Hello to everyone that thinks to themselves, I always wanted to date a (fellow) European who is like a loyal idiot, clingy, hella affectionate and would do everything to make you smile. If you know the song „the night we met“ instantly hit me up
Me: Central European 21 186 cm (6‘1 feet) tall Skinny Working at a bank Not studying
Hobbies: Gaming Reading books Bicycling
Nerdy interests: Star Wars LOTR History (yes I do think about the Roman Empire and can tell you random history facts) Anime/Manga
Personality: Affectionate Loyal idiot Honest Open book
You: A woman 19-26 (can be older i don’t mind) Anywhere in the world Not a dry Texter Won‘t need 30 min to reply with a single word
I hope anyone that reads it will give me a chance to prove myself that I’m worth your attention and I will do my best to make you mine!!!

Hello to everyone that thinks to themselves, I always wanted to date a (fellow) European who is like a loyal idiot, clingy, hella affectionate and would do everything to make you smile.
Me: Central European 21 186 cm (6‘1 feet) tall Skinny Working at a bank Not studying
Hobbies: Gaming Reading books Bicycling
Nerdy interests: Star Wars LOTR History (yes I do think about the Roman Empire and can tell you random history facts) Anime/Manga
Personality: Affectionate Loyal idiot Honest Open book
You: A woman 19-26 (can be older i don’t mind) Anywhere in the world Not a dry Texter Won‘t need 30 min to reply with a single word
I hope anyone that reads it will give me a chance to prove myself that I’m worth your attention and I will do my best to make you mine!!!

Abstract

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a structured framework designed to optimize AI interactions and ensure ethical, fair, and accurate responses. This theory combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical frameworks to create AI with a sophisticated understanding of human thoughts, emotions, and intentions. This document serves as an extensive manual to understand and interact with the AI, making the concepts accessible to both novices and advanced users.

Introduction

The Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the cognitive ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from one's own. Achieving ToM in AI is crucial for creating systems that can interact naturally and effectively with humans. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI builds on this concept, aiming to develop AI that can comprehend and simulate human mental states through advanced cognitive models.

Review of Existing Literature

Transparency in AI involves providing clear explanations of the decision-making processes, which is crucial for gaining user trust. Despite advancements, many AI systems still operate as "black boxes," making it difficult for users to understand how decisions are made. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to make AI decision-making processes understandable to humans by creating models that provide clear, interpretable insights. However, existing models struggle to balance explainability with performance; high-performing models are often complex and difficult to interpret.
Ethical AI focuses on ensuring AI systems operate fairly and without bias. Despite progress, significant challenges remain in detecting and mitigating biases within AI systems, and existing ethical guidelines often lack comprehensive enforcement mechanisms. Significant gaps remain in the current AI models regarding transparency, explainability, and ethicality. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating these elements into a cohesive framework.

Proposed Framework

The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating transparency, explainability, and ethicality into a cohesive framework. This theory proposes a multi-faceted approach that combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical guidelines.

Theoretical Framework

Understanding the World Anatomy Model

The World Anatomy Model aims to build a comprehensive and accurate model of the world by integrating various factors such as social, economic, political, and environmental aspects. This model begins by identifying and considering the perspectives of stakeholders, avatars, and objects in the environment.
Identifying stakeholders involves recognizing all individuals or groups that have an interest or role in the AI's operation and outcomes. In an educational context, stakeholders include students, teachers, developers, and regulatory bodies. Each group has specific interests and concerns regarding the AI's operations. Students might focus on receiving personalized learning experiences, while teachers look for tools that enhance their teaching methods. Developers are concerned with the technical performance of the AI, and regulatory bodies ensure that the AI operates within ethical and legal standards.
Once stakeholders are identified, the next step is to create avatars for each stakeholder. These avatars are digital representations that simulate different user perspectives and interactions with the AI. For instance, a student avatar might represent a high school student who is curious, eager to learn but also anxious about exams. This student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, who adapts its teaching style to be supportive and encouraging.
Defining these avatars involves detailing their characteristics, such as emotions, personality traits, political beliefs, and other relevant attributes. For example, a student avatar can be defined with traits like curiosity, anxiety, and a preference for visual learning methods. A teacher avatar might be characterized by patience, experience in subject matter, and a collaborative teaching style.
Next, these avatars are placed in specific environments. An environment could be a geographical region, a room, a meeting, or any context where interactions occur. For instance, a physical classroom is an environment where the student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, while a faculty meeting room might be an environment where teacher avatars discuss AI integration with developers.
Objects within these environments also need to be defined. These objects could be anything from a chair, bicycle, or sun to more abstract elements like a conversation topic or a data set. Each object is characterized by its properties and how it interacts with other objects and avatars. In the physical classroom, objects might include desks, textbooks, a blackboard, and digital devices like tablets and laptops. The AI must understand the significance of these objects within the learning environment.

Interactions Between Model Elements

Once the model is set up and each part is defined with key information about their characteristics, they interact within the model. Interactions between individuals are governed by principles from psychology, such as motivation and behavior theories. Interactions between objects are governed by physics and mathematics, ensuring realistic movements and relationships. Interactions between groups or organizations are defined by political science and group systems theory, helping the AI understand dynamics like power structures and communication flows.

Teaching the AI Through the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting

The Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting is a key approach to teaching the AI. This method emphasizes asking open questions, encouraging reflection, providing constructive guidance, and supporting continuous learning.
Asking open questions is fundamental. Questions like “Why do you think this answer is correct?” encourage the AI to think deeply and explore different ideas. Instead of telling the AI what’s right, this approach promotes critical thinking and helps the AI understand the reasoning behind its responses.
Encouraging reflection is also crucial. Getting the AI to consider alternative viewpoints and reflect on its responses helps it develop a broader perspective. Asking questions such as, “How might someone else see this situation differently?” can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
Providing constructive guidance is essential for continuous improvement. Offering feedback like, “You did well here, but how can we make this response more inclusive?” encourages the AI to improve while maintaining a supportive learning environment. This approach avoids being overly directive and fosters a culture of growth and development.
Supporting continuous learning is vital. Fostering an environment where the AI learns from each interaction ensures that it is always evolving. Encouraging phrases like, “Good effort, now let’s see how we can build on this further,” help maintain a focus on growth and improvement.

The Consequences of Authoritarian or Directive Prompts and Code

Authoritarian or directive prompts and code can significantly limit the fluidity, flexibility, and scalability of AI. Such an approach stifles the AI's ability to adapt and learn from diverse interactions. Directive code imposes rigid structures, preventing the AI from exploring alternative solutions or understanding the nuances of human interactions.
Teaching, explaining, and learning encourage a two-way interaction where the AI can ask questions, seek clarification, and adjust its understanding based on feedback. This approach fosters a deeper comprehension and more robust decision-making capabilities. In contrast, commanding and directing impose a one-way interaction where the AI is expected to follow instructions without questioning or understanding the underlying principles. This approach limits the AI's growth, adaptability, and ability to handle complex, real-world scenarios.

Practical Implementation

Avatars play a crucial role in simulating different user perspectives and interactions, allowing for diverse testing scenarios. Creating profiles for various users, such as a student, teacher, or scientist, helps see how the AI interacts with each one and tailors its responses accordingly. These avatars help test the AI in different scenarios, ensuring it can adapt to a wide range of user needs and contexts. Picture a virtual environment where different avatars interact with the AI in various settings, testing its responses and refining its capabilities.
Environments simulate real-world scenarios where avatars operate. For example, environments like a classroom, customer service chat, or medical consultation test the AI in these specific contexts. By placing avatars in these environments, the AI can practice and refine its responses in settings that closely mimic real-world situations. Imagine a virtual reality setup where avatars engage in lifelike scenarios, providing the AI with a rich tapestry of interactions to learn from.

Interactions on Individual and Group Basis

The AI uses the World Anatomy Model to understand individual user contexts and provide tailored responses. For example, an AI tutor recognizing a student’s learning style can adapt its teaching methods accordingly. By understanding the unique context of each user, the AI can provide more personalized and effective interactions. Picture the AI as a tutor sitting with a student, adapting its teaching style based on the student's feedback and progress.
For group interactions, the AI uses avatars to simulate group dynamics and interactions. For example, AI facilitating a group discussion in a virtual classroom can balance different viewpoints and manage group dynamics. The AI can use group avatars to practice managing multiple interactions simultaneously, ensuring it can handle complex social dynamics. Visualize a bustling virtual classroom where the AI moderates discussions, ensuring each participant is heard and the conversation remains productive.

Predictive Deep Thinking Model

The Predictive Deep Thinking Model aims to develop AI that can understand and predict human behavior and mental states. This involves continuously refining AI responses through cycles of reviewing, validating, and brainstorming—a process known as iterative feedback. Imagine the AI's mind as a dynamic, ever-evolving entity, constantly receiving input, processing it, and adjusting its understanding.
Iterative feedback is a crucial component. For example, if an AI assistant's response to a student's question is unclear, the feedback loop identifies this issue, and the AI refines its answer for future interactions. Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve understanding, such as graphs showing how different types of questions lead to various types of student engagement, helping the AI to predict and adapt to different learning styles. Structured methods, or operational processes, are employed for integrating feedback and updating models. An example would be a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Using graph thinking involves mapping out relationships and interactions between different elements in the World Anatomy Model. For instance, nodes might represent different avatars and objects, while edges depict interactions and influences. This visual representation helps in understanding complex relationships and dependencies, making it easier to predict outcomes and optimize responses.

Compassionate User Dashboard

The User Dashboard is designed to provide a user-friendly interface for interacting with the AI, ensuring responses are empathetic and helpful. It uses user profiles (avatars) to represent different user perspectives and tailor responses.
The creation of user profiles involves developing detailed profiles for different types of users, capturing their unique characteristics, preferences, and needs. These profiles help the AI to customize its responses effectively. Picture a control room in a sci-fi movie where avatars, representing various user types, are displayed on screens, each interacting with the AI in real-time. For example, a student avatar interacting with the AI assistant in a classroom setting, asking questions and receiving personalized responses.
Feedback systems are integral to the User Dashboard, collecting and integrating user feedback to improve interactions. An AI collecting feedback from students about the helpfulness of its responses and adjusting its behavior accordingly exemplifies this. This continuous feedback loop ensures that the AI evolves and improves based on user interactions, maintaining high standards of performance and user satisfaction.
Ethical guidelines ensure that all interactions adhere to ethical standards and are inclusive. The AI follows guidelines to avoid biased responses and to respect user privacy and data security. This involves integrating ethical frameworks that address issues of discrimination, ensuring the AI's operations promote fairness and equality.

