Oct/12/2020 wrap-up: \\ War in Karabakh (Artsakh) \\ Battles in north (Mrav), north-east (Talish), and south (Hadrut) \\ Erdogan's cozy relations with terrorist groups \\ jihadists exposed \\ Casualty report \\ Flashback 1990s: first Karabakh war \\ Ilham feels insulted \\ the international response
Russian outlet analyses the terrorist recruitment and deployment operations in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Syria.
news-front.info article: in early September, Turkish police arrested one of ISIS leaders, Emir Mahmud Ozden, who allegedly tried to plot attacks on Turkish soil to pressure the government. Emir used to be friendly with Turkish special forces in the early 2000s. In 2012 he joined ISIS and began organizing the transfer of jihadists to Syria from Northern Caucasus, Crimea, and Central Asia. Before moving to Syria, the jihadists would stop in Turkey and undergo training. It's unclear what had broken up the relationship between Emir and Turkish special forces in the 2000s.
This July, there were two anti-terror raids in Izmir (Turkey), and Batumi (Georgia), which resulted in the arrest of 78 militants, 9 of whom were Turkish citizens, illegally residing in Georgia. One of the arrested men in Georgia was Binal Jamgioz, the second in command of Turkish [ultra-nationalist terrorist] organization Grey Wolves (GW). He was engaged in money laundering, arms sales, and recruitment of ethnic Turkic Uyghurs in China for a separatist movement. Back in 2014, Binal Jamgioz was recruiting militants in Azerbaijan and Georgia to fill the ranks of ISIS in Syria. [About GW. Turkish special forces were using this group to suppress opposition, assassinate union activists, Kurdish activists, journalists, politicians. They are responsible for the death of thousands of Kurds.] Binal Jamgioz reports to the leader of GW Devlet Bahcheli, and a billionaire and cash-machine of GW Ismail Chelebi. Chelebi resides in Georgia while remotely managing the GW financing in Turkey, Caucasus, and Central Asia.
In April, Turkey's Erdogan pardoned another large GW donor and a known mafioso Alaattin Chakothi. A question arises: why did Erdogan make so many GW arrests in September if he's also friendly with some GW leaders? Erdogan might be trying to send a message that these radical groups must play exclusively by his rules. Erdogan had instructed the members of ISIS, GW, Al Qaida, and few others to fight in Libya and Karabakh. The leaders of [ultra-nationalist] GW had refused to fight in Libya due to not seeing a benefit for the Turkic world. Meanwhile, leaders of other Islamic militant groups had refused to fight in Karabakh in support of secular-Shia Azerbaijan. In the end, they were forced by Erdogan to agree to fight, in exchange for freedom. The full article contains more info about Karabakh. The above translation is a fraction of it: https://news-front.info/2020/10/10/ustami-erdogana-london-i-vashington-dayut-signal-rossii-v-karabahe/
50 more jihadists are reported dead
Middle East reporter says 50 more Syrian militants were killed in Artsakh. Among them are Ibrahim Jum'a and Ahmed Lahalak from Rastan. The 50 bodies will arrive at the Hiwar Kilis crossing soon. The source is a fighter with the Levant Front, a Turkish-backed group from Rastan. He personally knowns the two aforementioned militants. Photos: https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1315699232699973632
Ilham Aliyev feels personally insulted by Russia
The overly self-conscious autocrat of Azerbaijan, who recently resorted to using camera filters to make his skin appear bronzed on TV, feels personally insulted by Russian media outlets for not being pro-Azerbaijan enough. "I have always said that Russians are attracted to Azerbaijan not only by cuisine, beaches, history, but also by the fact that they feel comfortable, they feel in their environment. They talk to people in Russian. You probably know that nowhere there are so many schools in Russian as in Azerbaijan. But you have already spent several days here and you know how the factor of the Armenian occupation influences the mood of the people. People catch every word, every gesture, every facial expression. And, of course, I will tell you frankly: during these two weeks, when on some Russian channels we see rabid anti-Azerbaijani propaganda, falsification, manipulation, an unbalanced composition of talk show participants, when the Azerbaijani people are insulted, the president of Azerbaijan is insulted on the leading Russian channels - this, of course, does not add credibility to Russia," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with RBC. (Context: prominent Azeri reporter was fired from Russian media outlets for justifying the bombing of an Armenian church in Shushi. Russian prime-time TV shows are critical of Azerbaijan for bringing Turkey and jihadists into the conflict.) https://web.archive.org/web/20201011210840/http://azeridaily.com/politics/58892
the ethnic minority oppression and their history of pushing for independence from Azerbaijan
CivilNet outlet: during the Karabakh pro-independence movement in 1988, when ethnic cleansings of Armenians were committed by Azeris, the ethnic Udis, who were predominantly Christian and very close to Armenian, even with their first names, were also forced to flee Azerbaijan. Most Udis moved to Russia but some had settled in Armenia's Noyemberyan region. During the first Karabakh war, two minorities were "active" in Azerbaijan. Lezgins created the "Sadval" movement in 1990 to preserve their ethnic identity. The second movement was by Talysh, led by Aylakram Gumbatov, who even managed to establish the Talysh Republic in the southern Lenkoran region, for a brief period. Lezgins, who live in northern Azerbaijan, live on the Azeri and Russian sides of the border. Talysh, who live in the south, are divided between Iran and the Azerbaijani border. There are no widespread attempts by ethnic Talysh and Lezgins to establish independence today. Aylakram Gumbatov, the leader of the self-proclaimed Talysh Republic in the 90s, was later arrested and sentenced to death but was subsequently pardoned and exiled. "Artsakh could serve as a role model and allow these persecuted Azeri minorities to settle in Artsakh and have representation in Artsakh Parliament." https://youtu.be/tmYU6nWA3Cw
NY Post Editorial Board: Erdogan’s proxy war in Armenia in an ugly echo of Turkey’s genocidal campaign century ago. On Sept. 27, Azerbaijan resumed its conflict with Armenia, accusing it of unprovoked attacks. At issue is the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, a mountainous territory of 150,000 people (mostly ethnic Armenians) that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but claimed and governed by Armenia since an earlier war. The Azeris are plainly the aggressors: They not only outnumber the Armenians 3-to-1, they’ve been modernizing their military with a huge assist from the Turks. Full: https://nypost.com/2020/10/11/erdogans-proxy-war-in-armenia-is-an-echo-of-turkeys-genocidal-campaign/
October 12th arrives / the battlefield / international response
8:31 MoD: the front lines were relatively stable-tense last night. Azeris are shelling the southern front right now. https://twitter.com/ShStepanyan/status/1315510964578590726?s=20 9:02 Artsakh army: the northern, north-eastern, and southern fronts were active. All the Azeri attack attempts were repelled. They sustained heavy human and equipment losses. Their ongoing artillery fires are being suppressed with appropriate measures. https://t.me/infocomm/23021 10:32 army: the operation to locate and destroy the Hadrut infiltrators continues. Azeris accumulated large backup forces with an attempt to enter the city. There are fierce battles. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031307.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031309.html 11:28: Artavazd Knyazyan, an Armenian-Spanish businessman, has posthumously received the title of Artsakh Hero. https://factor.am/294320.html 11:39 army spokesman: I have repeatedly referred to the fact that it is not so appropriate to indicate clear positions, landscapes, even settlements at this stage of the war. The war is fierce, the Armenian army is fighting hard against the Turkish-Azerbaijani forces, which is several times larger and is fully supported by the Turkish air force, other intelligence systems, a large number of mercenaries, terrorists, and private military organizations. The Armenian army is resisting these forces with great success, with such success that even international experts mention it. According to the tactical-operative necessity, the defense army carries out both retreat and change of lines, as well as attack and counterattack. Trust our army, we will win. https://factor.am/294327.html 12:30: soldiers released a video from the front lines. https://youtu.be/fx2cj1aXwhA 12:58 army: the losses from the Azeri side: 4919 soldiers (one Lt. Colonel today), 4 TOS (Solntzepyok?), 514 tanks and armored vehicles, 17 aircrafts, 16 helicopters, 168 drones, etc. https://factor.am/294389.html , https://t.me/infoteka24/8698 13:26: army released footage showing the destruction of another Azeri AN-2 drone. https://youtu.be/eP95wv5DdD0 https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031324.html 13:38: Azeri media reports that the Azeri govt is accumulating more riot gear and water trucks to disperse possible demonstrations. "Some residents aren't happy that the govt keeps the data about casualties secret." The war resulted in large migration from bordering cities Ganja, Terter, Barda, Gerambo towards Baku. Azeri Telegram channels earlier shared a video showing large vehicle traffic near a Baku suburb called Kherdalan. The police blocked the road to prevent them from reaching Baku. Azeri Twitter began sharing a hashtag that demands answers from Aliyev. https://youtu.be/LOGVjlPnSzw https://factor.am/294412.html 14:23: Artsakh president Arayik met the veterans of the first Karabakh war. "In this dire state, we must all stand up as one." https://news.am/arm/news/607506.html
CivilNet recalls the first Karabakh war in 1990 to draw comparisons: today, the heaviest battles are in southern borders between Horadiz and Jabrayil; it's about a 15km section. This isn't new. In the 90s, when Azeris attacked, that's where their Operation Ring was carried out. It was around Hadrut. In the winter of 1994 when Azeris made their last push, we lost a lot of lands there, then recaptured some of it. The line of contact stopped between the Armenian and Azeri towns of Horadiz (both similarly named). Those 5 months were Aliyev's last push. Armenians suffered 2,000 deaths and Azeris 5,000. The situation was also dire in 1992 when Abulfaz Elchibey won the elections and started a new war. Azeris captured Martakert and Shahumyan in a few weeks. They captured 40% of Karabakh. That's what I call "dire". Another dire situation was in 1991 and Karabakh leader Leonard Ter-Petrosyan went to Baku to negotiate with Azeri president Mutallibov. Another dire one was in 1992 when the Lachin corridor with Armenia was about to be blocked. At the time, Azeris controlled the northern Qarvachar region and were pushing south to cut off Artsakh from Armenia. Only a few kilometers were left from the Lachin corridor. How did Armenians change the course? It was the Armenian political unity, cold-heartedness, lack of panicking, good governance, problems within Azerbaijan. Ceasefires have been broken before. On April 10, 1992, while the Russian delegation was there for negotiations, the Azeri army entered Maragha village and massacred dozens of civilians. The war isn't easy to stop; it's expected that today's ceasefire is hard to achieve. More: https://youtu.be/X75N4yEp7Kk
14:37: European Parliament MP Jaromir Stetina has called for the official recognition of the Artsakh Republic. "What is happening now is dictator Aliyev's policy towards small Artsakh. In order for all this to stop, the international community, and first of all European Union, must recognize Artsakh as an independent state." https://armlur.am/1050860/ https://infoteka24.ru/2020/10/12/72262/ 14:52: Russian MFA says it's important to follow the ceasefire agreement reached in Moscow. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031334.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031336.html. 15:22 army: we shot down an Azeri Su-25 jet in the north. The Turkish F-16 jets continue to accompany and aid the Azeri jets. Hours later: at first Azeris denied losing Su-25, then their front line administration confirmed it, without realizing that we had already confirmed it. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031340.html , https://news.am/arm/news/607558.html 15:25: Los Angeles Lakers player Danny Green expressed solidarity with Armenians, saying "they want peace but are under attack now". Lakers won their 17th NBA champion title yesterday and tied it with Boston. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031342.html 15:27: British journalist Dominic Lowson wrote an article for The Sunday Times, in which he criticized Boris Johnson for his silence over Turkish aggression. He reminded that Johnson's great grandfather was a Turkish man named Ali Kemal who was murdered in Turkey and had an Armenian name written on his body for his support for Armenians and the condemnation of the Armenian genocide. The article notes that Artsakh has already voted to be independent from Azerbaijan. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031338.html. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turkeys-game-is-lethal-as-johnson-well-knows-5zz5v57kx 15:47: the Armenian side reaffirms commitment to the humanitarian ceasefire if Azeris do the same. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031347.html 16:25: Armenian MFA met his Russian colleague and spoke about Azerbaijan's involvement of jihadists, "which poses a threat to the whole region." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031353.html 15:07: PM Pashinyan held a meeting with non-parliamentary and opposition parties (HHK, ARF, etc.) to discuss various topics about independence recognition, security, possible official military agreement with Artsakh, etc. The ambassador to several states entered the government building after the meeting. Pashinyan urged the ambassadors to recognize Artsakh republic during the meeting, "which will help end the humanitarian crisis." Ruling party MP says that Armenia should recognize the Artsakh Republic only after another state does. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031359.html , https://factor.am/294472.html , https://factor.am/294469.html , https://factor.am/294458.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031390.html 15:10: Armenians have intercepted a radio communication of Azeri Syrian jihadists near southern borders. Some segments are presented, about how they discuss miserable conditions, mistreatment by Azeri commanders, snipers shooting some Azeris in the back in case of surrender, them being told to be careful not to shoot at the Iran border, etc. Video: https://youtu.be/ivh80u7pPy8 https://factor.am/294475.html https://youtu.be/53KtWWZhY4U 15:17: Galina Simova, the community leader of the 1,500 ethnic Russian community of Artsakh, has asked Vladimir Putin to take steps to stop the bombardment of civilian settlements and to "fight the Syrian militants in Karabakh just as Russia fights them in Syria because they are a direct threat to Russia, too." Full: https://news.am/arm/news/607521.html 16:51 Armenian MFA: we agree to the installation of a ceasefire verification mechanism across the border, but Azerbaijan refuses. https://news.am/arm/news/607545.html 16:59: the Russian reporter Yuri Kotenok, who was targeted by Azeri drone and severely wounded while inside a church in Shushi, is still in Armenia. Doctors advised against airlifting him to Russia for now. He is feeling better after the surgery. https://news.am/arm/news/607547.html 17:14: Armenians held a demonstration in Luxemburg near the EU building. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031358.html 17:17: video showing the destruction if a few more Azeri drones. https://youtu.be/SlUdHlwEGrY 17:24: the European Parliament has received the report written by Artsakh Human Rights Ombudsman about Azerbaijan's crimes against Artsakh civilians in Sep-Oct. https://factor.am/294575.html 17:30 U.S. Congressman Tony Cardenas: We must immediately end security assistance to Azerbaijan and Secretary Pompeo must make it clear to Turkey that it cannot continue to fan the flames of violence. The U.S. leadership cannot be silent while the people of Nagorno-Karabakh suffer. https://twitter.com/RepCardenas/status/1315401322368294912?s=20 https://news.am/arm/news/607557.html 17:38: Chief conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra Lior Shambadal expressed solidarity with Armenians. "I am proud of the Armenian spirit as you defend your beautiful country and wonderful culture." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031364.html 17:59: the list of the names of deceased soldiers has been updated since yesterday, to 525 confirmed. https://news.am/arm/news/607596.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031369.html 18:07: yesterday, several Israeli scientists wrote an open letter to their govt, asking to stop the weapon sales to Azerbaijan. Israel Charny, the executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, believes most Israelis support Armenia. He called Erdogan a murderer who oppresses Kurds in Syria and has set his eye on Jerusalem. "President Reuven Rivlin supports the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but as a president, he has fewer powers than when he was the speaker of the Parliament." https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031371.html 18:08: the govt of Azerbaijan has launched a criminal case against the Russian WarGonzo journalist Semyon Pegov, who has been actively documenting the Azeri war crimes against civilian settlements in Artsakh. Pegov is charged with "illegal entry to Azerbaijan" (Azeris consider Artsakh their territory) and "making calls against the Azerbaijani state."
