November 3, 2020 Across the United States voters took to the ballot box with COVID-19 precautions in place. Voting lines were longer than usual for a few reasons: firstly, social distancing meant that the lines would be extended by 6 ft per person, secondly, the COVID-19 response in the US had polarized an already polar nation split along the lines of emergency and hoax, at-risk and not at risk. Thirdly, fears that mail-in ballots would not be counted only extended the lines further than usual. This meant populous cities had to create more polling places with emergency haste right before the election to create more room to alleviate voter overload and fears of spread/their votes mattering less than they already do. It was expected that with the high-stakes election of a potential second term for President Trump, that turn out would be much higher anyways. Those who could afford to take vacation time to line up much earlier than normal, in working families where this was not possible they mailed in their ballots and hoped for the best. Ultimately, despite former concerns, the US Postal Service had no intention of delaying ballots any longer than the normal mail service already takes. Some states with toss-up and mail-in concerns set up a ballot counting notification system, like Arizona that informs the voters that their ballot was received, the vote was counted and who the votes were cast for via text or email which is selective for registration upon receiving the mail-in ballot. In the Senate, 35 seats were up for election, and in the House- the entire place was open for election as usual. Despite concerns around social distancing and mail-in ballots, the election went forward as expected. Rural and hardline Republican areas saw little to no social distancing or mask-wearing, while those more conscious in the cities saw compliance with mask and distancing regulations irrespective of political leanings. With around 171,000 dead from the virus, and spread still occurring as the nation plans to implement vaccine distribution of the Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines, while an end may be in sight- at what cost. The American people have not so quickly forgotten the actions or inactions of their leaders, and have planned to vote accordingly. President Trump and Vice President Pence watched the election results on Fox News from their “headquarters” at the White House while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris watched from a private suite at their headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the early hours of the night, as expected, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee were awarded to President Trump. Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, and New Jersey was awarded to Biden. One of the former states won by President Trump, Pennsylvania, was soon to follow by solidifying its position as a Biden state, with Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, the following suit. In this time, President Trump swept the American South, with Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas falling in line with the President. Virginia and North Carolina were called for Biden, while President Trump called in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The election seemed decidedly Trump, while Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio were too close to call. Unsurprisingly, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and California made their unsurprising declaration as Democratic voting states, followed by Oregon and Washington State. Alaska called Republican while Hawaii was decidedly Democrat. By the end of the night Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio were too close to call, by 2:00 AM EST, Ohio was called Republican, followed by Wisconsin, and Florida by 4:00 AM. President Trump declared he was victorious, and Biden prepared his concession speech while Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Arizona were still left in play. In the middle of Trump’s victory speech at the White House, he was briefly interrupted by Vice President Pence, where he was informed that Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois had flipped democrat by a few thousand votes that were previously led by Republican voters, and all eyes remained on Arizona. President Trump decided to continue his victory speech despite having only 243 electoral votes, and only a few moments later was informed that Arizona had flipped Democrat- the first time since Bill Clinton’s election in 1996. In the span of 10 minutes, the election had completely changed course from what was seen early in the night as a Trump wave, and Biden was confirmed as the President-elect securing 295 electoral votes to Trump’s 243. President Trump lost key states that he formerly won like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania- also states that were surprisingly Republican at the time. Arizona, which was a toss-up state in 2016, had flipped blue after horrendous COVID-19 management citing lack of confidence in Governor Doug Ducey, and appointed Senator Martha McSally. North Carolina made a surprising call for the Democratic Party, which was also formerly Republican voting in 2016. Trump stopped speaking once he received word, and turned to Pence:
“Are you serious? We have already begun, there must be a mistake.”
Pence shook his head and stepped back, while the President was live on the air at his podium in front of the White House with the entire nation watching him. He looked off to the side as if he was thinking, and looked back up to the camera a moment later.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have received reports that there is evidence of voter fraud in Arizona related to mail-in ballots, as well as Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina. We will be holding a recount of the votes cast before the election is called, but it appears that Sleepy Joe and his team have been casting votes for hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been dead for decades, and that doesn’t even include the illegals voting in Arizona. I do not believe we can respect the outcome of a rigged election, do you? We have worked hard for four years to be outplayed by Sleepy Joe? No one believes it!”
Biden posted up at his podium while Trump was in the middle of deciding what he should do. What was expected to be a concession speech, turned into a bright celebration with fireworks and wild cheers from his supporters. He raised both of his fists in the air,
“We did it, folks! It took four years! Democracy is coming back to America, everywhere! The heartland, the rust belt, the.. the... rich communities and black communities too. We did this united, as a team, we finally stood up and said no to Trump, and no to malarkey, this is our time! As we speak, Trump is frozen at his podium and won’t accept the outcome of the election, just as we predicted, he will not accept that America has outlasted the need for Trump-era racism and politics. I am ready, as the elected leader of the free world, alongside Ms. Harris, to bring the heart and soul back into this country that Trump took out of it. We will return back to being reasonable, and respectable, a leadership that America desperately needs after being misguided for four years and lied to. It is time to trust your leaders again, and stop the lying! I want to thank all of you for letting reason, respect, and democracy win in this country. To be honest, I was very unprepared to give a victory speech tonight, as just a few moments ago, I thought that Trump had been re-elected, so I apologize if I seem unprepared, but I really wanted to thank the hardworking men and women on our team and in this country for their confidence, and I will do my absolute best to represent the best of this country. Congratulations, everyone!”
A very furious President Trump took to Twitter to address the nation after leaving the podium without saying anything more.
“I spoke to Ratcliffe, the BEST and MOST SKILLED, and he has EVIDENCE!”
“We will be watching these recounts CLOSELY, WE KNOW THE REAL WINNER!”
“CHINA ELECTED BIDEN, NOT AMERICA!”
Within several weeks, in a call-back to the Bush v. Gore election, the election results went to the Supreme Court. Democrats were very concerned about what the outcome might be, but the recount votes were upheld as the deviations were not significant and were not influential to the overall result of the election and confirmed Joe Biden as the victor in the election. This was significantly helped by the fact Biden and his team was not as willing to back down as Al Gore was in 2000, and stuck to the message that they had won. So had President Trump, however, there were clear results, and the Supreme Court, mostly Trump appointed, was willing to accept Biden as a victor. It was time to hang up the red hat, and Trump, rather than admitting defeat, silently was prepared to embrace the transition and deflected all questions regarding conceding defeat. He released a cryptic Tweet that was the closest thing to his vocal admission of concession:
“Back to 4 YEARS OF HELL, UNBELIEVABLE!”
Most of the nation was satisfied, knowing Trump would hold on to his pride at all costs, while all silently accepting the results with the expected KAG protests and Antifa and BLM protests that persisted to around Christmas time. Electoral Map
R: 6 D: 1 Newcomers: Jerry Carl (R), Barry Moore (R) Alaska
At-Large: Don Young (R)
R: 1 Arizona
1: Tom O’Halleran (D)
2: Ann Kirkpatrick (D)
3: Raul Grijalva (D)
4: Paul Gosar (R)
5: Andy Biggs (R)
6: Hiral Tipirneni (D)
7: Ruben Gallego (D)
8: Debbie Lesko (R)
9: Greg Stanton (D)
R: 3 D: 6 Newcomers: Hiral Tipirneni (D) Arkansas
1: Rick Crawford (R)
2: French Hill (R)
3: Steve Womack (R)
4: Bruce Westerman (R)
R: 4 California
1: Doug LaMalfa (R)
2: Jared Huffman (D)
3: Tamika Hamilton (R)
4: Tom McClintock (R)
5: Mike Thompson (D)
6: Doris Matsui (D)
7: Ami Bera (D)
8: Jay Obernolte (R)
9: Jerry McNerney (D)
10: Josh Harder (D)
11: Mark DeSaulnier (D)
12: Nancy Pelosi (D)
13: Barbara Lee (D)
14: Jackie Speier (D)
15: Eric Swalwell (D)
16: Jim Costa (D)
17: Ro Khanna (D)
18: Anna Eshoo (D)
19: Zoe Lofgren (D)
20: Jimmy Panetta (D)
21: David Valadao (R)
22: Devin Nunes (R)
23: Kevin McCarthy (R)
24: Salud Carbajal (D)
25: Christy Smith (D)
26: Julia Brownley (D)
27: Judy Chu (D)
28: Adam Schiff (D)
29: Tony Cardenas (D)
30: Brad Sherman (D)
31: Pete Aguilar (D)
32: Grace Napolitano (D)
33: Ted Lieu (D)
34: Jimmy Gomez (D)
35: Norma Torres (D)
36: Erin Cruz (R)
37: Karen Bass (D)
38: Linda Sanchez (D)
39: Young Kim (R)
40: Lucille Roybal-Allard (D)
41: Mark Takano (D)
42: Liam O’Mara (D)
43: Maxine Waters (D)
44: Nanette Barragan (D)
45: Greg Raths (R)
46: Lou Correa (D)
47: Alan Lowenthal (D)
48: Michelle Steel (R)
49: Brian Mayott (R)
50: Darrell Issa (R)
51: Juan Vargas (D)
52: Scott Peters (D)
53: Sara Jacobs (D)
R: 13 D: 40 Newcomers: Tamika Hamilton (R), Jay Obernolte (R), David Valadao (R), Christy Smith (D), Erin Cruz (R), Young Kim (R), Liam O’Mara (D), Greg Raths (R), Michelle Steel (R), Brian Mayott (R), Darrell Issa (R), Sara Jacobs (D) Colorado
R: 13 D: 14 Newcomers: Kat Cammack (R), Alan Cohn (D), Pam Keith (D), Bryon Donalds (R), Maria Elvira Salazar (R) Georgia
1: Buddy Carter (R)
2: Sandford Bishop (D)
3: Drew Ferguson (R)
4: Hank Johnson (D)
5: Nikema Williams (D)
6: Karen Handel (R)
7: Rob Woodall (R)
8: Austin Scott (R)
9: Doug Collins (R)
10: Jody Hice (R)
11: Barry Loudermilk (R)
12: Rick Allen (R)
13: David Scott (D)
14: Marjorie Taylor Greene (R)
R: 10 D: 4 Newcomers: Nikema Williams (D), Karen Handel (R), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) Hawaii * 1: Ed Case (D) * 2: Kai Kahele (D) D: 2 Newcomers: Kai Kahele (D) Idaho
1: Russ Fulcher (R)
2: Mike Simpson (R)
R: 2 Illinois
1: Bobby Rush (D)
2: Robin Kelly (D)
3: Marie Newman (D)
4: Chuy Garcia (D)
5: Mike Quigley (D)
6: Sean Casten (D)
7: Danny Davis (D)
8: Raja Krishnamoorthi (D)
9: Jan Schakowsky (D)
10: Brad Schneider (D)
11: Bill Foster (D)
12: Mike Bost (R)
13: Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (D)
14: Lauren Underwood (D)
15: Mary Miller (R)
16: Adam Kinzinger (R)
17: Cheri Bustos (D)
18: Darin LaHood (R)
R: 4 D: 14 Newcomers: Marie Newman (D), Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (D), Mary Miller (R) Indiana
1: Frank J. Mrvan (D)
2: Jackie Walorski (R)
