Category Archives: Singularity

Today, wireless charging is little more than a gimmick for high-end smartphones or pricey electric toothbrushes. But a new approach that can charge devices anywhere in a room could one day allow untethered factories where machinery is powered without cables.

As the number of gadgets we use has steadily grown, so too has the number of cables and chargers cluttering up our living spaces. This has spurred growing interest in wireless charging systems, but the distances they work over are very short, and they still have to be plugged into an outlet. So, ultimately, they make little difference.

Now though, researchers have devised a way to wirelessly power small electronic devices anywhere in a room. It requires a pretty hefty retrofit of the room itself, but the team says it could eventually be used to power everything from mobile robots in factories to medical implants in people.

This really ups the power of the ubiquitous computing world, Alanson Sample, from the University of Michigan, said in a press release. You could put a computer in anything without ever having to worry about charging or plugging in.

Efforts to beam power over longer distances have typically used microwaves to transmit it. But such approaches require large antennas and targeting systems. They also present risks for spaces where humans are present because microwaves can damage biological tissue.

Commercial wireless chargers instead rely on passing a current through a wire charging coil to create a magnetic field, which induces an electric current in a wire receiving coil installed in the device you want to charge. However, the approach only works over very short distancesroughly equal to the diameter of the charging coil.

The new approach, outlined in a paper in Nature Electronics, works on similar principles, but essentially turns the entire room into a giant magnetic charger, allowing any device within the room that has a receiving coil to draw power.

To build the system, Sample and colleagues from the University of Tokyo installed conductive aluminum panels in the rooms walls, floor, and ceiling and inserted a large copper pole in the middle of it. They then mounted devices, called lumped capacitors, in rows running horizontally through the middle of each panel and at the center of the pole.

When current passes through the panels, its channeled into the capacitors, generating magnetic fields that permeate the 100-square-foot room and deliver 50 watts of power to any devices in it.

Importantly, the capacitors also isolate potentially harmful electric fields within themselves. As a result, the team showed the system doesnt exceed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines for electromagnetic energy exposure.

This is actually the second incarnation of this technology. Sample first introduced the idea in a 2017 paper in PLOS ONE while working for Disney. But the latest research solves a crucial limitation of the earlier work. Previously the system produced a single magnetic field that swirled in a circle around the central pole, resulting in dead spots in the corners of the square room. The new setup creates two simultaneous magnetic fields, one spinning around the pole and another concentrated near the walls themselves.

This way the researchers were able to achieve charging efficiency above 50 percent in 98 percent of the room compared to only 5.75 percent of the room for the previous iteration. They also found that if they only relied on the second magnetic field, they could remove the obstructive pole and still get reasonable charging in most of the room (apart from right at the center).

While thats a significant improvement, it still means that on average 50 percent of the power coming out of the wall socket is wasted. Such low efficiencies are a common problem for wireless charging, as an investigation by OneZero found last year.

Given the small amount of power required to charge everyday devices its unlikely to have an especially notable impact on most users power bills, according to the report. But at a society-wide scale it could be significant waste of power and source of unnecessary carbon emissions.

This is only a prototype though, and considering the dramatic increase in efficiency between the first and second versions, this efficiency gap could be closed. A more pressing concern might be the cost and complexity of retrofitting buildings with massive aluminum plates in the walls.

Indeed, the researchers are working on both issues. Weve just developed a brand-new technique. Now we have to go figure out how to make it practical, Sample told Scientific American.

Still, while this kind of seamless wireless charging wont be ubiquitous in the near term, the technique could soon be used in niche situations, like charging cabinets for power tools, and ultimately, the researchers think it could be make the factories of the future cable-free.

Image Credit: The University of Tokyo

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This Room Can Wirelessly Charge Devices Anywhere Within Its Walls - Singularity Hub

Apex Legends September 2, 2021 / 4:22 pm

Respawn has officially announced the full list of teams who have been invited to compete in the Apex Legends Global Series 2021-2022. The massive 200 team league will be comprised of 100 invited squads and 100 who will earn their spots via the Preseason Qualifiers from September to October. Each of the five regions will have a total of 40 teams participating in their ALGS Regular Season Splits with the top 10 from NA, EMEA, and APAC North and the top 5 from SA and APAC South qualifying for the ALGS playoffs.

ALGS Pro League is set to begin in September. With 100 of the 200 teams already confirmed, both players and fans alike are eagerly anticipating the start of the season. (Image Credit Respawn)

All of the invited teams were chosen either due to their results in the first ALGS season, their reputation as a squad throughout competitive Apex, or a combination of the two. The full list of 100 teams can be found here. Every regions inaugural season Champions are listed first in the tables.

Notable North American ALGS teams include Cloud9 and TSM who are coming off of second and third place finishes in Season 1. Other top-tier competitors from the region include NRG, G2 Esports, Team Liquid, and defending champions Team Kungarna. In Europe, all eyes will be on SCARZ Europe who will be looking to defend their title as well. There are plenty of top-tier teams contesting them such as Gambit Esports, Alliance, Natus Vincere, and runners-up ZETA Division, formerly known as Fire Beavers.

APAC North will also be an incredibly competitive region. COUQUE DASSE who won Season 1 under Fennel Korea will need to stave off the incredibly talent rosters of Crazy Racoon, Fennel, and LFTpko, formerly under T1. As for APAC South, WOLFPACK Arctic, Tom Yum Kung, Dire Wolves, and Reignite are some of the candidates to come out swinging for the limited five playoff spots. Lastly, South America will also be a tight race for their five playoff seeds. The defending champions Team Singularity, formerly of Paradox Esports will have to work hard against All4 Esports, Dynamics, and Horus.

The first ALGS 2021-2022 qualifier begins on September 11 with the regular season kicking off on October 16th. The stakes could not be higher as the biggest Apex Legends competition ever approaches rapidly.

Originally posted here:

All Invited ALGS Pro League Teams Revealed by Respawn - Hotspawn

With Major General Chris Donahue, the commanding general of the 82nd airborne division having boarded the C-17 aircraft, the two-decade-old American military mission in Afghanistan came to an end. The sight of the American planes flying out of Kabul, with the remainder of the service members aboard, was broadcast live around the world, generating millions of comments across the traditional and social media platforms.

