“The Bad Batch” suggests that it might be better - or at least less delusional - to fend for yourself among people who make no secret about wanting to eat you. A chilling black-and-white vampire film, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was a slow and thinly written film, but. Just a few years ago, Amirpour launched onto the scene with A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. ![]() Comfort may be Edenic - at least compared with the open desert - but it isn’t necessarily a place where you would want to raise a kid.Īfter all, it isn’t real, as the sign says. The Bad Batch is the first American film from Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour. In addition to presenting her parable about the collapse of society, Amirpour also delivers a kind of postmodern Adam-and-Eve story. How and why Arlen agrees to help him achieve that goal is the main question of the film, at least ostensibly. The plot is largely fueled by Honey’s father (Jason Momoa), a cannibalistic loner known as Miami Man who wants his daughter back. The problem with “The Bad Batch” is that, despite such powerful otherworldly touches, there’s isn’t much narrative conflict, once Arlen escapes to Comfort, where street vendors sell noodles, not human flesh, but where the leader exerts a cultlike supremacy over his subjects. Known as the “bridge people,” these man-eaters capture Arlen and harvest one each of her arms and legs for food.Īfter she escapes to Comfort with the daughter of a woman she has killed in self-defense - a little girl named Honey (Jayda Fink) - the story fast-forwards five months to a time when Arlen is able to hobble around on a prosthetic leg while listening to The Dream expound on his philosophy of governance. The same can’t said for the savages who waylay her on her way to Comfort. ![]() Although the no-man’s-land is populated by the undocumented, the sick, insane, poor, weak and the criminals, the film’s heroine seems pretty well adjusted. It is into Comfort that Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) has wandered, after being cast from civilized society for unknown reasons. The scenario feels sickeningly persuasive, given some of the violent, divisive rhetoric we’re hearing these days. “This isn’t real,” reads a sign in one of the last outposts of human decency, a sanctuary city called Comfort, run by a benevolent despot named The Dream (Keanu Reeves). Set in a dystopian near-future, the universe conjured by her new follow-up, “The Bad Batch” - a wasteland where examples of America’s human garbage struggle to survive in a desert dotted with trash heaps and encampments of cannibals - feels dizzyingly extreme but disturbingly plausible. ![]() As filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour demonstrated with her 2014 debut feature - the Farsi-language feminist vampire fable “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” - she is very good at weirdo world-building.
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![]() Photograph by Mark Segar, Reuters Coming to Americaīut by then, the tradition of jack-o’-lanterns had already taken root in the New World, showing up in early American literature and media. Near the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York, the annual Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze illuminates the grounds of the historic Van Cortlandt Manor with more than 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins. “The minute the lights came on, a lot of the stories lost their potency, and people’s imaginations weren’t running as wild,” Mannion says. People thought it was Jack of the Lantern, a lost soul, or a ghost.”Īs Ireland began the process of nationwide electrification in the 1930s, the tale of Stingy Jack started to fade. “If you were to try to follow the light, you could go into a sinkhole or bog, or drown. Also known as fool’s fire, fairy lights, will-o’-the-wisp, and eventually, jack-o’-lantern, it often seemed like “a floating flame that would move away from travelers,” Mannion says. The story also helped explain ignis fatuus, a natural phenomenon that occurs in marshlands and bogs-such as those in Ireland’s countryside-producing flickering lights as gases from decomposing organic matter combust. “It was also used as a cautionary tale, a morality tale, that Jack was a soul trapped between two worlds, and if you behaved like he did you could end up like that, too,” Mannion says. But the devil took some pity on Jack, giving him an ember of coal to light his turnip lantern as he wandered between both places for eternity-again inspiring the nickname Jack-of-the-Lantern, or jack-o’-lantern. When Jack died, he found himself barred from heaven-and from hell. Dozens of versions abound, but one recurring storyline is that Stingy Jack tricked the devil twice. ![]() Then there’s the 18th-century Irish folktale of Stingy Jack, an unsavory fellow often said to be