I'll talk about game development for some 8-bit systems, the ColecaVision and once made by Sega using modern free tools. So, I'll say a little bit about the devices, the hardware and maybe a bit about the community first. Then I'll go on about the small device C compiler, which is probably the most important tool. Here in particular with its Z80 back end, a bit about free library and less important smaller tools that work together with the library. Okay, so let's start with the ColecaVision. In previous talks I talked about bringing the arcade experience back to the home. When they were talking about these big systems that can run net BSD, also when the ColecaVision was introduced in the early 1980s, it's about 35 years ago, they were talking about the arcade experience. It has a 3.58 MHz Z80, a kilobyte of RAM. It has a reasonable graphics chip with 15 colors. It has a lot more graphics memory than other memory. It has a sound chip with about 3.5 channels, so three channels that you can give a frequency and a force one that's kind of a noise generator. It has a cartridge port that's kind of designed for eProm or Prom cartridges with up to 32 kilobytes. It's clear that it was only meant to read from those cartridges. They don't have a white-enabled line even exposed on the cartridge port. So that makes it hard to design something bigger for this cartridge port, because instead of just using the white-enabled stick and say, okay, I'll map this IO into the memory space, you'll kind of have to interpret read signals coming from the system if you want to do something fancy on the cartridge port. It however has an additional extension port at the front where you have a lot of signals available. There's a reasonably active community, mostly in the Atari age forums. They're, of course, in the Colecovision sub-forums that are developing games for the Colecovision and sometimes in C, sometimes a sampler, sometimes using the tools that I'll talk about, sometimes using other tools. Okay, there's a few peripherals, interesting ones at the very least. Okay, there's controllers with fire buttons. They tend to have a 4x3 key part, which is a bit unusual for video game systems, but it's really nice if you want to do a strategy game. There's a roller controller, which is essentially a trackball. If you disassemble it, clean it, reassemble it, tends to work well even today, even so it's over 30 years old. There's various expansion modules. One was an adapter that allows to plug in Atari cartridges into the system and play them. Then there came a steering wheel for racing games, and then they announced an expansion module. Three-year super game module with some kind of optical discorm that's supposed to bring like real video stuff and really a lot of storage memory to the system. Apparently prototypes existed, then they changed it to, instead of design, make it into this other computer, which was kind of, well, I mean, we have a society, we have memory and so on, and add a keyboard to it and a printer, and you kind of get a computer, which was not that reliable either. And then the community a few years ago created something with, I think, a somewhat better graphics chip and some extra RAM in it and also called the Super Game Module. The original manufacturer went bankrupt of the device long ago, so also in the 80s. Yeah, but there's not just Coleco, there's also Sega, which kind of made something that if you look at the specifications and the hardware, it looks like a clone of the Coleco vision. Yeah, so the first video game system, the SG-1000, same processor, same amount of memory, same graphics chip, same sound chip, the only cartridge port pinouts, it is a little bit better, and the other handset controllers were released as the first model, not detachable, but hard soldered to it. They later released the second version with external ports, and then came the SG-3000 computer, again with the keyboard and a bit more memory, but otherwise similar. And then came the big thing, namely the Mark III, which still has the same processor, it has 8 kilobytes of RAM, it has a custom graphics chip that's somewhat compatible with the one in the previous systems, but allows quite a bit more flexibility and essentially the same sound chip. And the Mark III originally was only sold in Asia, it has nearly the same cartridge port as the previous systems, but then they also made it into the Sega Master System, which hardware was very similar to the Mark III, has a bit of different case sensor on, but when they released the Master System in the West, they made an even better cartridge port pinout, which means the Asian and the Western systems, or Western in this case means the US and Europe, are incompatible in terms of cartridge port pinout, basically because in Asia they wanted to keep compatibility with games originally made for the previous consoles, but they didn't bother about that with the release in the West. So hardware is still around, it doesn't have any lasers or moving parts or whatever, it tends to be more reliable than let's say a Dreamcast or something like that, both the Sega and the Colecovision stuff, and if you want a nice graphics output for France, both the Colecovision and the Sega Master Systems were made with RGB output. The first generation of the Master System always had an RGB output, it didn't depend on the Mark III for Japan or for Europe or the US, but in the second generation Master System they wanted to cut costs and remove everything except one of the output ports, and the French models, they left the RGB one for most other countries, they cut the other one, yeah. Okay, again there's an active community at SMSPowerOrc, mostly, I don't really remember, an active development community, home programs, but there's not that much cooperation between the Colecovision and the Sega one, despite the similar hardware. Sometimes the Colecovision developer has a big project and they say, okay, I can't do it within the restriction of the hardware, let's go to the Sega, they have a bit of better graphics and more memory. This had happened maybe once or twice, but in general there's people who develop games for the Colecovision and those who develop for the Sega things, and well, I did a few games that now with these tools that I'll talk about that are kind of portable between those systems. Okay, let's talk about this multi-byte C compiler. What is it? It's a standard C compiler, it supports current standards such as EZO C11, not perfectly, there's a few gaps here and there, we don't support double in that compiler for example, we only have float, but most of the stuff is there. Typically on these systems you'll use it as a freestanding implementation, so the standard library won't provide file systems or stuff like that, but the basics of the standard C library are there, including everything required for freestanding implementation and a lot of the stuff that's offered for freestanding implementations. The supporting tools such as the Samplus link simulator for the target architectures, it works on many host systems, it targets a lot of 8-bit architectures, what matters for us here is the Z80 target, because that's what we want on those systems, but there's other back ends. It has a few nice optimizations that make sense for these targets, in particular in register locations, because these 8-bit architectures, including the Z80, often have a highly irregular register set, some instructions only work on some registers and so on, and the standard graph-coloring register locator, like titans, would have trouble dealing with that. SDCC has a different register locator that can then do register allocation optimally, under the condition that there's not too many go-to statements per function in C. It's lower than typical register locators, but with a small number of registers and the small devices that we're targeting, it's worth it. It gives substantial improvement in code quality compared to the register locator that SDCC had, let's say, five years ago, and one can control the compilation speed code quality trade-off during development. One sets this to a low value, like maybe a thousand or 3,000, and then when it really matters to get the last bit in performance and code size out of it, you can set it to a million and have your game compile for 40 minutes and then fit into 30 kilobytes or something. Okay, so, of course, if you use a compiler, you want it to be reliable. You don't want to run into compiler bugs. Well, we have regression testing of nightly snapshots. About 10,000 tests are compiled and executed on simulators. Most of the tests come from fixed bugs. Sometimes they come from when someone implemented a new feature and already came up with a test for it, and then we have nearly all of the tests from the GCC test suite, and we run them as well. Basically, we sorted out whatever tests the GCC implementation defined behavior, but most of the GCC tests are there in our test suite. We run it for the target architectures, for a few operating systems and host architectures. We used to have more machines in our compile farm. There could be a NetBSD machine on Spark, and there was a Solaris or an X86, but currently there's still a few machines around. Okay, one slide on this experimental LLVM plus SCCC toolchain. I mean, yeah, SCCC is an IC compiler, but you might want more. Maybe you are not satisfied with C as a language. Maybe you want another language that is supported by LLVM. Maybe you want more high-level optimizations. Yeah, SCCC has great machine, target-dependent optimizations at a low level, like in register location, but in high-level optimizations LLVM definitely has more. So this is an attempt to combine LLVM with SCCC. It uses the LLVM C front-end and back-end. The back-end is not officially part of LLVM anymore. It's maintained separately, but it's on GitHub. Basically, you compile things, compile it through this LLVM thing. You get our C code that then can be compiled with SCCC in turn for your target. You can freely combine, like, compile one file with SCCC and compile the other file directly with SCCC and link it together, that will work. But it's still experimental, and there's a few remaining issues, like the C back-end thing, sometimes drops volatile. And SCCC doesn't always deal that well with this C code output from this LLVM toolchain because it's quite different than what a human would write, so sometimes SCCC does not optimize this output from the LLVM stage as well as a typical code. So sometimes code size recations. Okay, so I also want to talk about the SET 8080K project. They are a big project for SET 80-based systems. So in terms of retro computing, they try to have basically support for a lot of systems. They have two compilers, just their own SCCC based on small C, which in terms of a compiler is not up to the standard of SCCC. But they also now use a fork of SCCC that you can use as a better compiler in this project. The emphasis is on a large set of libraries for various systems that provide a lot of features and are typically written in a sampler. And the old compiler, the SCCC, basically, the idea was to do everything that matters in a sampler and have the C code only as glue in between. But the SCCC fork situation is a bit better, but still the SET 8080K project now uses SCCC and the emphasis is still on a sampler. And then using the on top of a lot of sampler libraries. Okay, speaking of libraries, I now want to get to the libraries that also help us with portable development of games for both the ColecaVision and the Sega 8-bit systems. We already see we have the compiler for this target, which we can use for both. Now the library consists of two parts. And one is this libcv thing, which only provides a thin abstraction layer over the hardware. The support for accessing the graphics chip, for the sound chip, for sound. And sound at the level of, okay, a sound generator too should now do this frequency at this volume level. The input devices, yeah. It supports all the ColecaVision peripherals since it was originally written for the ColecaVision. It supports the basic stuff in the Sega 8-bit systems, but there's still some of the peripherals on the Sega side, like there, a roller controller. It's called the sports part, exactly. It's not as reliable as the ColecaVision one, but it's there. I think that one's not supported yet. But everything on the ColecaVision and the SG-1000 is supported. And in particular, this is very nice because with just a change of the brief of that sort of file, you can compile a game written for the ColecaVision for the SG-1000, and it works. Of course, if you also want to support the master system and not just support it in terms of your game will work there, but use the additional features, then it gets more complicated. If you want to use the graphics mode for, that's only on the master system, but not the other devices, you'll have to write separate