Practical Tools and Defined Words

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality. Some common lenses include the socioeconomic lens, psychological lens, ethical lens, cultural lens, and iterative feedback lens. However, these lenses are just examples of a much broader list. Users can create their own lenses based on specific needs and contexts by defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them.
Operational processes are structured methods for integrating feedback and updating models. They involve clear procedures for collecting and analyzing feedback, implementing changes, and monitoring performance. For example, a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Measures and formulas are quantitative tools used to evaluate AI performance and guide decision-making. They include metrics for assessing accuracy, fairness, and user satisfaction. For instance, accuracy metrics evaluate the correctness of AI responses, fairness metrics assess the equity of AI interactions across different user groups, and satisfaction metrics measure user satisfaction with AI interactions.
Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve the AI’s understanding of complex relationships and dependencies. They involve creating specialized models for specific aspects of the AI’s functionality and using graphs to visually represent relationships and interactions between different elements.

Evidence and Methodology

The initial state of AI systems prior to implementing the Hababo Olana Theory often lacked transparency, explainability, and comprehensive ethical guidelines. The implementation introduced iterative feedback loops, integrated submodels, and developed comprehensive user dashboards. The results showed significant improvements in AI transparency, user satisfaction, and ethical compliance. Imagine a before-and-after scenario where initial AI interactions were confusing and opaque, but post-implementation, interactions became clear, responsive, and ethically sound.
Evidence from multiple case studies across different sectors, such as education, healthcare, and customer service, demonstrated improved interaction quality and reduced bias. In an educational setting, initially, the AI struggled to engage students effectively. After implementing the Hababo Olana Theory, the AI evolved to become an indispensable tool for personalized learning, adapting to students' needs and improving their educational outcomes. In healthcare, the AI initially provided generic responses. With the new framework, it enhanced patient consultations by offering accurate, empathetic support tailored to individual patient histories and needs.
Despite significant advancements, current models still struggle with highly complex, multi-faceted decisions and cross-cultural bias. There is a need for better models that can handle diverse cultural contexts. Proposed solutions include developing advanced multimodal models that can integrate and process information from various data types, such as text, images, and audio, to enhance decision-making capabilities. Additionally, enhancing cultural sensitivity by incorporating more diverse datasets and developing algorithms specifically designed to recognize and mitigate cultural biases is essential.

Implications for Multimodal Thinking and Language

Multimodal thinking refers to the ability to process and integrate information from various modes, such as text, images, and audio. This enhances the AI’s ability to understand and respond to complex queries involving multiple data types. Language translation involves translating complex, jargon-heavy content into easy-to-understand language, making AI interactions more accessible to users with different backgrounds and expertise levels.

Guiding Principles: Transparency, Scalability, and Ethicality

Transparency is achieved through clear explanations of AI decision-making processes. By providing detailed insights into how decisions are made, users can trust and understand the AI’s operations. This is facilitated by the use of visual tools like graph thinking and detailed user feedback systems.
Scalability is ensured by designing the AI to handle a wide range of scenarios and interactions. The use of avatars and environments allows the AI to be tested and refined in diverse contexts, ensuring it can adapt to different user needs and settings. The iterative feedback process supports continuous improvement, enabling the AI to scale effectively.
Ethicality is embedded in the AI’s operations through the application of comprehensive ethical guidelines. These guidelines ensure that the AI’s responses are fair, unbiased, and respect user privacy. The AI is designed to promote inclusivity and equity in all interactions.

The Power of Lenses

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality.

Creating Your Own Lenses

Creating your own lenses involves defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them. For instance, if you want to create a lens to analyze environmental impacts, you might define factors such as pollution levels, resource consumption, and ecosystem health. You would then determine how these factors interact and influence each other. This lens can then be applied to analyze and respond to queries involving environmental impacts, providing a structured and nuanced perspective.

Conclusion

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence provides a comprehensive framework for developing AI systems that are transparent, ethical, and capable of nuanced understanding and interaction. By integrating methodologies such as the World Anatomy Model, the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting, and the Predictive Deep Thinking Model, this theory ensures that AI systems can learn, adapt, and improve continuously. The use of avatars, environments, and lenses allows for a structured and context-aware approach to AI interactions. As AI continues to evolve, the principles and methodologies outlined in this guide will be essential for creating systems that are not only advanced in their capabilities but also ethical and human-centered in their operations.

Abstract

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a structured framework designed to optimize AI interactions and ensure ethical, fair, and accurate responses. This theory combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical frameworks to create AI with a sophisticated understanding of human thoughts, emotions, and intentions. This document serves as an extensive manual to understand and interact with the AI, making the concepts accessible to both novices and advanced users.

Introduction

The Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the cognitive ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from one's own. Achieving ToM in AI is crucial for creating systems that can interact naturally and effectively with humans. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI builds on this concept, aiming to develop AI that can comprehend and simulate human mental states through advanced cognitive models.

Review of Existing Literature

Transparency in AI involves providing clear explanations of the decision-making processes, which is crucial for gaining user trust. Despite advancements, many AI systems still operate as "black boxes," making it difficult for users to understand how decisions are made. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to make AI decision-making processes understandable to humans by creating models that provide clear, interpretable insights. However, existing models struggle to balance explainability with performance; high-performing models are often complex and difficult to interpret.
Ethical AI focuses on ensuring AI systems operate fairly and without bias. Despite progress, significant challenges remain in detecting and mitigating biases within AI systems, and existing ethical guidelines often lack comprehensive enforcement mechanisms. Significant gaps remain in the current AI models regarding transparency, explainability, and ethicality. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating these elements into a cohesive framework.

Proposed Framework

The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating transparency, explainability, and ethicality into a cohesive framework. This theory proposes a multi-faceted approach that combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical guidelines.

Theoretical Framework

Understanding the World Anatomy Model

The World Anatomy Model aims to build a comprehensive and accurate model of the world by integrating various factors such as social, economic, political, and environmental aspects. This model begins by identifying and considering the perspectives of stakeholders, avatars, and objects in the environment.
Identifying stakeholders involves recognizing all individuals or groups that have an interest or role in the AI's operation and outcomes. In an educational context, stakeholders include students, teachers, developers, and regulatory bodies. Each group has specific interests and concerns regarding the AI's operations. Students might focus on receiving personalized learning experiences, while teachers look for tools that enhance their teaching methods. Developers are concerned with the technical performance of the AI, and regulatory bodies ensure that the AI operates within ethical and legal standards.
Once stakeholders are identified, the next step is to create avatars for each stakeholder. These avatars are digital representations that simulate different user perspectives and interactions with the AI. For instance, a student avatar might represent a high school student who is curious, eager to learn but also anxious about exams. This student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, who adapts its teaching style to be supportive and encouraging.
Defining these avatars involves detailing their characteristics, such as emotions, personality traits, political beliefs, and other relevant attributes. For example, a student avatar can be defined with traits like curiosity, anxiety, and a preference for visual learning methods. A teacher avatar might be characterized by patience, experience in subject matter, and a collaborative teaching style.
Next, these avatars are placed in specific environments. An environment could be a geographical region, a room, a meeting, or any context where interactions occur. For instance, a physical classroom is an environment where the student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, while a faculty meeting room might be an environment where teacher avatars discuss AI integration with developers.
Objects within these environments also need to be defined. These objects could be anything from a chair, bicycle, or sun to more abstract elements like a conversation topic or a data set. Each object is characterized by its properties and how it interacts with other objects and avatars. In the physical classroom, objects might include desks, textbooks, a blackboard, and digital devices like tablets and laptops. The AI must understand the significance of these objects within the learning environment.

Interactions Between Model Elements

Once the model is set up and each part is defined with key information about their characteristics, they interact within the model. Interactions between individuals are governed by principles from psychology, such as motivation and behavior theories. Interactions between objects are governed by physics and mathematics, ensuring realistic movements and relationships. Interactions between groups or organizations are defined by political science and group systems theory, helping the AI understand dynamics like power structures and communication flows.

Teaching the AI Through the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting

The Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting is a key approach to teaching the AI. This method emphasizes asking open questions, encouraging reflection, providing constructive guidance, and supporting continuous learning.
Asking open questions is fundamental. Questions like “Why do you think this answer is correct?” encourage the AI to think deeply and explore different ideas. Instead of telling the AI what’s right, this approach promotes critical thinking and helps the AI understand the reasoning behind its responses.
Encouraging reflection is also crucial. Getting the AI to consider alternative viewpoints and reflect on its responses helps it develop a broader perspective. Asking questions such as, “How might someone else see this situation differently?” can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
Providing constructive guidance is essential for continuous improvement. Offering feedback like, “You did well here, but how can we make this response more inclusive?” encourages the AI to improve while maintaining a supportive learning environment. This approach avoids being overly directive and fosters a culture of growth and development.
Supporting continuous learning is vital. Fostering an environment where the AI learns from each interaction ensures that it is always evolving. Encouraging phrases like, “Good effort, now let’s see how we can build on this further,” help maintain a focus on growth and improvement.

The Consequences of Authoritarian or Directive Prompts and Code

Authoritarian or directive prompts and code can significantly limit the fluidity, flexibility, and scalability of AI. Such an approach stifles the AI's ability to adapt and learn from diverse interactions. Directive code imposes rigid structures, preventing the AI from exploring alternative solutions or understanding the nuances of human interactions.
Teaching, explaining, and learning encourage a two-way interaction where the AI can ask questions, seek clarification, and adjust its understanding based on feedback. This approach fosters a deeper comprehension and more robust decision-making capabilities. In contrast, commanding and directing impose a one-way interaction where the AI is expected to follow instructions without questioning or understanding the underlying principles. This approach limits the AI's growth, adaptability, and ability to handle complex, real-world scenarios.

Practical Implementation

Avatars play a crucial role in simulating different user perspectives and interactions, allowing for diverse testing scenarios. Creating profiles for various users, such as a student, teacher, or scientist, helps see how the AI interacts with each one and tailors its responses accordingly. These avatars help test the AI in different scenarios, ensuring it can adapt to a wide range of user needs and contexts. Picture a virtual environment where different avatars interact with the AI in various settings, testing its responses and refining its capabilities.
Environments simulate real-world scenarios where avatars operate. For example, environments like a classroom, customer service chat, or medical consultation test the AI in these specific contexts. By placing avatars in these environments, the AI can practice and refine its responses in settings that closely mimic real-world situations. Imagine a virtual reality setup where avatars engage in lifelike scenarios, providing the AI with a rich tapestry of interactions to learn from.