a blacksmith who had a fondness for mischief and booze. According to Merriam-Webster, in 17th-century Britain it was common to call a man whose name you didn’t know “Jack.” A night watchman, for example, became known as “Jack-of-the-Lantern,” or jack-o’-lantern. The origins of jack-o’-lanterns aren’t limited to produce the term also referred to people. A plaster cast of a carved turnip lantern common during the early 1900s-called a “ghost turnip” and complete with craggy teeth and sinister eye slits-haunts the museum’s permanent exhibitions. Visitors to the National Museum of Ireland-Country Life, in County Mayo, can see firsthand how terrifying those turnips could look. “Over time people started to carve faces and designs to allow light to shine through the holes without extinguishing the ember.” “Metal lanterns were quite expensive, so people would hollow out root vegetables,” he says. ( Related: These paper crafts bring the party on Day of the Dead.)Ī practical purpose also evolved, says Mannion. To ward off restless souls, people donned costumes and carved frightening faces into root vegetables such as beets, potatoes, and turnips-usually plentiful after the recent harvest. On Samhain eve, October 31, spirits of the dead were thought to mingle with the living. The idea took deeper hold during the Celtic festival of Samhain, which was originally celebrated on November 1 and inspired many traditions of modern-day Halloween. “It’s quite macabre, but it may have symbolized the severed heads of your enemies.” “It may even have had pre-Christian origins that evolved from the custom of head veneration, or potentially even represented war trophies taken from your foes,” says Nathan Mannion, senior curator for EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin. The concept of using a round fruit or vegetable to depict a human face goes back thousands of years in some northern European Celtic cultures. Although the legendary Headless Horseman and his hurled pumpkin have been scaring Americans for generations, jack-o’-lanterns actually trace their origins back centuries to Old World traditions in countries including Ireland, England, and Scotland.Īlong the way, pagan rituals, freaky folktales, and natural phenomena have interwoven to create a fascinating history that’s part fact, part fiction, and all frightfully fun. ![]() The backstory of jack-o’-lanterns, including how they came to star in Halloween decor and why they’re carved in the first place, is a tale worth telling. ![]() For decades, carving a pumpkin has been a beloved fall tradition in America, celebrated with parties, festivals, and televised competitions. There’s no more classic Halloween image than a glowing jack-o’-lantern perched in a window or on a porch, setting a merrily macabre mood. ![]() In fact, his expression had become stricken. God layne, could you think of a stupider excuse? He looked up to see a unconvinced Jerry. ![]() "I don't know man, maybe tomorrow night? I gotta get home, clean the place up, and do some other chores." he drifted off, not even bothering to finish the sentence. It's been a while since we've all been able to get together and hang out!" "Without a goodbye? Well, I was gonna ask, wanna come with me and the guys to go get a few drinks? Surely home can wait a few hours. He didn't want his best friend to see the desperatenss in his eyes. "Was just heading home." He was suddenly thankful of the dim lighting in the room. Where you going?" Jerry looked concerned. Right as he was about to walk out the back door, he felt a hand on his shoulder. His stomach was starting to feel nauseous and he didn't want to stick around long enough to let him friends see him get sick all over the place. Layne didn't want him to think anything was wrong, so when Jerry sat back down, he did too, with a forced grin.įinally, later after they left the stage, he walked away from the other guys - who were joking around, laughing, and discussing something that Layne couldn't hear and didn't care about anyways - and went to retrieve his coat and car keys. He knew Jerry was nervous about this performance and was watching his best friend closely the whole time. As much as he didn't want to, he looked at Jerry, questioning whether they should play another song. When the song was over, he felt relieved, giving the crowd a thanks and walking away.