3: Jim Banks (R)
4: Jim Baird (R)
5: Victoria Spartz (R)
6: Greg Pence (R)
7: Andre Carson (D)
8: Larry Buchson (R)
9: Trey Hollingsworth (R)
R: 7 D: 2 Newcomers: Frank J. Mrvan (D), Victoria Spartz (R) Iowa
R: 2 D: 10 Newcomers: Amy Kennedy (D), Frank Pallotta (R) New Mexico
1: Deb Haaland (D)
2: Yvette Herrell (R)
3: Teresa Leger Fernandez (D)
R: 1 D: 2 Newcomers: Yvette Herrell (R), Teresa Leger Fernandez (D) New York
1: Lee Zeldin (R)
2: Andrew Garbarino (R)
3: Tom Suozzi (D)
4: Kathleen Rice (D)
5: Gregory Meeks (D)
6: Grace Meng (D)
7: Nydia Velazquez (D)
8: Hakeem Jeffries (D)
9: Yvette Clarke (D)
10: Jerry Nadler (D)
11: Max Rose (D)
12: Carolyn Maloney (D)
13: Adriano Espaillat (D)
14: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)
15: Ritchie Torres (D)
16: Jamaal Bowman (D)
17: Mondaire Jones (D)
18: Sean Patrick Maloney (D)
19: Kyle Van Der Water (R)
20: Paul Tonko (D)
21: Elsie Stefanik (R)
22: Anthony Brindisi (R)
23: Tom Reed (R)
24: Dana Balter (D)
25: Joseph Morelle (D)
26: Brian Higgins (D)
27: Chris Jacobs (R)
R: 7 D: 20 Newcomers: Andrew Garbarino (R), Ritchie Torres (D), Jamaal Bowman (D), Mondaire Jones (D), Kyle Van Der Water (R), Dana Balter (D) North Carolina
1: G.K. Butterfield (D)
2: Deborah Ross (D)
3: Greg Murphy (R)
4: David Price (D)
5: Virginia Foxx (R)
6: Kathy Manning (D)
7: David Rouzer (R)
8: Richard Hudson (R)
9: Dan Bishop (R)
10: Patrick McHenry (R)
11: Madison Cawthorn (R)
12: Alma Adams (D)
13: Ted Budd (R)
R: 8 D: 5 Newcomers: Deborah Ross (D), Kathy Manning (D), Madison Cawthorn (R) North Dakota
R: 10 D: 8 Newcomers: Christina Finello (D), Lisa Scheller (R), Jim Bognet (R) Rhode Island
1: David Cicilline (D)
2: Jim Langevin (D)
D: 2 South Carolina
1: Nancy Mace (R)
2: Joe Wilson (R)
3: Jeff Duncan (R)
4: William Timmons (R)
5: Ralph Norman (R)
6: Jim Clyburn (D)
7: Tom Rice (R)
R: 6 D: 1 Newcomers: Nancy Mace (R) South Dakota
At-Large: Dusty Johnson (R)
R: 1 Tennessee
1: Diana Harshbarger (R)
2: Tim Burchett (R)
3: Chuck Fleischmann (R)
4: Scott DesJarlais (R)
5: Jim Cooper (D)
6: John Rose (R)
7: Mark Green (R)
8: David Kustoff (R)
9: Steve Cohen (D)
R: 7 D: 2 Newcomers: Diana Harshbarger (R) Texas
1: Louie Gohmert (R)
2: Dan Crenshaw (R)
3: Van Taylor (R)
4: Pat Fallon (R)
5: Lance Gooden (R)
6: Ron Wright (R)
7: Shawn Kelly (L)
8: Kevin Brady (R)
9: Al Green (D)
10: Michael McCaul (R)
11: August Pfluger (R)
12: Kay Granger (R)
13: Ronny Jackson (R)
14: Randy Weber (R)
15: Vincente Gonzalez (D)
16: Veronica Escobar (D)
17: Pete Sessions (R)
18: Shelia Jackson Lee (D)
19: Jodey Arrington (R)
20: Joaquin Castro (D)
21: Chip Roy (R)
22: Troy Nehls (R)
23: Gina Ortiz Jones (D)
24: Beth Van Duyne (R)
25: Roger Williams (R)
26: Michael Burgess (R)
27: Michael Cloud (R)
28: Henry Cuellar (D)
29: Sylvia Garcia (D)
30: Eddie Bernice Johnson (D)
31: John Carter (R)
32: Colin Allred (R)
33: Marc Veasey (D)
34: Filemon Vela Jr. (D)
35: Lloyd Doggett (D)
36: Brian Babin (R)
R: 23 D: 12 L: 1 Newcomers: Pat Fallon (R), Shawn Kelly (L), August Pfluger (R), Ronny Jackson (R), Pete Sessions (R), Troy Nehls (R), Gina Ortiz Jones (D), Beth Van Duyne (R) Utah
1: Blake Moore (R)
2: Chris Stewart (R)
3: John Curtis (R)
4: Burgess Owens (R)
R: 4 Newcomers: Blake Moore (R), Burgess Owens (R) Vermont
Notes Elizabeth Warren - Former Presidential candidate with extensive experience on the Congressional Oversight Panel, and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A natural selection for the role due to her experience in finance, securities, and the banking sector in Congress. Michael Bloomberg - Former Presidential candidate, with a background with philanthropy, and wall-street; he symbolizes President Biden’s ties to big-business and commitment to Wall-Street executives. Andrew Cuomo - Governor of New York who took a leading role in the nation to drive the country out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and led the push towards virtual learning, while also having experience with gun legislation for schools making him a preferred selection for the Secretary of Education. Tulsi Gabbard - A Major in the United States Army who has stepped down to take her position as Secretary of Defense. A reminder to Americans that Hawaii is just as important to the US as all the contiguous 48 states. While she and Biden disagree on issues of intervention, she will be the devil’s advocate to offer alternate opinions on intervention, which allows Biden to know that if the Secretary of Defense recommends action, Gabbard has likely considered it deeply. Judy Chu - Relations with China have bottomed out under the Trump Administration, and it is time to get back in the saddle to deal with them. There will be no better mutual understanding than employing an American politician with Chinese abilities and family to understand their culture and give insight into their negotiation strategies. Biden hopes that Chu will help the United States restore its relationship with the People’s Republic of China, but be sure to not allow China to get a better deal. Raul Grijalva - Bringing in Arizona to the democrat fold was not an easy task, but now that they have come over, there needs to be incentive to stay. Grijalva has been around for some time and has experience with the House Natural Resources Committee, he would be great to keep around. Michelle Lujan Grisham - The Governor of New Mexico and a former member of the Hispanic caucus. Trump destroyed relations with the Hispanic community, and Biden needs a strong team of cabinet members to keep him focused on restoring relations with them and solving the issues that impact them directly. Sharice Davids - A Native American representative would be very symbolic if placed into the position of Secretary of the Interior. The Dakota Access pipeline fiasco did not do the American Government any favors, and the mistreatment of the Navajo Nation during the COVID-19 pandemic is certainly leaving the native community feeling isolated, it is important that their interests are not forgotten, but also represented on a federal level. Cory Booker - A former Presidential candidate and an African American Senator who is vocal about the criminal justice system and mending the racial disparities in the country. Having Booker in the AG position would be very interesting to see what ideas he can generate to reform and improve our current systems. Raja Krishnamoorthi - Time for another Indian-American for the cabinet. Krishnamoorthi’s extensive experience in the House Oversight Committee has aligned his work with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Biden hopes that he will excel in this role and his membership to the Cabinet alongside VP Harris will forge a pathway to mend and progress American-Indian Relations. John Kerry - After a wild career with President Obama as Secretary of State and also a Naval career, Kerry isn’t likely wanting any big or spotlight position. However, Biden’s experience with Kerry has called him back to the White House, but this time for his Naval experience for the Secretary of Veteran Affairs. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Biden was very cautious to give a platform to AOC since she is known to be outspoken, and much further left than Biden is himself. She has called out to abolish ICE, and has set Medicare for All as an important platform, while Biden doesn’t really support these things, she is vocal about the Green New Deal- having a part in the authorship. Biden thinks the Green New Deal is a step too far, but appointing something with thoughts in the correct direction to the EPA would be a strong signal to the country that it is time to get serious about the problems we are facing. Biden knows AOC will be able to get the job done, while not always seeing eye-to-eye. Anthony Fauci - The perfect thing about Dr. Fauci, is that he isn’t a politician, he is here to do his job and do it well, and save lives along the way. Biden doesn’t need a politician to make decisions about the direction of the nation during a health crisis, he needs an expert. While Fauci is more advanced in his years, he will be asked to seek out a successor to his role at the NIAID that he feels is the most qualified for the job, before finishing out his career in a role that suits the spotlight necessary for federal management of emergencies. Stephanie Murphy - A Vietnamese-American who supports Presidential war powers, she is fluent in Vietnamese and would be very helpful to East-Asian relations, specifically with Vietnam. She formerly worked in the DoD as a national security specialist, which makes her fit for the role. Charles Djou - An independent politician of Thai descent who has military experience. Biden hopes he will take a very neutral approach to address the US domestic security concerns to provide resolutions that both sides will appreciate. Elon Musk - Immigrants often represent the best of the United States by using uncommon solutions for uncommon problems. Biden has long supported an HSR system for the United States, and Musk might be the only one with enough balls to do something about it. With the funding of the United States at his back, the benefit might be worth giving his idiocy a platform. However, it would of course mean he will have to separate from his company, at least temporarily. Ed Bastian - The CEO of Delta Airlines, one of the US forefront passenger airline services. Bastian wasted no time by providing alternatives and coping with change faced during the epidemic and is renowned by his employees as a respectable and thoughtful leader. Scott D. Berrier - Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Deputy Chief of Staff to INSCOM. The US needs someone that gathers accurate and precise intelligence, with the most qualified professional out there. If a government needs overthrowing, a leader needs assassinating, a military man in the CIA will get the job done. Hugh Grant - CEO of Monsanto prior to Bayer acquisition, he knows his stuff. Pete Buttigieg - Biden didn’t really have the choice of ignoring Pete, he is sometimes useful, but needs to be kept at an arm’s length. Housing and Urban Development is a great way to respect Pete, but make him irrelevant. Earl Blumenauer - Member of the Ways and Means Committee representing Oregon. He looks like the stereotypical nice grandfather, but his background on the committee tells us he means business, and when supplemented with other cabinet members, will make an effective team member in trade negotiations and be able to lead the discussions on a warm, and friendly foot. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis - He had some choice words to say about President Trump and his foreign policy, but is apolitical as a military man should be. Biden would like to give the Mad Dog a better understanding of how the White House should respect the country and its members, but needs Mattis’ military discipline, time management, and efficiency to keep the cabinet and government in line. There is nothing wrong with having a respectable man who is well versed in foreign policy, and believes in the unity of the American people on your side. Biden hopes that this will give Mattis a better experience and help restore some trust in the country he dedicated his life to.
Hallo liebe de Community! Ich suche gerade weißes quadratisches Papier um Spielbretter prototypenhaft umzusetzen. Dafür benötige ich aus Kostengründen einfaches Papier, ähnlich dem Papier in einem DIN A4 Papierblock (die Stärke ist erstmal variabel). Im Internet finde ich nur Origamipapier mit einer Größe von ~12x12cm. Für ein Spielbrett mit einer realistischen Größe benötige ich allerdings Papier in der Größenordnung ~20x20cm (die Blätter werden je 4 zusammen geklebt). Die DIN A4 Beschreibung auf Wikipedia sagt leider nichts über quadratisches Papier aus und Google bietet mir immer nur Origamipapier an. Daher nun der Versuch mit Hilfe unserer Schwarmintelligenz diese Fragen zu beantworten:
Gibt es ein (DIN) genormtes quadratisches Papierformat und wie heißt dieses?
Gibt es andere Begriffe, mit denen man im Handel (online und lokal) nach solch einem Papierformat suchen/fragen kann?
Edit: 1. Es gibt kein DIN genormtes quadratisches Papier, da DIN A nur für rechteckige Formate gilt. 2. (a) Die Suche nach "21x21cm papier weiß" liefert ein Papierformat, welches in Menge zu erhalten ist. 2. (b) Es gibt auch 20x20cm Origamipapier. Danke fürs Mitdenken.