In other news, Russian authorities are investigating a Russia-based Azeri propagandist Saadat Guliyev. The latter publicly stated that he wishes for the aforementioned Russian reporter Semyon Pegov to die [from an Azeri bombardment] in Artsakh. "Armenian citizens should not shield the military reporter," he added. After that statement, prominent Russian TV hosts became furious and called for Russian authorities to launch a felony case against Saadat Guliyev, including for inciting ethnic hatred, which is a sensitive topic in Russia due to its ethnic diversity. The authorities are investigating and will decide whether to charge Guliyev. https://ria.ru/20201012/zhurnalist-1579403698.html https://factor.am/294592.html https://news.am/arm/news/607534.html 18:34: footage showing the aftermath of Armenian troops capturing possibly one of the hills near the northern Mrav mountains. Date unclear. Graphic: https://twitter.com/301_AD/status/1315662201286426625?s=20 https://t.me/infoteka24/8739 18:03 army spokesman: Azeri media outlets have claimed that their artillery shells "caused heavy damage on Armenian soldiers who were retreating towards Red Bazaar in the south". The Azeri propaganda machine, as usual, distorts the reality, trying to prove at all costs that they control Hadrut. It's a naked statement by Aliyev. The operation to blockade and destroy the Hadrut infiltrators continues. The operative situation is under the full control of our army. https://www.facebook.com/arcrun/posts/3429257187109865 19:13 Artsakh official: the heavy battles continue near Hadrut and in the south. Our army responds proportionately. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031375.html , https://t.me/reartsakheng/496 19:19: the Conservative party of Estonia, part of the ruling coalition, has urged Turkey to "stop sending the jihadists to Karabakh front." "We are concerned about the large-scale military aggression unleashed by the Republic of Azerbaijan against the Republic of Armenia and the Artsakh Republic on September 27. We call on the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately stop the bombing of civilian infrastructure." https://infocom.am/Article/38678 19:24: MoD of Russia and Turkey discussed the situation in Syria, Libya, and Artsakh. https://news.am/arm/news/607584.html 19:33 Armenian MFA: Turkey, being unable to achieve its goal, is actively preventing the establishment of the humanitarian ceasefire signed in Moscow. The army of Azerbaijan, being under the control of Turkey, continues the military actions and the attack on civilian settlements. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031377.html 19:35: watch out for fake GoFundMe pages. https://factor.am/294649.html 20:11: Armenian hackers stole $20,000 from a bank account that collects funds for the Azeri army, used it all on purchasing sex toys from Amazon, and wrote the Azerbaijani Government building address as the shipping address. https://t.me/reartsakheng/505 [link 404] 20:46: Turkish internet regulators have blocked several Armenian government websites in Turkey. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031388.html 20:57: the Armenian delegation to PACE has presented Azerbaijan's war crimes against Artsakh civilians and urged PACE member-states to recognize the independence of Artsakh. https://news.am/arm/news/607598.html 21:21: Belgian-Armenian musician Sevak Avanesyan gave a performance in Shushi's St. Ghazanchetsots church that was earlier bombed by Azerbaijan twice. https://youtu.be/0ejPlScu_uU https://t.me/infocomm/23088 21:32 Ombudsman: 31 civilians have died in Artsakh since the beginning of the war. https://t.me/infocomm/23089 22:00 army spokesman's briefing: Azeris refused to follow the ceasefire. Since its beginning, they launched an attack in 3-4 directions. A heavy weapon was used near Martakert. In this recent period, Azeris lost 1 jet, 3 drones, and 200 soldiers. Turkish air force helped the Azeris to conduct 36 flights, during which we downed an Azeri Su-25 jet near north-western Qarvachar (near Mrav mountain). This region is less intense than the south. Throughout the day, battles continued in the south. We stopped their advancement and pushed them back near Hadrut. The city is under our control. Azeris refuse to accept the ceasefire to exchange bodies because that would mean the introduction of international mediators (Red Cross), which they don't like. The north-eastern village of Talish is not "under Azeri control". Their forces are stationed on the Talish outskirts. The regrouping activities made by us in this northern section allowed them to publish videos from Talish. Once again, the positions can change quickly and I ask you again not to fixate on a specific location during a large war. Hadrut is completely under our control. There were, and maybe still are, certain Azeri groups on the outskirts. The drone attacks are still with the same intensify but the artillery is weaker now. We will win. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=2857021897850761
The Constitutional Court judge Arman Dilanyan has been elected by fellow judges as their new president. The previous nominee, Edgar Ghazaryan, had failed to secure 5 votes. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1031363.html
Reminder: Do NOT buy from 3rd Party Marketplace Seller on Ebay/Amazon/Newegg (unless you want to pay more). Assume all the 3rd party sellers are scalping. If it's not being sold by the actual retailer (e.g. Amazon selling on Amazon.com or Newegg selling on Newegg.com) then you should treat the product as sold out and wait.
Below is the compilation of all the reviews that have been posted so far. I will be updating this continuously throughout the day with the conclusion of each publications and any new review links. This will be sorted alphabetically.
NVIDIA says that the RTX 3080 is the gaming card and the RTX 3090 is the hybrid creative card – but we respectfully disagree. The RTX 3090 is the flagship gaming card that can also run intensive creative apps very well, especially by virtue of its huge 24GB framebuffer. But it is still not an RTX TITAN nor a Quadro. These cards cost a lot more and are optimized specifically for workstations and also for professional and creative apps. However, for RTX 2080 Ti gamers who paid $1199 and who have disposable cash for their hobby – although it has been eclipsed by the RTX 3080 – the RTX 3090 Founders Edition which costs $1500 is the card to maximize their upgrade. And for high-end gamers who also use creative apps, this card may become a very good value. Hobbies are very expensive to maintain, and the expense of PC gaming pales in comparison to what golfers, skiers, audiophiles, and many other hobbyists pay for their entertainment. But for high-end gamers on a budget, the $699 RTX 3080 will provide the most value of the two cards. We cannot call the $1500 RTX 3090 a “good value” generally for gamers as it is a halo card and it absolutely does not provide anywhere close to double the performance of a $700 RTX 3080. However, for some professionals, two RTX 3090s may give them exactly what they need as it is the only Ampere gaming card to support NVLink providing up to 112.5 GB/s of total bandwidth between two GPUs which when SLI’d together will allow them to access a massive 48GB of vRAM. SLI is no longer supported by NVIDIA for gaming, and emphasis will be placed on mGPU only as implemented by game developers.
So there we have it. The RTX 3090 delivers - at best - 15 to 16 per cent more gaming performance than the RTX 3080. In terms of price vs performance, there is only one winner here. And suffice to say, we would expect to see factory overclocked RTX 3080 cards bite into the already fairly slender advantage delivered by Nvidia's new GPU king. Certainly in gaming terms then, the smart money would be spend on an RTX 3080, and if you're on a 1440p high refresh rate monitor and you're looking to maximise price vs performance, I'd urge you to look at the RTX 2080 Ti numbers in this review: if Nvidia's claims pan out, you'll be getting that and potentially more from the cheaper still RTX 3070. All of which raises the question - why make an RTX 3090 at all? The answers are numerous. First of all, PC gaming has never adhered to offering performance increases in line with the actual amount of money spent. Whether it's Titans, Intel Extreme processors, high-end motherboards or performance RAM, if you want the best, you'll end up paying a huge amount of money to attain it. This is only a problem where there are no alternatives and in the case of the RTX 3090, there is one - the RTX 3080 at almost half of the price. But more compelling is the fact that Nvidia is now blurring the lines between the gaming GeForce line and the prosumer-orientated Quadro offerings. High-end Quadro cards are similar to RTX 3090 and Titan RTX in several respects - usually in that they deliver the fully unlocked Nvidia silicon paired with huge amounts of VRAM. Where they differ is in support and drivers, something that creatives, streamers or video editors may not wish to pay even more of a premium for. In short, RTX 3090 looks massively expensive as a gamer card, but compared to the professional Quadro line, there are clear savings. In the meantime, RTX 3090 delivers the Titan experience for the new generation of graphics hardware. Its appeal is niche, the halo product factor is huge and the performance boost - while not exactly huge - is likely enough to convince the cash rich to invest and for the creator audience to seriously consider it. For my use cases, the extra money is obviously worth it. I also think that the way Nvidia packages and markets the product is appealing: the RTX 3090 looks and feels special, its gigantic form factor and swish aesthetic will score points with those that take pride in their PC looking good and its thermal and especially acoustic performance are excellent. It's really, really quiet. All told then, RTX 3090 is the traditional hard sell for the mainstream gamer but the high-end crowd will likely lap it up. But it leaves me with a simple question: where next for the Titan and Ti brands? You don't retire powerhouse product tiers for no good reason and I can only wonder: is something even more powerful cooking?
When we had our first experience with the GeForce RTX 3080, we were nothing short of impressed. Testing the GeForce RTX 3090 is yet another step up. But we're not sure if the 3090 is the better option though, as you'll need very stringent requirements in order for it to see a good performance benefit. Granted, and I have written this many times in the past with the Titans and the like, a graphics card like this is bound to run into bottlenecks much faster than your normal graphics cards. Three factors come into play here, CPU bottlenecks, low-resolution bottlenecks, and the actual game (API). The GeForce RTX 3090 is the kind of product that needs to be free from all three aforementioned factors. Thus, you need to have a spicy processor that can keep up with the card, you need lovely GPU bound games preferably with DX12 ASYNC compute and, of course, if you are not gaming at the very least in Ultra HD, then why even bother, right? The flipside of the coin is that when you have these three musketeers applied and in effect, well, then there is no card faster than the 3090, trust me; it's a freakfest of performance, but granted, also bitter-sweet when weighing all factors in. NVIDIA's Ampere product line up has been impressive all the way, there's nothing other to conclude than that. Is it all perfect? Well, performance-wise in the year 2020 we cannot complain. Of course, there is an energy consumption factor to weigh in as a negative factor and, yes, there's pricing to consider. Both are far too high for the product to make any real sense. For gaming, we do not feel the 3090 makes a substantial enough difference over the RTX 3080 with 10 to 15% differentials, and that's mainly due to system bottlenecks really. You need to game at Ultra HD and beyond for this card to make a bit of sense. We also recognize that the two factors do not need to make sense for quite a bunch of you as the product sits in a very extreme niche. But I stated enough about that. I like this chunk of hardware sitting inside a PC though as, no matter how you look at it, it is a majestic product. Please make sure you have plenty of ventilation though as the RTX 3090 will dump lots of heat. It is big but still looks terrific. And the performance, oh man... that performance, it is all good all the way as long as you uphold my three musketeers remark. Where I could nag a little about the 10 GB VRAM on the GeForce RTX 3080, we cannot complain even the slightest bit about the whopping big mac feature of the 3090, 24 GB of the fastest GDDR6X your money can get you, take that Flight Sim 2020! This is an Ultra HD card, in that domain, it shines whether that is using shading (regular rendered games) or when using hybrid ray-tracing + DLSS. It's a purebred but unfortunately very power-hungry product that will reach only a select group of people. But it is formidable if you deliver it to the right circumstances. Would we recommend this product? Ehm no, you are better off with GeForce RTX 3070 or 3080 as, money-wise, this doesn't make much sense. But it is genuinely a startling product worthy of a top pick award, an award we hand out so rarely for a reference or Founder product but we also have to acknowledge that NVIDIA really is stepping up on their 'reference' designs and is now setting a new and better standard.
This commentary puts the RTX 3090 into a difficult spot. It's 10 percent faster for gaming yet costs over twice as much as the RTX 3080. Value for money is poor when examined from a gaming point of view. Part of that huge cost rests with the 24GB of GDDR6X memory that has limited real-world benefit in games. Rather, it's more useful in professional rendering as the larger pool can speed-up time to completion massively. And here's the rub. Given its characteristics, this card ought to be called the RTX Titan or GeForce RTX Studio and positioned more diligently for the creatoprofessional community where computational power and large VRAM go hand in hand. The real RTX 3090, meanwhile, gaming focussed first and foremost, ought to arrive with 12GB of memory and a $999 price point, thereby offering a compelling upgrade without resorting to Titan-esque pricing. Yet all that said, the insatiable appetite and apparent deep pockets of enthusiasts will mean Nvidia sells out of these $1,500 boards today: demand far outstrips supply. And does it matter what it's called, how much memory it has, or even what price it is? Not in the big scheme of things because there is a market for it. Being part of the GeForce RTX firmament has opened up the way for add-in card partners to produce their own boards. The Gigabyte Gaming OC does most things right. It's built well and looks good, and duly tops all the important gaming charts at 4K. We'd encourage a lower noise profile through a relaxation of temps, but if you have the means by which to buy graphics performance hegemony, the Gaming OC isn't a bad shout... if you can find it in stock.
