Category Archives: New Utopia

New York Times

The Oliviers vs. the Tonys: Mixed Rewards for Shows New York Times And last year, the Tony-coronated Kinky Boots, repeated its New York best musical triumph with a London win in the same category. Does that spell likely ... 'THE COAST OF UTOPIA' (2002) Tom Stoppard wove an epic out of various strands of Russian ...

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The Oliviers vs. the Tonys: Mixed Rewards for Shows - New York Times

Do you know who I am? asks a young man, his smile nervy, teeth jagged as a city skyline. Its 9.30am on a recent Thursday at the Social Bite sandwich shop in Rose Street, Edinburgh, and hes holding a half-eaten bap and a takeaway tea that is equal parts liquid and sugar. Ive no idea who he is, so he leads me to a framed newspaper clipping on the wall. Its a December 2012 page from the Edinburgh Evening News and it shows a photograph of the man Pete Hart, apparently in a ninja-black chefs uniform and blue hygienic gloves chopping some lettuce. Id actually read the article earlier: Hart, then 22, used to sell the Big Issue outside Social Bite; staff would sometimes give him unsold sandwiches at the end of the day and after a few weeks, Hart asked for a job. Josh Littlejohn and Alice Thompson, who founded Social Bite, agreed, and took him on as a pot washer.

Hart looks for my reaction; theres a whiff of booze on his breath and hes aged faster than the five years between the photograph and now. Hes certainly had some tough times. He was taken into care at three and moved around the system until he was 16. He wound up in Southampton, did odd jobs and went to prison for possession of class A drugs. But Hart always wanted to work: during his 15 months incarceration he took classes in food hygiene, bricklaying, and painting and decorating.

Does he still work for Social Bite? Nah, Ive had some health problems. This proves to be an understatement: he returned to work after a brain haemorrhage but had to stop last year when he had a lung removed. I loved it here and I want to come back to work, he goes on. Josh is a great guy. I was desperate for a job and he had me stay with him and Alice in their flat because he couldnt give a job to someone without an address.

Pete Hart is a key figure in the Social Bite story. Littlejohn and Thompson were a couple in their mid-20s when they opened the Rose Street shop in August 2012. Inspired by the Bangladeshi micro-lender Muhammad Yunus, it would be a social business and donate all its profits to charity. But the arrival of Hart prompted a rethink: they asked him if he knew anyone else who wanted a job and Hart suggested his brother Joe. Eventually, after a handful of these peer-referenced hires worked out, Littlejohn and Thompson determined that a quarter of Social Bite employees would come from homeless backgrounds. They were also handing out free sandwiches and hot drinks in the morning for Edinburghs most needy, and giving away any food left over at the end of the day.

There are now five Social Bite shops: two each in Edinburgh and Glasgow, one in Aberdeen. Their mission became globally famous in November 2015 when George Clooney popped into the Rose Street branch and bought an avocado and pesto wrap. Last year Littlejohn went into partnership to open a fancier restaurant in Edinburgh called Home, also with a philanthropic brief, and enticed Leonardo DiCaprio to visit that. Social Bite won Outstanding Achievement at the 2016 Observer Food Monthly awards, and Jamie Oliver was at the head of a line of luminaries on the night to congratulate Littlejohn he and Thompson have now split, but she remains on the board of Social Bite and is manager of their canteen in the Rockstar Games Edinburgh head office.

Littlejohn, though, has mixed feelings about that original article on Hart, which was rehashed the next morning by all the major newspapers in Scotland. That was the first PR we ever got, so as a new business thats exciting, he says. But now I look back and its telling. All that really happened was a young guy, an able person, went from selling a magazine to washing dishes. How on earth is that any kind of story, let alone one covered nationally? It goes to show that it never, ever happens. If youre in that demographic, your chance of breaking into any kind of mainstream, even as a dishwasher, is very remote. We dont think about that.

Social Bite may have been a success, but its a far from straightforward one: the past five years are full of near-insurmountable complications and frustrations. When Littlejohn, now 30, opened the first shop, he dreamed hed soon be going head-to-head with Pret a Manger and Starbucks. He wanted 500 branches in the UK. But the demands of managing a diverse and often unreliable workforce, and the personal attention that requires, means there are no current plans to expand. Its not every employer who has to keep 500 cash in a safe for emergency medical care, or to get an employees electricity reconnected, or just to see them through until they are next paid. Littlejohn made an initial commitment that his salary would never exceed seven times the lowest-paid staff member, but this has proved wildly optimistic anyway. His wage is nowhere near that.

He laughs: You need to relinquish the idea of getting rich personally. If anyone goes into this thinking, This is a sweet earner!, then just forget it, dont even start.

Littlejohn has certainly put in the hours. In the beginning, he and Thompson would wake at 4am to make the sandwiches and work all day in the shop. Hart was just one of a handful of homeless employees who lived with them in their one-bedroom flat while they found their feet. Their evenings would often be spent in the pub, offering informal counselling sessions.

But rather than being overwhelmed by what seemed an insurmountable challenge, Littlejohn started to think he was approaching the problem the wrong way. He was giving homeless people jobs, but what they needed was support, professional help to deal with their problems and, most of all, a settled place to live. He wondered if it would be possible to create a village, initially for 20 individuals who are currently living on the streets in Edinburgh. If the concept worked, it could be rolled out first in Scotland then perhaps furtherafield.

We had naively started at the end point, he says. We were young people who opened a sandwich shop and just started giving people jobs. But when we had built up to maybe six people, and cracks started appearing, we realised: Shit, a jobs not good enough. The links from accommodation through to support through to employment are the dots that have never really been joined before. So the village is working our way to the final point, which is really back to the beginning.

Back at Social Bite, I ask Hart if hes heard about Littlejohns village plan. He nods. Yeah, I think its a great idea. Then, as if hed just remembered an urgent appointment, he picks up his rucksack and heads for the door. Right, he says over his shoulder, Ive got to try to find some money to get more inebriated.