code for that. But you can still make your game that if you plug it into a SG-1000, it will work with the graphics capabilities there. If you plug it into a Mark III or master system, it will use advanced features. And well, for the ColecaVision of yours, you have to recompile it because devices are different addresses and also the pinout is different. But yeah. Okay. Now, because this is a very thin hardware abstraction layer, it has a lot of work to directly write a game targeting that. There's another library on top, the LibCVU. It provides common functionality that one typically wants inviting a game. Again, graphics. Now we have music. Yeah, so this has support for playing some music instead of just setting some sound channel to a certain frequency. It has support for a bit of compression algorithm that one would want. Fixed point mass and so on. At the site of graphics, for example, with LibCV, you basically get access to the registers of the graphics chip and to the graphics memory. And these graphics chips also have some sprite support. But at the LibCV level, you don't see the sprite support. Of course, you can set the register and tell... There's a function to set, okay, the sprite table is here in memory and then you can transfer data to that memory and back. But at LibCVU, you have an abstraction layer that lets you treat these things as sprites and then transfer, like, okay, I want to set the X and Y coordinates of this sprite, update the sprite in memory and so on and decide what graphics should be there for that sprite. So this is an abstraction layer on top of LibCV. Yes. Together with these libraries also go some tools. Again, the graphics... I mean, these graphic chips have their own graphic format. So these tools allow you to, let's say, take a PNG image and convert it into a tile map for these game consoles. For example, on the ColecoVision, you have this restriction that the graphics are tile-based, except from the sprites that go on top. This is also true for the Sega systems, but for the ColecoVision and the first Sega system, like the SD1000, the restriction is that these tiles in the most powerful graphics mode, you can use pixels and per line in each tile you can use at most two colors. So out of your 15 or 16, if you count the transparent color, you have to choose for every line, eight-pixel long line, one of the two colors and so on. So the tool is kind of automatic that for you. You make your PNG, draw your PNG image, maybe in GIMP or whatever, and say, okay, I want to use this as a tile set, then they convert it into the binary data. And because of binary data, it still is like two bytes per eight-pixel line, one byte to select the two colors and one byte to select the colors that the individual pixels. You also want to compress it with some compression tools that do ILEs or run ILE and half-manning coding on it, so simple compression algorithms that can be run quickly on this hardware and then in the format that the libcvu library for its compression expects. There's the music format, also to make it relatively simple. Basically, there's a tool that converts ABC, I don't know if you're familiar with the ABC format, it's a music format originally intended for sheet music. So basically, it's not as complex as some other sheet music formats, but then this hardware is not that complex to really play complex music anyway, so you can basically set the score with at most three simultaneous notes at any time and then the tools convert. Do that in ABC. I mean, ABC is this company that has tools in Debian and so on. You can also get a PDF of your score out of the ABC format, but you can, with tools, convert it into some music formats and then the libcvu thing will be able to play on your Colecovision or Sega Master System or whatever. Okay. One feature, some of the better Sega devices have a better sound chip in them. Not all of the Master Systems, and I think not the Mark III, but I think the Master Systems sold in Japan have it. This is not yet supported by the library, so there is some potential for improvement. Okay, so I have nearly 10 minutes left, but I'm already at the summary, so let's see what are the important, the core of the free tools. It's certainly SDCC. We have a C compiler targeting to the Z80. It supports modern standards, modern optimizations and such. The Colecovision and the Sega 8B systems have similarities in hardware that make it possible relatively easily to write a game portable across both. Just compile it with different defines for both systems, maybe add a little bit of if-deaf in your code if you want to use the advanced features of the Master System versus the other systems. This is supported by the LibCV and LibCVU libraries, and I have started to write some games, and I think I entered one or two things in the context of the MS Power Arc once. I don't have enough time for really writing those games for those old systems because I'm probably spending too much time on improving the tools. But yeah, so basically from my side, that's it, so are there any questions? Yeah. Can you show me something? I want to know something. Show you a game. Let me see if I can get something. No, I can't show any dooms thing. Just a not really started unfinished project. This is about running a Salfa mine. Let's hope it just... Yep, there's still a ROM around. And here is it in the MES simulator, the one that comes with Debian. And it's currently running in the ColecoVision mode. So, let's see what the killer brings. So, it's a game where you basically run a Salfa mine. This is what the graphics can do on the ColecoVision and on the early Sega systems. There seems to be a problem now, because it's hanging. Okay, I haven't read this in a while because I wasn't intending. Let's maybe see if I can... Maybe the Sega Master System version will do. You can see it's basically the same game with only slightly changed. It's hanging at the same thing when this tornado is coming that's supposed to come and destroy some things. But, well, you can say it's a slightly different graphics on the Master System. I did not want to even use the full features of the Master System here. Some of the icons, like that shovel there, are slightly more detailed in the Master System version. Oh, that's the way I feel. Oh, it's next games. Next games are always popular on the Hobbit. Oh, I don't have the compiler installed at the moment and there's no ROM around. This one was re-compiled something, so something changed. One last attempt. Well, yeah. I mean, the transom tool is not installed in the compiler. But there's ROM files here. So, let me see. There should be some... There's a command-length transom emulator. There should be a test target somewhere. There. Mass BIOS pass card. Okay. Do we need the BIOS pass still? I'm not sure. Maybe it goes now automatically. Right. Ah, it's integrated into the mainbar now, I think. It used to be a separate... battery, but what does it make for? It's the... Ah, Coleco's dashboard card. Okay. Doesn't look that good either. Okay. So, either thing, some... string in the emulators change or... Well, it's been a while since I've worked actually in the game itself. Instead of on tools and some small test demo. Maybe I'll see if an older ROM works and I at least know if it's an emulator thing or... it looks a bit better. Okay. Yeah, we're the cursor. To be operated, we're the joystick. Or if you want a trackball. So, that's just the tutorial level. Yeah, this is like Baul-Dash-like a game. And... Yeah, this is... written with those tools. Libraries, compilers and so on. I'm from Kassel and I explore. Of course, let's go out again. And there's more interesting levels to see. In particular, it has a few two-player levels. Yeah, all those consoles have two ports for... to plug-in controllers. And, of course, it's natural to really use that to make multiplayer games. I mean, many of the old games were just one player alternating with the other one. But you can use it. And, for example, in this game, there's a few cooperative multiplayer levels. So, these two players have to cooperate to be able to solve this level. And, of course, you can make competitive for whatever games you want. Okay. So, any further questions? Maybe I can find my slides again. Excuse me. Yep. Is it possible to... if you write a game to produce cartridges for these consoles? Yes, I actually did. For some of those games back in the days. It's been a while since I made any. Yes, I did. The point is, okay, designing a PCB or whatever is... and getting the chips. I mean, if you know how to do it, you can do it. I used the... unlike everyone else, apparently at Foster, who seems to be using a key card. I used the older GEDA tools like GSM and PCB. And I did so. Then, of course, you need the cases. If you only want a few, you can 3D print it. But both myself and some guy in America also had a mold made, drilled, and kind of mass produced a few cases. They have different shapes, so mine are a bit shorter than the original while the guy in America puts more emphasis in making them the same shape as the original cartridges for the Colecovision. And for the Sega, I also... I don't have any numbers, but I designed an experimental one with a few 3D printed cartridges and a PCB on it. And I designed it so it's a double-ender. So one end, you can plug into the Sega systems released for Asia, so Japan and Korea and Taiwan, while the other end goes into the ones released in Europe and the US. And it's the same ROM chip is used by both sides, and it works on both types of Sega devices. Now, if there's interest, one could of course make a mold and have more PCBs made. For now, it's just a small project. And yes, when I did this spotting with the library stuff, I also did it with the games and I tested it and it works. But for now, it was just like a prototype on the Sega side. But on the Colecovision, many people have released games on cartridges by now. Let's say programmed themselves, yes. Yeah? Do you have any tools for debugging? Tools for debugging? There's no on-target debugging here. So you burn your ROM and to test it on the hardware in the end. Of course, first you can test it on emulators. The emulators are usually not always perfect. Sometimes there's some corner case where you have to be careful about timing so it doesn't fail on the real hardware. There's the Meka emulator. They're coming from the Sega side. It has kind of a horrible interface but it has an integrated debugger. So you can tell it, okay, breakpoint at this memory address or something like that and then look at the values of registers. So this is no high-level debugger so it's not integrated with its C-toolchain. It couldn't deal with, let's say, debugger output that could come out of the SDCC. SDCC gives debugger output on other targets like modern microcontrollers like the STM8. You can do on-target debugging with that but for those old systems, there's one emulator that I know that has debugging support but it's a bit odd to use. They even use their own basically Windows system and it looks like in the DOS days. But you can compile this emulator on modern UNIX systems and use it as a Meka emulator. So some debug support is there but most of my programming, when I write a game, first the trial and error thing and because it's some effort to get into this debugging, I mean I have to look up in the symbol table of the map file which function is at this address because the debugger only understands memory addresses for breakpoints. I use debugging but first I try to do it another way with some print statements or something like that or just display some message somewhere on the screen and things like that so the more primitive kinds. Further questions? How about making such a console on an FPGA? Oh yes. CollecoVision or Sega Master System on a chip? Yes, of course. I think there's projects that actually do that and dig it and we're able to get some graphics output. On the other hand, there's two aspects here. First, these old consoles are not as unreliable as modern ones. Oh, it's not absolutely... So a lot of people still... Okay, just for fun. Yeah? Yeah, okay. People write games. Yeah, but then you already have the powerful FPGA. Why not do a bit more with it than these relatively restricted systems? But of course, it's a nice project, especially if you want to combine it for the whole range or something like that and I know some people have done things like that but I'm not that familiar with them. I've seen they all reposted at the forum. Okay, there's some code and here's a picture of the first picture coming out on the screen. Yeah? You have to mist an FPGA arcade and it would surprise me if not for one of these systems that exist already. Well, it needs for the CollecoVision it exists. That someone did it, I don't know about the Sega systems. Okay, time is up or? Yeah. Okay, so if there's further questions you can ask me later.