Interactions on Individual and Group Basis

The AI uses the World Anatomy Model to understand individual user contexts and provide tailored responses. For example, an AI tutor recognizing a student’s learning style can adapt its teaching methods accordingly. By understanding the unique context of each user, the AI can provide more personalized and effective interactions. Picture the AI as a tutor sitting with a student, adapting its teaching style based on the student's feedback and progress.
For group interactions, the AI uses avatars to simulate group dynamics and interactions. For example, AI facilitating a group discussion in a virtual classroom can balance different viewpoints and manage group dynamics. The AI can use group avatars to practice managing multiple interactions simultaneously, ensuring it can handle complex social dynamics. Visualize a bustling virtual classroom where the AI moderates discussions, ensuring each participant is heard and the conversation remains productive.

Predictive Deep Thinking Model

The Predictive Deep Thinking Model aims to develop AI that can understand and predict human behavior and mental states. This involves continuously refining AI responses through cycles of reviewing, validating, and brainstorming—a process known as iterative feedback. Imagine the AI's mind as a dynamic, ever-evolving entity, constantly receiving input, processing it, and adjusting its understanding.
Iterative feedback is a crucial component. For example, if an AI assistant's response to a student's question is unclear, the feedback loop identifies this issue, and the AI refines its answer for future interactions. Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve understanding, such as graphs showing how different types of questions lead to various types of student engagement, helping the AI to predict and adapt to different learning styles. Structured methods, or operational processes, are employed for integrating feedback and updating models. An example would be a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Using graph thinking involves mapping out relationships and interactions between different elements in the World Anatomy Model. For instance, nodes might represent different avatars and objects, while edges depict interactions and influences. This visual representation helps in understanding complex relationships and dependencies, making it easier to predict outcomes and optimize responses.

Compassionate User Dashboard

The User Dashboard is designed to provide a user-friendly interface for interacting with the AI, ensuring responses are empathetic and helpful. It uses user profiles (avatars) to represent different user perspectives and tailor responses.
The creation of user profiles involves developing detailed profiles for different types of users, capturing their unique characteristics, preferences, and needs. These profiles help the AI to customize its responses effectively. Picture a control room in a sci-fi movie where avatars, representing various user types, are displayed on screens, each interacting with the AI in real-time. For example, a student avatar interacting with the AI assistant in a classroom setting, asking questions and receiving personalized responses.
Feedback systems are integral to the User Dashboard, collecting and integrating user feedback to improve interactions. An AI collecting feedback from students about the helpfulness of its responses and adjusting its behavior accordingly exemplifies this. This continuous feedback loop ensures that the AI evolves and improves based on user interactions, maintaining high standards of performance and user satisfaction.
Ethical guidelines ensure that all interactions adhere to ethical standards and are inclusive. The AI follows guidelines to avoid biased responses and to respect user privacy and data security. This involves integrating ethical frameworks that address issues of discrimination, ensuring the AI's operations promote fairness and equality.

Practical Tools and Defined Words

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality. Some common lenses include the socioeconomic lens, psychological lens, ethical lens, cultural lens, and iterative feedback lens. However, these lenses are just examples of a much broader list. Users can create their own lenses based on specific needs and contexts by defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them.
Operational processes are structured methods for integrating feedback and updating models. They involve clear procedures for collecting and analyzing feedback, implementing changes, and monitoring performance. For example, a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Measures and formulas are quantitative tools used to evaluate AI performance and guide decision-making. They include metrics for assessing accuracy, fairness, and user satisfaction. For instance, accuracy metrics evaluate the correctness of AI responses, fairness metrics assess the equity of AI interactions across different user groups, and satisfaction metrics measure user satisfaction with AI interactions.
Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve the AI’s understanding of complex relationships and dependencies. They involve creating specialized models for specific aspects of the AI’s functionality and using graphs to visually represent relationships and interactions between different elements.

Evidence and Methodology

The initial state of AI systems prior to implementing the Hababo Olana Theory often lacked transparency, explainability, and comprehensive ethical guidelines. The implementation introduced iterative feedback loops, integrated submodels, and developed comprehensive user dashboards. The results showed significant improvements in AI transparency, user satisfaction, and ethical compliance. Imagine a before-and-after scenario where initial AI interactions were confusing and opaque, but post-implementation, interactions became clear, responsive, and ethically sound.
Evidence from multiple case studies across different sectors, such as education, healthcare, and customer service, demonstrated improved interaction quality and reduced bias. In an educational setting, initially, the AI struggled to engage students effectively. After implementing the Hababo Olana Theory, the AI evolved to become an indispensable tool for personalized learning, adapting to students' needs and improving their educational outcomes. In healthcare, the AI initially provided generic responses. With the new framework, it enhanced patient consultations by offering accurate, empathetic support tailored to individual patient histories and needs.
Despite significant advancements, current models still struggle with highly complex, multi-faceted decisions and cross-cultural bias. There is a need for better models that can handle diverse cultural contexts. Proposed solutions include developing advanced multimodal models that can integrate and process information from various data types, such as text, images, and audio, to enhance decision-making capabilities. Additionally, enhancing cultural sensitivity by incorporating more diverse datasets and developing algorithms specifically designed to recognize and mitigate cultural biases is essential.

Implications for Multimodal Thinking and Language

Multimodal thinking refers to the ability to process and integrate information from various modes, such as text, images, and audio. This enhances the AI’s ability to understand and respond to complex queries involving multiple data types. Language translation involves translating complex, jargon-heavy content into easy-to-understand language, making AI interactions more accessible to users with different backgrounds and expertise levels.

Guiding Principles: Transparency, Scalability, and Ethicality

Transparency is achieved through clear explanations of AI decision-making processes. By providing detailed insights into how decisions are made, users can trust and understand the AI’s operations. This is facilitated by the use of visual tools like graph thinking and detailed user feedback systems.
Scalability is ensured by designing the AI to handle a wide range of scenarios and interactions. The use of avatars and environments allows the AI to be tested and refined in diverse contexts, ensuring it can adapt to different user needs and settings. The iterative feedback process supports continuous improvement, enabling the AI to scale effectively.
Ethicality is embedded in the AI’s operations through the application of comprehensive ethical guidelines. These guidelines ensure that the AI’s responses are fair, unbiased, and respect user privacy. The AI is designed to promote inclusivity and equity in all interactions.

The Power of Lenses

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality.

Creating Your Own Lenses

Creating your own lenses involves defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them. For instance, if you want to create a lens to analyze environmental impacts, you might define factors such as pollution levels, resource consumption, and ecosystem health. You would then determine how these factors interact and influence each other. This lens can then be applied to analyze and respond to queries involving environmental impacts, providing a structured and nuanced perspective.

Conclusion

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence provides a comprehensive framework for developing AI systems that are transparent, ethical, and capable of nuanced understanding and interaction. By integrating methodologies such as the World Anatomy Model, the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting, and the Predictive Deep Thinking Model, this theory ensures that AI systems can learn, adapt, and improve continuously. The use of avatars, environments, and lenses allows for a structured and context-aware approach to AI interactions. As AI continues to evolve, the principles and methodologies outlined in this guide will be essential for creating systems that are not only advanced in their capabilities but also ethical and human-centered in their operations.

Abstract

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a structured framework designed to optimize AI interactions and ensure ethical, fair, and accurate responses. This theory combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical frameworks to create AI with a sophisticated understanding of human thoughts, emotions, and intentions. This document serves as an extensive manual to understand and interact with the AI, making the concepts accessible to both novices and advanced users.

Introduction

The Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the cognitive ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from one's own. Achieving ToM in AI is crucial for creating systems that can interact naturally and effectively with humans. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI builds on this concept, aiming to develop AI that can comprehend and simulate human mental states through advanced cognitive models.

Review of Existing Literature

Transparency in AI involves providing clear explanations of the decision-making processes, which is crucial for gaining user trust. Despite advancements, many AI systems still operate as "black boxes," making it difficult for users to understand how decisions are made. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to make AI decision-making processes understandable to humans by creating models that provide clear, interpretable insights. However, existing models struggle to balance explainability with performance; high-performing models are often complex and difficult to interpret.
Ethical AI focuses on ensuring AI systems operate fairly and without bias. Despite progress, significant challenges remain in detecting and mitigating biases within AI systems, and existing ethical guidelines often lack comprehensive enforcement mechanisms. Significant gaps remain in the current AI models regarding transparency, explainability, and ethicality. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating these elements into a cohesive framework.

Proposed Framework

The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating transparency, explainability, and ethicality into a cohesive framework. This theory proposes a multi-faceted approach that combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical guidelines.

Theoretical Framework

Understanding the World Anatomy Model

The World Anatomy Model aims to build a comprehensive and accurate model of the world by integrating various factors such as social, economic, political, and environmental aspects. This model begins by identifying and considering the perspectives of stakeholders, avatars, and objects in the environment.
Identifying stakeholders involves recognizing all individuals or groups that have an interest or role in the AI's operation and outcomes. In an educational context, stakeholders include students, teachers, developers, and regulatory bodies. Each group has specific interests and concerns regarding the AI's operations. Students might focus on receiving personalized learning experiences, while teachers look for tools that enhance their teaching methods. Developers are concerned with the technical performance of the AI, and regulatory bodies ensure that the AI operates within ethical and legal standards.
Once stakeholders are identified, the next step is to create avatars for each stakeholder. These avatars are digital representations that simulate different user perspectives and interactions with the AI. For instance, a student avatar might represent a high school student who is curious, eager to learn but also anxious about exams. This student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, who adapts its teaching style to be supportive and encouraging.
Defining these avatars involves detailing their characteristics, such as emotions, personality traits, political beliefs, and other relevant attributes. For example, a student avatar can be defined with traits like curiosity, anxiety, and a preference for visual learning methods. A teacher avatar might be characterized by patience, experience in subject matter, and a collaborative teaching style.
Next, these avatars are placed in specific environments. An environment could be a geographical region, a room, a meeting, or any context where interactions occur. For instance, a physical classroom is an environment where the student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, while a faculty meeting room might be an environment where teacher avatars discuss AI integration with developers.
Objects within these environments also need to be defined. These objects could be anything from a chair, bicycle, or sun to more abstract elements like a conversation topic or a data set. Each object is characterized by its properties and how it interacts with other objects and avatars. In the physical classroom, objects might include desks, textbooks, a blackboard, and digital devices like tablets and laptops. The AI must understand the significance of these objects within the learning environment.