Half an hour outside Edinburgh, in a tranquil spot in West Lothian, Jonathan Avery sits drinking tea in his prototype NestHouse. It is a dinky place but full of thoughtful touches. Theres a compact, Japanese-style deep-soak bath, a cute mezzanine bedroom with views through a porthole window, and a very hygge wood-burning stove all within a building just 3.4 metres wide. The exterior is clad in thermo-treated Finnish spruce and the insulated front door clunks shut with the authority of a bank vault. Avery wears rimless spectacles, chunky work boots and a lime-green T-shirt that matches the kitchen chairs and the front door.

We could have done a glorified shed but it would have failed because the living environment has to inspire change

Is that on purpose? No, its not deliberate, says Avery. Then he whispers, Yes it is, its deliberate. Im a designer!

When Littlejohn first imagined a village for the homeless, he saw the residents living in modified shipping containers. He admits that sounds a bit shit, but hed seen an episode of Grand Designs where a young architect in Northern Ireland welded four together to create a luxury house. But the more Littlejohn investigated it, the more problems he came up against: cutting windows into containers quickly becomes expensive, and the buildings often fight a losing battle against condensation. We could have done a glorified shed quite easily, he says, but it just would have failed because I think the living environment has to inspire change.

A Social Bite employee found Averys website, Tiny House Scotland, and forwarded it to Littlejohn. Avery had been inspired to build his NestHouse after reading about the tiny house boom in the US. The movement was born as a response first to Hurricane Katrina and then to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008: small (under 500 sq ft), cheap and cheerful accommodation that could be moved around if needs be.

Avery, 55, had personal experience of the economic downturn: he had been looking to expand his high-end kitchen design company, which had shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow, into London, but his bank suddenly declined to support him. He closed the business and decided to work on a smaller scale.

Then Littlejohn and Social Bite came along. Its funny, says Avery, because going back to my furniture business 15 years ago, Id have been making these for rich Edinburgh clients as a playhouse in the garden. Now Im not so keen on that. There are other ways to use architecture; it should have a reason and a purpose.

With a house design found, Littlejohns village started to take shape. He would borrow land from Edinburgh city council that had been set aside for meanwhile use: this is a government-endorsed initiative that allows entrepreneurs, often with a social vision, to take over empty land or commercial spaces on a short-term basis. The money required for the village an estimated 500,000 for the first 10 two-bedroom homes would be raised privately. There would be no charge for the rent of the site, but Littlejohn found out that Edinburgh council spent an average of 47 per night accommodating each homeless person. So, for 20 people, this would be an annual saving to taxpayers of 343,100.

Efforts to raise money for the village have gone better than expected. In December, Littlejohn organised the Social Bite CEO Sleepout, which encouraged some of Scotlands most influential business leaders to spend a night sleeping rough in Edinburghs Charlotte Square. He hoped to sign up 100 CEOs but one of the first volunteers was cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, and it snowballed from there. After Nicola Sturgeon agreed to serve breakfast, the numbers topped 300, with some participants raising almost 20,000 for the village.

It turned out to be an unseasonably mild night, but Littlejohn proved that his initiative had some heavyweight support. We should be aspiring to live in a country where nobody is homeless or sleeps rough, said Sturgeon, as she handed out bacon rolls at 7am. Added to money raised from Social Bites annual Christmas appeal, Littlejohn found he has 750,000 pledged towards the new village.

With the funds in place, Littlejohn and Avery are now finalising the design of the houses. Although costs must be kept down, both feel the buildings should not be stripped of their charm. Particularly the stove, says Littlejohn. Ive had various meetings and Im, like, The stoves important! People say it presents a risk, but I cant imagine the house without a stove. It creates that homeliness.

You could have an infrared heater on the wall but its not really the same, agrees Avery. Its not like giving people gold taps or luxury tiles. Its just about creating something that is a peg above, which subconsciously the human mind recognises is something thats a bit better than they are used to. Then people realise you are trusting them, and they say, Ahhh, my life has really taken a turnhere.

A 2015 Royal Mail survey found that Granton was one of the most desirable areas in Scotland. Some in Edinburgh were perplexed by the result: the district, north of the city on the Firth of Forth, has historically been an unloved industrial area and harbour. Regeneration is taking place, but slowly. Littlejohn, though, sees only potential: he likes the clean air and sea views; its close to amenities, such as a supermarket and bus links, but not too near to illicit temptations. It was, he felt, the most promising of the five meanwhile use sites he was offered. As we walk up a steep hill to the two-acre site beside an iconic blue gasholder, there are abandoned toys dumped in bushes, and sweet wrappers and discarded energy drink bottles strewn around. But by this autumn, Littlejohn insists, the land will be transformed into a verdant idyll, with a fire pit, chicken coop and community garden. Residents will work in industrial units across the road, perhaps making bread or furniture, or doing commercial laundry. Dinner each night will be cooked and eaten communally, and counsellors will be available whenever needed.

The village will require residents to work at least five days a week: this focus on keeping busy, as well as the idea that meals are taken together, came from a visit Littlejohn made to San Patrignano, a pioneering drug-rehabilitation facility near Bologna. Do you know how it came about? says Littlejohn. At the Observer food awards last year, I met Jamie Oliver and he was telling me about this place. I was almost trying to change the subject: San Patrignano, San Patrignano He kept going on about it. I was like, All right!

Littlejohn spent a day there shortly afterwards with a member of Olivers foundation. He found a small town of 2,000 former addicts working, with seemingly little supervision, on a range of projects: some made handbags for Prada and Chanel, others were in a graphic design studio; there was a farm, stables, a bakery, even a vineyard. The entire thing was run by people who were previously addicted to heroin, crack cocaine like proper chaotic people that I know through Social Bite, and I was amazed by how clean behind the eyes they were. It was one of the most unbelievable things Ive ever seen.

Im only in the privileged position to do what Im doing and think the way I think by virtue of the cards dealt to me

Littlejohn is, in some ways, an unlikely philanthropist. His father, Simon Littlejohn, is an entrepreneur who built up a restaurant empire in Scotland from scratch. Hed grown up working class in England, and Joshs mother came from a farming community; the family had a grand house in Blair Drummond, near Stirling. We were quite affluent, relatively speaking, and I always kind of didnt like that, remembers Littlejohn. I went to a state school and Id be nervous to invite people round to the house, because it was big. And Id never like to be dropped off at school in a fancy car and all that. Id always be mortified by the thought of that.