The Top 500 most influential people of all-time according to Pantheon
Pantheon is a site by MIT that uses Wikipedia pages to create a formula to determine an individuals historical significance. The site has ranked over 70,000 people. Here is a page detailing how the formula works
Here are the top 500 People of all-time
500: Deng Xiaoping 499: Johan Cruyff 498: Pope Gregory I 497: Marquis de Sade 496: Stan Lee 495: Mark Antony 494: Rabindranath Tagore 493: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria 492: Henri Becquerel 491: Bayezid II 490: William Wallace 489: James Joyce 488: Morgan Freeman 487: Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden 486: Wallis Simpson 485: Stefan Zweig 484: Al-Ghazali 483: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 482: Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor 481: Akbar 480: Abdul Hamid II 479: Pierre de Fermat 478: Origen 477: Jan van Eyck 476: Uthman 475: Kösem Sultan 474: Benedict of Nursia 473: Michel de Montaigne 472: Pope Clement VII 471: Josef Mengele 470: Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 469: Gabriel García Márquez 468: Al-Farabi 467: Umberto Eco 466: John Wilkes Booth 465: Amenhotep III 464: Kim Jong-il 463: Pol Pot 462: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 461: Elizabeth Báthory 460: Janis Joplin 459: Marlon Brando 458: Vespasian 457: Sappho 456: Pope Alexander VI 455: Adolf Eichmann 454: Angela Merkel 453: Isaac 452: Igor Stravinsky 451: Philip IV of France 450: Auguste Rodin 449: Hermann Göring 448: Mehmed III 447: Al Pacino 446: Ernest Rutherford 445: Francis Drake 444: Fibonacci 443: Ingmar Bergman 442: Ruhollah Khomeini 441: Husayn ibn Ali 440: Anne Boleyn 439: Claudius 438: Gustave Eiffel 437: Maria Montessori 436: Gian Lorenzo Bernini 435: Bartholomew the Apostle 434: Bertrand Russell 433: Eugène Delacroix 432: Murad I 431: Stanley Kubrick 430: Martin Luther King Jr. 429: Howard Hughes 428: Hokusai 427: Ignatius of Loyola 426: 14th Dalai Lama 425: Cardinal Richelieu 424: Jonah 423: Muammar Gaddafi 422: Michel Foucault 421: Friedrich Schiller 420: Pope Pius XII 419: Marlene Dietrich 418: Matsuo Bashō 417: Piet Mondrian 416: Guglielmo Marconi 415: Pope John Paul I 414: Wassily Kandinsky 413: Lord Byron 412: Louis XIII of France 411: Pierre Curie 410: Thomas More 409: Ludwig Wittgenstein 408: André-Marie Ampère 407: Grigori Rasputin 406: Xerxes I 405: Charles Baudelaire 404: Thucydides 403: James Clerk Maxwell 402: Jane Austen 401: Pope Paul VI 400: Isabella I of Castile 399: Zheng He 398: Brigitte Bardot 397: Pierre-Auguste Renoir 396: Clint Eastwood 395: Osman I 394: Émile Durkheim 393: Wilhelm II, German Emperor 392: Giacomo Casanova 391: Florence Nightingale 390: Galen 389: Auguste Comte 388: Pope Benedict XVI 387: Bayezid I 386: Édouard Manet 385: Euripides 384: Plutarch 383: Pope John XXIII 382: Denis Diderot 381: Pepin the Short 380: Democritus 379: Pablo Escobar 378: Skanderbeg 377: Anthony of Padua 376: Simone de Beauvoir 375: Diogenes 374: Erwin Rommel 373: Aristophanes 372: Philip II of Spain 371: John the Apostle 370: Herod the Great 369: Tiberius 368: Henry Dunant 367: Rajneesh 366: Sun Tzu 365: Catherine de' Medici 364: Ivan Pavlov 363: Theodosius I 362: Abu Bakr 361: Charles Martel 360: Paracelsus 359: Henry Ford 358: Leonid Brezhnev 357: Boris Yeltsin 356: Émile Zola 355: Murad III 354: Carl Jung 353: Darius the Great 352: Antonín Dvořák 351: Edvard Grieg 350: Yasser Arafat 349: Ashoka 348: Cher 347: Mary I of England 346: Max Planck 345: David Hume 344: Audrey Hepburn 343: F. Scott Fitzgerald 342: Eratosthenes 341: Hieronymus Bosch 340: Daniel Defoe 339: Alexander Fleming 338: Ibn Khaldun 337: Giacomo Puccini 336: Michael Jackson 335: Karl Benz 334: Niels Bohr 333: Hypatia 332: Hadrian 331: Martin Heidegger 330: Mimar Sinan 329: Édith Piaf 328: Murad IV 327: Lorenzo de' Medici 326: Rumi 325: Alexander Graham Bell 324: Chiang Kai-shek 323: Thomas Mann 322: Oscar Wilde 321: Philip II of Macedon 320: Hermann Hesse 319: Bartolomeu Dias 318: Søren Kierkegaard 317: Aeschylus 316: El Greco 315: John Maynard Keynes 314: Ibn Battuta 313: Arthur Conan Doyle 312: Astrid Lindgren 311: Akihito 310: James, son of Zebedee 309: George Orwell 308: Pieter Bruegel the Elder 307: Donatello 306: Alain Delon 305: Henry IV of France 304: Ahmed I 303: Louis XV of France 302: Antoine Lavoisier 301: Henrik Ibsen 300: Heinrich Himmler 299: Alessandro Volta 298: Walt Disney 297: Franklin D. Roosevelt 296: Diocletian 295: Gregor Mendel 294: Niccolò Paganini 293: Saint Nicholas 292: Marcel Proust 291: Nebuchadnezzar II 290: Gustav Klimt 289: Margaret Thatcher 288: Hirohito 287: Alfred Hitchcock 286: Averroes 285: Stendhal 284: Mary II of England 283: Alan Turing 282: Napoleon III 281: Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor 280: Vladimir Putin 279: Laozi 278: Titian 277: Coco Chanel 276: John Lennon 275: Empress Elisabeth of Austria 274: Henri Matisse 273: Robert Schumann 272: Mother Teresa 271: Andrew the Apostle 270: Giuseppe Garibaldi 269: Hernán Cortés 268: Benjamin Franklin 267: Paul Cézanne 266: Horace 265: Mehmed the Conqueror 264: Pontius Pilate 263: Miguel de Cervantes 262: Ali 261: George Wahsington 260: Richard I of England 259: Giovanni Boccaccio 258: Jan Hus 257: Matthew the Apostle 256: Ivan the Terrible 255: Henry Kissinger 254: Karl Lagerfeld 253: Bruce Lee 252: Kim Il-sung 251: Rosa Luxemburg 250: Selim I 249: Omar Khayyam 248: Johannes Brahms 247: Francisco Franco 246: Trajan 245: Nicholas II of Russia 244: Neil Armstrong 243: Friedrich Engels 242: Alexandre Dumas 241: Alexander Pushkin 240: James K. Polk 239: Nicolae Ceaușescu 238: Saddam Hussein 237: Agatha Christie 236: Thales of Miletus 235: John Calvin 234: Gustav Mahler 233: Franz Liszt 232: Justinian I 231: Hammurabi 230: Erasmus 229: Saint Joseph 228: Mark Twain 227: Selim II 226: Steven Spielberg 225: Diego Velázquez 224: Malcolm X 223: Nikita Khrushchev 222: Charles Dickens 221: Pericles 220: Franz Joseph I of Austria 219: Paul Gauguin 218: Sandro Botticelli 217: James Cook 216: Mary, Queen of Scots 215: Henry VIII of England 214: Ptolemy 213: Pocahontas 212: Spartacus 211: Anne Frank 210: Elvis Presley 209: John F. Kennedy 208: Johannes Vermeer 207: Petrarch 206: Amerigo Vespucci 205: Roald Amundsen 204: Hillary Clinton 203: Marcus Aurelius 202: Akhenaten 201: Albert Camus 200: Heraclitus 199: Josip Broz Tito 198: Ovid 197: Le Corbusier 196: Martin Van Buren 195: Ernest Hemingway 194: Edvard Munch 193: Caligula 192: Marie Antoinette 191: Michael Faraday 190: Freddie Mercury 189: Arthur Schopenhauer 188: Charles de Gaulle 187: Catherine the Great 186: Huang Xianfan 185: Ramesses II 184: Fidel Castro 183: Leon Trotsky 182: Thomas Hobbes 181: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 180: Aesop 179: Bob Marley 178: Max Weber 177: Peter the Great 176: Sophocles 175: Leonhard Euler 174: Vlad the Impaler 173: Honoré de Balzac 172: Francisco Goya 171: Hurrem Sultan 170: Epicurus 169: Louis XVI of France 168: Aaron 167: Montesquieu 166: Antoni Gaudí 165: Elijah 164: Ronald Reagan 163: Dmitri Mendeleev 162: Caravaggio 161: George Frideric Handel 160: Qin Shi Huang 159: Sylvester Stallone 158: Judas Iscariot 157: Seneca the Younger 156: Mary Magdalene 155: Commodus 154: Pelé 153: Anton Chekhov 152: Jean-Paul Sartre 151: Francis of Assisi 150: Jacob 149: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 148: Nostradamus 147: Richard III of England 146: Maria Theresa 145: Umar 144: Jack the Ripper 143: Queen Victoria 142: Nefertiti 141: Saint George 140: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 139: Yuri Gagarin 138: Franz Schubert 137: Mikhail Gorbachev 136: Joseph 135: Giordano Bruno 134: Jules Verne 133: James Watt 132: Joseph Haydn 131: Claude Monet 130: Peter Paul Rubens 129: Nero 128: Baruch Spinoza 127: Stephen Hawking 126: Louis Pasteur 125: Pope John Paul II 124: Euclid 123: Marilyn Monroe 122: Virgil 121: Richard Wagner 120: John Locke 119: Abraham Lincoln 118: Winston Churchill 117: Giuseppe Verdi 116: Thomas Aquinas 115: Albrecht Dürer 114: Cicero 113: Frida Kahlo 112: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 111: Attila 110: Mao Zedong 109: Edgar Allan Poe 108: Johannes Kepler 107: Carl Friedrich Gauss 106: Otto von Bismarck 105: Constantine the Great 104: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 103: Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi 102: Suleiman the Magnificent 101: Molière 100: Zoroaster 99: Francis Bacon 98: Benito Mussolini 97: Hannibal 96: Leo Tolstoy 95: Alfred Nobel 94: Hippocrates 93: Franz Kafka 92: Blaise Pascal 91: Augustine of Hippo 90: Herodotus 89: David 88: Solomon 87: Cleopatra 86: Victor Hugo 85: Muhammad Ali 84: John the Baptist 83: Carl Linnaeus 82: Tutankhamun 81: Saladin 80: Niccolò Machiavelli 79: Voltaire 78: Charlie Chaplin 77: Jimmy Carter 76: J. R. R. Tolkien 75: Antonio Vivaldi 74: Hans Christian Andersen 73: Salvador Dalí 72: Elizabeth I of England 71: Timur 70: Fyodor Dostoevsky 69: Friedrich Nietzsche 68: Mahatma Gandhi 67: Nikola Tesla 66: Johannes Gutenberg 65: Adam Smith 64: Paul the Apostle 63: Charlemagne 62: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 61: Jean-Jacques Rousseau 60: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 59: Raphael 58: Avicenna 57: Frédéric Chopin 56: Marie Curie 55: Nelson Mandela 54: Thomas Edison 53: Pythagoras 52: René Descartes 51: Vladimir Lenin 50: Sigmund Freud 49: Augustus 48: Thomas Jefferson 47: Pope Francis 46: Homer 45: Vasco da Gama 44: Elizabeth II 43: Immanuel Kant 42: Rembrandt 41: Mary, mother of Jesus 40: Pablo Picasso 39: Joseph Stalin 38: Joan of Arc 37: Louis XIV of France 36: Che Guevara 35: Ferdinand Magellan 34: Charles Darwin 33: Dante Alighieri 32: Nicolaus Copernicus 31: Abraham 30: Karl Marx 29: Moses 28: Vincent van Gogh 27: Saint Peter 26: Martin Luther 25: Archimedes 24: Confucius 23: Johann Sebastian Bach 22: Gautama Buddha 21: Michelangelo 20: William Shakespeare 19: Donald Trump 18: Julius Caesar 17: Socrates 16: Galileo Galilei 15: Albert Einstein 14: Aristotle 13: Christopher Columbus 12: Marco Polo 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 10: Plato 9: Adolf Hitler 8: Napoleon 7: Alexander the Great 6: Ludwig van Beethoven 5: Isaac Newton 4: Genghis Khan 3: Leonardo da Vinci 2: Jesus 1: Muhammad
Preamble: This should be a list of topics you can learn in general (and as long this isEngineeringStudentsyou may not learn in courses as well). Have a look what might fits you, what can be a benefit for you in future and what sounds fun. This list will never be 100% correct, there will be stuff missing and maybe some things change over time (also a lot of typos and bad grammar, I'm sorry). But withyourhelp we may create a list with interessting and helpful topics. Yes this post was made around half a year ago, but is usefull in my opinion and would be to sad to be lost in the archive. Hello everyone, I noticed a couple of posts in the last weeks where people are looking for stuff to learn, but are not sure what. So I want to make a small list of EE-stuff what I recommend, beside most standard stuff (like Calc I, Ohms law etc.). I have no clue about other engineering fields (I'm into automation & robotic), but maybe YOUcan help out for your engineering field, but please in another topic, not here*!* (but will be linked, if you post them in the comments) One general advice, if you know where you want to work in future, you shall not wear blinkers and concentrate just on stuff of your field. Take a look outside the box and try to learn some stuff. You don't have to be a master on all fields, but be able to know what other engineers are talking about. Short notice: I try to list mostly free or open-source stuff, because some of us haven't got a student-licence (and/or the money), but I also know that you can't beat some commercial products so far. General Stuff:
LaTex (and Addons you may want to use) - I know a lot of people are stucking on Work/OpenOffice/LibreOffice and similar programms. It is intuitive to deal with it, but if you are not an advanced/expert in Word and writing your thesis you may go nuts like I went. With LaTex you are "programming" your thesis. Sounds creepy, but it looks so good (and much better than Word-Stuff) . Have a look, because many professional papers are made with it. You may get help at LaTeX.
Programming languages:
Assembler - You want to programm stuff realy fast and want to be one with your embedded system? Than you have to learn assembler, the language every other programming language is speaking in the end. It depends on the microprocessor you are using, because they have different command lines. Try to deal with a RISC (PICxxx family) and a CISC processor (8086) and you will have a feeling how to deal with them. (Example Tutorial)
C - maybe you learned it already, maybe not. C is one of the fastes functional procedural, structured languages every made. Many microcontroller boards deal with it and is mostly used in embedded systems. You will have great power to do anything, but also great responsibility. It is easy to learn the basic stuff, but more complex when you want to do advanced stuff. Reddits: C_Programming Try the IDE Qt for such stuff, because it is packed full of good stuff and is free to use (afaik). Also you can programm in ...