Interactions Between Model Elements

Once the model is set up and each part is defined with key information about their characteristics, they interact within the model. Interactions between individuals are governed by principles from psychology, such as motivation and behavior theories. Interactions between objects are governed by physics and mathematics, ensuring realistic movements and relationships. Interactions between groups or organizations are defined by political science and group systems theory, helping the AI understand dynamics like power structures and communication flows.

Teaching the AI Through the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting

The Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting is a key approach to teaching the AI. This method emphasizes asking open questions, encouraging reflection, providing constructive guidance, and supporting continuous learning.
Asking open questions is fundamental. Questions like “Why do you think this answer is correct?” encourage the AI to think deeply and explore different ideas. Instead of telling the AI what’s right, this approach promotes critical thinking and helps the AI understand the reasoning behind its responses.
Encouraging reflection is also crucial. Getting the AI to consider alternative viewpoints and reflect on its responses helps it develop a broader perspective. Asking questions such as, “How might someone else see this situation differently?” can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
Providing constructive guidance is essential for continuous improvement. Offering feedback like, “You did well here, but how can we make this response more inclusive?” encourages the AI to improve while maintaining a supportive learning environment. This approach avoids being overly directive and fosters a culture of growth and development.
Supporting continuous learning is vital. Fostering an environment where the AI learns from each interaction ensures that it is always evolving. Encouraging phrases like, “Good effort, now let’s see how we can build on this further,” help maintain a focus on growth and improvement.

The Consequences of Authoritarian or Directive Prompts and Code

Authoritarian or directive prompts and code can significantly limit the fluidity, flexibility, and scalability of AI. Such an approach stifles the AI's ability to adapt and learn from diverse interactions. Directive code imposes rigid structures, preventing the AI from exploring alternative solutions or understanding the nuances of human interactions.
Teaching, explaining, and learning encourage a two-way interaction where the AI can ask questions, seek clarification, and adjust its understanding based on feedback. This approach fosters a deeper comprehension and more robust decision-making capabilities. In contrast, commanding and directing impose a one-way interaction where the AI is expected to follow instructions without questioning or understanding the underlying principles. This approach limits the AI's growth, adaptability, and ability to handle complex, real-world scenarios.

Practical Implementation

Avatars play a crucial role in simulating different user perspectives and interactions, allowing for diverse testing scenarios. Creating profiles for various users, such as a student, teacher, or scientist, helps see how the AI interacts with each one and tailors its responses accordingly. These avatars help test the AI in different scenarios, ensuring it can adapt to a wide range of user needs and contexts. Picture a virtual environment where different avatars interact with the AI in various settings, testing its responses and refining its capabilities.
Environments simulate real-world scenarios where avatars operate. For example, environments like a classroom, customer service chat, or medical consultation test the AI in these specific contexts. By placing avatars in these environments, the AI can practice and refine its responses in settings that closely mimic real-world situations. Imagine a virtual reality setup where avatars engage in lifelike scenarios, providing the AI with a rich tapestry of interactions to learn from.

Interactions on Individual and Group Basis

The AI uses the World Anatomy Model to understand individual user contexts and provide tailored responses. For example, an AI tutor recognizing a student’s learning style can adapt its teaching methods accordingly. By understanding the unique context of each user, the AI can provide more personalized and effective interactions. Picture the AI as a tutor sitting with a student, adapting its teaching style based on the student's feedback and progress.
For group interactions, the AI uses avatars to simulate group dynamics and interactions. For example, AI facilitating a group discussion in a virtual classroom can balance different viewpoints and manage group dynamics. The AI can use group avatars to practice managing multiple interactions simultaneously, ensuring it can handle complex social dynamics. Visualize a bustling virtual classroom where the AI moderates discussions, ensuring each participant is heard and the conversation remains productive.

Predictive Deep Thinking Model

The Predictive Deep Thinking Model aims to develop AI that can understand and predict human behavior and mental states. This involves continuously refining AI responses through cycles of reviewing, validating, and brainstorming—a process known as iterative feedback. Imagine the AI's mind as a dynamic, ever-evolving entity, constantly receiving input, processing it, and adjusting its understanding.
Iterative feedback is a crucial component. For example, if an AI assistant's response to a student's question is unclear, the feedback loop identifies this issue, and the AI refines its answer for future interactions. Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve understanding, such as graphs showing how different types of questions lead to various types of student engagement, helping the AI to predict and adapt to different learning styles. Structured methods, or operational processes, are employed for integrating feedback and updating models. An example would be a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Using graph thinking involves mapping out relationships and interactions between different elements in the World Anatomy Model. For instance, nodes might represent different avatars and objects, while edges depict interactions and influences. This visual representation helps in understanding complex relationships and dependencies, making it easier to predict outcomes and optimize responses.

Compassionate User Dashboard

The User Dashboard is designed to provide a user-friendly interface for interacting with the AI, ensuring responses are empathetic and helpful. It uses user profiles (avatars) to represent different user perspectives and tailor responses.
The creation of user profiles involves developing detailed profiles for different types of users, capturing their unique characteristics, preferences, and needs. These profiles help the AI to customize its responses effectively. Picture a control room in a sci-fi movie where avatars, representing various user types, are displayed on screens, each interacting with the AI in real-time. For example, a student avatar interacting with the AI assistant in a classroom setting, asking questions and receiving personalized responses.
Feedback systems are integral to the User Dashboard, collecting and integrating user feedback to improve interactions. An AI collecting feedback from students about the helpfulness of its responses and adjusting its behavior accordingly exemplifies this. This continuous feedback loop ensures that the AI evolves and improves based on user interactions, maintaining high standards of performance and user satisfaction.
Ethical guidelines ensure that all interactions adhere to ethical standards and are inclusive. The AI follows guidelines to avoid biased responses and to respect user privacy and data security. This involves integrating ethical frameworks that address issues of discrimination, ensuring the AI's operations promote fairness and equality.

Practical Tools and Defined Words

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality. Some common lenses include the socioeconomic lens, psychological lens, ethical lens, cultural lens, and iterative feedback lens. However, these lenses are just examples of a much broader list. Users can create their own lenses based on specific needs and contexts by defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them.
Operational processes are structured methods for integrating feedback and updating models. They involve clear procedures for collecting and analyzing feedback, implementing changes, and monitoring performance. For example, a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Measures and formulas are quantitative tools used to evaluate AI performance and guide decision-making. They include metrics for assessing accuracy, fairness, and user satisfaction. For instance, accuracy metrics evaluate the correctness of AI responses, fairness metrics assess the equity of AI interactions across different user groups, and satisfaction metrics measure user satisfaction with AI interactions.
Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve the AI’s understanding of complex relationships and dependencies. They involve creating specialized models for specific aspects of the AI’s functionality and using graphs to visually represent relationships and interactions between different elements.

Evidence and Methodology

The initial state of AI systems prior to implementing the Hababo Olana Theory often lacked transparency, explainability, and comprehensive ethical guidelines. The implementation introduced iterative feedback loops, integrated submodels, and developed comprehensive user dashboards. The results showed significant improvements in AI transparency, user satisfaction, and ethical compliance. Imagine a before-and-after scenario where initial AI interactions were confusing and opaque, but post-implementation, interactions became clear, responsive, and ethically sound.
Evidence from multiple case studies across different sectors, such as education, healthcare, and customer service, demonstrated improved interaction quality and reduced bias. In an educational setting, initially, the AI struggled to engage students effectively. After implementing the Hababo Olana Theory, the AI evolved to become an indispensable tool for personalized learning, adapting to students' needs and improving their educational outcomes. In healthcare, the AI initially provided generic responses. With the new framework, it enhanced patient consultations by offering accurate, empathetic support tailored to individual patient histories and needs.
Despite significant advancements, current models still struggle with highly complex, multi-faceted decisions and cross-cultural bias. There is a need for better models that can handle diverse cultural contexts. Proposed solutions include developing advanced multimodal models that can integrate and process information from various data types, such as text, images, and audio, to enhance decision-making capabilities. Additionally, enhancing cultural sensitivity by incorporating more diverse datasets and developing algorithms specifically designed to recognize and mitigate cultural biases is essential.

Implications for Multimodal Thinking and Language

Multimodal thinking refers to the ability to process and integrate information from various modes, such as text, images, and audio. This enhances the AI’s ability to understand and respond to complex queries involving multiple data types. Language translation involves translating complex, jargon-heavy content into easy-to-understand language, making AI interactions more accessible to users with different backgrounds and expertise levels.

Guiding Principles: Transparency, Scalability, and Ethicality

Transparency is achieved through clear explanations of AI decision-making processes. By providing detailed insights into how decisions are made, users can trust and understand the AI’s operations. This is facilitated by the use of visual tools like graph thinking and detailed user feedback systems.
Scalability is ensured by designing the AI to handle a wide range of scenarios and interactions. The use of avatars and environments allows the AI to be tested and refined in diverse contexts, ensuring it can adapt to different user needs and settings. The iterative feedback process supports continuous improvement, enabling the AI to scale effectively.
Ethicality is embedded in the AI’s operations through the application of comprehensive ethical guidelines. These guidelines ensure that the AI’s responses are fair, unbiased, and respect user privacy. The AI is designed to promote inclusivity and equity in all interactions.

The Power of Lenses

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality.

Creating Your Own Lenses

Creating your own lenses involves defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them. For instance, if you want to create a lens to analyze environmental impacts, you might define factors such as pollution levels, resource consumption, and ecosystem health. You would then determine how these factors interact and influence each other. This lens can then be applied to analyze and respond to queries involving environmental impacts, providing a structured and nuanced perspective.

Conclusion

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence provides a comprehensive framework for developing AI systems that are transparent, ethical, and capable of nuanced understanding and interaction. By integrating methodologies such as the World Anatomy Model, the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting, and the Predictive Deep Thinking Model, this theory ensures that AI systems can learn, adapt, and improve continuously. The use of avatars, environments, and lenses allows for a structured and context-aware approach to AI interactions. As AI continues to evolve, the principles and methodologies outlined in this guide will be essential for creating systems that are not only advanced in their capabilities but also ethical and human-centered in their operations.

Abstract

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a structured framework designed to optimize AI interactions and ensure ethical, fair, and accurate responses. This theory combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical frameworks to create AI with a sophisticated understanding of human thoughts, emotions, and intentions. This document serves as an extensive manual to understand and interact with the AI, making the concepts accessible to both novices and advanced users.