The completion of the withdrawal of the US forces, in line with the schedule announced by US President Joe Biden on April 16 earlier this year, was followed by celebratory aerial firing by the victorious Taliban as their personnel took control of Kabul airport. The ignominious pullout by the worlds greatest military power led the Taliban spokesperson to tweet that Afghanistan was a free and sovereign country.

For a ragtag militia that was literally bombed out of power in 2001, faced political wilderness for a long time, and confronted the fiercest US-led Nato military onslaught, it is no less than a miracle to fight its way back into power.

However, the takeover of Afghanistan is but a part of more formidable challenges facing the Taliban. They may have shown resoluteness and singularity of purpose in holding their ground against the US and its allies over the last two decades; however, the burden of governing a war-wracked and deeply divisive country will surely test them in fundamental ways.

The most immediate challenge facing the Taliban leadership is to put in place an inclusive government, one whose composition reflects the political, ethnic, and linguistic realities of the country. Such a political arrangement, if it is consensually arrived at, will not only bring much-needed goodwill to the Taliban but also send a message of inclusivity, harmony, and peace to the Afghans.

Forming an inclusive government is the first major step. More important is the autonomy, power, and freedom given to this government to draw up a national agenda. Coalition governments are a tricky business even in the established democracies. How such a government consisting of old rivals and battlefield adversaries, fares will constitute a real challenge. It will also be crucial to see what conflict resolution arrangement is provided for in the system to iron out the differences that are sure to emerge.

Second, despite the Talibans assurances and general amnesty, a large number of Afghans, particularly those living in the urban areas, remain deeply worried about their future under the Islamic Emirate. This includes women, minorities, and ethnic communities.

The searing memories of the treatment the Taliban meted out to the people during their previous rule have not faded. It is this distrust of the new rulers that explains the chaos and mayhem witnessed at Kabul airport, as people scrambled to fly out of the country at any cost. The falling of a 15-year-old teen footballer to death from the wings of a flying aircraft represents the tragedy of todays Afghanistan, as it faces an uncertain future.

Allied to the environment of fear and anxiety is the massive brain drain underway in the wake of the Taliban takeover. No country can function without its skilled human resource. Doctors, engineers, scientists, lawyers, civil servants, media persons, and teachers are the backbone of any society; their presence is vital to running a government and shaping the future of a country.

Hundreds of Afghan nationals got the opportunities to be educated at Western universities during the past two decades and acquired valuable experience of working in global settings. They are a great asset, and their professional expertise and skills are vital to the process of rebuilding the country.

It is, therefore, of utmost importance that the Taliban-led government takes conscious steps to build a relationship of trust with these Afghans by addressing their fears and apprehensions. No matter what ethnicity, race, and political background they may belong to, their inclusion into the mainstream will serve Afghanistan in good stead. It is indeed heartening that the Taliban have asked all the university teachers and staff to report back from August 31, a welcome gesture in its own right.

Yet another key challenge facing the new rulers is to make sure that Afghanistan does not suffer from a humanitarian crisis. There are worrisome reports of food and medical stocks dwindling and the long harsh winter stares in the face. The long queues of the people in front of banks present a painful sight. The UNHCR has warned of an impending humanitarian crisis if the global community does not act fast to help the Afghans.

It is in this context that Prime Minister Imran Khan has urged the world community to stay engaged with Afghanistan to avert a human tragedy. Pakistan is the first country to deliver medical supplies of the World Health Organization through a PIA cargo flight after the events of August 15. Islamabad has assured the world community to establish a humanitarian air bridge for the relief activities to take place. The world needs to heed Pakistans advice of not leaving the Afghan people at this most critical juncture. Otherwise, the consequences of such negligence will be horrible. The world must act wisely considering the past mistakes of the 1990s when the collapse of the USSR led to the complete abandonment of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan needs the world so it can sustain itself economically. Foreign aid formed about 40 percent of its GDP during the Ghani administration. Following the Talibans takeover, the United States has suspended Afghanistans foreign reserves to the tune of over $9 billion.

What the world and the US must know is that this money belongs to the Afghan people without which they will literally face starvation and be deprived of essential services such as power, water, and fuel supplies, etc. They need empathetic treatment.

It is here that the Taliban are doubly obligated to work with the international community to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Instead of imposing a regressive governing order, they must find ways to allay the apprehensions of the world. They should know that it will be well-nigh impossible for Afghanistan to survive without the support and assistance of the international community. Hence, the middle ground and moderate approach in the statecraft consistent with the globally cherished values offers the way forward.

Taliban leaders have said the right things so far and their initial actions have been conciliatory towards their opponents. However, what the world remains wary of is their abiding commitment to regressive ideology and stereotyped notions.

In order to govern effectively, and earn global legitimacy, they need to transition from a militia mindset into a reformative party whose broad outlook is pluralistic and informed by an understanding of the contemporary problems and the imperatives of running modern-day nation-states. This will require a paradigm shift in their ideological orientation without which such a transformation cannot take place.

Last but not least is the challenge of wrangling and competition from terror outfits such as ISIS-K. As the recent terrorist incidents, including the deadly attack on Kabul airport made it absolutely clear, Afghanistan under the Taliban will be a site of renewed terror activity.

This problem from ISIS-K-type organizations is two-fold. On the one hand, they will violently oppose the Talibans shift to normalcy, advertising the change in its policy as a sell-out of Jihad with a clear motive to attract new recruits to their more puritanical cause. On the other hand, they will try to form alliances with other terrorist organizations such as the TTP and use ungoverned spaces as a launching pad for terrorism against the neighbouring countries to keep the region in perpetual turmoil and disrupt any bonhomie between the Taliban and the world from developing.

The Taliban face a mammoth test one they have never faced before. The last time they ruled Afghanistan was two decades ago. New realities have cropped up since then. The world is anxiously watching them and has stakes in the direction they take.

Down the road, they will realise that power imposes a restraining burden, and demand sagacity and prudence more than anything else.

The writer, a Chevening scholar, studied International Journalism at the University of Sussex.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @Amanat222

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The burden of power - The News International

Listener expectation is something that most bands who have stayed the course must contend with, choosing either to acquiesce to it, meet it halfway or defiantly turn their backs and wear the consequences. Liars, however, seem to have never even acknowledged its existence. A luxury long afforded them by their record label, maybe, but far more an indicator of their protean constitution. Over 20 years, change really has been Liars only constant.

