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Reverse-Capable Motion Planning for Tractor-Trailer Model Using plannerControlRRT

This example shows how to find global path-planning solutions for systems with complex kinematics using the kinematics-based planner, plannerControlRRT. The example is organized into three primary sections:

  1. Introduction to Kino-Dynamic planning.

  2. Adapting plannerControlRRT to a Tractor-Trailer system.

  3. Finding Collision-Free Trajectories Using a Kinematic System.

Introduction to Kino-Dynamic Planning

Planner Description

Conventional geometric planners, such as RRT, RRT*, and hybridA*, are fast and extensible algorithms capable of finding complete and optimal solutions to a wide variety of planning problems. One trade-off, however, is that they make assumptions about the planning space that may not hold true for a real-world system. Conventional geometric planners assume that any two states in a space can be connected by a trajectory with no residual error, and that the paths returned by the geometric planner can be tracked by the physical system.

For systems with complex kinematics, or those that do not have easily determined closed-form solutions for connecting states, use kino-dynamic planners, such as plannerControlRRT. Kino-dynamic planners trade completeness for planning flexibility, and leverage a system's own kinematic model and controller to generate feasible and trackable trajectories.

To plan for a given system, the plannerControlRRT feature requires this information:

  • A utility to sample states in the planning space.

  • A metric to estimate the cost of connecting two states.

  • A mechanism to deterministically propagate the system from one state toward another.

  • A utility to determine whether a state has reached the goal.

This example demonstrates how to formulate these different utilities for a tractor-trailer system and adapt them into the planning infrastructure. This preview shows the result:

% Attempt to generate MEX to accelerate collision checking
Code generation successful.
% load preplannedScenarios
parkingScenario = load("parkingScenario.mat");
planner = parkingScenario.planner;
start   = parkingScenario.start;
goal    = parkingScenario.goal;

% Display the scenario and play back the trajectory
axis equal
hold on
trajectory = plan(planner,start,goal);
demoParams = trajectory.StatePropagator.StateSpace.TruckParams;
exampleHelperPlotTruck(demoParams,start); % Display start config
exampleHelperPlotTruck(demoParams,goal);  % Display goal config

% Plan path using previously-built utilities
trajectory = plan(planner,start,goal);

% Animate the trajectory
hold off

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 30 objects of type patch, line, rectangle.

Kino-Dynamic Planning Algorithm

If you are already familiar with geometric planners, an iteration of the plannerControlRRT search algorithm should look familiar, but with a few extra steps:

  1. Sample a target state.

  2. Find the approximate nearest neighbor to the target state in the search tree.

  3. Generate a control input (or reference value) and control duration that drives the system toward the target.

  4. Propagate (extend) the system towards the sample while validating intermediate states along the propagated trajectory. Return the valid sequence of states, controls, and durations.

  5. Check whether any returned states have reached the goal.

  6. If the goal has been found, exit. Otherwise add the final state, initial control, cumulative duration, and target to the tree.

  7. (Optional) Sample a goal-configuration and control and repeat steps 4,5, and 6 the desired number of times.

Components Required by plannerControlRRT Framework

To adapt the planner to a specific problem, you must implement a custom nav.StatePropagator and nav.StateSpace classes. The section below maps the steps described in the Kino-Dynamic Planning Algorithm section to the class and method responsible:

  1. qtgt=sampleUniform(space)

  2. [dist,err]=distance(propagator,Qtree,qtgt)

  3. [u,Nstep]=sampleControl(propagator,q0,u0,qtgt)

  4. [Q1:n,U1:n,nstep1:n]valid=propagateWhileValid(propagator,q0,u0,qtgt,Nstep)

  5. plannerControlRRT checks whether any returned states have reached the goal.

  6. By default, exiting planning or adding to the search tree is performed by the distance function of the propagator. You can override it by supplying the planner with a function handle during construction.

  7. By default, each time the planner successfully adds a node to the tree, it will attempt to propagate the newly added state towards the goal-configuration. This goal-propagation can occur multiple times in a row, or be disabled entirely, by modifying the NumGoalExtension property of the planner.

For more detailed function syntax, argument requirements, and examples, see plannerControlRRT, nav.StateSpace, and nav.StatePropagator.

Adapting plannerControlRRT to a Truck-Trailer System

This section demonstrates how to formulate, model, and control a two-body truck-trailer system. This system is inherently unstable during reverse motion, so paths returned by conventional geometric planners are unlikely to produce good results during path following. To accurately model this system, you must:

  • Define a state transition function.

  • Define the geometric model parameters.

  • Create a control law attuned to the parameterized model.

  • Create a distance heuristic attuned to the parameterized model.

  • Package the kinematic model, distance metric, and control law inside a custom state space and state propagator.

  • Plan a path for several problem scenarios.

Define State Transition Function

This tractor-trailer system is comprised of two rigid bodies connected at a kingpin hitch, which is modeled as a revolute joint. The trailer body makes contact with the ground at the rear axle, and the front of the trailer is supported by the hitch, located somewhere along the axial centerline of the truck.

Trailing Configuration (left, M < 0), OverCenter Configuration (right, M > 0)

Use the geometric configuration for a two-body truck-trailer system from the Truck and Trailer Automatic Parking Using Multistage Nonlinear MPC example, expressed as:

  • x2 — Global x-position of the center of the trailer rear axle.

  • y2 — Global y-position of the center of the trailer rear axle.

  • θ2 — Global angle of the trailer orientation, where 0 is east.

  • β — Truck Orientation with respect to the trailer, where 0 is aligned.

For planning purposes, append a direction flag, vsign, and the total distance traveled from the start configuration, stot to the state vector, for the final state notation:

  • vsign — Indicates the desired control mode (forward or reverse) or a required velocity, ensuring the system propagates toward the goal occur in a desired direction.

  • stot — Modifies the behavior of the propagator's distance function of the propagator. You can modify the propagator's TravelBias property to change the frequency with which the nearest-neighbor comparison includes or excludes the root-to-node cost. Values closer to 0 result in a faster search of the planning space, at the expense of more locally optimal connections being made. Values closer to 1 can improve planner solutions, but increase planning time.

This state transition function is an extension of TruckTrailerStateFcn. For a full derivation of the state transition function, see exampleHelperStateDerivative, which is a simplification of this N-trailer model [1]:

For simplicity, this model treats uapp=[v,αsteer] as an instantaneous velocity and steering angle command applied to the system, generated by a higher-level controller. For more information, see Create Control Laws for Stable Forward and Reverse Motion.

Define Geometric Model Parameters and Demonstrate Instability

The kinematic characteristics of this vehicle are heavily influenced by the choice of model parameters. Create a structure that describes a tractor-trailer system,

truckParams = struct;
truckParams.L1 = 6;     % Truck body length
truckParams.L2 = 10;    % Trailer length
truckParams.M  = 1;     % Distance between hitch and truck rear axle along truck body +X-axis

Define properties related to visualization and collision-checking.

truckParams.W1 = 2.5;               % Truck width
truckParams.W2 = 2.5;               % Trailer width
truckParams.Lwheel = 1;             % Wheel length
truckParams.Wwheel = 0.4;           % Wheel width

Using the exampleHelperShowOpenLoopDynamics function and specified model parameters, propagate the system state using its open-loop dynamics to demonstrate that the interior angle is self-stabilizing during forward motion, and unstable during reverse motion for any non-zero β0.

Figure contains 2 axes objects. Axes object 1 with title Interior Angle vs Time, v > 0 contains 11 objects of type line. Axes object 2 with title Interior Angle vs Time, v < 0 contains 11 objects of type line.

