_was a particularly egregious example of this fallacy–a straw man for the ages, as it were.

The Institute’s Casey Luskin dashed off a post on the morning after the second episode aired. The post was titled “_Cosmos_ Episode 2: ‘Mindless Evolution’ Has All the Answers–If You Don’t Think About It Too Deeply” (Link). Luskin quotes Tyson’s comment comparing artificial to natural selection and proceeds to argue that Tyson believes that evolution can produce _anything_:

  _Cosmos_ Episode 2 structures its argument much as Charles Darwin did in the Origin of Species. The opening scenes discuss how human breeders artificially selected many different dog breeds from wolf-like ancestors, including many popular breeds that “were created in only the last few centuries.” The argument is simple–and it’s the same one Darwin made: “If artificial selection can work such profound changes in only 10 to 15 thousand years, what can natural selection do operating over billions of years?” THE ANSWER, I RECALL TYSON SAYING, IS MOST “ANYTHING”[emphasis added]. Just as he did in Episode 1, Tyson has overstated his case. The great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr explains precisely why Tyson is wrong: “Some enthusiasts have claimed that natural selection can do ANYTHING. THIS IS NOT TRUE [emphasis in original]. Even though ‘natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation even the slightest,’ as Darwin (1859:84) has stated, it is nevertheless evident that there are definite limits to the effectiveness of selection”. . . .

If Tyson had indeed said that natural selection can do _anything_, Luskin would have been entirely correct to point out that the claim has been thoroughly refuted by mainstream biologists such as Mayr. The problem is that Tyson said nothing of the sort. Here’s what Tyson _really_said about what “natural selection can do operating over billions of years”:

  The answer is: all the beauty and diversity of life.

In other words, Tyson was saying that selection plus mutation explains the stunning diversity of life on our planet–warts and all. He _never_said that natural selection can do _anything_, and later in the episode he gave a great example of how selection plus mutation is strongly _limited_by historic contingency. In a lengthy segment on the evolution of complex structures such as eyes, about thirty minutes later in the episode, Tyson points out that eyes evolved under water and that fish have exquisite vision. This allows them to focus on things right in front of their faces and in dim light, unlike land animals (including humans). Because of refraction, however, our wet eyes distort light from the dry air, and we’ve never quite recovered from losing our ideal aquatic vision. As Tyson said:

  When we left the water, why didn’t nature just “start over again,” and evolve us a new set of eyes that were optimal for seeing in the air? Nature doesn’t work that way. Evolution reshapes existing structures over generations, adapting them with small changes. _It can’t just go back to the drawing board and start from scratch_.

Of course, that’s not even remotely like Luskin’s ludicrous accusation that Tyson thinks natural selection over time can do “most anything.” The same morning it appeared, someone persuaded Luskin to correct the words he’d put into Tyson’s mouth, but Luskin added new verbiage just after that to further his still-false claim that Tyson actually _does_believe that natural selection can do “most anything.” The revised comment by Luskin now reads

  THE ANSWER, TYSON TELLS US, IS “ALL THE BEAUTY AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE.” IN OTHER WORDS, TYSON WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT NATURAL SELECTION PROVIDES ALL THE ANSWERS FOR EVERYTHING SINCE LIFE AROSE [emphasis added]. Just as he did in Episode 1, Tyson has overstated his case. . . .

In both versions of his post (pre- and post-correction), Luskin vigorously repeated his colossal straw man argument: “TYSON’S MAIN ARGUMENT THAT SELECTION AND MUTATION CAN EVOLVE ANYTHING [emphasis added] focuses on the evolution of the eye. Here, he attacks intelligent design by name. . . .”

In addition to a spectacular example of the straw man fallacy, the affair provides insight into the dangers of pseudoscience. If only Luskin had decided to simply watch the show and give Tyson a chance to explain the case for evolution, he would never have made such a serious error. Instead, Luskin had no time for actual comprehension of what was being said; he was far too busy looking for talking points on which to condemn Tyson, _Cosmos_, and evolution. Luskin was so busy constructing his hit piece he wasn’t even aware that Tyson was vigorously agreeing with Mayr: evolution can’t do just _anything_. It’s a perfect illustration of the mindset of a pseudo scientist.

Dave Thomas, a physicist and mathematician, is president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is currently a scientist/programmer at IRIS/PASSCAL in Socorro, New Mexico, and also teaches classes in physics, psychology, and critical thinking at New Mexico Tech. He is a recipient of the National Center for Science Education’s Friend of Darwin Award.

question: Who is Neil deGrasse Tyson?

answer: An astrophysicist.

question: Who has joined the "Cosmos" series?

answer: Seth McFarlane.

question: How does Cosmos' second episode structure its argument?

answer: Much as Darwin did in the "Origin of the Species".

question: What does Tyson believe explains the diversity of life on earth?

answer: Natural selection combined with mutation.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: On his show, Cosmos, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson convenes with other personalities and scientists to discuss how things come to be in the natural and unnatural world. On the second episode, they talk about natural selection and mutations, commencing with Darwinism. Tyson believes that natural selection combined with mutation results in the immense diversity of life on earth. Casey Luskin, a guest (?) on the show, thinks that Tyson is saying natural selection over time can do almost anything. The author of this article thinks that Luskin relies on pseudoscience for his "straw man" arguments.


text:
MARIA JOHANNA (MARJAN) OUDEMA (born 1958) is president of Utrecht University. She is also a director of Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil[1][2] as well as Het Concertgebouw, the Rijksmuseum, Solvay SA and SHV Holdings. She was previously a member of the executive committee of Akzo Nobel and executive director Strip Products Division at Corus Group, now Tata Steel Europe.[3]

[1]

[2]

[3]

title: Maria Oudeman

question: Who was Maria Oudeman?

answer: president of Utrecht University

question: What is Maria Oudeman the director of?

answer: the Norwegian oil and gas company, Statoil

question: What was Maria Oudeman previously a member of?

answer: of the executive committee of Akzo Nobel

question: When was Maria Oudeman born?

answer: in 1958

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Maria Oudeman is the president of Utrecht University. She is also the director of the Norwegian oil and gas company, Statoil.


text:
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_Think of life as analogous to a fire_ | Photograph by NASA
Can a planet be alive? Lynn Margulis, a giant of late 20th-century biology, who had an incandescent intellect that veered toward the unorthodox, thought so. She and chemist James Lovelock together theorized that life must be a planet-altering phenomenon and the distinction between the “living” and “nonliving” parts of Earth is not as clear-cut as we think. Many members of the scientific community derided their theory, called the Gaia hypothesis, as pseudoscience, and questioned their scientific integrity. But now Margulis and Lovelock may have their revenge. Recent scientific discoveries are giving us reason to take this hypothesis more seriously. At its core is an insight about the relationship between planets and life that has changed our understanding of both, and is shaping how we look for life on other worlds.

Studying Earth’s global biosphere together, Margulis and Lovelock realized that it has some of the properties of a life form. It seems to display “homeostasis,” or self‐regulation. Many of Earth’s life‐sustaining qualities exhibit remarkable stability. The temperature range of the climate; the oxygen content of the atmosphere; the pH, chemistry, and salinity of the ocean—all these are biologically mediated. All have, for hundreds of millions of years, stayed within a range where life can thrive. Lovelock and Margulis surmised that the totality of life is interacting with its environments in ways that regulate these global qualities. They recognized that Earth is, in a sense, a living organism. Lovelock named this creature Gaia.