He certainly has an idealistic streak: one interview compared Littlejohn spiritually and physically (the piercing eyes, scraggly beard) to Che Guevara. On a recent trip to Thailand for a month-long martial arts bootcamp he got a tattoo of the tree of life down his right arm with the words: There is no them and us. There is only us.

I just feel lucky, he says. I got nothing but love on Christmas morning there were mountains of presents. Im only in the privileged position to do what Im doing and think the way I think by virtue of the cards dealt to me. These guys had opposite cards dealt to them. When you think about that, you have nothing but compassion for them. It could have been me or you, they just got different cards, different families, different upbringings.

Littlejohn studied politics and economics at Edinburgh University, then applied to join the civil service. He imagined hed work for the Department for International Development or somewhere similar. He did half a year of assessments, psychometric tests and leadership drills, reaching the final round of the application for a Fast Track apprenticeship. He then received a one-line email: Youve not been successful. After six months of jumping through hoops, I felt a bit degraded, he says. So I thought, Im never going to do that again. Maybe Ill set up my own business.

Social Bite came along later, after Littlejohn and Thompson went to Bangladesh to meet Professor Yunus, but his initial schemes were classic Apprentice, Dragons Den money-making ventures: a catwalk fashion show at the Edinburgh festival, a Christmas fair in Glasgow and a ski and snowboard show. The most enduring idea was a ceremony for the Scottish Business awards. The first year, in February 2012, the guest speaker was Bob Geldof and the event sold out. Then, initially through the contact box on the Clinton Foundation website, he approached Bill Clinton. Littlejohn was told that if he could raise $300,000 for the foundation in advance then Clinton would come to Edinburgh to speak. He hit the phones, cajoling the Scottish business community to pay for their tables upfront.

That was the biggest gamble of my life, Littlejohn recalls. But Clinton was the big one. Once you had him, we had the model established and we also had the credibility. So when you approach Richard Branson and youve had Bill Clinton, then its not an absurd prospect. And once youve had Richard Branson and Bill Clinton and Bob Geldof, then you approach George Clooney. Then Leonardo DiCaprio. Suddenly its a gang everyone wants to be in. Ha ha!

As time went on, there became a fundraising and PR link between the Scottish Business awards and Social Bite: the visit of Clooney, in particular, made headlines around the world. When I first met Littlejohn last year, he said that Barack Obama was next on the hitlist. Perhaps hes being coy, but he seems to have cooled on the idea. The CEO Sleepout was an eye-opener for me in the sense that we raised almost double what we raised at the Scottish Business awards for Social Bite, he says. So as a fundraising mechanism, I think thats actually got more potential.

This year the sleepout will move to Princes Street Gardens in central Edinburgh, and Littlejohn would like 2,000, instead of 300, volunteers. One suggestion is that, to be involved, you have to fundraise 1,000 and offer at least one person from a homeless background an employment opportunity in your organisation.

Littlejohn has an ingrained, possibly inherited, entrepreneurial streak that marks him out in a sector full of good intentions but sometimes short on business acumen. He sees homelessness in Scotland as a problem that should not just be managed but can actually be solved. According to government statistics, 34,662 homeless applications were made in Scotland in 2015-2016. But, for Littlejohn, this number is a skewed, unnecessarily intimidating figure. Many of these people are in a short-time crisis, often a relationship breakdown, and only need help for a couple of nights to get back on their feet. He has learned that, in Edinburgh, on any one night, the figure is around 600, and estimates the number of properly homeless people in Scotland at no more than 2,500.

Im doing this because says Littlejohn, as we walk around the field in Granton. He leaves a long pause, perhaps unsure himself. Its good fun more than anything. People are like, Whats your angle? But Im building a bloody village. Youve got an opportunity to start with a blank page and try to create a structure that works. In terms of exercising your creative juices, its pretty thrilling to be able to do that and try to make a community.

Seagulls squawk overhead. Thats what I hope well build here a little utopia.

T he morning rush at Social Bite in Rose Street starts a little before 10am. Early on, Littlejohn and Thompson introduced a scheme where customers could pay forward something from the menu. The receipt would then be put in a jar and a homeless person would come in and redeem it. When it first started, the service was seated, but Littlejohn noticed a sharp fall in takings. Office workers, apparently, liked the charitable angle but didnt want to eat their lunch in a hangout for the homeless. Some rules were imposed for handouts: takeaway only, and free food would not be given out at the shops peak times between midday and 2pm.

If you ask anyone who works here, theyve mistaken a homeless person for a paying customer and vice-versa

But Littlejohn, as his recent tattoo attests, dislikes the idea of them and us. So, on Monday afternoons, Home restaurant which also offers a pay-it-forward option on its bills is open to anyone who lives on the street for a free three-course dinner. Social Bite also serves a free evening meal on Tuesday, and theres a women-only night on Wednesday. And now, rather than relying on receipts in the jar, the business has raised enough money to feed any homeless person who turns up. In the Rose Street shop, customers and the homeless mingle; its actually not always immediately apparent who is who. This might sound crass, but its true: at one point, everyone seems to be young, bearded and carrying a rucksack. An employee called Connor, who started working at Social Bite on a government work placement, stands behind the till: If you ask anyone who works here, theyve mistaken a homeless person for a paying customer and vice-versa.

For some, it is a simple handout: they take their food and hot drink, and leave. I offer to help making teas and coffees. Put a couple of sugars in all of them, advises Bonnie, the longest-standing employee. But some will have seven or eight. A Romanian man, with what looks like his lifes possessions in a backpack, hovers at the counter, looking bewildered. When I go to serve him, he says: Sandwich? Gratis? I nod. No beast, he adds. I take this to mean vegetarian, so I bring him a fried egg sandwich. He grins broadly, seemingly unable to believe his good fortune.

For many of those Social Bite helps, there is a social aspect too. They come in for a wee talk as much as the food and coffee, says Mimi, the manager. Many dont have families, so we become almost like that. Bonnie chips in with a story from her 25th wedding anniversary last summer, when she went with her husband and a bottle of champagne to Princes Street Gardens. It was meant to be this romantic thing but I saw this guy I know from the shop and we ended up sharing the champagne with a group of them. She smiles fondly, Then a couple of them disappeared and they came back and gave us a bottle of prosecco to make up for having drunkours.