Figure contains 2 axes objects. Axes object 1 with title Open loop propagation is empty. Axes object 2 contains 20 objects of type patch, line.

Create Control Laws for Stable Forward and Reverse Motion

This example employs a multi-layer, mode-switching controller to control the truck-trailer model. At the top level, a pure pursuit controller calculates a reference point, P=[Xp,Yp], between a current pose, qi, and goal state, qtgt. The controller has two modes, for forward and reverse. For information on the basis for this control law, see [1]. For forward motion, the controller calculates a steering angle that, when held constant, drives the rear axle of the truck along an arc that intersects the reference point:

For reverse motion, the rear axle of the trailer becomes the controlled state, q2=[x2,y2,θ2]. Furthermore, because the system is inherently unstable during reverse motion, the control law treats the steering angle returned by the top-level controller as a reference value to a gain-scheduled LQ controller, which seeks to stabilize the interior angle of the vehicle:

LQ Feedback Stabilization

During reverse motion, you can add a gain to the steering angle that drives the interior angle to an equilibrium point. Use the LQ controller to calculate the desired steering angle and feedback gains. The gains are the optimal solution to the Algebraic Ricatti equation, stored as a lookup table dependent on the desired steering angle. For more information about the derivation of this feedback controller , see exampleHelperCalculateLQGains:

% Define Q/R weight matrices for LQR controller
Q = 10; % Weight driving betaDot -> 0
R = 1; % Weight minimizing steering angle command

% Derive geometric steering limits and solve for LQR feedback gains
[alphaLimit, ...        % Max steady-state steering angle before jack-knife
 betaLimit, ...         % Max interior angle before jack-knife
 alphaDesiredEq, ...    % Sampled angles from stable alpha domain
 alphaGain ...          % LQ gain corresponding to desired alpha
] = exampleHelperCalculateLQGains(truckParams,Q,R);

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with title Trailer Axial Velocity VS Steering Angle contains 2 objects of type line.

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with title LQ Gain vs Desired Steering Angle contains an object of type line.

% Add limits to the truck geometry
truckParams.AlphaLimit = alphaLimit;
truckParams.BetaLimit = betaLimit;

Specify lookahead distances for the pure pursuit controller, exampleHelperPurePursuitGetSteering, and rate and time-span information for our model simulator, exampleHelperPropagateTruck. Due to the instability during reverse motion, and since you only have indirect control over the interior angle, specify a larger lookahead distance in reverse. This gives the system more time to minimize the virtual steering error while maintaining a stable interior angle.

% Select forward and reverse lookahead distances. For this example,
% use a reverse lookahead distance twice as long as the forward
% lookahead distance, which itself is slightly longer than the
% wheelbase. You can tune these parameters can be tuned for
% improved performance for a given geometry.
rFWD = truckParams.L1*1.2;
rREV = rFWD*2;

% Define parameters for the fixed-rate propagator and add them to the
% control structure
controlParams.MaxVelocity = 3; % m/s
controlParams.StepSize = .1; % s
controlParams.MaxNumSteps = 50; %#ok<STRNU> % Max number of steps per propagation

Create a structure of the control-related information.

% Store gains and control parameters in a struct
controlParams = struct(...
    'MaxSteer',alphaLimit, ...          % (rad)
    'Gains',alphaGain, ...              % ()
    'AlphaPoints',alphaDesiredEq, ...   % (rad)
    'ForwardLookahead',rFWD, ...        % (m)
    'ReverseLookahead',rREV, ...        % (m)
    'MaxVelocity', 3, ...               % (m/s)
    'StepSize', 0.1, ...                % (s)
    'MaxNumSteps', 200 ...               % ()

Define a Distance Heuristic

Define a distance heuristic to approximate the cost between different configurations in state-space of the system. The state propagator uses this when the planner attempts to find the nearest node in the tree to a sampled state. Calculate the cost offline using the exampleHelperCalculateDistanceMetric function, which stores it in a lookup table.

distanceHeuristic = exampleHelperCalculateDistanceMetric(truckParams,controlParams);

Figure contains 2 axes objects. Axes object 1 with title Forward Simulations contains 2 objects of type line. These objects represent Trajectories, XY Error. Axes object 2 with title Forward Cost contains an object of type image.

Figure contains 2 axes objects. Axes object 1 with title Reverse Simulations contains 2 objects of type line. These objects represent Trajectories, XY Error. Axes object 2 with title Reverse Cost contains an object of type image.

Adapt System for Use With Kinematic Planner

Adapt the system into a framework usable by the kinematic path-planner, plannerControlRRT. Create 3 custom classes: exampleHelperTruckStateSpace, exampleHelperTruckPropagator, and exampleHelperTruckValidator, which inherit from the nav.StateSpace, nav.StatePropagator, and nav.StateValidator subclasses, respectively.

Initialize State Space

The state-space object is primarily responsible for:

  • Sampling random states for the planner.

  • Defining and enforcing state limits within a trajectory.

Define xy- limits for the searchable region. Initialize the state-space using these limits, and the geometric properties of the truck trailer vehicle containing the β-limits determined by the geometric properties of the truck and trailer.

Because the kinematic planner uses the distance function of the state-propagator for its nearest-neighbor search, leave the state-space distance method undefined. Leave the interpolate and sampleGaussian methods of the state-space similarly undefined.

% Define limits of searchable region
xyLimits = [-60 60; -40 40];

% Construct our state-space
stateSpace = exampleHelperTruckStateSpace(xyLimits, truckParams);

Initialize State Validator

In this example, the state validator uses oriented bounding boxes (OBBs) to verify whether the vehicle is in collision with the environment. The truck is represented by two rectangles with poses defined by the state and the vehicle geometry of the truck contained in the state-space object. The environment is represented by a list of rectangles with their locations, orientations, and dimensions specified in a 1-by-N structure. Load a MAT file containing the environment into the workspace, and use the obstacles and state-space object to construct the state validator.

% Load a set of obstacles

% Construct the state validator using the state space and list of obstacles
validator = exampleHelperTruckValidator(stateSpace,obstacles);

Initialize State Propagator

In kinematic planning, the state-propagator object is responsible for:

  • Estimating the distance between states.

  • Sampling initial controls to propagate over a control-interval, or capturing control inputs as reference values for lower-level controllers during propagation.

  • Propagating the system towards a target, and returning the valid portion of the trajectory to the planner.

For best results, the distance function should estimate the cost of the trajectory generated when propagating between states.

% Construct the state propagator using the state validator, control parameters,
% and distance lookup table
propagator = exampleHelperTruckPropagator(validator,controlParams,distanceHeuristic);

Construct Planner and Plan Path

Construct a kinematic path-planner that uses the state propagator to search for a path between the two configurations.

% Define start configuration
start = [35 5 pi/2 0 0 0];

% Define the goal configuration such that the truck must reverse into
% position.
goal  = [-35 20 -pi/2 0 -1 nan];

% Display the problem
hold on
configs = [start; goal];

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 5 objects of type rectangle, patch, quiver.

% Define a function to check if planner has reached the true goal state
goalFcn = @(planner,q,qTgt)exampleHelperGoalReachedFunction(goal,planner,q,qTgt);

% Construct planner
planner = plannerControlRRT(propagator,GoalReachedFcn=goalFcn,MaxNumIteration=30000);
planner.NumGoalExtension = 3;
planner.MaxNumTreeNode = 30000;
planner.GoalBias = .25;
% Search for the path
[trajectory,treeInfo] = plan(planner,start,goal)
trajectory =
  navPathControl with properties:

    StatePropagator: [1x1 exampleHelperTruckPropagator]
             States: [23x6 double]
           Controls: [22x4 double]
          Durations: [22x1 double]
       TargetStates: [22x6 double]
          NumStates: 23
        NumSegments: 22

treeInfo = struct with fields:
     IsPathFound: 1
        ExitFlag: 1
     NumTreeNode: 2201
    NumIteration: 1196
    PlanningTime: 24.1642
        TreeInfo: [6x6602 double]

% Visualize path and waypoints
hold off

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 14 objects of type patch, line, rectangle, quiver.