Ads heard before, during or after the podcast are not endorsed by Paranormality Magazine or myself unless voiced by me personally. All other ads are pre-recorded, inserted by ad agencies and are not under our control. Welcome to Paranormality Magazine. Each week, Paranormality Magazine explores all 40 subjects, from phantoms to UFOs, and every cryptid creature in between. Each week, you're treated to a collection of well-researched and investigated stories, interviews and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects and topics they know you crave. And here in the podcast, I share stories from the magazine to give you just a taste of what you receive in every issue. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Paranormality Magazine. In the age of social media, urban legends have taken on a new and fascinating form. These modern tales of the supernatural, bizarre and unexplained spread like wildfire across the digital landscape, captivating the minds of millions and evolving into a unique genre of folklore. Just as campfire stories once scared and intrigued our ancestors, the internet and social media platforms have become the digital campfires where we gather to share and perpetuate these captivating narratives. Here, we're going to delve into the world of urban legends in the digital age and explore how social media is shaping modern folklore. Urban legends have been a part of human storytelling for centuries. These stories often blur the lines between fact and fiction, playing on our deepest fears and curiosities. In the past, these tales were spread through word of mouth, written accounts and various forms of traditional media. However, the advent of the internet and social media has revolutionized the way these stories are created, shared and perpetuated. One of the most striking features of urban legends in the digital age is the speed at which they can go viral. A single tweet, post or video can reach millions of people in a matter of hours, creating a sense of urgency and excitement that was previously unimaginable. This rapid dissemination of stories and information has given birth to new urban legends that are born, evolve and die out in a fraction of the time it once took. Slenderman is a prime example of this phenomenon. Created on an internet forum in 2009, this tall, faceless entity quickly captured the imagination of users and became a global sensation. Stories, fan fiction and even real-world incidents inspired by Slenderman began to circulate on various social media platforms, solidifying his status as a modern urban legend. Social media platforms have democratized the creation of urban legends, allowing anyone with an internet connection to contribute to the lore. Creepypasta websites, Reddit forums and YouTube channels dedicated to the paranormal have become breeding grounds for new tales of terror. Users can contribute their own stories, often presented as personal experiences, adding layers of authenticity to the narratives. This user-generated content blurs the lines between reality and fiction, making it challenging to discern fact from fabrication. Stories of haunted places, ghostly encounters and mysterious creatures are shared with such conviction that they gain traction and become part of the digital folklore. The ease with which stories can be created and shared on social media also presents a challenge in determining the authenticity of urban legends. In the past, it was often easier to trace the origins of a legend through printed sources or oral history. However, in the digital age, the true source of the story may be elusive, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. This ambiguity adds an extra layer of intrigue to modern urban legends. The uncertainty surrounding their origins fuels speculation and debate, making them even more captivating to a digital audience hungry for mysteries and the unexplained. Visual media, such as images and videos, play a crucial role in shaping modern urban legends. Photoshopped images, deep fake videos and cleverly edited footage can turn ordinary occurrences into supernatural events. These visuals are easily shared on social media and their impact can be profound. For instance, the Momo Challenge, a viral hoax that circulated on social media in 2018 featured a grotesque and terrifying image of a woman with bulging eyes. It was claimed that this image was connected to a sinister online challenge that encouraged self-harm and even suicide among young users. Although the challenge was ultimately debunked as a hoax, the fear and hysteria it generated were very real, thanks to the power of visual media in the digital age. Social media platforms serve as a vast repository of modern folklore. Hashtags, groups and accounts dedicated to urban legends create communities of enthusiasts who actively participate in the creation, discussion and dissemination of these stories. From Facebook groups dedicated to investigating the local ghost stories to Twitter threads recounting supernatural experiences, social media has become a hub for modern folklore enthusiasts. In addition to textual narratives, social media allows for the preservation and sharing of audio and video recordings, further enriching the tapestry of modern urban legends. As these stories continue to evolve and adapt to the digital landscape, they become an integral part of our contemporary cultural heritage. Urban legends in the digital age have a profound impact on society. They reflect our collective fears, anxieties and desires. These stories can serve as cautionary tales, reinforcing societal norms and values, or they can challenge the status quo, prompting discussions about the unknown and the unexplained. The power of these stories extends beyond entertainment. They can influence behavior, shape, beliefs and even have real world consequences. From online challenges that result in injuries to false claims of paranormal activity leading to property disputes, the influence of modern urban legends cannot be underestimated. Urban legends have found a new home in the digital age, where social media platforms serve as the campfires around which we gather to share and perpetuate these captivating narratives. The speed of virality, the power of user- generated content, challenges and authenticity, the role of visual media and social media's role as a repository all contribute to the evolution of modern folklore. In a world where information travels at the speed of light, urban legends continue to captivate and intrigue us, reflecting our ever-evolving fears and curiosities. As long as there are mysteries to be unraveled and the unexplained to be explored, urban legends in the digital age will continue to shape our modern folklore, reminding us that the world is still full of wonder and mystery, waiting to be discovered in the vast expanse of the digital realm. In a puzzling and eerie series of events, a mother and her daughter were left shaken after a vehicle appeared to approach them and then inexplicably vanished on River Acre Road in Shesher. This bizarre incident is the second of its kind on this road and both occurrences are currently under investigation by Professor Rob Gandy of Liverpool's John Moores University who finds these events incomprehensible. The initial encounter took place in June 2018, when the mother and daughter saw a car with headlights approaching them, only for it to abruptly turn off its lights and disappear, leaving behind nothing but a hedge. Two months later, in August 2018, they experienced another inexplicable occurrence when a man suddenly appeared in front of their vehicle. Believing they had hit him, they exited the car to investigate but found no trace of the man. These unsettling encounters left the witnesses too terrified to return to that road. Professor Gandy, a statistician and health service manager, has been collecting stories of road ghosts and hitchhiker ghosts for nearly a decade. His interest in the supernatural was sparked by his childhood fascination with ghost stories and he has since gathered a significant number of chilling tales from various locations, including the Ruskington Horror in Lincolnshire. Dr. Gandy is actively seeking witnesses to South Whirl's counterparts to the Ruskington Horror, aiming to compile and analyze these perplexing experiences, emphasizing the importance of documenting such occurrences before they fade into obscurity. Have you ever seen the movie Jeepers Creepers? What you might not know is that the beginning scene of Jeepers Creepers, where Justin Long's character witnesses a man dumping behind a building, is actually based on a true story of a murder and a manhunt that happened just outside of Coldwater, Michigan. In April 1990, Ray and Marie Thornton were taking a casual Sunday drive down Snow Prairie Road between Coldwater and Bronson when they saw Dennis DePew's van speeding past them and then a few miles up the road, they saw a man dumping a white sheet with red stains on it, that same van was sitting right there. The Thorntons continued to drive when that van was tailing them and later they saw that man changing out the license plates of the van. While they drove by, the passenger door was open and it was covered with blood. The couple decided to go back to where they saw Dennis dumping the blood stained sheet. They found human tissue and parts of bone. They immediately left to call the police for help. Maryland was found the next day, on April 16, 1990, not too far away from the schoolhouse. Dennis took off and headed to Texas, where he moved in with a new girlfriend. Along the way, he mailed letters to the school where she worked at and others started receiving letters as well. Dennis thought he'd escaped the murder of his ex-wife, but that all came to an end in March 1991 when unsolved mysteries aired the story.  