Trade is brisk; in the middle of the lunch rush, one customer asks if he can pay something forward and hands an employee a note. Its only when hes disappeared that she opens it to find its 50.

After lunch, Sonny Murray and Biffy Mackay pop in. Both have worked for Social Bite though they are not currently doing so and in many ways they have become the poster boy and girl for the company. In fact, there are literally posters of them on the wall of the Rose Street shop, along with their potted life stories. Theres one, too, of Joe, Pete Harts brother, who was Social Bites second homeless employee and now works in the central production kitchen, making sandwiches. Another shows 51-year-old Colin Childs, who was a drug addict and traveller for two decades before getting a job in the shop. Hes been with the business for four years and is one of their most reliable employees. One brilliant picture shows the whole gang mugging for the camera with George Clooney.

The stories of Murray and Mackay are typical, depressingly so: they grew up in the care system and ended up living on the streets as teenagers. Littlejohn had made that point that for most homeless people, drugs were not the cause of their desperate situation, but a product of it. Its just a coping mechanism, agrees Mackay. Youre on the street and its crap, so why not get drunk and take drugs? Ive been homeless twice through relationship breakdowns. And it was through being homeless that I started drinking, then started taking drugs. Id never took or even seen heroin till I moved to Edinburgh.

Talk turns to the Social Bite village. Currently, most homeless people in Edinburgh are housed in either a shelter or a private B&B. These options are typically less homely than they sound: the bed is a grubby mattress on the floor and the breakfast can be a kettle to fill up a Pot Noodle. They were meant to provide a roof for a couple of nights, but now the average stay in these temporary accommodations in Edinburgh is between 18 and 24 months. The B&Bs cost a fortune and theyre not worth the money, says Murray. Youve got nobody to help you, youre on your own. Youve got a roof over your head, and thats it.

Josh doesnt just want to feed people, he wants to make a change, adds Mackay. I personally think Josh should be knighted!

Littlejohn hopes the first residents will move into the village this autumn. As we stood on the site, looking out to sea, I asked if he felt any pressure. He shook his head: the status quo for homeless people in Edinburgh is so bad that the project would have to go extraordinarily wrong to make the situation worse. Its a shot to nothing, he said. If it doesnt work, its not like weve taken taxpayer money and fucked it up. Weve raised it entirely privately. And if it works, it will transform the way we deal with homeless people. So its a good risk-to-reward ratio. Ive learned over the last five years that people want to work and strive to improve their situations. They dont want to live in these shitholes. So they should grab it with open arms. Of course, they might set the whole thing ablaze with their wood-burning stoves.

He waved his fist at the sky and railed at the gods: Idiot! Why did you insist on the wood-burning stoves!

Excerpt from:

Social entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn: 'I want to build a utopia for the homeless' - The Guardian

Need to know

What is it? Spacebound grand strategy with 4X elements. Or is it a 4X with grand strategy elements? Expect to pay $20/15 Developer Paradox Development Studio Publisher Paradox Interactive Reviewed on Windows 10 64-bit, Core i7-4770K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1070 Multiplayer Up to 32 Players Online (Steam) Link Official site

When Stellaris launched almost a year ago, its biggest void wasn't space itself, but its relatively challenge-light mid-game, especially regarding internal politics. Utopia attempts to enliven player empires, and force interesting choices in between the initial phase of wonder and exploration and the climactic finale when scripted endgame crises bring it all together. It attacks this problem with new political mechanics, a bunch of exciting late game goals that dont involve waiting for a robot rebellion to happen, and sweeping, feedback-informed reworks of core systems. It may be the studios largest and most transformative expansion yet, which is saying something. Yet some of the additions feel as underdeveloped as areas of Stellaris were at launch.

Alongside the 1.5 patch, Utopia rethinks just about everything relating to building and managing your stellar empire internally. Gone are set government types like Plutocratic Oligarchy and Enlightened Monarchy. In their place is a more versatile and interesting system where you chose an authority type (Democracy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship, or hereditary Empire), and then build on that with two starting civics (a third can later be unlocked with society tech) like Police State and Philosopher King to create a custom government that does exactly what you want it to. The type of government you create will influence how likely the population units ('Pops') scattered across your planets are to adopt certain viewpoints, such as Militarism, Spiritualism, or Xenophobia. As ethics used to be assigned to Pops semi-randomly, this system gives you a lot more of an active role in influencing your people.

This feeds into what I think is Utopias best feature: the new Faction system. Pops that follow a common ethos are now likely to found factions (such as Xenophiles starting an Alien Rights Movement, or Pacifists demanding an end to costly wars), with one of your existing governors, scientists, or military officers becoming the leader. Each faction has a list of agenda items, and depending on how many of them are fulfilled (or blatantly ignored), the faction will establish a happiness value that applies to all Pops who are part of that faction. Not only does displeasing factions potentially tank the happiness of a large base of your citizens, but keeping them very happy will grant you Influence that can be spent on useful edicts across the empire.

If you want to build a giant Dyson sphere around a sun to steal all of its energy and make any planets that depended on it freeze to death, you can do that.

The upshot of all of this is that internal politics actually feel interesting and participatory, which was a major weakness of Stellaris at launch. In one campaign, the two most powerful factions in my empire were the conservative religious bloc and a profit-driven party of business moguls. They usually werent directly at odds, but fulfilling all of the agendas to satisfy both of them required me to do some serious juggling of my usual playstyle. If I started to neglect one or the other, I would see the effects on my bottom line, just as Id bask in the benefits when I managed to keep everyone happy. Its a big, big step towards making Stellaris more interesting in the mid game, and giving you challenges to contend with that dont involve blowing up spaceships.

The flashier, more attention-grabbing new features dont slack either. Using a new resource called Unity, empires can progress down Civ 5-style Tradition trees. The perks in these trees each provide big, thematic bonuses when fully completed, as well as granting you an Ascension Perk, which is where things get really crazy. If you want to upload your entire population into robot bodies, you can do that. If you want to build a giant Dyson sphere around a sun to steal all of its energy and make any planets that depended on it freeze to death, you can do that. If you want to genetically modify your species to have 400 babies, you can do that. Theres nothing stopping you besides earning enough Unity. And while Unity can feel like one too many extra currencies to juggle in a game that already has minerals, energy, food, influence, three types of science, and strategic resources, the perks it provides are an effective way to guide your playstyle through the early and mid game, building towards some exciting, new toys in the late game.