Rather than producing optimal solutions, like those generated in the Truck and Trailer Automatic Parking Using Multistage Nonlinear MPC example, the advantage of this planner, instead, lies in its ability to find viable trajectories for a wide variety of problems. In the scenario below, for instance, the generated path can be used as is, or as an initial guess for an MPC solver, helping to avoid local minima in the nonconvex problem space:

% Load scenario obstacles
nonConvexProblem = load("NonConvex.mat");

% Update validator and state space
validator.Obstacles = nonConvexProblem.obstacles;
validator.StateSpace.StateBounds(1:2,:) = [-100 100; -40 40];

% Define start and goal
start = [10 0 0 0 NaN 0];
goal  = [-10 0 pi 0 -1 0];

% Update goal reached function
goalFcn = @(planner,q,qTgt)exampleHelperGoalReachedFunction(goal,planner,q,qTgt);
planner.GoalReachedFcn = goalFcn;

% Turn off optional every-step goal propagation
planner.NumGoalExtension = 0;

% Increase goal sampling frequency
planner.GoalBias = .25;

% Balanced search vs path optimality
propagator.TravelBias = .5;

% Plan path
trajectory = plan(planner,start,goal);

% Visualize result

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 13 objects of type patch, line, rectangle.

[1] Holmer, Olov. “Motion Planning for a Reversing Full-Scale Truck and Trailer System”. M.S. thesis, Linköping University, 2016.


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text: # La Malinette - Hardware A Free Open Source Kit To Simplify Programming Interactivity - Contact: contact_at_reso-nance.org - Website: http://malinette.info - Licence: GNU/GPL v3 ## Description Malinette is an all-in-one solution, a rapid prototyping tool to show and make simple interaction and multimedia projects. It is a software based on Pure Data and a hardware set based on Arduino or Teensy. See more informations on the main software part [malinette-ide](https://framagit.org/malinette/malinette-ide). ## Build & documentations Here you can build three kind of boxes : - standard box is like a wooden book containing an Aruino and a set of sensors and actuators - midi box to use Arduino controllers as a Midi device - cardboard box See documentations on [wiki](http://reso-nance.org/wiki/projets/malinette/hardware/accueil). You can also build a [webcam stand](http://reso-nance.org/wiki/projets/braswebcam/accueil), by Marion Estavoyer. All fabrication is achieved by a laser cutter machine that you can find in a Fablab. ## Brutbox You can also build a [BrutBox](https://git.framasoft.org/resonance/brutbox/), a midi device with a sensor per box.

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text:
(Wo)man’s Best Friend in Pandemic Times

Photo by Daniel Frank on Pexels.com

One more strange thing during the dark days of Pandemia was my sense, much of the time outdoors, that I may have been the only person in San Francisco without a dog. Crossing the dog play area while doing my par course thing at Mountain Lake Park, skirting the similar space in Lafayette Park, or walking along any of San Francisco Bay’s limitless varieties of woods and beaches – I have felt acutely dog-less. Despite having had and loved a long list of family canines; I am currently without. And in recent times that has seemed particularly unseemly.

“You want to know how to stay busy in a pandemic?” my daughter Sandy said to me, early on; “get a puppy.” Scooter had joined her household as lockdowns were just beginning. Although theirs is a multi-dog household that leans toward rescues, Scooter was chosen because he was a purebred Catahoula Leopard Hound, and in a sense a replacement for Blue. Actually, no creature could replace Blue, who had been at my son-in-law’s side for 17 years before succumbing to cancer and the vicissitudes of very old dog age. In one of his countless obituary remembrances someone wrote, “Blue taught all the dogs at the lake how to be dogs.” But eventually Scooter, a multicolored Catahoula with one brown eye and one blue, was chosen to join the family.

While I was a continent away from the growing Scooter, I followed his progress throughout the pandemic on Facebook and on countless videos as he learned (more or less) where to dig or not dig, what to chew or not chew, all those niceties of canine upbringing that are far easier to watch online than to teach onsite. But they kept me entertained and Scooter’s family busy.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is ringo-5.25.19.jpg
Ringo at rest in the garden

Two other dogs close to my heart were central to pandemic survival for their human moms and, by extension, me. Unlike young Scooter, Ringo and Delilah are both certified old dogs. I am partial to old dogs. This is partly thanks to my excellent late husband Bud’s book Old Dogs Remembered, but also because, well, we understand each others’ aches and pains and geezerly stuff.

Ringo, 14, whose official name is Ringo Dingo Django Durango, or RD3, was not partial to me in his youth. He customarily started barking about the time my car entered the driveway, and didn’t stop until he had sniffed and grumbled for at least five minutes. But we soon became cordial acquaintances, and by his middle-age and my confirmed geezerhood we were fast friends. One of Ringo’s primary daily occupations is patrolling the exquisite rose garden spilling down the hillside from his home. The back-breaking daily work involved in keeping the roses, fruit trees and other flowers flourishing perhaps doesn’t require Ringo’s attendance. But I’m satisfied that his company helped get my friend Margaret (the Ringo-namer and chief gardener) through the pandemic and constantly able to post beautiful photos of blooms to get me through.

But briefly back to Scooter. Sadly, Scooter went way too far in providing diversion from the pandemic. Several months ago, just before his family was heading back to the east coast from a winter vacation, Scooter went missing in the Wyoming forests near Jackson. No amount of searching, calling, whistling or pleading to the canine gods could get him to appear. So the family went mournfully home, finally accepting, at the end of the four-day drive (drives with large dogs take time) that he was likely dead of hypothermia in the sub-zero snows. Hypothermia, we all agreed, would not be that terrible because you fall asleep before you die. (Please don’t try to clear that up with scientific fact; it’s a comforting thought.) But the next day came a report of a Scooter sighting.

Thus began the most exhaustive search and rescue operation in this reporter’s long history of tracking operations of every sort. After flying back to stay with generous friends, Sandy took to getting up at 5 AM in order to ski out and fry bacon on camp stoves in areas where a sighting was thought to have occurred – the smell of frying bacon being something most of us, including dogs, as it happens – find worth following. No luck. She left articles of family clothing inside comfy kennels in the snow. Game cameras positioned near foodstuffs got some excellent photos of foxes – but no Scooter. Flyers were posted. Rewards offered. Drones flew around the forests to no avail. Even with the remarkable assistance of a Boise-based nonprofit called Ladies and the Trap, whose fit and determined volunteers devote themselves to finding lost pets and reuniting them with their humans – no luck.

In the end – or perhaps it’s still the late-beginning, or the middle – no one knows Scooter’s whereabouts but Scooter himself. Unless he has a secret admirer and protector. His family has settled into a three-possibility resolution: He did indeed die, quickly and relatively painlessly, of hypothermia in the Wyoming snow country. Or. Someone took him in and began to love and care for him; someone unaware of (or uninterested in) the microchip beneath his skin or the rewards posted for his return. Or. He will, one day, mysteriously reappear. Stranger things have happened, say the Ladies who Trap – and others.