Their 2001 debut was as an NYC-based four-piece, whose They Threw Us All In A Trench And Put A Monument On Top was a set of pleasingly rowdy and abrasive tracks that cut Gang Of Four and The Pop Group-style post-punk with US hardcore, but closed with a 30-minute, psych-doom raga. Singer Angus Andrew later claimed Underworlds Beaucoup Fish was actually its inspiration, which illustrates the nature of Liars entertainingly unknowable mindset. Done with that, they switched to monstrously degraded noise-rock with dread-filled beats for the witchcraft-themed They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. After relocating to Berlin, they followed up with 2006s bravura Drums Not Dead, which thrust brutalist beats to the fore while mixing fields of electronic static and no-wave guitar scree with warm, ambient drifts. Subsequent albums variously featured more structured songs, introduced strings and piano, delivered mutant dance music and more. In terms of consistency, Liars have never yielded an inch.

Which is not to say that theyve been unstable. The creative partnership of Andrew and guitarist Aaron Hemphill lasted until 2017, at which point Andrew suddenly found himself adrift. However, that split opened a fresh chapter and he made two albums in self-imposed isolation in the Australian bush, TFCF and Titles With The Word Fountain. Computer-created, they leaned on field recordings, earlier scrapped material made over and acoustic guitar craft; both were documents of their authors external environment and inner turmoil.

The Apple Drop is also a kind of mind map, representing change on several significant fronts. Firstly, its a stepping out of solitude and a return to teamwork for Andrew, with guitarist and bass player Cameron Deyell, drummer and percussionist Laurence Pike, and Mary Pearson Andrew, his wife, who sings and collaborated on the lyrics. On a deeper level, the record represents shifts both conceptual and perceptual resulting from Andrews quitting of SSRI medication and self-administration of psilocybin. He told Uncut: I took the shrooms in all forms. Some group-guided hero doses, also microdosing in regular and not so micro ways. The record also sees him looking back at Liars history (a first) and considering connections between records (he was keen to foreground drums again), revisiting themes (the reappearance of Mt. Heart Attack, the character that represents fear and anxiety on Drums Not Dead, is crucial) and reviving a few ideas abandoned in previous album sessions. A balance has been struck between live instrumentation and digitally treated sounds, both in experimental pieces such as closer New Planets New Undoings, where rumbling electronics and unintelligible vocals wash over treated keys in a gentle ebb and flow, and in songs with more conventional structures, including the TV On The Radio-toned From What The Never Was and Big Appetite, which suggests nothing so much as a swinging Nine Inch Nails.

Liars unpredictability has previously manifested not as genre switching but as apparent randomness within individual tracks and wilful disruption of the flow of the albums as set pieces. The Apple Drop is less obstreperous on both counts. It begins gently, with the floppy (off)beat pattern, subtle electronic drone and feel of a corrupted Disney score that is The Start, then builds steadily to the dark, mid-point intensity of the monolithic Star Search, which summons both the ominous dread and sublime beauty of space and sees a resolution of Andrews ongoing conflict with Mt. Heart Attack. The measured climb-down before exit is via the terrific Leisure War, with its groovy synth, Fripp-ish guitar passage and clattering beats, and the slow-fried thump of Acid Crop, which connects to the well known acid drop and so supplies the albums title. It underlines one aspect of Andrews existential thinking too: What we do now will forever define us/What we do now will absolutely define us/What they do may somehow hurt us but/What they ever gonna do about what happened to my mind?

Hes clearly referring to something much broader and deeper than artistic definition but Andrews mercurial mindset is again the key to Liars singularity. If The Apple Drop is more, in light of their history, a considered experiential teaser than a synapse frazzler, its his choice. Once more, expectation can go to hell.

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Liars The Apple Drop - UNCUT

According to certain scientists who attended private universities and then married one of their graduate students, the universe as we know it went through a big change 13.7 billion years ago.

Or perhaps the big change was 13.8 billion years ago. Scientists havent been able to agree on the exact moment, nor have their wives.

The event has been labeled The Big Bang although no one was around to hear it, so we are stuck once again with that ancient philosophical controversy, If a universe is created and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?

Really, it ought to be referred to as The Big Soundless Explosion. In my humble opinion.

Which brings to mind what has happened in Pagosa Springs lately. But well get around to that scientific concept in a moment.

As I understand the situation, prior to the Big Bang (or alternately, the Big Soundless Explosion), the entire universe was squeezed in a single packet of energy and matter called a singularity, which didnt obey the rules of physics that science has so carefully constructed over the past 200 years.

Apparently, when you are a singularity you get to make up your own rules.

For some reason that no one can fully explain, the singularity suddenly decided to expand into the shape of a universe. Most of the expansion took place during the first second of the universes creation, during which protons and neutrons and electrons came into being. Also something called dark energy filled the void of space, except that no one knows exactly what dark energy is. But it has to exist, because the universe is supposedly expanding at an ever-increasing rate, which it cannot do unless we have a universe full of dark energy. Whatever it is.

This image, above, might illustrate the first moments of the Big Bang, when the singularity woke up and decided to blossom into a full-blown universe.

Or it might be just a purple dot. Im not sure.

But one thing about which we are sure: after about 13.7 billion years (give or take), Pagosa Springs was incorporated along the banks of the San Juan River.

Some people have suggested that the whole reason for the Big Bang was to bring Pagosa Springs into existence. Other people will argue that Pagosa Springs was simply one of a gazillion accidents happy accidents, or unhappy accidents that resulted from the Big Bang.

The unhappy accidents are many, of course and include hurricanes, taxes, and Facebook.

The happy accidents include dogs, romance novels, and soft-serve ice cream.

Not all scientists buy into the idea that our universe happened purely by accident. Many of them subscribe to the belief that intelligent design has been guiding the cosmic process. This intelligent design theory does not, however, explain Facebook.

But the opposite belief that everything is a random happening, with no thought behind it does not explain soft-serve ice cream.

So we are stuck in the middle, so to speak, between an accidental universe and intelligent design clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, as they say.