īut they quickly started yelling for another song and he could feel his stomach churn, knowing his journey home would surely be delayed now. A pain that would slowly consume him if he didn't get back to his apartment soon. ![]() As the end of the song dragged out, he was beginning to feel a slight pain creep in. He had no idea the unplugged performance would take this long, and while he was having fun, he suddenly could feel his needles calling to him. By the time they were playing the song "Over Now", Layne was ready to go home. Of course, you can’t just serve chicken to your family or guests. Don’t touch any bones as that will provide you with a false reading. You should make sure that you insert your temperature probe into the thickest part of the thigh. You need to make sure that you cook the chicken to a safe internal temperature of at least 165 degrees F. If you are using a charcoal grill you will want to move the coals to one side of your BBQ once they are a nice white/grey color. I used my gas grill for this, it is quick to start and I find that roasted chicken using indirect cooking it works very well. This may potentially cause your chicken to become dry, especially the legs and outer breasts. If it is any larger than that you will have to cook it quite a bit longer. You might want to place a foil roasting pan under your chicken to catch the drippings.įor this type of cooking, you will want to use a medium-sized bird around a 2 1/2 to 3 lb bird. The beer can will act as a stabilizer to keep your chicken upright. You will simply have to make sure that you balance your bird like a tripod using the 2 legs and the back. ![]() ![]() If you do not have a stand that will support your chicken and hold your beer can that’s OK. I often insert ½ an onion, maybe a crushed garlic clove or 2, and some herbs sprigs like rosemary or thyme. I like to put mine inside the chicken, I find the flavors come through better that way. You can add aromatics like garlic cloves or herbs to the pan so that the flavors are absorbed by the bird as it cooks. The unit also holds the can of beer and catches all the juices in the small pan at the bottom. I went all out and spent $9.99 for a small stand that holds the chicken upright. So it is important to pair flavors that will complement each other. Remember, all the flavors you select will be melded together in your roast chicken. For this recipe, I used a beer from a local craft brewery called Rutting Elk Red brewed by The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company. I like to use a robust flavored beer like an amber ale. When you are deciding on what flavors to use the sky is pretty much the limit when using this cooking technique. It paired perfectly with the flavors of the beer that I selected. This time I used the chicken rub from A Cajun Life. I like to use something with a little heat. In addition, you can select any type of spice rub or dry rub you like for your creation. Using a whole chicken makes preparation a breeze. There are so many easy ways to add flavor to your chicken when you cook using this method. BBQ Beer Can Chicken is a simple way to amp up the flavors of your BBQ chicken. ![]() extension.) I hope that this helps some people. Manual VPN Setup General settings to setup Seed4. (Do note that you'll also need to run the Setup.exe file that came as part of the original Giveawayoftheday/Seed4.Me download, to actually install the VPN service on your computer if I recall correctly, I first registered with Seed4.Me, then installed the software, and then went thru the process to get the 6-mth. code that was emailed to you as a previously-registered user). code which will be emailed to you, which you then (as stated in the further readme file instructions) apply at the Seed4.Me website under your previously-established account, using the "Extend Access" and then "Voucher or Prepaid Card" options (the latter is where you apply the new promo. ![]() Any version of Seed4.Me VPN distributed on Uptodown is completely virus-free and free to download at no cost. Download rollbacks of Seed4.Me VPN for Windows. They have high-quality encryption, combinations of. An IP Vanish crack is incredibly fast, which is good for transferring files, games, and broadcasts (although access to Netflix and BBC iPlayer is very unstable). I look forward to trying you out! Thanks, again, for your generous offer-įor those new users having an issue in getting the 6-month service extension: first, follow the instructions in the Giveawayoftheday/Seed4.Me download readme file, to sign up and register with Seed4.Me and get the 1-year free subscription then, follow the readme instructions *again* but this time for *already-registered* users, using the readme file provided link to get a key/promo. It includes all the file versions available to download off Uptodown for that app. In 2023, IPVanish offers VPN services in more than 70 countries with 40,000 IP addresses hosted on 1,000 servers. Many thanks, Seed4.Me-I was able to register, as a new user, for the 1-year free subscription, and then to add the additional 6 mths. If you have any questions or problems, please contact iOS & Android: open Seed4Me App, swipe left once and press the SUPPORT button. 