But one of her friends had seen the episode and recognized Dennis and told his girlfriend about it. She then called the police with the new license plate number of the van. Dennis made it all the way to Louisiana before police recognized the van and started a pursuit after him. Dennis managed to get through a couple of roadblocks, but police finally shot out his back tires. This then led to a shootout with police, but it was his own gun that took his life. On March 21, 1991, Dennis DePew took his own life on a highway in Mississippi, meaning Maryland's friends and family would never get real justice for her murder. How did it all come down to this? In April 1989, Maryland filed for divorce due to relationship troubles. Dennis blamed her job at Coldwater High School, where she worked as a guidance counselor. One man described her as, she always had a 50-style haircut and everybody loved her in the community. For that fact, it's pretty crazy to know that this was the inspiration to one of Colt Horwer's favorite films. Dan Costello, a former diver, has come forward with a remarkable account of his involvement in a secretive project that allegedly included Prince Charles, now King Charles. Costello claims that he worked as a diver on Project Scorpio, which took place in Sandy Point, Newfoundland. According to his extraordinary account, the Prince was involved in testing a peculiar helicopter-type vessel with UFO-like characteristics, sparking a wave of intrigue and disbelief. The vessel in question, as described by Costello, had a round, UFO-like shape, featured a propeller and was reportedly created by the American aircraft manufacturer, Sikorsky. What sets this aircraft apart from traditional helicopters is the assertion that it was powered by magnetic force, not conventional engines. Although this unconventional craft does not have any extraterrestrial origins, it would still technically qualify as an unidentified flying object. However, the story takes a bizarre turn when Costello alleges that the Sikorsky prototype was an electrical risk and a target of attacks that resulted in the deaths of original Sikorsky engineers. He claims that numerous turbines experienced emergency shutdowns while submerged, necessitating special forces divers to enter high-voltage risk zones to prevent potential catastrophic events. Costello goes on to claim that both Royal Navy Reserve members and Sikorsky engineering crews lost their lives due to terrorist and vandal attacks on the prototype. This aspect of the story lends an air of intrigue akin to a Hollywood thriller. He further contends that King Charles, Prince Charles at the time, along with his 845 squadron aircrew, extracted the prototype Sikorsky after the original engineers drowned. According to Costello, the uncontrollable events surrounding the craft could have resulted in mass death of tens of thousands across three counties if not for the intervention of the Royal Navy. In another extraordinary twist, Costello describes witnessing a pyramid-shaped UFO in Egypt and recounts a bizarre incident involving the Sikorsky prototype. He claims that an uncontrolled burst of energy from the craft caused a blue flame to emanate from its underside. This blue plasma-like pulse allegedly had the power to transform rocks into glass and tree limbs into cinders without the need for an open flame. Describing a phenomenon, Costello states, the heat transformed the trees along its semaphore-lined flight path instantly into wood ash. It carried along that path somewhat under control of a secondary large-nosed rotary craft which looked like a giant West Hall whirligig. The claims made by Costello while captivating and seemingly fantastical have yet to be substantiated. They've gained attention due to their peculiar nature, prompting further exploration in a documentary produced by Nub TV available at Aizat. Whether these claims are fact or fiction remains a subject of debate, leaving many intrigued and baffled by the astonishing narrative of Project Scorpio and the involvement with King Charles piloting a UFO. The early issue also includes a list of paranormal, horror, UFO and cryptozoology events around the country, incredible paranormal-themed artwork, articles and writing sent in from our readers, suggested books and podcasts to consume, and more. Visit ParanormalityMag.com and subscribe today for as little as $3.99 a month. That's ParanormalityMag.com ParanormalityMag.com In a bizarre turn of events, singer-songwriter Ricardo from Oxfordshire has come forward with a haunting tale of love, divorce and ghostly stalking. Ricardo's otherworldly odyssey began in late 2021 when she claimed to have fallen in love with Eduardo, the apparition of a Victorian soldier who mysteriously manifested in her home. Approximately a year later, Ricardo announced that she and Eduardo had tied the spectral knot, making their union official. However, the relationship took a chilling turn when Ricardo accused the ethereal Eduardo of infidelity, prompting her to call in an exorcist to sever their supernatural bond. Convinced that Eduardo had been banished from her life, Ricardo treated herself to a trip to France in search of a fresh start. While exploring the city of love, she encountered another ghostly suitor named Fabian near the iconic Eiffel Tower. Little did she know her newfound love interest was not what it seemed. Ricardo recounted the eerie encounter saying, I was walking down the banks of the River Seine chasing the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, cowering under my umbrella as raindrops poured off it and then it struck me, glistening in a puddle, the reflection of a French man. I tilted my umbrella back, but nobody was around. I looked back towards the puddle and the man was clear as the ocean. Thinking she'd found a romantic connection, Ricardo began to embrace her holiday romance with this mysterious Fabian. However, her happiness was short-lived when Fabian later revealed himself to be none other than Eduardo in disguise. Ricardo felt deceived, exclaiming, I couldn't believe I'd been catfished by a ghost. As Ricardo attempted to move on with her life, she decided to date living, breathing men. Eduardo, however, was not pleased with her newfound interest in the living. I cautiously started to go on dates with living humans, she explained. I returned home from a date with a bunch of flowers and Eduardo thought it would be amusing to pull the heads off all those roses and scatter the petals on my bed. Eduardo's jealousy took on more sinister forms as he began to display eerie behaviors. Ricardo shared, he's even learned to play careless whisper on the saxophone. I mean, at least I think it's him. The sound echoes in the distance sometimes when I'm taking a bath in candlelight. Desperate to win back her affections, Eduardo underwent a startling transformation. Ricardo described her shock saying, he's even given himself a modern makeover and presented himself as a candle. I thought I was going crazy when the image of him with cropped blonde hair and a pink suit appeared. Seeking guidance, Ricardo consulted a medium who delivered an unsettling revelation. A medium told me Eduardo would always be with me, Ricardo confessed, and that's a thought that I can't come to terms with. Despite her struggle to rid herself of Eduardo's spectral presence, Ricardo remains resolute in her pursuit of a more conventional love life. She concluded, moving forward I feel like I need a bit of flesh on my bones. Skeletons and dead men may seem hot, but in reality they are stone cold, unpredictable and scary. Ricardo's harrowing ordeal serves as a chilling reminder that love, even in the afterlife, can be hauntingly complicated. A knife-wielding butcher, a beautiful bride in white, and a fisherman named Lewis with the blood of two innocent women on his hands are just a few of the many disembodied spirits who roam a group of nine small islands off the shores of Maine and New Hampshire. The mysterious, haunted and terrifying islands are called the Isle of Shoals. Located six miles off the east coast of the United States are a small group of islands called the Isles of Shoals. Vulnerable to New England's cruel and unrelenting weather, it is a place where only the strong survive. The Isle of Shoals' unforgiving, rocky coastline was settled by the Europeans in the early 17th century. They were established as one of the many fishing areas for the British and French colonies, the total area of the islands adding up to only 145 acres. The use of the Isle of Shoals dates back over 400 years. It's been used as both a prominent fishing industry and a desired vacation destination. In its infancy, it was also a place where pirates would lay low, escaping penalties for their past crimes. But pirates were not the only nefarious ones to inhabit the islands. Appledore, a territory of Maine, has the distinction of being the largest of the small islands, coming in at .5 by .6 miles wide. Philip Bab arrived with his family on the island of Appledore during the early 1660s. Bab was known to be an ill-mannered man who was known by many to be wicked and loathsome. Interestingly, he was also reported to have been a shipmate of Captain Kidd, who was said to have murdered his entire crew to protect his buried treasure hidden on the small island. Birds of a feather do indeed flock together. Along with being a less than desirable friend and neighbor, Bab was a butcher, innkeeper, and constable on the island of Appledore. It was in early March 1671 that the butcher lost his life. However, his spirit seems to have decided to stay. The ghostly image of Philip Bab has been seen roaming the island of Appledore's rocky shores during the dead of night. More than a few people have reported seeing a large figure with sunken eyes wearing a butcher's frock and brandishing a knife on the island. One eyewitness stated that he'd seen a mysterious figure walking along the shore of Bab's Cove one night. He described the figure as being large, with hollowed out eyes and sporting a butcher's frock that glowed. Upon approaching the mysterious figure, the witness let out a shrill scream causing the apparition to vanish into thin air. Another native of the island had his own story to tell. While leaving his workshop one night, the man encountered a frightening apparition. The