  Life and Earth have been co-evolving in a continuing dance.

Margulis and Lovelock showed that the Darwinian picture of biological evolution is incomplete. Darwin identified the mechanism by which life adapts due to changes in the environment, and thus allowed us to see that all life on Earth is a continuum, a proliferation, a genetic diaspora from a common root. In the Darwinian view, Earth was essentially a stage with a series of changing backdrops to which life had to adjust. Yet, what or who was changing the sets? Margulis and Lovelock proposed that the drama of life does not unfold on the stage of a dead Earth, but that, rather, the stage itself is animated, part of a larger living entity, Gaia, composed of the biosphere together with the “nonliving” components that shape, respond to, and cycle through the biota of Earth. Yes, life adapts to environmental change, shaping itself through natural selection. Yet life also pushes back and changes the environment, alters the planet. This is now as obvious as the air you are breathing, which has been oxygenated by life. So evolution is not a series of adaptations to inanimate events, but a system of feedbacks, an exchange. Life has not simply molded itself to the shifting contours of a dynamic Earth. Rather, life and Earth have shaped each other as they’ve co-evolved. When you start looking at the planet in this way, then you see coral reefs, limestone cliffs, deltas, bogs, and islands of bat guano as parts of this larger animated entity. You realize that the entire skin of Earth, and its depths as well, are indeed alive.

The acceptance of the Gaia hypothesis was, and remains, slow, halting, and incomplete. There are several reasons for this. One is just the usual inertia, the standard conservative reluctance to accept new ways of thinking. Yet Gaia was also accused of being vague and shifting. Some complained that the “Gaians” had failed to present an original, well‐defined, testable scientific proposition. How can you evaluate, oppose, or embrace an idea that is not clearly stated, or that seems to mean different things to different people? There was certainly some truth to this. Gaia has been stated many different ways. Also, it didn’t help that Margulis and Lovelock were more than willing to mix science with philosophy and poetry, and they didn’t mind controversy; in fact, I’d say they enjoyed and courted it.

The truth is, despite its widespread moniker, Gaia is not really a hypothesis. It’s a perspective, an approach from within which to pursue the science of life on a planet, a living planet, which is not the same as a planet with life on it—that’s really the point, simple but profound. Because life is not a minor afterthought on an already functioning Earth, but an integral part of the planet’s evolution and behavior. Over the last few decades, the Gaians have pretty much won the battle. The opposition never actually surrendered or admitted defeat, but mainstream earth science has dropped its disciplinary shields and joined forces with chemistry, climatology, theoretical biology, and several other “‐ologies” and renamed itself “earth system science.”

The Gaia approach, prompted by the space-age comparison of Earth with its apparently lifeless neighbors, has led to a deepening realization of how thoroughly altered our planet is by its inhabitants. When we compare the life story of Earth to that of its siblings, we see that very early on in its development, as soon as the sterilizing impact rain subsided so that life could get a toehold, Earth started down a different path. Ever since that juncture, life and Earth have been co-evolving in a continuing dance.

As we’ve studied Earth with space-age tools, seen her whole from a distance, drilled the depths of the ocean floor, and, with the magic glasses of multispectral imaging, mapped the global biogeochemical cycles of elements, nutrients, and energy, we’ve learned that life’s influence is more profound and pervasive than we ever suspected.

All this oxygen we take for granted is the byproduct of life intervening in our planet’s geochemical cycles: harvesting solar energy to split water molecules, keeping the hydrogen atoms and reacting them with CO₂ to make organic food and body parts, but spitting the oxygen back out. In Earth’s upper atmosphere some of this oxygen, under the influence of ultraviolet light, is transformed into ozone, O₃, which shields Earth’s surface from deadly ultraviolet, making the land surface habitable. When it appeared, this shield allowed life to leave the ocean and the continents to become green with forests. That’s right: It was life that rendered the once deadly continents habitable for life.

The more we look through a Gaian lens, the more we see that nearly every aspect of our planet has been biologically distorted beyond recognition. Earth’s rocks contain more than 4,000 different minerals (the crystalline molecules that make up rocks). This is a much more varied smorgasbord of mineral types than we have seen on any other world. Geochemists studying the mineral history of Earth have concluded that by far the majority of these would not exist without the presence of life on our planet. So, on Earth’s life‐altered surface, the very rocks themselves are biological byproducts. A big leap in this mineral diversity occurred after life oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a plethora of new oxidized minerals that sprinkled colorful rocks throughout Earth’s sediments. Observed on a distant planet, such vast and varied mineral diversity could be a sign of a living world, so this is a potential biosignature (or Gaiasignature) we can add to the more commonly cited Lovelock criterion of searching for atmospheric gases that have been knocked out of equilibrium by life. In fact, minerals and life seem to have fed off each other going all the way back to the beginning. Evidence has increased that minerals were vital catalysts and physical substrates for the origin of life on Earth. Is it really a huge leap, then, to regard the mineral surface of Earth as part of a global living system, part of the body of Gaia?

What about plate tectonics and the dynamics of Earth’s deep interior? At first glance this seems like a giant mechanical system—a heat engine—that does not depend upon biology, but rather (lucky for life), supports it. Also, although we’re probably still largely ignorant about the deeply buried parts of Earth’s biosphere, it’s unlikely there are any living organisms deeper than a couple of miles down in the crust, where it gets too hot for organic molecules. Yet, just as we’ve found that life’s sway has extended into the upper atmosphere, creating the ozone layer that allowed the biosphere to envelop the continents, more and more we see that life has also influenced these deeper subterranean realms. Over its long life, Gaia has altered not just the skin but also the guts of Earth, pulling carbon from the mantle and piling it on the surface in sedimentary rocks, and sequestering massive amounts of nitrogen from the air into ammonia stored inside the crystals of mantle rocks.

  Life itself, once it gets started, can make or keep a planet habitable.

By controlling the chemical state of the atmosphere, life has also altered the rocks it comes into contact with, and so oxygenated the crust and mantle of Earth. This changes the material properties of the rocks, how they bend and break, squish, fold, and melt under various forces and conditions. All the clay minerals produced by Earth’s biosphere soften Earth’s crust—the crust of a lifeless planet is harder—helping to lubricate the plate tectonic engine. The wetness of Earth seems to explain why plate tectonics has persisted on Earth and not on its dry twin, Venus. One of the more extreme claims of the Gaia camp, at present neither proven nor refuted, is that the influence of life over the eons has helped Earth hold on to her life‐giving water, while Venus and Mars, lifeless through most of their existence, lost theirs. If so, then life may indeed be responsible for Earth’s plate tectonics. One of the original architects of plate tectonic theory, Norm Sleep from Stanford, has become thoroughly convinced that life is deeply implicated in the overall physical dynamics of Earth, including the “nonliving” interior domain. In describing the cumulative, long-term influence of life on geology, continent building, and plate tectonics, he wrote, “The net effect is Gaian. That is, life has modified Earth to its advantage.” The more we study Earth, the more we see this. Life has got Earth in its clutches. Earth is a biologically modulated planet through and through. In a nontrivial way, it is a living planet.