Then we have the conundrum of Pagosa Springs, which has experienced its own Big Bang over the past couple of years. Many of us remember Pagosa Springs when it had only a single stoplight, at the corner of Hot Springs Boulevard and Highway 160. In those days, Pagosa Springs was like a singularity that could make up its own rules.

Then it decided to wake up. Whether this decision had anything to do with intelligent design is highly questionable.

One similarity between the universes Big Bang and Pagosas Big Bang that the increasing speed of the expansion. For a long time, Pagosa didnt have any stoplights. Then one appeared, and for a long time, we just had just that one stoplight. Then suddenly there were, like, six stoplights. And even that didnt fix the traffic problems.

I blame it on dark energy.

I can do that, because Im not a scientist.

Louis Cannon

Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.

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READY, FIRE, AIM: The Big Bang and Then, Pagosa Springs - Pagosa Daily Post

Bungie revealed at its Destiny Showcase that all of Destiny 2s Light subclasses Arc, Solar, and Void will undergo a conversion to the Darkness/Stasis system over the next year. Just a few days later, the studio gave players their first look at the first subclass getting updated: Void.

The studio first revealed that players wont unlock a new Darkness subclass in The Witch Queen or any point before Destiny 2s 2023 expansion, Lightfall something creative director Joe Blackburn discussed on a Twitch stream an hour prior. Bungie also said players wont unlock new Stasis Aspects or Fragments in Season of the Lost.

For the uninitiated, Stasis offers the traditional class ability, jump augment, grenade choice, and melee ability. But players can also choose up to two Aspects, which augment the subclass with new abilities or functionalities like letting Hunters hold a button in midair to dive back to earth. Void 3.0 will work similarly, but it sounds like players will be able to select multiple Supers, rather than Stasis single-Super option.

Also like Stasis, Void will get key terms that define it, called verbs by Bungie. These work similarly to Stasis Slow, Freeze, and Shatter offering, and are buffs and debuffs that all play into each other. For Void, the verbs are Suppression, Weaken, Volatile. [Ed. note: Hey, Bungie suppression and volatile arent verbs.]

Suppression is all about blinding and disabling enemies, preventing them from using abilities, or, for AI enemies, shooting at all. Weaken increases the targets incoming damage and slows their movement. And Volatile causes affected enemies to explode after death or after taking enough additional damage. Void Guardians will also be able apply an Overshield, invisibility, or Devour (a life-steal buff) to their allies.

In addition to revealing the verbs, Bungie showed players a host of new Supers and Aspects for each updated class.

Nightstalker Hunters will get a new version of the Moebius Quiver Shadowshot, which currently lets players fire multiple arrows. In the Void 3.0 version, players will fire two volleys of three arrows each. The arrows will seek enemies out and tether them with multiple Void Anchors, which also turn them Volatile.

A new Aspect for Nightstalker Hunters, Stylish Executioner, will also turn the Hunter invisible and grant them Truesight each time they kill a Volatile, Suppressed, or Weakened enemy. Nightstalkers will also Weaken enemies if they use a melee attack on enemies while invisible with this Aspect equipped.

Sentinel Titans will get a new Aspect and melee ability. Overwatch empowers the Titans Barricade with Void, giving the Titan and allies behind it a powerful Overshield. Sentinel Titans will also receive a new melee ability called Shield Toss, which essentially lets them act like Captain America outside of their Super. The shield can ricochet between enemies, and the Titan will gain some Overshield charge for each enemy it hits.

It looks like Warlocks may see the most unique changes in Void 3.0. Pocket Singularity is a new melee projectile that tracks enemies and both pushes them out of cover and turns them Volatile when it explodes. Children of the Old Gods is a new Aspect that summons a sentient black hole when the Warlock places a Rift. The Child, as Bungie calls it, will latch onto nearby enemies like a Metroid, Weakening them and refunding grenade or melee energy for Healing Rift users or health for Empowering Rift users.

Bungie elaborated further on these changes by saying that while many things will change with Void 3.0, players should have more options to create new builds as well as mix and match old abilities. The studio gave some exciting examples like Spectral Blades with Vanishing Step for Hunters, Ward of Dawn and Controlled Demolition for Titans, and Handheld Supernova and Devour for Warlocks.

Bungie promised more reveals closer to Void 3.0s debut in The Witch Queen on Feb. 22, 2022.

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Destiny 2s Void 3.0 converts the Light subclass to the Stasis system - Polygon

Sally Rooney appears before a stark, white background, stripped of even the most incidental feature. It makes me laugh: in 18 months of Zoom meetings, Ive encountered people in their bedrooms and home offices, in front of bookcases and windows situations that, no matter how bland or contrived, still betray some minor, contextualising detail. The empty staging today is, evidently, something that Rooney, after two hit novels and the rapid onset of unwelcome fame, clearly wishes might extend further than a video call. Later in our conversation, she will tell me celebrity is a condition that, in many cases, happens without meaningful consent the famous person never even wanted to become famous. Now, after exchanging greetings, I mention the singularity of the naked white walls and she laughs and says merely, Yes.

There are some good reasons for the 30-year-olds reticence. Her first two novels Conversations With Friends and Normal People were published in quick succession to the sort of acclaim that put Rooney in a category of exposure more consistent with actors than novelists. The books featured characters in late adolescence and early adulthood struggling through first relationships while starting to organise their thoughts about the world. They were erudite and self-assured, written with a dry, flat affect that was often very funny, and contained the kinds of fleeting, well-wrought descriptions that infused every scene with a casual virtuosity. (Early on in Conversations With Friends, Frances, the heroine, sleeps with Nick, a married man, and taking the bus home afterwards, sits at the back near the window, where the sun bore down on my face like a drill and the cloth of the seat felt sensationally tactile against my bare skin. Rooneys ability to unpack a thought or feeling without forfeiting economy is one of the great strengths of her writing.)

Normal People sold a million copies and was turned into a megahit TV show starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. More trenchantly, it became the sort of talismanic novel made to represent an entire generations coming of age. I dont think of my novels as millennial novels any more than I think of them as female novels, Rooney says. Nonetheless, that is how they are perceived.