witness stated that the ghostly figure began running straight for him, brandishing a knife. Catching a glimpse of his face by the pale moonlight, he reported seeing the unmistakable image of the angry butcher himself, Philip Bab. Turning on his heel, he headed straight for him, his feet barely touching the ground. The following is a story of a more gruesome nature. During the month of June 1872, John Hauntfit hired Lewis Wagner as a fishing hand to help with the operations of his fishing company. By then, John and his wife, Maren, had been living on the island of Smuttynose for two years. Hauntfit supplied Lewis with a job, food, and a place to live. After working for the Hauntfit family for some time, Lewis decided to venture out on his own. He purchased a fishing boat with the hope of starting his own business. Unfortunately for Lewis, he crashed his boat, which caused his business to fail, and Lewis suddenly found himself broke and destitute. He was forced to spend his days trolling the docks of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, helping vessels tie up as they entered the wharf to support himself. On the afternoon of March 5, 1873, Lewis caught wind that his old employer, John Hauntfit, and his crew would not be returning home until the following morning. Knowing that the Hauntfit cottage would be unattended by John, the out-of-work fisherman devised a plan to burglarize the Hauntfit family home. 28-year-old Lewis Wagner stole a dory and rode roughly 10 to 12 miles from the shore of the Piskatakwa River to the small island of Smuddinos. Now, for all of you, including some of my own family members who believe that a 12-mile trip on a wooden dory would take way too much time for Lewis to have committed the murders, consider this. In 2013, 75-year-old Dan O'Reilly completed Wagner's route from the shore of the Piskatakwa to the island of Smuddinos. He did it in a wooden dory, and he did it in only two hours and 14 minutes. So, now we know, never underestimate the power of a determined man.  With the women asleep, Lewis had planned to sneak in, steal what he could, and get out with anyone being the wiser, a sinister plan that by a deadly margin had failed. Frozen snow could be heard crunching beneath Lewis' feet as he approached the Hauntfit's cottage. He entered through an unlocked door, and in a cruel, premeditated move, he shoved a piece of wood through the latch of the master bedroom's door, locking Marin and her sister-in-law Anneth inside. Startled awake by the family's barking dog, Marin's little sister, Karen, mistook Lewis for Marin's husband, John. Groggie in half awake, she called out to him. In a panic, Lewis beat Karen unconscious with a chair. The other two women, having escaped their room, terrified and recognizing the gravity of the situation, barricaded themselves back inside the bedroom. Marin forced Anneth out through the bedroom window to safety. Unfortunately for her sister-in-law, the decision to escape via the bedroom window landed her right into the waiting arms of Lewis Wagner. He took an axe from the woodpile, and, raising it above his head, killed Anneth with one fatal blow. Her blood quietly spilled onto the pure white snow. Unable to convince Karen to leave the cottage, Marin ran for her life. Heading for the shore on the far side of the small island, she hunkered down until morning. With the safety of daylight and with frozen feet, Marin waited into the breakwater and began waving her arms, attracting the attention of a family on the neighboring island. Upon realizing Marin had successfully escaped, Lewis headed back to the cottage to fix himself a pot of coffee and a snack, but not before delivering the last and final deadly blow to Marin's sister Karen. Before leaving the home for good, Lewis stole all the money on the property, the sum total of $15. One can't help but wonder what kind of a man would justify taking the lives of two innocent women and forever altering the life of a third for $15, a snack and a cup of coffee. A full-scale manhunt would eventually deliver Lewis to the proper authorities, and he would be hanged months later for the grizzly murder of the two island women. The bones of the hunt-vet cottage on Smuddy-Nose Island no longer exist, however its foundation remains. Strange and unusual occurrences are often reported around where the home once stood. Paranormal enthusiasts have left trinkets on the home's foundation that are said to move left and right without assistance. People have also reported a dark and ominous presence on the island. The smell of coffee and malfunctioning equipment is often recorded as well. Other witnesses have claimed to see and hear strange things around the property of the hunt-vet home, and terrifying EVPs of blood-curdling screams have been captured in the cove along the island's rocky shoreline. Interestingly, most believe that the ghost of Lewis Wagner has remained on the island not to harass and terrify islanders, but to atone for his deadly unintended actions. I for one am not buying it. Lewis may in fact also be roaming Smuddy-Nose Island, looking for his axe, the survival tool turned deadly weapon used to terminate the lives of the two innocent women, but the joke's on him.  Smuddy-Nose didn't just attract the likes of innocent Swedish women, it was a stomping ground for pirates as well. The infamous Blackbeard, the most notorious and feared of all the pirates, was drawn to the Isle of Shoals by way of his honeymoon with his fifteenth wife. Yes, fifteenth wife. According to legend, Blackbeard hit his gold all over the small 25-acre island. However, like most honeymoons, nothing lasts forever. The infamous pirate was soon called away to battle British warships. Before he departed, Blackbeard instructed his wife to stay on the island and guard his gold. Alas, unlike the legendary luck of the Irish, Blackbeard's luck eventually ran out. He was killed off the coast of North Carolina, death by decapitation, compliments of Captain Maynard. Weeding years on the tiny island for her villainous husband to return, Blackbeard's blushing bride eventually died. Never having received closure for her groom's failed return, she has said to roam the island continuing to honor her dastardly husband's order to protect his gold. The ghost of Blackbeard's bride is also said to speak to those who would listen, assuring visitors and islanders alike that he will be back. Witnesses have reported seeing a woman in white staring out into the ocean saying, He will be back. Eerie EVPs have been collected on the island of Smuddynose confirming such events. Others have reported seeing the ghostly apparition of Blackbeard himself. Moving on, we mustn't forget Star Island, the island that is now considered a favorite for spiritual retreats. Once a desolate, uncharted no-man's land, Star Island has evolved into a bustling hotspot for those seeking to connect with the holier side of themselves. With little wi-fi, no cable, and spotty cell service, the odds are more than likely that an energetic connection would be your best and only bet. Two sisters, born and raised in Kittery Point, Maine, spent more than their fair share of time on Star Island since the 1920s, and they've got a few thrilling ghost stories of their own. One sister spoke of waking up in the Oceanic House, hearing furniture being moved throughout the night in the floor above her room. Inquiring about the noise the next morning, she was told no one was up there. Attending a lecture a couple of years later, she learned the area above the space where she had been sleeping was referred to as Ghost Alley. One of the sisters also recalled being a substitute ranger on the island of Smuddynose. Filling in one night for the ranger on duty, she excitedly rode her boat from Star Island to Smuddynose, eager to embark on a solo overnight shift. A little before 1 a.m., she was awoken by the latch rattling on the back door of the Haley House. Upon investigating the noise, the rattling stopped. No sooner did she fall asleep than the rattling started again. She heard the rattling for a third time, but this time it was coming from the room underneath the stairs. Suffice it to say she was more than taken aback, as she knew she was all alone on the island. The same sister tells another scary tale of an early morning spooky experience. The pounding was heard on the front door of the Haley House, again with not another soul on the island. She also claimed to have been locked inside an outhouse on Smuddynose Isle, with only two sleeping companions on the island with her. But ghostly legends are not meant for land alone. A favorite phantom story of mine tells of a ship by the name of Isidor, whose shipwrecked, succumbing to the deadly nature of the sea, immediately surrounding the Isle of Shoals in the year 1842. People have sporadically reported seeing Isidor patrolling the bays, but only for a few moments at a time before her ghostly apparition vanishes before their eyes. Do ghosts exist? I'm not sure we'll ever know. However, what we know for sure is that there are nine tiny islands quietly guarding the shores of both Maine and New Hampshire, and like all good New Englanders, she holds her secrets very close to her vest. The remote group of what some believe are uninhabitable New England enclaves hold not only chilling ghost stories worth their weight in gold, but also the gold itself. Gold that to this day Blackbeard and his obedient bride continue to guard, despite till death do they part. Thanks for listening to Paranormality Magazine. Get more information about the magazine and subscribe to our monthly publication at ParanormalityMag.com or click the link in the show description.  We might feature you in our next issue. If you have a paranormal podcast, you can add it to our website so our readers can find your show. And artists, if you'd like your work to be featured in our magazine or on our back cover, contact us. Again, our website is ParanormalityMag.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll have more Paranormal for you next time from Paranormality Magazine.