Now, 40 years after Viking landed on Mars, we’ve learned that planets are common, including those similar in size to Earth and at the right distance from their stars to allow oceans of liquid water. Also, Lovelock’s radical idea to pay attention to the atmosphere and look for drastic departures from the expected mixture of gases now forms the cornerstone of our life‐detection strategies. Gaian thinking has crept into our ideas about evolution and the habitability of exoplanets, revising notions of the “habitable zone.” We’re realizing that it is not enough to determine basic physical properties of a planet, its size and distance from a star, in order to determine its habitability. Life itself, once it gets started, can make or keep a planet habitable. Perhaps, in some instances, life can also destroy the habitability of a planet, as it almost did on Earth during the Great Oxygenation Event (sometimes called the oxygen catastrophe) of 2.1 billion years ago. As my colleague Colin Goldblatt, a sharp young climate modeler from the University of Victoria, once said, “The defining characteristic of Earth is planetary scale life. Earth teaches us that habitability and inhabitance are inseparable.”

In my 2003 book _Lonely Planets_, I described what I call the “Living Worlds hypothesis,” which is Gaian thinking applied to astrobiology. Perhaps life everywhere is intrinsically a planetary‐scale phenomenon with a cosmological life span—that is, a life expectancy measured in billions of years, the timescale that defines the lives of planets, stars, and the universe.

Organisms and species do not have cosmological life spans. Gaia does, and this is perhaps a general property of living worlds. Influenced greatly by Lovelock and Margulis, I’ve argued that we are unlikely to find surface life on a planet that has not severely and flagrantly altered its own atmosphere. According to this idea, a planet cannot be “slightly alive” any more than a person can (at least not for long), and an aged planet such as Mars, if it is not obviously, conspicuously alive like Earth, is probably completely dead.  If the little whiffs of methane recently reported by the Curiosity rover turn out to be the signs of pockets of Martian life on an otherwise generally dead world, this would prove that my Living Worlds hypothesis is wrong, and that life can take on very non-Gaia-like forms elsewhere. But a living world may require more than temporary little pockets of water and energy as surely exist underground on Mars. It may require continuous and vigorous internally driven geological activity. I believe that only a planet that is “alive” in the geological sense is likely to be “alive” in the biological sense. Without plate tectonics, without deep, robust global biogeochemical cycles which life could feed off and, eventually, entrain itself within, life may never have been able to establish itself as a permanent feature of Mars, as it did on Earth.

As far as we can tell, around the time when life was starting on Earth, both Venus and Mars shared the same characteristics that enabled life to get going here: They were wet, they were rocky, they had thick atmospheres and vigorous geologic activity. Comparative planetology seems to be telling us that the conditions needed for the origin of life might be the norm for rocky worlds. One real possibility is that Mars or Venus also had an origin of life, but that life did not stick, couldn’t persist, on either of these worlds. It was not able to take root and become embedded as a permanent planetary feature, as it did on Earth. This may be a common outcome: planets that have an origin of life, perhaps even several, but that never develop a robust and self‐sustaining global biosphere. What is really rare and unusual about Earth is that beneficial conditions for life have persisted over billions of years. This may have been more than luck.

When we stop thinking of planets as merely objects or places where living beings may or may not be present, but rather as themselves living or nonliving entities, it can color the way we think about the origin of life. Perhaps life is something that happens not _on_ a planet but _to_ a planet: It is something that a planet becomes.

Think of life as analogous to a fire. If you’ve ever tried to start a campfire, you know it’s easy to ignite some sparks and a little flicker of flame, but then it’s hard to keep these initial flames going. At first you have to tend to the fire, blowing until you’re faint, to supply more oxygen, or it will just die out. That’s always the tricky part: keeping it burning before it has really caught on. Then it reaches a critical point, where the fire is really roaring. It’s got a bed of hot coals and its heat is generating its own circulation pattern, sucking in oxygen, fanning its own flames. At that point it becomes self-sustaining, and you can go grab a beer and watch for shooting stars.

I wonder if the first life on a planet isn’t like those first sparks and those unsteady little flames. The earliest stages of life may be extremely vulnerable, and there may be a point where, once life becomes a planetary phenomenon, enmeshed in the global flows that support and fuel it, it feeds back on itself and becomes more like a self‐sustaining fire, one that not only draws in its own air supply, but turns itself over and replenishes its own fuel. A mature biosphere seems to create the conditions for life to continue and flourish.

  Life is something that happens not on a planet, but to a planet.

A “living worlds” perspective implies that after billions of years, life will either be absent from a planet or, as on Earth, have thoroughly taken over and become an integral part of all global processes. Signs of life will be everywhere. Once life has taken hold of a planet, once it has become a planetary‐scale entity (a global organism, if you will), it may be very hard to kill. Certainly life has seen Earth through many huge changes, some quite traumatic. Life here is remarkably robust and persistent. It seems to have a kind of immortality. Call it quasi‐immortality, because the planet won’t be around forever, and it may not be habitable for its entire lifetime. Individuals are here for but an instant. Whole species come and go, usually in timescales barely long enough to get the planet’s attention. Yet life as a whole persists. This gives us a different way to think about ourselves. The scientific revolution has revealed us, as individuals, to be incredibly tiny and ephemeral, and our entire existence, not just as individuals but even as a species, to be brief and insubstantial against the larger temporal backdrop of cosmic evolution. If, however, we choose to identify with the biosphere, then we, Gaia, have been here for quite some time, for perhaps 3 billion years in a universe that seems to be about 13 billion years old. We’ve been alive for a quarter of all time. That’s something.

The origin of life on Earth was not just the beginning of the evolution of species, the fount of diversity that eventually begat algae blooms, aspen groves, barrier reefs, walrus huddles, and gorilla troops. From a planetary evolution perspective, this development was a major branching point that opened up a gateway to a fundamentally different future. Then, when life went global, and went deep, planet Earth headed irreversibly down the path not taken by its siblings.

Now, very recently, out of this biologically altered Earth, another kind of change has suddenly emerged and is rewriting the rules of planetary evolution. On the nightside of Earth, the lights are switching on, indicating that something new is happening and someone new is home. Has another gateway opened? Could the planet be at a new branching point?

The view from space sheds light on the multitude of rapid changes inscribed on our planet by our industrial society. The orbital technology enabling this observation is itself one of the strange and striking aspects of the transition now gripping Earth. If up to now the defining characteristic of Earth has been planetary‐scale life, then what about these planetary‐scale lights? Might this spreading, luminous net be part of a new defining characteristic?