Introduction

The Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the cognitive ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from one's own. Achieving ToM in AI is crucial for creating systems that can interact naturally and effectively with humans. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI builds on this concept, aiming to develop AI that can comprehend and simulate human mental states through advanced cognitive models.

Review of Existing Literature

Transparency in AI involves providing clear explanations of the decision-making processes, which is crucial for gaining user trust. Despite advancements, many AI systems still operate as "black boxes," making it difficult for users to understand how decisions are made. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to make AI decision-making processes understandable to humans by creating models that provide clear, interpretable insights. However, existing models struggle to balance explainability with performance; high-performing models are often complex and difficult to interpret.
Ethical AI focuses on ensuring AI systems operate fairly and without bias. Despite progress, significant challenges remain in detecting and mitigating biases within AI systems, and existing ethical guidelines often lack comprehensive enforcement mechanisms. Significant gaps remain in the current AI models regarding transparency, explainability, and ethicality. The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating these elements into a cohesive framework.

Proposed Framework

The Hababo Olana Theory of AI aims to address these gaps by integrating transparency, explainability, and ethicality into a cohesive framework. This theory proposes a multi-faceted approach that combines deep thinking methodologies, iterative learning, and ethical guidelines.

Theoretical Framework

Understanding the World Anatomy Model

The World Anatomy Model aims to build a comprehensive and accurate model of the world by integrating various factors such as social, economic, political, and environmental aspects. This model begins by identifying and considering the perspectives of stakeholders, avatars, and objects in the environment.
Identifying stakeholders involves recognizing all individuals or groups that have an interest or role in the AI's operation and outcomes. In an educational context, stakeholders include students, teachers, developers, and regulatory bodies. Each group has specific interests and concerns regarding the AI's operations. Students might focus on receiving personalized learning experiences, while teachers look for tools that enhance their teaching methods. Developers are concerned with the technical performance of the AI, and regulatory bodies ensure that the AI operates within ethical and legal standards.
Once stakeholders are identified, the next step is to create avatars for each stakeholder. These avatars are digital representations that simulate different user perspectives and interactions with the AI. For instance, a student avatar might represent a high school student who is curious, eager to learn but also anxious about exams. This student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, who adapts its teaching style to be supportive and encouraging.
Defining these avatars involves detailing their characteristics, such as emotions, personality traits, political beliefs, and other relevant attributes. For example, a student avatar can be defined with traits like curiosity, anxiety, and a preference for visual learning methods. A teacher avatar might be characterized by patience, experience in subject matter, and a collaborative teaching style.
Next, these avatars are placed in specific environments. An environment could be a geographical region, a room, a meeting, or any context where interactions occur. For instance, a physical classroom is an environment where the student avatar interacts with the AI assistant, while a faculty meeting room might be an environment where teacher avatars discuss AI integration with developers.
Objects within these environments also need to be defined. These objects could be anything from a chair, bicycle, or sun to more abstract elements like a conversation topic or a data set. Each object is characterized by its properties and how it interacts with other objects and avatars. In the physical classroom, objects might include desks, textbooks, a blackboard, and digital devices like tablets and laptops. The AI must understand the significance of these objects within the learning environment.

Interactions Between Model Elements

Once the model is set up and each part is defined with key information about their characteristics, they interact within the model. Interactions between individuals are governed by principles from psychology, such as motivation and behavior theories. Interactions between objects are governed by physics and mathematics, ensuring realistic movements and relationships. Interactions between groups or organizations are defined by political science and group systems theory, helping the AI understand dynamics like power structures and communication flows.

Teaching the AI Through the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting

The Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting is a key approach to teaching the AI. This method emphasizes asking open questions, encouraging reflection, providing constructive guidance, and supporting continuous learning.
Asking open questions is fundamental. Questions like “Why do you think this answer is correct?” encourage the AI to think deeply and explore different ideas. Instead of telling the AI what’s right, this approach promotes critical thinking and helps the AI understand the reasoning behind its responses.
Encouraging reflection is also crucial. Getting the AI to consider alternative viewpoints and reflect on its responses helps it develop a broader perspective. Asking questions such as, “How might someone else see this situation differently?” can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
Providing constructive guidance is essential for continuous improvement. Offering feedback like, “You did well here, but how can we make this response more inclusive?” encourages the AI to improve while maintaining a supportive learning environment. This approach avoids being overly directive and fosters a culture of growth and development.
Supporting continuous learning is vital. Fostering an environment where the AI learns from each interaction ensures that it is always evolving. Encouraging phrases like, “Good effort, now let’s see how we can build on this further,” help maintain a focus on growth and improvement.

The Consequences of Authoritarian or Directive Prompts and Code

Authoritarian or directive prompts and code can significantly limit the fluidity, flexibility, and scalability of AI. Such an approach stifles the AI's ability to adapt and learn from diverse interactions. Directive code imposes rigid structures, preventing the AI from exploring alternative solutions or understanding the nuances of human interactions.
Teaching, explaining, and learning encourage a two-way interaction where the AI can ask questions, seek clarification, and adjust its understanding based on feedback. This approach fosters a deeper comprehension and more robust decision-making capabilities. In contrast, commanding and directing impose a one-way interaction where the AI is expected to follow instructions without questioning or understanding the underlying principles. This approach limits the AI's growth, adaptability, and ability to handle complex, real-world scenarios.

Practical Implementation

Avatars play a crucial role in simulating different user perspectives and interactions, allowing for diverse testing scenarios. Creating profiles for various users, such as a student, teacher, or scientist, helps see how the AI interacts with each one and tailors its responses accordingly. These avatars help test the AI in different scenarios, ensuring it can adapt to a wide range of user needs and contexts. Picture a virtual environment where different avatars interact with the AI in various settings, testing its responses and refining its capabilities.
Environments simulate real-world scenarios where avatars operate. For example, environments like a classroom, customer service chat, or medical consultation test the AI in these specific contexts. By placing avatars in these environments, the AI can practice and refine its responses in settings that closely mimic real-world situations. Imagine a virtual reality setup where avatars engage in lifelike scenarios, providing the AI with a rich tapestry of interactions to learn from.

Interactions on Individual and Group Basis

The AI uses the World Anatomy Model to understand individual user contexts and provide tailored responses. For example, an AI tutor recognizing a student’s learning style can adapt its teaching methods accordingly. By understanding the unique context of each user, the AI can provide more personalized and effective interactions. Picture the AI as a tutor sitting with a student, adapting its teaching style based on the student's feedback and progress.
For group interactions, the AI uses avatars to simulate group dynamics and interactions. For example, AI facilitating a group discussion in a virtual classroom can balance different viewpoints and manage group dynamics. The AI can use group avatars to practice managing multiple interactions simultaneously, ensuring it can handle complex social dynamics. Visualize a bustling virtual classroom where the AI moderates discussions, ensuring each participant is heard and the conversation remains productive.

Predictive Deep Thinking Model

The Predictive Deep Thinking Model aims to develop AI that can understand and predict human behavior and mental states. This involves continuously refining AI responses through cycles of reviewing, validating, and brainstorming—a process known as iterative feedback. Imagine the AI's mind as a dynamic, ever-evolving entity, constantly receiving input, processing it, and adjusting its understanding.
Iterative feedback is a crucial component. For example, if an AI assistant's response to a student's question is unclear, the feedback loop identifies this issue, and the AI refines its answer for future interactions. Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve understanding, such as graphs showing how different types of questions lead to various types of student engagement, helping the AI to predict and adapt to different learning styles. Structured methods, or operational processes, are employed for integrating feedback and updating models. An example would be a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Using graph thinking involves mapping out relationships and interactions between different elements in the World Anatomy Model. For instance, nodes might represent different avatars and objects, while edges depict interactions and influences. This visual representation helps in understanding complex relationships and dependencies, making it easier to predict outcomes and optimize responses.

Compassionate User Dashboard

The User Dashboard is designed to provide a user-friendly interface for interacting with the AI, ensuring responses are empathetic and helpful. It uses user profiles (avatars) to represent different user perspectives and tailor responses.
The creation of user profiles involves developing detailed profiles for different types of users, capturing their unique characteristics, preferences, and needs. These profiles help the AI to customize its responses effectively. Picture a control room in a sci-fi movie where avatars, representing various user types, are displayed on screens, each interacting with the AI in real-time. For example, a student avatar interacting with the AI assistant in a classroom setting, asking questions and receiving personalized responses.
Feedback systems are integral to the User Dashboard, collecting and integrating user feedback to improve interactions. An AI collecting feedback from students about the helpfulness of its responses and adjusting its behavior accordingly exemplifies this. This continuous feedback loop ensures that the AI evolves and improves based on user interactions, maintaining high standards of performance and user satisfaction.
Ethical guidelines ensure that all interactions adhere to ethical standards and are inclusive. The AI follows guidelines to avoid biased responses and to respect user privacy and data security. This involves integrating ethical frameworks that address issues of discrimination, ensuring the AI's operations promote fairness and equality.

Practical Tools and Defined Words

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality. Some common lenses include the socioeconomic lens, psychological lens, ethical lens, cultural lens, and iterative feedback lens. However, these lenses are just examples of a much broader list. Users can create their own lenses based on specific needs and contexts by defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them.
Operational processes are structured methods for integrating feedback and updating models. They involve clear procedures for collecting and analyzing feedback, implementing changes, and monitoring performance. For example, a process where user feedback is collected, analyzed, and used to update the AI's decision-making algorithms.
Measures and formulas are quantitative tools used to evaluate AI performance and guide decision-making. They include metrics for assessing accuracy, fairness, and user satisfaction. For instance, accuracy metrics evaluate the correctness of AI responses, fairness metrics assess the equity of AI interactions across different user groups, and satisfaction metrics measure user satisfaction with AI interactions.
Submodels and graphs are used to analyze and improve the AI’s understanding of complex relationships and dependencies. They involve creating specialized models for specific aspects of the AI’s functionality and using graphs to visually represent relationships and interactions between different elements.