It all seems a lot to hang on the shoulders of a very slight young woman, hair grown long during the pandemic so that it falls in sheets on either side of her face. Rooney is assumed to be difficult in the vein of her characters a spiky, awkward, intellectual woman who, as Alice, the heroine of her new novel, says of herself, goes around accusing everyone of having the wrong opinions. In fact, over the course of our two conversations, by Zoom and by email in which we will discuss her journey from champion teenage debater to novelist, whether shes sufficiently working class to be allowed to use the word Marxist and the new novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You Rooney is nothing but obliging, though her sensitivities to intrusion are occasionally triggered to amusing effect. How do you know Im married? she says, taken aback when I mention John, her husband, a maths teacher with whom shes been since college. I point out she thanks him in the books acknowledgements.

Like the other two novels, Beautiful World, Where Are You is set in Ireland, where Rooney grew up and still lives. It features a set of recognisably Roonian characters: Alice, a successful writer, is dating Felix, who works in a warehouse; her best friend Eileen, an editor at a literary magazine, is obsessed with Simon, a childhood friend who works in politics. (She also spends a lot of time Googling her ex-boyfriend.) These four people, all approaching 30, are, to one or another degree, lost: too successful, not successful enough, carrying various wounds of their childhoods and, in spite of endlessly analysing their own reactions to things, unable to identify what they want.

The book first presented itself to me as a four-person story, Rooney says, a story about a friendship between two women, and their respective relationships with two men. But it took me a relatively long time and a lot of trial and error to figure out how to tell that story. The friendship between the two women is unconventionally told. Interspersing the narrative are long, wordy emails exchanged between Alice and Eileen. (Sample from Alice: I suppose you think this is all extremely rudimentary and maybe even that Im un-dialectical. But these are just the abstract thoughts I had, which I needed to write down, and of which you find yourself the (willing or unwilling) recipient.) They discuss aspects of history, philosophy, psychology and politics, as well as their love lives and the deteriorating state of their friendship. I was interested in the interaction between their friendship and their intellectual lives, Rooney says. How their ideas inform the relationship, and how the particularities of their dynamic inform the development of their ideas. The intellectual friendship between two women is an unusual focus for fiction, and it helps explain why Rooneys young female fans feel such passion for her work: she takes seriously something so little represented, some might imagine it doesnt exist.

There is something else, too; Rooneys heroines are, without fail, always the smartest people in the room. They are also pretentious, priggish, self-absorbed and superior, condescending and driven by insecurity. They put me in mind, occasionally, of people I remember from university, those students who hung around outside the union on election day, shouting, Apathy led to the rise of Hitler! at politically disengaged students as they passed.

Their cleverness is mocking and, to casual readers, one imagines, vaguely threatening: typical responses to young, smart women that have been deflected on to Rooney herself. She was 27 when Normal People was published and her experience of being in the spotlight is worked into the new novel through Alice who, after writing two successful novels, has fled to a remote house in rural Ireland. When I submitted the first book, I just wanted to make enough money to finish the next one, writes Alice in an email to Eileen. I never advertised myself as a psychologically robust person, capable of withstanding extensive public inquiries into my personality and upbringing. Literary fame, Alice writes, has been so thoroughly unpleasant and unnerving that, in her opinion, people who intentionally become famous I mean people who, after a little taste of fame, want more and more of it are, and I honestly believe this, deeply psychologically ill.

If you dont want to read novels about writers, or women, or Irish people, dont read my novels. I wont mind

Rooney is at pains to point out shes not Alice. I have no appetite for writing about myself and things that have actually happened to me, she says, instead casting her experiences as a mental library she may draw from when creating her fiction. This seems a complicated way of preserving her privacy, but in any case, as it turns out, Alices horror of the publicity process is one Rooney wholeheartedly shares. I mention that I recalled her saying it would be graceless to complain about fame, and shell have none of it. I dont remember saying that. And actually, I dont think that at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. As far as I can make out, the way that celebrity works in our present cultural moment is that particular people enter very rapidly, with little or no preparation, into public life, becoming objects of widespread public discourse, debate and critique. Its irrelevant whether or not fame was part of their plan. They just randomly happen to be skilled or gifted in some particular way, and its in the interests of profit-driven industries to exploit those gifts and to turn the gifted person into a kind of commodity.

After Normal People, the story of Marianne and Connells bleak romance, was longlisted for the 2018 Booker and awarded novel of the year at the Costa book awards, Rooneys writing was spoken of as a mystic portal into the minds of young people, with the inevitable backlash when it failed to represent all of them. The hell of fame, Rooney says now, is that of a person enduring variably serious invasions of their privacy from the media, from obsessive fans, and from people motivated by obsessive hatred.

She stopped posting on and eventually looking at Twitter, something she misses (Twitter can be very funny). And she averted her eyes from as much of the coverage as she could. I dont read reviews or profiles, and back when I used social media, I actually muted my own name to try and avoid seeing things accidentally. None of it worked. The world does have a way of intruding. Coverage of the Normal People television show was so ubiquitous that I really could not avoid encountering it even when I tried. And of course, people approach me in public now and then, almost always in a very friendly and pleasant way, and I get letters and emails and things like that. Nonetheless it has been unpleasant, and she can only see one, very unattractive way out. Of course, that person could stop doing whatever it is theyre good at, in order to be allowed to retire from public life, but that seems to me like a big sacrifice on their part and an exercise in cultural self-destruction for the rest of us, forcing talented people either to endure hell or keep their talents to themselves. So no, she says, I dont think it is graceless for people in those positions to speak out about how poisonous this system is. It doesnt seem to work in any real way for anyone, except presumably some shareholders somewhere.

These anxieties are present in Beautiful World, Where Are You, a novel that has the impossible task of following up on a book as successful as Normal People and tackles it by featuring a protagonist worrying about the impossible task of how to follow up on her successful first novels. Alice rakes compulsively over her first two books, trying to figure out how she did it. She goes on a rant about how dishonest writers are when they write novels that seek to obscure the reality of life as a successful novelist. They come home from their weekend in Berlin, she writes, after four newspaper interviews, three photoshoots, two sold-out events, three long leisurely dinners where everyone complained about bad reviews, and they open up the old MacBook to write a beautifully observed little novel about real life. I dont say this lightly: it makes me want to be sick. Rooney is well aware this storyline is vulnerable to criticism who cares about a novelist self-indulgently fretting about her next novel? and is bullish about it.