_David Grinspoon is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. In 2013, he was appointed as the inaugural chair of astrobiology at the U.S. Library of Congress. His latest book, _Earth in Human Hands_, was published in December. Also a musician, he plays guitar for the House Band of the Universe. Follow him on Twitter @DrFunkySpoon._

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[]

_From the book_ Earth in Human Hands _by David Grinspoon. Copyright © 2016 by David Grinspoon. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY. All rights reserved._

__This article was originally published on_ Nautilus Cosmos_, in December 2016._
_

question: What is the Gaia hypothesis or perspective?

answer: It is the collective regulation and definition of the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life.

question: Can it be said that life and earth have always co-existed?

answer: Yes.

question: Do Lovelock and Margulis agree on the evolution of life?

answer: It appears they do.

question: What was the reason for the slow acceptance of the Gaia hypothesis?

answer: It was accused of being vague and shifting and lacking an original, clearly stated, well-defined testable scientific proposition.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article describes the scientific theories about the evolution of life by referencing the Gaia hypothesis, which has been scarcely accepted because most people shift from accepting new ways of thinking and that the hypothesis has barely been tested, well-defined, vague, and shifting.


text:
Okay, before you starting reading, please note that this is the first time I have ever wrote a creative writing piece. The reason behind this are my horrible English language skills. I'm not a native speaker, and a horrible non-native one. Please note that my sorry excuse of a story is incomplete and I'm posting it simply to get feedback on my grammar and my story-telling skills.
___
___
Adam leapt over the shrub, a few white-out roses caught in his folded jeans cuffs, but he wasn't paying attention to details--it wasn't the time to pay attention. He managed to land awkwardly on his feet, almost crumpling. The impact was more than he could manage under normal circumstances, only that they weren't normal--he had been shot squarely through his left thigh, and his arms were trembling, enfolded under her back.

"Don't leave me now," he glanced over her face--expressionless--and looked back up, surveying the land before him; looking for a place to hide and take shelter before those arseholes could do any more damage. Luck hadn't left them after all, as he had otherwise thought. A deep, misty forest lay ahead of them, glimmering with greenish light, the colour of poison. Without thinking, he ran for it, losing himself in the grove of trees.

The sky roared with chillingly profound thunder--it had started to drizzle. He could make out her face from the lightening flickering across the sky, filtering through the leaves. She was perfectly immobile, her eyes close shut, her brows relaxed.

title: My first [incomplete] creative writing piece.

question: Who is Adam?

answer: The protagonist.

question: What was he doing in the forest?

answer: He's carrying an injured (shot?) woman, trying to run away from attackers.

question: Who shot him?

answer: Some assholes shot him, but there's not much information.

question: Who is the woman?

answer: Her name wasn't given.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer:
Adam is carrying an injured woman in his arms while running away from people trying to kill them. Her face is expressionless and immobile, so she might very well be dead.
Adam has a gunshot wound to the thigh but still manages to cradle the woman and run towards the misty forest to hide. It starts to rain.


text:
The 1943 IRISH GREYHOUND DERBY took place during July and August with the final being held at Harold's Cross Stadium in Dublin on 6 August.[1]

The winner Famous Knight was owned by Miss R Monaghan and trained by Bertie Tierney.[2]

Final result

At Harolds Cross, 6 August (over 525 yards):

  Position   Name of Greyhound   Breeding                          Trap   SP     Time    Trainer
  ---------- ------------------- --------------------------------- ------ ------ ------- ---------------------
  1st        Famous Knight       Highland Rum - Flyers Fortune     2      5-4f   30.26   Bertie Tierney
  2nd        Discretion          Creamery Border - Noreside Ruby   4      6-1    30.42   Willie Rowan
  3rd        Double Rum          breeding unknown                  5      10-1   30.50   Arthur Doc Callanan
  4th        Down the Dee        breeding unknown                  1      5-1            Joe Davis
  5th        Kusta Bok           Valiant Cutlet - Karra Katta      3      5-2            Arthur Doc Callanan
  6th        Brilliant Smile     Manhattan Midnight - Civil        6      10-1           Kavanagh

Distances

2, 1 (lengths)

Competition Report

Famous Knight a red fawn dog started as ante-post favourite and in the first round won in 30.29, the time was bettered by Blackrock Border who recorded a 30.12 win. The fastest second round wins were Kusta Bok (30.25) and Race Day (30.40) but Famous Knight won again in 30.49.[3][4]

In the semi-finals on 30 July Famous Knight defeated Double Rum by one length in 30.30, followed by a 30.45 win for Discretion from Kusta Bok in a heat that saw Blackrock Border eliminated. The third semi was taken by Down the Dee from Brilliant Smile in a slow 30.98.[5]

In the final Kusta Bok broke well and led until the third bend before the expected move from Famous Knight took place. The latter went on to win by two lengths from a strong finishing Discretion.[6]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

title: 1943 Irish Greyhound Derby

question: What is the 1943 Irish Greyhound Derby?

answer: a greyhound race held in Ireland in 1943

question: Where was the 1943 Irish Greyhound Race held?

answer: Harold's Cross Stadium

question: When was the 1943 Irish Greyhound Race held?

answer: 6 August 1943

question: What was the name of the dog who won the 1943 Irish Greyhound Derby?

answer: Famous Knight

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The 1943 Irish Greyhound Derby was held at Harold's Cross Stadium in Dublin on 6 August. The winner of the race was named Famous Knight.


text:
We are connected, you and I. I never knew you, but we are connected. I waited for you. I chose you. It could have been someone else. Just five more seconds and you would have passed, but you came around the building and I knew. It was the itch. The itch that’s deep inside. I’m sure you’ve had it yourself. The kind of itch you can never dig out. Trust me I tried. The first time I got the itch it felt like my stomach was being eaten from the inside out. So I took my knife and dug into my own flesh. But the deeper I went I realized I couldn’t reach it. When they found me with the black hole in my stomach, they thought you did it to me. They told me I was a lucky bastard and said I’d have a chance to get even with you soon enough. They told me I would live. So they patched me up and gave me pills, but I knew the itch would never go away. Now it calls me, guides me. It guided me to you.

Please don’t think I’m a monster. I’m sure you would have done the same, wouldn’t you? I didn’t order you to show up when you did. I just do what I’m told, by the itch, and the itch chose you.

I let ten of you pass from one wall to the other. I watched as the first of you leaned around the corner. I could have sworn you saw me, but you didn’t. The first of you leaned around the corner and gave a hand signal and you all came pouring out like ants from a hole. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame the signal man, not me. He gave you that red star on your chest just as much as me.

The red star. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to get a red star. I used to think about it all the time, but after a while I realized making it this far meant I never would. I still think about it, sometimes.

As I was saying, you came around the corner, and as soon as I saw you, I got the itch. What’s that? Why? Speak up, man! Why did I get the itch? If you have to ask that question, clearly I was wrong and you never had it. In short, I don’t know. I know that isn’t the answer you want to hear, but it’s the truth. I don’t know why the itch chose you. You look like a decent enough fellow. I didn't hate you when you came around the corner. Actually, I get the sense that we are similar.

But you came around the corner, and I didn’t feel much of anything, just that small seed of fear. Surely, if you don’t know what the itch is, you have to know the fear. Even now, with the red star on your chest, I still fear you. I know, it sounds stupid, but I do. Because I could be you. Because we’re connected you and I. Someday, someone might get the itch, and it will be me that gets a red star. But this time, you came around the corner, and I waited.

I know you want that red star to mean something. You hope that in some small way, that badge on your chest will make a difference, and you know what? I think it does. Maybe not in the final outcome, but inside, yes, I think it does because you can claim it as your own. You earned it. But not just for yourself. If this whole thing was only for ourselves, we wouldn’t be here, am I right? But we are connected, I know that much, and that’s how I know it means something.