24/7 customer support (we speak English, Arabic, Russian, French, Chinese, Italian, Portugese) Hide your traffic from hackers & Internet provider 1 account for ALL: iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mac, Android, Android TV But Seed4Me VPN 7 days free trial can be used to test the water with no data limit. This ensures that users can access the VPN service from any device, making protecting their online presence and privacy easy. One account secures all of your Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices, encrypting your traffic and protecting your privacy whenever you get online. Is Seed4Me VPN Free Seed4Me is a premium VPN service. Seed4Me VPN is a lightweight security app that allows you to unblock websites and stay anonymous online. Seed4me VPN is available on various platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. NB: !!!Please to get the voucher code use the same browser where you downloaded the offer !!! ![]() Old users will get 6 months of free VPN ($20). New users will get 1 year of free VPN ($36) + They can get 6 months voucher code. They are different for New users and those who already registered. NB: Please follow the activation instructions in readme file. In the 13th century the old city of Al-'Ula was built and many stones of the old Dedanite and Lihyanite ruins were reused. It thrived from around 650 until it declined at some time before 1230. The power centre of the region thus shifted to Hegra some 22 km (14 mi) to the north of Al-'Ula.Īl-Mabiyat some 20 km (12 mi) away near Mughaira became the next commercial centre of the region. The Nabataeans made Hegra, the modern Mada'in Salih, their second capital. The Nabataeans were the lords of the region at least until 106 AD when the Romans conquered their capital Petra. The next four hundred years, until around 100 BC, were the time of the Kingdom of Lihyan. One of the Nabataean tombs from the Madain Saleh necropolis It is thought that around the turn of the fifth century BC the kingdom became hereditary. In these it is told how Nabonidus the king of Babylonia made a military campaign to northern Arabia in 552 BC or somewhat later, conquering Tayma Dedan and Yathrib (Medina). Dedan is mentioned in the Harran Inscriptions. The Dedanite kingdom spans the seventh and sixth centuries BC. The older history of the oasis has been divided into several phases. Al-'Ula stands on the site of the Biblical city of Dedan but was founded with the ancient north Arabian kingdom of Lihyan, which ruled from the 5th to 2nd century BC. It was located along Incense Road, the network of routes that facilitated the trading of spices, silk and other luxury items through the kingdom of Axum, Arabia, Egypt, and India. ![]() The walled city of Al-'Ula was founded in the 6th century BC, an oasis in the desert valley, with fertile soil and plenty of water. The area is also known for its striking landscape of rocks, canyons, and wadis, and the contrast between these dry surroundings and the lush, palm-filled oases near the city's centre.Īl-'Ula was once a key stop on the Hejaz Railway, linking Damascus to Medina. In addition to the ancient old town, a more recent historical city, displaying the settlement patterns of Arabic-Islamic urbanism, remains occupied and is currently experiencing a renaissance. The city (municipality) covers 2,391 square kilometres (923 sq mi), and has a population of 5,426. The city is located 110 km (68 mi) southwest of Tayma and 300 km (190 mi) north of Medina. Today, the city of Al-'Ula is within the Governorate of Al-'Ula ( Arabic: مُحَافَظَة ٱلْعُلَا, romanized: Muḥāfathat Al-ʿUlā), one of seven constituent counties of Medina province. ![]() Al-'Ula was also the capital of the ancient Lihyanites (Dedanites). Meanwhile, the ancient walled city of Al-'Ula ("Old Town"), situated near the oasis that allowed for its settlement, contains a dense cluster of mud-brick and stone houses. ![]() Built more than 2,000 years ago by the Nabataeans, Hegra is often compared with its sister city of Petra, in Jordan. Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra (also known as Al-Hijr, or Mada'in Salih), is located 22 km (14 mi) north of the city, in Al-'Ula governorate. The immediate vicinity contains a unique concentration of precious artifacts, including well-preserved ancient stone inscriptions that illustrate the development of the Arabic language, and a concentration of rock dwellings and tombs that date from the Nabatean and Dedanite periods that coincided with Greco-Roman influence during classical antiquity. ![]() Situated in the Hejaz, a region that features prominently in the history of Islam as well as several pre-Islamic Semitic civilizations, Al-'Ula was a market city on the historic incense route that linked India and the Gulf to the Levant and Europe. Coordinates: 26☃7′N 37★5′E / 26.617°N 37.917☎ / 26.617 37.917Īl-'Ula ( Arabic: ٱلْعُلَا al-ʿulā), sometimes stylized in English as AlUla, is an ancient Arabic oasis city located in Medina province of northwestern Saudi Arabia. Embracing God’s larger plan for your life will help you stay strong when temptations arise.” Winters writes, “When faced with temptation, consider the potential damage to your career, your future, and your family. In this post, How to Handle Temptation at Work, David L. Is it possible to be moved to a different location and avoid the temptation?.Would I be tempted by the same thing in another position?.Am I tempted by something specific in this job?.If you are in this situation, here are a few questions to ask yourself: However, we can escape recurring temptations at work by quitting a job that is toxic. It’s something we cannot escape this side of heaven. In company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies! Psalm 141:4 Your Job Is Causing You to Fall into Temptationĭo not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds You can trust Him to lead you in the way you should go.