And meanwhile, all along there has been Delilah the Wise. Delilah lives in Southern California with her family, which fortuitously includes my cousin Jan (we have Virginia roots; cousins extend in Virginia to the 7th in-law generation at least.) Jan, a comedian, keynote speaker, comedy writer, and author, was available – thanks to the virus cancelling every gig she had lined up – to help Delilah find her voice.

So. “Good morning, everyone! Delilah here,” said Delilah, brightly, on a regular basis, via Facebook and thanks to the miracle of modern video-manipulation. “I hope you’re enjoying the day.” (Or words to that effect.) Delilah was consistently anxious to get us all through the darkest days. Early on (3/26/20 to be precise,) this was one of her suggestions:

“Today we’re going to play a new game! It’s called Guess What’s in That Zip-Lock Bag in the Freezer! All you do is dig wayyyy back into the back of the freezer and pull out all of the zip-lock bags. So far, Jan has found one full of orange stuff, and another with, umm, chicken bones? Just eat whatever is in it! Enjoy your dinner and relax. Let me know how it goes.”

Thus did Delilah get us through week after tedious week. Sometimes it would seem even too much for Delilah herself – at which point she would scramble to the end of the sofa and commence digging a hole all the way to China. At last report, she had not yet made it through, but if a virus variant returns she may get there. Delilah, who her family says is perhaps a “pugzu” – some sort of pug/shih tzu mix rescued years ago from the Burbank Shelter, is somewhere around “12-ish” in dog years. With age clearly comes wisdom.

The author with Delilah

So with apologies to playwright John Patrick, to whom the original version is first attributed:

The pain of the pandemic surely made us think; what else was there to do? Thought makes us wise. And wisdom – especially the wisdom of old dogs – makes life bearable.

This essay also appears on Medium.com


text:
Bangkok Throws Down the Gauntlet to Kristin Kreuk Fanboys

Kristin Kreuk at WonderCom 2013

Editor’s Note: This article by Bangkok is sure to create deep angst and resentment from our growing cadre of Kristin Kreuk fans – led by the inestimable Sultan of Six. However, in the interest of free speech and diversity of opinion, Frank Report has chosen to publish it. Bangkok’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors of Frank Report. Readers comments are welcome.

By Bangkok

Apparently, Kristin Kreuk has many fans who are attempting to rewrite the reality of her ‘looks’ — in what appears to be a futile attempt to depict her as “stunningly gorgeous” while downplaying her previous role as a NXIVM COACH and recruitment tool.

A picture says a thousand words.

Let’s look at photos, shall we?

Let me give some examples of both ‘meh’ and ‘stunningly gorgeous’ women.

Stunningly Gorgeous:

Stunningly Gorgeous:

Stunningly Gorgeous (Convicted Murderer Shayna Hubers):

That’s right, a convicted murderer is more stunning than ‘Meh’ Kreuk, LOL.

Stunningly Gorgeous:

Stunningly Gorgeous (Convicted Murderer Molly Martens):

That’s right, a 2nd convicted murderer is more stunning than ‘Meh’ Kreuk, LOL.

I could list thousands of photos but my point was already made, so let’s move on.

Here’s one of Kreuk’s best ‘over-glammed’ shots except she’s wearing WAY TOO MUCH makeup. Plus this photo also looks way too airbrushed and phony. She looks very unnatural:

Here’s a funny looking photo with WAYYYYYY too much makeup — to the point she looks like a circus clown or one of those china ‘dolls’. I’m sure it’s also airbrushed, even though it didn’t do much to improve her looks here. LOL.

Here’s another ‘over-glammed’ shot where she’s wearing WAY TOO MUCH makeup for her facial features, plus this photo also looks a bit airbrushed to me:

She does look very attractive in this particular photo, though.

Yes, she’s an attractive girl in “some” photos. She’s better than “mildly” attractive in some photos.

However, her makeup always looks a bit “off” (too much or too little for her facial features) and she’s just not a “natural beauty” the way that many women are. She’s mildly attractive.

She certainly doesn’t rise to the level of STUNNINGLY GORGEOUS unless you’re a Canadian or a fangirl/fanboy of hers who hates criticism of her.

Really, if you walk into any bar or club in any major city (on a Friday or Saturday night) you’ll see DOZENS of hotter women, with much more shapely bodies and a more beautiful face. That’s just a fact. Get over it.

There are different “levels” of beautiful.

Kreuk can be described as “beautiful” in some photos.

However, she NEVER reaches the level of STUNNINGLY beautiful.

I’m sorry but this is the final word on this matter and I have won this argument. I bid you all a nice day.

A Word for AnonyMaker

Sorry AnonyMaker, you’re a fanboy of Kreuk.

You’re attempting to portray her critics as angry ‘former fanboys’ in order to DEFLECT from the actual conversation.

Assigning ‘motives’ to critics is how UNCRITICAL thinkers try to win an argument, when facts are not on their side.

Kreuk was the ONLY person (on your list of actresses) who went online to publicly attempt to downplay her true COACHING LEVEL at NXIVM, by implying that she was only a beginner/student who took a few classes to cure her shyness.

When in reality she was a COACH who attempted to hide this fact by omitting it from her public explanation.

She also omitted her strong recruitment efforts for NXIVM.

Omitting such MATERIAL facts is called PROPAGANDA.

Everybody else just remained silent. So we’re leaving them alone.

Kristin Kreuk statement about NXIVM
Kristin Kreuk’s statement about Nxivm – dated three days after Keith Raniere was arrested.

A Special Word to Heidi on Miss Kreuk

Dear Heidi, I disagree with your opinion that Kristin Kreuk is a stunningly beautiful woman.  She sure as fuck ain’t gonna turn heads walking into a room unless the people in the room know that she’s a TV star.

If she entered a local beauty pageant, I doubt she’d even make the semi-finals… and that’s a LOCAL pageant.

Even Toni Natalie in her younger days (who was attractive) was not anything close to ‘stunningly beautiful’ or Miss USA contestant material. She sure as fuck wasn’t ‘playboy bunny’ material either.

Toni was a typically attractive and ‘trashy’ New Jersey or New Yorker style girl, just like many slutty looking Italians from that neck of the woods. You can walk into any bar and find a dozen girls hotter.

I bid you a nice day.

Toni Natalie senior high school photo.

Toni Natalie a number of years ago (post boob jobs)

Toni Natalie, 2018

PS — Toni claimed in her book The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM that bedding the below man was like riding “The Concorde”:

Toni Natalie wrote, “I had not had sex of any kind for almost three years—and even then, my partner had been, at best, uninterested. Going … to Keith was like upgrading from a paper plane to a Concorde.”

If the guy in that photo is akin to “The Concorde” — then American ‘standards’ are really going downhill. LOL.

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  • Where did my comment go?

    I’ll repost it again. Regardless of her role , hands down, I have met Kristin in person a few times. She is striking. Any woman can be “ beautiful “ I have been called beautiful many times. She is not. She is another level. She is striking. Just her eyes alone. Her facial features are unique and one of a kind. She’s 1 in a million Type or look. Similar to Adriana Lima. These features aren’t found everywhere. She’s very unique looking. I’m a straight female and I can safely say she looks like a walking doll. She even has perfect hair on top of that.

  • I’m sorry but is Toni’s nose actually growing? I mean I’ve seen Pinocchio and I know its a fable but could lies actually make ones nose grow? Take a closer look at the photo where she is wearing that green pea Gerber baby food polka dot dress. Her external midline projection from the face seems to have a little extra growth that doesn’t appear in her 10th grade senior year picture.

    • Peaches,

      It’s entirely possible that Toni Natlie’s nose is growing

      Some men’s and even women’s noses and earlobes grow in old age….