Well, I better get going. Say, what’s that? That in your hand? May I? Oh wow, what a great picture. She, wow, she is really beautiful. And look at those kiddos. Hey their Chief you have a helluva good looking-oh, Jesus. Man, I’m sorry. Here, keep them in a safe place.

Take them.
Common take them!

Alright, look, I’ll just tuck them right in your pocket there. Man, don’t look at me like that. I told you it wasn’t my fault. Weren’t you listening to a single word I was saying? We’re connected. I waited just to be sure! The itch told me! Stop staring at me you sick bastard! I swear I’ll put another red star right in your damn forehead! Stop staring at me!

*Pop!*
It’s not my fault!
*Pop! Pop! Pop!*
***

The dead soldier’s face was unrecognizable by the time they stopped Private Anderson. The stock of his rifle was implanted in the side of the enemy soldier’s skull, but even without that final blow, Anderson managed to fire off a full clip into the man’s face and chest.

As recalled by Lieutenant Jeffries, Private Anderson was being restrained by three other soldiers when he arrived on the scene. The private’s face had gone pallid in the struggle, his lips blue and twisted into a hideous form. And he was screaming. Jeffries had heard plenty of screams in war, but nothing so primal, so pure. It was like Anderson spewed a patchwork quilt of sorrow, horror, and darkness over the men, and when it settled it found every nerve in their bodies and plucked it like a guitar string. Watching him lose it, they all felt cold. Because they knew it could be them, that they were connected. They could be drug away with spittle flying from their mouths screaming, “the itch!” Just like Anderson.

title: Short Story -The Itch (Honest feedback appreciated!)

question: What is the narrator talking about?

answer: The narrator has gone insane, and eventually murders one of his fellow soldiers. This is due to "the itch", a compulsion which makes him harm himself and others. It is not clear what the meaning of some of the statements he makes are, due to the fact that these are the ravings of a madman.


text:
HENRY EDWARD ROYS (Beaver Falls, 1902 - Green Valley, Dec. 6, 1988) was a sound engineer. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1925 with a B. S. degree in electrical engineering.

He worked for the most of his professional life for Radio Corporation of America, where he made major contributions to the standardization of product in the record industry.

Dr. Roys, a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), received its Gold Medal Award in 1973.

title: Henry E. Roys

question: When was Roys born?

answer: 1902

question: Where did Roys receive his degree from?

answer: The University of Colorado

question: Where did Roys work for most of his life?

answer: Radio Corporation of America

question: What award did Roys receive in 1973?

answer: The Gold Medal Award of the Audio Engineering Society

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Henry Edward Roys was a sound engineer born in 1902. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1925, and he worked for Radio Corporation of America for most of his life. He received a Gold Medal Award from the Audio Engineering Society in 1973, and he died in 1988.


text:
A former member of Epic Games Poland, Krzysztof Teper, shared some of his thoughts on environmental design in games and building quick scenes in Unreal Engine 4. Krzysztof has a lot of experience working on big budget games like Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! and Gears of War: Judgment, so his advice will definitely be of use to those who are just starting their work in the game industry.

In this interview Krzysztof talks in detail about the creation of Gwendeith – a wonderful northern landscape, which was created in 2 days thanks to World Machine and UE4.

About Krzysztof Teper

Krzysztof Teper

I’m originally from Poland. It was a pleasure working with Epic Games Poland where I developed _Gears of War: Judgment_ and 2K Australia where I worked on _Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!_. I’m currently not employed, as I decided to focus on exploring new workflows, refreshing my portfolio, as well as planning next big step in my career.

On Modelling Speed Landscapes

It all started quite innocently. I came across craters macro for World Machine (WM), experimented with it for a while and then imported the result into UE4 just to check how it looks with proper lighting. After that, I’ve done some work on materials, copied the terrain mesh a few times to add some depth to the scene, and added foreground rocks on top of that. It turned out that I created a visual prototype of a lunar surface in just 3 hours. I wanted to try similar workflow on a wider variety of environments.

[]

Lunar Study © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

About Gwendeith

It all starts in World Machine, I usually don’t have a very specific idea of what I want to create, so I spent some time on exploration and trying new combinations each time. WM is quite powerful out of the box but GeoGlyph (GG) adds a whole new layer to it. It is a set of hard-coded macros that you can use as a substitute or along with standard WM nodes. One of its most powerful features is NeoFlow. The thing about it is that it breaks up artificially looking sediment flows that WM is known for, hence making the erosion much more natural. Gwendeith was the first project for me to actually test GeoGlyphin action. I used Earth Spine, which is one of my favorite generators that comes with GG, and went from there:

[]

Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

I generated a color map just to desaturate it and mix it with snow mask in Photoshop to add more variation to the texture.

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Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

Slope mask is one of the most important maps that you can generate inside WM. When you multiply it by tiling rocky normal map in UE4, you receive detailed peaks and cliffs that provide nice contrast for soft grass or snow.

For the very far background I used flat terrain with a bit of noise and WM’s layout generator with a fractal breakup to add the river.

[]

Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

In order to texture the distant lowlands, I used satellite photos of a forest located somewhere in Idaho. I usually do rough screen grabs from Google Maps and mix the images together in Photoshop.

Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

Once I have the terrain meshes ready, I start by opening an extra copy of viewport in UE4 and locking a camera to it. It helps me to block out the composition and focus on areas visible to the camera only.

Similarly to previous speed landscapes, Gwendeith is just a snapshot of an environment and would require significantly more work to turn it into playable level. I think this technique is nice for pitching environment to your lead or art director, as it’s incredibly fast and may serve as a good base for starting proper production ( including more detailed and optimized art assets). In particular, it could be a good solution for small studios or situations where concept artists are not available.

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Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

Beauty Pass is basically a final frame including textures, lighting, and post processing that the player will see on a screen. Color and translucency passes are included just to help show how the scene is constructed.

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Gwendeith © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

In real-time rendering it is important not to have too many overlapping translucency layers, as they make the shader complexity too heavy and thus, slows down the FPS. That was a big thing to look out for while developing for last generation consoles.

The Speed Building in Unreal Engine 4

UE4 is probably the strongest real-time renderer on the market right now. It can run a scene with thousands of GPU accelerated snowflakes (a few millions of lit geometry triangles and complex shaders without any choking).

Having a handful of tools and utilities helps a lot too. For example, mesh painting brushes allow you to cover any surface with a lot of mesh instances quite quickly. This becomes your bread and butter when it comes to populating a large scene with foliage. Having said that, I’ve spent a total of around 20 minutes placing all the pine trees in the Gwendeith scene.

Tools of Trade

I like to use Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop/Quixel Suite for most of my work.

However, what I always recommend is to find polygonal, sculpting, and texturing packages that you feel most comfortable with using and then start learning alternative software. You will find that a lot of your knowledge is transferable but the new software opens a lot of workarounds that you have not thought about before, thus making you much more efficient.

For example, I prefer using Maya for most of the low poly modeling and unwrapping uvs, but I like Modo more when it comes to more advanced modeling.

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Tank © Krzysztof Teper, krzysztofteper.com, 2015

Another example can be Zbrush and it’s amazing dynamesh feature which allows you to retopologize and unify geometry with a single click but when the mesh is very dense it’s better to use voxelization in 3D Coat and go from there. You will get a much better resolution of your mesh in a shorter time span.