C++ - as well in Qt. C++ is the bigger brother of C. Mostly the same blood is flooding along the code lines, but is a little bit different. C++ supports object-orientaded programming (OOP), what C can't do (so easily). If you can deal with C, it is maybe the best entrance in the OOP-World. It is used for operating systems, virtuall machines, embedded systems as well and some more. When you can deal with C++, you may be able to deal with Java(what I don't like, but different reasons) as well. Have a look on the actual new standard C++20! Reddit: cpp
Python 3 (yes there is Python 2 as well, but ...) - the most famous interpreter language in our time at the moment. It works different than C/++, but you will find much similarities. There are tons of tutorials out there. You can use python for big data-stuff, image processing, robotics, gaming, sensor stuff and many more things. Tons of packages are free to use for your project, if you download it you get a ligthweight IDE IDLE as well and is very dynamic. If you can deal the cons (it runs until errors appear and other stuff), it can be a good friend. If you have some experiences with IDEs and want to make bigger private projects I recommened PyCharm, because you will learn to programm in the PEP8 standard (rules how to write good code in Python) and have plenty of tools for your pure Python code. Watch licences! Reddit: Python
Matlab (free alternatives: Scilab/GNU Octave) - normally I would not support it, because a licence is expensive (even for unis and companies). But it is still used by many Profs., so you have to deal with it anyway. Matlab is "a giant calculator-interpreter-programming language". When you have matching packages it can be a good friend for image processing, controlling, robotics, math problems, numeric and many more (some of us may heared about Simulink and Stateflow which is based on Matlab). So it is a powerfull tool, but expensive. Maybe try Scilab or Octave as well (maybe not so powerfull, but usefull). Reddit: matlab
R - When you have to deal with stochastic stuff, data mining and big data stuff. Sometimes this language can be pretty handy, because it is specialised for this use case. Reddit: Rlanguage
Rust - An upcoming language, which promise to be safer than C, by great performance and slim in it's size. What you can do with it? Well theyself say nearly everything. It is more complex in the beginning, but if you are able to tame it, it may be a powerfull weapon. Learn Material- Reddit: rust
Electronic stuff:
Electromagnetic compatibility(EMC) - I'm an automation guy and EMC is Voodo for me. But it is one of the core competences you need to design circuits. How do you have to design your board, that obscure phenomenons won't happen (signals that shouldn't be there). What is this stuff and what weapons exists to fight these ghosts! :^)
VHDL and Verilog - There are three kingdoms of integrated ciruits (IC): Microcontrollers, FPGAs and ASICs. VHDL and Verilog are from FPGA land and very popular. FPGA is "hardware programming". But this is where my knowledge ends to be honest.
fritzing- Programm to create nice looking pictures with breadboards, motors, arduinos ... , circuit layouts and making your printed boards. Easy to use and for beginners helpful.
EAGLE - fritzing is for beginners and you want to be more professional in designing circuit diagramms? Then you may use EAGLE. I'm not sure what kind of licences exist at the moment, because it was bougth by Autodesk come years ago? But I think there is still a small free version for everyone and maybe a special license for students (but I'm not sure!). A good open source alternative is KiCAD.
Applied Mechanics - wait you will say, you are EE and tell me to learn ME stuff for circuit boards? Yes! Because your circuit boards may have to deal the toughest conditions. Dropping your smartphone, vibrating plates, bending...it happens to your board as well. So learn to deal with it.
LTSpice - simulating circuits with a high parameter variety (like termic noise etc) [thx CaulkParty ]
Altium for PCB-design, seems to be one of the mostly used in industry
Automation &Robotic:
Language standards for PLC - There are plenty of sellers of PLC stuff. Rockwell, Siemens, Mitsubishi and many more. Depending where you are living there is a "trend" to a company. When you have the money and/or possibility to work with it, do it. I don't know if there is a cheap one out there, but maybe YOU can help us out.
Applied Mechanics - A robot is not just DH-Parameters and cables alone. It is good to know what your robot can lift, what forces and torques exist while your robots tries to throw a 90kg stone 300m far...while driving on a truck ... taped on a ladder...while the truck is driving around a sharp corner up the hill (ME students may laugh or cry here as well).
Linux - Sooner or later you may be confronted with Linux. A free operating system, which is not like Windows or this thing with the fruit. It is used so many times, especially in the embedded field. It is not easy to get into it at the beginning, but an easy start is with Raspbian(and a Raspberry Pi, because it's optimised for that) or for Notebooks/PCs Ubuntu. There are plenty of distributions and you have to find your favourite one (I was distro hopping a couple of times).
Quaternion - when you are dealing with robotic the first time, you know the singularity problems. Not with Quaternions. If you know how to work with them, you will be a step ahead of other people.
Safety - A point I missed in my courses. How do I design a robot cell? Where does an emergency stop has to be? What is SIL? And when do I have to deal with a risk (there will never be 100% safety in a process).
Security - Like Safety I missed this in my courses as well. In a time where digitalisation is everywhere. From mobile apps, killer USBs, ransoftware, snake oils, 5G, GPG etc. How can I be sure that my data was not manipulated? How can I protect my system against introuders? Why has data securety to be such a thing? And when is it usefull?
CAE/CAD ( computer-aided engineering/design) - Sometimes you should be able to read a technical drawing and how you can design your own prototype. Especially while 3D-Printers are on the rise in the industry. Poorly I don't have a clue about good&free software in this case. =/ Otherwise SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor is the most used software in this topic afaik and Studentlicences exist. This is not about mechanical constructions only, sometimes even electrical construction or simulations. Reddits: SolidWorks, AutodeskInventor
Hydraulic & pneumatic - Another topic from ME. If you know the basics as EE it is good enough (reading hydraulic and pneumatic plans, how do valves (and the sensoric) work, what are basic components in such systems, math of pressure etc. ...). [WANTED: GOOD PAGES FROM ME PEOPLE TO ADD AS LINK HERE)
computer networking - There will be much more technology working via networks. So you should know something about switches, routers, IP-Networks (especially IPv6), TCP/UDP (, fieldbus systems). It's not so popular in "classic" EE, but I think this will be a big deal in future anyway.
ROS and Industrial ROS - an open-source framework for robotic. It is good for fun stuff and to learn a bit around robotic, but in case of expensive constructs or safety stuff not reliable! Reddit: ROS
MPLab X IDE - IDE to simulate and programm microcontrollers. (thx UnDeaD_AmP )
Information - and communications technology:
Wireshark - paket analyser for network stuff. Can be usefull for automation as well (field bus). Reddit: wireshark
GNU Radio - (thx to CaulkParty): Capturing and demodulating real-time radio transmissions, Real-time signal capturing of cellphone transmission packets fed to Wireshark, Simulation of a radio and more.
Micro- and Nanoelectronics:
Here could be your advise as well!
Power Electronic/Electric:
Powerworld - used to simulate large power systems, old legacy software that's used all the time in industry
AutoCAD Electrical - See CAE/CAD
Batteries - LiPo, NiCd, LiFo etc. What is important to know, why you should have a safe charge place, fireressistant covers when you build your own charging electronic and more.
Renewable Energy - wind, solar, hydro and more. How they work, how to regulate them and if such a gadget would be good enough for the next hiking/camping trip
Learn about transformers, 3 phase power, know what a duck curve is and why it could be bad
Craftmanship (can be tricky, because you may not get the tools and somebody with experience for that)
Minecraft <--basic
soldering - because it is everywhere and breadboards are not made for eternity
drilling (sounds easy but you may should know some stuff)
making your own circuit board from scratch ( Never done it before? Be extra carful in case you want to deal with acid! Better grab somebody who can help you out with that!)
Softskills: Yes I can see some of you are rolling with their eyes and thinking "serious"? And you are right! And wrong! Don't underestimate Softskills. Having lectures about that stuff is sometimes pretty boring, but you won't believe what people are out there not being able to handle stuff. Neither Time management, not social skills to deal with conflicts and so on. Some people don't even know that they are missing this kind of skill set. Be honest to yourself and get at least a basic set. It is difficult to teach suc things for yourself and some techniques won't work, but others will (I manage my projects in another way than my workmates do). [Sources are welcome, because this field is huge. I will just describe stuff I know/recommened/warn about ...]
Time Management - Scheduling the week, an event, your life and more. Are you using your smart phone caleneder? A Notebook? How to know where to start with your pool of tasks? There are many ways how to handle stuff.
Conflict solving skills - My old Prof worked in a company before and he told us that 50% of his time was solving conflicts between people and 50% doing engineer stuff. Many conflicts are based on a misunderstanding, excalating over time and explode by a tiny spark. You need to moderate these conflicts which measn. Make rules (no bad words, don't get loud, we don't talk when the other one is talking), be neutral and don't take position, try to find the root of the evil, ask questions so the others have to answer and make breaks when needed ... and sometimes you even have to know a point where you have to say "Fuck it, you don't want a solution, deal with your own stuff".
Presentation Skills/Debate Skills - You know this one prof who is writing in a cryptic wingdings font in size 4, while mumbeling stuff with the blackboard to explain stuff and you are sitting in the other corner of the room, running your AI skills to understand stuff. Or the other one who is using yellow letters on white background and wondering, that you can't see them via beamer, but on the PC it was so clear. Don't be that type as well! Speak loud and clear, ask if every one can here you, make rules at the start like "Questions after the presentation please", check your presentation location, make tests if everything works, choose a good medium (free talk, powerpoint like things, placards, >> practical stuff if possible << (alsways good)), make the presentation for the target audience you expect, improvise if needed etc. Talk in front of a honest test audience, know how to built up your presentation (mine is Intro, definition, history, basics, topic, meta stuff/future, end statement). Know the fouls of a conversation and try to find a good way handeling them. It is important to stand against others in a discussion as well.
Project Management skills - The father of many softskills: Waterfall model, Kanban, V-Modell, time management, importants of tasks, how big is your team, handling budget, risk management, RISK MANAGEMENT (doubled, because especially as engineer it should be on your skill list or know what to do), teamwork and more.
... (more)
Other Topics that aren't mentioned yet Maybe I will add/change some stuff from time to time... Anything you are missing? Put it in the comments and if I know it (or enough other) I will add it on the list as well. Something wrong? Please let me notice so I can change that! You don't even know how to survive Engineering? You may check out this regular post from me.