      Google it.

  • Congratulations to everyone that was actually annoyed or angred by this article and posted a comment….
    …..You were successfully trolled by Bangkok.

    I always post on Bangkok’s articles and make fun of the little dipshit.

    I personally could give a rats ass about what women Bangkok finds attractive or his opinion of Kristin Kreuk’s looks. Who cares?

  • Not at all shocked that whoever posted this thinks cornfed whitey is the height of physical perfection. I work in a modeling agency in NYC, it’s my job to discern beauty and none of your basic white girls would even make it through our doors. While Kristin could never model (she’s too short) she did nab herself a Neutrogena contract and last time I checked, none of these basic Beckys have any sort of contract short of a call back at a Hooters. Kristin is stunning. Full stop. Even by NYC standards she’s a hard 8. These chicks couldn’t get past a velvet rope in NYC. Hell, even Jersey swamp trash wouldn’t let them in.

  • Heidi’s completely right, Bangkok is utterly wrong. Kristin Kreuk by any standard is stunningly beautiful. Lol every one of those pictures
    of Kristin just proves that she is incredibly photogenic, and those women who are being compared would probably say Bangkok is
    lying or just cannot except facts when confronted with truth. Anyone who has followed Kristin’s career, knows that her tape and look was
    a major factor that Smallville was picked up. Even before Superman was picked. Another point, Kristin would have no problem winning
    any beauty contest. Some of Kristin’s fellow actors have compared Kristin to Audrey Hepburn, one is the most photogenic females
    in history. IMO just Bangkok defeated his or her whole point by showing Kristin’s pictures…or was that on purpose…? 😉

    • “just cannot except facts when confronted with truth.”

      Sultan Of Shit says this over and over and over and over again on several aliases including recently as “SultanOfSix” and “Anonymaker”.

      You are a seriously mentally unwell lunatic. That’s not even meant to be an insult, you are literally psychologically unstable.

  • Hi lads and lasses!

    Here’s some MORE great photos of the so-called ‘beginner/student’ of NXIVM…

    1) Did Kreuk’s explanation (that she only did NXIVM to cure shyness) cover the fact that she was asked to attend the Necker Island festivities with other bigwigs? Nope.

    Here she is partying with Betancourt on Necker Island, one of the most senior NXIVM members in Mexico.

    Yet Kreuk was just some unimportant, beginner/student? Yeah right. 🙂

    2) Did Kreuk’s explanation (that she only did NXIVM to cure shyness) cover the fact that she was on stage praising Keith Raniere, lending her star power to honor a perverted asshole like Keith? Nope.

    Here she is on stage praising Keith and NXIVM:

    Great photo. 🙂

    3) Did Kreuk’s explanation (that she only did NXIVM to cure shyness) cover the fact that she helped to create Girls By Design for reasons which we can only speculate about, but which clearly were somehow related to NXIVM — due to the people she created it with? Nope.

    Great photo.

    Somehow, I don’t think her explanation which ‘implied’ she was a beginner/student (who was only looking to cure shyness) was totally truthful with the public.

    I think Frank needs to expose every last morsel of Kreuk’s involvement within NXIVM.

    Look fanboys, she went on stage with a fucken banner of Keith behind her — you can’t fucken pretend she was some beginner or low level person of no importance.

    Her sash color was not important. She was still a COACH and not just a student. Deal with it.

    She was still important enough to be invited to Necker Island.

    She was still important enough to go on stage to help lend her star power to praising Keith Raniere.

    She let herself be a recruitment tool for NXIVM.

    Methinks that Frank needs to keep his investigation into Kreuk’s NXIVM activities open —- and to leave no stone unturned in this effort. 🙂

    As for Hildreth and Park and others from Vancouver, they were not caught trying to MINIMIZE or DENY their coaching level status at NXIVM.

    Kreuk must be held accountable for her attempt to dupe the public.

    If you’re allergic to learning the TRUTH about Kreuk’s level of NXIVM involvement — and you want Frank to end his investigation — then why should Frank bother to investigate ANY person within NXIVM?

    Truth is truth. Doesn’t matter who it applies to.

    Yup, I just won my argument. 🙂

  • Regardless of her personal decisions in life and involvement with NXIVM, the girl is fucking beautiful on the outside. If you can’t see that, you’re fucking blind. Yes, she’s been guilty of wearing too much makeup at times, but many women are.

    This forum really needs to get a fucking life.

  • I have only 2 things to say:

    1. I don’t think people should be judged based on their appearance.

    2. Grace Park.

  • Kreuk is a cute girl that has been propelled to the upper stratosphere by the entertainment industry, in her late teenagehood. In some pictures, she has been face sculpted by make up artists to make her look a bit more on a verse or another of one of her ethnical specificities. She entered a fancy club, in her twenties, that turned out to be a dangerous and destructive cult whom main goal was to satisfy the sick sexual appetite of a liar and a crook. Now she’s still standing on the upper clouds layer of life, with her actress career. She’s making a living of it. It’s easily understandable that she doesn’t want to be associated with a sleazy and sick gangbang cult ! It’s obvious that she will never like NEVER talk about it.
    She’s really cute, tho, she’ll ever be, at least to me. And I never understood the guys they are like fapping on her saying she’s the sexiest girl and the best actress in the world… She’s really cute and she does the job. My opinion is that she would probably had been more successful evolving in comedy than in staying in teenage-love-triangle-teen-soaps or politically-engaged-political-correctness-for-sjw-fans stuff… But that’s another story… One thing I’ll never change my mind about is that she will never talk about NXIVM more than she did in that TWITTER/IG post… The day she will apologize for had been a propaganda tool and publicizing on NXIVM, it will rain flaming pigs all over the world !!!
    Whatever, I think she’s really cute !..

  • I was directed to the reddit nxivm blog and checked it out, and I scrolled down maybe a hundred posts before seeing one about Kreuk. I guess only here do people care about her time in Nx.

      • No, the majority here are looking at all of criminal Nxivm. YOU are the only one with a personal vendetta against mack, and if it was up to you she would have been the only one arrested because that’s all you talk about. Why not start your on “I hate allison Mack” blog you dumb ass and see how far it would go. Your as pathetic as that spanker guy!

    • Here, people know more about nxivm, and some that do would rather not want to see it turn into the spankers Kristen kruek fan club. Spank on Anonny !

  • Dear Mr. Bangkok,

    Per you missed this Smallville episode?

    Betcha can’t watch just one.

    Btw, next to Toni Natalie, Snooky is hot.

  • I feel like I shouldn’t laugh, but I’m laughing. I do love a good rant.

    While on the subject of Kreuk put-downs, I recall back in Smallville days some amongst the fandom had warm feelings toward Stompy the Horse. You see, in one episode Kreuk’s character Lana had a little accident with a spooked horse in the barn. He knocked her down and repeatedly stomped on the poor lass, breaking her leg. Ah, Stompy. You were much beloved for crippling the insipid Lana Lang.

  • For shits & giggles, googled “Smallville actresses” to make comparisons.

    The chick who played “Lois Lane” was probably the most fuckable, however, today, she looks a bit like a cross between Michael Myers (the horror film murderer with the white mask) and a saggy tea bag.

    She did get her tits done, thankfully. She got her pre-enhancement tits out in a film.

    She said she used to do nude parties with her husband. So a whore too.

    The chick who played “Supergirl” with the long ass last name was probably the best looking. White, blonde hair is prefered by all races in general. Probably the most bangable one in 2019.

    Allison Mack is simply ugly with fat ankles.