Summarizing the GeForce RTX 3090's performance is simple -- it's the single fastest GPU on the market currently, bar none. There's nuance to consider here, though. Versus the GeForce RTX 3080, disregarding CPU limited situations or corner cases, the more powerful RTX 3090's advantages over the 3080 only range from about 4% to 20%. Versus the Titan RTX, the GeForce RTX 3090's advantages increase to approximately 6% to 40%. Consider complex creator workloads which can leverage the GeForce RTX 3090's additional resources and memory, however, and it is simply in another class altogether and can be many times faster than either the RTX 3080 or Titan RTX. Obviously, the $1,499 GeForce RTX 3090 Founder's Edition isn't an overall value play for the vast majority of users. If you're a gamer shopping for a new high-end GPU, the GeForce RTX 3080 at less than 1/2 the price is the much better buy. Compared to the $2,500 Titan RTX or $1,300 - $1,500-ish GeForce RTX 2080 Ti though, the GeForce RTX 3090 is the significantly better choice. Your perspective on the GeForce RTX 3090's value proposition is ultimately going to depend on your particular use case. Unless they've got unlimited budgets and want the best-of-the-best, regardless of cost, hardcore gamers may scoff at the RTX 3090. Anyone utilizing the horsepower of the previous generation Titan RTX though, may be chomping at the bit. The GeForce RTX 3090's ultimate appeal is going to depend on the use-case, but whether or not you'll actually be able to get one is another story. The GeForce RTX 3090 is going to be available in limited quantities today -- NVIDIA said as much in yesterday's performance tease. NVIDIA pledges to make more available direct and through partners ASAP, however. We'll see how things shake out in the weeks ahead, and all bets are off when AMD's makes its RDNA2 announcements next month. NVIDIA's got a lot of wiggle room with Ampere and will likely react swiftly to anything AMD has in store. And let's not forget we still have the GeForce RTX 3070 inbound, which is going to have extremely broad appeal if NVIDIA's performance claims hold up.
In Summary: this card is a real giant, especially at higher resolutions, because even if the lead over the GeForce RTX 3080 isn’t always as high as dreamed, it’s always enough to reach the top position in playability. Right stop of many quality controllers included. Especially when the games of the GeForce RTX 3090 and the new architecture are on the line, the mail really goes off, which one must admit without envy, whereby the actual gain is not visible in pure FPS numbers. If you have looked at the page with the variances, you will quickly understand that the image is much better because it is softer. The FPS or percentiles are still much too coarse intervals to be able to reproduce this very subjective impression well. A blind test with 3 perons has completely confirmed my impression, because there is nothing better than a lot of memory, at most even more memory. Seen in this light, the RTX 3080 with 10 GB is more like Cinderella, who later has to make herself look more like Cinderella with 10 GB if she wants to get on the prince’s roller. But the customer always has something to complain about anyway (which is good by the way and keeps the suppliers on their toes) and NVIDIA keeps all options open in return to be able to top a possible Navi2x card with 16 GB memory expansion with 20 GB later. And does anyone still remember the mysterious SKU20 between the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090? If AMD doesn’t screw it up again this time, this SKU20 is sure to become a tie-break in pixel tennis. We’ll see. For a long time I have been wrestling with myself, which is probably the most important thing in this test. I have also tested 8K resolutions, but due to the lack of current practical relevance, I put this part on the back burner. If anyone can find someone who has a spare 8K TV, I’ll be happy to do so, if only because I’m also very interested in 8K-DLSS. But that’s like sucking on an ice cream that you’ve only printed out on a laser printer before. The increase in value of the RTX 3090 in relation to the RTX 3080 for the only gamer is, up to the memory extension, to be rather neglected and one understands also, why many critics will never pay the double price for 10 to 15% more gaming performance. Because I wouldn’t either. Only this is then exactly the target group for the circulated RTX 3080 (Ti) with double memory expansion. Their price should increase visibly in comparison to the 10 GB variant, but still be significantly below that of a GeForce RTX 3090. This is not defamatory or fraudulent, but simply follows the laws of the market. A top dog always costs a little more than pure scaling, logic and reason would allow. And the non-gamer or the not-only-gamer? The added value can be seen above all in the productive area, whether workstation or creation. Studio is the new GeForce RTX wonderland away from the Triple A games, and the Quadros can slowly return to the professional corner of certified specialty programs. What AMD started back then with the Vega Frontier Edition and unfortunately didn’t continue (why not?), NVIDIA has long since taken up and consistently perfected. The market has changed and studio is no longer an exotic phrase. Then even those from about 1500 Euro can survive without a headache tablet again.
RTX 3080 was heralded by many as an excellent value graphics card, delivering performance gains of around 30% compared to the RTX 2080 Ti, despite being several hundred pounds cheaper. With the RTX 3090, Nvidia isn’t chasing value for money, but the overall performance crown. And that is exactly what it has achieved. MSI’s RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio, for instance, is 14% faster than the RTX 3080 and 50% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, when tested at 4K. No other GPU even comes close to matching its performance. At this point, many of you reading this may be thinking something along the line of ‘well, yes, it is 14% faster than an RTX 3080 – but it is also over double the price, so surely it is terrible value?’ And you would be 100% correct in thinking that. The thing is, Nvidia knows that too – RTX 3090 is simply not about value for money, and if that is something you prioritise when buying a new graphics card, don’tbuy a 3090. Rather, RTX 3090 is purely aimed at those who don’t give a toss about value. It’s for the gamers who want the fastest card going, and they will pay whatever price to claim those bragging rights. In this case of the MSI Gaming X Trio, the cost of this GPU’s unrivalled performance comes to £1530 here in the UK. Alongside gamers, I can also see professionals or creators looking past its steep asking price. If the increased render performance of this GPU could end up saving you an hour, two hours per week, for many that initial cost will pay for itself with increased productivity, especially if you need as much VRAM as you can get.
As with any launch, the primary details are in the GPU itself, and so the first half of this conclusion is the same for both of the AIB RTX 3090 graphics cards that we are reviewing today. If you want to know specifics of this particular card, skip down the page. Last week we saw the release of the RTX 3080. A card that combined next-gen performance with a remarkably attractive price point, and was one of the easiest products to recommend we've ever seen. 4K gaming for around the £700 mark might be expensive if you're just used to consoles, but if you're a diehard member of the "PC Gaming Master Race", then you know how much you had to spend to achieve the magical 4K60 mark. It's an absolute no brainer purchase. The RTX 3090 though, that comes with more asterisks and caveats than a Lance Armstrong win on the Tour de France. Make no mistake; the RTX 3090 is brutally fast. If performance is your thing, or performance without consideration of cost, or you want to flex on forums across the internet, then yeah, go for it. For everyone else, and that's most of us, there is a lot it does well, but it's a seriously niche product. We can go to Nvidia themselves for their key phraseology. With a tiny bit of paraphrasing, they say "The RTX 3090 is for 8K gaming, or heavy workload content creators. For 4K Gaming the RTX 3080 is, with current and immediate future titles, more than enough". If you want the best gaming experience, then as we saw last week, the clear choice is the RTX 3080. If you've been following the results today then clearly the RTX 3090 isn't enough of a leap forwards to justify being twice the price of the RTX 3080. It's often around 5% faster, sometimes 10%, sometimes not much faster at all. Turns out that Gears 5 in particular looked unhappy but it was an 'auto' setting on animation increasing its own settings so we will go back with it fixed to ultra and retest. The RTX 3090 is still though, whisper it, a bit of a comedown after the heights of our first Ampere experience. To justify the staggering cost of the RTX 3090 you need to fit into one of the following groups; Someone who games at 8K, either natively or via Nvidia's DSR technology. Someone who renders enormous amounts of 3D work. We're not just talking a 3D texture or model for a game; we're talking animated short films. Although even here the reality is that you need a professional solution far beyond the price or scope of the RTX 3090. Lastly, it would be best if you were someone who renders massive, RAW, 8K video footage regularly and has the memory and storage capacity to feed such a voracious data throughput. If you fall into one of those categories, then you'll already have the hardware necessary - 8K screen or 8K video camera - that the cost of the RTX 3090 is small potatoes. In which case you'll love the extra freedom and performance it can bring to your workload, smoothing out the waiting that is such a time-consuming element of the creative process. This logic holds true for both the Gigabyte and MSI cards we're looking at on launch.
There’s no doubt that the $1,500 GeForce RTX 3090 is indeed a “big ferocious GPU,” and the most powerful consumer graphics card ever created. The Nvidia Founders Edition delivers unprecedented performance for 4K gaming, frequently maxes out games at 1440p, and can even play at ludicrous 8K resolution in some games. It’s a beast for 3440x1440 ultrawide gaming too, as our separate ultrawide benchmarks piece shows. Support for HDMI 2.1 and AV1 decoding are delicious cherries on top. If you’re a pure gamer, though, you shouldn’t buy it, unless you’ve got deep pockets and want the best possible gaming performance, value be damned. The $700 GeForce RTX 3080 offers between 85 and 90 percent of the RTX 3090’s 4K gaming performance (depending on the game) for well under half the cost. It’s even closer at 1440p. If you’re only worried about raw gaming frame rates, the GeForce RTX 3080 is by far the better buy, because it also kicks all kinds of ass at 4K and high refresh rate 1440p and even offers the same HDMI 2.1 and AV1 decode support as its bigger brother. Nvidia likes to boast that the RTX 3090 is the first 8K gaming card, and while that’s true in some games, it falls far short of the 60 frames per second mark in many triple-A titles. Consider 8K gaming a nice occasional bonus more than a core feature. If you mix work and play, though, the GeForce RTX 3090 is a stunning value—especially if your workloads tap into CUDA. It’s significantly faster than the previous-gen RTX 2080 Ti, which fell within spitting distance of the RTX Titan, and offers the same 24GB VRAM capacity of that Titan. But it does so for $1,000 less than the RTX Titan’s cost. The GeForce RTX 3090 stomps all over most of our content creation benchmarks. Performance there is highly workload-dependent, of course, but we saw speed increases of anywhere from 30 to over 100 percent over the RTX 2080 Ti in several tasks, with many falling in the 50 to 80 percent range. That’s an uplift that will make your projects render tangibly faster—putting more money in your pocket. The lofty 24GB of GDDR6X memory makes the RTX 3090 a must-have in some scenarios where the 10GB to 12GB found in standard gaming cards flat-out can’t cut it, such as 8K media editing or AI training with large data sets. That alone will make it worth buying for some people, along with the NVLink connector that no other RTX 30-series GPU includes. If you don’t need those, the RTX 3080 comes close to the RTX 3090 in raw GPU power in many tests.
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3090 is an interesting card for many reasons, and it’s harder to summarize than the RTX 3080 was, simply due to its top-end price and goals. The RTX 3080, priced at $699, was really easy to recommend to anyone wanting a new top-end gaming solution, because compared to the last-gen 2080S, 2080 Ti, or even TITAN RTX, the new card simply trounced them all. The GeForce RTX 3090, with its $1,499 price tag, caters to a different crowd. First, there are going to be those folks who simply want the best gaming or creator GPU possible, regardless of its premium price. We saw throughout our performance results that the RTX 3090 does manage to take a healthy lead in many cases, but the gains over RTX 3080 are not likely as pronounced as many were hoping. The biggest selling-point of the RTX 3090 is undoubtedly its massive frame buffer. For creators, having 24GB on tap likely means you will never run out during this generation, and if you manage to, we’re going to be mighty impressed. We do see more than 24GB being useful for deep-learning and AI research, but even there, it’s plenty for the vast majority of users. Interestingly, this GeForce is capable of taking advantage of NVLink, so those wanting to plug two of them into a machine could likewise combine their VRAM, activating a single 48GB frame buffer. Two of these cards would cost $500 more than the TITAN RTX, and obliterate it in rendering and deep-learning workloads (but of course draw a lot more power at the same time). For those wanting to push things even harder with single GPU, we suspect NVIDIA will likely release a new TITAN at some point with even more memory. Or, that’s at least our hope, because we don’t want to see the TITAN series just up and disappear. For gamers, a 24GB frame buffer can only be justified if you’re using top-end resolutions. Not even 4K is going to be problematic for most people with a 10GB frame buffer, but as we move up the scale, to 5K and 8K, that memory is going to become a lot more useful. By now, you likely know whether or not the monstrous GeForce RTX 3090 is for you. Fortunately, if it isn’t, the RTX 3080 hasn’t gone anywhere, and it still proves to be of great value (you know – if you can find it in stock) for its $699 price. NVIDIA also has a $499 RTX 3070 en route next month, so all told, the company is going to be taking good care of its enthusiast fans with this trio of GPUs. Saying that, we still look forward to the even lower-end parts, as those could ooze value even more than the bigger cards.
Still, the performance offered by the RTX 3090 is impressive; the Gaming X is 53% faster than RTX 2080 Ti, 81% faster than RTX 2080 Super. AMD's Radeon RX 5700 XT is less than half as fast, the performance uplift vs the 3090 is 227%! AMD Big Navi better be a success. With those performance numbers RTX 3090 is definitely suited for 4K resolution gaming. Many games will run over 90 FPS, at highest details, in 4K, nearly all over 60, only Control is slightly below that, but DLSS will easily boost FPS beyond that. With RTX 3090 NVIDIA is introducing "playable 8K", which rests on several pillars. In order to connect an 8K display you previously had to use multiple cables, now you can use just a single HDMI 2.1 cable. At higher resolution, the VRAM usage goes up, RTX 3090 has you covered, offering 24 GB of memory, which is more than twice that of the 10 GB RTX 3080. Last but not least, on the software side, they added the capability to capture 8K gameplay with Shadow Play. In order to improve framerates (remember, 8K processes 16x the pixels as Full HD), NVIDIA created DLSS 8K, which renders the game at 1440p native, and scales the output by x3, in each direction, using machine learning. All of these technologies are still in its infancy, game support is limited and displays are expensive, we'll look into this in more detail in the future. 24 GB VRAM is definitely future-proof, but I'm having doubts whether you really need that much memory. Sure, more is always better, but unless you are using professional applications, you'll have a hard time finding a noteworthy difference between performance with 10 GB vs 24 GB. Games won't be an issue, because you'll run out of shading power long before you run out of VRAM, just like with older cards today, which can't handle 4K, no matter how much VRAM they have. Next-gen consoles also don't have as much VRAM, so it's hard to image that you'll miss out on any meaningful gaming experience if you have less than 24 GB VRAM. NVIDIA demonstrated several use cases in their reviewer's guide: OctaneRender, DaVinci Resolve and Blender can certainly benefit from more memory, GPU compute applications, too, but these are very niche use cases. I'm not aware of any creators who were stuck and couldn't create, because they ran out of VRAM. On the other hand the RTX 3090 could definitely turn out to be a good alternative to Quadro, or Tesla, unless you need double-precision math (you don't). Pricing of the RTX 3090 is just way too high, and a tough pill to swallow. At a starting price of $1500, it is more than twice as expensive as the RTX 3080, but not nearly twice as fast. MSI asking another $100 on top for their fantastic Gaming X Trio cooler, plus the overclock out of the box doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. We're talking about 6.6% here. The 6% performance increase due to factory OC / higher power limit can almost justify that, with the better cooler it's almost a no-brainer. While an additional 14 GB of GDDR6X memory aren't free, the $1500 base price still doesn't feel right. On the other hand, the card is significantly better than RTX 2080 Ti in every regard, and that sold for well over $1000, too. NVIDIA emphasizes that RTX 3090 is a Titan replacement—Titan RTX launched at $2500, so $1500 must be a steal for the new 3090. Part of the disappointment about the price is that RTX 3080 is so impressive, at such disruptive pricing. If RTX 3080 was $1000, then $1500 wouldn't feel as crazy—I would say $1000 is a fair price for the RTX 3090. Either way, Turing showed us that people are willing to pay up to have the best, and I have no doubt that all RTX 3090 cards will sell out today, just like RTX 3080. Obviously the "Recommended" award in this context is not for the average gamer. Rather it means, if you have that much money to spend, and are looking for a RTX 3090, then you should consider this card.
