So now let's get into 2018 and what I plan on doing for this year which is basically my reason oh my god happy new year I completely forgot to say that so happy new year everyone I hope you guys are having a great start to 2018 hey hey there guys it's me looking back at again one another video and as you guys probably can all tell by the time this video it is our final video of 2017 and the reason why there's only one video today is actually I've been feeling like rubbish I'm pretty sure I've gone in the cold or maybe since yesterday since I did eight videos my throat is very sore and I don't want to ruin my throat by doing too much talking today so that's why I'm only doing this one video but yeah 2017 it's been an amazing year legit it's been one of my most favorite years ever and it's mainly because of you guys you guys have been absolutely awesome um and I just can't thank you guys enough because like you guys make my day with your comments and you guys just you guys are just awesome okay you guys are legit just like the best people on this planet I know every YouTuber says that but it's true like every YouTuber should be thankful for their subscribers but you guys are the best of course because uh everyone asked I don't get down there because uh we're the top I guess we're just so good I really need to thank of a fandom name for you guys because this is annoying me because I'm just like hey guys like that's come on man like Kevin Phillips he's got k squad bris he's got freaking bris gang freaking Dray he's got Dramas Kenny's got the chicken squad you know they're just like so many people have got freaking fandom names and I'm just here with guys so we need to think of something okay we need to think of something that you guys can be happy with and I'll be like hey hey there in the fandom name but yeah this year it's just been an amazing year I didn't even expect my channel to actually grow this much I was only expecting it to go at the rate that I was already growing at which was really slow because I've been doing YouTube for three years if you guys didn't know almost four in a few months I've almost been doing YouTube for four years so you know I've been in the game for a while it's just I haven't been in a strong game but yeah for three years I gained 600 subs and in this year we started growing and I was like holy moly this is freaking awesome and I go to know a lot of you guys on Twitter and stuff you know you guys should definitely follow me on Twitter because I communicate with a lot of you guys on Twitter we have nasty conversations like hi how are you that's a nasty combo but really it's just super fun communicating with you guys that's what I love the most like this community is awesome I'm actually glad I started doing kpop reaction videos because I was like oh the kpop paper the kpop community is an awesome community and I was like why don't we uh start building this community instead of trying to build my uh original community around call of duty because the call of duty community was let's just say very bad very very bad it's basically the immature 12 year olds and it's like uh I did your mom last night you know that was like the whole community and like everyone was just threatening everyone and stuff but here we still get people threatening each other but still we get a lot of love so that's what we like the love no but really a lot of you guys are freaking awesome and you have just made my year an amazing year and I'm surprised that about two videos not about two videos of mine reached 100k mark and almost another one reached 100k mark just the other day I didn't even realize my black pink so hot reaction video got 75,000 views I'm like wow so thank you everyone for just like watching my videos leaving a like leaving comments leaving dislikes because you're giving me a view you know just like thank you everyone that's been with me throughout all of 2017 I just love you guys so much okay I see that's a lot this video but I just love you guys so so much he hate my throat so now let's get into 2018 and what I plan on doing for this year which is basically my reason oh my god happy new year I completely forgot to say that so happy new year everyone I hope you guys uh having a great start to 2018 you know if you're smoking weed or drinking alcohol hanging out with your friends or doing what I'm doing staying home alone because all my family has gone out drinking and I'm like I want to do a youtube video and thank all my subscribers because they're freaking awesome and lovely people I wish you a new year happiness what yeah legit I decided to not go drinking tonight just so I can thank you guys with video but yeah for everyone that's doing what they're doing for new years I'm hoping you're having a fun time because you do you okay you just do you and you'll be happy okay just just do whatever you like doing okay I don't care what it is as long as you're happy I'm happy and for me that's making youtube videos so I'm happy about that but anyways our plans for 2018 are going to be fun so my major plan for 2018 which is my resolution really is to do daily uploads okay so that is the number one thing for this channel I want to do daily uploads and tell you guys every single day I'm going to try and do at least two videos but if I'm really but if I'm really really sick I will do only like one upload like kind of what I'm like today like my friend was kidding me I've coughed so much during this video it's just like cut it out after I do my sentences so yeah that's my first goal for 2018 to do daily uploads and I just can't wait to do that I'm going to be doing so many videos for you guys we're going to be having so much fun uh this is just just as legit just going to be freaking awesome I'm excited to do daily uploads and if I don't upload on a day um I don't know I should do a challenge I guess I should do a challenge like the day after for a video for a day that I missed out that sounds good actually so every time I miss a day of daily uploads we which I'm not going to do but if I do I will do a challenge and tweet the challenge is that me if I miss a day because I probably won't be able to see it in the youtube comments because I don't know I always check my youtube comments but sometimes I just like scroll through them and I miss a couple comments but I always check my twitter notifications okay so if you if I miss a day tweet at me a challenge you want me to do so my first goal for 2018 is actually to reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year so I reckon we can do this I reckon we can reach 100,000 subscribers we're almost up to 10,000 subscribers this year and I just started growing and I'm like you know well since we reached 10k almost 10k within a year why don't we go for 100k for the next year sounds good right that's like my major goal that I want to try and do in 2018 and now there's a couple other things I want to do within 2018 and that's one get my restricted license so that means I could drive around and I could potentially actually do vlogs if I do that because I could just be like oh let's go to this place for the day let's go hang out with my friends because I think I'll actually be able to do that if I get my license because instead of me walking everywhere which is a pain in the ass I could just drive there so that's going to be one of my goals for this year I want to get my restricted license so I can drive everywhere do vlogs have fun and it'll be awesome so that's one of the things I want to do and another one is to be more social on social media because the only because like the only social media that I'm really social well there's two it is YouTube I count this as a social media and also Twitter on both of those I am pretty social but I want to be more social on Twitter and I'm going to be doing daily uploads on YouTube so that's already going towards the being more social part but I want to use Instagram more I want to use Snapchat more I don't have a Facebook page because I don't know how it's probably pretty easy to do but I just haven't been bothered to do it so like I want to use Snapchat and Instagram more and also use my discord server so we can actually have talks like when I'm not doing any videos or anything like that that could be pretty fun so yeah that's basically all that I really want to do for 2018 I want to get my restricted reach 100,000 subscribers do daily uploads and be more social and social media and I'm also really interested to know what your guys goals and plans are for 2018 so oh I forgot to mention something I'm gonna start learning Korean in 2018 so maybe at least once a day for them study for about an hour I'm gonna learn Korean or maybe a bit more so I'm gonna be doing that for 2018 as well I don't know how I forgot to mention that now I'm learning Korean to help with my youtube video so the Korean people can actually understand what I'm saying so I could do Korean subs and also I do plan on going to Korea one day so it'll be nice to be able to communicate with the people over there and no just because I'm learning Korean doesn't mean I want to be a Korean boo god damn I don't want to be full Korean I just want to learn a language to help people out okay and then I can also understand songs when I'm doing reaction videos oh yeah but yeah I'm very interested to know what your guys goals and plans are for 2018 so comment them down below uh because you know it'll be awesome to know what you guys want to do for your year 2018 so it'll be a fun time for any of you guys's comments but uh yeah basically right now we're gonna be wrapping up our final video of 2017 and I'm actually pretty pretty sad and happy about this because we're about to open up a new chapter for our story and it's going to be awesome it's going to be awesome to see where this new chapter goes and all that stuff so I'm excited for 2018 to see what we do see how we grow see what mistakes we make so we can learn from them I'm very excited for this uh you guys are probably excited for your 2018 and see if you guys can nail your goals as well but uh yeah other than that this is going to be all this video that we guys did and join you guys to then definitely show some support by leaving a like for the last video of 2017 and comment down below your goals and plans for 2018 and also your favorite memory of me through 2017 if you guys are new or old just comment down below your favorite video that you've seen me do or my favorite tweet or anything like that throughout 2017 and uh also subscribe guys in the new to the channel because there'll be more videos like this where we just you know communicate one on one there'll also be more reactions more vlogs and all that stuff coming to you in 2018 so yeah other than that I hope you guys have a great day and just keep on smiling and adios amigos


Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of our VGC 2019 guide series, we're going to be continuing on this guide series today looking at a brand new Pokemon that we've now got access to in the Ultra series, I'm really excited to get into this one today so sit back, chill out and I hope you enjoy the episode where we're going to be taking a look at Mega Gengar. So welcome to today's episode guys, I hope you're all doing well and thank you so much for tuning in, as I mentioned at the start of the video, we're going to be looking at Mega Gengar in today's VGC 2019 guide. It's going to be a lot of fun, it's a new Pokemon that we've got access to, it's super powerful, super strong and it's got a lot of potential and there's a lot of wriggle room with how you can utilise it in this format. You don't need to just go down a standard 252 to 252 route, there are a lot of options here with Mega Gengar and we'll try and approach a few of those today to give you some examples to go away with. As always there will be sample teams, they're all in the description below, we'll get to them as we go through the guide, but without further ado let's jump into this one. And as always guys, if you do enjoy this content please remember to leave a like on the video, make sure you do subscribe to the channel for more Pokemon content and leave your comments in the comment section below. Let me know what your thoughts are on Mega Gengar in the Ultra Series. So as always we're going to start off with a Pokemon overview, we can see here we've got Mega Gengar on your screen looking all big, bad and mean. It's got the ability Shadow Tag, so whenever a Pokemon with Shadow Tag is active on the field it prevents all opposing Pokemon from manually switching out. That means if you're out on the field and Mega Gengar is active then that Shadow Tag is active and you cannot change your board position with the Pokemon that you've got out on the field. Unless they are a ghost type, so if they're a ghost