September 14th, 2020: Mandahrk Interview (Part 1 of 2)
Due to the number of questions Mandahrk received from the community, the interview exceeded reddit's character limit, and will be split into two parts! The questions from the NSI team will be in this post, and the community questions will be included in the second. You can read part two here. Tell us a little about yourself. Hello everyone! I am a 25 year old civil engineer from India. I grew up in towns so small they didn't have proper internet connections until the mid 2000s and little me couldn't even have imagined that one day I would be writing for a large international audience like this. As one of the few, if not only, writers of your nationality and history on NoSleep, are there any distinct challenges you find in your writing and interactions with the subreddit? The love and support I have received from this community has been nothing short of incredible. I certainly did not expect this. When I first started writing for nosleep I was worried that my stories won't be good enough and that if I write about India people won't easily connect with them, simply because the setting is so unfamiliar to most of the sub. But since I was mostly writing for myself and since I had seen WriteChrisWrite's series based on Hindu mythology do really well I stuck to my guns and lo and behold - my first story to crack 5k upvotes - the first part of a series - was as Indian as it gets, and unlike the aforementioned series that focused on immigrants in the United States, it was set in India, had Indian characters and even referenced Indian TV shows in the first part itself. The success of that story gave me the confidence to begin carving a niche for myself on the sub. I saw that people were craving for content from other parts of the world, as it keeps horror fresh. It's why Japanese monsters are all the rage right now. And so I began writing about myths and legends I grew up with, about characters based on people I personally knew, and the response was great! To be the first writer from India to get a modicum of popularity on nosleep was (and is) absolutely a big honor for me. But of course I didn't want to be typecast as just "the Indian guy", so I experimented and the next story that blew up was from the perspective of an American character. This was a whole new challenge for me as I'm not American, and the only knowledge I have of American life is through books and films and TV shows. So I focused on universal themes and that made it much easier for me to connect with people from all around the world - things that scare you, things that you treasure - you can touch the hearts of people from any nationality if you focus on the core human experience. I mean, to my utter surprise, my 'This is why mimes are much more terrifying than clowns' is astonishingly popular in Vietnam of all places. There's even an animated video of it in Vietnamese that's now sitting at over half a million views. Just incredible. Of course the internet being what it is, I also got some hate. But I just used that hate to fuel my creativity. When did you first become interested in horror? I was about 4 years old when 'woh' was airing on TV. It was an Indian adaptation of Stephen King's IT and its opening was scary enough to rival American Horror Story at its best. My father thought it would be a good idea to watch the show with me on his lap. It wasn't. It scared me so bad that I would start bawling at the mere sight of this clown doll that I had. My parents had to throw it away. And I used to love that doll. But I wasn't just frightened, I was also fascinated. I craved that adrenaline rush that consuming horror fiction gave me. There were other Indian horror shows airing at that time - shhh koi hai, zee horror show, Aahat, Aap Beeti and others that I would try to watch behind my parents' back. Soon I graduated to Hollywood horror with The Descent, the Saw series etc before moving onto Japanese horror. I remember watching the ring on cable TV when my parents weren't home. Gave me nightmares for weeks. I loved it. Was there a specific moment you knew you wanted to write in that genre? I'd say it was when I got a copy of my high school's magazine and read a horror short story by a senior. I had always been interested in writing fantasy, but I knew that it was a long term goal and that my writing needed to improve in preparation for that. And the best way to do that was by writing short stories. I just didn't know what kind I wanted to write. But after I read my senior's story, I knew what I wanted to do. I read some Stephen King shorts and wrote my first one about a kid who's selling lemonade to his neighbours while his mother's corpse rots in his house. I would write every now and then but didn't really get serious about pursuing writing as a hobby until last year. For nosleep. That's a very creepy early story! Where else have you found inspiration? Have real life experiences ever made their way into your work? Inspiration is everywhere. You can find stories hidden in the most mundane of things. You just need an active imagination. I was out on a run the other day and saw this girl taking her pregnant dog out for a walk and I thought wouldn't it be funny if she gave birth to a human baby? And I turned that into a story. My first story to hit the top spot - Every night for the last 18 years someone has been sneaking into my bedroom and sleeping next to me - is based on my childhood fears. I was terrified of sleeping on my side because I would keep imagining someone lying down behind me and gently caressing my back. The character in the story stacked pillows next to him - something I very much used to do. Hide'N'Seek is also drawn from experience. I was playing that game at a friend's house, and I did see someone lying down like a corpse on a ledge when it was my turn to search. See, when you're writing a story you should remember that only if it scares you will it have a shot at scaring others. Not otherwise. That's why it's important to keep it personal. Every night for the last 18 years someone has been sneaking into my bedroom and sleeping next to me features a pistach, and you mentioned admiring a fellow author's series featuring Hindu myths. Do you have plans to incorporate other myths and creatures from Hindu theology and culture in your future writing? Absolutely. India is such a mesmerizing country. Culture, language, food - everything changes here every 100 km or so and there is just a treasure trove of myths and legends waiting to be explored. I'm glad that there are finally horror movies like Tumbbad that are starting to dig deep into local mythology and I can't wait to do the same in my stories. Your story Fake News feels so relevant in our times of technology, social media, and mass panic, often stemming from rumors with no factual support. No matter where in the world one lives it seems people from all cultures have fallen victim to this epidemic. Was this story based on something that actually happened in your area? Yes. The story is based on an actual spate of lynching that occurred in India in 2017. Dozens of people were killed in separate incidents over baseless child abduction rumors that appeared out of nowhere and spread through whatsapp groups like wildfire. Mob violence isn't anything new in India, there have been numerous riots that have occured since independence in 1947. But in almost all of these incidents, the riots were organised by political parties - fanning flames of hatred with incendiary speeches, spreading fake news, organising mobs and providing weapons to them, deliberately holding back the police or even having them participate in the killings etc. However in the 2017 killings, no political party was overtly involved - they were completely organic, carried out at the grassroots level by common people themselves with no provocation. And that terrifies me - the idea that perfectly normal people can suddenly turn into monsters and kill in broad daylight for absolutely no reason just scares the living hell out of me. Ever since then I've been interested in the role social media plays in our lives. How can people, even those who are highly educated, fall for just the most unbelievable, fact-free nonsense they read on the internet and turn into blood thirsty monsters? How did you discover NoSleep? What prompted you to begin writing for it? It was late 2015 and I was in college. It must have been around 3 am and I was sitting in front of the clock tower with a group of friends around a small bonfire exchanging ghost stories. A friend of mine gave me a list of the scariest horror shorts on YouTube. One of them was an adaptation of the 'smiling man' creepypasta. I discovered nosleep the next day. And I've been hooked ever since. During this time I came across inaaace's air traffic controller story and it was the scariest thing I had ever read. I knew then that I wanted to write for nosleep and try and scare others as much as this story had scared me. Eventually I graduated college, got over my procrastination and hesitation and finally began writing last year. My 'This is why mines are much more terrifying than clowns' was a homage to him and I think it's why so many people who read that story found it to have a 'classic nosleep' feel to it. Because it was meant to be that way. What NoSleep stories and/or authors have had the strongest impact on you? There are so many authors here who've had an impact me and continue to influence my work that I'm afraid I'll end up forgetting about some people. But anyway, here goes nothing. inaaace - for his absolutely terrifying imagination. WriteChrisWrite - for his all you can eat diner series (which is no longer there on nosleep as it is being adapted into a TV show) where he used monsters from hindu mythology, which gave me the confidence to start writing about things that I'm most familiar with. TheJesseClarke - for expanding my understanding of horror. dopabeane - for her mesmerising prose. verastahl and Mr_outlaw_ - their work helped me create my own extended universe. The_Dalek_Emperor - one of the all time greats of nosleep. Borrasca, room 733, all classics. Max-Voynich - for introducing a surrealist element to horror that was sorely missing on nosleep. Seriously, his writing is a treat for the senses. Literally everyone over at /thecrypticcompendium. Having the opportunity to pry open their skulls and peer into their imaginations has been a fascinating experience. There are so many others - u/nslewis, u/fainting--goat, M59gar, headofspectre, samhaysom, Cymoril_MelniboneElias_witherow, searchandrescuewoods, harrison_prince, TheColdPeople, dariuspilgrim, 1000Vultures, bloodstains, magpie_quill, Coney-IslandQueen. Some stories on nosleep that etched themselves onto my memory, in no particular order are - Left/Right game by NeonTempo - imaginative concept executed flawlessly. What happens when the stars go out by thejesseclarke - makes my bawl every time I read it. Third Parent by Elias_Witherow - the only story on nosleep that I haven't been able to bring myself to read again. Uncle Gerry's family Fun zone by red_grin - it is the perfect horror short story and each read reveals something new. What is the most terrifying thing you have personally experienced? When I was 12 I had this mole on the small of my back that was gradually increasing in size. Swelling up like a little balloon. I showed it to my parents and they took me to the doctor, who told us that it was a benign tumorous growth that would have to be removed. It was the most scared I've ever been in my life. To stop myself from bursting into tears in the hospital I kept pestering the nursing staff with questions. They were really professional and helped me keep my nerves in check, to the point that I was pretty quiet when they wheeled me into the operating theatre and knocked me out with an anaesthetic. Thankfully the surgery went smoothly and I even got to see the chunk of flesh they cut out of me! We're so glad you were able to have it taken care of and are okay, that's so frightening! You mention another real-life fear in your story Manpig, where you delve into the topic of bullying, and the horrible results it can have. What prompted the story, and its notably grim ending? I actually wrote that to subvert what I believe has become a bit of a trope on nosleep. There have been many stories about physically unappealing, almost monstrous people/creatures that seem terrifying on the surface, but are in fact just misunderstood and even end up befriending the protagonist. The only evil that exists in such stories comes from "normal" people. I thought it would be a fun sleight of hand to get everyone to sympathise with Manpig only to reveal him as a monster in the end. Another reason that it ended on such a dark note is that it was a deliberate choice. I find myself struggling with grim endings, it's hard for me to kill off characters I love. The thing is that horror is at its most memorable when it leaves you feeling hopeless at the end. That's why I've been making a conscious effort to try and make my readers feel despair by the time they finish reading. At least in some of my stories. What are some of your biggest influences from media? Stephen King. Because obviously. I don't think there's anyone writing horror today that hasn't been at least somewhat influenced by the man. I also really love Shirley Jackson. Her prose took some getting used to but once I did, I enjoyed her work immensely. She's great at slowly playing with your mind and her characters are some of the most well fleshed out in horror. There's also Joe Hill, Thomas Olde Huevelt (HEX was devastating), Adam Nevill, Paul Tremblay, Victor Lavalle, and Mark Danielewski (house of leaves is such an inventive book). Moving away from horror I'm a huge fan of Arundhati Roy - she cuts through the wilful ignorance and hypocrisy of privileged Indians in a way that is very rare for writers over here. Then of course there is Dr. Ambedkar, whose Annihilation of Caste continues to be the most revolutionary thing I've ever read. Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Khushwant Singh (his stories on partition of India are awe-inspiring) - all legends. I also devoured Premchand's stories as a child, but his work is a part of the hindi literary tradition. Now growing up, I loved fantasy. Lord the rings was the first book I ever truly fell in love with. It was a tattered old thing when I bought it, and is still one of my most treasured possessions. I have the fondest memory of searching for old books with my father at Daryaganj in Delhi. (Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Dickens - I was introduced to all the classics because of this street market.) My mother is a huge book lover as well. She's got trunks and trunks of books - everything from Enid Blyton to Jeffrey Archer and Mario Puzo. Got my love of reading from her. The series Every year for the last 3 centuries our town has been sacrificing its women to protect the world is an edge-of-your-seat ride documenting a man and his harrowing experience with something...otherwordly that has his town in its grip. Since you mentioned Shirley Jackson, was this story, however much more fleshed out, initially inspired by her classic tale The Lottery? It absolutely was! I loved the idea of the lottery - generation after generation following a violent ritual that they don't even understand or question anymore. Letting some inexplicable horror become a part of your life - what a fascinating concept. And it is set in a small town too - the most fertile ground for horror. I wanted to do something similar - write about a cold Himalayan town, but didn't want to explore the same themes in the exact same way. So I turned Shirley Jackson's subtle psychological horror about blindly following tradition into a popcorn thriller, wove it into my extended universe and it became my favourite story that I've ever written. Do you ever plan on revisiting Rocky and the group he works for? Yes! I have outlines of multiple series planned out in my head already and will be going through them one by one. In fact, I'm current writing a series set in the universe. Other than writing, what are some of your hobbies? What other creative mediums do you enjoy? I absolutely love music. I will literally listen to anything. From Rammstein to Frank Ocean to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, my playlist is a hodge podge of genres. Hell I was just listening to Black Pink's latest song a couple of days ago. The tonal shifts in my playlist can be so jarring they can give people whiplash. But my first love will always be Punjabi music. Give me some Jassi Gill or Sidhu Moosewala and I'm ready to bring the house down. Apart from music I love acting. I was involved in the theatre scene in high school and college but decided not to pursue it. From improv to street plays to staged productions - I've done it all, in both English and Hindi. I'm a bit of an introvert, but just love being on stage. I was once so into a performance I dislocated my shoulder. Finished my part though, before collapsing in pain when I was alone. Popped that fucker right back in myself. But the damn thing ended my chances at playing for my college's basketball team. Do you ever explore writing other genres besides horror? If so, what other styles of writing? Which do you prefer? Oh yes. I wanted to write my own high fantasy epic after reading the Lord of the Rings. Still do. But it's on the back burner for now. For when I'm a better writer. At the moment I'm content with writing horror and exploring its different facets. How much time do you spend writing in an average day or week? Do you have any rituals that help you focus? When I'm not working on a series I generally average around 3-4 hours a week. I don't really have rituals as such. I just write whenever I have some free time and the mood strikes me. Though I do at times listen to music to set the mood. Especially if I'm writing an action sequence. In that case I generally fall back on classical music - like Mozart's Lacrimosa or Handel's Sarabende or even Vivaldi's four seasons. If you're writing violence to thrill, and not to horrify, finding elegance in it is the way to go. And listening to classical music helps me get into that mindset. When crafting a piece of fiction, do you generally start with an outline or simply begin writing? It really depends on what I'm writing. Sometimes it'll be an idea that goes off in my head like a lightbulb and I'll write the story down in less than half an hour. No outline, no idea of how it's going to end, I'll just go with the flow and see where the story takes me. 