Let's be clear: the GeForce RTX 3090 is now the fastest GPU around for gaming purposes. It's also mostly overkill for gaming purposes, and at more than twice the price of the RTX 3080, it's very much in the category of GPUs formerly occupied by the Titan brand. If you're the type of gamer who has to have the absolute best, and price isn't an object, this is the new 'best.' For the rest of us, the RTX 3090 might be drool-worthy, but it's arguably of more interest to content creators who can benefit from the added performance and memory. We didn't specifically test any workloads where a 10GB card simply failed, but it's possible to find them — not so much in games, but in professional apps. We also weren't able to test 8K (or simulated 8K) yet, though some early results show that it's definitely possible to get the 3080 into a state where performance plummets. If you want to play on an 8K TV, the 3090 with its 24GB VRAM will be a better experience than the 3080. How many people fall into that bracket of gamers? Not many, but then again, $300 more than the previous generation RTX 2080 Ti likely isn't going to dissuade those with deep pockets. Back to the content creation bit, while gaming performance at 4K ultra was typically 10-15% faster with the 3090 than the 3080, and up to 20% faster in a few cases, performance in several professional applications was consistently 20-30% faster — Blender, Octane, and Vray all fall into this group. Considering such applications usually fall into the category of "time is money," the RTX 3090 could very well pay for itself in short order compared to the 3080 for such use cases. And compared to an RTX 2080 Ti or Titan RTX? It's not even close. The RTX 3090 often delivered more than double the rendering performance of the previous generation in Blender, and 50-90% better performance in Octane and Vray. The bottom line is that the RTX 3090 is the new high-end gaming champion, delivering truly next-gen performance without a massive price increase. If you've been sitting on a GTX 1080 Ti or lower, waiting for a good time to upgrade, that time has arrived. The only remaining question is just how competitive AMD's RX 6000, aka Big Navi, will be. Even with 80 CUs, on paper, it looks like Nvidia's RTX 3090 may trump the top Navi 2x cards, thanks to GDDR6X and the doubling down on FP32 capability. AMD might offer 16GB of memory, but it's going to be paired with a 256-bit bus and clocked quite a bit lower than 19 Gbps, which may limit performance.
[OT] Ten Months ago I responded to a prompt about wandering into a cave and finding a world with tamable monsters. Today, Into the Tall Grass is a published novel!
Hello everyone! To repeat what the title said, ten months ago I responded to a prompt:
The idea absolutely gripped me - and now I’ve published a novel inspired by that prompt and my love of monster taming games! Here’s the details:
Two suns, foreign plants, and a whole slew of monsters to tame. Amateur entomologist and reluctant Life Scout, Caleb finds far more than he expected when he stumbles through a hidden cave and into a new world full of Kritt - monsters that can be tamed and taught to fight. He also didn’t expect evil overlords and their minions looking to use the power of Kritt to grind this world under their bootheel. Unless someone stops them, that is. Once meeting Antoinette, an affectionate ant Kritt that bonds with Caleb, and Karla, a tamer of this world that’s living off the land and preparing to strike back against the Darkholds, they set off. Their goal? Help free the people of this world from the Overseer’s grasp. A mountain’s worth of threats stand in their way, though: the Overseer’s soldiers, terrible abominations, wild Kritt, and all the trouble Caleb’s sarcastic mouth can cause. Welcome, Caleb, to the world of Kritt. Now evolve - or perish.
Into the Tall Grass is a Portal Fantasy/Isekai book with strong gamelit elements. FAQ Harem/Sex/Murder? Nope. This story is designed to capture the feel of those classic games, and while it does have higher stakes than those games, it is designed to capture the light-hearted feel that we all love. Audiobook? Nothing yet announced, but I’ll update if there is one! Stats? Into the Tall Grass is a stat light gamelit, and the stats do not appear explicitly until later in the book once Caleb gets his totally-not-a-Pokedex goggles. The later books in the series will have more detailed stats as Caleb delves further into the system that runs this world. Shorts? They’re comfy and easy to wear. Where do I catch the book? Well, you first need to learn HM Cut, go to the hole in the wall after beating the second boss...or you can just get it on Amazon Amazon US Link - UK | CA | AU | DE | MX | JP | IN | BR | FR | ES | IT | NL I want to sample before I pick up? Well, good news for you - just read on! Caleb Cooper slapped at his arm with a growl. Another mosquito. He wouldn’t have said camping was his least favorite activity in the world. Even at sixteen, he could easily imagine worse ways to spend his time. He could have his feet dipped in acid, or be stabbed in the back repeatedly, or repeat algebra. But no one was forcing him to do any of those, because he’d passed algebra and hadn’t angered any Bond villains lately. “C’mon, try to smile some,” his dad said, walking up behind him and shaking his back. “What more could you want? We’ve got the great outdoors, we’ve got trees, we’ve got sun, we’ve got fresh air...this is perfect!” Caleb sighed. “Oh, yeah, surrounded by kids who’re still in junior high. It’s everything a growing teen could want. Toxic plants, the sun, brats who think I’m a weirdo, the sun again...what’s not to love? You know, I could be going to a party tonight.” His dad’s smile didn’t waver. “You do so love the party scene. I mean, the last one you went to was...Jimmy Dryer’s eighth birthday party? Getting wild up in the hizzouse there.” “Okay, dad, I need to tell you two things. First of all, if you say hizzouse out loud, ever again, I will die. I will literally fall over dead from embarrassment. No, I know the correct definition of literally and I am using it correctly, that is actually what will happen. Do you want to be responsible for filicide via intense shame?” “I’m positive that’s not actually possible.” “Oh, it totally is. Remember Becky? Died last year because her mom was singing ‘Ain’t nuthin but a G Thang.’ Sure, they say Becky changed schools because they moved, but it was all a cover up. Heard her mom singing and pow!” Caleb punched a closed fist into his empty hand. “dropped over dead.” His dad laughed. “Noted. And the second thing?” “You might have picked up subtle hints about this, what with me mentioning it no less than two hundred and ninety eight times on the drive down here according to you. I don’t really like camping.” There was a long pause, and his dad’s face fell. Caleb immediately winced, but it was too late. “You used to beg to go out every year, remember?” Yeah, in like 8th grade. When all his friends had been in boy scouts with him, and he’d been able to spend time with them. But high school had come, and his friends had moved on. But the Coopers came from a long line of Eagle scouts. His dad was an Eagle Scout, his grandfather had been an Eagle Scout, and Caleb’s dad would be damned if his son wasn’t an Eagle Scout. “Right,” Caleb muttered. “Sorry, I’ll give it a chance. I’m sure once I get back in the groove it’ll be fine.” “That’s the spirit!” His dad’s face lit back up. Caleb gave him an expression that could have been a grin if you squint hard enough. “Awesome. I’m going to...head out.” He turned to trundle off into the woods. “Where are you going?” his dad asked. Caleb held up a glass. “Going to see if I can find an Acorn Weevil. There’s a lot of oaks around here, and I’d like one for the collection.” It was the one part of the outdoors Caleb enjoyed -- catching insects. It was a bit of an odd hobby, but Caleb was a bit of a junior entomologist and enjoyed it. He was thinking about going to college for entomology after he graduated. Something about the wide variety of possible insects, finding things that people usually overlooked, categorizing them...it was calming. He had several glass cases of them pinned at home, many of them gathered from scouting trips like these. Naturally, it was the one part of the outdoors his dad didn’t like. His father turned green and motioned for Caleb to go ahead. “Don’t wander too far!” he shouted. Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t like he could go too far even if he wanted to. The campsite was in the middle of a series of mid-Missouri bluffs, and wandering more than an hour’s walk would inevitably lead to a solid rock wall. Or a road. Step by step, the sounds of the rest of the boy scout troop receded in the forest behind him. Caleb let out a sigh of relief. He was the only high schooler still in the troop, and a lot of the older kids thought he had to be some kind of loser to still be doing this at his age. They aren’t wrong, Caleb thought. Just not for the right reasons. Being a boy scout isn’t what made him a loser. It was his complete lack of social life at high school, relegated only to a few other dorks at lunch who he didn’t really hang out with, and the fact that he collected bugs when most people were going to parties or making out or getting drunk or playing video games or even playing Magic: The Gathering - that made him a loser. That’s right. The MTG kids could look down on him for bug collecting. Was that fair? Obviously, they deserved someone who they could look down on too, and Caleb understood that unlike their weird hobby, his weird hobby was also gross. Still, didn’t he deserve the same? Someone he could silently judge and feel superior to? But, no, the only ones lower than him on the social hierarchy were kids with actual issues, and Caleb didn’t want to be that kind of jerk. The worst part was, he felt bad for not enjoying the scouts anymore. If his dad had planned these trips as one on one things, where they could go out and find rare insects, or even some other wildlife finding things like birdwatching or something, Caleb would have loved their trips as much as he used to. Well, probably. Maybe. I’d like it better if I knew this was the alternative, Caleb amended. These days, however, he’d found most of the insects at their usual camping sights. He actually had an acorn weevil already, but there was no way his dad would remember it - since his dad didn’t really look beyond his own wants. He wanted an Eagle Scout, so an Eagle Scout Caleb would be. Especially after what had happened with mom. Dad had become rabid about father-son activities since then. “It’s just the two of us now,” Dad said once, when he’d had a bit too much to drink after work. “Just the two of us.” Caleb shook his head and brushed away a tree branch before it could slap him in the face. The stinging in his eyes was a good reminder why he didn’t want to go down that particular rabbit hole. A little while later, as he had expected, Caleb found himself at one of the bluffs. It was a solid expanse of rock, covered in creeping vines. The tendrils would be crawling with acrobat ants, which made them a nice place to stop because they’d keep the wasp population down in the region. Maybe I could try to find a nest. Maybe even a queen. That thought he discarded - it would be a prize, but the only way he’d ever add an ant queen to his collection would be if he found one dead. It felt different than taking a single insect and putting it on his board. Taking a queen could wipe out an entire colony. When I finish college, I’ll get a whole terrarium. Then I can have living ones. That way I’ll get to enjoy my insects in peace and make sure I never ever have people invite themselves over. They’ll be all ‘oh, can I come over’ and I’ll be like ‘sure, don’t mind the ants.’ And then I’ll have alienated another person! That would be better and would make him feel better about what he did. Even the knowledge that he was killing bugs sapped the fun out of his hobby. Of course, that same hobby would also guarantee his adulthood was as lonely as his teenage years, so maybe… “Gah!” Caleb cried, and kicked a rock at the bluff. It was stupid and childish, but it helped with the frustration. He leapt to the side to avoid the rebound. He needn’t have bothered. The rock went straight through the vines instead of plinking off the bluff. Caleb froze, then slowly started inching toward the barrier. Is that a...cave? He reached out, brushing some vines away, only to reveal a cave on the side of the cliff. It went back a good twenty or thirty feet in a crevice easily large enough for him to walk through before vanishing into darkness. Bet I could find something new in there. He groaned. Because amateur spelunking has such a high success rate. That can’t possibly go wrong. Oh, wait, I’m thinking of...actually, I don’t know anything where amateur is a good thing. Ignoring the warnings of his own hindbrain, something he was exceptionally good at, Caleb flipped on his flashlight. While he wasn’t a big fan of being a scout, their motto of “Be Prepared” had stuck with him more firmly than he cared to admit. Summoning his courage, he headed inside. The cave was large enough for him to walk upright, at least. I wonder if anyone’s ever even been in here before? It was possible he was the first human to ever notice this cave hiding behind the vines, that his were the first human footsteps in this cave. Who knew what could be ahead? Hell, if it went deep enough, he might discover an entirely new species - cave ecologies were often very isolated from the rest of the world. That thought overrode the lingering fears of going spelunking alone, and Caleb pushed ahead. To his relief, the cave didn’t really branch off anywhere, so there was only a miniscule risk he’d find himself wandering in circles. It wasn’t long until he was plunged entirely into darkness aside from his flashlight. “You have now left the domain of the sun,” Caleb said in his best announcer voice. He’d heard that line from…was it a webcomic? Or a blog? He couldn’t remember, and that train of thought was derailed as his heart started to beat faster. The primal fear of the dark still clung to him, and he wasn’t as certain as he’d been at the outset that this was a good idea. Given he’d been fairly certain this was a terrible idea, that was saying something. Just as he was about to turn around, he saw it. It looked like an ant, but it wasn’t like any ant Caleb had seen before. It was large, nearly a foot from mandibles to thorax, and too brightly colored to be a normal cave dweller with its exoskeleton covered in gold and black swirls. Its eyes were wrong, too, looking more like something you’d see on a mammal than on an insect. It should have been frightening, but somehow, it was oddly cute. The gentle eyes, the way it moved awkwardly, like it was a newborn that hadn’t quite grown into its legs...it had an overall appearance of helplessness. It looked up at Caleb and chirped curiously. Holy crap. “Well, hello there,” Caleb said. “What are you?” The strange ant chirped again. I have to catch it. It was too big for his glass jar, but that didn’t matter. It also didn’t matter that his dad would refuse to let Caleb bring it back alive. Caleb would find a way, damn it. This wasn’t just a new species, this was an insect that shouldn’t be possible. Ants didn’t get this big, and certainly not in caves. Caleb reached out a tentative hand. What the hell are you doing? he thought. He knew nothing about the thing. It could be venomous. It could be dangerous. It was a wild animal, and he was trying to pet it? Much to his surprise, the ant didn’t recoil from his hand or lunge at it. Instead, it studied it curiously, then rolled over on its back and began to wave its legs in the air like a cat trying to get attention, chirping happily. Screw it. Caleb ran his fingers over the thing’s belly. It made a sound halfway between a chirp and a purr, almost like a trill. “Oh my God, I have to find a way to keep you. What do you eat?” Not that he expected the ant to answer. He didn’t expect the ant to respond at all, besides continuing to make happy little trills as Caleb gave it a belly rub. Its exoskeleton was softer than he expected, covered with fine hairs that probably served to keep off water but also made it unimaginably soft. Already Caleb wasn’t thinking about the enormity of the discovery, he was thinking about taking it for walks around the block, or letting it chase a laser pointer. Then, abruptly, the ant fell silent and righted itself. It hissed in Caleb’s direction. He froze, shying back and running his hand through his own hair.. “Woah? What’s wrong? Too many tummy rubs?” And then he realized the ant wasn’t staring at him. It was staring over his shoulder. Caleb spun, whipping the flashlight around, and came face to face with an oncoming monstrosity. It was a bipedal insect creature with four limbs, nearly as tall as Caleb was. The upper limbs ended in vicious stingers, and the lower limbs had grasping pincers. Instead of mandibles, it had tentacles growing from under its six beady eyes. That flashlight saved Caleb’s life. The creature shied back, its eyes glowing in the brilliant light.. The ant screeched and began to run deeper into the cave. That seemed smart. Panicked by the monstrosity, Caleb followed. This isn’t happening. The sound of Caleb’s feet pounding against the floor of the cave filled his ears. His heartbeat joined the sound, and the light swung wildly. He was gaining on the ant. A surge of adrenaline hit, and Caleb reached down to scoop it up. The ant trilled in confusion, and lacking anything else to do, Caleb put it on his head without breaking stride. He kept running, the ant now turning behind him and shrieking more and more. It's gaining on us! Caleb could almost imagine it saying. Then the light ahead grew bright. Without warning, he was back out into the forest, into the sun. The monstrosity skidded to a halt near the entrance of the cave, waving its tentacles and roaring but refusing to enter the sunlight. Caleb was fine with that. Caleb was fine with doing nothing but running at a breakneck pace, his new friend sitting on his head and now trilling in defiance. Darting forward, he wove in and out