type they are immune to the Shadow Tag ability, they can switch in, switch out as much as they want. And the other way to get around it is with pivoting moves, things like U-Turn, things like Vault Switch, they will allow your Pokemon to attack, but at the same time they can attack into something and pivot out so you can get them out of harm's way and bring something in that has maybe got a bit of a better matchup against Mega Gengar. Parting Shot along with that as well is another option there. So Pokemon Details, obviously it's going to be Mega Gengar. It is a poison and ghost type, it's Pokemon ability. First body before it does Mega Evolve and then Shadow Tag when it does Mega Evolve and it's got a base speed of 130. Some important points there just to keep in mind. Based at totals you've got 60 HP, 65 attack, 80 defense, 170 special attack, 95 special defense and 130 speed. So it's got a phenomenal speed stat. It's going to be one of the fastest Pokemon that we've got access to in this format. And then you can see the next stat in line is going to be that special attack, 170 base special attack. A phenomenal power that it's going to have to be able to just throw out those special type attacks, predominantly what it will use and do some real damage to opponents, especially with the ability Shadow Tag and being able to trap them and deny them ability to switch out into something that maybe resists those poison and ghost type attacks that Gengar will throw out. The drawbacks with Mega Gengar as with normal Gengar are it's a bit of a glass cannon. It's not the strongest defensively and that's 60, 80 and 95 defensive distribution there. It won't be able to take attacks like some of the other Mega Pokemon in this format. But it is compensated by its speed and its attack that do make up for it there. It's type strengths and weaknesses. You're going to see it is weak to ground, ghost, psychic and dark. So some pretty bad weaknesses that it's got there. All types that are quite popular in this format. Immunities to normal in fighting. And then it's got some nice resists there. Poison, bug, grass and probably the biggest one there being fairy. So there is a basic overview of Mega Gengar. Now we'll jump into our first sample set to kick us off today. So sample set number one, we're always going to have to have that Gengar out because we need to Mega Evolve into Mega Gengar. Without it we won't be unable to. With this sample set we're going max speed. So it's going to hit that raw speed stat of 200. And that concludes that we're going to have to have a timid nature with that. EV spread, nothing complicated here. Just simple, straightforward. 4 HP, 252 special attack, 252 speed. We want to just be maximising that speed stat, maximising the damage I've put here with this Mega Gengar. And then a move set, we went for Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb there. Kind of going to be a stables on this sort of move set. I've chosen Hidden Power Water here because it is something that we're commonly seeing players use, especially when paired up alongside that Kyoga for the rain to switch in and then disrupt the desolate land on Primal Groudon. Especially if you've got a trapped in and then just Hidden Power Water and pick up a quick knock out there. Protect something that you're going to need to help kind of manoeuvre your board positions and just give Gengar a little bit more protection. Especially if you need something in next to it to protect it against a certain threat. You can see from offensive calculation examples here that we've got your 252 Special Attack Mega Gengar. Hidden Power Water versus a 252 HP, no special defense Primal Groudon in the heavy rain. It's always going to be a one hit kill. And you can see it's by a considerable margin here.  And then the defensive calculation, although we haven't really invested in defense, you can still see that a minus one, two, five, two Attack Mega Rayquaza Dragon Ascend versus this particular Gengar is always going to be a two hit kill. So as long as you can guarantee getting an Intimidate onto your Poison Rayquaza, you can sit in front of it and take a Dragon Ascend pretty comfortably. You're not going to be in good shape going into the following turn, but if it means that you're able to get an Attack Off onto, say, a Partnering Pokemon or even a nice Wind onto the Rayquaza because you're immune to the Extreme Speed, it does put you in a bit of a better position. Restricted Partners that we're going to look at with Mega Gengar to start us off with are going to be things like Evelta, Kyoga and Rayquaza. Now, Evelta and Kyoga are a really nice pairing here because Evelta gives protection against all of those opposing Ghost types that Gengar has issues with. It also has a nice switching to Dark types that Gengar doesn't like to deal with. And then you've got the Kyoga there which pairs nicely with that Hidden Power Water and have that combination there. Rayquaza is another one that you could also pair alongside Mega Gengar but because you've got the Dual Mega, you have to consider that if you're building your team and if it's going to suit or not because sometimes you may want to bring the Mega Gengar and it's going to mean that you're kind of restricted in certain aspects because you can't mega the Rayquaza and get as much potentially out of it as you would otherwise. Non-restricted Partners you're going to look at. It's something that's picking up a lot of popularity with Gengar. It does give it that nice protection against those electric type attacks especially from namely Tapa Coco there. Incineroar is going to be another one, another staple that you're going to see quite commonly with Gengar. It does offer Intimidate Support, Faker Support and it's also got that nice Dark typing that protects it from opposing Ghost types and a nice switching to Dark types a bit like how the Evelta performs and then another option you're going to see is Bronzong. So Bronzong has a levitate ability so it does nullify a little bit that ground weakness set and I switch in if you've got a ground type Pokemon out in front of Gengar and you want to just alleviate that switch the Bronzong in and it also gives you a different mode speed control because Bronzong predominantly going to be a trick room set so having that kind of mode where you can just switch things up get your trick room up and get something like Kyogre in which is going to be Slower and Bulkier to operate under that and then you've got two nice modes to your team so you've got two ends of the spectrum there really fast one, really slow one. Pokemon checks you're going to see things like Incineroar going to be really difficult for Gengar to deal with doesn't really want to sit in front of them especially if you're considering that the Incineroar might have the Incinium Z the Z move there which can just pick up a one hit kill pretty easily Evelta goes without saying it's going to be something else that does threaten Gengar pretty heavily and then Primal Groudon as well if it can get itself positioned where you can't get your rain up or the Kyogre has been gone then that him power water can't really touch you anymore and Groudon is going to have a really easy time because of those super effective ground attacks that it can throw out at Gengar so that is the first sample set it's very straightforward but does a nice job it puts on a lot of pressure against a pausing Pokemon and makes it very difficult for your opponent to kind of maneuver their board positions around as long as Gengar's alive and kicking on your side of the field with that Shadow Tag ability right we'll move into our second sample set now which is going to be another timid set we're going again with Max Speed because one of the things you go to consider with mega Gengar is that it has got such a high base speed so taking advantage of that takes out a lot of the Pokemon in the format making sure that you can hit them before they can hit you and you know that is a good old saying in Pokemon if you can hit the opposing Pokemon before they can hit you and you can knock them out before they can knock you out then most of the time you're going to win a battle I know it sounds really straightforward but it is you know the basis of most Pokemon games so maximising that speed here is a very important thing I think for Gengar most of the time you can sacrifice that and we'll get into that a little bit later in this guide series but for this set we're just going to keep that Max Speed Timid 252 speeds that with a distribution elsewhere of 92 HP, 44 defense 100 special attack and 20 special defense now for the move set here you can interchange things you've got sludge bomb, shadow ball, icy wind or taunt or even disable here if you're playing something like Whimsicott that we've got listed next to it here you can have that on cold disable combination that is so devastating for opponents to deal with and then protect again as we mentioned previously how important protect is on mega Gengar just to prolong that shadow tag for as long as possible to make sure you can get a board position to really stop pressuring your opponent's Pokemon and getting yourself into a great position before Gengar actually does go down now taunt is a very nice option you've seen a lot of players use that now that's a good way to shut down set a Pokemon, especially things like Zerneus maybe even Smeagol, stop that from being able to just really lovely kiss or spoil targets on your side of the field or even icy wind there's a nice form of speed control as well in Gengar that we've seen do so well in previous format now we'll move on to offensive calculation just to give you an idea of what this EV spread can do so 100 special attack mega Gengar helping her and shadow ball this is a 4 HP, no special defense shadow shield, Lunala is a guaranteed one hit kill so if you're pairing it up with something like that Whimsicott and Whimsicott has got help in hand there's always that option there to go with the help in hand shadow ball, turn 1 you can't be faked out because help in hand obviously has that priority bracket at higher than fake out so it'll always go before it and Gengar cannot be faked out anyway unless there's something like a scrappy canvas card or a scrappy lawpony sitting in front of you which you can easily identify so you've got that option to always be able to remove Lunala from the field as easy as that now the defensive calculation here is a 252 attack plus so an adamant parental bond mega Kangascon sucker punch versus this particular Gengar has got a 0.4% chance to 1 hit chaos so as long as you're full health you've got the safety knowing that you're going to be able to take that sucker punch from a mega Kangascon so that's pretty nice there and that is the double hit as well restricted part is you're going to see with this particular Gengar there are more options you can consider with mega Gengar things like Primal Groudon, Zornius and also tagged in there Zygarde as well so Primal Groudon will appreciate being able to have things trapped in so it can come in safely it doesn't have to worry about Kyogre switching in on it to disrupt its weather threaten it and it'll be able to set up maybe a substitute sword stance and start throwing out some big damage same goes for Zornius, you know a lot of players if you can catch them out with board positions they get Zornius in and they can't switch in their checks for it you can get set up pretty easily and then start cutting through the Pokemon that you want to be able to deal with leaving the counters in the back for you to kind of deal with after you've dealt with the present threats and then Zygarde there kind of acts a little bit like Groudon but it does appreciate being able to trap things in and get itself set up before those said threats come in when Zygarde is probably in a much better position after boosting up so it can deal with those a little bit better especially with some Gengar support next to it then non-restricted partner as you're going to see Celestila Celestila is a really interesting one it's got the ground immunity obviously and it's got the psychic immunity with that steel typing as well so it's a really nice switching from a Gengar and helps it with a flurry of support options there like wide guard and just leech seed just to really slow the game down and disrupt your opponent and make it very difficult for them to kind of deal with that sort of threat so it's got a nice partner for Gengar in general and then Tap of Finny obviously with the Misty Terrain going to be very useful kind of pairs nicely with Gengar and then we've already mentioned the Whimsicott offer speed control as well and then has that on-core help in hand support there that would be really beneficial for something like Gengar just