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The Tarbert Hotel
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Good on You Gary
... rgb(219, 237, 254);">Pulling over on the side of the road, we all jumped off in the pouring rain. The reason for this stop over was the famously picturesque Kilchern Castle which features in the brochure as a beautiful castle situated on another glass like loch, snow capped mountains distantly in the background. With the rain pelting down, this was not our experience of the castle. The glass water was defaced with ripples of rain, the snow capped mountains were clocked in fog ...
Summer's end
... some memorable meals, both at home and out.
The almost unbroken good weather meant that the regular task list expanded to include watering the garden and washing the car - housekeeping chores usually taken care of by nature up here. The former task did usually make it into action but the latter did not, and my poor car is looking very dusty indeed after four months of running about discovering new places and revisiting old favourites. And there ...
Outer Hebrides- Isle of Harris
... It's easy to imagine what is was like 300 years ago, it hasn't changed much!
As we came out of the mountains, the weather cleared up for a glorious sunny afternoon. We had to stop at Tarbert, the largest town on Harris, and snap a few shots of the harbor with boats under blue skies!
We followed the west coast to Luskentyre Sands. What a surprise to see white sand and sun when ...
Day 34: St Bees to Tarbert, Scotland
The rain from last night was still persisting this morning as we set off for Scotland, and the temperature did not get above 13 deg. all day. As we drove north on the A595 to Carlisle the rain became heavier and by the time we entered Scotland at Gretna Green on the M6 it was bucketing down and there were illuminated signs warning of heavy rain and flooding all along the motorway. Welcome to Scotland!
With visibility so poor we could not make out a lot of the scenery ...
Day 159 - 6 August - Lochs and loads of laughs
... with terrific root system.
Carried on to Arrocha - a lovely waterside spot. Sat for a while before continuing on. Drove through Inverary - lovely spot with lots of white buildings. Did not stop at the castle. Drove down the side of Loch Fyne into the area of Kintyre.
Arrived at at town called Tarbert - late in the afternoon - time to find somewhere to stay. ...


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Sam Shelley | Bookings Available | Experienced DJ | London
My name is Sam Shelley and I am an experienced DJ based in Central London. I am very much into the house music scene and enjoy mixing house music with disco, soul and funk. I also produce my own music. I am a regular on the party scene in Spain

subset: commoncrawl


text: One of the 3 baffles in our washer's tub broke and fell out Garrett O. • Friday Harbor, WA • December 15, 2014 Appliance: Model PART # AP4500807 - WHIRLPOOL FRONT-LOAD WASHER My Repair & Advice Rather than call a repairman, I looked on line to get a replacement part. AppliancePartsPros.com had clear diagrams of the washer's major subassemblies from which it was easy to identify the broken baffle. AppliancePartsPros.com offered the part at the lowest price I could find online. That price seemed very high for a simple piece of plastic, but I know no alternative way to fix the problem. i ordered the part. It came in a couple of days when I was not home. My wife told me by phone that the part had come and I suggested she should try to install it. She installed the baffle in a few minutes and now the washer works perfectly again. It took a bit longer to find and order the part on line than it took to install the part. Whirlpool should certainly engineer more durable baffles, but this is no fault of AppliancePartsPros.com. Was this review helpful to you?


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We're comparing the outgoing Mercedes C-Class with the all-new 2015 model to help you understand the key differences. Read more


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Masterpiece Mystery
PBS' "Masterpiece Mystery" is one of the joys of every summer. This year it's back with two favorite British detectives, Inspectors Lewis and Morse. Inspector Lewis, Series VI 8 p.m. Sundays, June 16-30, PBS Inspector Robbie Lewis (Kevin Whately, right in left photo) and DS James Hathaway... PBS


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Begonia Escargot needs help
This is my 2nd Escargot which is rapidly deteriorating. I planted it under a tree all summer and it was just beautiful. Now that it is getting cold, I potted it up a few weeks ago and took it inside. It doesn't look like it's going to make it. All the leaves are falling off. I love this begonia but am having a hard time trying to keep it alive. What am I doing wrong.
That is the problem with Escargot - beautiful in summer, ugly and usually dead once you move it back inside for winter. Very susceptible to mildew in cooler weather too. Spray with a fungicide ASAP and remove infected leaves if you see mildew appearing or very blemished leaves. Find a place indoors that you can provide good light and lots of humidity - go easy on the watering indoors. I've got an Escargot inside one of the big clear pretzel containers you can buy now (Halloween) and rarely water it. I have another one outside but will be facing the same problems you have in a few short weeks.


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Dark Nebula: Stars Without Number Edition
Third in the list of SF RPGs for Dark Nebula is Stars Without Number, which I've done after the Traveller version largely so I can draw on that for population levels.
As usual for the actual world characteristics, these are hard to extract from the map in detail, but we can place some constraints.
- Primary systems must have an atmosphere which is a breatheable mix; a temperature which is cold, temperate, warm, or possibly variable; and probably have a human-miscible biosphere, although others are possible.
- Secondary systems may have some of the features of a primary system, but not all – otherwise they would be primary.
- Tertiary systems have no planets, so there's nothing to work out.
You may recall my rules for Traveller population levels:
- Capital systems have population level 9.
- Primary systems other than capitals have a population level equal to their number of charted hyperspace routes plus three; for example, Mizah has five routes and thus population level 8.
- Secondary systems have a population level equal to their number of charted hyperspace routes plus one; Hasara, with two routes, has population level 3.
- Tertiary systems have population level 0, as does any system inside the Dark Nebula – at least, as far as anyone knows.
Those translate now into SWN population as follows:
|Traveller Population
|SWN Population
|Tens of Thousands
|Hundreds of Thousands
Notice that as a result of the above, there are no failed colonies – statistically, there should be several, so I'll shove those on the secondary systems in the Dark Nebula itself. Alien civilizations are placed by GM fiat, at Kuzu and Gazzain. There may be one on Bulan as well, I haven't decided yet.
Capital systems get Tech Level 5. Everywhere else gets Tech Level 4 for the moment, because given what I've already established, it seems to me that this region is further along in its recovery from the Interregnum than the typical SWN sector.
These are mostly going to be assigned by GM fiat as solo play fleshes out the sector, but there are some obvious ones…
- Kuzu and Maadin both get Regional Hegemon (they're the local superpowers) and Major Spaceyard (somewhere is building all of those dreadnoughts, and it's most likely the capital worlds).
- Mizah gets Trade Hub because of its multitude of trade routes, and also so that it is friendly to spacefaring PCs.
- Anywhere with a Failed Colony population gets the Abandoned Colony tag; anywhere with Outpost population gets the Outpost World tag.
- Simba gets Hostile Space because of the insectoid raiders.
These remain largely unchanged from my earlier attempts:
- Kuzu and Maadin both have a Regional Hegemon faction, which has the Planetary Government tag for each world in its fledgling empire.
- Primary worlds other than Kuzu and Maadin have a Backwater Planet faction as their local government.
- Secondary worlds have a Colony World faction as their local government.
- Mizah has a Mercantile Combine running the counters assigned to it by the neutral counter draw – a Transport and some mercenary Jump Troops.
- Any world occupied by the Confederation or the Hierate as the strategic game progresses will develop a Rebel Freedom Fighters faction.
- I think I might base the Psionics Institute on the Eugenics Cult template. We'll see about that later.
As you can see, the main problem I will face is getting carried away into developing an enormously detailed setting. Oh well, as long as I have no group to play with, where's the harm in that?
New Year Resolutions 2015
"The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective." – G.K. Chesterton
It's like this: When I'm tired, or irritable, I run off in all directions, learning new games and creating or converting new settings; but when I'm calm and rested, I keep coming back to a handful of them.
That handful is All Things Zombie, Traveller, Dark Nebula, Dungeons & Dragons, and Savage Worlds (in which I include Beasts & Barbarians).
So, for 2015, I've decided to embrace those and focus on them, building a greater understanding of how they work and the kind of detailed settings and backstories I admire so much when other game masters provide them.
Consider this post a line drawn under what has gone before, and a reboot for such games as survive. (I thought about deleting the old stuff or starting a new blog, but I usually regret doing that later.)
Moving forward, since I think of my campaigns as action-adventure TV shows, I will focus on each of them for 26 weeks in turn, that being how long a season of a show used to last before the writers' strike and the adoption of mid-season breaks.
We'll start with the Dark Nebula. Buckle up, sports fans. It's going to be a fun ride.