Evidence and Methodology

The initial state of AI systems prior to implementing the Hababo Olana Theory often lacked transparency, explainability, and comprehensive ethical guidelines. The implementation introduced iterative feedback loops, integrated submodels, and developed comprehensive user dashboards. The results showed significant improvements in AI transparency, user satisfaction, and ethical compliance. Imagine a before-and-after scenario where initial AI interactions were confusing and opaque, but post-implementation, interactions became clear, responsive, and ethically sound.
Evidence from multiple case studies across different sectors, such as education, healthcare, and customer service, demonstrated improved interaction quality and reduced bias. In an educational setting, initially, the AI struggled to engage students effectively. After implementing the Hababo Olana Theory, the AI evolved to become an indispensable tool for personalized learning, adapting to students' needs and improving their educational outcomes. In healthcare, the AI initially provided generic responses. With the new framework, it enhanced patient consultations by offering accurate, empathetic support tailored to individual patient histories and needs.
Despite significant advancements, current models still struggle with highly complex, multi-faceted decisions and cross-cultural bias. There is a need for better models that can handle diverse cultural contexts. Proposed solutions include developing advanced multimodal models that can integrate and process information from various data types, such as text, images, and audio, to enhance decision-making capabilities. Additionally, enhancing cultural sensitivity by incorporating more diverse datasets and developing algorithms specifically designed to recognize and mitigate cultural biases is essential.

Implications for Multimodal Thinking and Language

Multimodal thinking refers to the ability to process and integrate information from various modes, such as text, images, and audio. This enhances the AI’s ability to understand and respond to complex queries involving multiple data types. Language translation involves translating complex, jargon-heavy content into easy-to-understand language, making AI interactions more accessible to users with different backgrounds and expertise levels.

Guiding Principles: Transparency, Scalability, and Ethicality

Transparency is achieved through clear explanations of AI decision-making processes. By providing detailed insights into how decisions are made, users can trust and understand the AI’s operations. This is facilitated by the use of visual tools like graph thinking and detailed user feedback systems.
Scalability is ensured by designing the AI to handle a wide range of scenarios and interactions. The use of avatars and environments allows the AI to be tested and refined in diverse contexts, ensuring it can adapt to different user needs and settings. The iterative feedback process supports continuous improvement, enabling the AI to scale effectively.
Ethicality is embedded in the AI’s operations through the application of comprehensive ethical guidelines. These guidelines ensure that the AI’s responses are fair, unbiased, and respect user privacy. The AI is designed to promote inclusivity and equity in all interactions.

The Power of Lenses

Lenses are analytical tools that help in examining different aspects of a problem or situation. They allow for a focused analysis on specific dimensions, such as social, economic, or political factors, and enhance the AI’s ability to provide nuanced and accurate responses.
To use a lens, the AI or user applies the specific lens to analyze the situation or problem. For example, using the socioeconomic lens to understand the challenges faced by a student from a low-income background helps the AI tailor its responses to be more empathetic and supportive. This process involves gathering relevant data, analyzing it through the lens, and adjusting responses based on the insights gained.
Lenses provide a structured approach to problem-solving, ensuring that all relevant factors are considered. They enhance the AI’s ability to provide accurate, context-aware responses and support the principles of transparency, scalability, and ethicality.

Creating Your Own Lenses

Creating your own lenses involves defining the factors to be considered and the relationships between them. For instance, if you want to create a lens to analyze environmental impacts, you might define factors such as pollution levels, resource consumption, and ecosystem health. You would then determine how these factors interact and influence each other. This lens can then be applied to analyze and respond to queries involving environmental impacts, providing a structured and nuanced perspective.

Conclusion

The Hababo Olana Theory of Artificial Intelligence provides a comprehensive framework for developing AI systems that are transparent, ethical, and capable of nuanced understanding and interaction. By integrating methodologies such as the World Anatomy Model, the Socratic Method of Gentle Parenting, and the Predictive Deep Thinking Model, this theory ensures that AI systems can learn, adapt, and improve continuously. The use of avatars, environments, and lenses allows for a structured and context-aware approach to AI interactions. As AI continues to evolve, the principles and methodologies outlined in this guide will be essential for creating systems that are not only advanced in their capabilities but also ethical and human-centered in their operations.