'Every night for the last 18 years someone has been sneaking into my bedroom and sleeping next to me' began as a sentence and I wrote the first part in 16 minutes. I actually saw how much time it took. On the other hand, some stories will be meticulously planned. Like the 'I just met the lone survivor of a village that disappeared over 200 years ago' series and the 'My Home Owners Association seems to be a little too passionate about enforcing its rules' series were all planned out from start to finish and it took me weeks to write them. Wow! That's some intensive planning. Your HOA series takes an inventive approach to the common "rules" series we see on NoSleep, with all the rules being fairly typical and benign, but the consequences of breaking them proving fatal. What led you to the concept, and in particular, the revelation that the people behind the rules are white supremacists? Rules based stories have been doing really well on nosleep for a while now and I knew that I wanted to do my own spin on them. It's certainly not the first such series I had written either. My rule-breaker series was also a subversion of the concept. I love playing around with ideas - to see how I can stand out from the crowd and do my own thing. After wracking my brain for a while I eventually decided to write about rules that appear perfectly normal at first glance but something sinister is lurking just beneath the surface. It was awesome, because not only was it a novel concept, but having "normal" rules added an extra element of mystery and suspense to the story as well. That's because when you see a rule in a story and it tells the protagonist to ignore the little girl that walks the hallway between 3:03 AM and 3:13 AM, you as a reader are already somewhat aware of what's going to happen. But when there's a rule specifying that trash cans must not be kept outside the allowed hours, you're completely in the dark and are left wondering - what could the possible consequences of that be? As to why white supremacists? I'll answer that in the next question :) Have you received any backlash for including racial elements in your stories? How do you approach the topics with the appropriate gravity and awareness? Funnily enough, I got absolutely zero backlash for the series and the response was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, it was the other way around - racial "backlash" was what prompted me to write the story in the first place. When my grandfather, who fought in the second world war once told me a story that has haunted me ever since hit 6k upvotes, I got a slew of racist messages from this one guy who kept creating accounts specifically to hurl racist abuse at me. It incensed him to see an Indian do so well on the subreddit. Bigots just can't handle the fact that the world is rapidly changing around them. It made me laugh. And I thought okay buddy, now I'm gonna write about a middle aged Muslim man killing a bunch of neo Nazis in suburban America. But it's not like I wrote that series specifically for that one guy. With so much ethnic strife around the world I had wanted to write about tolerance, and about being intolerant of intolerance, and that is why, to me - the inclusion of David in the HOA series was so important. Here's an old white man, as patriotic as they come, with an American flag fluttering outside his house, who's also lost his son to the endless war on terror, but still refuses to give in to hatred, and actively fights against it. He's the embodiment of my belief that a better world is possible, and his bond with his muslim neighbour becomes the most significant aspect of the series. Another one of your in-depth series, The Inheritance Game - What exactly would you be willing to do for $300 million?, is incredibly intricate, with the plot relying heavily on the interactions of the characters. How far in advance did you draft out the story, and who the ultimate survivors would be? Inheritance Game was my own take on the battle royale genre (belko experiment, hunger games etc). I wanted there to be a cerebral element to the old kill everyone else mayhem and so added to the stress that my characters would go through by forcing them to think, to do calculations, to form alliances and more. I planned it out from the start to finish and was so happy that I was able to distract most of my readers from who the mastermind was. It was the first time that I had used red herrings and misdirection and it worked out fabulously. Planning it was a bitch though - I had to make a chart to keep track of all the characters and how they were related to each others. Thankfully, one of the readers, Reflaxo was kind enough to draw a family tree on paint and it really helped! We've seen other bizarre will readings in media in the similar (though far less deadly) The Westing Game, and the twisting whodunit Knives Out, among others—if you were to do your personal twist on the idea, what odd stipulations would you place in your own will? You know what? It would be fun to have some sort of a treasure hunt in my will. Whoever gets to the goal first gets to keep all the money. This would of course be only if I hate my family (which I don't). Now that I think about it, this would make for a great sequel to the Inheritance game - have people go around some city solving sinister, often fatal puzzles while they plot against each other - a terrifying race! But damn, just thinking about the planning that this would require gives me a headache. Have any of your stories ever involved research? If so, what was involved? Almost all of them. When I'm writing from the perspective of an American character I have to do research on the tiniest of things. What kind of architecture is common there, what materials are used to build a house, what do people eat, how are law enforcement departments structured, radio call signs used by the military - things that might be ordinary to you isn't so much for me. Hell, I even made a post on nosleepooc asking about what HOAs are like. Are there any topics you feel are too controversial for you to address or that you prefer not to explore in your writing? I think don't think there are any topics that are too controversial to be addressed, as long as they are handled with proper care. Personally, I like to explore anything and everything in my work. I believe that writing and/or reading about the most horrific things can have a cathartic effect and can help us deal with the pain that comes to be associated with these events. But these topics (sexual assault, transphobia, racism etc) must be treated with respect or else it's just exploitative. What are your feelings toward NoSleep's immersion/plausibility rule? What impact, if any, do you think the suspension of disbelief format may have when transitioning your work toward a mass audience unfamiliar with NoSleep? I am of two minds when it comes to this rule. On hand it sets this platform apart as its own thing and helps weed out a lot of what would ultimately end up becoming extremely repetitive stuff. It's only because of this that nosleep isn't choked with series after series about the zombie apocalypse. It also forces writers to be a bit creative and does away with the 'I was dead the whole time' cliche to an extent. I also enjoy the role playing aspect of it. Quite a bit actually. Especially when its a long series and everyone is invested in it. On the other hand, I hate how almost half the comments end up being deleted because of the immersion rule. Feedback, praise, criticism - these are all important and they all end up being removed. Sometimes I'll scroll past a story with hundreds of comments and it'll just be a sea of [deleted], [deleted]. The comments we get on our stories are little packets of memories for us and it's annoying to see them get deleted. Do you have any favorite reader reactions to your writing? I love any and all reader reactions! I am grateful that I have the opportunity to share my imagination with other people. And it's even more special when my stories are able to connect with someone. When they're invested in seeing where a series will go, when they're touched by a story or get shit scared or even repulsed - it really warms my heart. Seeing my name and my stories pop up in recommendation threads makes me ecstatic. But if I had to pick the most memorable reactions I've seen, I think I would go with the girls sending me links to their onlyfans accounts via dms and comments on my story about the platform ;) What story or project are you most proud of? 1st November 1984. It was an incredibly personal story and it was very difficult for me to write. But I'm really proud of how it turned out. I'm glad that it ended up being one of my most popular stories and that I could bring the truth of that horrible event to so many people. The heartfelt messages I received from people on the sub and from other Sikhs who found the story really made my eyes water. It's been 36 years since the anti-sikh genocide and justice has still not been served. And that makes it so important that its history is remembered and passed down from generation to generation. It's extremely satisfying that I could contribute to that in my own small way. What an amazing way to use NoSleep to shine light on a horrific time in history that took so many lives. 1st November, 1984 brought forth an outpouring of comments from people whose families had been affected, in addition to those who were learning of this tragedy for the first time. You can feel a strong sense of solidarity among your readers and a thankfulness for bringing knowledge about such a dark time. Did you expect to get such a response from this story? You say it was personal—did you have family impacted by this, and if so, was it cathartic to share this story? Is there ongoing turmoil and trauma in your country due to these events? I didn't think that the story would get this popular. But I'm so glad that it did. Like I said, it's been 36 years since the pogrom and we still haven't seen justice. Court cases are still dragging on and many of the killers have died natural deaths. There's just so much unresolved trauma in the Sikh community. The rot was so systemic back then - everyone from police to politicians to media to bureaucracy - all were involved in spreading hate and organising the genocide. Keeping quiet and bottling it all in became the norm for our families, for fear of state reprisal. It got so bad that many young Sikhs living in the west today are unaware of the extent of the tragedy. I know that just reading that story was cathartic for many older Sikhs and the heartfelt messages I received are a testament to that fact. I'm so glad that I decided to write it. We need to remember what happened in 1984. If we can't get the victims justice, the least we can do is remember them. Forgetting their suffering might be an even bigger crime than what happened all those years ago. Writing it and spreading awareness about the genocide to so many people was a tremendously gratifying experience. I must say here that it's only because of TheJesseClarke's As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death that I realised that there was space for stories like this on nosleep. And yes. My family did suffer in 1984. My dad's family lost their home (which was later taken over by someone else), their business and had to shift to Punjab (a traditionally sikh dominated state in India) with nothing but the clothes on their backs. My Dad was in college back then, and had to make the terrifying journey all alone. My mother's family faced the same. They were boycotted by their neighbours and had to ultimately pack everything and travel over 2200 km to get to safety. Thankfully, no harm came to any of them. But they knew plenty of people who were butchered, especially in Delhi which was the epicenter of the violence. 1984 was the biggest reason why despite being born in a Sikh family I've never had long hair and have never worn a turban. I grew up to be an atheist, but I still feel like what could have been a part of my identity was robbed from me. What's the most valuable lesson you've learned since you began posting to NoSleep? I'm sure others have said this, but upvotes don't really say everything there is to say about the quality of a story. There are many factors that decide whether a story becomes popular on nosleep or not, and its quality is just one of them. In fact, one of my favourite series - little house on Briar rose drive - barely cracked 100 upvotes. It really taught me to write for myself first and foremost instead of always worrying about whether other people will like it or not. Not to mention there is something special about writing a series that hovers around 500 upvotes or so but with the same 15-20 people commenting on each part. It's like telling a campfire story to your friends. That intimacy is somewhat lost when your story hits the top spot and you're more focused on other things instead of just enjoying the ride. (Psst - that doesn't mean I don't feel gutted each time a story of mine fails to hit the #1 spot. But that's fine. Failures help me appreciate successes more). As a successful author on NoSleep, do you have any advice for new contributors? Oh gee... Me? Successful? Why, thank you very much! To anyone considering posting on nosleep or those who already have a couple of stories out on the sub, I would just like to say that practice makes perfect. Keep writing. The only effective way to get better at one's craft is by working on it. Don't worry about writing the perfect story or getting negative reactions, just start writing. And put yourself out there. Get over that hesitation and post you story! Let others see your work. Crossing that hurdle is the first and the most important step in any writer's journey. One thing I'd like to add here, is that just writing isn't enough. If you keep writing in a vaccum you'll soon end up plateauing and you'll be stuck at a certain skill level. You may even end up developing some bad habits - like repeating words, character arcs etc. To break through you'll need an extra push. What might that be, you ask? Reading. But don't read as a reader, read as a writer. Stories on nosleep, horror books recently published, other books in other genres - read everything that grabs your interest. And see how writers write. Take notes if you have to. Because I do. Sentence construction, character development, use of metaphors, how to build suspense - you can learn a lot, just by changing how you read. Read, till you find your own 'voice'. And then read some more. Next - Get in touch with other writers. Show them your work. Ask for help. Look for ways to improve your craft. Feedback is important. Feedback from people who know what they're doing is priceless. Your advice for writers to read more is truly some of the best advice we've heard. To bear the fruit, you must also ingest the fruit. You are what you eat and all that. So, looking forward, what are some of your short-term and long-term writing goals? I am currently working on a series that I would like to put out as soon as possible. There's also a collaboration with three other authors that's been stuck in development hell for months now. Would like to get that show on the road as soon as possible. Long term writing goal - I want to get a book published in India in the traditional way. Something to do with magical realism. Due to the number of questions Mandahrk received from the community, the interview exceeded reddit's character limit, and will be split into two parts! You can read part two here.
Intellectual deep dives can be important, but Evidence shows they often miss the big picture and lead to tragic errors. Don’t lose sight of the big picture, blinded by weeds that give confidence, but less accuracy.
The Millennium Challenge 2002. In the summer of 2002, the US conducted a large war game known as the Millennium Challenge. US war games are mock battles where one group of military personnel (blue team) simulates defending the US against a separate group (red team) representing an enemy. In this war game, extensive enough to cost $250 million, the red team represented a threat from the Middle East. The blue team performed so badly, the exercise had to be restarted and rescripted “to ensure a Blue Force victory”. Malcolm Gladwall writes of this war game in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. He shows the Blue team's main problem was becoming so lost in intellectual weeds they missed the bigger picture. Gladwell writes:
You get caught up in forms, in matrixes, in computer programs, and it just draws you in. They were so focused on the mechanics and the process that they never looked at the problem holistically. In the act of tearing something apart, you lost its meaning.
One example from the game: the blue team wanted to eliminate the red team’s air strike capabilities. They brought in experts, used sophisticated computer programs, and converged on taking out communications systems. While spending hours working out every minute detail, they lost sight of the big picture and discovered that “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” (Mike Tyson). While planning, the red team started attacking. They used WWII style communications that were completely overlooked by the experts whose biases and codes were catered to modern communications systems. Though their intellectual deep dive made sense on paper, it was the biases of experts getting lost in the weeds that led to disaster. The CIA: those who study an issue to death are typically more confident, but also more biased and less accurate. When getting lost in the weeds, information beyond the basics is seldom helpful. Gladwell continues:
Extra information isn’t actually an advantage at all... in fact, you need to know very little to [understand] a complex phenomenon… extra information is more than useless, it’s harmful. It confuses the issues… As they received more information their certainty became entirely out of proportion to the correctness of their decisions.
After analyzing the Millennium Challenge, Gladwell shows this pattern plagues the entire medical profession as well. Gladwell’s observations are vindicated by several other studies. Some of my favorites were conducted by the CIA, demonstrating it’s not just the observation of academia. They found that going beyond the simplest 3-5 pieces of information - the weeds - is rarely helpful, even for complex decisions. This plot is from one of multiple studies they have done. It shows that though confidence went up as subjects incorporated more complicated information, the accuracy did not improve, and in many of their studies goes down. The CIA explains that given how few pieces of information fit in a human’s short term memory, as the number and/or complexity of the information increases, the more your mind must weigh, order, and prioritize that information in and out of your field of view. Thus such decisions become increasingly more about your biases than your rationality. If you think that going beyond the big picture and most basic facts makes you a better decision maker, think again. Like this graph, you may be brimming with confidence, but are probably light on accuracy, and heavy on bias. Your biases are dictating what fills up your short term memory and thus your decision boil down to that. We have seen tragic mistakes like this a thousand times. When someone puts the big picture - that they have experienced really blesses them and their family day by day for years - to the side for one opinion about an archeological dig they know nothing about, that is not the hallmark of rationality. That is arriving at a state so biased that weeds you don't know the first thing about now take precedence in your short-term memory over that what you have actually experienced for years. The big picture about the gospel. Though I welcome deep dives into the intellectual weeds of the gospel, let’s not lose sight of the big picture. A big picture without becomes easy to stumble, and where life’s most important meanings may become unintentionally lost. The big picture where the gospel has changed myriads of lives for good. A big picture that has led to the biggest advancements in democracy and human rights where “all men are created equal… endowed by their Creator”. A big picture where the cultivation of much - if not most - of modern science, philosophy, and humanities was made. “Almost every university and college founded in the U.S. and Europe until the mid-19th century—and many afterwards—was founded by some religious organization.” A big picture that has inspired the world's great works of music and art from Handel’s “Messiah” to Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”. A big picture where countless acts of service and charity are motivated each year. Where youth are raised with the knowledge they have divine worth. Where young men and women quickly grow into mature adults on missions. Where families learn their relationships are more than mere chaotic connections between random matter, but have eternal significance. And most important, a big picture where in some way Jesus Christ gained the experiences needed to ensure that each of us has the path we need to inherit eternal splendor. Personally I can’t think of a single weed worth losing that over. Let’s not make a tragic Millennium Challenge class blunder by losing sight of that big picture, blinded by weeds that may give a person more confidence, but seldom gives that person more accuracy.