By The Numbers
Before I drill too much into individual worlds, let's make a few assumptions and see what we can deduce from the map and the SWN world generation rules. Quite a bit, as it turns out…
Now that I've reinstated the double stars, there are 59 systems on the map; 2 Homeworlds, 8 Primary (naturally habitable), 39 Secondary and 10 Tertiary. For this first pass I assign Homeworlds a population of billions, Primary millions, Secondary hundreds of thousands and Tertiary no population at all.
Statistically in SWN, one would expect 59 systems to include 3.28 with populations of billions, 11.47 with millions, 26.22 with hundreds of thousands, 11.47 with tens of thousands, 1.64 with alien civilisations, and 4.92 with either outposts or failed colonies. So we're a bit light on high population worlds and a bit heavy on uninhabited ones, but not unbelievably so. About a third of the Secondary systems should have populations in the tens of thousands, but as you'll see it makes very little difference at the sector level.
Meanwhile, I already know that I want to use rakashans and saurians as well as humans in this campaign, and statistically that is already slightly too many alien races for this many worlds, so that's all I need.
I derived the cultures for the systems by looking up the world names in Google and selecting the closest culture in SWN for the world concerned – you'll see the details of that reasoning later as I look at each area of the map in turn, but for now we get the following:
- Arabic culture: 8 worlds, 1,002,500,000 inhabitants (49.84% of the total).
- Chinese culture: 3 worlds, 300,000 inhabitants (0.01%).
- English culture: 15 worlds, 700,000 inhabitants (0.03%). Six of these worlds are N1-N6 in the Dark Nebula, and another two are tertiary systems outside the Nebula; perhaps those should not be counted.
- Indian culture: 5 worlds, 1,400,000 inhabitants (0.07%).
- Japanese culture: 2 worlds, 1,000,000,000 inhabitants (49.71%). One of these is a tertiary system with no inhabitants.
- Nigerian culture: 7 worlds, 1,500,000 inhabitants (0.07%). Again, one is a tertiary system.
- Russian culture: 11 worlds, 3,600,000 inhabitants (0.18%). Two of these are tertiary systems.
- Spanish culture: 8 worlds, 1,600,000 inhabitants (0.08%). One of these is tertiary.
The only inhabited world with a definitely Japanese name is Kuzu, and we already know that is inhabited by aslan – errm, sorry, rakashans. So it's tempting to do what I did with my last 2300AD campaign and have the aslan – sorry, rakashans – be a life-form genetically engineered from human and feline DNA by Japanese scientists. That would explain them having a vaguely Japanese culture and let me use the Japanese name tables, because no other worlds will need them.
You can see from the table that over 99% of the sector's population is concentrated in the regional hegemons.
It's actually quite hard to find out how many speakers a language has in a given country, so I assumed an even split between them by culture. This gives me the following, in descending order of speaker base:
- Arabic: 1,002,500,000 speakers.
- Japanese (or whatever the rakashans actually speak): 1,000,000,000 speakers.
- English: 3,600,000 speakers, of whom 81% speak it as a second language.
- Russian: 3,600,000 speakers, as many as English but more concentrated.
- Spanish: 1,600,000 speakers.
- Hindi: 1,400,000 speakers, most of them on Gazzain so this may be an overstatement as that's where I'm going to park the saurians.
- Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba: 233,333 speakers each.
- Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese: 150,000 speakers each.
SWN states that all PCs speak English, certainly all the players do, and there is a long tradition of English as the language of air traffic control which it seems reasonable to extend to space travel as well. So the idea occurs to me that a disproportionate fraction of ship crews are English-speaking people, with enclaves at most starports; this gives the players a reason to work together, as they are members of an ethnic minority, much like gypsies or Sephardic Jews.
It's always a bit risky including actual religions in games – one reason most of them don't do it – as you may offend potential players; but made-up ones have never felt right to me in science-fiction games, especially if I'm using real-world cultures.
So I assumed religions in the sector are split roughly along cultural lines, again with an even mix in cultures that have multiple religions, as finding the actual numbers of worshippers is more work than I want to do. This gives me the following:
- Islam: 1,003,310,000 worshippers.
- Buddhism: 500,410,000 worshippers, of which 500,000 are rakashans on Kuzu. Maybe they picked it up from Japanese genetic engineers, maybe I apply a trapping to make it less obviously human.
- Shinto: 500,000,000 worshippers, all on Kuzu. Same comments.
- Christianity: 6,560,000 worshippers.
- Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism: 350,000 worshippers each.
- Traditional Nigerian religions (assorted): 150,000 worshippers.
- Confucianism, Taoism: 60,000 worshippers each.
It's amazing how much the campaign unpacks itself just from the map and the names, no?
Faction Turn 1: January 3200
In turn one, all factions build Surveyors, as they are the only unit which can (a) move without costing their faction more money, (b) move two hexes on the starmap, and (c) require a low attribute to buy – the other alternatives don't have all those advantages. Smugglers, for example, are cheaper to buy and have a similar range and attribute requirement, but you have to pay FacCreds to move them.
The Hierate builds its surveyors at Panas, the Confederation at Gazzain, and Mizah on Mizah (as it has no other choice).
Hierate: Income 7, spend 4, balance 3. Goal: Expand Influence on Valka; that's the nearest primary system with good land to grab.
Confederation: Income 7, spend 4, balance 3. Goal: Expand Influence on Hasara; the Hierate is coming for Solomani land, and this is the most distant system where Confed can guarantee to set up a Base of Influence before the Hierate can, thus hopefully blocking their movement. Confed will then work its way back along the Hasara Chain building up influence on all worlds, with a view to their eventual absorption.
Mizah: Income 4, spend 4, balance 0. Goal: Expand Influence on Hasara; Mizah sees the Hasara Chain and Triangular Route as its pre-eminent sphere of influence, and correctly divining Confed's plan, intends to get there first.
How does this manifest itself for the PCs? Well, they're on Mizah, so it will be at least February before they can learn of the Confed surveyors, and March before they know about the Hierate ones. However, this is playing on the holovid in the corner of the bar where they hang out between scenarios:
"Preceptor Adept Aisha Tabari of the Great Archive announced today at a news conference in Sinqit that President Jibril Shadi has agreed to the proposed massive expansion of the Mizah Survey Service, allowing the Archive to carry its advice and services to worlds along the Hasara Chain and Triangular Route. The MSS is now acquiring a number of ships for this purpose and hiring crews at Sinqit Starport."
Movers and Shakers
"Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!"
– Pinky and the Brain
Before I kick off the Dark Nebula campaign in earnest, I need a view of the local factions.
It's tempting to make up all kinds of custom factions, but at this stage I want to move quickly into actual play without worrying about whether the factions are sensibly designed or not, so I pick three template factions from SWN p. 127; the Aslanic Hierate (Regional Hegemon), the Solomani Confederation (Regional Hegemon) and the planetary government of Mizah (Backwater Planet). The Regional Hegemons each begin the game with the Planetary Government tag for all the worlds in their pocket empire.
I want the Dark Nebula system type for a world to be reflected in its government faction, and the simplest way to do this is to say that homeworlds are Regional Hegemons, primary systems are Backwater Planets, and secondary systems are Colony Worlds. Tertiary systems have no worlds, therefore no populations and hence no factions. For the most part, the planetary government factions will just sit there, waiting to provide opposition to the three active factions.
I now need to know the factions' motivations, since that will both determine their goals and actions in game terms, and make them seem more real to the players.
Aslanic Hierate: Landgrab
In line with Classic Traveller canon, aslan are obsessed with owning land. If there is unoccupied land, preferably on a primary world, they will occupy it. If the only decent land they can get at is already occupied, they will fight for it. Aslan expansion therefore consists of creating Bases of Influence anywhere they can, starting with the primary worlds. The cheapest way to do this is to build Surveyors and send them to each world in turn to Expand Influence there. Once that's done, they will happily spend their FacCreds upgrading the Bases, representing the expansion of aslan clanholds on the world.
Solomani Confederation: Reunify
As the spiritual heir to the Celestial Empire in my earlier campaigns, the Confederation seeks to restore the lost glories of the Terran Mandate, reuniting humanity under a single banner – this time, theirs. Their long-term aim is therefore Planetary Seizure of every system on the map. It's faster and cheaper in most cases to do this by building Surveyors, using them to create Bases of Influence, and then building other assets for conquest at those Bases – otherwise they would have to spend faction turns and FacCreds just moving military units into place. Seizing control of systems is neatly Difficulty 3 for a homeworld or primary system, 2 for a secondary, and 1 for a tertiary.