My favorite of these Ive come across so far is The Shroud. A parallel realm accessible by a conclave of psychics once youve unlocked the highest tier of the Psionic ascension path, most interactions are text-based and relegated to the diplomatic menu but its effects in the game world can be quite tangible. At one point, my telepaths were given the chance to manifest a psychic entity of great power into a physical avatar that could fight with my fleets in battle. Some of the other events are worth not spoiling, but suffice to say, galaxy-changing. However, most of these short, choose-your-own-adventure interactions essentially culminate in a dice roll. There doesnt seem to be any way to affect the result, and it often felt underwhelming to be asked to gamble for a tiny, tiny chance of something really cool, or settling for a somewhat higher chance of something significantly less cool.

One other issue with ascension is that you have to progress through all seven of the Tradition trees to unlock all the perk slots. When I was playing a race of killer bugs that quite literally ate everyone they met, I was pretty excited to complete the first few. Heres one that lets me kill people better. Heres one that lets me spread my broods to new worlds faster. But in order to unlock those last few perk slots, I had to spend points on the Diplomatic Tradition tree, which had nothing even remotely useful for genocidal insects shunning friendship and spreading terror through the stars. Part of the appeal is specialization and distinguishing your civilization further, so it seems odd that everyone is going to eventually end up with all the traditions, and it somewhat cheapens the choice you have to make between them initially.

My favorite of these Ive come across so far is The Shroud. A parallel realm accessible by a conclave of psychics.

There are a few other features that give this same impression. For example, you can now play as a hive mind species that doesnt use happiness, doesnt start factions, and is ruled by an immortal consciousness that can be everywhere at once. In theory, it sounds absolutely awesome. In practice, its a little awkward. For one thing, when creating your own single-minded swarm, you can get a refund on some trait points by picking a negative trait that gives you -5% happiness even though hive minds dont use happiness. Very little of the event text has been altered to account for hive minds, so youll still get notifications about how the new aliens you just met are being portrayed in the media. Perhaps most significantly, without happiness or factions, hive mind play is basically electing to turn the best parts of the expansion off. Its a really cool idea, but it doesn't feel totally integrated with all aspects of the game.

When it stumbles, Utopia stumbles in the same way vanilla Stellaris did: introducing new ideas that have a lot of potential, but clearly arent quite ready for prime time. However, where it succeeds is in fleshing out a lot of those areas that felt imperfect at launch. The changes to Pops, governments, and factions have me designing new empires in my head and wanting to sink another hundred-something hours into this universe. I didnt come close to scratching the surface of all the endgame ascension paths in the time Ive had so far, but the ones I have seen make me excited to discover more. Utopia may not deliver on all the promises and expectations Stellaris is tied up in, but it does bring it one, giant leap closer.

See original here:

Stellaris: Utopia review | PC Gamer - PC Gamer

Why do you think open borders are a good idea? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

A mountain of scientific evidence shows that immigration is the most powerful weapon we have in the fight against global poverty. Four different studies have shown that, depending on the level of movement in the global labor market, the estimated growth in gross worldwide product would be in the range of 67% to 147%. Effectively, open borders would make the whole world twice as rich.

I understand that arguing in favor of immigration is not going to make you very popular these days. But as a historian, its easy to see that immigration is one of the most important drivers of prosperity in world history - from the Roman Empire to the United States. And many of the arguments against it (theyll take our jobs, they are too lazy to work, theyre all criminals - etc.) are factually incorrect.

Immigrants are often very productive and entrepreneurial and are actually job creators. People making a new life in the U.S. commit fewer offenses and less frequently end up in prison than the native population. Immigration has virtually no effect on the wages of the native population. Theres no evidence that immigrants are more likely to apply for assistance than native citizens. In reality, if you correct for income and job status, immigrants take less advantage of the welfare state.

Obviously, you cant win this debate by just churning out facts like these. Its really important to develop a different story around immigration. A country that is proud of itself, of its own heritage and traditions, a country that doesnt lack self-confidence will also be open to others.

Its the same with individuals: if youre confident of who you are, you will be open to new experiences. But if youre insecure, dont know who you are and where you want to go, you will probably be hostile to others as well. It doesnt surprise me that theres a rise in xenophobia and right-wing populism in a time when the centre has no ideology anymore, no new utopian visions.

This is why I wrote my book Utopia for Realists: weve achieved a lot in the past, but the problem today is that we dont know where to go next. Its time for a new Utopia for the 21st century.

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Why Open Borders Would Strengthen Our Economy - Huffington Post

This week there are more details on Microsoft's Project Scorpio 4K console, Apple Corps and Universal Music detailed a huge reissue of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and LG has shown off its home cinema line-up for 2017, including the SJ9 Dolby Atmos capable soundbar.

In reviews, we have Focal's Utopia headphones, a soundbar alternative in Sonos' Playbase and B&W's 805 D3 standmount speakers.

It's also new What Hi-Fi? week, with the May issue now on sale. There's plenty for any home cinema/hi-fi enthusiast with reviews of a Sony 4K TV, Blu-ray players under 100, a set-top box showdown between BT, Sky and Virgin and budget turntable fight between Audio Technica, Dual and Sony.

You can buy the issue from your local newsagent, subscribe or buy the digital versions on Android and iOS.

MORE: May 2017 issue on sale now!

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Best of the Week: Focal Utopia, Sonos Playbase, Sgt. Pepper reissue, new 4K Xbox and more - What Hi-Fi?

Podcast

Posted By: Peter Parrish April 7, 2017

Step close, and listen, to another hour-or-so of PC gaming dalliance with the PC Invasion Podcast. Episode 72 finds Tim and I wondering how Gearbox had never heard of the notorious G2A, and assessing how Bulletstorm: Full Clip Editionfares on PC.