Ĭommit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established. The key is to commit your plans to the Lord and allow Him to establish them. ![]() That first scary step of faith might be the step of quitting your job. ![]() In this article, Making Career Decisions Within God’s Will for Your Life, the author writes, “God's guidance is given one step at a time, and often requires that we take some scary steps of faith.” If you are struggling in the workplace, and are wondering whether you should quit your job, Here are 7 Biblical reasons to consider: But you’re questioning if it’s really making the kind of impact God wants you to be. It’s not harmful to yourself or others, it doesn’t come in between you and God. Maybe your current position suits you just fine. Just like God gives us Biblical principles to choose jobs by, he gives us principles that can lead us away from jobs that are not good for us. There is never as clear a roadmap as we would like to our life, and God often does not send us flashing neon signs that lead to a career path, or even away from one. 3:23-23).īut what if we’re not working at a job God wants to be at? Scripture tells us that in any job you hold, and everything you do, you should “…work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward” (Col. ![]() And it’s from His perspective that we may find Biblical reasons to quit our jobs. There are probably a dozen practical reasons why people choose to quit their jobs, (including the risk of being harmed by aforementioned knives), but there are also Biblical principles that lead us to view our jobs from a Godly perspective. Most of my jobs were simply a means to an end, while other jobs were outright dangerous-like the time I sold knives door-to-door! Not only do I feel like I’m working within my God-given strengths, I also feel like I’m helping others along the way. ![]()
![]() Watson Research Center in the 1970s and 1980s. They came back with a strong positive recommendation for a multidisciplinary approach that would leverage IBM’s computing powers to achieve breakthroughs.įred Jelinek, already a distinguished professor at Cornell in Information Theory, was brought in to lead the effort at the Thomas J. IBM then commissioned a task force to investigate the long term potential for speech recognition. It was IBM’s first speech recognition system to operate over telephone lines and respond to a range of different voices and accents. The Automatic Call Identification system enabled engineers anywhere in the US to talk to and receive “spoken” answers from a computer in Raleigh, NC. The device recognized ten digits and six control worlds-including “plus,” “minus” and “total”-spoken to it through a microphone.īy 1971, IBM had developed its next experimental application of speech recognition. Dersch, an engineer based at IBM’s laboratory in San Jose, California, demonstrated the Shoebox on television and at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington. ![]() Dersch unveiled the Shoebox-a machine that could do simple math calculations via voice commands. ® 701, were investigating aspects of pattern recognition and artificial intelligence, the building blocks for speech recognition. As far back as the 1950s, IBMers such as Nathaniel Rochester, designer of the It is not available for previous-generation models.The effectiveness of speech recognition today comes out of decades of research by hundreds of scientists and engineers working on statistics, linguistics, semantics, predictive algorithms and audio processing. Then experiment with different values as necessary, adjusting the value by small increments.īeta: The parameter is beta functionality. ![]() To determine the most effective value for your scenario, start by setting the value of the parameter to a small increment, such as -0.1, -0.05, 0.05, or 0.1, and assess how the value impacts the transcription results. Positive values bias the service to favor hypotheses with longer strings of characters.