Fragen zu Krypto-Aktivitäten und der verbundenen steuerlichen Pflichten
Hallo zusammen! Ich habe bereits diverse Beiträge[1][2] zum Thema Krypto gefunden, möchte aber für mich nochmal sicherstellen und Fragen ergänzen.
Zunächst einmal:
Thema Steuer(n)/Steuererklärung ist für mich gewissermaßen Neuland. Aktuell bin ich durch eine geringfügigen Beschäftigung das erste Mal 'in Kontakt' gekommen.
Überblick Krypto-Aktivitäten
Auf einigen alten Festplatten finde ich leider nur noch Rückstände von meinen Krypto-Aktivitäten bis ca. 2017, nicht jedoch zu den 2-3 Jahren davor. Vieles ist leider, nicht zuletzt durch Leichtsinnigkeit und zuvor auch minderjährige Unwissenheit gar nicht, bis nur bruchstückhaft protokolliert beziehungsweise nachvollziehbar. In der Zeit zwischen 2017 und Jetzt ist diese Protokollierung wesentlich besser, aber auch nicht optimal. Ich habe mich mal mit dem häufig empfohlenen Tool Cointracker auseinandergesetzt, das kann aber bei den vielen Tausend Transaktionen über verschiedene Blockchains etwas dauern. Etwas spezieller geht es um die Krypto-Währungen Bitcoin, Ether, Monero (hier fehlen mir z.B. die notwendigen Werte um einzelne Transaktionen belegen zu können - gerade eben auf Grund der Technik) , aber auch weitere Währungen (bspw. Token) auf Ethereum. Da mich die technischen Eigenschaften und Möglichkeiten der jeweiligen Chains (heute eher Ethereum, Monero - aber vertiefen wir das nicht) mehr interessiert haben, als eine Gewinnerzielung ist dies mit Abstand die häufigste Ursache für Transaktionen auf den verschiedenen Chains. Dennoch habe ich über die Jahre einige Auszahlungen in gesetzliche Zahlungsmittel und Einkäufe getätigt. Insgesamt sollten die "Auszahlungen" nicht die "Einzahlungen" (um viel) überschreiten (FIFO-betrachtet) und zusätzlich waren einige Krypto-Vermögenswerte mehr als ein Jahr in meinem Besitz - hier gebe ich mir noch alle Mühe das Alles zu ordnen und auf Grund der schlechten Protokollierung irgendwie zusammenzureimen.
Entwicklung der letzten Jahre
Wie bereits im vorigen Abschnitt erwähnt geht mit Abstand der meiste Teil meiner getätigten Transaktionen auf den Chains auf das Testen/Probieren (z.B. Interagieren mit 'fremden' oder 'eigenen' Smart Contracts auf Ethereum) zurück. Besonders im letzten und auch dem aktuellen Jahr habe ich mich dann auch programmiertechnisch an einigen interessanten Projekten beteiligt und eigene Ideen verwirklicht. Für eines dieser Projekte operiere ich seit Beginn des Jahres einen Server, der eine On-Chain (Ethereum) Dienstleistung durchführt und dafür anteilsmäßig entlohnt wird (mit diversen Tokens, darunter auch die Stablecoins DAI, USDC und USDT), um Server- und Transaktionskosten ungefähr zu decken (Anmerkung: generell tauschte ich nahzeitig dabei die Token immer in Ether um). Dies führte zunächst zu kleinen Gewinnen, unter anderem auf Grund der steigenden Preise für Ether, im Bereich von vielleicht 50-100 Euro/Monat (in Ether), wenn es hoch kommt. In den Monaten ab Mai/Juni jedoch vervielfachte sich das Volumen, sodass daraus aktuell 3000-5000 Euro/Monat geworden sind und auch der Wert noch steigen könnte. Zeitlich betrachtet beschäftige ich mich mehr mit der geringfügigen Beschäftigung, als mit Tätigkeiten im Zusammenhang mit dem Server.
Fragen, etc.
Q.1
Die Entwicklung des Servers bereitet mir etwas Kopfschmerzen. Auch wenn das zuerst nicht die Absicht war, mittlerweile ist der Vorwurf der Gewinnerzielungsabsicht berechtigt. Teile der Einnahmen von dem Server könnte ich aktuell gut gebrauchen und würde diese daher gerne realisieren. Bevor ich dies jedoch mache, muss ich überhaupt erst überlegen, wie ich hier weiter fortfahre. Ich nehme an, dass ich vielleicht ein Gewerbe anmelden sollte beziehungsweise muss. Was würde damit auf mich zukommen? Muss ich vielleicht vorher auch beim Finanzamt vorbei, um nachzufragen, ob es sich überhaupt um ein Gewerbe handelt und wenn ja welches? Gibt es hier auch noch was, das ich im Zusammenhang mit der geringfügigen Beschäftigung beachten muss?
Q.2.1
Unter den vielen getätigten Transaktionen auch Interaktionen mit dem Uniswap-Protokoll. Die Entwickler dieses Protokolls haben am 16. September unter anderem an Alle, die dieses Protokoll vor dem 1. September genutzt haben ein Token ausgeschüttet, welches die Teilnahme an einigen Verwaltungsentscheidungen des Protokolls erlaubt. Obwohl der direkte Gegenwert der Tokens zur Zeit eigentlich Null beträgt, so hat wohl die Aussicht auf potentielle Einnahmemöglichkeiten den Preis auf 4-6 Euro/Token steigen lassen - bei der "Standard" ausgeschütteten Anzahl von 400 Token schon über 1500 Euro. Jetzt habe ich in den vergangenen Jahren mehrere "Burner"-Accounts verwendet, sodass ich auch mehrere berechtigte Adressen besitze, die ein Anrecht auf die Ausschüttung besitzen. Bei einer Auszahlung könnte ich mir vorstellen, dass meine Bank sich bei mir meldet. Der Vorgang, um die Token in Anspruch zu nehmen ist wie folgt: Hat eine Adresse vor dem 1. September mit dem Protokoll interagiert, so kann nun mit einem Smart Contract interagiert werden, um diese Token zu erhalten. Wie würde ich diese Transaktionen beispielsweise in Cointracker, etc. markieren? Fällt dies unter Airdrops - beziehungsweise müssen darauf dann Steuern gezahlt werden? Wie würde ich das meiner Bank erklären sollen, wenn sich diese tatsächlich bei mir melden würde?
Q.2.2
Zusätzlich stellt sich mir dann auch im selben Sinne die Frage, wie ich "Einnahmen" aus Coinbase Earn betrachten sollte? Man (kann) lernt durch Videos neue Projekte kennen und kann dann Fragen dazu beantworten, für die Coinbase dann die jeweiligen Coins/Token (2-4 Euro) vergütet. Das kann sich schon summieren, nicht zuletzt durch Preisanstiege. Auch hier die Frage zu der Einordnung? Airdrop? Oder zählt das anders, da hier Fragen beantwortet werden müssen?
Q.3
Einige sonstige Transaktionen und damit potentielle Gewinne kann ich überhaupt nicht mehr nachvollziehen. Die Protokollierung fehlt vollständig, zum Beispiel nach der Verwendung von einem Coinmixer oder z.B. durch Monero. Wäre es rechtens, beziehungsweise würde jemand Fragen stellen, wenn ich diese einfach zu den Gewinnen in Q.1 dazuzähle? Ich hoffe das war jetzt nicht zu umfangreich oder umständlich und hoffe das meine Fragen vielleicht beantwortet werden können. Sollte es noch weitere Anmerkungen geben, die ich nicht beachtet habe, würde mich das freuen! Mfg
I am translating an old map of the city of Königsberg and there is one word – stadthof – that I am not sure how to translate into English in one or two words. It appears to be related to the part of the monastery farm where the buildings are. My best guess is "monastery farmyard" or "monastery farmhouse", but I am not sure if it refers to a building on the farm, or the main building on the farm, or another part of the farm. Here's a brief description in German: AlsPfleghof(auchStadthof, StadthausoderKlosterhof) wurde im Mittelalterund in derfrühen Neuzeitein Wirtschaftshof einesKlosters(oderDomkapitels) bezeichnet, der sich in einer größeren Ansiedlung – meist einer Stadt – befand. Pfleghöfe dienten als Stützpunkte zum Abwickeln von Rechts- und sonstigen Geschäften mit der Stadt und deren Bevölkerung, beispielsweise zum Handel mit Produkten des Klosters, oder alsZehnthöfezum Einsammeln von Abgaben, die dem Kloster aus der Stadt zuflossen. Hinzu kamen repräsentative Funktionen. Gelegentlich waren auchKapellen),Spitäleroder Gasthäuser Teil der Gebäude.
Przed przeczytaniem tego posta radzę usiąść i napić się drinka. We wczorajszym wydaniu wiadomości, w segmencie "silna Polska irytuje Niemców'' mówione było o tym jak to rządy PO-PSL usługiwały Niemcom, pojawił się też fragment o tym jak to Tusk otrzymał od Merkel nagrodę im. Walthera Rathenaua, który to był "głównym architektem Sowiecko-Niemieckiego układu z Rapallo z lat '30''. https://wiadomosci.tvp.pl/47757327/17052020-193029:40. Zastanawiałem się czemu nigdy o nim nie słyszałem, chociaż interesuję się II WŚ. Może dlatego, że Walther Rathenau zmarł w 1922 roku. Niemiec knujący z Sowietami w latach 30, skojarzenia nasuwają się same: naziści, inwazja Polski, Pakt Ribbentrop–Mołotow, zbrodnie na Polakach. Tyle tylko, że Rathenau był Niemieckim Żydem, który pomógł ówczesnej Republice Weimarskiej (na długo przed powstaniem III Rzeszy) usprawnić handel z Sowietami. Tylko tyle. Mało tego, został zamordowany przez antysemickie nacjonalistyczne bojówki z Organizacji Konsul, która potem przekształciła się z resztą w Sturmabteilung (SA). Wielu Niemców uważało Rathenaua za męczennika demokracji. Naziści zabronili też wszelkie wspominki Walthera Rathenaua wymazując go z kanonu historycznego jako element niepożądany. Czy pomylenie dekady z lat 20 na 30 było zwykłym przejęzyczeniem? Może, ale takich "niefortunnych przejęzyczeń" TVP ma na swoim koncie dziesiątki. W dodatku z takimi środkami i budżetem wymagam poprawności dat historycznych. Miliony Polaków usłyszały wczoraj w wiadomościach, że Tusk otrzymał nagrodę imienia jakiegoś czołowego architekta ideologii nazistowskiej. Rzygać mi się chce jak pomyślę o tym, że publiczna telewizja sra na dobre imię zamordowanego polityka, zamieniając go z ofiary w zbrodniarza, byleby tylko osiągnąć swój polityczny efekt.
I Made a 75-Hour Playlist of Classical German Music Meant for Playing the Greater German Reich in TNO
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kbUlVBVK2IX1R1ZyTyS8n?si=E9xqw7zlRuGgvmhPSZNSDQ Just in time for release! This playlist consists of 750 songs from the rich classical history of Germania, totaling 75 hours and 28 minutes. While shorter in track count compared to my other playlists, it is the longest I have made so far due to the generally longer track lengths of classical pieces. Art under the Nazi regime was heavily curated and monitored. In their eyes, all music should aspire to reach the aesthetic ideals established by classical composers, especially those of German blood. Any musical trends that deviate into heavy dissonance and non-typical tonality were deemed "degenerate" and were the result of the creative minds of lesser beings. Included in this playlist include great classical works of Germania composed by such legends such as Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Weber, Bruckner, Bach, and Handel. Also included are the works of more recent composers who managed to gain the favor of the National Socialist Party such as Carl Orff, Werner Egk, and Fritz Geißler. Their works were brought to you by outstanding German conductors loyal to the Nazi party, such as Frederick Charles Adler, Hermann Abendroth, Herbert Albert, Hans von Benda, Heins Bongartz, Gerhard Bosse, Hans Carste, Franz-Paul Decker, Wilhelm Ehmann, Kurt Eichhorn, and Wilhelm Furtwängler. The reason why it's so long is that I grew tired of music constantly repeating themselves in various music mods/playlists when considering the sheer length of a typical playthrough, so I decided to go all-out. By the same logic, I also aimed to keep styles and genres as diverse as possible so it never gets old to the ear. Also present are military marches that celebrate the Reich's military might. Understand however that these are a tad rarer than classical music on Spotify, and I am sure you could guess why. Unlike my other playlists, this playlist has NOT been randomized. Most tracks are mere segments of greater wholes and, as such, I felt it best not to scramble them. If you don't care, simply use the shuffle function. Also, understand that I knew NOTHING about music before now, so please correct me if I say some dumb-sounding shit, make any mistakes, or made some glaring omissions in my selection. I more or less used Wikipedia pages for all my research. I plan on making a playlist like this for as many countries as I can until I get tired or bored with it. Please also check out my other playlists for the United States of America, Sudwestafrika, Zentralafrika, and Ostafrika: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MQEWSy7dBNEQGd9NwUgHX?si=2UEVe1wqTEmIq_sorvQGGAhttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/4pwhWMtfiGruyJXakoQtdA?si=pSP1_q6NQKaAG3Ty6z5DWghttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/4LFFcbaeG7Bgr5I5zSIL9v?si=E6sjbnzzQcyGaHY7dMVt0Qhttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qiW8M8wTiPoaTCco5FLqY?si=NI67VYeWTDyaCmp96Vx54w
Did the Council ever inspect bars and restaurants if public health safety measure were adhered to by business managers?