Then its on to Stellaris (specifically the new Utopia expansion), and what it, and the new free patch, does to address that titles potentially stagnant mid-game period. Psychic bird-people, gazing through the Shroud of existence, Iain M. Banks references, feats of space engineering, and all the rest.

Beyond that, we talk about Creative Assemblys efforts to reassure its historical fans that the company is not just a subsidiary of Games Workshop now. And, along similar lines, go over the additional bits of Warhammer 2 news from earlier today. Theres a bit more about BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and that whole situation too.

Finally, a bit more Dark Souls 3 Ringed City discussion. You know, just for good measure.

Download, or stream, Podcast Episode 72 below. Prior podcast episodes live in our archives, but beware the deadly curse of poor sound quality that afflicts earlier editions (I think it gets much better around Episode 30 or so).

Oh, and make sure to hear Van Morrisons excellent Ringworm, mentioned (and at first incorrectly attributed) in this weeks episode. Its one hell of a song.

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PC Invasion Podcast #72 - PC Invasion (blog)

The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) is a new exhibition space created for EDP, a Portuguese foundation in Lisbon. The building opened in October of 2016 and just created its first curated exhibition. I had an opportunity to visit its exhibit Utopia/Dystopia: A Paradigm Shift in Art and Architecture and it provided an opportunity to see how the new structure functions and is being programmed.

Designed by British architect Amanda Levetes firm AL_A, The MAAT operates as a Kunsthalle, with no permanent collection of artifacts, but as a space to promote and stage cross-cultural or interdisciplinary experimentation. The building has several functional exhibition galleries, but its focus is an enormous, 13,000-square-foot, centralized elliptical space, ringed with steep inclined viewing ramps made for theatrical performances and temporary installations. The ramps are meant as viewing platforms but the steepness of the slope propels viewers down and then up and around the central ellipse. This constant movement by viewers can allow themif curated properlyto be part of the action or to become the event itself. Its an interactive public space for an age more familiar with digital and VR images on a screen than in a physical gallery.

(Courtesy MAAT)

The low, long profile of The MAATs exterior appears like a slightly opened oyster shell set in the mud along the facing Tagus river and estuary. If one imagines the shell opened ever so slightly, this is where Levete has placed the entrance into the building. Up a curving set of long, narrow steps, with a hovering deep overhang meant to capture the dappled reflection of the river, the public is pulled in a short entrance into the lobby and then into the grand open performance ellipse. Its facade is covered in 15,000 crackle glazed three-dimensional tiles that give it a fish scale like dimension on the cityscape and honors the citys many tiled facades. When these ceramic rectangles catch beams of natural dappled or artificial light the building magically glows like a light bulb.

But it is not simply the facade of the building that comes alive through refraction. This is a building meant to perform on every surface. It is, in some ways, as much landscape as it is anenclosure and thus a structure meant to perform. The term performative architecture stands for several older and newer ideas in architecture and the design of urban public space. If by the term one means buildings created to encourage active public engagement and themselves actively participate like Roman baroque urban experiments or even worlds fairs, then Levetes building is an unqualified success. It becomes a pedestrian promenade and visitors areg meant to walk along, onto, or over its tiled sloping roofscape like Foreign Office Architects 2003 Yokohama terminal.

(Courtesy MAAT)

Last weeks opening programmed performances to take place on every surface of the structure. It started with a musician playing the ceramic tile facade with a vibraphonists soft mallets and group of musicians dancing and singing on the top step of the covered front entry platform. The central oval space featured an opening night performance by Mexican artist Hector Zamora that featured crews of migrant laborers destroying a fleet of old unusable (but beautiful) fishing boats as a protest against the disappearance of a way of life represented by the small craft. The highlight of the first-day performance featured O Terceiro Paraiso, choreographed by Italian Michelangelo Pistoletto on the sloping roofscape public space. The Italian arte povera and action artist theorized a potential new utopiain accordance with the exhibition opening in the galleries downstairsthat asked several hundred participants to hold hands in three labyrinths made of a single line that would create a new third utopia from the two earlier ones that he theorized as an everyday Gesamtkunstwerk. The performance was pushed along by the large sloping facade of the roof that stands as an open space above the riverside promenade and facing back to the city in the distance.

It should be pointed out that the Levete renderings show the roofscape with a whiplash-like tail flying over the adjacent freeway to the roof of The MAAT. This freeway acts as a wall that cuts off Lisbon from its waterfront as if it were lifted out from any number of American cities. When (and if) this tail ramp is finished it will bring the city across the freeway and onto the roofscape and be the performative space the museums want to be for their home city.

(Courtesy MAAT)

Levette has delivered a potentially valuable new focus and hub for the Portuguese capital but it remains for the MAAT director Pedro Gandhao and his curatorial staff to realize the spatial and performative qualities of the museum. They have the opportunity to make this one the most exciting venues in the world that programs architecture and technology alongside art.

More:

Portugal's MAAT could become the world's most exciting venue for art and architecture - The Architect's Newspaper

You dont have to be a sci-fi wonk to be captivated by All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastais inventive tale about time travel.

Mastais debut novel has become a publishing sensation. Translation rights have been sold in 25 countries, while the American rights were auctioned for a seven-figure sum.

All Our Wrong Todays may share several elements with the quintessential time-travel film, Back to the Future, and its sequels, but the futuristic world of the novel goes beyond the flat screen TVs, hover-boards and flying cars that appear in the 1980s blockbusters.

Mastai has created a techno-utopia where everyones material needs can be met and global warming is no longer a threat. The great challenges facing humanity have been resolved though technology in this imagined world of 2016.

There are also the requisite sci-fi lifestyle innovations. New clothing is chemically reconstituted from old clothing, holidays on the moon are weekend jaunts and hover-cars provide door-to door, public transportation.

READ: SIMPLY BARBARAS TORONTO DEBUT

The protagonist, Tom Barren, is a 32-year-old shlemiel without ambition. He cant stick to any career path and hes a great disappointment to his father, Victor Barren, a genius and an acclaimed scientist.

Victor has invented a cutting-edge, time-travel apparatus at his Toronto lab. In this era of 2016, time travel is the new space frontier. Victor is about to realize his lifes work, when Tom inadvertently sabotages the worlds first time-travel mission.