Okay, you didn't hear that? I am, we're live. So, ready to roll? Hey, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke, behind the scenes, you're watching behind the scenes Divine Intimacy Radio. And if you notice, we're in a little bit of a different scenery than normal. Stephanie and I are at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Retreat Center, which is the new, in Montgomery, down to the new headquarters of Avala Institute and also be a community and a retreat center. So, and we're in the process of building a new studio here, but we are, things don't always line up in terms of schedules as we would like. So, we're making dues. Stephanie's in her office in one part of the building, I'm in mine. And so, we're gonna do this. And apologies if there's any audio issues. I think, you know, the quality is okay. Not as great as we'd like it to be, but we're grateful for your patience. So, before we jump into the show, Steph, did you have, do you have opportunities for folks you wanted to talk about? Yes, we've got a couple of classes coming up in the Avala Institute. I wanna let you know about them. One of them is a course called Exploring Theosis by the wonderful Dr. Michael Gamma. And it's the characteristic of the early ancient church and our understanding of salvation. It's an incredible course. You know, together you will explore the salvific promise investigating as you do into the mystery of the Holy Trinity and what it means to be partakers of the divine nature, which we all want to do. So, you need to apply by October 28th and you can find all that information at Avala-Institute. That's the School of Spiritual Formation, which is a little lighter work for those who are busy and cannot take the graduate program. We also have another opportunity. It's called Saint Benedict and Saint Therese, the Little Rule and the Little Way. What a brilliant title. So in this incredible course, you'll learn how two extraordinarily different saints join forces through their writings, lives and prayers who enrich the whole church and each one of us. So, awesome. Those classes will begin. You need to apply. Pardon me, you need to apply by October 20th and you can find all the details at Avala-Institute.org, Avala-Institute.org unless I leave this out, the Saint Benedict and Saint Therese course is taught by Father Dwight Longenecker. So awesome. So head out and check those out along with all the other courses that we offer at the Avala-Institute. All right, well, are you ready to jump into the show? Mm-hmm. Okay, your mark gets set and go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest. Your hermitage of the heart. Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints and the magisterium of the church to help us navigate this very challenging life that we live in. So Steph, one thing I just have to say, I really missed you the last two shows. I did them with Dave Nodar and I had to do the whole intro myself. So I said, I had to explain that I was doing your part usually. So, but I much rather I like it, prefer it when you're here. And the cool thing is our new studio has a capacity for four people to be in studio plus multiple guests live on screen. So I'm glad you're back. Oh, thanks. Good to be back. I kind of like you. So the first question on the show is this a Q and A show today. And the first question we're going to talk about is on liturgy. And the question is, where what authority say that lay ministers can't give blessings in the holy sacrifice of the mass? And it's a question that came during webinar we did with Father Altier. But and the answer isn't brief, but I'll try to make it as brief as I can. One, that there is no such thing as a title lay minister and informal reality in the church. And by the way, just as a side note, those who are in Latin mass communities have, this issue doesn't come up because the only person who distributes communion is the priest. So in ordinary form or the nervous ordo there can be something called extraordinary ministers of holy communion. But it's important to note that there is no, there is no designated in the church of lay ministers as a formal office. They're not ordained and extraordinary ministers are a lay person who has been commissioned typically by the bishop or the vicar general to distribute holy communion in the mass when needed. So this is often abused. It's actually one of the most abused things in the liturgy and the ordinary form in the sense that if we believe that we should follow church teaching, the general instruction of the Roman missile describes the functions of the extraordinary ministers in articles 162 and 163. And essentially the extraordinary ministers to approach the altar only after the priest has received communion and then received from the priest the proper vessels receive from the priest the proper vessels and many of you are sitting out there going, well, I've already seen a lot of that not done appropriately. And every action in the masses is for a reason. So anyway, so lay persons who are called upon to distribute holy communion are not called lay ministers if they are called that it's a misuse of the term and it's confusing and it shouldn't be used but they should be called extraordinary ministers of holy communion. But in the end, they are not to give blessings because they don't have the position of being able to give blessings. So there was in 2008, there was a letter to the congregation for divine worship in the discipline of the sacraments asking this question. And the first observation and the response was that the liturgical blessing of everyone at Mass is given after the distribution of holy communion. So when the priest makes the sign of the cross and says, may almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. And another authoritative note is article 18 of the book of blessings. It says, even though lay persons may give some blessings whenever a priest or deacon is present, the office of presiding over blessings should be left to them. So in summary, the one thing I didn't mention is extraordinary the guidance regarding the use of extraordinary ministers, which is also very frequently abused explains and this is in a redemptionary sacrament in paragraph 151 that extraordinary ministers are only to be used out of only out of true necessity in quotes. And when they are used, special urgent prayers of intercessions should be multiplied so that the board may soon send a priest for the service of the community. So paragraph 158 says that they should only be used when the number of the faithful coming to communion is so great that the mass would be unduly prolonged like for a half hour or something like that. So we have a misuse of the function which then creates this problem where you have so many lay people up on the altar and because we're worried about getting out of the mass a little bit too quickly or maybe giving people a place of status. I've seen that where people are made extraordinary ministers in order to make them feel good but what it does is fundamentally does damage to understanding of who is the minister in this context and it's the priest, not the lady. The lady is purely an assistant to the priest and it also notes in church teaching very clearly that the lady should never, the lady should not use any kind of gestures or actions that would blur the distinction between the role of the lady and the role of the priest. And this is not clericalism by the way, this is the teachings of the church because we as lay people don't stand in persona Christi and always sacrifice at the mass. That is uniquely given to the priest. And there are some, where the boring comes from and the false teaching comes from that's behind all of us is those who would like to see no distinctions between priests and laity, no distinctions between men and women, no distinctions in any way. But of course that is not what Jesus established in the church. So I don't know, this is kind of a technical question taking me a few minutes to answer but you have any thoughts about any of that? Not really. I mean, before I had really looked into this and in our own studies and discussions and stuff I was an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in part as an employee of a Catholic school and helping out with that kind of thing but I can see the necessity say is it that a people mass? No, when there's people everywhere if they don't have the priest doing that but beautifully I've seen the priest go out with the umbrellas and that of course is the most appropriate way to handle that kind of situation. So it's really beautiful. Yeah, and there is some discussion and concern expressed by many on the traditional side of the church that says that the council of Trent and documents previous to the council indicated that only someone whose hands have been consecrated should even touch the blessed sacrament. And I agree with that church teaching. Yeah, and that's certainly why I stopped. It's once I stepped out of that role I no longer served in that capacity because I was uncomfortable doing so. Yeah, I was with Cardinal Renzi who used to head up that the congregation that we mentioned before that made that ruling. And he's a very holy and devout Cardinal of course and he did an event for us and somebody asked about even the allowance of communion on the hand which is part of all of this. And he said it's been an absolute disaster in the church in terms of Christ being desecrated. A little bit separate issue. One thing I do want to say to those lay people who are extraordinary ministers this is in no way criticism of you. This is certainly, you know most people get into that role because they really wanna do something good and participate and they don't necessarily understand the teachings and they rely on those who preside over the mass to teach them but that doesn't always happen. So hopefully this answer is helpful. Next question is also a liturgical one. Why don't parishes place a pre-do in front of the priest in the communion line so that we can choose what we want to do in receiving the Holy Eucharist? And the reason is, you know, many fold but go ahead Steph. I think we're coming up on a break. Yeah, I show we were at nine minutes. So we had at least three minutes. Okay, so I appreciate you telling me because that means you're worried about making sure we all do all this right. So why don't, and a pre-do is just a French word for a kneeler that we understand in English. Why don't parishes do this? And fundamentally the reason why in the ordinary form is that, and I actually saw a homily on this recently from Bishop that they see this as a throwback to previous time and a desire to go backwards. And I think that without criticizing anyone individually, it's a misunderstanding of historic teaching. And in fact, in Memoriale Domini, which was promulgated by St. Paul VI, which allowed for communion in the hand standing, he actually argues that the more humble approach is kneeling, that the normative way is kneeling, that most of the bishops of the world disagreed with allowing that practice. And then he went ahead and allowed it anyway. So I think even those after the council who tend to be come from a different perspective than we do regarding the liturgy and who, you know, we don't see it as going backwards. We see it as just being faithful and humble and being reverent toward the Lord. And in no way are judging anyone who disagree, but that's our position. But our position actually is the position in the document that allowed for communion in the hand. And that is that it's the norm to do that. So that's why they've just been taught that that's, you know, they've just been taught poorly. I'll just say that, that's my opinion. So Steph, you wanna pull me out of the weeds there and make sure I don't get into too much trouble? I think, you know, church, we should adhere to church teaching and then we should also err on the side of compassion. And that's why I like what you added at the end, that we need to consider that, you know, for the most part, and I say this fervently, having been on the other side, people come to serve the church and do what they do and be on one form or another out of a desire to love. And we're just, we can only do what we understand and what we've been taught. And so we have to err on the side of how the Lord prayed and he said, Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. And then teach when you can and love and serve and be gentle and meek and humble. All right, good job, we're gonna go to a break and come back from the break. We're gonna be answering questions about marriage and family, so get off the liturgical topics to marriage and family and tough stuff. So we'll be right back. Okay, so folks, while we're at the break, I wanna tell you about a couple of things that are coming up that you are not going to wanna miss. One of those is a webinar on the contemplative rosary that yours truly will be hosting with Connie Rossini. So this was going to be just in just a couple of days and that is on September 30th at 7 p.m. central. It is online, it is free, it'll be live and you can find all the information on this webinar on the contemplative rosary at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. So join me and Connie Rossini this coming Thursday night for this webinar. And what's so big about the contemplative rosary, by the way? Well, I mean, it's remarkable. And so we're gonna be discussing how, through some of the writings and the fleshing out of St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Avila and this book called The Contemplative Rosary, how we can pray in a better way to enter fully into the rosary, how we can prepare ourselves for contemplative prayer and how in entering into each one of the mysteries, we will love God more fully and prepare ourselves to be loved fully by him or to receive that love and set our hearts and minds on the Lord through those mysteries. So come learn how to pray the contemplative rosary and why it's so powerful and important. The second, another event that's coming up is the Rosary Crusade. This is so cool. You're not gonna wanna miss this. Thursday, October 7th, beginning at 6.30 p.m. Central Standard Time. Please join Bishop Strickland, Cardinal Arborellius, Archbishop Gomez, Archbishop Cordo Leone and many, many more awesome lay leaders, celebrities in the Catholic world as it were and all of that. And we're gonna be coming together to honor our lady and pray the rosary together. So don't miss this. It's so awesome. And it's gonna be online free and you can also find that at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. The bishops and cardinals and archbishops will be providing reflections in between the different mysteries. So come check this out. It's an awesome way to honor our lady of the rosary on her feast day. And then the last one is we are going to have a virtual silent auction and there are some beautiful items in this. And it begins on October 1st. It will run for two weeks. There are sneak peeks now. So you can check out what's there. And that is also online and you can find it at spiritualdirection.com also on forward slash events. So virtual silent auction, rosary crusade on the 7th and contemplative rosary. This Thursday, September 30th. Join us. Awesome. Awesome. So we'll jump back into the show and your market set go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio Haydn of Rest coming to you from our lady of Mount Carmel Retreat Center in Montgomery, Alabama. And so we're a little bit, mics are different, visuals are different. We're working on all that with a new studio. But in the meantime, let's jump into some questions, Stephanie, about Ephesians five and about marriage and parenting and the spiritual dimensions of all of this. So I'll lay out the questions kind of sliced up into two pieces. But I'll try to put them together because I think they should be together. Can you address Ephesians five and parents or in-laws who want to dictate to their children, adult children, of course, how to live and when and where to vacation, spend all our vacations with them. And this idea of leaving and cleaving, how does a wife navigate possessive and controlling in-laws? This is a tough question. So, you know, there's so much here, but, you know, I think, so ideally a lot of these conversations should have happened prenuptial.  