to help maximise its potential and disruption in games then you're going to have Pokemon checks some things that I've just thrown in there going to be Megagarados, definitely one of them the Gengar needs to look out for Dark type, we'll be able to do some big damage and you're going to find it hard to out-damage Gyarados because of how bulky it actually is once it does mega-evolve alone in Persians picking up a lot of popularity at the moment so that's something that you need to watch out for and maybe not so popular but something you definitely don't really want to be sitting in front of for too long is going to be that Manderbuzz with its Dark Flying typing as well so that is our second sample set of the episode and we will move on to our third sample set which is going to be a little bit different now we've went for a really straightforward one in this guide so far, we've went for a little bit of a bulkier one that can still perform quite well with some additional support like Helping Hand but now we're going for a really extremely bulky one that can take quite a lot of attacks and it is going to catch your opponent off guard, it's going to be quite surprising for them so we've got a calm nature here, we've got raw speeds that have 158 so out-speeding all of those base 90 max speed primals just getting the jump on those and the one thing that you have to really consider if you are slung Gengar down and bulking it out, it's making sure that you are identifying the benchmarks this is an example of what you can do with Gengar so identify your speed benchmark and then adjust from there identify the things that you want to be able to calc against, so let's say you wanted to be able to calc against a Dragon Ascent from Omega Requaza okay well let's see what you can do to tweak these EVs to make sure that you can survive that attack and then let's have a look at what we can do to the speed stat to hit that benchmark can you add speed or max speed base 100 can you add speed or max speed base 110s if you can't add speed the 110s and you can add speed the 100s what can we do to alleviate the weakness that you've now got to those 110s and that's how you need to work around it you need to set yourself benchmarks when you're doing EV spreads and then work to those goals if you can achieve them if not you have to re-evaluate those goals and maybe change things up there maybe you'll get to a point as well where you think I can't actually reach this goal I can reach this goal but it's not really worth it in the grand scheme of things and it's not going to work as well as it can in a game so that's when you have to maybe rethink and go back and you know a lot of the time players will say oh it's just 252 252 but look at what it's doing because sometimes that's all you need because you needed to hit hard you needed to hit fast you needed to pick up certain kills where it might be missing them out otherwise so going for those spreads isn't the worst thing in the world but as long as you're hitting your benchmarks as long as you're hitting those knockouts that you need to do then it's all justified but getting back to this spread here because that was a little bit of an insight that we went on a bit of a tangent so we've got a raw speed stat of calm nature on this we're going a bit slower bulkier and you can see from this 168 speed stat they were going to be outspeeding all max speed base 100 pokemon so guaranteed to outspeed all of them and anything below that so that's a lot of your restricted pokemon in that speed bracket that you'll be outspeeding EV spread here we've got 108 HP 196 defense 20 special attack 140 speed we've got a move set of sludge bomb shadow ball, icy wind, taunt, disable there's willowiz, pinpower, water there's so many different options and even trick room is an option to play on this gengar if your team can and will benefit from it and then obviously to protect so an offensive calculation example here for this specific gengar is a 20 special attack invested mega gengar sludge bomb versus a 4 HP no special defense so that's a pretty nice calculation just to have in the bank especially because it's a pokemon that just threaten you so heavily and then a defensive calc just so you know it's going to be a 252 attack so a jolly mega requiser dragon ascend versus this particular mega gengar is always going to be a 2 hit kill so you can sit in front of that mega requiser and just know that you're able to take that dragon ascend with or without an intimidate on that opposing one, restricted partners again you're going to see things like eval tol groudon and zernius all really benefit from that mega gengar and it's trapping ability and then non-restricted partners as well stack attacker acts a little bit like the bronzong although it doesn't have the ground immunity there but just gives you an extra mod to the team especially if it's carrying the trick room then togo tomorrow and komo all is something that we've seen in past formats do really well with mega gengar again it goes along the same lines as zernius and other set of pokemon that want to sit in get set up, deny the things that really counter those set up options for yourself and then start the sweep from there, things that are going to check and be very dangerous for mega gengar and you need to be very careful of things like tabulele, it is tending to be scarfed in this format especially at the early stages of this metagame mega muti y another pokemon that will just naturally outspeed mega gengar and do some big damage to it and then lunala as well with that cheva shield ability we saw in one of the previous sample sets that you need help and hand support to make sure you get the knockout through that shadow shield ability that lunala carries so if you don't have access to that or a way to chip the shadow shield before gengar attacks then you are going to be in a little bit of trouble because it will be able to take the shadow ball otherwise so there are some sample sets this is a bit more of a different one, a little bit of a bulky one but hopefully it gives you an idea of what you can do with gengar and how you can manipulate it to perform a different role in the team although still being very effective at what it does and what you need it to do we'll jump in next and take a look at some sample teams that I've got for you guys to take away and get you started with mega gengar in this format, you're going to see the first one here mega gengar primal groudon, primal kayaga tapu koko, incineroar and bronzon so it's a mixed dual primal team here with the mega gengar being able to trap your opponents in and then dictate the weather whichever one sees fit and then we've got the sample set number two which is going to be mega gengar primal groudon, incineroar tapu finni and kartana and then the third sample set which is going to be a dual mega team with the mega gengar, the primal kayaga the mega requiser is an option there talk about incineroar and celesteela so there's some nice sample teams for you guys to try out take away, get used to mega gengar and maybe it will inspire some further ideas for you all but all the teams are down in the description below and do let me know if you do try them out what your thoughts are on those teams so we'll finish up with a counter table and summary of gengar, so we can see that it is a poison ghost type we've already covered the shadow tag ability max speed it can hit is 200, minimum speed it can hit minus nature is 121 and the common speed that you're going to see on mega gengar is always probably going to be that 200 raw speed stat so there the benchmarks that you need to note down make sure that you have things that are faster than that possible of being faster than it in certain situations and things that are slower than it if you are going down a trick remoot to easily deal with it and stop it being such a problem for you and the rest of your pokemon support checklist if you're playing mega gengar you're going to need speed control it is very fast but the likelihood is your opponent knows this and they're going to try and get their speed control going as quick as possible to try and give them advantage going forward so you need counter measures to that and with that intimate support we've seen how vulnerable and frail mega gengar is so having that intimate support alongside it is so useful you're going to need dark ghosts, psychic and ground checks and switches in for those as well to really alleviate those weaknesses there redirection is always very helpful especially against those type threats that are normally single target attacks and then pivot support as well which allows you to switch out and gain a better position protecting gengar and also making better use of that shadow tag ability that it does carry now pokemon threats you're going to have to keep an eye on for eveltil prime suspect number one here because it is going to give gengar all sorts of issues as access to sucker punch and all those other dark types attacks that will be doing so much damage to gengar you're going to have tapulele we've already mentioned predominantly going to be scarfed in this format and will add speed with the scarf mega gengar so you need to be very careful around that mega gengars are going to be a problem as well if you want to risk the speed tie there then be my guest but it's going to be very difficult to get around opposing mega gengars you could go down a route you can calc to survive in opposing mega gengar shadow ball so you can always return with your own shadow ball and pick up the kill but then you've got to ask your question is it worth it for what you need gengar to be doing in a battle not just for that one particular pokemon then you've got a lulan persian mega mutu y and lunala are things that we've already mentioned pokemon walls, incineroar definitely going to be one of them so bulky going to be able to take a flurry of sludge bombs from you and return with some very devastating dark type attacks you're going to have primal ground on primal kyle guard put in there as well because it's so especially defensively bulky it is going to be able to take whatever attack from gengar pretty easily and then return with some big powerful water type attacks do have the potential to pick up a knockout if you're not careful mandibos also going to be something to worry about zygote especially with those ground type attacks and then mega garados so they are the pokemon threats pokemon walls just some examples to give you guys and I hope this has been an intuitive guide and really useful for you going forward with mega gengar now it's a very strong pokemon that we've got access to in this format and it's a very unique one with that shadow tag ability being able to pin your opponent in and not allow them to switch out and then gain an advantage on your side of the field by switching in something that deals with both of them it's just remarkable so it's something to be aware of something to really try and make yourself in games because other players will be and make sure you've got counter measures to dealing with mega gengar how you're going to adapt to that remember when does mega revolve that first turn from gengar into mega gengar that's your opportunity to switch out because the shadow tag isn't active until it has mega revolve when that turn starts so make sure you do switch out or have pivots in place that can pivot out and then get something else and it's better equipped at dealing with mega gengar but I hope you've enjoyed today's guide guys and leave a like on the video as I mentioned earlier do subscribe to the channel for more pokemon content and as always leave your comments down in the comment section below let me know what your thoughts are of mega gengar in the ultra series I would love to hear from you all and get your opinions if you've been playing already in this format so we're going to wrap things up there guys we'll be back with another guide very soon thank you so much for tuning in have a great day and I will see you all for the next one until then guys take care and bye bye


We investigated whether using different VMA trading rules could improve investment performance. Our study found that the NASDAQ 100 index outperformed the DJ30 index when measured by annualized returns. Additionally, we discovered that weekly data outperformed daily data when compared with the same time frame. This research provides valuable insight into how investors can use VMA trading rules to maximize their returns on index ETFs. Furthermore, it offers a unique perspective on the performance of these indices by presenting the results in a heat map matrix, which has not been previously explored or presented in the relevant literature. This article was authored by Yusin Chen, Pau Yu-Huan, Minya Day, and others.