As for terrain art I prefer to use World Machine, as it’s accessible and relatively easy to learn. It has lots of super helpful user generated scripts to choose from – including powerful coloring macros which will turn your base terrain into beautifully textured rocky peaks, cliffs, and grassy valleys. If you are interested in creating landscapes for VFX or concept art, you may also want to check out Terragen and Vue. These have much more robust visual development capabilities, as you can create whole eco systems and weather effects along with the terrain.

Do you need a lot of programming experience to work with Unreal Engine 4 and to do environmental design for games? I know some people would really like to do something in this field but they think they won’t be able to work with UE because of programming issues.

You need literally zero programming experience to do environment art in UE4. With all the improvements and support from Epic Games, the pipeline for creating environments is easier than ever for newcomers.

Even if you are after triggering events in your environments, creating the dynamic time of day or weather systems, you can use Blueprints which serve as visual scripting that do not require C++ knowledge.

Assets for Unreal Engine 4

I think that free game and content examples that are available at Unreal Engine 4 Marketplace for free, provide a lot of variety and possibilities.

If you are thinking about level artist career path (building environments with existing models), you will find more than enough free resources in UE4’s library to build a strong portfolio that will land you a job in the industry.

And by the way, Yoeri’s Modular Rocks And Caves package is now live at the Marketplace! He’s the guy who helped me with the assets for Gwendeith.

Inspiration

While browsing through various art references, I stumbled upon Albert Bierstadt’s work and paintings from other old masters of Hudson River School. I was simply struck by the composition, details, and romantic atmosphere that these artists were able to capture. That was a starting point for my stormy landscapes.

I also pull a lot of inspiration from meteorology phenomena photos including super cells, hurricanes, and intense thunderstorms. In fact, I often blend these together in Photoshop to create sky back plates for my scenes.

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kt_refsheet

On top of that, I’m a big fan of the Dark Fantasy genre. Game of Thrones and The Witcher series influenced my work quite a bit as well. I think what makes the cold Northern sceneries so evocative is the feel of mystery, distress and beauty being present in one place.

Environmental Design and Art

Painting and environmental design are similar in some aspects. However, traditional art takes a lot more time and effort to learn than 3D. This is perhaps why concept artists learning 3D get much better results from the start whereas 3D artists are more likely to struggle when it comes to painting.

As far as the entertainment industry goes, digital tools are definitely the way to go these days but it is important to study the work of old masters regardless of whether you are a texture, 3D, or concept artist.

I sometimes think that it would be scary and exciting at the same time to see what old masters could do with today’s tools.

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question: What is Unreal Engine 4?

answer: It is not said, but it seems it is a tool for creating video games. It is said that it is the strongest real-time renderer.

question: Do you need to be a good programmer to be able to use Unreal Engine 4?

answer: Not at all. You can do environment art in Unreal Engine 4 without programming experience.

question: Is it difficult to learn how to use digital tools like 3D?

answer: It is much easier to learn 3D than traditional art.

question: What does Teper think about traditional art and old masters?

answer: It is important to study traditional art and the work of old masters regardless of whether you are a texture, 3D, or concept artist.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Krzysztof Teper, Borderlands and Gears of War Artist, tells us about how he started modeling speed landscapes in Unreal Engine 4, the strongest real-time renderer on the market, and explains what are his favorite tools (Maya, Zbrush, and Photoshop/Quixel Suite) and compares them. Teper says traditional and 3D art similar in some aspects. He thinks it is important to study the work of old masters regardless of whether you are a texture, 3D, or concept artist.


text: My visor powered down. I sat there, in shock and disbelief. I was being blamed for something the god damned botters had done. My account was on the verge of permaban. I had been accused of forging digital currency. Bad, very bad. It means that in about five minutes the feds will be banging down my door and taking me into custody. I was on ice so thin, I could pass it off as glass. So, I began doing what I rationalized as last resort. I threw a few days worth of clothes in a duffle bag along with a few provisions to keep me safe for a while, and sprinted out into the cold December night not knowing where I would be heading next.

title: The ban hammer has spoken.

question: Who is the protagonist?

answer: Unclear, but they appear to be a gamer of some sort.

question: Why is the protagonist in trouble?

answer: The protagonist has been accused of forging digital currency.

question: What does the protagonist fear is going to happen to them?

answer: They are worried that the feds are going to show up and take them into custody.

question: Describe the protagonist's plan.

answer: They decide to pack a few days' worth of clothes and then flee. They don't have a concrete plan as to where they are going to go.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The protagonist is accused of forging digital currency. Afraid they are going to be apprehended by the feds, they pack a bag of clothes and flee their home, without any plan as to where they are going to go.


text:
The bandits chased Theroux out of Lewiston on account of his unnatural winnings at the poker table. He's got a card up his sleeve, they roared and they crashed after him thru fence and field, practically boiled they were and their mouths foamed like so many cans of soda flung to burst.

Past the field there was a forest. Theroux cut through it towards the back road out of town, a weedy unlit lane that shepherded no one at the hour. He tumbled through impossible thickets that carpeted as dense as foliage could. He rolled down hatched bratchery and billowy willows soft as wads of cloud material. By some stroke of luck he didn't collide face first tree side.

He crashed from bushes into the gutter lane side and recollected himself and saw no torch light's trace, so very relieved he was. He ran quietly down the road but cut a grotesque silhouette what with the clutching of mounds of rattling coin to his sides and sort of prancing on his toes like a deranged fairy. And in his sick prancings he thought he'd made a clean break.

But the tomato faced bandit who was drunk as all hell had lost the mob during the chase at the fence in a fit of sickness and so slinked back to his tethered ass, he rode out of town and stupidly trusted the ass to follow the familiar path home.

But the ass was stupid as all hell and brayed obnoxiously and trotted out of town the wrong way, by the same weedy lane Theroux haunted now. Tomato face swayed to and fro in the saddle like a buoy afloat in a sea of drink and could barely make out anything but mush and fuzz in his stupor.

But in a sudden moment of clarity he saw, it was the wrong path and his lids sprung wide and his face wound itself grimaced and he drove two spurs viciously into the donkeys flanks, Wrong way dumb fuck!

The ass shrieked demoniacally, it's the only way to describe the ghastly wail it made, and it reared up so violently it toppled over tomato face first and burst its rider red with a pop, and flailed there for a shaken second and then rolled to its feet and galloped break neck down the lane, soaring through the starry night. A minute and a mile later it came upon a deranged, impish looking man on the side of the road and ran him down in cold ass blood.

And as legend goes, in a moment of pure random beauty the ass swallowed both those pockets of coin the imp Theroux had swaddled.

Fast forward a day, the ass is in the wild rich as fuck and fucking tons of wild ass and don't even worry those two wounds healed. Long story short he lived a wild ass life til the end of his days and died happily as lord and savior to the many small packs of wild ass who roamed the prairies at that time.