For a start, she says, the people making these complaints like to read novels, presumably, but they dont like to be reminded that novelists are necessary for the production of the novels they like to read. Isnt that odd? Almost like attending a football game and complaining that everyone on the pitch is a professional footballer. Their job is to play football, not to reflect your life experiences. Furthermore, she says, Its not my job to populate my books with particular types of characters that I imagine other people might find relatable. Its my job to write about whatever comes into my head, to the best of my ability. If as a reader you want to exercise control over the kinds of things that are depicted in novels, try writing one. Thats what I did and it worked for me. If, on the other hand, you just dont want to read novels about writers, or women, or Irish people, whatever, thats OK a very Roonian moment, this dont read my novels. I wont mind.

Rooney is not from a family of writers. She grew up in Castlebar, County Mayo, where her father worked as a technician for the national telecoms company and her mother, after training as a teacher, worked in a local arts centre. It was not, she says, a very wealthy background and leftwing politics were frequently discussed at the dinner table. Her family Rooney has an older brother and a younger sister were on the mostly cheerfully noisy and argumentative side, which I dont think they will mind me saying. Without a doubt this contributed to the kind of person I became, and the kind of writer I am.

She is fond of polemic, in other words, and what she once characterised, in an essay for the Dublin Review about her career as a college debater, as a taste for ritualised, abstract interpersonal aggression. Rooney wasnt competitive at school. The popularity race didnt interest her and she opted out, not only socially but academically, doing the bare minimum required to achieve the desired results. The only place she exhibited any ambition was at a local writing class. It wasnt a class! she says, at mention of it; it was a writing group that she joined at the age of 16, in which everyone read aloud their work and invited feedback from others. It sounds like a daunting environment for a kid of that age but, Rooney says, it just wouldnt have occurred to me to be nervous about reading my work aloud to a group. I dont have a natural fear of public speaking. After winning a place to read English at Trinity College, Dublin, she started sending out fiction and poetry to small literary magazines, and eventually started writing a novel.

Rooney is the precise opposite of the popular image of the novelist as mumbling and haphazard, speech punctuated by bursts of agonised silence. Her rhetorical style has been shaped by the experience of her early 20s when, as she puts it in the Dublin Review essay, she became the number one competitive debater on the continent of Europe. Rooney wasnt a good debater when she joined the college team, but she understood the rules of the game, and that with practice, she could excel. The essay was published in 2015, and it seems like the last time she shared, without inhibition, her feelings in a non-fiction format. I was 19 when I started debating competitively, she wrote, and its probably fair to say that most things I did when I was 19 were motivated by a desperation to be liked. I wasnt only willing to lose debates: I was willing to tell all my secrets, to lend money when I couldnt afford to and to date anyone who showed an interest in me, no matter how dull or aggressive. I had low self-esteem and a predilection for hero-worship, and I was extremely determined.

As a description, it sounds very much like Rooneys beloved characters. Why suddenly become competitive in this way? I wasnt good enough at anything to be meaningfully competitive about it before, she says. With debating I found something I was pretty good at, and pursued it with the aim of becoming the best. And when I felt I had become the best, I lost interest in it and gave up. Getting really good at something is a fun challenge, but once everyone agrees youre very good at it, theres more pressure and less fun, at least for me. I dont think I have the right mentality to compete in any field at a very high level for very long, even if I was talented enough to do that, which Im not.

The fun aspect of being recognised as good at something seems absent, too, from the way Rooney talks about writing. In the essay, she writes about giving up debating because it seemed empty and vaguely offensive; adopting positions you dont believe in, about things war in the Balkans; the Arab Spring with deadly consequences for real people. An agent read it, asked if she had anything else, and Rooney sent her the manuscript of a novel shed been working on, Conversations With Friends, featuring two college-age women: Frances, who was lonely and felt unworthy of real friendship, and Bobbi, her more freewheeling friend, who also suffered from various social inadequacies.

Frances and Bobbi take part in spirited political discussions, just as Marianne and Connell, and Alice and Eileen, do in her subsequent novels. The dialogue in these sections echoes the principles of college debating to the extent that the speakers, one eye on their audience, jam through words at a rate that forestalls interruption, digestion, or even much in the way of introspection, and via which, despite Rooneys obvious comic outlook, an element of mirthlessness creeps in. Her characters talk about what it means to be working class, the shortcomings of social movements Bobbi goes off on one about pay gap feminism while mocking themselves for being the sorts of people to do so.

As Rooneys fame grew, inevitably commentators online targeted her own background for being insufficiently pure. At the end of Normal People, Connell, a working-class boy, goes off to New York to take up a place on a creative writing course at NYU, an ending mocked by critics as being bourgeois. Short of offering to show these people my dads paycheck, Rooney says, there is not a lot one can do to satisfy this kind of criticism not least, she says, because most of it misunderstands its own terminology. From the Marxist point of view, people who work for a living rather than making money from capital are workers, members of the working class. But in contemporary colloquial use, the term working class is used much more restrictively, applied only to particular communities or workers in particular industries. These uses of the term are really not interchangeable at all, Rooney says. They mean very different things. So of course, when we try to talk about class using this terminology, we run into confusion and disagreement. In the new novel, an argument in the pub takes off around whether Eileen, a poorly paid editor at a small literary magazine, qualifies as working class.

On the one hand, all workers have some basic political goals in common, and recognising those commonalities could help to build class solidarity, Rooney says. On the other hand, relatively wealthy and privileged workers, say, software developers at major tech companies or successful novelists have very different lives from more obviously underpaid and exploited workers. Does it make sense to say both kinds of workers belong to the same class? I dont know. Maybe the answer is both yes and no. Its complicated.

I no longer feel so completely confident about the line that divides abusive people from the rest of us

The bigger issue for Rooney is around personalisation. In any industry, it helps to know where people come from to fix issues around under-representation but equally, she says, why should someone have to disclose facts about their upbringing and family life to the public, just because theyve written a novel? Shouldnt they be allowed to maintain a dignified silence about their personal life? The privacy of the individual seems to come up against the wider demands of the culture here. And its not an easy thing to resolve, or at least I dont think so.