So I spent most of yesterday on the Fisher Pro Mountain ATTI, skied it a lot longer than some of the other skis, so maybe that's why I just got really into it, but yeah, it was great everywhere, all over the mountain in powder, even though it's 18 mil waist, it was still quite poppy, you can jump your turns in the powder, the float was still there, and then when you get onto the piece that 18 mil waist just makes it really versatile, really easy to ski on. I skied a long run and I could ski off-piece in powder conditions, the skis are very responsive, easy flotation, really easy turning sessions, and after jump off-piece, quite hard pack, especially here in the last part, it's quite icy, and the skis very responsive, very grip, no flapping at all. Amazing for that intermediate, fit intermediate, upper intermediate skier, it's really easy, really fun, really for us, the greatest skis killer. Yeah, I think the Fisher Pro Mountain ATTI is great for someone looking for their first ski to start using all over, but as it says all over the mountain really, so pro mountain, it's because of the way it's quite versatile, a lot of people are kind of put off by slightly wider skis, but with this, it skis like a piece on piece, and then it's just got a little bit of flow, a tiny little bit of extra width for going off-piece if you want to start trying off-piece. I'm always looking for Bersa Tyler skis, and from the first moment I feel like that Bersa did it, perfect for alpine or touring bandings. The band tour is all around, amazing, big, big surprise.


Hi everyone, I'm excited to be here at QCon North America and today we're going to tell you about one of the CNCF-6, CNCF-6 runtime. We hope you can learn about the SIG and maybe you get excited about contributing to the SIG or also contributing to one of the projects in the SIG. So, SIG Runtime is there to enable the successful and widespread execution for all kinds of workloads and that includes any latency-sensitive type of workload or any type of batch workload or even some really specialized workloads that are maybe related to specific hardware like CPUs or FPGAs and all of them with cloud data environments in mind. We have two TOC liations, CNCF TOC, currently we also have three chairs and also a tech lead. Our meetings are every first and third Thursday of every month and we meet at 8 a.m. Pacific time. Our communication channels are the email list and also we have a Slack channel. So, what is it? So, SIG Runtime is at the forefront of the cloud-native space. So, we want to reach out to new and exciting projects within the SIG Runtime scope. I want to help increase that contribution to those projects and also contributions to the CNCF and we also want to support some of those existing projects or other projects that help navigate that CNCF universe. There are many projects in the CNCF and it can be quite confusing about which projects are needed for what or what the capabilities are for each one of these projects. We also interact with other relevant SIGs. So, we interact with SIGs that are in different technology spaces like SIG observability or SIG app delivery or other SIGs like SIG contribution strategy which helps projects set up a framework on how to grow and how to become more popular and get more contributions. Another one of our goals is to educate and users and also educate the community on the projects, on the technologies and some of the other SIGs and also the CNCF. So, in the scope of the SIG, we have several projects. Some of them are in different stages in the CNCF. Some of them are not even in the CNCF. Here are some examples of these projects. For example, Container D or Cryo for Runtimes or K3S and Kubernetes for workload or orchestration or you have Cube Edge to run workloads at the edge and so forth. So, we also have different areas with where these projects actually fitting. You have the general workload or orchestration area and Kubernetes, K3S, Volcano are in this area. They allow you to run workloads in cloud data environments. Metal3 or MetalCube.io also is another project that allows you to provision bare metal machines and that's also in that space. A different area or scope of the SIG is the containers, runtimes or VMs type of projects. And in this scope or in this area, we have runtimes like Cryo or Container D. We also have things like WebAssembly. In this example, we have Wasm3, which is a runtime, or WA-SCC, which is WebAssembly Secure Capabilities Connector. And we also have Container Image Registry projects like Harbor. Another space is the Operating Systems for Containers. And two examples of these are Flat Car and Talos. Very lightweight operating systems that are meant to be just for running containers. Then the SIG is also interested in projects or has an interest in the ML Ops, Edge, and AI type of space. There are also some projects that are in that area, for example, Seldom Core that allows you to serve your machine learning models. We have Cube Edge, which is currently in incubation in the CNCF. And we have something like Fogflow, which is similar to Cube Edge that allows to run workloads at the edge. And then we're also interested in workgroups. We currently have one workgroup. And as we get more contributors, we would like to have more. But our current workgroup is the Container Orchestrated Device workgroup. And we know we'll talk about this in the presentation. So in the general workload orchestration area, we have a few projects. So one of the projects is Volcano currently in Sandbox.  You can run different kinds of workloads with scheduling mechanisms. For example, it provides gang scheduling. It helps you with TensorFlow training. It has custom resource definitions and Kubernetes that allows you to substitute the standard job mechanism and Kubernetes with its own job mechanism that is richer and has more capabilities. You can also use this project to run batch type of processing using specialized hardware like GPUs or FPGAs. And also helps you to handle some of the errors for some of these batch workloads. Currently, this project is in Sandbox. Another interesting project is Cata. And that's Kubernetes event driven auto scaling. And this project allows you allows you to auto scale your pods or containers and resources, say in your Kubernetes cluster based on events. And these events can be anything, maybe in a cloud provider service, like an AWS queue mechanism, or a Kafka queue that triggers some events or some topics, or maybe you have a database trigger that some data actually gets stored in the database or some message gets passed through a database. So multiple events can be actually seen. And then you cannot scale your Kubernetes cluster or Kubernetes pods based on these events. Typically, it helps to scale function pods. So it actually works in that serverless space. It is vendor agnostic and supports multiple cloud cloud providers and plugins. Another project that is currently in Sandbox in the CNCF is MetalQ.io. Essentially, this project allows you to provision bare metal machines. And your cloud provider like Amazon, where you may have bare metal machines, or just your data center or your colo where you have your own machines. It makes use of Kubernetes itself to provision these machines. With using the cluster API, another Kubernetes project, it allows you to provision all these nodes. It could be Kubernetes nodes running on bare metal. So it allows you to provision the components like the kubelet and everything that you need to run in a Kubernetes node. Another project that presented in the SIG is node resource interface. This project allows you to manage resources in Kubernetes nodes. It's an interface for manage these resources. And what are these resources? When you talk about container level resources, you talk about CPU slices or memory slices, or even devices on these nodes. So this is a standard way to manage some of these resources and target it for things like Kubernetes. It actually builds on what the container network interface has. So the container network interface or CNI has this plugin mechanism. So it uses the same idea of having plugins for the different resources for each one of these nodes. It's a container D sub project and it's still in the works. So a lot of stuff going on. This was started by folks working at Apple right now. And I think it's just early, but it will soon have more developments. So in the runtime, in VMs and container space, there are some other projects. So you have Harbor, which graduated a few months ago. It's a container image registry and just not a regular, a regular container registry, which is the single process. It's a multi fold tolerant container registry, where it allows you to store your metadata in a system, high availability systems, it allows you to have a caching system with Redis. It also allows you to store and multiple nodes using physical volumes. So it allows you to set your container registry behind a low balancer. So full scale container registry currently in graduation or graduated. So interesting project. It's very mature project now. Another interesting project that presented in our meeting is Lupin. And this is an operating system or a kernel or a mini kernel, I would say that it sits between what a unit kernel is and a regular kernel or a regular Linux kernel is. So the idea behind unit kernels is that you package everything together with your application, your system calls your kernel, everything together, and you just run it. And that can be very costly in terms of the tooling and it's just not available out there. So this project, it's a different take on that, where it actually strips down a regular Linux kernel. And it makes a really lightweight. And so when you run, it actually doesn't take a lot of time to boot up. But at the same time, it's compatible with the most important or the most popular types of workloads like databases, like run times for languages. So you can run most of your workloads and you don't need to prepackage everything. And at the same is very lightweight. As opposed to a regular kernel, regular kernel can just run everything. You will have some limitations here. But again, you're trying to address more of the more popular applications that you may run. This is targeted more towards serverless type of workloads, where you maybe want to instantiate a VM with a very lightweight kernel, just to run a function. So cloud providers have some of these with something like Firecracker, but they don't necessarily have something like Lupin, that is a very lightweight kernel. That allows you to run, for example, like an AWS Lambda function, very quickly, or not just one, but like many, many of them at the same time and instantiating them and then tearing them down. So another interesting project that presented is WASCC, which is WebAssembly Secure Capabilities Connector. And there's been a lot of buzz about WebAssembly and how that's actually going to be used to run cloud native environments in the future. And the reason for that is that WebAssembly is a very transferable format. It can actually be run on the web, on web browsers, but it can also be run on systems provided there's a runtime. So it's just like a binary, kind of like you have a Java binary that is interchangeable