Government of Mizah: Spread the Word
Mizah is comfortable with the status quo, thank you very much; it has a nice home, a comfortable income, and an honourable and altruistic purpose. To pursue its objective of sharing knowledge with its neighbours, it will also plant Bases of Influence offworld, and again the cheapest way over three or more turns is a unit of Surveyors. In philosophy, Mizah is closer to the Confederation, but its methods are closer to those of the Hierate. Its ambitions are also limited to a specific group of worlds, whereas the other two factions both want to dominate the entire map.
It's expensive both in FacCreds and actions to move assets around, so they need to be placed sensibly to begin with.
- Everything starts on Mizah. There's no other option.
The Hegemons
- Space Marines: Panas (Hierate) and Gazzain (Confed). They have to start inside the faction's home turf, but they're strike units, they're no good at home.
- Planetary Defences: On the homeworlds, Kuzu and Maadin. These need to be defended, and there are too many potential routes to the homeworlds to block with the available units.
- Blockade Fleet: Gazzain and Bors. These are a bit of a white elephant really, they need to be refitted into something that can move two hexes.
- Extended Theatre: These need to begin on the faction's borders, and quickly move up to a transport nexus nearby but on the outside. The Hierate would be best served if theirs were at Dno, the Confederation needs theirs to be at Bulan until they have pacified that area; so the Extended Theatre units start at Panas and Kamat.
- Pretech Manufactory: Maadin and Kuzu. These are probably a big part of why the Hegemons are Hegemons.
- Shipping Combine: Wherever the Extended Theatre went, the Shipping Combine needs to be on the other main route out of faction territory. That puts the Hierate one at Bors, and the Confed one at Gazzain.
- Tripwire Cells: These may as well stay at home to defend against stealthed infiltration units.
- Cyberninjas: Panas and Gazzain. I'm not quite sure what to do with these, but those locations give the most options.
We can see from this that the biggest naval base in the region is at Gazzain, and the second-biggest at Panas.
I've tried running macro-level wargames or boardgames to provide setting background before, and the game has always collapsed under the weight of record-keeping required. However, I think SWN factions will be different, as they can only do one thing each per turn, so record-keeping is fairly basic – at most three assets per turn move, usually less.
If the factions were merely level grinding, they'd all go for the nearest system and set up a Base of Influence for a quick experience point; but these moves seem more aligned to their known mindsets.
Finally, notice that I don't need to know anything about the worlds to pick factions and set them at each other's throats.
After rereading the rules for my various science fiction RPGs, and experimenting a little off camera, I came to the conclusion that for the kind of game I want to run, SWN world generation, faction rules, and setting background will give me the most fun for the least effort. There is almost no mechanical interaction between those and the PC-level rules, so Savage Worlds PCs and SWN worlds and factions can co-exist peacefully without requiring any complex rules interfaces.
The PCs' home world is going to be Mizah, and I have a very clear idea of what I want to do with it; so I move directly to assigning stats without worrying about dice rolls.
- It's naturally habitable.
- It has routes to six other systems, making it the best-connected primary system on the map and making offworld travel simple when the PCs start to do that. This is also why it's a trade hub.
- It isn't aligned to either the Hierate or the Confederation, but would be a valuable ally to either. Enter intrigue and espionage, stage left, but with the PCs having a free hand as to which faction they support. This is the "offworld faction trying to seize control complication for the trade hub" tag in action.
- It's only a few weeks' travel away from either the insectoid Hive of space bugs (off-map past Simba) or the mysteries of the Dark Nebula itself.
Atmosphere: Breathable mix. Temperature: Temperate. Biosphere: Human-miscible, dominated by giant beetle analogues (the players told me this, during Back in Black). Population: Millions. Tech Level: 4. Tags: Preceptor Archive, Trade Hub. Culture: Arabic ("Mizah" means "joke" in Turkish, and the closest culture to Turkish in baseline SWN is Arabic).
Mizah's government is a representative democracy; the current president is Jibril Shadi. (As recommended by SWN, the base world gets a representative democracy because how it works will be instinctively familiar to the likely players. President Shadi's name is courtesy of a couple of dice rolls on the Arabic names table in SWN.)
When the Scream came, Mizah managed somehow to hold things together, thanks to the joint efforts of the Great Archive outpost and the planetary government. During the Silence, the Mizah Survey Service worked closely with the Archive to keep the flame of civilisation burning, however weakly, along the Hasara Chain and the Triangular Route, acting as a cultural bridge and provider of news and technical (especially medical) advice. Local populations therefore look on it fondly for the most part, although of course there are those who infer sinister conspiracies.
- Hasara Chain: Hasara, Tangga, Salia, Kov, Mizah.
- Triangular Route: Mizah, Simba, Omaro, Umuru.
These worlds will all have Tech Level 4, as a result of the Great Archive's "missionary" work along those routes.
Places to Visit
- Sinqit starport, whose wide, open plazas bustle with activity.
- Charshi Market, a raucous bazaar on the edge of the starport whose coffee-houses are frequented by ship's crews on shore leave and adventurers on the make.
- The Great Archive lecture hall in the centre of Sinqit City and its quasi-religious ceremonies.
The campaign is likely to develop over three phases. In the first phase, the PCs will be limited to Mizah, since they have no ship and no shipboard skills. In phase two, they will escape into local space, which effectively means the Hasara Chain (Hasara-Tangga-Salia-Kov-Mizah) and the Triangular Route (Simba-Omaro/Umuru-Mizah); the Hive of space bugs can turn them back at Simba, the Solomani military can stop them going past Gazzain, there's nothing to do in the Nebula so far as they know and Daanarni can have a flare or something if they try to go that way. In phase three, all bets are off and they can go anywhere on the map.
So, I needed to know what Mizah is like right away, and should soon have some idea about eight other worlds; the other fifty-odd star systems may never come into play from the PCs' perspective, although Maadin and Kuzu cast long shadows and are easy enough to generate, as the fact of being a Regional Hegemon dictates most of a world's statistics.
You'll note I've swerved from the CT Long Night as the historical background to the SWN Scream and Silence. Dramatically, these are much the same – worlds re-emerging into space 600 years after a great human empire collapsed – and experience teaches me the players will neither notice nor care, so I may as well go with the path of least effort, which means the SWN world and faction rules claimed the background followed them home and asked if they could keep it.
Review: Stellar Heroes
Good Lord, Mandate Archive: Stellar Heroes is out already… as promised, a review as soon as I got my hands on it.
In a Nutshell: Stars Without Number supplement for running adventures with one PC and a GM. 7 page PDF, free to download from RPGNow or the Sine Nomine website.
This Mandate Archive is split into three parts.
First, there is a one-page explanation of what the supplement is for (running Stars Without Number adventures for one or two PCs), and how that differs from normal play (since the group is smaller, consensus is reached much more quickly, so stories are faster-moving).
The second part modifies SWN's rules for a single PC, who has fewer hit points and a narrower range of skills than a full party. The changes are largely common to Solo Heroes and Scarlet Heroes from the same publisher, both of which cover the same ground for fantasy. To summarise:
- The PC always wins initiative.
- Damage and healing dice are read differently, making PCs tougher and NPCs much more fragile, but without changing the scenario or characters.
- The Fray Die lets the PC roll damage each turn against any NPC in range, even if he is doing something else that round.
- Defying Death essentially allows the PC to trade hit points for success in a check they would not otherwise make.
- Lone heroes gain skill points at twice the normal rate when levelling up.
This part closes with a half-page detailed example of how the rules changes work in play.
The third part is a short adventure for a single 1st level hero, pitting him or her against a group of terrorists threatening to crash an orbital station into a surface city. It's a 10-location dungeon crawl in space, with statblocks for relevant NPCs. Can you say Die Hard? I knew you could…
Black on gold front cover, full colour back cover advertising Scarlet Heroes, and in between, five pages of black on white two-column text in the usual crisp, effective layout.
This supplement does what it sets out to do, and does it well; specifically, it applies a handful of rules tweaks to SWN which allows a single PC to survive, and successfully complete, an adventure written for a full-sized group, without rewriting the adventure or the character sheets.
However, what I'm really looking for is a science fiction version of Scarlet Heroes – rules for GM-less SF with a built in setting. I'm hopeful that just as Solo Heroes led to Scarlet Heroes, so Stellar Heroes will lead to something bigger.
