The Literary Catastrophe of Kindle Unlimited

TLDR: Since July 2014, Amazon has used Kindle Unlimited to transfer $5 billion to itself that would have otherwise gone to authors and publishers under the traditional ebook sales royalty arrangement. Our original plan for Castalia House, launched in 2013, was to focus entirely on publishing ebooks. After all, ebooks were the future, the technologies […]

https://voxday.net/2023/12/02/the-literary-catastrophe-of-kindle-unlimited/

🚩 New Study Finds Those Vaccinated Against COVID-19 Were Up 7x More Likely to Be Hospitalized When Compared to the Naturally Immune

“People who received a vaccine were nearly five times as likely as the naturally immune to test positive for COVID-19 during the Delta era and 1.1 times as likely to test positive for COVID-19 during the Omicron era, researchers in Estonia found.

The vaccinated were also seven times as likely to be admitted to a hospital for COVID-19 amid the spread of the Delta variant and two times as likely to be admitted to a hospital during the Omicron period, when compared with the naturally immune, the researchers found.

The paper was published by Scientific Reports on Nov. 21.”

https://x.com/thechiefnerd/status/1728089635291615593

Full Story: https://bit.ly/3uuSiWF

@ChiefNerd

There are folk songs in various languages all around the Middle East and Balkans describing the unusual beauty of Circassian women, a trend popularised after the Circassian genocide, although the reputation of Circassian women dates back to the Late Middle Ages when the Circassian coast was frequented by traders from Genoa, and the founder of the Medici dynasty, Cosimo de' Medici, had an illegitimate son from a Circassian slave, Maddalena. During the Ottoman Empire and Persian Safavid and Qajar dynasties, Circassian women living as slaves in the Sultan's Imperial Harem and Shah's harems started to build their reputation as extremely beautiful, which then became a common trope in Western Orientalism.

As a result of this reputation, in Europe and America Circassians were often characterised as ideals of feminine beauty in poetry and art. Cosmetic products were advertised, from the 18th century on, using the word "Circassian" in the noscript, or claiming that the product was based on substances used by the women of Circassia.

Le Harem, by Fernand Cormon, ca. 1870-1927, via Musée d’art et d’histoire de Narbonne

Circassian beauty is a stereotype and a belief referring to the Circassian people. A fairly extensive literary history suggests that Circassian women were thought to be unusually beautiful and attractive, spirited, smart and elegant, and as such were desirable (although most Circassians traditionally refused to marry non-Circassians in accordance with Adyghe Xabze). A smaller but similar literature also exists for Circassian men, who were thought to be especially handsome.

Is There Hope for Netflix Narnia?

I have some fairly serious doubts about it but is there perhaps a ray or two of sunshine to be found behind what are the admittedly fairly ominous clouds surrounding the Netflix series of films?  The showrunner is Mathew Aldritch. A quick scan of his IMDB page reveals that he was the writer of Coco. […]

https://arkhavencomics.com/2023/11/30/is-there-hope-for-netflix-narnia/

Another autist has been spotted in the wild.

John Turscak is a former Mexican Mafia gang leader and FBI informant who is accused of stabbing former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin 22 times in a Tucson, Arizona, prison law library.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/derek-chauvins-stabber-is-a-croatian-mexican-leader-of-the-mexican-mafia/

Greenpeace co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore: Human-induced global warming is a "complete fabrication".

"The scientific method has not been applied in such a way as to prove that carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm… I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication."

Source

For more content like this, subscribe to @RealWideAwakeMedia

And visit: https://wide-awake-media.com

Twitter | Rumble | Gettr | Truth Social

Built in the mid-19th century, the Tower of the Winds in Sevastopol, Russia, as it is easy to guess, is inspired by the ancient tower of the same name from Athens and significantly quotes it architecturally. However, unlike the original, it served as ventilation for the book depository of the Naval Library, which was destroyed during the Crimean War.

Desperate Disneyland Slashes Children's Ticket Prices By More Than 50%

Disneyland is slashing ticket prices for children ages 3-9 by more than 50% for park entry early next year.

Visitors on Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A. in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 1, 2023. (Carol Cassis/The Epoch Times)The deal, which will go on sale Oct. 24, offers tickets for as little as $50 per child per day, and can be used between Jan. 8 through March 10 at Disneyland or Disney California Adventure. Current prices for children are $104 and up.

The new deal is for 1, 2, or 3 day ticket packages.

"These limited-time child tickets are a great value," said spokesperson Kelsey Lynch on the Disney Parks blog.

The deal provides significant savings compared to current children’s ticket prices, which are $270 for a 2-day pass and $340 for 3 days. Under the promotion, a 3-day child pass is $150.

👉 Read full

I just backed BasedCon founder Rob Kroese’s latest. It’s a hilarious SF comedy series. Check it out and consider backing.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/robkroese/rex-nihilo-expanded-universe

I read the teaser chapter Rob sent to his Crosstime Crusade backers, and I can confirm: Rex Nihilo is the bomb. Will back!

I was just speaking with a beginning author, and I suggested they read John C. Wright's touching and brilliant essay, "Your Book of Gold," for inspiration, to fuel them for the daunting task ahead of them.

"I write for that one reader I will never see, the one who needs just such a tale as I can pen, in just such a time and place, some rainy afternoon or dark hour, when providence will bring my book into his hands."

https://www.scifiwright.com/2014/09/your-book-of-gold/

"We now have a ruling that is so BIASED against Trump that it has now effectively removed all immunity for anyone in Congress and even prosecutors. All you need to allege now is that any act by any of these pretend representatives or protectors of the people they pulled off was NOT in their official capacity but as a candidate for the next endless re-election term. The average Congressman spends about 60% of their time preparing for the next election as a candidate."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/us-dc-court-of-appels-just-destroyed-america/#:~:text=We%20now%20have,as%20a%20candidate.

🚢 🇺🇸 🇾🇪 According to U.S. Defense Officials, the USS Carney (DDG-64) an Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyer has reportedly also been Attacked today in the Red Sea by Anti-Ship Missiles and Drones launched by the Houthi Terrorist Group in Western Yemen; the Carney was previously involved in the Interception of 4 Land-Attack Cruise Missiles and 15 Drones launched by the Houthis towards Southern Israel on October 19th.

📎 OSINTdefender

The Worst Form of Government

I’m not certain that democracy is definitely the worst form of government. Certainly, representative democracy is making a powerful claim to the noscript, and it’s true that the more the franchise expands, the worse the elected governments get. But it is certainly a lot easier to understand why the American Founding Fathers were so skeptical […]

https://voxday.net/2023/12/03/the-worst-form-of-government/

Pika 1.0, the idea-to-video platform that brings your creativity to life: https://pika.art/

"You know how image generation went from blurry 32x32 texture patches to high-resolution images that are difficult to distinguish from real in roughly a snap of a finger? The same is now happening along the time axis (extending to video) and the repercussions boggle the mind just a bit. Every human becomes a director of multi-modal dreams, like the architect in Inception." -- Andrej Karpathy