    Kristin Kreuk looks a bit gremlin-ish/mousey, without any boobs or ass whatsoever. She should put on about fifteen pounds in her ass and thighs , squat heavy to build an actual ass shape and possibly get her tits made a cup or two bigger.

    Also, play up the white heritage by dying her hair a light blonde. “Jane” the Girls By Design NXIVM member who went on to become a DOS slave, said that Kreuk was a “submissive” in BDSM. She does seem sexually vanilla.

    Cassidy Freeman looks like the ugly sister of William Defoe.×449.jpg

    As for Toni Natalie…… No. NO.

    Will the groupies go fucking mental?

    • Why don’t you post a picture your mug Bang-cunt? Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re too much of pussy. Easy to criticize when you’re hiding behind your computer.

    • “The chick who played “Lois Lane” has a name — Erica Durance. And just because she liked to publicize the fact that she was a nudist back when it served her purposes and was so lame of an actresses and ordinary looking that she had to take her clothes off to even get hired, doesn’t mean she was an actual whore.

      And just because she sounds like a cult member when she tweets,
      Erica Durance
      Verified account @ED_DURANCE
      Jan 4
      Starting the new year in a new way… Instagram. A place for sharing good things, inspiration, and joy. You can find me at durance.erica

      and is a typical virtue-signalling, anti-Trump, liberal, d-list Canadian actor
      Erica Durance
      Verified account @ED_DURANCE
      Is anything going to stop the moron parading around as The President @realDonaldTrump
      Promoting violence again????#NotMyPresident

      Doesn’t mean that Satanist Actaeon can’t worship at Durance’s alter as Sicko Sultan and Sicko Shadow worship at theirs.

    • Lol, Kristin’s natural beauty is what most fashion photographers want, youthful soft features. Feline or catlike look, which makes Kristin
      look years younger than she really is. Kreuk’s face has excellent symmetry which is a big factor for Supermodels. Even when glammed up
      with make up, Kristin’s beautiful facial features just shines through. One of Kristin fellow actors Ian Somerhalder said “It’s frightening how
      gorgeous she is. I mean flawlessly beautiful.” “She doesn’t even know it.”

      • Feline catlike look! You weird old wanker! Just because you have a chronic sexual obsession with this Nxivm cult member, does not mean everyone else does. You worship Kreuk more than the 911 terrorists worshipped “allah”. After every spank, you probably scream out “KristinKook-akbar”.

  • Bangkok,

    You admitted you would bang J.Z. Knight (Ramtha) given the opportunity…….
    ……This leads me to believe that you could be Flower’s little honey Bee……..Bzzzzzz
    …….Are you up for pollinating Flowers?

    BTW Not all of us men like big fake Saline-filled boobs. They feel like water bags and are twice as heavy then real breasts. Not to mention the fake boobs don’t even look remotely real. Plus all the scar tissue…

    Lastly, women who have committed murder are wild and great for one night stands, but you definitely do not want them to sleep over……

    Bangkok I hope you have a great time this weekend whacking off to big titted blond female murders in your parents’ basement.

    In between jerking it, will you be playing Fortnight or Call of Duty? I don’t personally like any of the new DLC; Do you?

    Take care you little Dipshit 😉

    • Niceguy, I’m almost convinced that you and Bangkok are actually the same person. You write one post as Bangie, and then reply back to yourself using the alias Niceguy.

      Bored?….or is Frank paying you to write this bullshit?….
      As you sure do seem to have a lot of free time to use to search for pictures and post links etc. One might think that neither of you had
      real jobs to go to.

      • Bangkok is Dennis K. Burke, the disgraced former federal prosecutor. You are correct in observing he often uses other accounts to reply to his own posts. Those who write here that he seems to have a lot of free time on his hands are correct, as the only known paying client he had in recent history was Clare Bronfman — who he met through Emiliano Salinas. Burke, who was famously involved in a arms trafficking scandal with Mexican cartels while he was U.S. Attorney for Arizona, has deep ties to the Salinas clan of Mexico.

        The “niceguy” account is used this way to self-reply to Burke’s posts. It appears to be used by Burke and one or more additional parties.

        • Anonymous(Bangkok),

          Screw- off and do not lump me in with your bullshit Burke narrative. Burke has probably never been on this website to begin with.

          Bangkok how is your weekend marathon of beating off going?

          Have you had to run many errands for your parents?

          Are you still wearing your mom’s diaphragm atop your head as a yarmulke on rainy days?

      • Flowers,

        I was kidding around. I will not include your name in any future posts unless I am directly communicating with you.

        P.S. I do believe you and Bangkok with his bunny ears would make a cute couple.

        You could tell people he is your mentally challenged adult adopted son. Imagine the sympathy and adulation you’d receive…

        • Niceguy, I’m pretty sure your Bangkok alias is more mature than your Niceguy alias …so I think Bangie would be too old to me my son. Lol.
          I think you boy(s) need to throw out your old playboy magazines…. you know all that pervy stuff is on the internet or on Netflix now, right?

          • Flowers,

            Forget Netflix.
            Let’s get totally modern…

            Flowers why don’t you put on a free show for us on SnapChat or Periscope and show us all your bouquet……

      • Oh! There you are Flowers. I thought you may have been felled by a killing frost. What would ever give you the idea niceguy would do such a thing? That would be taking a page out of your book, wouldn’t it?

        When are you going to fess up and tell Shadow you were posting as Ryanne S.?

        • I thought Ryanne was part of the Nicki Clyne/Pea/Monte Blu troll group. Lol.
          Perhaps you gaslighters can ask a 🐰 about April 20th…..hey, what’s up doc🐇🐇?

          Harassment charges, maybe?

          Btw, I wonder who crazy “Fern” girl is. A random nut, or one of your loonies?

        • Flowers is no Barb B. She has faced very real adversity and you’re right she’s a whole lot smarter. Flowers has shown herself to be a vile, monstrous little troll living under the bridge while she begs people to believe she’s at the center of some big plot where everyone is out to get her. It’s very sad.

          • Just because a vile, monstrous, little bridge-dwelling troll doesn’t understand something it means that it’s a “rant”? Sure…..🙄

          • Round up weed killer ingenious. ^.^

            You win the internet! You are definitely the smartest here I assume. You are as cancerous as the product used to kill weeds. you should learn to listen round up and of course provoking people into replying. Oh wait… I mean waiting for someone to reply I bet it hurt like hell because specific people have a life and go with the flow while you wait specifically for a reply but person not giving you it. How long were you stalking waiting for specific people to post? including sultan.

        • Hmmm…the fact that I was smart enough to never belong to a cult is not working well with your argument. Also, it seems I’ve been “smart enough” to identify all your cult members…(and I dont mean NXIVM members, either)….

          I only need to be smarter than the morons harassing me, so it’s not that difficult, is it? 😏😉

          But keep on doing the “bunny hop”, as it’s quite amazing to see the lengths you cult members will go to.

          However, if you send your fucked-up “Fern girl” in again, be aware that security will be alerted.

          • Flowers, you’ve totally missed the point, again. Barb B was involved in a cult and she’s STILL smarter than you. You’re odd rants give everyone a glimpse into a very troubled mind.

  • Another post confusing the fuckability index with the I.Q.. While the former represents a topic worthy of public debate it is so when examined on its own.

    Would this article have existed had Kreuk had the head of Madeleine Albright screwed on her shoulders??

  • There’s only one way to settle this Great Debate.
    Have Kristin Kreuk mud-wrestle one of the stunningly gorgeous women.

