Graeme

Found mine at just under 86,000 That's in Australian date format, of course. In American format, I'd have to wait until more than 645,000... I did note that it's ignore the century and only using a two digit year. I suppose that's to make it easier to find (6 digits rather than 8).

The best and worst wedding : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-12/best-worst-wedding-story-brennans/7239836

Thank you!

A great chapter! I liked Toph's developing maturity showing, especially his insights into his failed relationship. On that subject, though, I wonder how much his mother's interference affected Steve? Since we now know that she contacted him, was she a factor in what he did? He still didn't handle breaking up with Toph well, but maybe he was running scared (just like Toph ran from his family back at the start of the story)? Niles's conversation was a great way to fill in some off-camera events. It seems that not all is happy in Dennyland. I'm still curious, though, as to exactly how much as Toph's mother changed? She has -- Gary's previous comments have shown that -- but the behind-the-scenes contacting of Steve implies that there's something still going on.

Pollsters also include an error in their figures which is usually around 2-3% mark. When the % being reported is 0.168%, a 2-3% error rate (taking a polling standard) means that the numbers being reported are statistically indistinguishable from zero. Okay, I'm being a bit harsh because what pollster do and what this study is doing are two completely different things, but to me that 0.168% figure is so low that without some rigorous methodology and long-term history behind it (which applies to medical statistics that can be of a similar order of magnitude), the numbers aren't reliable. I've just gone to the article that was linked and it appears that this was a study of tweets from June 2014 to December 2015 - either 18 or 19 months, depending on whether the endpoints were included and whether they were whole months. That's actually not a bad baseline, but I'd like to see the level of variability over that time. I'd also like to see this extended out over 5 or 10 years, possibly with trends over that time. For example, that period covers the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell vs Hodges in June 2015. I would suspect that there was a large spike of anti-gay tweets in response to that decision, but how much did that spike affect the overall averages? Sometimes an average can hide the volatility in the underlying data. One or two large spikes in response to one-off events can distort the underlying average. In short, without some indication of variance (they should be able to calculate standard deviations, given the raw data), it's not possible to judge if the numbers supplied are meaningful.

Look at the numbers: 168 anti-gay tweets out of 100,000. That's 0.168%. There's a lot of uncertainty as to how they're counted if one person sends multiple tweets, but I think you could probably safely say from this that less than 1% of the population is openly anti-gay, based on their tweeting habits. Would that agree with your experiences? To me, the numbers are too small to be useful. The margin for error is too high.

Bad news is easy to find. Good news doesn't have the publicity agents that bad news has, so we have to do what we can...

That was hilarious! A dog that knows that food and fun are just as important in life as other things...

Thank you! Leopard Spots was certainly a lot more complex than anything else I've written. I'm actually nervous as to whether I can continue this part of the story to the same standard I hope I can... In case you missed it, I'll be posting a new chapter every two weeks. Once I'm far enough ahead in my writing, I switch to posting a chapter a week until the end of the story.

Thank you! I really couldn't leave Ty's father out of the book. He's done so much to make Ty the man he is today...

Yes, the countdown will be at the start of each chapter. There's a definite goal that they're counting down to. The journey to the draft, however, isn't always an easy one.

Thank you! It's been a balancing act in trying to keep the story moving but also reminding the readers of events in the previous books. Since this book flows on immediately after Leopard Spots, those events are important to an understanding of some of the things happening in this book.

Thanks, Cole! Since I was starting a new book, I thought I'd take the opportunity to add some new characters. With roughly 200 guys attending the combines, it's reasonable to assume that at least one of them is gay...

LOL -- I'm not that fussed by stats. I don't mind if feedback is via a review, a post in the forums, a PM, or an email, even just a click of the "Like" button.

Thank you! I hope you like the new characters.

Thanks for the link! I had missed that. That makes three clubs that I know of with official LGBTI supporter groups: the Pink Magpies (Collingwood), the Purple Bombers (Essendon), and now the Rainbow Swans (Sydney). The issue of homophobia in the sport is acknowledged by the administrators, as the quote from Peter Gordon shows. All forms of abuse and vilification are being actively discouraged, and while racist and gender-based comments are getting more of the focus, there's been ongoing reports of homophobia also being addressed.

Kevin, unfortunately, doesn't have a lot of influence at the Sydney Swans. As in almost none... Between the national and state-based combines in 2014, there were around 200 young football players. I think it's quite reasonable that at least one of them was gay. But you're right -- if someone else comes out first, it'll be easier for all the rest. Because he's already out, Jim will actually have the easiest time of all if he makes it to the AFL. But being out is certainly a factor that any club wanting to draft him would have to take into account. Is it a big deal or only a minor point? That's up to each club to decide.

Thank you. I'm happy to start sharing their stories again

Ross Munroe glanced at the stopwatch on his wrist as he turned into the suburban-Melbourne side street where he and his mother lived. He grimaced for a moment and then pushed hard to sprint the last part of his run. He hit the stop button as he passed through the gates at his home. Breathing deeply, he mentally sighed. While his six-kilometre run time was good, he wasn’t satisfied. He needed to improve, and there wasn’t a lot of time left to do so. It was no surprise that his mother was up and

With the football season over, the attention turns to the upcoming AFL draft for a number of the Lilydale Leopards. Will any of them make the leap to the AFL? If they do, how many will make the jump and to where?

Thank you!

The dog, the autistic Wellington boy and the global tale I personally know of a family that has a 'therapy' dog for their autistic son. His mother has said that the dog has made a huge difference.

Another web comic by the same author as Artifice is The Young Protectors, which is still in progress and is posting twice a week (Saturday and Wednesday).

I'm not sure what I think about this chapter. It felt like everything was on hold. There were things going on, but it's like Toph's life was not progressing, at least not by much. The painting of the bird lady means something -- probably that he's able to make an emotional connection to a stranger, which is certainly a big step for him -- but from Toph's point of view it didn't mean much at all. I actually found his repeating about how much he has to learn annoying. Is that just my frustration with Toph discovering things that I think are obvious (there's always something to learn) or does it mean something more significant? It's that way with the entire chapter. I feel like either I'm missing something, or that there's just not the content here that I was expecting.

That's true for professional photographers and professional authors, but I'm an amateur author and an amateur photographer. I'd like to think my works are equally protected. Legally, they are, but that won't stop them from being 'stolen' if there's a perception that "if it's on the Internet, it's free to be copied." As for the sites you listed, I'm not a member of any of them and I don't know the rules they provide. At worst, I suspect that the site owns the image after you upload them, but that unless the site has rules in place to allow them to be freely copied to other sites, I suspect it's still the same situation -- they own it and they're not giving permission for it be shared outside of their site. Their policy is in place to allow the images to be shared within their site as a way of promoting more use of their site. It's time for me to bow out, too. I've said what I wanted to say and I'll also confess that my hands aren't clean, either. My last novel and the one that's about to start posting both involve real-life people who have not given me explicit permission to be used in my stories. I'm working off the basis that these are public figures, that I have a disclaimer saying that the words are mine and not theirs, and being as careful as possible to ensure that anything I have those public figures do/say is consistent with their real-life actions/statements. But I'm still potentially at risk by doing so.