In fact, in the realist sense and in a really beautiful sense, you should be marrying the family. But sometimes that's not ideal.  And so you have to consider all those things. If it can be semi-healthy and worked out with the normal bumps and bruises of family life, then there should be some balance of, maybe one year we do Christmas with my family, another year we do Christmas with your family and these alternating back and forth because let's face it, children come into play, they need to know their grandparents, they need to know their family members. We're not built to get married and then just go live in an isolated way because that's just avoiding the cross and it sends a very powerful message to your children that family is to be pushed away and discarded and you have to be really careful the messages you send. And we are called to love and serve. So that's one thing to consider. Now, if there is an issue and if there are parents on one side or the other that are being overly possessive or whatever, then that comes down to communication between the spouses, right? Because if I step out of my proper role and start to lecture Dan and say, your parents are controlling and blah, blah, blah, blah, then I create damage in my marital relationship over his parents. So again, it comes down to conversation, to communication, loving patiently and bearing your cross, dying to yourself a million times for the sake of the salvation of your spouse, your children and all of your extended family. So there's a lot there, but we don't live as men on islands isolated away from all the difficulties. We need to kind of shift our paradigm of thinking and understand that it is through the difficulties, through the challenges, through the messiness of family life where we are sanctified, purified and brought to the fullness of who we're being called to be. So understand it's all cross and embrace that cross and praise God for the trials and lean in and become holy.  Psychology is done as a great deal of damage, you know, psychology inconsistent with our faith has done a great deal of damage to the church. So when we talk about this, we're not talking about psychology. What we're talking about is what is scripture teach? What are our roles in marriage? What is holy and unholy? What's inappropriate and inappropriate? So Steph, I think it's really important to repeat this or maybe explore this leave and cleave thing. So when we got married, you and I became a new authority structure within the context of the Burke clan and the, you know, the McKinney clan or the, you know, the clan that you came out of, if you will, your family, your birth family. So it says leave and cleave. That means that now there's a new structure which is one, it's a blended structure. You and God, most important, me and God, most important, right, for us. Then there's a circle around us and it's me and you and we're the new authority structure. We are the ones who determine together in unity and holy where we, how we spend our money, how we worship, what we do on vacations and no one should be allowed in that intimate circle. Am I making sense? Yes, absolutely. I mean, that was the point I was stressing on the communication that the communication between the husband and wife has to be healthy. There has to be great communication there and decisions are made.  I mean, and in some of those, you know, we do die to ourselves and there are choices that are made that aren't necessarily perfect all the time. Otherwise, I think we'd always be on a beach somewhere in Barbados with a tropical drink and an endless buffet, I don't know. So we have to make those decisions but you and I make those decisions. In-laws don't make those decisions. Now, we certainly listen to on either side. We listen to family members who make requests and invitations, we receive those in love and in good spirit and we understand they desire to be with us and they want to be with us. Very different than somebody saying you will spend all of your holidays with us. And so you have to, again, husband and wife, leave and cleave, you make decisions together. There should be some sort of balance and understanding of what's healthy and what's not and then make those decisions together but there shouldn't be others on the outside making those decisions for you. So I wanna lift up a few things you said that are really important. So you and I make the decisions, we take the input of others but that doesn't mean, right, that we allow an in-law into our inner circle into that decision process, right? Practically speaking, what it means is you and I make the decisions, we listen to input lovingly from the outside which is what you said, but they don't get in the circle. So we listen and then we talk and pray and decide. It's a violation of a healthy marital bond and boundary and all of that for someone to come into that inner circle with the same level of power, authority, decision-making. Like if I allowed my mom to come in, just let's just be really clear and she would directly influence and add more influence than you. Then we've got a problem. We've got a real problem. Yeah, yeah, and vice versa.   Look at others through love, receive their requests in love, but ultimately husband and wife are the adults in the room that make the decisions for their marriage, for how they spend their time, their money and their children. And, you know, you take all the input, you decide what you can do, what's possible, what you'd like to do and understand that they do want to be near you and move forward. Sometimes I wish we had a moral theologian who could just sit within reach of us when we have these shows because I want to make these proclamations, but I don't want to over stretch. But I, to me, if I did that to you and then I caught myself and realized I had done it, I would take it to confession. I would say I allowed my mother to take the place of my wife and that is a violation of the marital bond and I shouldn't have done that. So I don't, is it that? Yeah, and knowing that this question came from a female, she was under a lot of distress and pain in this. It was very distressing to her. And that's a tough place to be because unfortunately in the world, men have forgotten how to lead their families. They've forgotten how to leave and cleave. They don't know how to do that. There's not enough examples of it. And so yeah. I think we have time for one more and I want to give this one to you. We both know this suffering, but did St. Monica have a critical spirit when she couldn't stop crying and praying for her sons? I wonder if I have a judgmental or critical spirit. I used to feel I had to do everything perfect or my mom's love would be removed from me. So maybe I'm passing that onto my kids, I don't know. I keep coming back to St. Monica. How can we be fully joyful when we know our kids are in such a precarious state? So a minute and a half, just. A minute and a half. Wow, that's a huge question. Critical spirit, you know, critical spirit is looking at the actions of another, not in a spirit of judgment as in related to truth, but rather as in that's not my way, right? So they're not living the life that I want them to live or they're not living the life that I think they should live or that's not according to my opinion, my feelings, my thoughts. When we judge actions of another, of our children through the light of truth, church teaching, right? What's good and holy and what's right, then that's not a critical spirit. That's the truth of Christ burning in you and it will cause tears and prayers and supplications and we have to suffer and we have to offer up that suffering. But in the end, we are to remain as Mary, standing by the cross and supplicating for our kids. Once our children move into adulthood, it is not our job to fix them, to criticize them, to try to control their decisions, to interfere in their marriages and their life choices. And neither should we fund sin, which is something that you and I have held to. We do not fund sin. We do not pay for our adult children to go live together. We don't, you know, things like that. And I've seen that unfortunately in too many good people where they actually, in order to keep the peace, they fund sin. So you can't do that, but truth is truth and it doesn't change according to the seasons. Church teaching on truth, on morality and contraception and all those things, those still remain. They are still true. It's not a matter of opinion and feelings. There might be feelings and opinion on it, but it's not a matter of feelings and opinion. And so when you see that, you're to pray and to sacrifice for them, but that is not a critical spirit and that suffering can be offered for the salvation of your child's soul. All right, Steph, we're over time. So can you take us out? Okay. And I don't have the final prayer. What is that? So may the God of peace grant you holiness and all that other good stuff. And we'll pray for you and come back and see us next time. All right. Okay, God bless you. Good to have everybody.


In this step, we're going to have our first go at UV mapping. And what UV mapping is, is it's to do with how textures are mapped onto our polygon shapes. And you can change those depending on what you're doing. So flat surfaces like our floor are quite easy, but surfaces with lots of different directions like the table take a little bit more thought. To get us started though, we're going to do what's called a planar projection on the floor. So we're going to start by having the floor selected. You can see I'm not in my hypershade for this. I've gone back to my main Maya perspective window. And with the floor selected, up at the top of the screen, you have a UV menu. And within that menu, you've got some different ways that you can choose to map. So there's cylindrical, planar, and spherical. And then there are some others up here, which we'll also look at at some point. But we'll start with doing a planar projection. Before I do that though, I would just like to show you the UV editor. So let's open this up for now. And this will show us the way the UVs are at the moment for the floor. So they're actually mapped fine already. But I would like to just show you how to do mapping anyway. And I'm going to do it, I think, to change the direction of the slabs. Just so that I feel like we've accomplished something with this. So for now, I'm going to close the UV editor and my UV toolkit. Make sure that I'm in object mode and I have the floor selected. We'll go UV and we're going to do planar. Okay, and that will make it look worse, first of all, probably, because we've mapped it across the x-axis, which is causing lots of stretching. So what we will do is sort that out. So we're just going to go back into object mode and select our floor. Then we'll go to UV, and we're going to click on the little box this time next to planar so that we can change the settings. Now we're going to get it right. So we're going to choose to project from the y-axis. And this is really important. Make sure that you have keep image width and height ratio selected. It's very rare that I turn that off. So make sure that you have that selected and then click on project. And you'll see that now we have projected our UVs as we want to. Whilst we currently have that projection done, you can see that in my attribute editor, if yours isn't open, press Ctrl and A, we can change the rotation angle. So I'm just going to rotate that by 90 degrees. Type that number in and press Enter. And that's flipped the projection around. And now what I want to do is just get this to tile a little bit. So repeat the texture. And there are a number of ways that we can do this. But for now I want to do this in the hyper shade. So I'm just going to go back into object mode here. And then into my hyper shade, I'll just bring this back. Make sure I can see the ground. And what I want to do is make sure that I have my floor 2 material available. So what I'm going to do just in case you can't still see or so I can see all my material here. But let's say for some reason you can't. What you do to bring that shading network back is you right click and hold on the material and choose to graph the network. And that will show up everything within that. And what we want to do is tell each of these textures to repeat. And in order to do that, we're going to use these place 2D texture nodes. So if we select one, you'll see that it brings up the options for it. And we're going to change the repeat UV to maybe 3 by 3. And you won't see much change yet because we've got to change all of them. So then we're going to do the roughness and we'll make that 3 by 3 as well. And it'll really come together when we change this depth one here, the normal map. So let's make this 3 by 3 as well. 3 and 3. And now you'll see that the tiles look much smaller. This is a nicer preview. Everything's good. So we've now used UV placement to change the appearance of our floor material. If you want to, you can also have a quick render look at it now to see how it's coming out. But what I'm going to do is move over to the next step where we're going to create the material that we'll put on the walls. So I'll see you there. Game Dev Academy is graciously supported by these absolute legends. If you'd like to offer your support, then check out our Patreon page using the link in the description below.