of the trees, turning to avoid tripping over rocks. At one point, his vision a fog of panic, he was thought he jumped a stream. It wasn’t until his lungs started to burn that Caleb started to slow down. A few steps later, he dropped to the forest floor, panting. After a few minutes of gasping, he took stock of his surroundings. With dawning horror, four realizations hit him. The first was that he’d somehow run through a bluff that stretched for a hundred miles in less than a day. The second was that the trees didn’t look like anything native to Earth, let alone Missouri. That alien impression was greatly aided by the fact that there were two suns overhead, one red and one yellow, which was number three. Multiple suns were kind of a big one. Finally, and most importantly, he had completely lost track of where he was in relation to the cave. Panic seized him, and Caleb plucked the ant off his head with shaking hands and held it across his knees, on its back. It came to Caleb so naturally that he didn’t even think about the fact that his panic response was to cuddle a strange animal until after he had. The ant looked up at him with eyes full of warmth and gratitude. “Where the hell am I?” he asked. In response, the ant started to purr. Chapter 2 After a bit, the ant began to struggle. “I can’t just keep calling you ‘the ant,” Caleb said to it as he put it down. The ant looked up at him and clacked its mandibles. “Hmm. Don’t know if you’re a girl and or a boy ant. Although if you’re eusocial, those terms probably don’t matter anyway. You’re not a queen or you’d be in your hive, so...are you a soldier? Or a worker?” Maybe it was Caleb’s imagination, but the ant seemed to be happier with the word soldier. That’s probably just wishful thinking. You need to get your priorities in order, man. You’re in a world with two suns, you should be flipping out right now! And yet, he felt strangely calm. Maybe it was just because the whole thing was so surreal. Or maybe it was just because he expected at any moment to wake up back in his tent with the story of a crazy dream. Or maybe you’ve just snapped, and any moment now you’re going to realize you’re completely barking mad. Caleb shook his head. If he was dreaming or crazy, there was no point trying to figure it out. Either he’d wake up, or he’d be put in a nice padded room and given pills until he could see things normally. “How about Antoinette?” he said. The Ant - Antoinette - began to bob its head and marched over to Caleb’s hand, pressing its head against his palm until he started to scratch it. Might as well think of you as a she, he thought. Giving her a name seemed to have done the trick, and Antoinette was now trilling and purring happily against his hand. “So, Antoinette, don’t suppose you know if I’ve gone crazy or anything, do you?” Antoinette was not particularly eager to respond. After some time scratching and spacing out, Caleb shook his head. “If this is all real, I have to start thinking of what comes next,” he said to Antoinette. “C’mon girl, let’s get moving.” As soon as Caleb stood, Antoinette reared onto her hind legs. Smiling, Caleb scooped her up and put her on his shoulder. Even though she was nearly as long as a cat, she weighed about half as much. That, plus the long years of scouts giving Caleb at least some muscles to work with, meant she could stay on his shoulder easily. “Okay. Let’s go back and see if that thing is gone from the cave, right?” Immediately Antoinette’s demeanor changed. She began to shiver and rubbed against his cheek. “You can’t possibly understand me,” Caleb said. Antoinette continued to shiver and rub, and Caleb decided it had to be his imagination. Even if Antoinette seemed to be more along the lines of a small mammal in terms of intelligence than an ant, there was no way she had the intelligence of a human - and even if she did, she couldn’t speak or understand English. She was probably just picking up on his nerves over returning. As he turned to retrace his steps, he reached up and began to stroke her back. “Don’t worry. If it’s still there, I won’t be going anywhere near it.” Antoinette’s shivers seemed to subside. “Totally a coincidence,” Caleb said with a nervous chuckle. “No way you understand anything I’m saying.” The look she sent his way could easily be called reproachful. The trees here really weren’t like anything he’d ever seen before. They towered over his head, looking more like giant, single ferns than they did like trees. There weren’t any visible roots, they all just shot out of the ground. At the top they branched oddly, feathering into individual strands that were covered with tiny leaves that grew away from the rest of the body of the plant, maximizing the sunlight its green blade could get. It was a relief to see those tiny leaves on the trees though - up until then, between that and the giant ant, he was beginning to worry he’d somehow been shrunk and was walking among giant blades of grass. As soon as he had the thought, he couldn’t quite shake it, but too many other things were wrong for that to be the case. The dirt was still normal sized, not huge chunks like they would be if he’d shrunk coming over here, and there weren’t any obvious giant landmarks to indicate he was tiny. Still, it was a strange feeling, and he was relieved when he found the stream from earlier. That had to be normal sized. Water wouldn’t flow with that kind of babble if it was shrunk down, not unless it was hundreds of feet wide from his perspective. The relief was almost immediately quashed when he realized that he didn’t recognize this part of the stream at all. He hadn’t exactly been taking in the scenery, but he still had expected to at least recognize something. Unfortunately, nothing about this part of where he was looked even remotely familiar. He grimaced. “Is this where we were?” he said aloud. Antoinette trilled, an almost sad sound. It was like she was saying “I have no idea, you think I was paying attention?” Caleb had to laugh at himself. Already he was assigning actual full sentences to Antoinette. “Okay, well, rule one,” Caleb told her. “Head downstream. It will take me to somewhere eventually, and hopefully that somewhere will include someone who has the faintest idea what the hell is going on and how I can get back to the cave.” Resolution made, he started to walk in that direction. It was a beautiful day here in...wherever this was, and thus far - joy upon joys - he hadn’t seen a single mosquito. As long as he was stuck in this weird dream or psychotic break or whatever was going on, he was going to enjoy it. He did see a few more traditional insects climbing along the fern-trees he’d marveled at before, which was nice. It helped him feel less like he was tiny walking in a giant world. As much as he wanted to, he resisted the urge to peer down for a closer look at them. Right now they were tiny specs climbing along in rows, and if he didn’t look too closely he could tell himself they were just normal ants. The moment he did, he was certain he’d notice things that would mark them of nothing from Earth, and that idea straight up terrified him. “Yes, that’s right,” he said to the foot-long ant on his shoulder. “The terrifying thought is the insects here might be different. Crap on a stick, I am going insane.” There was definitely a spring in his step as he walked, but not from how happy he was feeling. It was like every step carried a little bit...extra. It added to the surreal quality of everything. He’d noticed it before when he’d been running down the hill, but now that he was fully aware of how he was moving and a bit less panicked, he could really feel it. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Definitely dreaming.” And since this is a dream... He reached up and carefully pried Antoinette from his shoulder. She chirruped in confusion. “Don’t worry, girl,” he said, placing her on the ground. “I’ll be right back. I just want to test something.” Antoinette cocked her head at him, and Caleb grinned. Then, tensing up his legs, he kicked off the ground. And went sailing through the air. “Oh my God!” he shouted. He’d had a decent high jump before, but this...it took him nearly ten feet into the air. He whooped in excitement and pumped his fist as he reached the apex of his jump. He could see over the fern trees! He could see smoke in the direction he was walking! He could see...he could see a bird. It wasn’t like any bird he’d ever imagined. It was soaring through the air like a hawk, but its feathers were red and blue, and its face was more like a reptile’s than a bird’s. It looked almost like an archeopteryx, but without the claws on its wings, and with three massive feathers streaming out behind it. It wheeled in the air. It was beautiful. Then gravity reminded him that, while he could jump high, he wasn’t able to fly. Caleb began to fall. The fall was faster than it should have been, given his leap. It felt like he was falling in normal gravity. Okay, this is it. I fall, and right before I hit the ground, I wake- The thought was cut off when he slammed into the dirt beneath him. The impact drove the air from his lungs, which was the only thing that spared him from crying out in pain. He tasted blood, and his vision was obscured by black spots. Caleb could only whimper. He collapsed to the ground in a heap. What little of his brain was still working confirmed that he hadn't actually shattered his legs. The rest of it just screamed in pain. This isn’t a dream. That was now painfully clear. Dreams couldn’t possibly hurt this badly. Antoinette walked up to him and nudged him with her mandibles. When he didn’t respond right away, she climbed onto his chest and began that rumbling trill. Caleb could only wheeze as he tried to catch his breath. Antoinette studied him, and a long tongue raced out of her mouth to lick his forehead. “Thanks,” he managed to grunt, glad she was so much lighter than a cat - otherwise she’d be crushing his chest. “No, really.” It took him a few more minutes to stand again, and only when he was able to was he certain he hadn’t broken any bones. He took a few deep breaths, feeling an ache across his entire back. “I saw some smoke ahead,” he said to Antoinette, who was clawing at his leg. “I really hope that’s a town, and that they can help. And also that they have painkillers. I’d kill someone for some painkillers.” Antoinette clacked her mandibles. “No, I mean, it would have to be someone I didn’t like!” Antoinette kept clawing his jeans and Caleb shook his head. “Mind walking alongside me for a bit? I need...I need a new back. And legs. Really just a new body. Phew. Give me some time to recover.” Antoinette stopped clawing and trilled sadly. Again, Caleb was struck with the distinct impression she could understand him. But that doesn’t make sense, he thought. There’s no way she could. It’s just...insane. “You there!” The sudden shout nearly made Caleb scream, and he whirled to face the speaker. Antoinette did as well, hissing. “You need to step away from the Kralant. I don’t want you getting hurt.” The man was wearing something that looked like a military uniform from the eighteen hundreds, black and red with buttons that pinned up far on the left side of his body. He wore a cap that matched the color of his suit, and he stood with a rigid formality. For all that, he looked like he couldn’t be much older than Caleb. More interestingly, however, the bird Caleb had seen earlier was perched on his shoulder. “You...want me to move away from Antoinette?” Caleb asked, trying to register what he was seeing. “You...named it?” the soldier said, sounding incredulous. The bird on his shoulder peered at Antoinette hungrily, and Antoinette clacked her mandibles and hissed. She showed none of the fear she had towards the monstrosity in the cave. The soldier only frowned. “Who are you?” “Caleb,” Caleb said, narrowing his eyes. “Who are you?” “I am Ruzo, First Private of the Darkhold Omal. This is Silv.” The bird chirped at its name, although it didn’t take its eyes off Antoinette. “I’m sorry, you called Antoinette a Kralant and seemed surprised I named her. Is Silv its name, or is it it's species?” “He,” Ruzo said, stressing the word, “is a Silvtherix. I named him Silv.” “Wow, very original name there.” Caleb couldn’t help himself. Something about Ruzo’s attitude was rubbing him the wrong way. It was his imperious demeanor, like he owned the place. Who the hell does he think he is? “Says the boy who named a Kralant Antoinette,” Ruzo said, although he flushed a bit at mockery. “I need you to come with me, Caleb. These woods are forbidden. I thought you’d just gotten lost, but since you’re a Tamer...clearly you’re in violation of the Treaty. Put your hands behind your back.” “Okay, first of all, working Antoinette’s species into her name is a brilliant pun. I didn’t just chop off part of the name and call it good. Second of all - put my hands behind my back?” Caleb asked. “Who the hell do you think you are?” “First private of the Darkhold Omal,” Ruzo said, repeating his earlier words and with the same drilled in efficiency. “Who do you serve, Caleb?” “Oh. Uh. Well...I’m with Troop One-Eighteen,” Caleb said, uncertain what else to say. “Boy Scouts, United States of America. And, private, I’m a Life Scout. So, yeah. Shove that up your craphole and spin on it.” It was pretty clear that Ruzo had no idea what anything else Caleb said meant, but his eyes narrowed at the last sentence. “I don’t know who you serve. But clearly, someone needs to teach you manners.” He swung out his arm. “Silv! Attack!” With a shriek that put a chill into Caleb’s bones, Silv took to the air. In response, Antoinette let out a hiss of challenge. Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, Caleb thought, squaring up. I’ve definitely gone insane. But the pain in his back reminded him that insanity was much less certain than he’d previously believed. He could be absolutely certain of one thing, however - he had no idea what he was doing. Silv shrieked as he swooped through the air, diving for Antoinette. Caleb couldn’t help but notice how dangerously curved those talons were, each ending in wicked barbs. It looked like they could tear through flesh like razorblades. “Antoinette, do...something!” Caleb shouted in panic. As soon as the words left his lips, he felt something. It was almost like a tug on his skin, but it was a strange and alien feeling. Like part of him had been yanked away. Antoinette leapt to the side, snapping her mandibles. Silv passed through the space she had just vacated, his talons clutching only empty air. Confidence flashed through Ruzo’s eyes. “Do something? That’s the best you have? Silv is going to tear your Kralant apart.” Caleb’s heart started to pound. In the games, the monsters would always faint at the end of fights, then there would be a heroic rush to town and the monster would be cured. Looking at those talons, it was hard to imagine this fight would be that harmless. “Antoinette, do something ranged this time!” Caleb said, frantically going through his pockets. That strange tug happened again, but Caleb ignored it. He needed to help. A meme he’d seen the other day on his phone flashed through his mind as he frantically patted his pockets, modified for his current situation. “I’ve had Antoinette for only half a day, but if anything happens to her I’d kill everyone in this field and then myself.” Really, Caleb? You’re watching a pair of monsters fighting for their lives and the best you have are memes and vague commands? It’s not like he could do much else. He didn’t really have any kind of weapons on him. A simple Swiss army knife, too small to be used for actually fighting anyone. Not that he had any idea if he could actually bring himself to stab Ruzo. The guy was an ass, but Caleb had never hurt a fly. Well. Metaphorically speaking. He’d squished plenty of flies in his day. Besides that, he didn’t have much else. A can of bug spray. Some twine. A granola bar, still in its wrapper. A zippo lighter. A...wait, that’s it. Caleb looked back up to the fight as he pulled four of the items out of his pocket, trying desperately to get his hands shaking at another terrifying scream from Silv. Silv was circling the fight, staring down at Antoinette with eyes full of fury. Ruzo was watching Caleb with a curious expression, as if he were trying to figure out what kind of stupid thing Caleb was going to do next. Oh, if you had any idea how stupid I was about to be, you’d be...very...uh...shocked? Antoinette was on the ground, watching Silv carefully. “Now!” Ruzo shouted. Silv screamed and dove towards Antoinette. The Kralant had never seemed so small before, but she held her ground, her mandibles pointing towards the sky. Then, the moment Silv got close, Antoinette let loose a spray. It was white and stringy, almost like spider silk. Silv flapped his wings hard, letting a gust of air blow the strands away. Where they touched the dirt they sizzled like acid. Caleb’s eyes widened. “Holy crap, what was that?” Antoinette trilled happily and rose up on her hind legs, letting loose another barrage of caustic strands. Silv took to the air, getting out of range, and screeched in fury at having its attack interrupted. “You really don’t know?” Ruzo said, his eyes hard. “You’re an absolute moron, aren’t you?” “Yeah? Well, would a moron be doing this?” Caleb responded. It wasn’t exactly the witty repartee he’d been hoping for. With the distraction the battle had provided him, he’d managed to tie the zippo around the bug spray and held up his prize. “...it seems one would,” Ruzo said, his forehead creasing. “What the hell is that supposed to be?” Silv dove down towards Antoinette again, banking to dodge the spray of acidic webbings. In response, Caleb flicked the zippo opened and stepped forward. A small flame sprang to life, and Ruzo’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?” he shouted. Caleb ignored it. He pressed down on the top of the bug spray. The fine mist met the flame of the zippo and flamed to life. Silv screeched in sudden fear and pulled back, still several yards from reaching Antoinette. Antoinette whipped her head around and gave Caleb a curious chirp. “That’s right!” Caleb shouted, pointed the improvised weapon at Ruzo. “You think you’re going to hurt Antoinette? I will literally set you on fire.” Ruzo’s eyes were wide, and Silv flew over to his outstretched arm, landing on it like it was a tree branch. The massive bird looked like it shouldn’t be something Ruzo could hold, but his arm never wavered. “You...are an Artificer? I should have known…” he trailed off, studying Caleb up and down. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m an Artificer,” Caleb said, hoping the term was descriptive enough to be able to fake what he thought it meant. “I just built a flamethrower. Back down, buddy, or I swear to God I’m going to set you up like a cheap firework.” Of course, it was a total bluff. Ruzo was a good fifteen feet away. The flame from this thing could go a foot, max. If Ruzo called him on it, Caleb would find himself having to reveal the limits of his homemade weapon very, very quickly. And when he did, what would happen? Would Ruzo send that damn bird after Antoinette again? Or would he send Silv straight after Caleb, trying to tear out his eyes? Oh man. This is really, really looking bad for me. “I’m surprised, Artificer,” Ruzo said, reaching up to stroke Silv under the beak. The bird leaned into the touch and chirped. “Entering the battle so early? You must have something serious you’re hiding. Something the Darkhold Olam will want to know. Well, if you wish to make this a test of that…” Silv began to crawl up his arm until their heads were butting together. “I’ll be more than happy to oblige.” “Yo, you’re talking a pretty big game for someone who’s about to get his ass set on fire,” Caleb said, but the brave words couldn’t stop the tremor in his hands. “Why don’t you stop what you’re doing and go away? I don’t want to hurt you.” Ruzo laughed, a mocking sound, as Silv began to work around to his back. The bird started to wrap wings around Ruzo’s face, and the spots on his wings matched up perfectly with Ruzo’s eyes. “Don’t worry about that, little Artificer. I promise, I’m in absolutely no danger.” Their forms began to glow. Caleb took a step back, reflexively pressing down on the button for the bug spray. The flame seemed almost dark when compared to the immense light pouring out both soldier and monster as they began to rise into the air. “Antoinette?” Caleb said, shaking so badly he thought he might fall over. “I think I’d like to wake up now.” Antoinette cooed in a sound that trembled with fear. The glow vanished. Ruzo was gone. So was Silv. In their place was a single being, one that combined traits of both monster and man. Ruzo’s hair was now the bright feathers of the bird, his hands and feet ended in the wicked talons that the bird had shown in its diving sweeps at Antoinette, and two immense wings jutted from his back. Worst of all were the eyes, however. Ruzo’s normal two human eyes peered out at Caleb, but above those were the exact same eyes that had adorned Silv’s head. “So that is your flame, little man?” Ruzo said, and his voice had an odd quality to it, some kind of echo, like it was being spoken through two mouths. “I thought you Artificers claimed you could match am Tamer’s power. Looks like you’re just another worm.” “Uh…shit,” Caleb said, looking down at Antoinette. “Do you know how to do that?” This time there was no imagining it. Antoinette shook her head, and there was real fear in her eyes. “Yeah, me either.” Caleb dropped to one knee and held out a hand. “Get on.” Antoinette leaped onto Caleb’s arm and wrapped her legs around as Ruzo took to the air. “So, Artificer,” Ruzo said, every word laced with mockery. “What will you do now?” Fortunately, for the first time since he’d arrived here, Caleb knew exactly what to do. Screaming in fear, Caleb turned and ran away from the four-eyed taloned bird-human hybrid that was rising into the sky. And as he did, the small part of his mind that couldn’t stop from being sarcastic even now couldn’t help but point out that it was totally unfair – none of the games allowed you to do that. Where’s the overly drawn out tutorial when you really need it? Want to read more? Why not pick it up now? Amazon US Link - UK | CA | AU | DE | MX | JP | IN | BR | FR | ES | IT | NL And if you want to see more of my work, you can do so at /hydrael_writes
True Legal status of RC's and a Collection of Legal Prosecutions related to RC's
This guide attempts to clearly explain the legality of Research Chemicals - not based on bluelight threads or archived reddit comments, but based on prosecutions, legal precedent, and other material evidence. From Cornell Law (emphasis mine): [[Acontrolled substance analogueshall, to the extent intended for human consumption, be treated, for the purposes of any Federal law as acontrolled substancein schedule I. (b) Determination In determining whether acontrolled substance analoguewas intended for human consumption under subsection (a), the following factors may be considered, along with any other relevant factors: (1)The marketing, advertising, and labeling of the substance*. (2) The known* efficacy or usefulness of the substancefor the marketed, advertised, or labeled purpose. (3) Thedifference between the priceat which the substance is sold and the price at which the substance it is purported to be or advertised as is normally sold. (4) Thediversion of the substance from legitimate channels and the clandestine importation*,* manufacture, or distribution of the substance. (5) Whether thedefendant knew or should have known the substance was intended to be consumedby injection, inhalation, ingestion, or any other immediate means. (6) Anycontrolled substance analoguethat is manufactured, formulated, sold, distributed, or marketedwith the intent to avoid the provisions of existingdruglaws*.* (c) Limitation For purposes of this section, evidence that a substance was not marketed, advertised, or labeled for human consumption, by itself, shallnot be sufficientto establish that the substance was not intended for human consumption.]] The actual law is more stipulative than the typical "not for human consumption" line. We see from legal code that the FAA was designed to be very broad and nebulous, likely to give prosecutors more power to successfully charge criminal complaints. I see a lot of people try and present this like it is a cut and dry issue. But that suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the law, and how legal proceedings actually work. Considering it is impossible to explicitly catalogue every possible crime and have a related penal code, much of the law is subjective and up to interpretation. But there is also legal precedent that people may not understand or know the (complex) laws, therefore they are "unconstitutionally vague." Every case is different. It falls upon both the prosecutor and the defense to each make their arguments, and suggest a more/less favorable interpretation of the law to the jury. This debunks the fallacy of specificity - the idea that because there isn't a specific legal code for a specific crime, then it is legal. This is not true. Likewise, because a substance isn't explicitly scheduled doesn't mean it is legal. But again, its complicated. The Federal Government specifically designed the (FAA) Federal Analogue Act to deal with the issue of specificity. It is broad, sweeping, and its nomenclature is obscure. It is intentionally designed to be all-encompassing, to allow prosecutors great flexibility. United States vs. Forbes (non-binding legal precedent was set) [[“Because the definition of 'analogue' as applied here provides neither fair warning nor effective safeguards against arbitrary enforcement, it isvoid for vagueness.”[1] The common law principle that the people should have the right to know what the law is, means that the wording of laws should be sufficiently clear and precise that it is possible to give a definitive answer as to whether a particular course of action is legal or illegal. However, despite this ruling the Federal Analogue Act was not revised, and instead AET was specifically scheduled to avoid any future discrepancies. As a district court decision, this case is nobinding precedent. ]] A binding precedent is a directive for how courts are to handle similar judgements in the future. This case did not set a binding precedent. It did set a sort of unofficial precedent in that there were no changes or ameliorations to the FAA, but the defense did successfully contest the 'analogue' nomenclature. If the defense was able to void the operational definition of 'analogue', then as is the way of precedents, all subsequent contests will be easier to demonstrate. This case opened the door. United States vs Washam (binding precedent set in 8th circuit court of appeals) [[It was also raised in the case of Washam that the Federal Analogue Act was unconstitutionally vague, but in this case the court rejected this argument on the grounds that the defendant's actions in concealing her activities and lying to DEA agents showed that she knew her actions were illegal, and furthermore that “…a person of common intelligence has sufficient notice under the statute that 1,4-Butanediol is a controlled substance analogue.” The court in Washam construed the Analogue Act to require parts A(i) and either A(ii) or A(iii), and concluded the Act was constitutionally permissible upon this construction. ]] In this case the defense raised the same argument; FAA nomenclature is nebulous and vulnerable to vastly different subjective interpretations and is thus unconstitutional. However the defendant displayed activity considered criminal: attempts to obfuscate her activities. So this raises an interesting concept. In this case, the defendant's behavior; lies, obfuscation, and concealing her behavior - contributed to her conviction. The court decided her behavior was indicative of criminality because if she didn't know it wasn't legal, she wouldn't have hidden it. This introduces a catch-22, damned if you do damned if you don't situation. If you conceal or sublimate your own activity with RC's, it can be demonstrated to a court that you were consciously breaking the law. If you admit your activity (consuming) with RC's, you incriminate yourself by admitting the substance was intended for human consumption violating the FAA. Most lawyers will tell you not to incriminate yourself, however. And its best not to make decisions based on the ruling in one obscure case. The law is complex, variable, and subjective. [[As a result of Washam, the Federal Analogue Act has been upheld (at least for the states and territories comprising the eighth judicial circuit) and can be considered valid at the present time. ]] So this sets an operational precedent for the eighth judicial circuit (court of appeals.) They have now established that sublimation and concealment of RC activity is sufficient to void any contests regarding "unconstitutionally vague" laws and citizens right to understand the law (not related to the "Right to Know" laws which pertain to non-psychoactive chemical exposure in the workplace.) All this means is that you can not take this specific argument in court. If a lawyer were to argue that citizens have a right to know laws and that the FAA is unconstitutionally vague, it will get slapped down and the judge would be referenced precedential cases. Sadly, this is the primary vector that the defense would select. It is the only chink in the steel-plated armor of the Federal Analogue Act. Operation Web Tryp This was a DEA investigation into phenethylamines and tryptamine analogues (RC's) which resulted in the arrests of 10 individuals. The stated goal of the operation was to prosecute distributors. [[Although these chemicals were not yet scheduled, a long shadow was cast on their legality by the 1986Federal Analog Act. This Act and the United States v. ForbesColoradofederal district court case stipulated that theburden of proof, in regards for the intention for human consumption, was on the government if any prosecution under the Federal Analog Act was to occur. Additionally, legal ambiguities regarding the legality of certain analogs of scheduled substances had been established in the aforementioned court case (In particular, the similarities ofAETandDMTwere debated). ]] This is important in that the burden of proof falls upon the state, or the prosecutors. The AET Forbes precedent discussed earlier was referenced by the defense. [[In December 2004, using credit card information provided by the DEA, British police arrested 22 UK residents who had purchased2C-Ithrough the seized web sites (Operation Ismene).[1][4]No one was jailed and most were released without charge.[1]No customers in the United States were known to be arrested.[3]] Despite having tracked down nearly two-dozen drug users, the state (UK) refused to press charges against any of them. Not much to say, it could have been for any amount of reasons, not least of which being that the drugs were probably all gone by the time they traced the specific purchase to an individual, and as they say possession is 9/10 of the law. US and UK law is also very different. What does this mean for you? Despite the US vs Washam ruling that concealment was indicative of criminal activity, the US vs Forbes case has precedent regarding burden of proof. The state must prove an individual had the intent to consume a substance. Although as detailed in the FAA, there are numerous ways the prosecution can demonstrate that the substance is generally meant for consumption - irregardless of your own individual desires or actions. If you purchase research chemicals from a website that states it is for human consumption, or if that website/vendor subverts normal channels for importation (if they lie on their customs declaration CN22 form for international mail), or if the substance has efficacy similar to its scheduled analogue, then they can demonstrate to the court it is a substance meant for consumption - even if you didn't consume it. However, I couldn't find legal cases involving every-day RC users. All existing Federal Analogue Act prosecutions have been against either producers or distributors. Although it is difficult to say for certain, RC-related arrests will only be prosecuted under the Federal Analogue Acts if the crime falls under the Federal Governments purview. If a cop pulls you over with 6-APB, its not a federal crime, so the FAA is never invoked. In regards to distribution, which entails money and products crossing state lines, it is a federal crime. The Fed could argue that purchasing RC's that crosses state/international lines is Federal, and mail-related crimes are also typically federal territory. But it is unlikely the Fed would pull strings to take on a low-level drug crime. This is likely why we see so few FAA cases. Legal Gray Zone It truly is legally gray. It is complex, nuanced, and subject to the variability of US law and courts. But this nebulous legal status also serves as a bulwark. Prosecuting users for possession, under the influence, or related RC crimes would be difficult. However, some prosecutors might not expect defendants to take the case to trial, some might assume the individual would buckle under pressure and plea out - in this case the legal gray zone won't help you. It doesn't matter how hard it is to sell to a jury if the prosecutor doesn't believe you'll take it that far. Therefore, you should not consider legal gray zones to be safe by way of difficulty proving criminality/successfully convicting. The vast majority of drug-related charges are plea deals with guilt admissions and reduced sentences. Some US states have deferred-entry-of-judgement penal code that does not require admission of guilt, does not convict on charges, but defendants are required to go through treatment options like penal code 1000: a pretrial diversion. Qualitative opinion: If you are arrested for possession, under the influence, or any related RC crime - you need a lawyer. Not a public defender - for various reasons. With a paid lawyer, they can inform the prosecutors they intend to take the case to trial (whether or not they do.) This is bluffing - and its a big part of plea deals between lawyers and prosecutors. Prosecutors and Lawyers will use misdirection and even lies. Its typically a back and forth about how far they will take the case. A lawyer will ask the court for more time to find chemists and scientists to testify. They often have no intention of doing so - but it introduces a degree of doubt for the prosecutors. This dirty back-and-forth is common in drug-related charges. It is the one dimension of criminality that is predicated on plea deals and guilt-admissions that never make it to trial. It is also the most likely of criminal charges to be dropped by the DA, save for domestic misdemeanors (where the state, not an individual, is pressing charges in a family matter therefore no material witness) and public civility complaints. At times the District Attorney will drop all charges. They will drop charges for multiple reasons, often because the prosecutors office has limited resources and full case loads, and pursuing a case to trial that is not a cut-and-dry sure thing is simply not worth the effort. Don't bet on this though. Its not all down to resources. Due to the nature of office, and powerful positions in general, personality plays a role as well. DA's often have their own agendas (tough on crime/drugs/etc). It is an elected (not appointed) office which means they were voted for and had a political platform. Lawyer fees vary, but if taken to trial it will cost substantially more. And not just for you, but the prosecutors as well, who will need their own experts and chemists (which costs money and manpower) to speak in court. (The following is *qualitative*, * subjective\* andnot based on material evidence. You can choose to disregard it. It is merely a collection of personal, common-sense logic pertaining to the criminal system - based on qualitative experience - do not mistake it for legal advise, it is not.)* If I was arrested for arrested for a drug crime, I would:
Hire a lawyer - not a public defender. A public defender in the comments found this section insulting - that is not my intention. Based on how the system works, you are far less likely to receive comprehensive efforts in your case by public defenders. It doesn't mean they are "bad" or incompetent.