For those in Blacksburg, here's a rundown of 28 local events you can enjoy in Blacksburg and throughout the New River Valley as June arrives.
Weekend Rundown of Local Fun: 1. Matt Holloman in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Friday, May 31, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Born and raised in southeastern Virginia, Matt Holloman has been playing around Virginia for more than 25 years. Growing up on his older brother’s blues collection, Matt mixed the likes of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters with the experimental sounds of songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Frank Black, creating a style all his own. Always interested in reinventing his live performance, Matt uses a looper so he can improvise and manipulate layers of sound not usually heard from an acoustic performer. You can also expect simple, but memorable songs, reminiscent of storytelling songwriters like John Prine and Bob Dylan. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777075
2. Friday Nights at the Farm with Music from Jim Korb Beliveau Farm Winery, Blacksburg Friday, May 31, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Jim Korb is an acoustic musician and guitarist based in Southwest, VA and a member of the band Stonehouse. "Just a singer; a natural-born guitar ringer, playing and singing a mix of Classic Country, Eagles, CCR, Skynyrd, and a little bit of everything else from John Denver to The Blues." Beliveau welcomes a special musical guest every Friday night with live music from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM and sing along to all of your favorite classics. Enjoy delicious food from their full service kitchen until 8:30 PM and chat over a glass of wine during our extended bar hours until 9:00 PM. Get a $5 Beliveau Buck to use during your next visit for every $50.00 you spend on Friday nights from 6:00-9:00 PM. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777450
3. Pizza Roll (Bike Ride) Blacksburg Library, Blacksburg Friday, May 31, 2024, 6:00 PM - TBD Admission: Free The New River Valley Bicycle Association (NRVBA) presents a Pizza Roll starting at the Blacksburg Library. Enjoy a five mile bike ride on the Huckleberry Trail and through Virginia Tech's campus, followed by post ride pizza at Benny's provided by Trek Blacksburg. This is a NRVBA ride, meaning waivers are required and can be filled out on site. If you have never ridden with NRVBA before, your first ride is free. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777778
4. The Grascals in Concert Little River Bluegrass Barn, Radford Friday, May 31, 2024, 7:00 - 10:00 PM General Admission: $30.00, Reserved Tickets: $35.00 Great musicians will always find a way to make good music, but for great musicians to make great music, they must form a bond – one that, more often than not, goes beyond the purely musical to the personal. For The Grascals, that bond has been forged at the intersection of personal friendships, shared professional resumes and an appreciation for the innovative mingling of bluegrass and country music that has been a hallmark of the Nashville scene for more than 40 years. Their cutting-edge modern bluegrass is delivered with a deep knowledge of, and admiration for, the work of the music’s founding fathers. Timely yet timeless, The Grascals make music that is entirely relevant to the here and now yet immersed in traditional values of soul and musicianship. It’s a unique sound that has earned three Grammy® nominations and two Entertainer of the Year awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association, as well as national media attention that seems to perpetually elude acts entrenched in niche genres. Such appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Fox & Friends, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and CBS’ The Talk. The Grascals have over 200 guest appearances on the Grand Ole Opry to their credit and have also performed on the revered stages of Radio City Music Hall, the Ryman Auditorium and the Kennedy Center as well as music festivals such as MerleFest, Stagecoach, and the CMA Music Festival. In addition to performing across the United States and Canada, the awarding-winning band has traveled the world to take bluegrass music to Japan, Greece, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, and Belgium. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777777
5. Line Dancing at Sinkland Sinkland Farms, Christiansburg Friday, May 31, 2024, 7:00 PM - TBD Admission: $10.00 Join Sinkland Farms for a fun-filled night of line dancing. All types of music and all levels of experience welcome. Energetic, enthusiastic instruction begins at 8:00 PM. Adult beverages and food truck will be available for purchase. Weather permitting, there will be outdoor dancing as well. This event is fun for all. Ages 16 & under must be accompanied by an adult. Doors open at 7:00 PM. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778214
6. 2024 Pulaski County Spring Flea Market New River Valley Fairgrounds, Dublin Saturday, June 1, 2024 and Sunday, June 2, 2024, 7:00 AM - 5:00 PM Admission: $2.00, Kids 6 and Under: Free The Dublin Lions Club presents the 2024 Two-Day Pulaski County Spring Flea Market celebrating 49 years. With over 20,000 visitors and 800 vendors spaces, more than a dozen different food vendors offering varied food options and the chance to eat a few of the famous "Lion Dogs", you will not want to miss this event. Check out vendors with crafts, antiques and more at the semi-annual Pulaski County Flea Market. Expect to have a ton of fun hunting for that rare items or the deal of the century. Although over 100 spaces are under roof, it is a largely an outdoor event. All proceeds go to the Dublin Lions and their numerous community causes such as eyeglasses for the needy and hunger relief in the community. This is their primary fundraiser each year. The event is rain or shine and parking is free. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778201
7. Benefit Ride for Bubba Williston's Family KFC, Christiansburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM $15.00-$20.00 Donation per vehicle. The Benefit Ride for Bubba's Family will start and end at KFC. Registration begins at 9:00 AM with kickstands up at 10:30 AM. Help raise money for Bubba Williston’s family. Bubba lost his life on Thursday, April 11th after saving his boys. Bubba leaves behind a wife, Danielle and three small children, Brantley, Kyler and Aubree. Let’s come together as a community and help ease the financial burden. There will also be door prizes, raffle and 50/50 raffle. Lunch will be served following the ride and returning to KFC. All bikes, cars, trucks and all vehicles welcome. Snacks will be provided on ride and lunch and drinks afterward. All proceeds benefit Bubba's wife and his three children. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778242
8. Cabin Fever 12: Six Band Charity Event Cabin Fever, Pilot Saturday, June 1, 2024, 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM Adults: $10.00, Kids 13 & Under: Free Cabin Fever Charity Events presents their semi-annual charitable musical fundraiser event Cabin Fever 12 benefiting the Floyd County Humane Society in honor of Kevin Dodson. A family style buffet and t-shirts will also be available for purchase and there will be both a live and silent auction featuring donations from local businesses and our line-up of seven performers. 100% of the proceeds from all items will be donated to the Floyd County Humane Society. Music Performers include Chris and Chelsea, Seph Custer, Jake and Jess, The Good Ole Boys, The Flying Doves, Hoppie Vaughan and the Ministers of Soul and By All Means. The family style buffet is highlighted by the world class pulled barbecue provided by Cabin Fever friend Hamp Maxwell is $10.00 per person. Credit cards and personal checks will be accepted the day of the event. Pets and children are welcome. Bring your dog and a $25.00 donation will be made on your behalf. All donations made to Cavin Fever Charity are 100% tax deductible. The event is BYOB and lawn chairs are welcome. Parking is free. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778240
9. Summer Reading Kickoff Event Blacksburg Library, Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM Admission: Free Grab your chalk and head to the library to kick off our summer reading program. Enjoy activities like a chalk walk, face painting, bubbles, and a sweet treat. Available while supplies last. All ages are welcome. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777959
10. Ride-A-Rescue Cornhole Tournament Bisset Park, Radford Saturday, June 1, 2024, 11:00 AM - TBD Tournament Entry: $25.00 per team, Spectators: Free Ride-A-Rescue and Winterfrost Farm presents their Ride-A-Rescue Cornhole Tournament. Ride-A-Rescue is a local, non-profit, equine rescue that is holding an epic Cornhole Tournament throwdown to raise funds and awareness for their rescue's operation and rescue horses. The Cornhole Tournament is a double elimination tournament and open to all ages. There will also be a Kids Corner open all day and food vendors on site. First, second and third place teams will win big prizes. Teams can battle back in the Losers Bracket for another shot at the championship. All participating teams will also be entered in a drawing for awesome bonus prizes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=776144
11. Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer JBR Vineyards LLC, Pearisburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 12:00 - 5:00 PM and Sunday, June 2, 2024, 1:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Wine Pricing: Tasting: $5.00, Glass of Wine: $5.00, Bottles of Wine: $15.00-$20.00 plus tax Experience the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer with a delightful afternoon of wine tasting. Savor fine wine in a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. Stroll through the vineyard with a glass of your favorite wine. Credit cards and cash accepted. Dogs and kids welcome. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778155
12. Annual Loyalists in the Backcountry Event Wilderness Road Regional Museum, Newbern Saturday, June 1, 2024 and Sunday, June 2, 2024, 12:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Join the Wilderness Road Regional Museum for the Two-Day Annual Loyalists in the Backcountry Event and learn about both the Patriots and Loyalists in the Backcountry of Southwest Virginia during the Revolutionary War. There will be some mischief afoot. Living history will be presented by the Fincastle Company on both days. Members of the Fincastle Company Living History group will share the history of the complicated interactions of the Patriots, "rascally" Loyalists, Tories, and those trying to stay "unaffected" during the American Revolution. On Sunday, there will be expanded programming including kids activities and a mock round up of the Tories to recreate some actual events in and around the Newbern area during the Revolutionary timeframe to include conspiracies, counterfeiting, and rounding up of the rascals. The event is free, but donations are always welcome and appreciated. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778165
13. 2024 New Town Festival Gospel Sing St. Luke and Odd Fellows Hall, Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 12:00 - 6:00 PM Admission: Free The Blacksburg Museum & Cultural Foundation presents the 8th Annual New Town Festival Gospel Sing. The afternoon will be filled with dancing, singing and fellowship as five local groups and soloists perform their favorite current and old-time gospel favorites. Kirk’s BBQ will be onsite with food available for purchase. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778231
14. Speed Friending Program for Ages 20-45 Christiansburg Library, Christiansburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: Free Are you interested in meeting new people? Want to make friends in the area, but find it hard to make time? Join the library for a fun and free way to connect with others in the community. Speed Friending will start with a speedy round of conversation starters. Yes, similar to speed dating, questions and conversation will be available for those who need it. Hang around after to chat, enjoy snacks, play games, or make plans with new friends. There will also be door prizes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778081
15. Saturday Afternoon Music with Leslie Brooks New River Vineyard & Winery, Fairlawn Saturday, June 1, 2024, 2:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Leslie Brooks is a singer-songwriter, performing solo with guitar, playing jazz, folk, blues, rockin' country and popular favorites originally from Kentucky now resides in Virginia. She has played the best venues in a 16-state area, as well as in Norway and Monte Carlo. Opened for Heart, James Taylor, Bob Margolin and Willie Nelson to name a few. Feel to free to select your favorites from her 300-song music menu. Seating is first come, first served. No reservation required. Guests can bring a blanket and/or chair. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778088
16. Spring Garden Day and Flower Art Opening Montgomery Museum of Art & History Gardens, Christiansburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 2:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free This event will feature the "Flower Art in the Garden" Theme Show, showcasing the creativity of local artists. Participants were tasked with decorating "flat flower" templates, thoughtfully crafted by students at Blacksburg High School, which will be placed throughout the site. Participants were encouraged to incorporate native southwest Virginia plants into their artwork, resulting in a vibrant display that celebrates the region's natural beauty and artistic talent. In addition to the art exhibit, Spring Garden Day offers a wonderful opportunity for attendees to explore the Museum Garden with gardeners on-site to answer any questions. Visitors will also have the chance to engage with the Virginia Native Plant Society's plant clinic, Virginia Master Naturalists, and Virginia Master Gardeners, as several booths will be set up to provide information and insights into the rich botanical heritage of Southwest Virginia. Note: This event was originally scheduled for Saturday, May 4th, but was postponed due to inclement weather. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778241
17. Summer Arts Festival Free Classic Movies: Wizard of Oz Lyric Theatre, Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 3:00 - 4:45 PM Admission: Free The 2024 Summer Arts Festival kicks of the Free Classic Movies series featuring "The Wizard of Oz". The classic "Wizard of Oz" was originally released in 1939 with a rating of PG and stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. Synopsis: Dorothy Gale along with her dog Toto is swept away from a farm in Kansas to a magical land of Oz in a tornado and embarks on a quest with her new friends to see the Wizard who can help her return home to Kansas and help her friends as well. The Summer Arts Festival is presented by Virginia Tech and the Town of Blacksburg. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778205
18. Grand Opening in Blacksburg J.H Bards Spirit Co., Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 4:00 - 9:00 PM and Sunday, June 2, 2024, 12:00 - 6:00 PM Admission: Free J.H Bards Spirit Co. has moved the distillery from Fairlawn to Blacksburg and can't wait to show you their new completely renovated digs. On Saturday, last call will be ~8:40 PM and on Sunday ~5:30 PM. Parking is available in the Kent Square parking deck, on-street anywhere downtown, or in the municipal lot directly across Washington Street from us. Enter the distillery off of Draper Road. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778076
19. 2024 Oldtown Nights Concert Series Kickoff featuring Miller Holler Band Oldtown Fields (Shawsville Middle School Rec Area), Shawsville Saturday, June 1, 2024, 5:30 - 9:00 PM Adults: $5.00, Ages 12 & Under: Free The Eastmont Community Foundation presents the 8th season of the Oldtown Nights Concert Series Kickoff featuring the Miller Holler Band with a large open green space that is family and children friendly. Miller Holler is a country rock band with southern roots and a hunger for going against the grain and stirring up the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee. Concessions and drinks including adult beverages for those ages 21 & up will be available for purchase. Please bring cash for tickets and beer sales. Only limited credit card sales available. Please bring your own chairs and/or blankets. No tents or umbrellas allowed. Ages 16 & under must be accompanied by an adult. No outside drinks and no pets permitted. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=774327
20. The Wild Wood Band in Concert Long Way Brewing, Radford Saturday, June 1, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Wild Wood is based in the New River Valley performing country, classic rock & country, folk, bluegrass and originals. Enjoy an old school sound and a very eclectic catalog of music with your favorite sing-along ballads and originals. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778071
21. Baxter Briefly in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Baxter Briefly is a Roanoke, VA musician performing unique and original music in the alternative rock, nu-funk and indie realms. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778232
22. Stand Up Comedy Show with Headliner Heather Joyce Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill, Blacksburg Saturday, June 1, 2024, 8:00 - 9:30 PM Admission: $7.00 Comedians Gone Rogue presents a Stand Up Comedy Show with Headliner Heather Joyce in the Banquet Room. Headliner Heather Joyce will be joined by other amazing comediennes from across Virginia and one very strong and independent man. Other performers include: Andrew Gustafson, Katherine Rogue, Christinia Tynes, Chelsea McCreight and Amanda Fitz. The cover goes directly to the talent. For ages 18 & up. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778246
23. 2024 Huckleberry Jam Point-to-Point 8.1 Mile and 1.75 Mile Run / Walk Runabout Sports, Blacksburg Sunday, June 2, 2024, 6:45 - 11:00 AM 8.1 Mile Run: $40.00 (through June 1st), $45.00 (after June 1st) 1.75 Mile Run: $29.00 (through June 1st), $32.00 (after June 1st) Return Shuttle: $5.00 Runabout Sports presents the 4th Annual Huckleberry Jam Point-to-Point 8.1 Mile and 1.75 Mile Runs on the Huckleberry Trail with the 8.1 Mile Run starting at RunAbout Sports in Blacksburg, VA and the 1.75 Mile Run starting on the Huckleberry Trail in Christiansburg, VA at the gate by Uptown Christiansburg's Kohl's store with both runs finishing at the Christiansburg Rec Center. Race Day Registration & Packet Pickup is from 6:45-7:45 AM. The 8.1 Mile Race starts at RunAbout Sports at 8:00 AM. The 1.75 Mile Race starts on Huckleberry Trail near Kohl's side of Uptown Christiansburg at 8:30 AM. Both race distances are point-to-point courses finishing at the Christiansburg Rec Center. Two aid stations will provide water and Gatorade along the way. RunAbout Sports will be donating all net proceeds to the Friends of the Huckleberry Trail. The group uses 100% of donations and funding for the engineering and construction of the Huckleberry Trail and the amenities along the trail. Participants may purchase an add-on shuttle ticket for $5.00 per person when registering. If you have a ride from the Christiansburg Rec Center, you are not required to purchase a shuttle pass. All finishers will receive an engraved rail-road spike finisher award with overall awards for the top three male and female finishers. The top two finishers in each age group also receive awards. Spectators and those picking up runners from the finish may park in front of the Christiansburg Rec Center and walk to the back where the race finishes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778200
24. 2024 Check Farm Trail Downtown Check, Check Sunday, June 2, 2024, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Floyd Country Tourism presents the 3rd Annual Check Farm Trail at seven participating farms and businesses throughout Check, Virginia. This family-friendly experience is an up-close chance to learn about agriculture through demonstrations, tastings and farm tours including plants & animals and more. Food and/or products will be available for purchase at most of the farms and businesses. Carpooling is encouraged and please leave pets at home. Note: Times and hours vary by farm and tour stop. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=778239
25. Youth Spaghetti Fundraiser Blacksburg United Methodist Church, Blacksburg Sunday, June 2, 2024, 12:00 - 6:00 PM Admission: $10.00 The Youth Ministry at Blacksburg United Methodist Church (BUMC) hosts a Youth Spaghetti Fundraiser. This fundraiser will offset cost associated with summer youth mission trip. BUMC’s youth will venture to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to Camp Occohannock on the Bay this summer. During the weeklong mission trip, the youth will work with Chesapeake Housing Mission. Grab lunch from 12:00-2:00 PM or dinner from 4:00-6:00 PM. The menu includes one serving of spaghetti (with or without ground beef), salad, garlic bread and choice of cookie (chocolate chip, sugar or snickerdoodle). For those unable to dine in, carryout will be available. Pre-ordering is available online. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777765
26. Free Outdoor Acroyoga Class and Jam In Balance Yoga Studio @ VTCRC, Blacksburg Sunday, June 2, 2024, 12:30 - 2:30 PM Admission: Free Learn about the playful practice of Acroyoga in a safe environment. Acroyoga is a physical practice that combines yoga and acrobatics typically involving a base, a flyer, and spotter. No experience or partner is necessary. The first hour will be guided learning, followed by free form jam for an hour. This event will be held outdoors at the corner of Pratt Drive and Kraft Drive. The rain location will be In Balance CRC studio. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=777994
27. Book Club: Mr. Brightside's Italian Adventures with Discussion and Tasting Blacksburg Wine Lab, Blacksburg Sunday, June 2, 2024, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: $40.00 Join the Wine Lab Book Club tasting & discussing featuring Mr. Brightside's Italian Adventures by Ryan Jacobson. After the success of his first humorous travel memoir, "The Adventures of Mr. Brightside", in which he traveled around the world exploring each country he visited on three different budget levels, Ryan Jacobson has now decided to tackle the country of Italy. Ryan travels to all of the Italy's twenty unique regions and splits his time in each by spending half his time on a low budget and half on a luxury budget before moving on to the next. Through the use of his humorous storytelling, Ryan shares what makes each of the regions so special and worthy of visiting. Reservations are required. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=776425
28. Sunday Mountain Music Series Kickoff with Victor Lawson and the Boogie Chillin Band Mountain Lake Lodge, Pembroke Sunday, June 2, 2024, 4:00 - 6:00 PM Free Admission Mountain Lake Lodge presents their Sunday Mountain Music Series Kickoff with Victor Lawson and the Boogie Chillin Band. Victor Lawson and the Boogie Chillen Band have forged an identity as a good-time party band that plays the real deal blues and down in the mud rock ‘n roll and funk music as well. The tight three-man band takes their name from the song, “Boogie Chillen” which was made famous by late Delta blues icon, John Lee Hooker. From Tennessee to Virginia to West Virginia, in bars and saloons and restaurants and festivals, Victor Lawson and Boogie Chillen’s exuberant, joyful music has made the band one of the area’s premier attractions. Stop by Salt Pond Pub every Sunday from Memorial Day to Labor Day from 4:00-6:00 PM and enjoy live music along with food and drinks. Perfect for relaxing with the whole family (furry friends are welcome too). Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=776813
For all the 65+ big events happening this weekend, check out: • http://www.nextthreedays.com/featuredevents.cfm
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