between what you can run on the web, and then you can also run on just regular systems. So this project allows you to connect all of these WebAssembly modules that you may have, but each one of them having very unique capabilities that are very granular. So you may have just a module that talks directly to your database, but you may also have a module that implements your business logic. So you can couple these these WebAssembly modules together with something like WA, WA SEC. And these are just an example of two WebAssembly modules, but you may want to actually connect hundreds of these different WebAssembly modules in cloud native environments. So the idea here is to facilitate the connection between these modules and allow you to run a full blown cloud native application on a full or a full set of multiple microservices. The other scope that the SIG is actually having presentations for is the operating systems for containers space. Talos is another project that presented. And it's a modern operating system that is very lightweight, and it's just meant to run containers. It's minimal, it's immutable. It allows you only to interact with it using just regular APIs, not just, you know, by SSHing or doing an SSH connection to the operating system. But this external way of interacting just using APIs. And the philosophy here is that you have more security but you have more control of what can happen inside that operating system. And you can do things like MTLS, mutual authentication. You reduce unknown factors with immutable infrastructure. So the idea is to simplify your infrastructure to run containers. Another project is that presented is Flatcar. And Flatcar is an evolution of CoreOS. CoreOS just reached the end of life. And this is a continuation of CoreOS with more capabilities. They've actually gotten a lot of adoption, just because CoreOS also reached end of life. And they're not necessarily an API based operating system. But the idea is the same behind CoreOS that you want to have this lightweight operating system just for running containers.  Currently, it's getting a lot more popularity and it keeps on growing. The other space where the SIG actually has had presentations is the Edge Machine Learning or MLOP space or AI or artificial intelligent type, intelligence type workloads. For that, we have a project that is actually an incubation. It's called Cube Edge. And Cube Edge allows you to run workloads at the edge, but also manage through a centralized location using Kubernetes. So everything runs on top of Kubernetes. You have this cloud core component, the central Kubernetes location. And then you have the edge core component running at the edge where your CubeNet runs, where you actually run your workloads. And that edge component also talks to all these different devices that may be gathering information at the edge. You may have transmitters, sensors, cameras, Bluetooth devices, anything that may be actually gathering data at the edge. So the core, another project, not in the CNCF per say, but they had a presentation in our meeting. And they allowed you to serve machine learning models using either a REST API or a GRPC API. So you will build your model with some kind of tool. They also have another tool themselves to build it, or you could use something like Qflow. And then once you build that model, you need to serve it. And that serving means creating that inference graph or inference on the fly. It supports this very simple inference graph, but it also supports this very complex inference graph if you have this really complex machine learning modules. Interesting project. We have also some other projects coming up that are presented and that we actually reached out to. So we have Watson 3, which is a WebAssembly runtime. We have Crow, which is container image registry. We have Qflow for running the whole pipeline of machine learning type of workloads. Beringnet allows you to run Raspberry Pi type of workloads at the edge using AI. Reach out maybe to Cloud Kernels, which is a team working on different Cloud Kernels, so the minimizing kernel type of projects. And Crosslet, it's another project from Microsoft that helps you run WebAssembly modules on Kubernetes. So it allows you to substitute that kubelet with WebAssembly module. And then that can talk to Kubernetes and be managed by Kubernetes. So lots of interesting stuff. And I think that's about it that I have for the SIG itself. And now I'll hand it off to Renault and he will talk about the container orchestrator workgroup. Thank you, Ricardo. Let's talk about the container orchestrated device workgroup, or CAD workgroup. We are a small group of device vendors, container runtime, maintainers and contributors, as was given in SIG members. The problems that we're trying to solve is related to the fact that we've seen an exponential usage of devices in the past five years. From AI, machine learning, deep learning to network data plan or encryption, decryption acceleration, devices such as FPGAs, GPUs, NICs, or even ASICs have become quite ubiquitous in the data center. And so the charm of the workgroup is really to enable device support across the cognitive space. What that means is that we're trying to enable these new workloads. We're trying to make it so that you as a user or cluster administrator have a production experience. And being as users as well as vendors and cluster administrators, we have a feel for what the problems are. And so we've actually set up a roadmap that is kind of layered so that you can build on top of each brick. The first problem that we're trying to solve really is the ability to actually expose a device to a container runtime. And the reason we're trying to solve that problem first is that the space is very fragmented. Kubernetes has a concept of device plugin, while Nomad has its own concept of device plugin, very different. Dunker has a concept of entry plugin mechanism, while Pawnman has a concept of hooks, and Alexi has even its own concept of hooks. And all these different or all these differences across the space makes it very difficult for vendors to provide a uniform experience for users across these different projects. And that makes it very difficult to provide some features or the same features across these projects, meaning that some projects have different capabilities than others. And so the next problem that you want to solve or that we want to be able to solve is that when you are offloading computer a task to the device, one of the main reason you are doing that is speed. And choosing the right CPU, choosing the right memory, choosing the right mic, or choosing the right device is very important. If you have the wrong CPU and the wrong device, it can sometimes destroy your performance and nullify the effect of actually offloading the computer to another device. The last problem, when you are in a data center, and you have, for example, tasks that need to be spread across multiple nodes, tasks that need to talk to each other, most of the time, you want these nodes to be close to each other, and for example, on the same racks. And so figuring out where the right knobs, where the right policies, where the right extension points is very important. It's a hard problem, but it's a very exciting problem. And so the first problem that we tackled, as mentioned on our roadmap, is really the ability to expose a device to a container. And our answer to that is CDI, the container device interface. It's a unified plugin architecture for runtimes. It's based on CNI, the container network interface. And it basically tells the runtime what are the devices that are available on the node. And what are the operations that the runtime needs to perform to expose the device. And so here on the slide, what you can see is that we have one device vendor, vendor.com slash device or one device kind. And it exposes one single device, my device. And the operation that must be performed here is to expose to device node and slash dev. And so from a user perspective, what this really means is instead of typing my container run dash dash device dev, my card, and dash dash device dev, my card render. What you'll be typing is really just Docker, or my container runtime run dash dash device, my device, and then my image and my CNI command. From a roadmap perspective, we've created this roadmap to give you a feel for where we are and where we're going. We are still in the stage zero. We are building POCs. We have two POCs on platform and in container D. We are still building these formal spec, whether in go and in writing. And we are talking about the idea with different people. What we're hoping to achieve probably and hopefully by the end of the year is the integration and run times maybe as an alpha feature is the ability or the Kubernetes cap. And the intersection or talking about CDI and how it can enable other powerful IDs such as networking or storage. And the direction that we're going really is integration with many run times and having multiple plugins built on top of us. And so we've decided to plant a one oh flag saying that this, this will be stable. This will be one oh as an API. When we have two run times, they're using it when we have more than three plugins. And when we are better in Kubernetes, giving a feeling for users that this is the feature that is actually going in in a direction that is adoption. And so that's CDI. But don't let CDI discourage you. The Cod World Group still has a ton of huge IDs and exciting IDs that haven't been thought through completely. And we'd be super happy to have people contribute just to have a different opinion and a different view of how these IDs should be addressed. We'd be also super happy if you want to give us some feedback on what we've built. And if you think that there's an intersection with your ID, we'd be happy to hear from you. If you want to integrate or build on top of CDI or our IDs, feel free to just drop by and we'd be happy to hear from you. And that's it. That was the CIG Runtime presentation. Go on cncf.io to see CIG Runtimes description. You can join the Slack. You can also look up the GitHub that has a lot of information. And we have bi-weekly meetings on Thursdays. Feel free to join the CIG Runtime bi-weekly meetings. Join our community and give us some feedback. Thanks a lot.


The U.S. and TikTok's parent company ByteDance are back to negotiating over how it will operate in the U.S., create a separate U.S. subsidiary that would be managed by a three-person board selected by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. The objections to Project Texas often are that it gives the U.S. government too much control over TikTok. All U.S. data has been moved on to Oracle servers, so U.S. data is no longer in Singapore. It feels like we're maybe past the knee-jerk band TikTok era. The interesting thing about Project Texas is that it almost feels like we're getting a U.S. run, U.S.-sponsored social network out of this that's owned by China and run by, presumably, whoever's in charge of the executive branch of the United States government at any given moment, which is... I'm uncomfortable with that for an entirely different set of reasons than I ever was uncomfortable about TikTok being owned by ByteDance.