talk about China. A dramatic video yesterday from China that was kind of interesting and a little bit fun and spooky and everything. So I mean, the news of China is what we expected and that is that Xi was appointed for a third term. Basically, Xi has basically made himself ruler for life. He is the first ruler to have this kind of power and this kind of control over the Politburo, over the Chinese governing authorities, governing body, over the Chinese state since Mao Zedong. He is almost if not as powerful as Mao was in his heyday. And there was this event yesterday that people showed on live television because it was being broadcast in China. That's what's surprising about it. They're all seated like the front row is all the top people in the Chinese Communist Party. And right next to Xi is sitting the former head of the Communist Party, the one who ruled there until 2013. He was there from 2003 and 2013 and indeed, while he was still an authoritarian thug, he was definitely better than Xi. And it's certainly 2003 to 2013 is a period known as a period of opening up, opening up internationally, opening up of domestic markets, more free markets, if you will. It's a period in which there was a lot more free speech. It's a period in which some of the free market think tanks, some of the people, it's a period in which I and Rand's books were all published, it's a period with the free market think tanks were allowed to thrive and allowed to get instituted with freedom seeking professors for the most part, not completely left alone and allowed to allow to write and publish and speak and teach in China. So the previous leader whose name now escapes me and I was looking for the article with his name, the video of him being escorted out is old news, I guess. So I can't find it, but anyway, so basically, so you have Xi sitting there and Hojintao. Thank you, Brownie. Hojintao is sitting next to him. Hojintao is 79 years old. So he's clearly is clearly weak and he's sitting next to him. And Hojintao obviously represents a completely different perspective on ruling China than Xi. Xi is much more authoritarian, anti markets, anti giving any kind of economic freedom and definitely anti any form of free speech and any form of opposition. And so Ho is sitting next to Xi and then suddenly these guys show up and they kind of the guy whispers in Ho's ear and puts a hand under his armpit and kind of helps him stand up and there's some discussion and deliberation and Ho is going for papers and but he's being escorted out. And this is the final closing meeting of the 20th Chinese Communist Party thing and it's it's a big deal. This is the event and they're going to vote for Xi to be ruler for another five years. And the guy sitting next to Hojintao again, name I can't remember, but I think the current premier of China starts standing up to kind of help Ho to try to figure out what's going on. And the guy next to him, who's one of the cheap propagandists of the party basically pulls at his coat jacket and seats him back down. Don't do it. Don't stand up. You don't want to be seen with Ho. So in public, in this major event on television, broadcast of the world and broadcast within China, Hojintao is basically humiliated, walked out of this grand meeting. No explanation is given by any of the Chinese authorities. Nothing. And you know, that's it. Now that's a big deal. That's again, I think Xi doing a Mao Zedong, a embarrassing another leader with might have a power center within the Communist Party. And you know, it's a Stalin Mao move to kind of humiliate him in public show who is the boss now show that that era is gone. It was dramatic. It was dramatic. See all these people sitting around and they all just accept it. They all just roll with it. And it was brutal. It was brutal to watch.  I mean, you have to say that under Hojintao, Chinese growth was like four times higher, five times higher than it is under Xi. Xi is pushing China towards negative economic growth. And in terms of losing whatever momentum economic and I'd even say military momentum that China had, it is going to start losing it significantly as a consequence. Just some other notes that they announced the new Politburo, the new governing body in China. It doesn't have many of the people who were there are gone. Many of the supporters of greater liberalization, both economically and politically are gone. There are no women, not a single woman for the first time in a long time on the Chinese Politburo. All men, all men loyal, sworn loyalty to Xi.  This is him cleaning house, getting rid of all opponents. This is the beginning of the end of beginning of the slow decline. Well, it's already declining, but the continuation of the slow decline of China as a significant, I think, military and economic force in the world. And I feel sorry for the Chinese because as you know from previous episodes that I've talked about, I'm a huge fan of China, of the Chinese people, Chinese entrepreneurs, Chinese innovation.  Huge fan of what China did up until about five, six, seven years ago. Somebody's arguing in the room next to me. Sounds like they're talking Chinese. So maybe it's a Chinese Secret Service listening in on me. But yeah, I think it's sad. I think it's sad and something to watch, but Xi is consolidated his power. Consolidated his power. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to youronbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe, press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for you, those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.


We have seen how massive objects bend light. Einstein's general relativity theory shows that the more massive an object is, and the smaller its radius, the greater the bending. If we were looking at light passing close to a white dwarf, we would see that the bending is 50 times greater than we get with our sun.  In other words, the light might orbit the object several times before escaping and moving on to its final destination. So it's not a stretch to see that if the mass is large enough and the radius is small enough, light passing by close enough could enter a long-lasting orbit or never get out. And with enough mass, light emitted by the object itself would also be stuck inside. Nothing including light itself can escape. Hence the name black hole. In this segment, we'll cover how black holes are categorized and how they form. We'll cover their structure and the various ways they grow. We'll cover the first image of a black hole ever recorded. We'll cover examples from nearby black holes in our own galaxy to the most distant black hole ever discovered. And we'll end with coverage of a new theory for how the first black holes may have formed. A theory driven by the fact that the James Webb Space Telescope has found large galaxies that existed before the current Lambda cold dark matter cosmology predicted they would.


How can we know if we are forgiven? If you fulfill the conditions of toba, of repentance, if you have remorse for it, that you stop doing it while you're doing it, you intend to never do it again. Having said that, one of the greatest signs is, is that Allah ta'ala moves you out of that state and he takes you into a better state. This potentially could be one of the signs that your repentance is accepted. And then after that, that you're in a state of purity and you don't ever think about that stuff again. If that you still think about it, you should remember the pain associated with that sin to cause you and protect you from going back in a second time.


Hello, I'm Angela Monroe and I am one of the bariatric coordinators with MidMichigan Health's surgical weight management program. At MidMichigan Health we take a team approach to offer the most comprehensive care possible. Our surgeons are trained in advanced laparoscopic bariatric surgery and have completed more than 3,000 bariatric surgeries since 2003. So at our treatment center we have a team approach, myself and my partners in our group that are trained in advanced laparoscopic and bariatric surgery. We have various experience office staff, skilled nurses, dietitians at the hospital as well as other hospital staff. We have various support groups as well. We have behavioral specialists, insurance specialists, medical specialists as well. Various medical specialists including cardiologists, pulmonologists, psychiatrists that have special training as far as treating patients with obesity. If you have not discussed bariatric surgery with your primary care physician, it is important that you do so. Your doctor must support your decision and be willing to work with you both before and after surgery. You will also be asked to obtain a letter of recommendation from your doctor. Once you and your primary care physician have decided bariatric surgery is the right option for you, it is time to take the next step to regaining your life. By viewing the online seminar and submitting the required information you have initiated the pathway to surgery. Once we receive your information we will call you to obtain any additional required information and determine if you qualify for surgery. At this time we will send you a packet of paperwork to complete and return to our office and we will forward you to one of our scheduling coordinators to schedule a consult with your surgeon. At your initial visit you will receive one-on-one consultation with one of our bariatric surgeons as well as a meeting with one of our bariatric coordinators. At this time you will be scheduled for your required clearances including a psychiatric evaluation and an endoscopy. Depending on your medical history you may need a cardiology or a pulmonary consult. The next steps in the process include attending a support group meeting and pre-op education class. We hold support group meetings once a week rotating through four convenient locations. It is required you attend one of these meetings before surgery and we highly recommend that you continue to attend these meetings as often as possible. The pre-op education class is scheduled two to four weeks before surgery and includes education from a registered dietitian about the pre and post-op diet requirements. The class also includes both a nursing and exercise component. This class is free of charge and is required again approximately four to six weeks after surgery and again at six months post-op. Once you have completed your required clearances and met your insurance requirements you will be ready to schedule a surgery date. Our surgeons currently perform surgery at two locations, MidMichigan Medical Center Grashet and MidMichigan Medical Center Midland. Both locations are accredited by the metabolic and bariatric surgery accreditation and quality improvement program. Some insurance companies may require their members have surgery at such a facility. If you're ready to take the next step with bariatric surgery please fill out the online patient information form and a member of our team will contact you within the next 24 to 48 hours. If you have additional questions please don't hesitate to contact your office at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Remember we are here for you every step of the way.