    As for KK’s looks, she is of Eurasian heritage.
    Part Dutch and Part Chinese.
    Her exotic looks will always make her more interesting than the average Dishwater Blonde.
    And Kristin Kreuk’s part Asian heritage will probably make her less prone to the stresses of aging with fewer wrinkles.

    Picture of Kristin Kreuk with a Dishwater Blonde.

    • I have to agree with Shadowstate this time on all counts.

      And as a bonus Asian women age much better than Caucasian women, but don’t take my word for it…

      Just ask Bangkok’s dad who left Bangkok’s mom when she got to old. So sad…

      Bangkok reach out to Scott Amway Johnson. I am sure he would like do be your dad.

      Scott will even read you bedtime stories at night….right before he bangs your mom.

      Sleep on that you little dipshit 😉

        • Spanky, you are an old “man”, half a century years OLD, single, unmarried, unloved, childless, sexless, low self esteem, low testosterone, stalker and a generic cunt. What the fuck would you do if someone pointed out your hellish religion is evil and cunty? You can’t do shit. People hate your kind. Inferior evil people. Islam and Muslims are some of the worse things to ever happen to the human race. You are hated everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Crawl back into your burrow and stop presenting yourself to people. Even online with typed words, you are an insufferable awful cunt.

          • Avoidance of the point as usual. You can say all you want about Sultan. It still doesn’t change the FACT that you are a typical cowardly pussy whose only recourse is to cry online anonymously.

            Whiny, bigoted, crying, little bully, bitch.

        • You made no point to avoid Abdul. You have no points. Stop pretending you are not “sultan” you weakling. You have been exposed as a worthless nobody. Life has defeated you. Keep praying on your hands and knees like a homosexual does hoping for a life. It won’t happen.

          • The glaring irony of calling someone else a nobody and a weakling while repetitively attempting to trash their skin color and way of life hiding behind a computer screen like the trolling juvenile delinquent that they are. The only person who is a “nobody” here is the person who can’t put a face behind his shameless and worthless words because he’s a whining, cowardly punk bitch.

          • Spanky, what is the statistical probability that the people you have the audacity to attack are as emasculated as you, or more so? You are significantly inferior.

          • Says the pink bitch hiding behind a computer screen.

            You see, Parlato supposedly knows Sultan. So does Joe O’Hara and John Tighe. They can put a name or face to the words. Even Kristin or Kendra would know who he is, seeing that he supposedly stalks her and others as part of Girls By Design, because he wouldn’t have been able to join unless he gave an actual name and legitimate email address.

            You’re just a fucking little wimp cowering behind a keyboard casting your slurs at her and Sultan without the consequence of identity. You are by definition a perfect example of emasculation.

          • Aww. Still avoiding the point punk bitch. Maybe you should take a look at some of the Bollywood stars, or perhaps someone like Sendhil Ramamurthy, a fellow coworker of Kristin’s. I’ve never witnessed someone cry more than you. Keep stalking. Keep calling out Sultan where he doesn’t exist.

            You’re nothing but a whiny coward. At least Kristin is a woman. You’re nothing but an emasculated blowhard.

About Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato Investigates

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg; “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson; “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been featured prominently on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and acted as lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” He was credited in the Starz docuseries, 'Seduced,' for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Parlato has appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest, which was ironic since many credit Parlato as being one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

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text:
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Thinking bulb cloud Freefoodapps

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Follow some easy steps.

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References :

Dansal App Google PlayStore


text:
It is of very little consequence how good you feel your relationship is, there is a dynamic that defines the interaction and what you do. It doesn’t matter if it is a friendship, work or a romantic relationship, we like to control things the best we can. This is what humans do. Codependency in relationships is about this, narcissism in relationships is about this, the employer-employee relationship is about this and individual-society relationship is all about this. We all like to hold the balance of power in any relationship we have and we fight to keep it, sometimes unconsciously and we are only willing to pass the balance to the other person if it is in our interest to do so.

The above description might give the idea that relationships are all about self-interest but I firmly believe that to be the case. We choose our relationships very carefully and only in very rare circumstances are we forced into a relationship we don’t want. Within these ‘chosen’ relationships, we like to have as much of the say as possible. Even codependency is a control measure used to gain the maximum from a partner.

Why we do this is clear. We are self-centered beings who want the best for ourselves and we only give some of this away to the people we choose to. We do this for our own security and to make the environment around us as secure and pleasing as possible for us as individuals. Much of the conflict that occurs in relationships is when the balance of power we hold is threatened and we fight to regain it.

Much of this balance is driven by return or ‘payoffs’. This means we are prepared to give up a little of our ‘power’ in return for something. It is the ultimate transaction much as we try to kid ourselves that we do it for love and affection. Love only thrives when we are happy with the ‘balance’ and how it is working, how comfortable we feel that we are getting the right return for our part of the transaction. When this is not forthcoming, we have no issue withholding our part of the bargain. The biggest killers of relationships, resentment and contempt are symptoms of a out-of-balance relationship.

Group Online Therapy – Starting February 21st, 2021. Sometimes, it helps to know that others are going through similar experiences. Group therapy is designed for you to interact with others in similar circumstances and share your story with them. Join four other codependents in a series of four intensive, totally private, 90 minute sessions, facilitated by me, to learn how you can cope and recover from codependency by learning the background and effective tools and methods. Why just talk, why not learn? Find out more

There are times, of course when we see it to our advantage to have the balance of power completely in the hands of another. We trust doctors and other professionals to have our best interest at heart and we are willing to sometimes place our lives in their hands. However, in a relationship between two people who have chosen to be together, there are events that can change the balance dramatically. Illness, physical or mental can change the dynamic quickly and in such circumstances, we would rightly hope our partner would do the right thing. Let’s take another scenario.

Infidelity is basically the worse possible scenario for a relationship. It breaks everything, trust, hope and the basic foundation of what we might see as secure. It can smash the delicate balance of ‘relationship payoff’ in a moment. People cheat for many reasons. Opportunity, attention-seeking, the need for sex and excitement, lack of control and the inability to manage impulses among others. However, it might also suggest that the cheater felt that they were not getting the ‘payoff’ they expected from their input.

Let me make it clear, there is no excuse for infidelity and it cannot be condoned under any circumstances. If you want something else, work on it with your partner or leave… simple.

However, sometimes there is a strange dynamic that occurs after infidelity if the partner who was cheated on stays in the relationship. We all know that most relationships where infidelity is an issue do not survive and the couple split up. Sometimes, they stay together and try hard to restore the balance by learning from the infidelity and trying to put the ‘payoff’ system on an equal footing again. It is the ultimate in forgiveness and putting the relationship above all else. Again, we will only do this if we feel it will promote our own interests and in this case, the cheater will have to accept that for a while, their input into the ’emotional bank account’ might be at higher interest.

There are, in contrast to this, relationships where the cheater hands the balance of power completely to their partner in return for staying with them and their partner is very willing to take it. In these types of relationship, the balance is usually to a large degree, with one person who might well use that to control. They will readily stay in the relationship but will not work on anything to move the situation forward. They are seen as people who are forgiving and empathetic and in some cases, they are but this situation is the ultimate in ‘transaction payoff’. What is being said is ‘I will stay but you are under my control, that is the only way I will feel secure’. Unfortunately, this will only hold for a while. Nobody likes to be under control for long if their only ‘payoff’ is to stay in a controlled situation and the likelihood of another ‘cheating’ event or eventual break-up is highly probable.

This article may look to bust wide open the notion that relationships are destiny or based purely on feelings. However, it would be hard to believe relationships are the only part of our lives that are regulated this way. As a species, we make definite choices (even doing nothing is a choice) about what we do and what we are not prepared to do and who we do that with. The way we see and interact in relationships is nothing more than that.