In August of 1943, Allied leaders met in Quebec for a high-level war conference. Convinced that the war in Europe would be won within a year, the world leaders focused their attention on Japan. Roosevelt promised the Allies that he would deliver 229s by March of 1944. Also, during August of 1943, U.S. bombers taking off from North Africa hit the oil refineries of Proesti in Romania. In Germany, the Allies had gained primarily because of massive bomber strikes against German industry. The onslaught of winter, along with a shortage of long-range fighter escort aircraft, severely reduced Allied air operations. During this lull, Germany continued to rebuild its lightly damaged industry with methodical efficiency. February 1944, the weather broke, and the might of the U.S. Army Air Forces departed for Europe. Hundreds of bombers and fighters set out to destroy factories, aerodromes, and to take on the Luftwaffe in the air. This became known as the Big Week. It was, in fact, an invasion of German skies. In March, U.S. fighters and bombers reached Berlin for the first time, far into the interior of Germany. U.S. aircraft brought the war to the doorstep of the Reichstag. At this time, March 1944, U.S. forces in Italy had captured air bases from which American planes could more easily reach industrial and military targets in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and southern Germany. On the 5th of April, a force of 90 B-17s and 146 B-24s began the 600-mile run on the heavily defended oil refineries of Proesti. Thus, the Army Air Force began the oil campaign. By May, American bombers and escorts were encountering heavy ground fire and smoke screens designed to obscure the targets. Enemy fighters outnumbered American fighters three to one. Destruction of the enemy fuel supplies would give the Allies a great advantage in the invasion battles to come. In England, Plymouth Harbor was an armed camp. Troops were masked for the assault on Europe. Eisenhower addressed the men with these words. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, you are about to embark upon the great crusade towards which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. 5th of June 1944. U.S. aircraft attacked coastal defenses in transportation and supply routes. They searched the sky for the Luftwaffe, but Germany had concentrated its air power to protect the homeland. Under cover of darkness, airborne troops landed in France behind the German fortifications. Reinforcements came in wooden gliders, the 20th-century Trojan horses. While at sea, Allied armies prepared to hit the beach, facing high winds as they churned through rough seas. However, those landing early were lucky. For those who came over the following two weeks, encountered the roughest seas in the English Channel in 20 years. All along the Normandy coast, overwhelming waves of Allied troops poured into France supported by 8,000 aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Forces and thousands of RAF aircraft. In support of the invasion, the religious devise a bold new plan of attack on the Romanian oil supplies at Floresta. Dive bombing by P-38s. This reduced the disadvantage to precision bombing posed by the smoke screens. The steady aerial pounding whittled away 90% of Romanian oil production, and the death blow came to the German oil industry with a campaign against the German synthetic oil plants. In France, Allied ground forces came to a standstill after the capture of Cherbourg at the end of June. German counter-attacks blocked them, and weather closed off air support. Finally, the weather broke, and the air attack resumed. One plane every two seconds, striking a target five miles long and one mile wide, cutting an opening through which General Patton would surge on his dash to Germany. Air strikes forced an entire German division to surrender at Bogasi Bridge on September 16. Again, the Germans replenished their fighter aircraft largely from underground factories, but not their pilots. The air war over Germany was intense at times, but the momentum belonged to the Allies. Victory followed victory and led to the surrender by German leaders on May 7, 1945. After the Quebec Conference of 1943, the U.S. launched its strategic plan against Japan. Using Chinese labor, the United States built a string of bases in China in preparation for the B-29's then-in-production. In April of 1944, the new bombers arrived in India. In June, 68 of the giant craft took off to bomb an industrial target in Japan on the same day that Marines landed on Saipan. In the Pacific, army air forces engaged in highland warfare and air attacks against Japanese ships, island by island, ship by ship, U.S. forces worked their way back to the Philippines itself a chain of 7,000 islands. The most spectacular air action was the recapture of Corregidor on February 16, 1945. After intensive bombing, 50 C-47s brought 2,065 men to jump onto the narrow target surrounded by sheer cliffs. In early March, General MacArthur returned to say, heist the colors and let no enemy ever haul them down. On Columbus Day, 1944, the first of a fleet of B-29s landed on Saipan. Some Japanese officials recognized this as an early signal of their eventual defeat. From Saipan, it was a 3,000-mile round trip to Mount Fujiyama, 60 miles from Tokyo. The U.S. built its operations up to missions of 800 aircraft against Japan. Then a single plane attack against Hiroshima, followed by another three days later against Nagasaki, abruptly crushed any semblance of resistance which remained and the war was over. Without being invaded, without losing a foot of homeland, Japan was defeated. The surrender came on August 14, 1945, with formal surrender ceremonies held about the USS Missouri September 2.


Come to sailor.org's introduction to financial accounting course. We're excited that you want to learn about accounting or how we record and summarize business and financial transactions. We've designed this course to present the accounting cycle as excessively and logically as possible, and we know you'll succeed. You're going to become very familiar with some key accounting terms and principles in this course, including posting account transactions, financial statements, assets, liabilities, and financial analysis. By the end of this course, you'll be able to use these terms easily yourself. A couple of notes about this course. First, this course is broken down into 10 units. You'll probably need between two and three hours to complete each of these units. Second, I suggest that you take detailed notes while you read and that you plan to review the readings and lectures a few times a piece. These strategies will help you master the content. And third, as you work through the units of this course, you'll see examples and problem sets. These represent practical applications for the lessons you're learning about in the readings and lectures. Try your best on these. If you perform well on them, you'll perform well on the final exam. Now one final note, as you go through the course, keep your eyes and ears open while you watch the news or read the paper. You might be surprised how often accounting concepts pop up.


The National Broadcasting Company presents another in the stories of famous stories for the young of all ages. Adventure Ahead. This week, a tale of piracy and courage in the days of Napoleon. Based on one of the classic books by G. A. Henty, master storyteller of another generation, titled One of the Twenty-Eight. And now, Adventure Ahead. The year 1812. The clouds of war hung heavily over England. The armies of Napoleon threatened all of Europe, and everywhere was trouble and unrest, even on the sea. For in those days, the oceans were beset with pirates, pickeroons, corsairs, who sailed with death before the mast and laughed at law and order. Drink of the party, friends! Here's to our ship, the belbany, the fastest driver here to float. No British man or will ever catch your hand. And what about the captain, eh? What about Captain Kelly? Captain Kelly! Here's to the greatest buccaneer of us all, the Captain Kelly, King of the Sea. That's what they call me, King of the Sea. I could have run out, fight at his ship afloat, and have no man alive or afraid of. Why, right now, we're afraid into the channels under the noses of the English and the French, too. Twenty guns, and eighty men, and our twenty-eight boys to the innards, the world in ours, men. To kill, to steal, to do it as we please. Yes, they were a swathe crew of renegades, marauding buccaneers, sailing under the Jolly Roger. But for young Ralph Conway, he wasn't thinking about pirates that afternoon at his mother's cottage near the seas. Yes, Mother. Why, you didn't waste any time getting home from school? I'm anxious about my fishing trip tonight, Mother. Mr. McDonough stopped by, said his boat would be ready about nine o'clock. Good, I'll be there. In Howard School today? Oh, just fine, Mother. Only a few more weeks to go, and then... You still want to join the army, Ralph? Oh, yes, Mother. I want to go over on the continent like Father did, and fight against Napoleon.  I'm sixteen. Sixteen? Is that an age for dealing with men, dangerous men, fighting men? I'm not a child, Mother. Someday, perhaps, you will be a soldier, a brave man like your father. But for now, you have much to learn. Yes, Mother. I want you to be careful, son, on these little trips with Miss McDonough. There's so much trouble on the water, so many ships about. Pirate ships, men of war. I'll be all right, Mother. Nothing will happen to me. All snug off, then? Yes, Mr. McDonough. Good. The helpful doing old fisherman having a lad like you along, too. Especially on a black night. Certainly is dark and cloudy. I missed rolling in from the ocean, too. I should think you'd be lost out here, Miss McDonough. How do you know which way you're sailing? Oh, instinct, lad. Instinct. We'll get back to the village, all right? I hope so. Keep your eye lifted, though, lad. Not many craft about these waters, but we might tumble against one. Watch out for lights. I don't think I could see a ship's light in this mist. No. And what's worse, ships nowadays don't always carry lights, either. Oh, I thought they had to. There's a law, a sea law. Aye. But in war times, it's not always convenient. What do you mean, Mr. McDonough? Well, a peaceful merchantman don't want to show her lights, too. Any privateers that may happen to be cruising about. And you can be sure the pirates don't sail with lights. Oh. Yeah, sea folk prefer risking the chance of running into each other rather than be caught by some privateer. And are there any pirates here on the channel, Mr. McDonough? Are there? Well, it's hard to say, lad. You dare? Probably not. Oh. But there's, uh, apt to be a merchantman around. But better keep a sharp watch for lights. Yes, sir. We'll start bringing in our nets in a few hours. That'll keep us busy. So we start for sure. Or to get a fine haul of fish, Ralph. I hope I can come out again with you soon. Well, I don't see why not. That'll be fine. Well, you like the sea, do you, lad? Oh, yes, Mr. McDonough. I wish I could sail the seas in a big ship. A regular wind jammer. Oh. I thought you wanted to be a soldier. Well, I do, sir. That is mainly, but it's exciting out here on the water, even if it is so dark. Listen. Yes? Listen. That's a ship. A ship near by, lad. Yes, I hear the noise, but I can't see. Here it is. They're coming right at us. Look out, lad. It's bearing down on us. No lights! Look out, Ralph! Help! Mr. McDonough! It's McDonough! Here's the water! Help! Here's the water! Help! Over here! Help! Good ducking, but he's still alive. Meet his throat and throw him back in, I say. Looks more dead than alive. He'll come to all right. Easy now, lad. Easy there. Oh. Where am I? Right. He's just a boy. Looks to be strapped enough. Probably could do more work aboard this ship than you, Pedro. He'd better not get in my way. Easy, lad. Easy. The water. What? Where am I? It's safe enough, lad. You're aboard ship. You've boarded down on us, our boat. Mr. McDonough, where is it? You're the only one I managed to save, lad. Someone else in your boat? Yeah, it's a fisherman. We must save him. Too late for that, lad. Never find him in this mess. And you save me? Aye. But who are you? My name's Jack. I'm just another... well, just another hand aboard the Bell Marie.  