And he beget many wild ass children by his many wild ass wives. Their names are too numerous to remember but they all married and beget more wild ass children who married and beget more wild ass children who were so numerous at this point that it's pointless counting, but think four or five figures, all 9's. And so the population soared high in the ass kings wake, sort of like a wakeboarder spinning silly flips way up, and you may rest assured dear reader this trend continued for many generations, because it was a successful ass lineage.

title: Ass Lineage 550

question: Who is chasing Theroux?

answer: Bandits

question: Why are bandits chasing Theroux?

answer: He won a lot of money at a poker table

question: Who ended up finding Theroux?

answer: The ass

question: Who ended up with the money?

answer: The ass

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: Theroux wins a large sum of money from poker tables and is being chased by bandits. He manages to outrun them and walks down a quiet road. One of the bandits drunkenly rides his donkey on the same road. When the bandit realizes they are going the wrong way, he drives his spurs into the donkey, who drops the bandit. The donkey runs and ends up running down Theroux in cold blood, swallowing all of his money. The donkey lived freely after that, roaming around and dying happily.


text:
HOSSEIN OSMANI ( 28 September 1930 in Darvaleh-ye Pain, Kermanshah, Iran - 26 July 2016 in Banevreh, Kermanshah, Iran) also known as KHALO HOSSEIN KOHKAN () (in meaning Digging Mountain or Caveman) or FARHAD THE SECOND (, ) was an Iranian Kurd who left his village 21 years ago and started carving cliff rocks on a mountain near Banevreh City Of functions Paveh County in the Kermanshah province in Iran. He carved seven rooms in a rocky mountain, as well as his own grave. He was given the title of Farhad II, a fictional figure in the Iranian literature who agreed to carve a mountain after his love-rival, one of the Iranian kings, sends him on exile.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

[1] Hero of the KDPI Peshmerga, Hussein Koken, has died, Rudaw Media Network.

[2] Kurdish man hand-carved own home passes away, KurdPress News Agency.

[3] Kurdish Caveman Dies After 21 Years of Solitude, BasNews.

[4] حسین کوهکن یا فرهاد دوم کرمانشاه درگذشت, Voice of America (Persian).

[5] شاهکار خالو حسین کوهکن «فرهاد دوم، خالق حقیقتی شبیه افسانه‌ها در دل کوه‌های اورامانات», Radio Zamaneh (Persian).

[6] فرهاد کوهکن زمانه درگذشت/ پایان داستان خالق غار سنگی, Mehr News Agency (Persian).

[7] 6 Incredible Dark Tourism Sites in Iran to Visit on Your Next Tour, Destination Iran Website.

[8] Hussein Koken, Beloved Member of PDKI Passed Away , Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Website.

title: Hossein Kohkan

question: Who was Hossein Osmani?

answer: Hossein Osmani was an Iranian Kurd who carved a dwelling and his grave in cliff rocks.

question: Where did he carve the rooms?

answer: He carved the rooms in cliff rocks on a mountain in the Kermanshah province in Iran.

question: Why was he given the title of Farhad II?

answer: Farhad II was a fictional character in Iranian literature who agreed to carve a mountain after he was sent to exile.

question: How old was he when he died?

answer: 86

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Hossein Osmani was an Iranian Kurd who carved a dwelling and his grave in cliff rocks. He was given the title of Farhad II, who was a fictional character in Iranian literature who agreed to carve a mountain after he was sent to exile.


text:
Last checked: Nov 24th, 2020 |

Pawilony is the area of little bars at the back of Nowy Świat street. Only a small gate divides this place from the touristy Royal Route. It’s a perfect place to go before clubbing or to have a beer with an old friend. When I meet my friends we never talk about where we should go, we automatically come here. Sometimes it’s a big surprise for us, that we ended up in Pawilony without having planned it beforehand.

Every little bar of Pawilony is cozy and has got the same structure (2 floors, bar counter on the ground floor and toilets downstairs) but every single one’s a bit different. Precedens is fairy-like, Klaps is naughty and erotic, Femme Fatale’s downstairs looks like a tropical island. Beer costs around PLN 8 everywhere, but the cheapest one was always in Oranż (it’s worth ordering a pitcher of beer). In Klaps you can buy an interesting shot called “Ruska Heroina”(“Russian Heroine”) including absinthe and kahlua.

In each pub there are little inspiring details like a wallpaper of comics in a toilet in Pewex, a big fur orange in Oranż and a lot of cat figures in Kociarnia. For me the most charming is Klaps with its erotic gadgets: vibrators as door-handles and an entire wall decorated with casts of boobs used as lamps.

In Pawilony there is also one Chinese bar, 4 shisha bars, one general shop and a lamp shop (why not?)

💚 Offline Warsaw tips? 👉 Get our app for iPhone / Android

question: What is Pawilony?

answer: An area of little bars at the back of Nowy Świat street.

question: List some bars in Pawilony.

answer: Precedens, Klaps, Femme Fatale, Oranż, Pewex, Kociarnia.

question: How many bars in total are mentioned in the article?

answer: Eleven (six named bars, one Chinese bar, and four shisha bars)

question: What country is Pawilony located in?

answer: That information can't be found.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Pawilony, an area of little bars located at the back of Nowy Świat street. The bars are all cozy with a similar structure (2 floors, bar counter on the ground floor, and toilets downstairs). The one the author finds most charming is Klaps, which uses vibrators as door-handles and has a wall decorated with casts of breasts.


text:
_' John William “Jack” Chegwyn_' (18 March 1909 – 26 May 1992) was an Australian cricketer.[1][2] He played five first-class matches for New South Wales between 1940 and 1942.[3]

[1] Jack Chegwyn. espncricinfo.com

[2]

[3]

title: Jack Chegwyn

question: What was Jack Chegwyn's given first name?

answer: John.

question: When was he born?

answer: March 18, 1909.

question: What sport did he play?

answer: Cricket.

question: Where did he play?

answer: Australia.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: John William “Jack” Chegwyn' (18 March 1909 – 26 May 1992) was an Australian cricketer.


text: One beat of the human heart, on average, produces a combined systolic and disystolic force of 2.8 newtons.  Mt. Everest, the mightiest showing of the pure brute power of our Earth, is 6.4*10^15 kilograms, or more than 6 quintillograms.  If my heart wanted to move that mountain just one millimeter, one of the smallest differences noticeable by the human eye, it would have to produce more than 6 teranewtons.  If I lived one-hundred more years, and it spent every single one of those 2.8 newton heartbeats loving you, the force would be more than a million times to small.  I am very sorry, but my love for you cannot move mountains.

title: Math

question: How many newtons does one beat of the human heart produce?

answer: 2.8 Newtons

question: How many quintillograms is Mt. Everest?

answer: 6 quintillograms

question: What does the narrator conclude with?

answer: Saying his love cannot move mountains

question: How many teranewtons would it take to move Mt. Everest even just one millimeter?

answer: 6 teranewtons

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator describes the math it would take to move mountains in regards to the human heart, concluding in saying his love cannot move mountains.


text:
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Lawmaker Sue Peterson -- Facebook

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A South Dakota state representative will ask her colleagues to vote on a proposed law on Monday that will punish anyone replicating the state seal without its reference to God, and carries a possible fine and one year in jail.

As reported at the Friendly Atheist, Rep. Sue Peterson (R-Sioux Falls) has submitted House Bill 1102 that will, “… clarify certain provisions regarding the great seal of South Dakota and to establish a penalty for misrepresentation of the great seal.”

Specifically, Peterson is going after anyone who recreates the seal and drops the phrase, “Under God the people rule.”