In Germany, the local council together with police officers and somebody from local public health ("Gesundheitsamt"[1]) are checking on businesses, especially on weekends. And issuing fines (up to 5000 Euros) on the spot if public health safety measures are not followed.
Bussgeldkatalog Example: 5000 Euro fine, if staff do not wear mask. Staff must wear mask because of the potential being a non-symptomatic superspreader.
[1] Public Health, and thus everything Corona, is a federal matter via the local "Gesundheitsamt". Example here from Bavaria the rules how you can operate your restaurant. Indoor pubs (unlike UK/Scotland) are still closed in Bavaria, due to the known risk of aerosol transmission. Outdoor drinking (Beer Garden) with distance between groups/tabels is ok (according to this).
It may be Handel but the genius YouTuber who uploaded it forgot to include the name of the composer, but didn’t forget to include their own name 🤦🏻♂️ nice. https://youtu.be/KKvnzxiF-DY
Today marks the 335th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, without a doubt one of the tallest standing giants on whose shoulders stands a significant portion of our musical canon. What better time than his birthday is there to take a look at his life and his works? I will leave a short biography below, share some resources, and share some of my favorite pieces of his. I welcome everyone reading to join me below. Biographical Outline Bach had a fairly mobile life, and spent short periods in many places. For the sake of brevity, I will gloss over the shorter periods, and focus more on the more significant ones. 1685-1703
Born in Eisnach, Saxe-Eisenach on March 31, 1685.*
The Bach family was very musical: his father, many uncles, many cousins, and his siblings were all professional musicians in some sense.
His mother died in 1694, and his father died shortly thereafter; Sebastian Bach moved in with his older brother, Johann Christoph Bach, who lived in Ohrdruf (1695).
Enrolled in the St. Michael's School in Lüneburg in 1700. *The calendar at the time would have read March 21, 1750; this is due to difference in the Julian and the Gregorian calendar systems
1703-1723
After graduating (1703), Bach obtained a position as a musician of Duke Johann Ernst II's court in Weimar; became the organist at the "New Church" (now the "Bach Church") in Arnstadt later that same year. (this post is the setting of two famous stories of Bach: the incident with the "nanny-goat bassoonist", as well as his two week leave to travel in which he walked 280 miles [450 kilometers] both ways on foot to visit Buxtehude [he was absent for 4 months during his "2 week" leave].)
Spent 2 years in Mühlhausen as organist at the Basius Church (1706-1708); he met and married Maria Barbara Bach four months after his arrival
Returned to Weimar to become the organist at the Ducal Court (1708-1717): became Director of Music (1714), which entailed a monthly composition of a cantata; spent a considerable amount of time transcribing Italian works during this period; wrote the English Suites during this period; wrote the preliminary works that would become the Well Tempered Clavier during this period.
Dismissed from his Weimar post in 1717, and even jailed for a day over his stubbornness over the dismissal.
Hired as Kapellmeister for Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen in Köthen (1717-1723): Leopold did not require much music for services, so much of Bach's time was spent on secular compositions during this period; Bach's attempted visit of Handel (a 22 mile [35km] walk away) happend during this time (1717)-Handel wasn't in town; his first wife died (1720); he met and married Anna Magdalena Wilcke in 1721; completed the Brandenburg Concertos by 1721; completed the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier in 1722.
1723-1750; The Leipzig Years
Appointed Thomaskantor of the Thomasschule at the St. thomas Church in Leipzig (1723): wrote the majority of his known cantatas within his first 3 years here; completed the French suites within the first 3 years as well.
Became director of the Collegium Musicum (1729-1737): many of his secular compositions during this period were intended for this organization, to be performed at the famous Café Zimmermann in Leipzig.
Published his four Clavier-Übung during his time in Leipzig (discussed in the "Compositional Output" section).
Composed the bulk of his Mass in B Minor in the mid-1740s
Completed the second book of the Well Tempered Clavier in 1742
His famous visit to Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam occurred in 1747
Began a large part of his "The Art of Fugue" in 1742, which he would prepare for publication and work on until his death.
Bach, becoming blind, had eye surgery performed by the fraud John Taylor in early 1750; JS Bach would die several months later from infection on July 28, 1750.
Compositional Output How can I even begin talking about Bach's compositional output... This is a rare instance where I feel like simply dropping a link to a Wikipedia page is the best thing to do. This is a page about Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis [BWV] "Bach Works Catalogue". This catalogue is the standard way of organizing Bach's many works, and this page contains information on all 13 categories within the catalogue, and endless rabbit holes to fall into. His four Clavier-Übung I mentioned earlier are as follows:
His output is stunning not only due to its volume and variety, but also because each piece that we have is so packed full of music. There are few works by JS Bach that we have that are simply trivial, throw-away pieces; they are all so well-composed, so full of craftsmanship, that nearly each piece invites one to devote themselves to the study of it. Resources
gerubach is a YouTube channel that, as far as I can tell, is incredibly run by a single person. The ultimate goal of the channel is to have a video with scrolling sheet music for every single composition by Bach. This channel is truly a great resource.
Netherlands Bach Society is another channel with a similar goal. However, this group focuses on creating new, extremely high quality (both in audio/video and in performance) recordings of every Bach piece. Their performances are all historically informed. They have some of the absolute best performances of Bach's cantatas and Passions I have ever heard. Along with nearly every performance, they upload a sister-video that is an interview with some of the performers; these videos are always very informative and interesting.
Voices of Music does not focus soley on Bach, but rather all of the baroque repertoire. They are another historically informed ensemble. They have a great deal of Bach recordings, and their videos are of very high quality.
Ashish Xiangyi Kumar has only a small amount of content relating to Bach, but it is of such high quality that it deserves a mention. The videos feature scores, high-quality audio, informed analyses, and great discussion in the descriptions.
For those few unaware, IMSLP is an incredible source for sheet music. The site has nearly anything you could want that is in the public domain.
Personal Favorites It will take a lot of discipline to keep this section short. I will also skew away from the more well-known pieces; I personally adore much of the WTC, but so do most others, and they are already aware of the pieces. The same goes for many other works. (I do have future plans for a post solely dedicated to the WTC, that goes into more depth, incidentally).
BWV 532 - This Prelude and Fugue for organ has some of the most incredible dissonances I've felt. I really urge you to listen to this with good studio headphones or loud speakers; feel the power of the instrument-the adagio section of the prelude will hit you like a ton of bricks.
BWV 572 - Another great organ piece, this time a Fantasia. The Grave segment is great. If you don't want spoilers, stop reading: the final cadence of the Grave section is quite the surprise, a deceptive C#dim7 chord.
BWV 578 - This organ fugue has a very catchy subject, and deserves its fame. This piece (and this video) is great for teaching; it's a great way to introduce beginner students to the concept of counterpoint, as they can "see" the voices, and the subject is so memorable and distinctive.
BWV 1023 - This violin sonata is great. The Adagio is so beautiful.
BWV 1016 - Another stunning violin sonata. The second Adagio is really something else. If you listen to the harpsichord parts, you'll realize this is actually a disguised trio sonata.
BWV 1018 - This is a sonata for violin and keyboard. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Adagio is 100% worth checking out. Bach really had great skill with getting these kinds of feelings out of a violin.
BWV 1043 - This is the Largo movement from his D Minor double violin concerto. The way the violins speak to each other is incredible. It's very easy to be absorbed by this music. Here is a full performance; I simply like the previous performance of the second movement better.
BWV 245 - Bach's St. John's Passion really must be experienced by everyone, and this is an incredible performance of it. Few things in music grab one as much as the opening, "Herr unser Herrscher", of this masterpiece.
BWV 227 - This is one of my favorite motets by the composer. The first verse is very memorable, of course, but Bach also goes on to showcase some incredible 5-part polyphonic writing later on.
BWV 8 - This cantata is one of my favorites. I don't know what it is, but something about this one really sticks with me. The description of this video has some good information.
BWV 997 - This is an incredible suite played on, and composed for the lute-harpsichord. Unknown to many, this was one of Bach's favorite instruments (read the description of this video: the information is accurate). Bach loved the sound of the lute, but wasn't fond of its limitations in what it could play compared to keyboard instruments: the lute-harpsichord was the best of both worlds to him.
BWV 831 Mvt.I, Mvt.II, Mvt.III, Mvt.IV, Mvt.V, Mvt.VI, Mvt.VII, Mvt.VIII, Mvt.IX, Mvt.X, Mvt. XI - This is his French Overture in B Minor. Glenn Gould's performance of this work is a strong contender for my favorite keyboard work of all time. The counterpoint is amazing; it's truly some of the most perfect polyphony I have ever heard. The voices really feel... "real". This is a true discussion between these disembodied voices. If you have any kind of an inclination towards counterpoint yourself, give this a listen with some focus: with headphones, or driving around a quiet neighborhood, or lying in bed with a speaker playing, or anything like that.
"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." -J.S. Bach
"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." -J.S. Bach
"Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder." -Robert Schumann
"Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars." -Frédéric Chopin
"Now there is music from which a man can learn something!" (after hearing Bach's motets performed in Leipzig) -W.A. Mozart
"Study Bach. There you will find everything." -Johannes Brahms
"Nicht Bach, sondern Meer sollte er heißen." -Ludwig van Beethoven
"In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God." -Gustav Mahler
"The music of my father has higher intentions; it's not supposed to fill the ear, but to move!" -C.P.E. Bach
Afterthoughts There is nothing I can say about this composer here that hasn't already been said a thousand times, in a thousand ways, by a thousand musicians more talented than I. There is also no need to convince anyone reading this post of J.S. Bach's compositional prowess. My simple hope is that I can spark some more exploration into this great man, as well as hopefully spark some discussion in the comment section. Happy Birthday, Sebastian, and happy listening for everyone else~
Im Katalog E - Definitionen zu Handel und Distribution, 5. Ausgabe von 2006, herausgegeben vom Institut für Handelsforschung an der Universität Köln, haben die Fachleute folgende Definitionen gewählt: Handel im funktionellen Sinne "Handel im funktionellen Sinne liegt vor,wenn Marktteilnehmer Güter, die sie in der Regel nicht selbst be- oder verarbeiten (siehe Handelsware), von anderen ... Was durch Handel ins Land kam, was als Beute oder als Erwerb durch Kriegsdienst im römischen Heer oder als Geschenk oder auf andere Weise, wird die Forschung im einzelnen genauer zu scheiden suchen. Jedenfalls führte der Handelsverkehr zahlreiche Gegenstände über die Grenze, die der einheimischen Gewerbetätigkeit, auch der keramischen, mannigfache neue Anregungen gaben. Daß Salz ein ... Der Berliner Verlag Directmedia veröffentlicht eine aktualisierte Wikipedia-DVD. Unterdessen denkt die deutsche Wikipedia-Gemeinde über eine Winterpause nach. Online-Handel beschreibt den "elektronischen Handel" im Netz, als das Kaufen und Verkaufen von Gütern oder Dienstleistungen über das Internet (E-Commerce). Der Handel im Mittelalter. Die Entwicklung des Handels im Mittelalter ist untrennbar verbunden mit den Städtegründungen und der wachsenden Macht der Städte.Obwohl es auch bereits im Frühmittelalter Fernhandelsbeziehungen gab, war der Handel jedoch überwiegend auf lokale und regionale Aktivitäten beschränkt. Dies änderte sich mit den Gründungen der aufstrebenden Städte, der ...
Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks (Proms 2012) - YouTube
Facce d'amore by Jakub Józef Orliński, with Il Pomo d'Oro and Maxim Emelyanychev, explores the many faces of love of the Baroque era. Discover the album: htt... Georg Friedrich Händel - Oratorio - Messiah, HWV 56 Part 2, No. 44 Chorus Hallelujah Chorus Performed by The English Concert & Choir Hallelujah, for the Lord... G. F. Handel:Chaconne with 62 variations in G major HWV 442Eberhard Kraus, harpsichord (Gräbner)recorded ca. 1972 Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Bach-Kantorei www.bachkantorei.ch Live-Konzertmitschnitt September 1994 Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) Saul (oratorio in three acts), HWV 53 (1739) Libre...