Bail out of jail - you do not want the judge to see you bound in cuffs, wearing an ill-fitted orange jumpsuit, and being escorted by armed guards for your arraignment. By bailing out, you can take the time to clean up, wear respectful attire, and appear in court like a good, law-abiding citizen swept up in some bad decisions.
Tell the lawyer you intend to take it to trial (even if you wont/don't). If they are any good, they will know what to do. But to be safe, ask them to tell the prosecutors in pre-trial discussions that you intend to bring in experts to testify. Good lawyers typically have a relationship/rapport with county officials and prosecutors.
After the bluffing and back-and-forths, your lawyer will negotiate a plea deal. This typically means you plea guilty (admission of guilt) and get a reduced sentence - or more often they will drop some charges. Prosecutors account for this even before you are arrested - this is why Police typically find ways to bring forth numerous charges for the same crime (possession AND under the influence AND paraphernalia) - to assist prosecutors in getting the most charges to stick. They will offer to drop a completely unnecessary auxiliary crime (Texas P.C.49 on top of Sec. 483.041 - which is possession and under the influence) and charge you with the only crime they ever intended on sticking.
You can then choose to accept the plea (or not if your state has deferred judgement laws), you can expect no jail time, a criminal record, and mandatory drug-education courses. OR...
You can tell your lawyer to take the case to trial, and there will be no small hubub about it. Both parties will loudly proclaim how invested they are in the case, how they will enlist this or that professional to testify, use this or that material evidence, etc. More legal theatrics. There is a chance the DA will toss the case to avoid trial, but its a game of chicken, waiting to the last moment and jumping out of the way - therefore I won't advocate this decision. There is no way to predict how humans will behave.
My First 6 Months in IT - What to expect in YOUR Journey - Featuring advice on CVs/Resumes, Interviews, Certificates and training, and how to handle being laid off.
My Experience in IT after 6 months, What Can You Expect? Hi all, I recently read a on r\ITCareerQuestions about being frustrated with all of the posts asking for help. This in part, is a response to that. Fair warning – this is going to be a long one (slightly over 5000 words), strap yourself in or get out while you can, you have been warned! I have tried to break it up into sections, so feel free to skip to parts that interest you. I will happily answer all questions, PLEASE feel free to DM me. I will help anyone with resources that I used, and advice on best career pathways. Who is this post for? I think this post is going to be for you if you fit into any of the following categories. If you are looking to break in to IT and you haven’t even taken your first step, if you have been studying for certificates and you want to know if it is all going to be worth it (is there a light at the end of this tunnel). Maybe you want to know what your first 6 months in IT are going to be like. Maybe you want realistic salary expectations and you don’t want to ask a salesman or the guy driving an expensive car. Maybe you have been a lurker on this thread and you’ve seen all the conflicting advice. Perhaps you have sent out 400 job applications and had no bites. Maybe you have had 20 interviews and no one has given you a chance. My point being there are many steps you need to take to take your “first step” or to get your foot in the door. If you are someone who is taking any one of those steps, I do recommend reading this. My Journey, two jobs, one lay-off, sleepless nights, a global pandemic and an incredible wife. When I was 28, I decided I wanted a stable and steady career. Something I didn’t have to fight 30 other younger and hungrier people for. To put this into context I once applied for an entry level market research position and I don’t mind telling you that interview experience was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I hadn’t applied myself at university, I studied Biology, something I had no passion for and the competition in scientific research was something that you would never survive without passion. I was always exceptional at exams/learning/studying, to that end I was first in my year at university for exam results. And for that great honour I was awarded a £1000 cash scholarship prize. And being an irresponsible student I spent the entire thing (and some student overdraft) on my very first PC. I spent hundreds of hours watching Linus tech tips, and Jays2cents and how to build a PC. I was hooked, I built that PC, booted her up, and realised…. I still want to watch build videos. I genuinely found out that I loved learning about hardware. I didn’t know that about myself. I know I see a lot of backstory posts asking for help that all say “I am tech savvy, I am the techy one in the family” etc etc. So, I think these people know what I mean. By the way if you are worried that being the “techy one” isn’t valuable then you are dead wrong. It means you can learn technologies quickly and interact with user interfaces with ease. These are going be all you do for a long time in IT. You will have many user interfaces thrown at you that are custom to your company, but more on that later. Well, unfortunately, years pass me by while I take a job in biology I have no passion for, I didn’t hate my job, I got to work at a university helping students with disabilities cope with every day life. But I didn’t feel excited or driven. And then one day I was watching the UK version of the apprentice, absolute trashy TV at its finest for those that don’t know what it is. It is a competition in which people present a business plan to a billionaire and that billionaire decides if the business plan has legs. So I am watching this guy with perfect quaffed hair and teeth that would blind you, (you know the type, he works is sales and thinks the world would collapse without him) and he is pitching a Cyber security recruitment company. And he has the leading experts in the country critiquing him, and I heard the same thing over and over. IT is desperate for people, for every 10 roles in IT security, there are only 1 or 2 qualified people. I have to admit I got a little excited, nervous excited. I did something that changed my life. I googled it and made a phone call. That’s right, I spent all of 2 minutes before I was on the phone to a salesman. Let me tell you, if I could go back in time a slap myself for buying in to this pitch I would. “The average person in IT security in the UK earns £72,000”, Booom, I am hooked. You are telling me I can earn £72K and they will be desperate to have me? I won’t have to compete? It won’t be a dog fight… Where the hell do I sign up? Well spoilers for what is to come later, but no, I didn’t end up as CIO of a small company making silly money in year one. So, what were they offering me and what did it cost me? I signed up for a course that included a Microsoft Technical associate (MTA) in server fundamentals and an MTA in security fundamentals. I signed up for a Comptia certificate in Network+ and in Security+ and finally an EC council certificate in ethical hacking, called CEH. All for the price of around £3000. “Not bad” I told myself for a £72K/year job. “Not bad” I told my wife (who supported me through every single step). So, when did I first begin to have doubts? That is easy, I remember it like it was yesterday. I had this awful procrastination habit (I bet almost ALL of you do it too) I would google jobs for whatever certificate I was going to study. For me, this was the CEH. A simple “CEH Jobs” search was almost all I ever googled back then. And there were hundreds of them, decent pay too. And then one day I saw it “we are looking for real candidates, no offense to those with a CEH”. It was like a punch to the gut, but worse as my heart raced with fear. What the hell did they mean?! It was at this point I realised I might be in trouble. I am sure a lot of you feel that way now. Have I just been swindled by a Nigerian prince who just needed my bank details so he can transfer me my millions? Well yes and no. Yes I had been swindled by the promise of £72K, and yes I had been swindled by the CEH, it is one of the most expensive certificates you can get and it does make you look like an idiot to anyone in field. But no, I had not been swindled out of a career just yet. I kept my head down and I nailed my first ever certificate and I have to admit, it was the hardest things I ever studied. I would say that knowing hardware helped a bit with the server fundamentals certificate, but only for about 5-10% of the learning objectives that were focussed on hardware. The rest was like information overload. I had to learn about how servers worked and communicated. I had to learn Microsoft’s branding too, which is a feat of its own. But I did it, I finally got an IT certificate. I powered through my security MTA full steam ahead knowing I could achieve it with hard work and consistency. And that is when things got interesting. I began studying for my network+, and let me tell you, I fell in love. I began feeling like the curtains were being drawn on the way the world worked. I understood how if I sent an email, that email was carried across the country to my friends and family. However, the instructor kept saying the same thing over and over. “And if you take a CISCO course you will learn all about it”. I mean if I had a £ for every time she said it…. Well, I did it again ladies and gentleman. I went back to the same person who sold me my snake oil. And I asked if they did CCNA courses. Of course they did, for the cool price of £800. What the hell I thought, the CCNA is a “real” certificate finally. Finally, I won’t feel worry and despair at the thought of this all being in vane, because I, Jacob Smith will be a network engineer. The course was mediocre, and I found myself frustrated, so I did the unthinkable. That is right, I spend £10 on an Udemy course. I mean obviously it was going to be terrible. You would have to be an idiot to think a £10 course could be better than an £800 one. Well Neil Anderson spared no time showing me the error of my ways. His course was phenomenal. I bought the course for the first half of the CCNA, then I bought the course for the second half, and then I thought why the hell not, its only £10, I will buy the course that comes as whole package just to support him. This is the lesson I learned that day. A person can sell their 20 hour course for £10 if they know it is good enough. And then they can make more money than the predator who sells their course to desperate people for thousands. Let’s skip forward a few months. It is the last hour of the last day in which I can sit the CCNA before they retire it and change it completely. The exam went amazingly, and for those interested I used Neil Anderson’s course, and Boson netsim and boson exsim for the tools. I am done. I have finally sat the last certificate I am going to sit before I start applying for Jobs. I no longer want the CEH as I know it will just make me look bad and I don’t want to commit the hours required to learn something that will hurt me. Advice on Resumes/CVs I fire up google again and waste no time typing “professional CV templates”. Wow, CVs look incredible these days, look how pretty I can make my application. I have dedicated sections for skills, work experience, school etc. Here is lesson number two, and more important than you realise. Do NOT use these templates ever. Every recruiter that you send your CV to has some sort of CV filter on it. These CV templates are terrible for a number of reasons. Firstly, the format cannot be read by the CV filter, it doesn’t know what it’s looking at so it just bins it. If you are using one and you have sent hundreds of applications and had no bites, then I strongly recommend you read this part and do what I did. Secondly, these templates are designed for people with work experience and skills. Unfortunately that wasn’t me, I was breaking in to IT. This meant that the focus of my CV HAD to be biology, there was no way to change this. My CCNA was at the bottom of my second page under “other”. So if by some divine intervention my CV did get through to a recruiter, there was no way they would ever read I had 5 certificates. I had some of the worst and most sleepless nights of my life for the next 2 weeks. I applied to 20-40 jobs a day and heard nothing. Not a peep. It is at this point my beautiful wife lets slip that her sister is in IT recruitment. Mixed emotions is an understatement, I bounced between desperate joyous relief and utter disbelief that at no point did she think to mention this. Here is what I learned. You are not applying for a social media job, you are not applying for a graphic designer job. A recruiter reads a hundred of these a day and there is nothing that annoys them more for IT people than a fancy looking CV. Put this CV in black and white, have literally nothing but words. Don’t even break the page up with horizontal lines. Put everything IT related at the top, have a strong and promising professional statement. Focus on your certificates, focus on your lab experience. And cram that CV full of skills that you know about. You want something like this in there. DHCP, DNS, IPv4, IPv6, AD, NTFS, Switching, Routing, Wireless, STP, RIP, OSPF, EIGRP. Hyper-V, VMWare. Windows 7/8/8.1/10, Windows Server 2008/R2, 2012/R2, 2016, 2019. iOS, MacOS, Android. This along with your certificates, your goals and your passion. Along with (briefly) anything transferable from other non-IT related jobs, I am talking about customer service, high stress jobs and time sensitive roles. These skills will be valuable but they should be secondary and again I cannot stress this enough, make it brief. Your education, and non-IT related jobs should make up a small portion of the CV that follows at the end. A recruiter is going to pick your CV up and see your skills, see your certificates and personal statement and then just put it down and give you a call. I doubt they ever get to the part where you describe what working at Pizza hut was like. Round 2 of applying for jobs Once I rewrote that CV (annoyingly I had already applied to a lot of the jobs in my area with my poor CV) I sent it out. The difference was life changing. I got a call back the next day actually I got three call backs the next day. Over the next 2 weeks I got roughly 12 recruiter calls, I got three interview offers. I did 2 interviews and got offered to the next stage. The first was with a large corporate company with 1000s of employees. They IQ tested me and they told me that I would be drug tested at my interview. This was a huge red flag to me. I have never done drugs and nor would I want to. But if these people are going to greet me at the door with a mouth swab, then I hate to think what working for them would be like. I turned down their offer for a second interview. Instead I went to interview at a nearby (well not nearby 90 mile round trip commute) MSP. This was mid-March and I have never enjoyed an interview experience more in my life. The culture was very much this is a place where we have a laugh and you will love working for us. I didn’t have any red flags at the time, I just was so pleased this was all finally happening for me. We joked about football, we talked about hobbies, some IT related questions, typical interview stuff. He even joked we had a bromance going on and said, and I quote “F**k me, you know an interview is going well when its been over and hour and you haven’t noticed”. Honestly, I think my older age was an advantage here, I was 30 at this point and I am at a stage in life where I am able to hold a conversation