Dark Nebula: Setting Inferences
"The Klingons are a proud warrior race, and have no need of fripperies such as fridge magnets." – Bill Bailey
Having done the map, the next stage in my budding Dark Nebula campaign is to peruse the boardgame and see what I can infer from it. For this purpose I'm considering Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, 5150 and Traveller as candidates for the rules – I expect to use all of them in this setting at some point, so I'm looking for common denominators.
Let's start with Traveller, because the designers were writing Classic Traveller at the same time they were writing Dark Nebula and used some of the same concepts, so it should be easiest.
Jump Routes
There are only a handful of J-3 routes, and a single J-4 route.
J-1 drives would be limited to a few specific clusters of worlds; in the Solomani Confederation there is one group of four worlds and one pair, in the Aslan Hierate there is a group of three, there's a group of six worlds between Mizah and Daanarni, and there are a few isolated pairs out in the boonies.
However, there's only one system you can't reach with a Jump-2 drive at the start of the game, and that's Taida Na, which initially can only be reached from Valka using a J-4 drive. So the majority of starships would have Jump-2 drives; you really don't need anything more, and you have severely limited movement with less. The military might have a few J-3 ships, maybe even the odd J-4, but that's debatable.
This is somewhere that Mongoose Traveller may have an edge; in the board game, any ship can traverse any jump route; so the Mongoose warp drive variant rule might be a better fit. (And while we're at it, given the unusually high proportion of waterless worlds, maybe the Mongoose hard SF option for world generation.)
Kuzu and Maadin are both specified as homeworlds with "high populations". That term has a specific meaning in Traveller, namely a population of 9 (billions) or A (tens of billions) – looking ahead to SWN, and because I normally assign the minimum value necessary to match other evidence, I'll go with 9. Given their status in the game, they deserve class A starports as well.
As far as technology goes, J-4 drives and battle dress for jump troops, but lack of evidence for anything higher-tech than that, place the maximum TL in the region at D (13). There's also no need for it anywhere other than Maadin and Kuzu, so that sets their TL.
The boardgame is silent on these, but familiarity with the default Traveller setting will tell you that Solomani humans and Aslan are present. In the past I've added droyne, ithklur, vilani and others, and may do so this time as well, but let's see how far we can get with just the basic two for the moment.
Spike-4 drives are needed to move 4 hexes in SWN, and require TL5, so we can assign a population of billions and TL 5 to the two homeworlds, which are also Regional Hegemons. Races will include humans and also hochog, renamed and described as if they were aslan – the Proud Warrior Race is such a classic SF trope that almost every game has it, and SWN is no exception.
The above topics don't really matter in SW or 5150, and neither game needs much about them beyond a little narrative. The only problem with 5150 is that it's not immediately obvious how to do aslan, but to start with I'll just give them +1 Rep for being the Proud Warrior Race.
As regards Savage Worlds, I rule out High-Space at this point because it's grounded in transhumanism, and CT/Dark Nebula aren't, so the Sci Fi Companion is a better fit for this particular game. I make a note that natives of Maadin and Kuzu might have the High-Tech (Minor) Hindrance under the SW SFC, and that jumps are only possible along mapped routes. On the racial front, we have humans and rakashans; those are the only two races obviously needed, and the boardgame is about a war between the two, so it seems reasonable for the rakashan racial hostility to be directed at humans.
As usual, I'm feeling lazy, and rather than create new characters for the SW implementation of the Nebula, I'll reactivate Arion and company, setting Gordon's as yet undocumented civilisation in a planet-less system in the Dark Nebula itself. Daanarni becomes the aslan name for Antares, Halfway becomes the orbital station at Hasara, and I'm sure I can retcon in other stuff easily enough when I need it. The Arioniad's riff of a loose alliance of worlds threatened by a human empire fits best with the Mizah cluster facing off against the Solomani Confederation; good luck, guys.
Parking Orbit
"You might think that the first step in starting a new game is finding a group of people to play with. That is important, but that's your next step. Your first step is to get yourself excited. Do that and you'll likely get all your friends excited as well." – Savage Worlds
The Free Traders campaign looks like it will not be used after all, which is a bit sad, but means I feel pretty smug for not having put that much effort into it.
There are several reasons for this outcome.
I'm looking at the future of the group, and numbers are perilously low. The current gaming group started with 10 members, and surged to 12; but of these, 9 have dropped out over the last 18 months, as some move away and others shift their priorities elsewhere. Of the three remaining, I think there's a fair chance that 1-3 of them will drop out over the coming year, which will leave me with anywhere from two players to none. Some recruiting is called for in 2014, I think.
Other GMs take note; your current players are transient. Consider recruiting.
Supposing for the moment that the group only hangs together for another 12 months, with the current rate of two sessions per month, half of which are used for Tenchi's Shadowrun game, there are only another 10-12 sessions left for the group. It seems more sensible to extend Shadows of Keron than start up a new campaign.
Although I've preferred science fiction to fantasy for as long as I can remember, I just can't motivate myself to run an SF game at the moment. I have no problem coming up with scenario ideas, but they are all for fantasy – I blame Beasts & Barbarians, which has refreshed my jaded gaming palette.
Partly this is because the kind of 1950s-1970s SF that Classic Traveller emulated so well no longer seems credible to me, and the transhumanist nanotech SF that currently seems credible doesn't interest me as a campaign setting. Partly it's because my focus as a GM has shifted away from gadgets towards characters, which are largely setting-independent. Partly it's because fantasy settings have less of a learning curve for players.
(One useful side effect of staying focussed on fantasy would be that a much wider range of pre-painted figures is available. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find the time to paint figures, and my deteriorating eyesight means they don't look that good any more when I do.)
So, Free Traders inserts itself into a parking orbit around Halfway Station. If you can make use of it, do so with my blessing.
Review: Suns of Gold
In a Nutshell: Interstellar trading expansion for Stars Without Number. 85 page PDF. Unusual in its support for the end game, when the PCs have risen to be merchant princes – movers and shakers in the sector as a whole.
The Jewels of Foreign Suns (4 pages): This gives the history of independent trade, from Earth's initial colonies through the Terran Mandate, the Silence after the Mandate collapsed, and into the present day. The tone this sets is one of every man's hand being against the free trader – or far trader, as they are called in SWN, leading them to develop the kind of ruthless cunning one typically observes in PCs. I particularly liked the backstory of the Exchange Consulate, presented here for the first time I recall, and within that, the hints of their militant arm, the context assassins, who essentially trick targets into getting themselves executed. That's very stylish.
Slaves to the Credit (8 pages): So much for history, now we're into current affairs. This outlines how one becomes a far trader, the kind of person who does it, and his three main sources of opposition: Restless natives who feel threatened by the trader's wares, planetary governments tempted to nationalise his ship and cargo, and other traders. Apart from the rare worlds with Trade Hub tags, pretty much every planet you land on will try to steal your profits, your goods, and your ship in one way or another. The chapter also outlines a typical trade run, stressing the caution and defensive measures taken by merchant captains, and the importance of a friendly factor on a regular destination world – someone knowledgeable in local customs, trustworthy (usually because the trader has some kind of hold over him). There's a discussion of local currency and what backs it, and a page of GM's tips on how to set up and run a merchant campaign. The book returns to that last point in more detail later.
An Honest Day's Trade (18 pages): Here are the mechanics for trade in the SWN universe. Every world has a trade table (a list of ten cargo types worth the trader's while), a trouble table (things that might go wrong), and a Friction rating (how hard they are to do business with; this covers port fees, union troubles, grasping petty officials and so forth). Each trading crew has an expertise rating, based on skills and Intelligence or Charisma – several PCs can work together to create this rating, or it can all come from one person.
The trader begins by rolling twice on the trade table to see what's available to buy. He can reroll if he doesn't like what he sees, but each time he does so, the Friction rating goes up. To find the purchase price, you roll 3d6 on a sales chart to get a price modifier, then multiply that by the base price of the cargo. You do the same to sell it at the destination, which depending on the world type may have modifiers to the dice roll. The trader's expertise always modifies the dice roll in his favour, and the local Friction always modifies it to his disadvantage. A sidebar shows the rules in action, the better to explain them. Underlying the rules is an assumption that the odds are stacked against the PCs, and they will need to undertake adventures to smooth their path to wealth – in essence, the trading rules provide a setting and a motivation for the scenario in your next session.
This is the basic system, intended for the typical far trader crew of a handful of PCs. It is supported by tables of common goods and rules for creating new cargo types, explanations of the tags associated with cargo types, guidelines on creating trade and trouble tables, and eight basic world types with trade modifiers and tables already worked out to get you started.