That launch is aborted, but Tom embarks on an unauthorized time-travel mission. His fathers machine was programmed to send the first time-traveller, back to 1965 to witness the greatest event in history the exact moment the engine that generates endless clean energy was turned on. This machine made Toms techno-utopia possible.

The engines inventor, a Danish Holocaust survivor, has become a much-revered hero in that futuristic world of 2016. There are statues of him, books about him and museums showcasing his work.

Through some blundering, Tom accidentally interferes with the historic start-up of the engine. Like Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Tom discovers that his meddling with the past has impacted the future.

When he is teleported back to 2016, he suddenly finds himself in an alternate reality. Hes in the 2016 of our current, less-technically advanced era. He is caught between this world and the one he grew up in. Now Tom must contend with John, his egotistical alter ego, and a different version of his family and love interest.

The first part of book takes place in the futuristic utopia. We meet Toms parents, the women in his life, and we learn about the events that lead up to his ill-fated, time-travel mission. The author has set the stage for a narrative of twists and turns as Tom grapples with his new reality, in the present-day 2016.

He is an unlikely hero, with a daunting inner conflict. He must decide which 2016 he will live in. Should he forge a life in his new imperfect world or should he revisit 1965 and fix the error that irradiated his utopian world?

While the action is punctuated with many humorous moments, the book also has a serious core. Mastai explores the tension between the demands of personal relationships and the drive for professional and/or social status. The question he poses is: what values make life meaningful?

The book can also be viewed as an allegorical tale about the many unexpected directions a life can take and the various paths one may follow in a single lifetime.

Mastai grew up in Vancouver, but he is a Toronto resident. He may be a new novelist, but he is an accomplished screenwriter. He won a Canadian Screen Award for best adapted script for The F Word, a 2013 romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan.

Paramount has bought the film rights for All Our Wrong Todays and Mastai is currently working on the screenplay.

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Threat of global warming eliminated in All Our Wrong Todays - Canadian Jewish News (blog)

Every New Years Eve, a few reckless souls give themselves the permission to dream. They dream of guilt-free diets, of long-neglected projects resumed, of new friends in new places. They dream of new habits built upon the ruins of the old. They imagine a different self in their shoes, the kind of compassionate, disciplined, authentic self that would be able to effortlessly sustain their new lifestyle. Their greatest joy comes from imagining this new and capable self as someone they can easily become.

I was reminded of this annual ritual of self-fashioning last week while reading a critical essay on the nature of utopian literature that peculiar, dusty genre thats been with us since Thomas Mores Utopia (or perhaps Platos Republic). Though the author himself made no mention of personal endeavors, theres certainly an undeniable connection between the personal project of the New Years resolution and the political project of utopia. After all, a work of utopian literature is a New Years resolution for an entire society. Perhaps I want to be fit and productive; the utopian, not to be outdone, imagines a world of billions of musclebound workaholics drinking collectively owned protein shakes. Perhaps I also want to be studious and healthy; the utopian adds that his workaholics are also philosophers who feed each other salad from their organic gardens.

And so, reading utopian literature often ends up like listening to your friend describe their ambitious plans to change their life: One catches the cloying and unmistakable odor of the soon-to-be-abandoned promise of expired gym memberships and abandoned diet plans. When we speak of resolutions and utopias, we cant escape the fact that few people take either of them seriously these days.

Just consider that classic sitcom trope: A character resolves to make a positive change in his life, attempts to do so for most of the episode (with amusing results), and, after failing spectacularly, ends up where he began. We laugh at the hubris of a flawed characters pretensions to being something hes not. The joke is that we are incorrigible, that we are not really in control of our fates.

And as for utopia: What was the most recent sincere work of utopian literature you can remember? Dystopia, its counterpart, seems all the rage these dayshope is replaced by fear (or, more often, by teen angst). We find dystopia more interesting, more realistic. Somehow, imagining a future gone horribly awry has become easier than imagining one only slightly better than the present.

Maybe were right to be skeptical. The imagined self of a New Years resolution is an enormously disciplined figure, acting on only their purest desires and motivations. Were drawn specifically to lofty, unattainable goals of self-improvement because they let us take pleasure in imagining ourselves as the superhumans who can attain them. But we are not yet these superhumans and so the motivation slips away, the initial fire inevitably burns out, and we break the promise we make to ourselves. When we stumble and fall in the attempt to make any truly significant change to our lives, it seems hard to believe that change is possible at all.

Yet when we look to history, we see that this is just how change happens a series of abortive attempts. Few political movements see immediate, complete success; its only by an accumulation of partial successes, of fits and starts, that improvements have happened in our society. The world of today may well be a utopia to those living hundreds of years ago, but it came into being only gradually, not by a single, instantaneous effort. So maybe we should apply the wisdom of utopia to our own resolutions, and understand that even our abandoned goals have an impact on us, and that people can change just never as quickly as theyd like.

Contact Eric Wang at ejwang at stanford.edu.

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Towards utopia - The Stanford Daily

Who am I? is a question which taxes and unites us all. Pretty much every day, whether tacitly or explicitly, were forced to confront and assert what kind of person we are. Will we wipe that seat clean? Can we put our phone away during bedtime? If no one is watching, are we invisible?

That being so, itd make sense for us to cut others some slack when we encounter them grappling with that same overriding issue. That we often dont helps explain why the world is not exactly bursting with empathy, safety and security.

Last Monday, Gareth Southgate announced that he had been unable to persuade Wilfried Zaha to play football for England, rather than Cte dIvoire. Zaha was born in Abidjan, but after emigrating with his family aged 8, grew up in Croydon and represented his new country at under-19, under-21 and full level, before repatriating himself.

Southgates reputation is as a mensch, so it is difficult to fathom why he brought the matter up at all: Zaha represented his native country in the recent Africa Cup of Nations, so his affiliation is not a live issue. But, seeing as he did, it was fair to anticipate a comment along the lines of: I went to see Wilf because I rate him. Im disappointed, but of course I respect and understand his decision, so wish him all the best.