All right, lad. As soon as you can put me ashore... Put ashore? Oh, yes. You'll never be put ashore in England from this ship. You're aboard the Brigantine Bell Marie. The Bell Marie? Under what flag? The Bell Marie flies no flag. A privateer? Aye. And since you've cast your lot with ours, best we go below and meet Captain Skelly. This is our visitor, eh, Jack? Aye, Captain Skelly. Just as I fished him out of the wort. Well, lad? Yes, sir? Explain why you ran down my ship. What, sir? You ain't deaf. What, sir? I was in a boat, a small boat, a fishing smack with a friend of mine, and you ran us down. What's that? Nobody called it Captain Skelly. If I say you ran into the Bell Marie, you ran into the Bell Marie. But that's not the way it happened, why, it was... You don't look like a fisherman, not in those clothes. No, sir, I'm not. I was only out for a night fishing, and I was caught in the woods... What's your name? Ralph Conway. From Dover, Captain Skelly. Aye? Well, it'll be a long time until you see Dover again. I'll mark you that. But, sir, can't you put me ashore somewhere? Ashore? Bell Marie, don't put into any port for passengers. Why, there'd be British men at war down on us before we hope to. But my mother, sir, she'll be worried. Oh. Jump overboard if you like. That's one way of leaving the Bell Marie. Aye, Jack? I'll even provide a plank so you can walk over the gunner. If you want, you can stay aboard. What do you mean, sir? Uh, a cruise shorthanded. We, uh, had a few accidents with some of the men. Right now, we can use a good strong lad. But do you mean... do you mean to be a pirate? Pirate be blowed. We've got an old hand for overhauling merchantmen. Doing the dirty work. What we need are able seamen for the long trip ahead to the Indies. The Indies? Domingo, Jamaica, Tortugas, our 28th trip. Think you're one to burst? Well, I... Mine is not the choice, sir. Eh, it'll make a man out of you. It will, sir. You learn a lot about the world aboard the Bell Marie. Yes, sir. And you'll find the buccaneer the instance betters landsmen think. Of course, we don't mind killing or stealing, and we have to. For the board ship, we've got our own law and order under my command. As long as you do your work and don't try to escape, you'll be treated fair and square. Yes, sir. Take him for a jack. Sling a hammock for him. Aye, Captain. I'm turning him over to you, Jack. He's in your charge. Aye, aye, sir. And I expect you to make a seamen out of him. Right along there, Conway. Break out the spinnaker. Yes, sir. For the heart of the lost. Since they are. They are. Yes, sir. Conway. Yes, Captain. From now on, you're assigned to stop at once. Well, Ralph, what do you think of the Belmere after a month at sea? Oh, she's a fine ship with all her canvass out, but moving fast. Privateers have to be fast, lad. And the Belmere is the lightest and fastest of them all. Oh, Captain. Aye. Fix the deck for action. Aye, sir. We'll lay two and wait for merchantmen beating up in the southwest wind from Greece. Not in here. Rich prizes, those ships. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Mr. Board ship today, Ralph. I thought pirate ships were always fighting, wandering. Well, not always. Big ships like the Belmere wait for big prizes. Oh, I see. Captain Skelly's after waiting here for merchantmen loaded with gold or silver or silk. Seems strange for a ship to be laying two without a square of canvas when the wind's blowing fresh. Yes, but we'll be fast enough underway when the captain's sights are likely prized. You'll see action soon enough, lad. Why, we'll probably overhaul and slip a dozen ships before we reach to Tugas. Our destination? Aye. It all seems terrible to think about Jack. Stealing, killing people. Yes, yes, it would to you. I'd have to get used to it, even though I hate it. You seem to be a decent sort of seamen, Jack. How did you get to be a pirate? Well, lad, five years ago when I was just an ordinary seamen, the French threw me in prison on a thumped-up charge and I escaped. A prison? Yes, I was desperate. But after that, I had no sea papers. I had to work at something. And since I knew no other trade, it was either this or that. But I don't like it, lad. Any more than you do. I thought you felt that way. I'll have no part of their dirtiest work, looting, killing. I'm here mainly to keep the ship on the sail. Just like you. I still dream of escaping. So do I, Jack. But I can see it won't be easy. You're right, lad. Of course it would be free if a British man or war would overhaul us. But that's not likely. As long as Captain Skelly sails the bridge. The ship's been lucky not to have been captured or sunk by a warship. It's not luck altogether, lad. Whatever else he is, the captain's a real sailor. Oh, a sly one. And with our great spread of canvas, there's not a ship afloat that can overtake us. Yes, a Belmarie's a good ship. Fallen into bad hands. That crew, Jack. They're so brutal. Yes, Frenchmen, Moors, Portuguese, Indians, and Ceylon, half-cats. Every man has that with an oar as a knife or a belaying fin. What about the captain? He's a vicious, bloodthirsty man when he's around. Jack, you think he'd kill me? If he caught me trying to escape? They're thinking about escaping. Yes, and every day since I've been aboard the Belmarie. Is there a way, Jack? Not an easy way. I must get back to England. Some way, somehow. Patience, lad. Wait till we reach the Indies. Then take your chance. Is there a chance, Jack? Is there? A ship on the starboard. A pride ship, Jack? Likely. Yes, there she is on the horizon. Hi. Ah, must be a merchant man. Look, I'm here. Look, our campers will overtake her. And when we do, I'll make them wish they'd never run from Captain Skelle. And the cannons! Captain, there's the rendering. They've struck their flags. Well, give them a blow, I'll find it away. Break that deck and send us down. I'll keep the gold check. It's all right, I'll take your chance. What's wrong, Jack? Can't wait. Not taking a share of the spoils? No, Captain. Well, if you don't want your gold, I guess the rest of the crew can use it. Airmen, help yourselves. And when we reach Tortugas, there'll be even more money and spoils to divide among you. And listen, we're using the islands as a rendezvous again. The safest port in the world. And no British man award a float will ever catch a fare. The island of Tortugas. It's not very big. No. Just one hill rising up at this end of the island. Aye, that's a landmark for the Belmeree. A landmark? There's a concealed channel. A narrow inlet at the base of that hill. Yes. A narrow passage leading to a small harbor. The only protected harbor on the island. But I can't see it from here. No, the entrance is well hidden. So is the harbor. Why? The Belmeree can lay two for weeks if we want. And never worry about a man award. Don't the British warships know about it? No, they patrol these waters once in a while, but they suspect nothing. Amazing. A secret harbor. Big enough to hold five or six ships the size of the Belmeree. It doesn't seem possible. Looking at the coast from here. You'll see a lot of things your eyes won't believe after we sail through the narrow channel. What do you mean? Storehouses. Buildings. Sheds. Filled with a loot from a hundred ships. Gold. Silver. Precious gems. Spices. Silks from the Orient. Why, Captain, Kelly's been using the spaces around a woofer over 15 years. And all the loot is stored right here on the island of Tortugas. I can't get cargo. I haven't got all day lively. Hi, Captain. I want to talk to you. Come into my cabin. Now then, Conway. Yes, Captain. As soon as our boot is unloaded, I'm sending most of the crew ashore for a day on dry land. And you and Jack can join them. Thank you, sir. But don't be getting any strange ideas in your head, young men, about running away. That's keeping from the Belmeree. No, sir.  There's not much you can do about it. We saved your life two months ago in the Channel. And for that, you owe us a debt.  Yes, sir. I expect to keep you a prisoner on the Belmeree until that debt is paid.  It seems like we'll never reach the top of this hill, Jack. I never knew it was so high. Belmeree looks awfully small back there in the harbor. Aye, lad. She's a long way off. But from the way Captain Skelly talked this morning, I expect he's got his spyglass on every move we make. Aye. You still thinking about escaping? Every minute I'm awake, Jack. But I suppose it's hopeless. Aye. It is that. Well, almost to the top. Aye, almost. We ought to be able to see a great distance from up here. Aye, but there'll be nothing to see but miles of ocean. Why, there isn't a... Jack, Jack, look. Eh? A ship. Look, a ship. A ship? It is a ship. A man of war. Standing toward the island, too. What's going on? Iron and British. British. What's she doing here? I don't know. Do you suppose they know about the Belmeree? How could they? They must suspect they're dropping anchor. See there, Jack? Aye. No, that's strange. But they're not putting over a boat. Then they can't know about the hidden channel in the harbor. No, perhaps not. But they could be told about it. Eh? If they knew about the Belmeree and the secret harbor, they could attack and capture the pirates. And we'd be free, Jack. We'd be free. But how can we tell them? Everyone on the Belmeree can see us up here. We can't signal the warship. No, but there must be something we can do. Well, I... I... No. No, lad. That's our chance of freedom out there, Jack. We can't stand by and do nothing. But, Ralph, the only way to reach that man of war is through the channel the way the Belmeree sailed in. That's true. And Captain Skelly's mounted guards on each side of the entrance and if we tried to slip through, the men would see us fire on us. Yes, in the daytime they would. But what about after dark? After dark? We might get through. It's too risky, lad. Besides, if we did slip through, the warship might be gone by nightfall. That's a chance we'd have to take. But it's worth it. I... I... I don't know. I'm afraid. I'm willing to try it, Jack, if I can get a long boat from the harbor beach. Are you with me, Jack? I... I want to go, lad. But I'm afraid to break away. Afraid of what they'll do to me. Captain Skelly and the crew, if they caught me. Then I'm going alone, Jack. Tonight. I must get to that man of war. I only wish I had your courage. You won't tell. You won't tell where I've gone. No, Ralph. You can trust me. And more than that, I'll see that you get a boat. You took me aboard. That's the whole story, Captain Arnold. Hmm. I see. You must believe me, Captain. I've had no part in the piracy, and neither has my friend. But... But your story is incredible, young man. How do I know that you're telling the truth? Sir, I've risked everything to come aboard this ship tonight. It took me nearly three hours to roll that short distance. From out of prison to freedom. You must believe me, sir. Else why should I want so to return to England? Well, I... I don't know quite what to say, Master Conway. But if what you say is true, it may be fortunate indeed that you found your way out to us. How do you mean, sir? My ship's only mission is to search out privateers, pirates, and free booters. And I've been after the Belle Marie for over two years. But because she's so sleek and fast, I must admit, I've never even caught sight of her. And this is your chance, sir, to capture her before she can spread canvas and get away. This time she's fairly trapped. Hmm.  That's right, sir. How many men aboard her? Roughly sixty, sir. About twenty were lost at sea or killed by Captain Skellig. Sixty men. Fifty of my crew should be an even match for them. Tell me, Master Conway. Yes, sir. Would you lead me and my men through the concealed inlet to the Belle Marie so that we could attack and capture Skellig and his cutthroats? Why, of course, sir. Good. I think that will prove your loyalty to the King and earn you a passage back to England as well. Oh, thank you, sir. We'll get underway within the hour and make use of two important weapons. Darkness and silence. Yes, sir. I plan to attack all points at once to take every one of these scoundrels alive if I can for chains at the yard are not every one of them, sir. Eh? Oh, oh, your friend. Yes, sir. If you could spare Jack, he's a good man. I'm asking you again, Jack. I'm asking you again. Yes, Captain. What happened to that boy, Conway? I watched the two of you this morning up on the hill. I need to be talking something. Where did he go? What happened to him? I don't know. I can't tell you. I'll make you talk. Just be this nice. Speak up, Jack. For the last time, I'm asking you. Where's that boy, Conway? I'm asking you for the last time. And for the last time, I'm still saying. I don't know. Well, Jack, if it takes cold steel to loosen your tongue. Oh, no, you don't, Captain Skelly. Hey, hey, what's this? Now, if you made it. Yes, we're here, Jack. I'll leave you with that knife, Captain.  No, I don't think you will, Captain Skelly.  Take him, men. I do. And back. Well, Master Conway, it looks as though we've taken the whole ship without so much as firing a shot. Hell, the whole ship. I'm afraid so, Captain Skelly. But you'll never take me out of my way, and I'll... He's dead, sir. Yes, Highland. We've saved the government the expense of bringing the renegade to trial. And you avenged the death, Captain, of hundreds of innocent men. Aye. Thanks to young Conway here. And I might say, young man. Yes, sir. If there was ever any doubt of it, I think you proved yourself a man tonight. I have, sir. You have indeed. Thank you, sir. I was a boy once myself. And I have an idea. You'll do just as well in the army when you get back to England. They need men like you. Thank you, sir. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you were right there in fighting with the troops that finally whipped Napoleon.