The way most people in the public eye resolve this issue is, I suspect, simply by giving it less thought than she does. For Rooney, the injury is less the invasion of privacy itself very little has to be shared to satisfy the superficial needs of publicity than the assumption that it is owed in the first place.

She says, I dont think many people could reasonably conclude that my upbringing was so privileged as to disqualify me from writing books. But there is still a part of me that feels like these facts about my family life are nobodys business in the first place. My parents presumably did not conduct their lives in the expectation that their jobs and incomes would be dissected by strangers on the internet one day. It seems bizarre, and actually wrong. I understand and accept that I have become to some degree an object of scrutiny because of my work. But I find it very hard to accept that other people in my life should have to endure that. Theyve done nothing to deserve it. So yes, I think the discourse around representation in cultural fields is valuable, and even broadly necessary. And at the same time, I find it intrusive and difficult, and I dont know how to reconcile those positions. This is all true, and fair, but if Rooneys structural analysis of fame has a shortcoming, its a failure to recognise that, with no bad faith intended, most people simply want to know more about those they admire.

And readers love Rooney. They love her for her wit, and her readability, but mostly they love her for the story of Marianne and Connell; the shy, awkward, dowdy-but-brilliant girl and the equally brilliant, beautiful boy. When we meet Marianne as a teenager, she is being violently bullied by her horrible brother and mother, wealthy people with power in and outside of the home. Rooney says it didnt interest her to put the violence centre stage. I used to believe that abusers (and in particular, men who abuse women) were boring. And I still think theres some truth in that, and I still find our cultural fixation with men who rape and murder women very tiring. But I no longer feel so completely confident about the line that divides abusive people from the rest of us. And the novel maybe interrogates that division at times. I am probably never going to write a book from the perspective of a serial killer, but I do believe that many decent people have done things they now consider deeply wrong.

She is more interested in the echo of trauma this comes up in the new novel, too than the event itself, because the aftermath is what so many of us experience as life itself. If we are lucky, we spend relatively little actual time in deeply traumatic situations. But the aftermath of those experiences is a lifetime. That interests me very much. How do people who have endured certain kinds of violence, trauma or psychological breakdown carry on afterwards? These dont have to be extreme or out of the ordinary. It seems to me like almost everyone has endured some kind of pain or suffering that has changed their life. That change can take the form of damage, or of learning and growth, or some combination of the two an ability to adapt better in certain ways and worse in others. Naturally, when I ask what has informed her own understanding of these dynamics, she declines to answer personally.

Naming Rooney as the ultimate millennial voice is, of course, too generalised to be meaningful. And being labelled the voice of a generation, if it even made sense, always ends up being used against the voice in question; just ask Lena Dunham. Identity, Rooney says, can be very productive and useful when we want to talk about things like gender, race and sexuality. But is millennial an identity category? she wonders. In what way? And how is it useful politically, psychologically, socially?

Its the type of enquiry Rooney loves getting stuck into, and that can make it easy to forget something else: she is still very young, just 30. At the end of the call, I mention with incredulity that the essay that started her career was published a mere six years ago, a fact she agrees is amazing. Such a long time, right? she says, briefly ditching the intellectual register, to take it up again later by email. I am left with her sentences, thoughtful, abstract, generous in length, occupying an almost entirely theoretical plane. Just as she wants it.

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney is published by Faber & Faber on 7 September

- The Guardian

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Sally Rooney on the hell of fame: It doesnt seem to work in any real way for anyone - Irish Examiner

FRIDAYS BIG HEADLINES#HeadsGone in the transfer market

In the realm of technology, the singularity is the predicted moment when machine intelligence surpasses that of humans and technological advances become out of control, unpredictable and irreversible. In football, the transfer singularity is the inflection point where moves off the pitch become more significant and engrossing than those on it and the game spirals into a nonsensical and uncontrollable cycle of ridiculous transfers. The Warm-Up regrets to inform you that that moment was breached this summer. Specifically yesterday.

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Messi in squad for PSG match against Reims

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The crucial difference between the two is that the technological singularity is a theory of rapidly increasing intelligence; the transfer singularity is a reality of rapidly decreasing logic. Yes, this is officially the summer when football totally lost the plot. And theres no going back.

And then not one but two utterly bewildering developments yesterday which look likely to ensure that, with apologies to Erling Haaland, the three most significant players in the whole of football will all move clubs this summer in deals that you would kindly describe as illogical.

Messi to PSG, now possibly Cristiano Ronado to Manchester City today as well (more on which below). And as La Ligas two former superstars begin what will presumably be their final postings at major clubs, the league is reinvigorated by the arrival of the most electric young player in football at a club which *checks notes* said it was so skint it had to lead the formation of a Super League, and is now paying almost twice its club record to sign a player who will be free next summer.

Amid the height of the Super League debacle, lets revisit what Real Madrid president Florentino Perez told El Chiringuito...

Many important clubs in Spain, Italy and UK want to find a solution to a very bad financial situation. Here at Real Madrid we've lost a lot of money, we are all going through a very bad situation. When there is no profit, the only way is to play more competitive games during the week. The Super League will save the clubs financially. Football is losing interest, TV rights are decreasing. We wanted to do the Super League, the pandemic has given us urgency: now we are all ruined in football."

And now 'ruined' Real Madrid are in a scenario where they could genuinely save more than 1m *per day* in the time between signing Mbappe for 180m and securing him on a free, but are still ploughing ahead. This is an interesting definition of broke.

But then money is all pretend anyway. If Real Madrid need more theyll just sell off a training ground or try and destroy the very fabric of football again. What is real are goals, wins, trophies, fame, success, glamour, prestige and power. And Mbappe guarantees you all of that. Ultimately, if you can get a free run at Mbappe, and p*** off PSG in the process, its unlikely that Perez will pass up the chance.

Its worth recalling that PSG and Nasser Al Khelaifi didnt sign up to Perezs Super League - werent invited according to the Madrid supremo - and as footballs nouveau riche paraded the prized jewel of Messi to sounds of people saying La Liga was finished as a major force, somewhere in Madrid, Florentino was probably fuming.

And so this is what football at the elite level has become. Mega transfers arent about players, they are political power plays, essentially massive w****-waving contests. And thats only the first of the two which could remarkably be wrapped up today.