After that, the chapter moves on to the corporate headquarters, factors and holdings the serious trader will want to establish at his regular ports of call. I think of these as an expansion of the faction rules in SWN, focussed more on the commercial aspects of the game than the military and political focus in the core rules. The main advantage of these from a trader's perspective is that they reduce the world's Friction and thus make it easier to turn a profit.
The section closes with a one-page summary of key rules. This is a welcome recent addition to Sine Nomine products.
Treasures in the Sky (14 pages): This chapter extends the world creation process in the SWN core rules by adding a number of new world tags to tailor your sector for trade runs. In addition to the trade and trouble tables already mentioned, and the friends, enemies, places and things your planet already has from core rules generation, you now add an Authority (an NPC representing the local power structure), an Antagonist (someone the PCs have to deal with before he derails their trading), and a Regulation (a commercial law that will cause problems for the PCs). Things, Places and Complications are also in play; you can recycle those from the core rules or use the ones from the new tags. All the new tags are explained in the same level of detail as those in vanilla SWN, and there are a dozen example worlds.
An Offer You Can't Refuse (14 pages): This chapter explains how to create trading adventures. Remember SWN is a sandbox game, and far traders are likely to have wealth and power beyond the typical PC party; the intention here is that whatever the PCs throw at the GM, he can have an adventure ready to run with 5-10 minutes preparation. This is accomplished by the use of Adventure Templates, which are more detailed versions of the adventure seeds found in the core rulebook. Where the seeds in the core rules would say something like "An Enemy seeks to rob a Friend of some precious Thing that he has desired for some time", an adventure template looks more like this:
"The Authority has an Actor who is their spouse, child, lover, debtor, or other person of importance to them. This Actor has been kidnapped by local criminals, taken by an Antagonist, seized by the secret police, taken hostage by rebels, lost in the wilderness, or otherwise taken from them. The local authorities have either failed to retrieve them, cannot be trusted with the work, or are actually responsible for the kidnapping. The Authority wants the Actor back. The captors may not realize the Actor's importance, may have the Actor slated for execution soon, may be transporting the Actor somewhere and are vulnerable during transit, or may be temporarily occupied by dealing with a local Complication. Hostiles are likely guarding the Actor, or may be present in the wilderness, or may actually be employed by the Actor in their attempt to fake their kidnapping and escape the Authority."
There are something like 30 such templates, backed up by random tables for creating further detail (like who the Actor is).
Next are the GM's guidelines for running a trade campaign, in two basic modes: Space truckers or merchant princes.
Space truckers are the classic trope of a handful of PCs in a tramp freighter. For this, you need to flesh out a basic SWN sector in a little more detail, paying special attention to the PCs' initial trade route. The PCs are generated, given a ship, and off they go. At the lower levels of PC power, the advice is like that given in Polychrome; don't expect them to know everything, and always leave them a way to progress, usually an NPC who will help in exchange for something they have, or know how to get.
The merchant princes campaign focuses on what Classic Traveller called "daring schemes for the acquisition of wealth and power". Here, the adventures revolve around interstellar trade empires and the sector's factions. While it's possible to start at this level, it could also be a natural evolution of the space truckers game. From the perspective of the typical CT adventuring group, these higher-level far traders are Patrons; from a basic SWN viewpoint, they are a PC Faction. These guys have the need to topple local planetary governments, and the money to hire bands of adventurers to do it, although more likely they will themselves resolve one sub-goal per session of play until they have completed all the steps the GM thinks they need to take before their ultimate prize is within their grasp.
Lords of the New Suns (8 pages): One particular grand ambition for a merchant prince is to found his own colony on a distant world, becoming absolute monarch of his own captive market. The GM creates several worlds suitable for colonisation, then seeds the campaign with rumours and other information about them; eventually the would-be colonisers pick one, and only then is it fleshed out in detail. Tables are provided for generating failed colonies – places someone else tried to colonise before, and why that failed – can the PCs do better? The colony is assigned Population, Supplies, Morale and Tech Level depending on what the PCs use to set it up. Once in existence, the PCs can trade with its captive market, deal with occasional colony troubles, collect taxes and so on. I struggled to get my head around these rules initially, but there is a solid example and a one-page rules summary that made things clear for me. If you think your campaign might wind up going this way, it will pay dividends to think about the colony worlds from the beginning.
Tools of the Traders (6 pages): Here's a range of personal and starship equipment of particular interest to the trader, ranging from drugs to bend NPCs to your will to complete prefab colonies. Of particular interest as a McGuffin is the route oracle, a dangerous tool which a psychic can use to find a lost world. Naturally, they are usually found in heavily-guarded and long-abandoned Mandate facilities.
GM Resources (8 pages): I look forward to this section in every Sine Nomine product; here are random tables for planetary crises, NPCs, business contacts and rival businesses; stock NPC opponents and alien beasts on a quick-reference sheet (nice); stock building plans for factories, walled estates, offices and shantytowns; and a "character sheet" for a world showing its trade profile and related data.
Two-column black text on white, very printer-friendly, with greyscale illustrations every few pages. Colour cover. Simple, effective, gets the job done.
I got nothin'. Moving on…
The Intrepid Merchant has been a staple of adventure stories for centuries, and of SF gaming since its beginnings. Consequently, many SF RPGs have rules for running the odd cargo from world to world as a free trader.
Suns of Gold is different in two key areas; first, when you're a merchant in Stars Without Number, you're not paranoid – everybody really is out to get you. Second, this supplement takes you through the free trader phase into being a merchant prince, and maybe beyond that, to being the ruler of entire planets. The sky's the limit, to coin a phrase.
As ever, I'm impressed with just how much meat Kevin Crawford can pack into a few short pages.
In the late 1970s, my Classic Traveller group became fabulously wealthy after about three real-time years of play, and wanted to found their own colony world far from the "interference" of the Terran Empire, where they could set up a profitable mercenary company. I didn't have much of a clue how to handle that, and that phase of the game did not go well; I wish I'd had this book then.
However, I don't think it will work for my current group as a campaign, so I see this one being mined for ideas rather than being used as intended. It would work well as background for the Free Traders campaign, but I think I'd need to handle the actual trading offstage via NPCs, and just have the PCs have the adventures. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Bulldogs' book and have the PCs be the crew of a trading vessel, with an NPC captain choosing destinations and setting them tasks. Yes, I think that might work very well. I might even merge it with a solo campaign, having the "NPC captain" as my character, who acts in the gaps between sessions…
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5


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- TRRT April 1-7 | Online Edition
- Guest Commentary: the Rockford Apartment Association
- State Roundup: NIU employee improperly reimbursed $30K
- State Roundup: Governor signs budget fix bills
- Rauner, Democratic leaders shake hands and make law
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- Lawmaker says license plate readers a privacy threat
- Bryant not the first to feel impact of free agency rules
- State Roundup: Parents' group calls for standardized test opt-out bill
- Hononegah Mack: 'The best woman in the county'
Composition festival set for Nov. 4-5 at Mendelssohn
Staff Report
Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center will host Greater Rockford Music Teachers Association's (GRMTA) composition festival Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4-5.
The event, titled "A Journey Into Composition with Catherine McMichael," will conclude with a public concert of Catherine McMichael's works beginning at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5. Admission is free.
Guest composer Catherine McMichael, who has been mentoring a group of local young musicians interested in composing solo and/or ensemble music for the past few months, will hold a composition class for students Nov. 4-5. Participants will be grouped according to their experience with composing (i.e., beginner, some experience, and experienced).
McMichael is a pianist, teacher, composer, and publisher for piano, strings, flute, harp, brass choir, hand bells and chorus. Teaching, performing, and composing comprise her professional music life in Saginaw, Mich., where she is on the faculty of Saginaw Valley State University.
McMichael performs frequently with the Saginaw Choral Society and the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, and is a clinician at workshops and institutes throughout North America and Australia. Her educational materials are widely known and have been performed on recent concerts in Rockford.
GRMTA was founded around 1970 and has a current membership of around 20 teachers serving the northwestern Illinois area. The association exists to elevate the standards of music teaching and to encourage and promote the cause of good music. The association is part of the Illinois Music Teachers Association and the Music Teachers National Association. This is the third composition festival sponsored by the organization.
Mendelssohn is at 415 N. Church St., Rockford. Call (815) 964-9713 or visit www.mendlessohnpac.org for more details.