But what he in fact said was: If you dont feel that internal 100% passion for England, then Im not sure its for me to sell that to you. It should be your desire to do it the inherent desire of wanting to play for your country is the most important thing. Jermain Defoe is a classic example. His whole life has been a desire to play for England from Under-16s all the way through. I dont think if youd approached him to play for someone else hed have done it. Thats where I was with it too I didnt get capped until I was 25 and I had no interest in playing for anyone else. Im English and proud to be English and I think part of your identity as a national team has to be pride in the shirt. So, for me, the commitment has to come from the player.

This was somewhat odd. No one asked him to sell anything he approached Zaha, not the other around and Zaha has indicated his desire to play for his country, it just isnt the one that Southgate seems to think it should be. Jermain Defoe, meanwhile, is a classic example of certainty in a hypothetical situation and inadvertently imposing upon it the appalling good Negro-bad Negro narrative, while failing to notice that wait for it it is possible for two people who have the same skin colour to have different experiences of life.

This is not to criticise Southgates pride in who he is. But his international career has nothing in common with Zahas, and he has no right referencing it to make something that is not about him about him, nor to analogise his own situation to one that is different. It really ought to be obvious that Zahas identity is not linear, and that his decision to represent the country of his birth is not cause to imply that he is not English, has no pride in being English, and takes no pride in the two caps he worked his arse off to win. That Southgate did is insulting; that he made their conversation public is incendiary.

The following day, Danny Mills, a former England defender, delivered his opinion on talkSPORT, saying: Ultimately hes taken the easier option, and thought Well, I might get a few more caps and I might get to play in a few more tournaments because my chances with England are going to be limited. Gareth just means that he wants people to fight for the shirt and if you dont get in you dont get in I probably done 30-odd squads and never got any game time; sat in the stands, sat on the bench. But you still turned up every single time in that hope that you might get a chance and take it.

Let's break this down as though its a serious footballing argument. At 24, Zaha is nearing the perfect coalescence of athleticism and understanding. Just this weekend, he ravaged the champions-elect, and over the course of this season, has developed from talent into player. There is no reason to think him not good enough to get into a poor and shallow England squad indeed, that is why Southgate approached him. Also,lets say Mills is right, and Zaha wants to win more caps and play in more tournaments: this would be because hes a footballer, and footballers play football.

Similarly, the notion that playing for Cte dIvoire constitutes an easier option is also not exactly a fact. When called up by England, players generally recline at Georges Park with its underwater treadmills and pubic hair straighteners, then compete at Wembley Stadium; when called up by Cte dIvoire, players generally schlep to West Africa, then compete at not Wembley Stadium. Just last week, Zaha was playing in a game against Senegal that was abandoned following a pitch invasion. In no sense is that easier.

The reality, though, is that this is not a footballing issue at all. Taking issue with a young black man seeking to advance his career turning ambition into immorality illustrates why our society is so unequal. Though there is a mobility myth in the United Kingdom which asserts that everything is open to everyone, the reality is different. Groups who are historically disadvantaged, whether on grounds of race, class, sex or sexuality, must wait patiently for the removal of obstacles precluding their advancement, and even thereafter, are expected to know their place and always, always be grateful.

As such, it is unsurprising that Mills next gambit is to suggest that Zaha would not be prepared to fight for the shirt. This, wittingly or otherwise recasts a slur levelled at immigrants for centuries: they are unreliable and potentially insubordinate. A version of this sensibility was prevalent in football for many years in 1991, Ron Noades, then chairman of Crystal Palace, commented that The black players at this club lend the side a lot of skill and flair, but you also need white players in there to balance things up and give the team some brains and some common sense and there was also a belief that players of colour responded badly to adverse climate and circumstances.

Like Southgate, Mills cannot help but juxtapose Zahas decadence with his own virtue, another classic motif of oppression. It is amazing that it needs saying, but there is nothing laudable about Mills not playing for any of the countries in which he was not born and for whom he was not eligible. But for those governed by competing and complementary concepts minorities especially identity is intricate and fluid. Moreover, people change as they get older, as their understanding of things deepens, and responsibility to pass that on dawns.

A facet of Millss England career on which he rather curiously does not expound is that Owen Hargreaves was among his team-mates; Hargreaves, born and raised in Canada before completing his footballing education in Germany, represented Wales at youth level and remains the only man to make his debut for England without having lived or played in the country. Did Mills ever express to him the view that he was only in the squad because Canada werent very good? Did he feel that he could rely on him to fight for the shirt? Has he ever told Andy Townsend, his sometime pundit-partner, that his caps for Ireland were won only because he wasnt good enough for England, and that his commitment was necessarily less as a consequence? And if not, why not? What might it possibly be about this particular case that exercises him so? If only there were a word to describe this apparent discrepancy!

Throughout history, dominant racial groups have taken it upon themselves to instruct others about who they are and what they should be. Not only do Mills and Southgate fail to acknowledge the crucial difference between Zahas experience and their own,but neither so much as mentions his Ivorian roots, let alone seeks to understand why they are important to him.

Which is not to say that I cannot understand their disappointment. When Daniel Welbeck opted to play for England rather than Ghana, as a supporter of Manchester United, sharer of the name Daniel and husband to a Ghanaian, I thought oh, thats a shame for the three seconds it took for me to realise that his deeply personal decisions are none of my fucking business.

But Southgate and Mills think differently, reflecting aprevalent attitude of an England that is inherently and palpably superior to the rest of the world. And we are seeing the fruits of this attitude in real time. Also last week, the Prime Minister gave notice to leave an organisation which has preserved peace in Europe for a generation, in the process threatening lives to achieve a better trade deal; a tabloid crowed about the 500m earmarked to be spent on bringing back blue passports, when health and education budgets are squeezed; a broadsheet columnist, born in 1960, advocated a return to imperial measurements which were phased out in 1965; and a former Home Secretary said that Britain had to be ready for war with a NATO ally.

This behaviour reflects an idealised, fetishisednational identity, based on nostalgia for things that people either cannot remember, or which never existed. Like all historically powerful nations, England Great Britain owes much of its status to subjugation of others. And though the worst of that is over, its vestiges remain in both overt discrimination and the myriad microaggressions with which people of colour are forced to contend on a daily basis of which the treatment of Zaha is but one example.

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The post-Brexit fantasy of a utopia of flammable sofas - New Statesman