Īs the value approaches -1.0 or 1.0, the impact of the parameter becomes more pronounced. Negative values bias the service to favor hypotheses with shorter strings of characters. The allowable range of values is -1.0 to 1.0. By default, the service is optimized to produce the best balance of strings of different lengths. Use caution when you set the weight: a higher value can improve the accuracy of phrases from the custom model's domain, but it can negatively affect performance on non-domain phrases.įor next-generation models, an indication of whether the service is biased to recognize shorter or longer strings of characters when developing transcription hypotheses. Assign a higher value if your audio makes frequent use of OOV words from the custom model. The default value yields the best performance in general. Unless a different customization weight was specified for the custom model when the model was trained, the default value is:Ġ.1 for next-generation English and Japanese modelsĪ customization weight that you specify overrides a weight that was specified when the custom model was trained. You can use the customization weight to tell the service how much weight to give to words from the custom language model compared to those from the base model for the current request. If you specify a customization ID when you open the connection, For more information, see Using the default model.Īllowable values: For Speech to Text for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, if you do not install the en-US_BroadbandModel, you must either specify a model with the request or specify a new default model for your installation of the service. The default model is en-US_BroadbandModel. See Using a model for speech recognition. The model to use for all speech recognition requests that are sent over the connection. For more information, see Authenticating to IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Pass an access token as you would with the Authorization header of an HTTP request. ![]() For more information, see Authenticating to IBM Cloud. You pass an IAM access token instead of passing an API key with the call. Pass an Identity and Access Management (IAM) access token to authenticate with the service. After a connection is established, it can remain active even after the token or its credentials are deleted. You do not need to refresh the access token for an active connection that lasts beyond the token's expiration time. You remain authenticated for as long as you keep the connection open. After you establish a connection, you can keep it alive indefinitely. You pass an access token only to establish an authenticated connection. You must establish the connection before the access token expires. Pass a valid access token to establish an authenticated connection with the service. ![]() Last year we suffered one catastrophic blaze after another, and the sky was dark at. I live in California, a sinking fireball on a good day. It's ours and we want a Captain Planet movie. Captain Planet was a form of edutainment, which advocates the United Nations as an organization, and the concepts of globalism, multiculturalism and. It is a dark, terrible, unimaginable tomorrow: the 2020s. Octo Story selection and rights acquired idea being crafted into usable script financing and casting attachments sought aiming for greenlight Paramount and Leonardo DiCaprios Appian Way Productions are in talks to acquire the rights. Remember Hollywood: The Power is.well it's ours. Captain Planet movie production status is currently Development. Its just like inflation: Too much cash laying around causes it to lose value too many villains causes the audience to lose investment in any of them. With our example of Blight/MAL, Skumm, and Plunder we've got time to devote to each of their motivations and what makes them dangerous to both the environment and the heroes. Captain Planet might still come to theaters. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. ![]() A pretty solid formula seems to be the Rule of Three. : Captain Planet And The Planeteers: Season 1 : David Coburn, LeVar Burton, Whoopi Goldberg, James Coburn, Joey Dedio, Janice Kawaye, Scott Menville, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Jeff Goldblum, Various: Movies & TV Movies & TV Boxed Sets Television Currently unavailable. If you have too many bad guys running around then you don't have enough time for them to gain value as a real threat. Turner creates a cartoon character to help inform young people about protecting the environment. Remember the lesson that Spiderman learned: Too many villains in a 90-minute long movie can cause a disinteresting bloat. Keep Argos out of the movie and introduce him at the end when Robin Published Paramount Pictures and Leonardo DiCaprios Appian Way Productions have teamed up to bring the 1990s cartoon series Captain Planet to the Big Screen. Henchman Argos Bleak as the big baddies in the end. To no more than three major villains: Blight as the brains, Skumm asĪn early obstacle for the new crew to surpass, Plunder and his old |
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