Manipulation can be an extremely complicated, confusing, and emotionally taxing experience. Relationships with manipulators may have their highs and lows, along with subtle tactics, which can make it so you don't notice what they're doing. To better look into what manipulation may look like, here are 6 signs you are being manipulated. 1.  When you are being manipulated, it's common for the manipulator to make themselves in the right all the time. In the workplace, they may downplay your intelligence or experience to make you feel that you're always making mistakes. In relationships, they may justify their actions by twisting facts and words to make themselves seem superior. Additionally, they may use a tactic called triangulation to bring another person into a conflict to take their side. No matter what, it seems like you are never right in any matter and you always feel at fault for what happens. 2. You constantly feel judged. It's common to feel judged all the time by your manipulator. This can make it seem like every action is constantly scrutinized, no matter how big or small. You may notice that they either never offer constructive criticism or they do so in a patronizing manner. They always make it seem like they know better than that you have to work to get on their level. 3. You are guilt-tripped into decisions. Manipulators have a tendency to make themselves the victim in every situation. You may notice that you're always doing things for them out of guilt, even if it makes you uncomfortable. If you fight back, they may retaliate by saying they can't control their behaviors because of some circumstance beyond their control. Even if what they're doing would be considered objectively wrong, they always have a reason to justify themselves in doing it. 4. You doubt your reality. Gaslighting is another common tactic that manipulators use, where they will make you question your sanity. You may find that it's hard to trust your own judgment because your manipulator always convinces you that you're wrong in how you think, feel, and experience the world. Any feeling you have is somehow irrational or incorrect for the situation. Manipulators will make you feel like you're making up situations or are misremembering events. It's common for victims of gaslighting to question if they have a mental health condition. 5. You're constantly compared to others. Another tactic manipulators will use against you is making you feel inferior to others. Your manipulator will always make you feel like you're falling short of expectations and that other people are doing better. The goal is to make you compete with others to win their approval. You feel like you have to continually one-up another person, but it's never enough. 6. Your love bombed and punished. Manipulators have their way of keeping you coming back to them. In relationships especially, you may find that they will love bomb you for a period of time in which everything in your relationship seems great. They give you attention, gifts, and will speak highly of you to other people. While this may seem positive at the time, in reality, it's to gain your trust. You might find that after this period ends, they resort to punishing you. They may use tactics like the silent treatment, making fun of you, or any of the other tactics listed in this video. The cycle tends to repeat, keeping you stuck in it. Did you relate to any of these signs? While manipulation can sometimes be hard to detect, it's important to recognize it. Manipulation can have huge effects on your mental health and overall well-being. Finding ways to establish boundaries or knowing when to walk away can have massive impacts on your life. If you found this video helpful, like and share it with friends that might find insight in this too. Remember to subscribe to Zeg2Go and hit the notification bell for more content. All the sources used are added in the description box below. Thanks for watching, until next time.


The study compared four different types of vegetable fibers commonly used in artisanal production in southern Colombia. These included for Crea Macrophila, Ifeak, Schenoplectus californicus, Totora, stroma in the stromathoids, Tedera, and Carladovica Pomata, Iroca. The study found that feak had the highest elasticity and could be used for items such as clothing, while Tedera had the strongest fibers and could be used to make baskets that are resistant to weight and rigidity. Additionally, Iroca and Totora were found to have greater potential applications in the textile industry, while the high-moisture content of all fibers may affect their technological characteristics and the quality of artisan products. This article was authored by Laura de la Cruz Velasco, Giuliana Chamorro-Mahia, and Carlos Cortobacelli.


20 ways to avoid getting robbed. Say no. Give me your wallet. No. Okay, you got me there. Be out of battery. Give me your phone. It's out of battery. I got a charger. Is it done charging yet? Give it an hour. Would ya? What? Yeah. It's not fast charging. Yeah, one percent will do. Avoid the robber elegantly. Give me your... Get a disease. Give me your wallet. And have a nice day. Don't shower.  Move along. Move along. Move along. Be related to the robber. Give me your wallet. Bro! Hey! By the way, Mom's been asking for you. She wants to borrow money. Yeah, and that's how I'm getting it. Oh, well, anything for finally. By the way, tomorrow it's my robbing shift, okay? It's my turn, alright? Let's just... Repeat what the robber says. Give me your wallet. You give me your wallet.   With what? You with what? I'm gonna shoot. You're gonna shoot. I'm done. Use reverse psychology. Give me your wallet. And give me... Wait, you're giving me your wallet? Yeah, why not? No, that's not how it works. You have my wallet. But I don't want your wallet. I don't want your phone. I don't want it. Where's my phone? I don't want the keys to your place. Here are the keys to my place? I actually don't want the keys to your place. Because if you do this, you don't live in a nice place. Be smarter than a robber. Give me your phone. 09-37-01. Be confident. Give me your wallet. Excuse me? Come here. You think this is how this works? You think I'm scared of you? You should be. I am. But I'm confident. I'm terrified. But I'm not showing it. This is so scary. Yeah, exactly. Carry a contract with you. Give me your money. Cool. So I'm hiring, I'm looking for a new accountant, someone that I can trust to manage all my funds. And my instinct tells me you're the one. Your sign here? No. Flirt with the robber. Give me your money. You're cute. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Come here. Come here. Come here. Make fun of the robber. Give me your money. What's so funny? Disney Fire. Oh, very funny. What the f***? That's so funny. Keep walking away. Give me your phone. No. Give me your phone. No. Give me your phone. Come on. Give me your phone. Come on. Be a philosopher. Give me your money. Well, first of all, what is money? Does money define value? Or is value what we perceive as intangible? What? Never studied philosophy. Did you? Socrates, Aristotle, Kant.  Okay. So tomorrow morning, 8am, same place, philosophy class. Okay? Have a good day. We're all dying. First phone, the robber. Give me your phone. Super busy. But tomorrow, I'll have the time. Okay. Now, it's time to think of a different route.  Yeah. So I was getting robbed the other day. Give me your phone. And I found this new technique. It looks so well. Funny in you. Be good at grammar. Phone. Now, your sentence is missing a verb. I think that you would have better results if you had a full sentence. Give me your phone. Please. Try it. Give me your phone, please. Look up the comma. What? No, in the subtitles. Look up the comma. Try again. Give me your phone, please. Good. See? It works. I would have never given it before. Be the robber's mentor. Give me your phone now. Not bad. Keep going. And your wallet. No. We don't ask for a second item until we receive the first one. Let's say that they keep on refusing. What do we say?  Yes, but first, we make sure that the person isn't too strong. Sometimes they'll surprise us. And finally, just don't walk in that street. Where is he?