Tongue Stuck to Wall

Goldhawk Interactive is certainly going all out in their marketing for Xenonauts 2.

At first I thought it was something lame like Elrond has been ostracized because he's Half-elven, but I guess they were setting him up as Gil-Galad's admin assistant who has to earn his spurs before he can be elevated to elf-lord status (which is also lame). Celebrimbor's speech about the silmarils was kind of funny given Elrond's heritage. Too bad the scene didn't take place in the early evening or dawn; Elrond could have shrugged a shoulder at Earendil out the window - "Yes, my family has some passing familiarity with these jewels of which you speak."

I'm assuming the fastest would be sold to oligarchs and the rest eaten.

If I were the Ukrainians, I wouldn't admit to it either. Much better to let people think the Russians are being devious as usual, or at least incompetent - just another industrial accident - rather than disclose you've found weak spots in the Russian air defenses and two of your helicopters were able to sneak through. A little weird for a false flag operation, though. Given the logistical issues the Russians have experienced, blowing up 16,000 cubic metres of your own petroleum at an important depot relatively close to the front to discredit your enemy seems a bit off.

It's been correctly pointed out in this thread that most provinces and the feds were already substantially underway in planning for lifting restrictions well before the protests. Omicron set that back by a couple of months, but the prevailing opinion is that we're going to be dealing COVID on a local basis moving forward. The premiere of British Columbia just addressed this, stating no amount of honking horns in Ottawa were going to dissuade the province from lifting restrictions on the terms they have established. These protests are 99% motivated by the desire to discredit Trudeau and the Liberals. The timing of protests is thus, and again this has been noted upthread, highly suspect. These rightist protestors are hoping to score cheap political points by claiming victory for something that was already going to occur, but their real impact on virus policies has been negligible. Most Canadian recognize this, fortunately.

Yeah, it's in end note 20 of the account: "But it was not his praise they would have won, if any had lived long enough to see his revival. No tortures would have satisfied his anger with the bungling fools who had let slip the greatest prize in Middle-earth; even though they could know nothing of the One Ring, which save to Sauron himself was known only to the Nine Ringwraiths, its slaves."

Not entirely. Tolkien is clear that Sauron had already positioned orcs of the Red Hand in the northern Vales of Anduin specifically for the purpose of ambushing smaller bodies of Alliance forces traversing the area. These orcs, overtly oblivious to the existence of the Ring and indeed to Sauron's recent "downfall," initially launched their attack in accordance with their standing orders. There was speculation, however, the proximity of the Ring hastened the Orcs' attack and increased its savagery.

Does your school have an established academic integrity policy or something similar, that clearly spells out what constitutes an integrity infraction and what consequences are (eg: escalating ), and can be used to formally record these incidents? As well, having three cases of cheating on the first test you administered as a teacher is indeed a rough beginning and you deserve advice and/or support on how to handle it. I don't think it reflects badly on you if you were to approach your department head or relevant vice-principal to a) make them aware the class does have repeat offenders in it and b) obtain clearer guidance on how to proceed.

Grade inflation to boost students' chances of getting university offers is a huge problem and your principal should indeed know better. I'm the university admissions' counselor at my school and the pressure to get students multiple offers from good universities is extremely intense, but it must be balanced with protecting the students and the school's reputation. Many universities actually do keep track of grade inflation and factor it into their admissions' decisions. Here's an article about how the University of Waterloo in Ontario has been doing that, much to the detriment of the students from the secondary schools flagged by the uni: https://globalnews.ca/news/4405495/waterloo-engineering-grade-inflation-list/ What platforms are you using, Tony? My school in Shenzhen has been teaching online for about a month now and we've been using a combination of Wechat for attendance and class messages , Zoom for online lessons/activities/discussions, and Managebac for assignments (don't know if your school has a license for it or not). Our grade 12s normally taking blended online classes through Moodle, so we transitioned with them relatively easily to going fully online. Zoom has worked really well so far but you do need to be judicious about making sure the students cameras and mics are on at all times so you can monitor if they are paying attention or not. I have 15 students in one class and can oversee all of their windows at once. It was definitely a learning curve at first for everyone, however after a few days we settled into a smooth rhythm, and the kids have been very good about complying with our online classroom management techniques. Our parents have also been very supportive with making sure the students are participating as fully as possible. And yes!...being able to cover the allotted class time requirements online (each of our secondary school courses must be 110 hours in length according to the Ministry of Ed.) definitely means less make-up time in the summer. 加油 my friend...I'm sure it will go well this week!

Hey, I read your prologue and the first few chapters, and enjoyed it overall. By no means am I an accomplished writer but I'd like to offer the following feedback: 1) Watch your spelling and word usage - for example, it's "faint", not "feint", stifled is not a great negatory verb for seeing (maybe blinded?), etc. You want to be taken seriously as a writer so make sure you avoid easily-correctable errors like that to establish your credibility. 2) You have WAY too much background information (ie. infodump) for the prologue. I found myself immediately confused about the places and people you mentioned in such a short space. Remember: your world-building may be complete in your mind, but you need to introduce it to your readers in digestible chunks. Your final draft might have a glossary, map and timeline, but I don't want to be referring to it exhaustively in the first few pages. I really liked the twist at the end of the prologue and wanted to read more about you-know-who's motives. Don't detract from establishing good hooks such as that by overwhelming your readers with information. 3) Some logic/continuity issues: if the wind is so strong, how can Mordin hear Merrik if he's mumbling his answers? Could a single log on fire illuminate armoured marching men so far away that you describe it as an "abyss". 4) Repetition: I don't think you need to have Merrik constantly complaining about how cold it is on sentry duty. I get the point that he's not a great guard and thinks more with his stomach and being warm, but it's a lot of commentary for a short prologue. 5) Similar to 2) - Show, don't tell - for the rest of the chapters try to find a way to cut down on the exposition. You're trying to set up the story of a bunch of rough-and-tumble characters, but it's jarring to switch between pages of history and the dialogue of your characters. Aside from that, I really did like what I've read of your story so far. You created a vibrant and violent world that believably lends itself to Jamie's plot arc and character development.