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Bit-Gamer, Games of the Year 2011

As part of the Custom PC/Bit-Tech/Bit-Gamer annual round-up, I was asked to be on the judging panel for the Games of the Year 2011 awards. Written by Joe Martin, the annual article is a look at the top five games released throughout the year; while readers might not always agree (read: usually disagree) the piece always generates lots of interest.

Given five votes each, the judging panel put forward their contenders for the title. As usual, the voting covered a pleasing mix of independent games – with two of my votes going to Frozen Synapse and Bastion, two very fine titles to come out of independent game studios this year – and triple-A titles, with no real surprises as to the overall winner.

The full piece can be found over on the Bit-Tech website.


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On the heels of a recent post in which I discussed evolving dynamics and strategic implications underscoring different types of allogeneic cell therapies in oncology, I find it fitting to address another substantive consideration in the field, that of targeting moieties.  Specifically, what can we say about the likely roles to be played by CAR- vs. TCR-modified cell therapies?

T-cells have evolved to recognize, engage, and destroy non-self tissue based on binding of T-cell receptors (TCRs) to foreign antigens presented as peptides in complex with MHC (major histocompatibility complex) molecules. Biologically-speaking, there is a lot more going on here. But let’s simply say that TCRs are a natural and arguably necessary component of robust and sustained T-cell responses.  In contrast to TCRs, chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are not a naturally-expressed component of the T-cell. While antibodies (the “R” in CARs) are indeed natural, their conjugation to chimeric intracellular activation domain is not. Whereas CAR-modified T-cells have proven effective in heme malignancies (e.g., B-cell lymphomas, multiple myeloma) that are responsive to transplant-like ablation and add-back of new-and-improved immune compartments, they may be less adept at addressing more heterogenous and microenvironment-bound malignancies. Indeed (and it is sadly as true today as it was when I wrote about it almost 2 years ago), there’s a whole universe of additional oncology indications waiting to be addressed by CAR-T therapies.

Many of us first came to learn about the promise of TCR-based therapies with the launch of Immunocore and Adaptimmune in 2008, both of which were co-founded by James Noble with the licensing of TCR technology from Medigene.  While the importance of natural T-cell signaling following TCR-mediated tumor recognition has of late become increasingly pertinent to the comparison of TCRs vs. CARs, the fundamental role of TCR signaling in T-cell activity was never the most salient feature of its value proposition as a therapeutic modality. Instead, innovators and investors latched onto the importance of TCRs being able to recognize tumor antigens expressed both outside and within the cell. The correspondingly larger universe of candidate antigens from which to select with TCR-Ts vs. CARs, which can only recognize extracellular antigens (representing ~15% of proteins in the cell), should translate into an increased likelihood of finding clean, ‘magic bullet’ targets needed to achieve robust on- vs. off-tumor targeting.

That said, TCRs can only recognize antigens in the context of presentation by HLA (the human version of MHC), which itself exists in flavors that vary across different ethnicities. HLA A2, which is one of the most common HLA subtypes globally, can only be found in ~50% of the U.S. Caucasian population. Candidate patient populations for TCR-Ts are therefore restricted not only by expression rates of the tumor antigens they target but also that of HLA subtype.  A therapeutic target expressed in 50% of cancer patients would therefore only be applicable for 25% (0.5 * 0.5) of white patients, and far fewer across other regional markets.

Do TCR-based approaches work in solid tumors? Cell therapies are, after all, expensive to develop and manufacture, and they are therefore held to a higher standard in the clinic vs. comparatively simpler biologics and small molecules. And with the vast majority of cell therapy revenues projected for hematological malignancies, market  penetration into solid tumors, which comprise the vast majority of cancer patients, is mission critical for cell therapies to succeed.

As it turns out, TCR-based therapies have achieved rather impressive clinical performance in certain solid tumor settings. Both Adaptimmune’s afami-cel and GSK’s lete-cel have demonstrated high rates of durable remissions in sarcoma, with hints of activity in broader tumor types like ovarian and gastric cancers. And if we expand our notion of TCR-based approaches to include not only engineered TCR-Ts but also TILs (e.g., Iovance) and virus-targeted T-cells (e.g., Atara), both of which rely upon TCR-mediated recognition and antitumor activity, TCR-based approaches as a group are quite effective across solid tumors.  By comparison, CAR-modified cells have languished outside of B-cell malignancies and multiple myeloma. While it remains early days for data readout, CAR-modified cells targeting more prominent (i.e., de-risked) extracellular solid tumor-associated antigens such as HER2, mesothelin, and PSMA have achieved transient responses at best and life-threatening toxicities in more dire cases.

So how do we explain the disconnect between allocation of funds and clinical performance of TCR- vs. CAR-based therapies? CAR-T therapies continue to dominate the competitive landscape, comprising ~50% of all cell therapy trials active in 2021 (TCR-Ts account for ~5%). We know TCR-based approaches work in solid tumors.  As noted above, Adaptimmune, GSK, Iovance, and Atara have all demonstrated compelling efficacy in solid tumors. In fact, we have known for decades that TIL-based approaches work in solid tumors. That investor and partnering flood-gates have not been thrown open to TCR-based approaches reflects fundamental remaining questions as to whether there is a viable commercial case for these programs: Is the efficacy sufficient to justify premium pricing? Will companies achieve a suitable return if the products only work in rare subgroups? Is the manufacturing scalable if approaches rely on patient-derived (autologous) cells? Can individual products be positioned across multiple tumor types? Are discovery engines capable of repeatedly identifying actionable targets and correspondingly-effective product candidates?

TCR-based companies are clearly responding to these market demands that go beyond “merely” achieving efficacy in solid tumors. Companies developing hyper-personalized TCR discovery engines have captured the attention of Pharma (e.g., see deals from TScan/Novartis, Adaptive/Roche).  Another approach, that of hybrid CAR-TCRs (TCR2, Triumvira, Eureka), is purportedly capable of expanding upon market potential via MHC-independent antigen recognition while retaining natural TCR-like signaling.

Perhaps more to the point, companies developing established TCR-T technology are emphasizing the need to develop multiple clinical programs in parallel, many of which may be effective each across multiple tumor types. Indeed, pipelines of immatics and Anocca are comprised of multiple programs involving similar products that differ only with the antigens recognized by their TCRs. Another means to wresting value from TCR-T therapies is that of building upon existing product candidates with incorporation of additional enabling modifications, as exemplified by GSK and Adaptimmune.  Notably, both of these companies are also doubling down on their product candidates by expanding reach across multiple tumor types (e.g., GSK’s efforts to go beyond sarcoma into NSCLC, Adaptimmune’s efforts to expand beyond sarcoma into ovarian cancer).

CAR-based companies are not, of course, standing still or willing to accept CD19 and BCMA as the beginning and end of their story. The diversity of variations on the CAR-based theme is simply staggering, and we are finally seeing a slow-down in the number of new programs against these validated but overcrowded targets. That said, T-cell biology is nuanced, and a modification to something so fundamental as antigen-recognition and downstream activation pushes it away from evolution-honed activity.  Such a strategy must somehow be compensated for if CAR-based products are to achieve potent, safe, and durable remissions in the clinic. The corollary to this is that we must develop capabilities of understanding how immunity works within the human host. Yes, many modifications are being piloted. And yes, some of them may work. On the other hand, there may not be sufficient funds, even in this space where funds have been plentiful, to support trialing of enough approaches before any emerge with clinical performance sufficient to justify their costs. Unless such costs can be brought down, that is. But that’s a topic for another post.