From the Nov. 2-8, 2011, issue


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Pizzeria Paradiso MenuNoneGeorgetown Main Menu
mixed greens with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
mixed greens with marinated anchovies, ligurian olives, cherry tomatoes and onion
plate of cured italian meats and pecorino cheese served with homemade bread
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bottarga, prosciutto di parma, goat cheese, mussels, fresh buffalo mozzarella, vegan mozzarella, fresh tomato
sliced fresh tomato, fresh buffalo mozzarella, and vegan mozzarella may be substituted on any pizza
variety of italian cookies
sweet mascarpone cheese custard layered with lady fingers (not available for carry out)
sliced pears tossed with marsala wine and baked (not available for carry out)
a very rich chocolate roll studded with nuts
selection of ice creams
Disclaimer: Always check with the business for pricing and availability of menu items. SinglePlatform is not responsible for menu or pricing changes, but the information is believed to be accurate when posted. Listing of a menu does not mean that there is any affiliation, endorsement or sponsorship between SinglePlatform and the listed business.


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Town Square
Top national finishes by several local volleyball clubs
Original post made on Jul 8, 2012
Read the full story here Web Link posted Saturday, July 7, 2012, 10:54 PM
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on Jul 8, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Vision 18-1s actually had one loss to NCVC 18s coming into USAV JNs. They finished the season with just 2 losses overall, a truly amazing accomplishment.
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Travelers Insurance and Physicians Health Services jointly market workers' compensation program.
Under the agreement, PHS, through its workers' compensation subsidiary Total Employee Care Inc. will be responsible for all aspects of medical treatment and management. Travelers will focus on underwriting, risk financing and management of claim activities relating to employee wage-replacement benefits -- the non-medical portion of the workers' compensation benefit known as indemnity benefits.
"The medical component of workers' compensation costs has been rising out of control in recent years," said Richard H. Eskow, president, Total Employee Care. "What's more, the knowledge and approach used by a medical provider in treating a workers' compensation claimant also has a huge impact on indemnity costs.
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"By allowing each party to do what they do best, the PHS-Travelers partnership represents the latest thinking in the development of both workers' compensation insurance and managed care," said Richard W. Palczynski, senior vice president, Travelers Commercial Lines.
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"From launching the industry's first nationwide workers' compensation preferred provider network to treat worker injuries in 1990, through forming partnerships with PHS and Dallas-based OccuSystems occupational health care clinics, Travelers has consistently raised the bar in providing its customers with effective workers' compensation loss-reduction methods," Palczynski said. Travelers is exploring similar opportunities with HMOs in key markets across the country.
Travelers Insurance's Companies Lines division provides property and casualty insurance to business nationwide. Travelers Insurance is a subsidiary of Travelers Group, a diversified financial services company providing investment services, consumer finance, life and property casualty insurance, serving individuals, institutions and corporations.
Physicians Health Services, based in Trumbull, is Connecticut's largest managed care company with more than 170,000 members in Connecticut and New York's Hudson River Valley. Its workers' compensation subsidiary, Total Employee Care Inc., also provides a self-funded workers' compensation managed care program to Connecticut employers.
CONTACT: Travelers Insurance
Francis Onofrio, 203/277-8510
Total Employee Care Inc.
Richard H. Eskow, 203/380-5260
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27 year old Alex Sheen took an idea from a sad situation and is changing peoples lives because of it, and sending many deserving children to Disneyland.The Lakewood Ohio man has caused a social media phenomenon, and it comes from a tribute that he is paying to his late father Al, who passed away of Cancer this past fall. At his father's funeral Sheen created and passed out small cards with the words "Because I Said I Would" at the bottom of them. "What you do is you write a promise on the … [Read more...]
Lakewood Ohio Man Pledges to Send Sick Children to Disneyland
What's the Right Age to visit Disneyland?
As you might have guessed, we here at Chip and Co love Disneyland! As a newer writer here, I have imagined some of the questions readers may have. One that I struggled with personally was what's the right age to visit Disneyland? I imagine some of you may have the same concerns.So my wife and I discussed, with some trepidation, taking our toddler son with us right after his 3rd birthday. We wondered what's the right age to visit Disneyland? Additionally, we were feeling slightly guilty over … [Read more...]
Order your Free Disney Parks vacation planning DVD!
Heading to Disney World or Disneyland in 2013? Be sure to request your FREE Walt Disney World Vacation Planning DVD and get started with your planning today! Once you have your DVD be sure to stop by Chip and Co for the best in Disney Park News, Planning Tips, Giveaway and Much More!We try to collect these every year if we goto Disney World or not. Do you? Let us know in the comment box below.Just click the image above to order yours today! Related articlesLook for New Disney World … [Read more...]
Oz Great and Powerful Display Comes to Disneyland for Limited Time Magic
There's more Limited Time Magic blowing into the Disneyland Resort next week. A special limited-time display of replica costumes and props from "Oz The Great and Powerful" opens at WonderGround Gallery in the Downtown Disney District today. Items on display will include Glinda's dress, crown and wand; the cape worn by Oz; and the China Girl character.These items will only be on display for a limited time, so take the Yellow Brick Road to WonderGround Gallery before a tornado takes them back … [Read more...]
Secrets of Disneyland's Main Street, USA
When you first enter the park the ground is red brick. Walt wanted you to feel like you were entering on a red carpet, being treated like royalty. Also he added the tunnels to walk through so that once you came through them, onto Main Street USA, you would feel you were entering a completely new world. I'd say he hit it right with the tunnels. Thankfully he was talked out of walking through curtains... Imagine the disarray that would have caused.This one may be well known... When you … [Read more...]


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Microsoft Account Manager Interview Questions
Interview Experience
Interview Experience
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Interviews for Top Jobs at Microsoft
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24 Candidate Interview Reviews Back to all InterviewsSort: Popular Date Difficulty
Account Manager Interview
I applied online. The process took 4+ weeks – interviewed at Microsoft.
It took a total of 1 month between first call and hiring date. They are very quick and buttoned up. Starts with recruiter call, then hiring manager call and then called in for in-person interviews. It is a full-day experience where all of the other candidates are there are as well. It is a little scary/competitive.
- Sell yourself. Answer Question
Other Interview Reviews for Microsoft
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks – interviewed at Microsoft.Interview Details
The screening process was seamless. I had a few different calls to talk about my experience and the HR team in Washington then planned for me to come into the Cambridge office.
On the day of the interview I was placed into a room sandwiched between other candidates. I assume we were placed this way for the ease of the interviewers to bounce from room to room, but the day was a little chaotic not knowing who would be in next (you receive an itinerary beforehand - but be prepared to speak to more people than you anticipate with the provided schedule). Be prepared to speak to your experience - like, from beginning to end. "Tell me about your work history and experience."
The HR team is very quick to respond and provides an update even if you did not get an offer. I followed up for any constructive criticism to take away from the experience and it seems that they were looking for someone with more sales experience than account management.Interview Questions
No OfferNeutral ExperienceAverage Interview
- Tell us how you overcame a difficult obstacle/how was it handled?
Tell us about your work experience.
Why Microsoft? Answer Question
- Tell us how you overcame a difficult obstacle/how was it handled?