Juventus player Cristiano Ronaldo during the Serie A match between Udinese Calcio v Juventus at Dacia Arena on August 22, 2021 in Udine, Italy.

Image credit: Getty Images

Another amazing transfer, which is suffering from a huge logic void.

With the outrageous service he will be supplied with at City, you can see a possible outcome where Ronaldo simultaneously ends up scoring about 50 goals this season but is also bad for the team. Which would be rather apt after the season where football stopped making sense.

And thats without even getting into the debate of whether this transfer is coherent on an emotional level following the great success he enjoyed at Manchester United. Seeing Ronaldo take to the field in City sky blue after getting tactical instructions from Pep Guardiola will truly be one of the most surreal sights ever envisaged in football.

But again logic isnt really the point. As with signing Mbappe. As indeed with signing Messi, which led to PSG losing their best player. This firmly has the feel of United appointing Mourinho as a response to City getting Guardiola, except this time its Citys UAE owners getting jittery at their Qatari rivals nabbing Messi, and who are signing up the big name without not enough thought on how it might actually work.

And if all this wasnt enough, PSG and Juventus have chosen to replace two of the greatest footballers striding across the globe with two-thirds of the Everton attack which lost 2-0 to Sheffield United on September 21, 2019.

Juventus are trying to replace Ronaldo with Moise Kean:

Again, this is the summer when football totally lost its mind.

Much as The Warm-Up isnt a big fan of the tasteless pantomime that football has become off the pitch, the perils of failing to fully join up to it were apparent last night when, as Europes biggest names and biggest clubs were adding extra zeroes to everything, good old Harry Kane had to settle for scoring goals in the Europa Conference League.

But the moral of the story is: dont sign a six-year contract with no release clause at a club run by Daniel Levy if you ever want to be part of footballs transfer feeding frenzy. With a more competent agent, and different contractual conditions, it would be Kane signing for City today.

Another group contains Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Dynamo Kiev; another still has Liverpool, Atletico Madrid, Porto and AC Milan. With so much quality concentrated in a few groups, inevitably one was going to look like it could have wandered in from the Europa League by mistake. Step forward Group G, and Lille, Sevilla, FC Salzburg and Wolfsburg.

We end with a palate-cleanser from Matt Le Tissier, a man who consistently shunned moves to any big clubs throughout his career. Heres his 10 best goals for Southampton.

Weve got two games for you live on site tonight as Borussia Dortmund take on Hoffeinheim and Inter Milan travel to fair Verona.

Barring a big-money move to Marca or L'Equipe, Andi Thomas will be back for Monday's Warm-Up.

Transfers

How Jorge Mendes masterminded Ronaldo's sensational exit - Inside Football

YESTERDAY AT 08:28

Transfers

Kane demands 100,000-a-week pay rise after committing to Spurs - Paper Round

YESTERDAY AT 22:08

See the rest here:

Kylian Mbappe to Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo to City - Welcome to the summer football totally lost the plot - The Warm-Up - Eurosport UK

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A US not tied in Afghanistan only helps India deal with Pakistan problem better

The recent developments in Afghanistan illustrates New Delhis lack of much influence in Afghanistan. Now, there is a need for India to show singularity of purpose and, equally, determination and guts, to play the way Rawalpindi has, to rectify some of Indias geographical disadvantages in the region, writes Rajesh Rajagopalan.

Why Indians cant get over Turkish series Resurrection: Erturul, two years after it ended

Indians of all ages, and from across the country, have discovered the Turkish fictional drama Resurrection: Erturul, which is helmed by popular actor Engin Altan Duzyatan who told Paramita Ghoshthat he is happy to have fans in India.

Pakistan has a grocery list for Taliban free Kashmir, flag on Lal Quila, maybe even pudina

While the Pakistan government waits for the worlds verdict on the new Kabul regime, there are those who are eager and want Pakistan to recognise the Taliban as soon as possible. Many are even telling the world about 21st century Taliban that is transformed, decent, mature, chastened and restrained, writes Naila Inayat.

CRPF constable in Army uniform held with over 1,000 suspicious photos in Assam

A 28-year-old CRPF constable and a woman were detained in Assams Kolia Bhomora Bridge allegedly with a fake Army canteen card; over 1,000 photographs of him in Army uniform, including some in front of Army installations across the country; contact numbers of Army units and forged documents related to the forces, reports Myithili Hazarika.

From Paharganj to Vivek Vihar, Sikh leaders in Delhi are renaming themselves to stand out

Sikh leaders in Delhi are appending the names of their neighbourhoods with their real names in a bid to be different from others, writes Vivek Shukla.

Women in govt? Haha, say Taliban members in viral video from Vice documentary

A viral snippet from a documentary by Viceshowed Taliban militants laughing when asked if people will be allowed to vote in women politicians, raising fears about womens rights under the Talibans regime, reports Tenzin Zompa.

Kabul shows up Biden as a sheep in sheeps clothing. Allies Europe, India & Quad are watching

Any which way the Joe Biden Administration sees it, it has led the US to its most humiliating defeat in Afghanistan. While it may not not hurt Bidens voters at home too much, it will greatly hurt American self-image of power as all US allies, including India, have been jolted, writes Shekhar Gupta in National Interest.

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India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.

But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.

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How US not tied in Afghanistan could help India deal with Pakistan better - ThePrint

Melon has published its full list of the top 100 K-pop songs of all time!

In order to sum up the past three decades of K-pop, MelonKoreas largest music streaming serviceenlisted the help of 35 music critics and industry experts. Each of the 35 judges was first asked to compile their own individual list of what they considered the 100 best K-pop songs of all time, and those 35 lists were used to create Melons final list of the top 100 K-pop songs.

The 35 judges were asked to choose their lists of 100 songs based on the following four criteria: significance (a songs influence both within Korea and abroad, its mark on the growth of K-pop, and its musical singularity and creative daring), success (a songs mainstream appeal, its popularity both within Korea and abroad, and its fandom), artistic quality (a songs artistic creativity and the quality level of the music), and performance (a songs choreography, music video, and stage performances).

Melons full list of its top 100 K-pop songsis as follows:

What are your all-time favorite K-pop songs? Let us know in the comments below!

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Melon Reveals List Of Top 100 K-Pop Songs Of All Time, As Chosen By Music Critics & Industry Experts - soompi