Under the bill, failure to include the slogan would be classified as a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,000.

According to the report, Peterson’s bill enjoys bipartisan support with 86 Republicans and 13 Democrats signing on as co-sponsors.

Needless to say, the American Civil Liberties Union is keeping a close eye on possible passage of the bill.

“It’s not a road that’s constitutional and it’s not a road we want to go down,” Libby Skarin, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota said in a statement, reports the Argus Leader.

What brought about the far-reaching — and likely unconstitutional proposal — was when lawmakers noticed the seal on their state apparel did not include the state motto.

“I think it’s because the women’s prison does it for us and I think they just didn’t have the right piece,” Peterson told reporters. “I am aware that there have been misuses of the seal, there were some people who would cut it in half to take artistic license with it. It’s a branding issue and it (the seal) needs to be honored and respected.”

You can read more here at the Friendly Atheist.

Report typos and corrections to: [email protected].

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question: What is the punishment for misreplicating the Seal under the new law?

answer: Up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

question: What needs to be printed on the Seal under the new law?

answer: Under God the People Rule.

question: What State is this law being passed in?

answer: South Dakota.

question: What institution is concerned about the new law?

answer: The American Civil Liberties Union.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: A South Dakota legislator has introduced a law that requires the phrase "Under God the People Rule" to be printed on the State Seal, punishable by a fine. Atheist rights groups and the ACLU are concerned.


text:
As the Gate closed behind her, Oromis scream out, “No, Not Again, don’t leave me, please not again.” He slowly turned as he heard the sadistic chuckle of the Devour. “oh hero, it looks as if your done, broken, you have nothing left.” Oromis closed his eyes and through clecnhed teeth said, “ you’re a monster, you take everything, and gourge yourself on the pain and suffering that follows. You took everything from me. My Friends, MY FAMILY, EVEN MY HOME. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A DISEASED FILTH! And now you took the only thing from me that I lived for, I am going to kill you.” Then maniacally the Devour said, “you can try human.” Oromis lunged at the Devour and transformed in the air, slamming into his chest and knocking the Devour backwards. “You foolish boy,” screamed the Devour, “ You will die for this!” The Devour knocked Oromis over with ease and picked up his blackened sword.  “I will kill you boy.” Angered Oromis stood up and summoned Archfane still fresh with the blood of Lighthunter. Oromis struck fast, but the Devour parried every move Oromis made. Finally Devour struck Oromis in his side, and Oromis’ vision blurred. With the last once of effort he had oromis stabbed Archfane through The Devours heart. Stumbling backwards oromis watched as The Devour pulled Archfane from his chest and through it onto the ground. Laughing the Devour said, “You stupid, foolish boy, you can not kill me and now I am goi….” His sentence was struck short as the black shining ebony blade of Lighthunter cut through the Devour. “I learned something father. I do not have to serve you, I am my own person,” as the words escaped Lighthunters mouth you could see the draining of the Devour’s life. “Why my boy, why did you do this.”
“Because eyou are a monster, who murders and kills for fun.”
“You betrayed me son,” and with that the Devour dropped dead. Oromis crawled over to were Lighthunter layed dieing. “Thank you Oromis,” said Lighthunter as he layed dieing, “you showed me a better way… Thank you.”
“Thank you, Lighthunter, for your sacrifice,” and Lighthunter passed.

With Shaking steps Oromis approached the Gate. “Let me through, please let me see her, be with her… Let me please stay with her.”
“You do not know what your asking for, or the price in which that would cost.”
“Then I give you everything, my heritage, my abilities, my powers, make me human if you need to, just please let me be with her.
“You would give up all this? Everything you worked for? You culd be a hero in this universe.”
“I do not wish to be a hero, I only want her, just let me through.”
“Then I accept your price, you will live a happy, normal life, no powers, nothing, except a normal life with her.”
And with a flash Truth was gone.

title: This is part of the ending of a story I am working on.

question: Who is the protagonist?

answer: The protagonist is man a named Oromis.

question: What is the relationship between Oromis and the Devour?

answer: Father and son (the Devour is Oromis's father).

question: What lies beyong the Gate?

answer: A woman that Oromis wants to be with waits beyond the Gate, as does a normal life without powers.

question: Describe the speech Oromis gives.

answer: Oromis delares that the Devour is a monster who has taken everything from him. He swears that he is going to kill the Devour.

question: What is Archfane?

answer: Archfane is implied to be some sort of bladed weapon.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Oromis declares that he is going to kill his father, the Devour. The two of them fight, and Oromis manages to kill the Devour with Lighthunter's help. Oromis then approaches the Gate and asks to be let through so he can be with a certain woman. He passes through, in exchange losing his powers and having to live a normal life.


text:
_OIDHCHE SHEANCHAIS_ (, “A Night of Storytelling”; variously given as _The Storyteller, The Story Teller, Storyteller's Night, Night of Story-telling_) is a 1935 Irish film directed by Robert J. Flaherty. It was produced during the sound recording session for his more famous docufiction film _Man of Aran_ in London, and is notable as the first Irish language sync sound film.[1][2][3]

Production

_Oidhche Sheanchais_ was filmed at Gaumont Studios.[4]

Plot

Four islanders (the actual cast of _Man of Aran_) gather around the hearth to hear island seanchaí Seáinín Tom Ó Dioráin tell a traditional story.

Loss and rediscovery

The film opened in a small number of cinemas in Dublin and Cork on St. Patrick's Day in 1935.[5] The press reaction was generally favourable with reviewers impressed by the seanchaí's performance. A critic from _The Irish Times_ praised the film, although he did not understand Irish. But the public's reaction was one of apathy and it was withdrawn from general release after a week or two.[6]

A fire was believed to have destroyed all copies in 1943, but a nitrate distribution print was re-cataloged in 2012 in Harvard University's Houghton Library and soon pointed out by researchers. A restored 35 mm version was premiered in 2015.[7]

This version is only 11 minutes in length. Other records of a 20-minute version featuring exterior shots of the cottage appear to have been erroneous.

In November 2016, the film received its first ever television broadcast on TG4, Ireland's national language station. It was preceded by a 38 minute documentary called _Oíche Chaillte an tSeanchaí (The Lost Night of the Storyteller)_. Directed by Kieran Concannon, this gave the background story of _Oidhche Sheanchais_.[8][9]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5] Seáinín Tom Sheáin, pp. 109.

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

title: Oidhche Sheanchais

question: Who directed Oidche Sheanchais (A Night of Storytelling)?

answer: Robert J. Flaherty.

question: What is unique about Oidche Sheanchais (A Night of Storytelling)?

answer: It has the first Irish language sync sound film.

question: What happened to the film in 1943?

answer: A fire was believed to have destroyed all the film copies.

question: Where did the film receive its first-ever television broadcast?

answer: It was first broadcasted on TG4, Ireland's national lauguage television.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
Oidche Sheanchais (A Night of Storytelling) is the first-ever film to utilize an Irish sync sound. The film received critical praise when it was released in 1935.

Around 1943, it was believed that a fire had destroyed all the copies of the film. However, a copy was discovered in 2012 in Havard University's Houghton Library. In November 2016, TG4 (Ireland's national language station) broadcasted Oidche Sheanchais in a first-ever showing of the film on TV.