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied online – interviewed at Microsoft.Interview Details
Multiple 30 minute interview with various managers including short list for mock customer call. There were multiple candidates in offices next to each other. Most time slots were not on schedule and very unorganized.Interview Questions
No OfferNegative ExperienceDifficult Interview
- Industry specific questions regarding their products Answer Question
6 people found this helpful
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral – interviewed at Microsoft.Interview Details
Initial screening interview with HR rep was done via phone. After successful completion of that interview, the in-person Interviews were scheduled. They were completed in one day, and consisted of being interviewed separately by 5 other managers in succession. Those managers then shared their hire/no hire opinions with each other via email. After successfully completing that stage, I was then interviewed by the hiring manager later in the day.Interview Questions
Accepted OfferPositive Experience
- There were no real unexpected questions. The interviews were professional, pertinent to the job and detailed. The best question was, "what part of your career are you most proud of, and why?" Answer Question
2 people found this helpful
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral – interviewed at Microsoft.Interview Details
Great experience, spoke to 4 different people who asked me various behavioral questions. lots of good questions and engagement, really smart people!Interview Questions
Negotiation DetailsVery pleasant...Accepted OfferPositive ExperienceDifficult Interview
- Tell me about a time you failed. Answer Question
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied online. The process took a day – interviewed at Microsoft in September 2013.Interview Details
From my initial contact from the lazy recruiter who read from a script I should have known there was a problem. The recruiter called me one time and then from there I was shuttled to a "recruiting coordinator" who managed the rest of the process. There was never a sense of excitement about my candidacy or the job. The only person who treated me with any dignity was someone who was in the "peer" interviewing role. Everyone from there up proceeded to be difficult to engage with and read. I found myself trying to fill in the silences during the interviews with small talk and that was a big mistake! They are looking for robots, not people!Interview Questions
No OfferNegative ExperienceAverage Interview
- There was no true "difficult" question, just a lot of uncomfortable silences. Don't try and connect on a personal level, it does NOT work! Answer Question
3 people found this helpful
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3+ months – interviewed at Microsoft in December 2011.Interview Details
Multiple interviews (4)Interview Questions
Negotiation Detailslong - like negotiating a contractAccepted OfferNeutral ExperienceDifficult Interview
- Why are man holes round? View Answer
1 person found this helpful
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5+ weeks – interviewed at Microsoft in April 2010.Interview Details
Overall negative experience. Was referred by an MS employee and after 14-day, received an automated email that said there were no jobs that fit at the time. Then a few weeks later received an email from the hiring manager. Had a phone screening with the hiring manager and he said that they would get me in-house. A month went by and nothing and I had disregarded it and moved on. Then I get an email apologizing for delay and that they would schedule me to bring in-house. Interview scheduled a week later and had a call with HR. He tells me that they're looking to move fast and that I should receive results the day after interviews. He had called a little late and was very apologetic for calling me late. Was super nice. Even gave me his phone number to reach out to him afterwards.
In-house interviews went fine. Everyone was nice. Had a loop of 3 potential colleagues, one of them a lunch interview. Then they decided they'd have another manager interview me, but it was not the hiring manager, which I thought was odd.
At any rate, I did not hear back the next day. I have followed up with the recruiter a few times and it has been a month and a half, and no response at all. Not even an automated "thanks for applying but this position has been filled" or "you weren't a good fit." Just nothing but arrogant silence. While I can infer that there is no offer in the pipeline, I just think it plain RUDE to treat people like this.Interview Questions
No OfferNegative ExperienceEasy Interview
- Tell me a time when someone surprised you with their actions. Answer Question
2 people found this helpful
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2+ months – interviewed at Microsoft in November 2009.Interview Details
Started with phone interview first. Checked if you had basic Microsoft product info and understand the selling process for Enterprise. Once they had enough folks, follow up by half day interview by 5 different folks. Including the hiring manager. Both from the technology side and sales side. At the end of interview, each person would rank all the folks they had interviewed.Interview Questions
Negotiation DetailsOffered what I was looking for.Accepted OfferPositive ExperienceDifficult Interview
- Why Microsoft. Answer Question
Account Manager InterviewApplication Details
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks – interviewed at Microsoft in April 2009.Interview Details
Applied on the website as I have done many, many times before. Pretty much has always been a black hole because I never before received any kind of feedback or response. Was surprised to be contacted by email by a recruiter a couple of weeks after I had applied. Recruiter suggested a number of times and we settled on a time a week later.Interview Questions
No OfferNeutral ExperienceDifficult Interview
- Tell me about a time that you had to give bad news to an important customer and how you handled it. What was the result? Answer Question
- Tell me about a good sale that you made, from start to finish, and then tell me about one that didn't go so well. Answer Question
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Help children like Yolanda become life-savers in their community
A child aged under five dies every 20 seconds as a result of poor sanitation and dirty water.
Six-year-old Yolanda, pictured right with her "tippy tap", has outlived this statistic. Thanks to supporters just like you, we provided Yolanda with the education and tools she needed, and now she's saving lives in her own community by teaching her family about sanitation and hygiene. With your help today, we can roll-out our program to families and communities in need across South Africa.
Note: Donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible. Funds are used to support programs including, but not restricted to, the ones described here.
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Curiosity Rover Being Upgraded With Autonomous Sensor Program 45
from the intelligent-agents-strike-back dept.
We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).
Think bricking your phone was bad..
It means more time doing actual science and less time waiting and looking at the boring stuff. Ok we did all the test we could on this rock. Ok lets find a different type of rock. Ok Lets do paper rock scissors on who gets to do analysis on the data and who will sit in front of the screen while the rover is moving to find a new type of rock.
It's Patch Tuesday on Mars too.
...If Opportunity has been using AEGIS since 2009, why couldn't it have been included in Curiosity from the start instead of this 12 month download over a slow connection? It's bad enough that video game companies push stuff out the door and then rely on release-day patches but I expect better from NASA.
Simple. To save weight. Them bits are heavy, cheaper to send them via radio than launch them with the craft.
"Hi NASA, I heard you like rocks so I took this picture of a rock. Hope it's good. Tell me if you want me to take a photo if I see another alien" - Curiosity
So NASA has created an autonomous robot with nacent thinking capabilities. Did I mention the laser? Good thing this is on Mars! Robocolipses start this way.
Professional wrestling: ballet for the common man.


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Because at 160,000 years, the party is just getting started.
By Earth Gauge
salt, pollution, water quality, environment, Earth Gauge
During the winter months, salt and sand applied to our roads, driveways and sidewalks contribute to lake and stream pollution. Fifty pounds of salt - one large bag - can pollute 10,000 gallons of water. That's equivalent to one teaspoon of salt in a five-gallon bucket of water.
Viewer Tip: Many cities and states are working to reduce salt use while still keeping streets and sidewalks safe. Using less salt at home will help protect water quality in your neighborhood - and it will save money, too!
(Sources: Madison Area Municipal Stormwater Partnership.; Tom Scheuler. Snow, Road Salt, and the Chesapeake Bay. The Center for Watershed Protection.; Iowa State University, Centre for Transportation and Research Education. "Prewetting with Salt Brine.")
Salt has a number of uses around the home, including scouring smelly pans, whipping up a salt brine,...
Tips on how to protect water quality with phosphate-free cleaning projects during spring cleaning.
May is American Wetlands Month. Find out the many environmental benefits of wetlands and find out ho...
Let authors Dick and James Strawbridge show you how easy it is to brine beef.
MOTHER EARTH NEWS is the guide to living — as one reader stated — "with little money and abundant happiness." Every issue is an invaluable guide to leading a more sustainable life, covering ideas from fighting rising energy costs and protecting the environment to avoiding unnecessary spending on processed food. You'll find tips for slashing heating bills; growing fresh, natural produce at home; and more. MOTHER EARTH NEWS helps you cut costs without sacrificing modern luxuries.
At MOTHER EARTH NEWS, we are dedicated to conserving our planet's natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources. That's why we want you to save money and trees by subscribing through our earth-friendly automatic renewal savings plan. By paying with a credit card, you save an additional $5 and get 6 issues of MOTHER EARTH NEWS for only $12.00 (USA only).
You may also use the Bill Me option and pay $17.00 for 6 issues.
Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved | Ogden Publications, Inc., 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, Kansas 66609-1265
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Abstract available in
Claims available in
Description (OCR text may contain errors)
0a. 15, 1968 M. 1. BAKUNIN 3,4
INTRAUTERINE CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICE v Filed July 22, 1966 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR. Maumce 1. Bakunln 0 1963 M. BAKUNIN 3,405,711
INTRAUTERINE CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICE Filed July 22. 1966 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. Maumce LBaKunin United States Patent 3,405,711 INTRAUTERINE CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICE Maurice I. Bakunin, 881 Lafayette St., Bridgeport, Conn. 06603 Filed July 22, 1966, Ser. No. 567,181 7 Claims. (Cl. 128-430) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Intrauterine contraceptive device which is roughly V- shaped and comprises a central stem having a pair of slender divergent arms formed with bulbous extremities which are engageable with the Fallopian region of the uterus when the stem is in the os, thereby to position and retain the device in the uterus.
This invention relates to contraceptive devices of the type intended to be retained in the uterus.
Objects of the invention are to provide a novel and improved intrauterine contraceptive device which will be reliably retained in the uterus; a device as thus characterized, which is comfortable and safe to use and which minimizes the likelihood of irritation, chafing and the like; a device as above, which may be easily inserted without requiring special tools or the skills of trained personnel, and also easily removed; a device of the kind outlined, which may serve as a carrier and dispenser for medicaments, therapeutic agents and the like; and a device in accordance with the foregoing which is nevertheless especially simple and economical to manufacture.
Other features and advantages will hereinafter appear.
In the drawings:
FIG. 1 is a plan view of the device, disposed in the uterus.
FIG. 2 is a view of the device in collapsed condition, as it is being inserted in the uterus.