well without being nervous or self-conscious. There are obviously going to be downsides to being 30 and starting out too, but I was happy this worked in my favour. I got a full day and a half of training (sitting behind a guy and watching him work), okay some red flags cropped up at this point. The people here didn’t seem to care very much, nor did they know a huge amount. The way the cases distribution worked was everything went to 2nd line, and they trickled down anything they didn’t want to 1st line and they pushed up what they needed to, to 3rd line. So, I got all the “my webcam isn’t working” calls, which was fair enough, I was grateful to have the job. But I had nothing in my queue that I thought “omg I have no idea what this is”. That might sound like a good thing, but it is the worst thing that can happen to your career. How are you supposed to learn how to install SSL certificates if you never have a case for it? Well I doubt it is any shock to any of you crazy enough to still be reading, but I after a mindblowing 14 days, I was put on furlough (not sure if Americans have this, but it means temporarily laid off). It seriously makes you question why they hired someone that they laid off 14 days later, but that follows with the “everything is a laugh” attitude I suppose. I spent the first half of April not knowing (but having a bad feeling) what was going to happen next. And then our prime minister announced the first extension of the lockdown. And when I woke up the next morning I had been completely locked out of all my accounts and I had a “whatsapp” message waiting for me. You read that correctly, Mr fun and games decided it was appropriate to give me bad news over whatsapp. He told me he really liked me and to look out for a message from him when this all blows over, as I will be the first person they call. But he had to let a lot of staff go permanently. I spent all off April preparing for this, but it still didn’t help me through what this felt like. Try and imagine working your ass off for 18 months to begin a life you never once dreamed was possible, to have it given to you and then taken away in the space of a month. I was let go on a Friday and I didn’t sleep a wink that whole weekend. I did get a phone call from my recruiter which I thought was nice. But it turns out they were only calling me because the company that let me go were claiming it was because of poor performance. They didn’t want to pay the recruitment fee, and they were willing to damage my reputation and relationship with the recruiter. However, it turned out to be the best thing that happened to me. Them refusing to pay the recruitment fee, drove my recruiter to immediately look for a job for me. It is Sunday afternoon that same weekend and I get a call saying “I have an interview lined up for you tomorrow, can you make it?”. I could not believe what I was hearing. I have an interview lined up and I may not even miss a pay day? I felt like crying. But what was that he said? I must have misheard, did he say it was for tomorrow? That’s right, after having no sleep and being in a state of emotional and physical exhaustion I now had less than 24 hours to prepare for a job I had no idea about. How to prep for an interview I worked my arse off. I learned everything I could about the company, I read their testimonials, I studied their customers, I looked at the solutions they provided. I like to have all my certificates with me, along with copies of my resume. I like to have prepared questions to ask the interviewer. I like to have a separate document that I can pass to them with all of my documentation from my labs. (this obviously means you have to document all your labs). I dressed as smartly as I could and gave it everything I could. I watched youtube videos of typical helpdesk questions, I learned the tricks to the questions they ask, e.g. The owner of your company says his printer is broken at the same time you get a call from a customer saying all 200 staff have lost connection to the internet. What do you do? The trick is to communicate with your team, with a team you can do both at the same time. These videos are an amazing tool to prep with and they give you really good answers that you don’t have to think too hard about. They also take away some of the nerves. So how did it go? Well of course I just didn’t sleep. I mean who would have been able to sleep after what I had been through. I thought about postponing it but I still went for it. I can’t begin to describe the difference in management style. This man was a manager, he was an IT professional with 25 years experience, and he had owned, ran and sold his own successful MSP. It was both refreshing and worrying. He expected nothing of me, he didn’t really care about my technical knowledge. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was because everyone at this company was driven and knew their stuff. Everyone held 10+ certs and had years and years of experience. This was a different company, with serious people and incredible opportunities to learn. I thought I had bombed, I was tired and a little defeated. But I got a second interview, and with sleep was able to completely turn it around. I turned my weaknesses in knowledge into opportunities to ask my manager to showcase his knowledge. I was far more engaged and I was offered the job at this far more serious role for the same money I was originally on and I cut my commute in half (well technically I am work from home). What to expect from a serious MSP? At my new company, cases come in to 1st line and you are expected to work on everything, and only after you have exhausted your ability can it go up to second line. It is also worth noting the main difference between the two companies is that the first one only provided services for their customers and they had monthly rolling contracts. My current company is a cloud provider and they host all of their customers infrastructures and endpoints, as well as having 1-3 year contracts (much harder to pull out of during a pandemic) it didn’t hurt that a lot of their customers are hospital related. I have been at my new company now for 4.5 months and learned more there than I could have ever learned at the first company. I put my money where my mouth is. It wasn’t long before my first manager called me and offered me my old job back. This time with a 33% pay increase. I flat out told him no (respectfully of course) but firmly. It was a lot more money than I am on now but that wasn’t the point. I would not want to stymy my career by working at such a poorly managed company. In the UK, they could have just left me furloughed (it wouldn’t have cost them anything) and I would have received 80% of my salary. But they terminated me and then expected me to come back? I wasn’t going to repay my new manager’s act of saving me from that hell with disloyalty (I know loyalty can be looked down upon in this sub, but that is how I was raised). What can you expect in your first 6 months? Enough about me, let’s look at you. Let’s look at what you can expect. You can expect that certificates can take between 2-6 months each depending on how much time you dedicate to them. You can expect your first job to pay a little more than minimum wage. However, most places now pay for your training, pay for your exams and give extra time to study during work. You can more than likely expect your first job to be helpdesk. You can expect to have to apply to hundreds of jobs to get your first one. However, if you follow my previous advice you should be getting call backs from recruiters at a minimum. If not, then it will be your CV that needs to change. If you want to be successful you will have to sacrifice. I get up 3 hours before my shift and I study. Every single day, and I work longer on weekends. I offer every single time someone needs to stay late or come in early. I often stay late after work finishes to tidy up cases and prepare for the next day. I work through every single lunch. The reason for this is because I take twice as many cases as the other person that started 3 months before me, lets call this person “anon”, anon is my direct competition and he drives me to be the best I can be. The results of my hard work are that I am sitting my exam in half the time that Anon will take (honestly I doubt he will take it when he says). I have closed more cases than him and he has been at the company for 7.5 months vs my 4.5 months. I was asked to go to site to setup a switch for a customer (twice) over anon. I have been “selected” by my manager to work directly with on a fileserver project. It looks like he has taken me under his wing (which I highly recommend, if you can get someone to teach you that is half as smart as my manager then do it). I have had multiple people tell me they notice how engaged I am during meetings, and how well they think I am doing. I have had a number of times a 2nd line ask me if I want to be shown something that typically only goes to 2nd Line. I have learned that hard work, determination and a willingness to learn does not go unnoticed. What are some of the negatives to expect? But it isn’t all fairytails, there are downsides too. I don’t spend as much time with my wife or doing the things I like. I feel guilty if I watch a film instead of study. If you take twice as many cases you are going to make at least twice as many mistakes. Making mistakes is normal, and you have to learn from them, but if you take them to heart like me, then you are going beat yourself up twice as often. Ultimately, the sky is the limit, how hard you work will depend on you and what drives you. I have my foot in the door and I have no intention of taking my foot of the gas anytime soon. If you think that once you get your foot in the door that the hard part is over, then that simply isn’t the case I am afraid. How to give yourself the best opportunity in your career (tips no one tells you). I push myself out of my comfort zone many times a day. I do this so that these things become my comfort zone. I notice how often my manager trusts me to do something that he wouldn’t normally let a 1st line support engineer do. You can expect to have a highly stressful working environment. You are going to have many fires to put out at the same time, and you need to organise yourself so it doesn’t overwhelm you. I think something that no certificate teaches you, or that I have yet to see, and it is easily the most important thing I have learned, is to have a to do list. First thing in the morning, before you do anything, fire up notepad or onenote and write down everything you have to do in that day. It doesn’t have to be in order, just get writing. And then anytime you complete a task look at notepad and start working on the next thing. Also, if anyone asks you to do anything ever, fire up notepad, and write it down. You can be albert Einstein himself, and you are going to forget to do a good chunk of that stuff if you write it down. And remember, you are going to make a lot of mistakes, but forgetting to do stuff is a terrible mistake to make and can be easily avoided. If you have to stop someone mid flow because you realise they are telling you to do a multistep thing, then stop them and fire it up and ask them to start again. Annoying but better than having to call them later and ask them to say it all again, or worse just forget it. You can expect a relatively thankless job. There will always be those people who remember to thank you and make you feel like you are appreciated, but more often than not you will get someone who the second the thing works, they want off the phone. Get used to goodbyes being a tad rushed/awkward. You can expect that you will need a lot of help. But try to be smart and kind about it. Try speaking to those people about things in which you don’t ask for help and ask them about themselves. Develop relationships that are meaningful. Also, try and vary the people you ask for help from, don’t take advantage of someone because they are polite and never let you know that inside they are frustrated because they too have a big to do list. Spread your help out and try and make up for the fact you are going to be a big inconvenience by offering to help in other ways. Make the coffees, make the teas, offer to take dogsh*t menial tasks that need doing. These sorts of things are good way to pay it back to someone that you won’t be able to help technically. Advice to avoid serious mistakes. Always think about what you are doing. Always. Is this something you should be doing? Is this something that needs approval? is this something you should check with someone first? Checking with someone is not the same as asking for help and it has saved my ass more times than I can count. Don’t be the person that causes a service outage because you didn’t check if something is right. It may feel obvious, it may make you look dumb. But if I was to be shown 100 tasks and asked what my gut tells me is the “proper protocol” for each one, I would get most wrong. Don’t try and guess what is best for the customer or company policy. This is what I like to call good old-fashioned Arse-covering. It covers yours and your employers. Those £72K jobs exist. And people do them. You could be one of them, but it will take years of dedication and sacrifice. If that sounds like you, if you can be driven, passionate and determined then nothing will stop you. Thank you for reading. If you are crazy enough to still be reading this, then thank you. I wish you all the luck in the world. TLDR: Hard work and self-belief pays off. Nothing is going to stop you except YOU.
The most common betting line for a point spread is -110. A -110 line on either side is like paying a tax or commission to the sportsbook. Bettors would pay 10 percent (aka juice) to the sportsbook, which is essentially a fee for brokering the wager. So, the -110 indicates that a bettor must risk $110 to win $100. goal line bet explained - alternative goal line meaning Goal line betting is actually a very popular wager that punters use in football betting. It is probably more commonly referred to as over/under 2.5 goals and that is likely going to be far more familiar to punters. Betting: Cavani not expected to shine for Man Utd. Premier League 09/10/2020 . Betting Tips: Bosnia vs Northern Ireland Place a Goal Lines bet on Rosenborg v Stabaek with the Betfair™ Exchange. Best Online Betting Exchange For Football Bet Live In-Play Cash Out Warning: Although the current score, time elapsed, video and other data provided on this site is sourced from "live" feeds provided by third parties, you should be aware that this data may be subject to a time delay and/or be inaccurate.Please also be aware that other Betfair customers may have access to data that is faster and/or more accurate than the data shown on the Betfair site.
How Do You Read Betting Odds And Win- How Do Baseball Betting Odds Lines Work
Betfair Trading One Line Lesson - Day 38 - Don’t give up because of a few losses - Duration: ... The secret to profitable Betfair trading and betting - Duration: 17:22. betangeltv 37,106 views. 🔔Turn On Notifications To Never Miss an Upload! 🔔 John Stones, John Terry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Sergio Ramos, Gerard Pique, Thiago Silva, Kyle Walker, Toby Al... 80 Best Goal Line Clearances In Football ft. Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos, David Luiz, Kyle Walker, John Terry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Hector Beller... Betting Line - 2016 Battle of the Brandywine - Duration: 2:37. jporchak 4,425 views. 2:37. 25 Rugby Moments That Will Never Be Forgotten - Duration: 11:54. Andrew Forde Recommended for you. Betting Line, driven by David Miller for trainer Casie Coleman, won the 71st Little Brown Jug, presented by the Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association, in straight heats. His 1:49 win in the final ...