FIG. 3 is a fragmentary view of a modified form of contraceptive device as provided by the invention.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, there is illustrated a human uterus or womb having an internal os 12, external os 14 and regions 16, 18, to which Fallopian tubes 20, 22 are respectively joined, adjoining the fundus 24.
Disposed in the uterus 10 is an intrauterine contraceptive device designated generally by the numeral 26, said device comprising a soft, resilient, non-reactive piece which is preferably made of plastic or other suitable resilient material, said piece having in accordance with the present invention a roughly V-shaped portion including a central hollow or tubular stem 28 and a pair of slender divergent arms 30, 32 extending from the stem 28 and having bulbous extremities 34, 36 which are engageable with the Fallopian regions 16, 18 of the uterus. The stem 28 is shown as occupying the mouth or os portions 12, 14 of the uterus.
The V-shaped configuration comprising the stem 28 and arms 30, 32 is especially advantageous in effecting a proper positioning of the device 26 in the uterus, as shown in FIG. 1. For, with the stem 28 at the mouth of the uterus, the arms 30, 32 will extend in the shown divergent directions and the bulbous extremity portions 34, 36 will normally seek the regions 16, 18 and will tend to occupy the mouth areas of the Fallopian tubes 20, 22. This will, in conjunction with the stem 28, eifect a predetermined positioning of the V-shaped portion of the plastic piece in the uterus which, positioning will normally be maintained as long as the device is retained.
Further, in accordance with the invention, additional retainer means are provided, including means by which 3,405,71 1 Patented Oct. 15, 1968 "Ice the device 26 comprising the V-shaped portion may be actuated to a collapsed position such as is indicated in FIG. 2. The said means comprises a pair of cross arms 38, 40 joined respectively to the said divergent arms 32, 30 at locations adjacent the extremities 36, 34. The cross arms 38, 40 extend transversely of the divergent arms 30, 32 and have enlargements 42, 44 at their free extremities, for engagement with the walls of the uterus. Further, in accordance with the invention, pendent strings or cords 46, 48 are attached respectively to the enlargements 42, 44 at the free extremities of the cross arms 38, 40 to enable the latter to be shifted for the purpose of folding the device to a smaller size. This is illustrated in FIG. 2 wherein arrows indicate a pulling force on the cords 46, 48 forcing the cross arms 38, 40 and also the divergent arms 30, 32 to be folded toward each other so that the device 26 has a more compact configuration.
The plastic piece 26 is preferably made of a yieldable and resilient or flexible plastic substance, such as that knownby the trade name Alathon or of similar stable and non-reactive plastic formulations including polyethylene, polypropylene and the like; or the piece can be made of non-plastic substances which might be found to be suitable. The cords 46, 48 are preferably of nylon or similar strong plastic.
Further, in accordance with the invention, a handle 50 is provided, connected to the stem 28 by a frangible connector 52, constituting a detachable or separable connection. Thus, as seen in FIG. 2, the device 26 may be arranged by pulling on the cords 46, 48 to occupy a size small enough to facilitate its insertion in the uterus 10.
With the device maintained in the collapsed condition shown in FIG. 2, the user while grasping the handle 50 and the cords 46, 48 can insert the device by careful manipulation into the uterus, this being possible Without the necessity for a special tool and without requiring specialized skills. After the insertion to the approximate position illustrated in FIG. 1, the user breaks off the handle 50 and removes it, by a simple twisting movement, this being made possible by virtue of the frangible reduced connector portion 52.
The tendency to opening up or extension of the device to the configuration shown in FIG. 1 wherein the cross arm 38, 40 engage the side walls of the uterus and wherein the extremity 34, 36 become located in the regions 16, 18 respectively of the Fallopian tubes, causes a retention of the device in the uterus, whereby it will not be accidentally expelled.
It is understood by those skilled in the art that the presence of a foreign structure in the uterus has the elfect of preventing contraception. The normal peristaltic action of the uterus and Fallopian tubes, and the action of the cilia of the Fallopian tubes results in a suction elfect which tends to seat the enlargements 34, 36 in conjunction with the shape of the uterus, in the areas 16, 18 as illustrated in FIG. 1.
A modification of the invention is illustrated in FIG. 3, wherein the contraceptive device 26a has divergent arms 30a, 32a which are hollow or tubular, and wherein the bulbous extremities 34a, 36a are also hollow. The extremity 34a is shown as having openings 58, and the bulbous extremity 36a is shown as having a hollow protuberance 60. The protuberance 60 tends to seek the opening at the Fallopian tube, aiding in the positioning of the device. Further, the cross arms 38a, 40a and the enlargements thereof may also be made hollow as shown. The arms 32a and 38a may have openings 32b and 38b respectively. The hollow arms and the enlargements or bulbous extremities may contain a medicament or other substance intended to be discharged slowly into the uterus or Fallopian tubes. Thus, treatment or other action may be etfected, by means of the hollow device 26a containing the desired treating substances.
It will now be seen from the foregoing that I have provided a simple and effective intrauterine contraceptive device comprising a flexible or resilient plastic piece having a unique configuration by which it is accommodated and retained in the human uterus, and by which portions may be disposed adjacent the opening of the Fallopian tubes. The device is operable to place it in collapsed condition, and may be readily inserted in the uterus by a relatively unskilled person, without the use of special tools. Further, by the provision of the nylon cords, the device at a later time may be readily removed at the will of the user. The likelihood of chafing is minimized by the provision of the bulbous extremities or enlargement, and the soft, yieldable nature of the plastic, and it will be understood that the arms 30, 32, 38 and 40 are of relatively thin cross section and characterized by a great yieldability, whereby there is a minimum of discomfort and tendency to irritation.
With the organization illustrated in FIG. 3, suction action in the Fallopian tubes 20, 22 tends to release or suck out the medication in the device 26a, as will now be understood.
Variations and modifications may be made within the scope of the claims, and portions of the improvement may be used without others.
I claim:
1. An intrauterine contraceptive device comprising a flexible piece having a roughly V-shaped portion including a central stem and a pair of slender divergent arms extending from the stem, said V-shaped portion being adapted to fit in the human uterus with the stem at the inner as, said arms having bulbous extremities engageable with the Fallopian region of the uterus to effect, in conjunction with the stem placement in the os, a predetermined positioning of said V-shaped portion in the uterus, and having cross arms joined respectively to them at locations adjacent the said bulbous extremities, said cross arms extending transversely of the divergent arms and having enlargements at their free extremities for engagement with the walls of the uterus.
2. A device as in claim 1, and including cords attached to the free extremities of the cross arms, to effect a shifting of the same for the purpose of folding the device to a smaller size.
3. A device as in claim 1, wherein the divergent arms and cross arms and the bulbous extremities and enlargements thereof are hollow, said extremities and enlargements having discharge openings to permit the passage of substances disposed within the arms.
4. A device as in claim 1, wherein the divergent arms tend to outline a V-shape, and wherein each one of the cross arms and its associated divergent arm tend to outline a V-shape.
5. An intrauterine contraceptive device comprising a flexible piece having a roughly V-shaped portion including a central stem and a pair of slender divergent arms extending from the stem, said V-shaped portion being adapted to fit in the human uterus with the stem at the inner os, said arms having bulbous extremities engageable with the Fallopian region of the uterus to effect, in conjunction with the stern placement in the 0s, a predetermined positioning of said V-shaped portion in the uterus, said central stem having an elongate handle and a frangible connector tie detachably joining the handle to said stem.
6. An intrauterine contraceptive device comprising a flexible piece having a roughly V-shaped portion including a central stem and a pair of slender divergent arms extending from the stern, said V-shaped portion being adapted to fit in the human uterus with the stem at the inner os, said arms having bulbous extremities engageable with the Fallopian region of the uterus to effect, in conjunction with the stem placement in the 0s, a predetermined positioning of said V-shaped portion of the uterus, said arms and bulbous extremities being hollow, said extremities having openings to permit the passage of substances disposed within the arms and extremities.
7. A device as in claim 6, and including a hollow and tubular protuberance on a bulbous extremity, arranged for disposition in the mouth of a Fallopian tube of the uterus.
References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 662,716 11/1900 Gaedeke 128130 1,982,001 11/1934 Haas 128-130 2,232,258 2/1941 McCormick et a1. 128l31 3,200,815 8/1965 Margulies 128-130 3,234,938 2/1966 Robinson 128-130 ADELE M. EAGER, Primary Examiner.
Patent Citations
Referenced by
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