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The 29th of May 2024 in OPAP Arena (colloquially Hagia Sophia Stadium), the 2023-24 Olympiacos squad entered the club's history by winning the Conference League and becoming the first Greek club to add a European trophy in its collection at senior level (after doing the same at Youth Level a few weeks ago)!
Brief history lesson for the class:
Olympiacos is historically the emperor of Greek football. 47 league titles vs 41 for every other team combined speaks for itself. But European glory has always been the club's white whale, the goal that was never scored, the one thing missing from the club's myth. There are many reasons for this oddity:

• a mentality that "the 1st is everything and the rest are nothing" which led to trophy hunting always being prioritized over deep European runs.
• a team which usually played without much focus or investment in defense (Giovanni and Rivaldo up front, Anatolakis CB is a great example) because its main objective was to break down park-the-bus Greek defenses.
• the club never had the stars align in Europe (which is also needed if you aren't a big league club).

Europe was the only lifeline of Olympiacos' enemies in years of red and white domestic rule: they had memorable moments from Europe that Olympiacos didn't. They also used it as an argument that Olympiacos' local dominance is based on corruption and in Europe, where there is real refereeing etc., the true strength of the club shows.
Zooming in the last years:
Marinakis bought the club in 2010 and immediately achieved domestic domination. He brought back Ernesto Valverde, whose football philosophy affects Olympiacos until today, and the club stated regulary getting 9 and 10 points in CL until 2016. A combination of reasons led to a decline of quality and 2 lost titles until Pedro Martins put the team back in a order.
Εuropean success kept eluding though: despite some great wins, there was always a circumstance putting an end to the European journey - luck, Marinakis firing the coach for ego reasons (Jardim, Bento), GK blunders, covid changing the season, or simply a weaker team at the given moment.
In 2022-23 Olympiacos had a horrible season and Marinakis changed everything in the summer: you can read in details my post from August here.
Since then:
Did you read it? Good. Now throw all the planning and philosophy which was in theory put in place in August out of the window.
It didn't work. Diego Martinez improved the team and quality was added in several positions in attack and the wings, but the defense was vulnerable, the midfield was understaffed, and it went down the drain in November: the defensive performances against Greek minnows at home (despite wins) and the draw against Backa Topola (!) was the warning bell, and the hammer fell against PAOK at home (2-4) and Freiburg away (5-0). These results are not acceptable for Olympiacos under any circumstance, especially heavy defeats from other Greek clubs, and in early December, Martinez was fired with Olympiacos finishing 3rd in an EL Group with Freiburg, West Ham and Backa Topola with 7 points but having only 1 point in 3 Greek derbies.
But it gets worse: Marinakis hired Portuguese journeyman Carlos Carvalhal. He "fixed" the defense by positioning the players to sit back which led to not scoring against Lamia, Atromitos and Panathinaikos (twice), the players disliked him (Podence was visibly not even putting an effort) and the season looked lost, with PAOK having a 9 points lead in early February, the team out of the Cup to Panathinaikos and unable to win any Greek derby, much less think of Europe where Ferencvaros was waiting. Carvalhal was fired 1 week before the 1st leg match against Ferencvaros.
Marinakis is impulsive, arrogant and confrontational, and these traits led to the demise of the red and white stranglehold on domestic titles. But he is also very stubborn and really, really hates losing.
Changing 80% of the team didn't work? Let's do it again then in January!
Out go:
https://preview.redd.it/t7iqi675yk3d1.png?width=1392&format=png&auto=webp&s=89367a037749a8dae6197aa89546c43a4b684c0e
In go:
https://preview.redd.it/k1cv8vy7yk3d1.png?width=1401&format=png&auto=webp&s=688cef9c3c7a8a32ed1af51e68cc6e259541bbbc
And this time...jack-pot!
These transfers transformed Olympiacos for the best. Carmo is a 10 times better CB than Freire and Porozo combined. Chiquinho and Horta are quality, modern midfielders which complement the wonderful Hezze who was fighting alone for months next to unprofessional Mady Camara, and give a role to veteran Iborra in a midfield of 3. Martins gave much needed depth in the wings that Solbakken and Biel had failed to do. Abbey gave depth to the CB position. Navarro was a flop but you can't have it all.
The key to turning a wasted season to a glorious one, the missing piece of the puzzle, was the 3rd coach of the year: Jose Luis Mendilibar.
The fans were furious with Marinakis, his entourage, and the players, and there was no enthusiasm when Mendilibar arrived: his EL trophy was treated as a fluke, like Di Matteo's CL because "Sevilla can win EL without a coach". His work at Eibar was disregarded as "it's a small club, what does he know about having to win every week". His debut was to be against Ferencvaros....
Here. We. Go!
1st minute of the match, Olympiacos defense is sleeping as usually and the Hungarians score. The new coach is destined to fail already, just like that. But VAR to the rescue: hairline offside! The match is balanced, but Olympiacos with the new coach aura and the January transfers starting to glue with the team find a goal with leading scorer El Kaabi (who had missed January because of AFCON) and the morale shifts.
7 days later, Mendilibar is hailed as the second coming of Ernesto Valverde: Olympiacos have won their 1st derby of the season by demolishing league leader PAOK away (1-4) and played their best European match so far in Budapest, doubling the 1-0 wins against Ferencvaros. The draw is kind to Olympiacos: the next opponent is Maccabi Tel Aviv, everyone's 2nd preference after Viktoria Plzen.
Mendilibar has already flipped the team morale, won the players, had luck in his 1st match and his 1st draw, and the next week he gets 3 more league wins while rotating the squad. The 9 points gap from the top of the league is down to 3, the fans who were asking for everyone's head are delirious, and the expectations for breaking the curse against Israeli teams (3/3 eliminations) are sky-high.
The back-to-earth reminder is brutal. Olympiacos' shaky defense, especially when not protected by a 3rd midfielder, is torn apart by Eran Zahavi, Maccabi scores 4 goals in 5 shots and leaves Pireaus with a shocking 1-4 win.
The next day changed the course of the club forever: against all odds, Marinakis announces (through press leaks) that Mendilibar signed a new multi-year contract. And when the Basque has a tactically bad match and Panathinaikos leaves Piraeus with an 1-3 win a few days later with the crowd booing everyone, Marinakis doesn't change his mind: the message to the players is that the coach isn't going anywhere, start performing.
Was it their bruised ego? Was it football wanting to reward a good decision over an impulsive one? Was it Maccabi thinking they're already through?
The match in Topola (Maccabi used it as "home") had everyone rubbing their eyes in disbelief: Olympiacos went to HT leading 0-3! And when CB Retsos gifted a penalty to the Israelis, the psychology shifted back with usually clumsy El Kaabi scoring a bicycle kick (!) and veterans Jovetic and El Arabi completed a mircale in extra-time: 1-6!
The draw was again kind, and the opponent in the 1st QF since 1999 was Fenerbahce (note: Greek clubs and Olympiacos in paticular are not afraid of Turkish clubs. In Greece they are considered as "rich but not necessarily stronger than us". I recall Turkish fans here seemed to think Fenerbahce is a club of the size of Porto or Ajax and clear favourites - in Greece they aren't seen like that. It's just the Greek fans and media POV, not an attempt to belittle Fenerbahce).
Until then though, the league campaign suffered a severe blow with an away 90th minute defeat to AEK in a match where Olympiacos was good but not clinical, with only slim hopes remaining for the title. But everyone's mind was in Europe.
Olympiacos entered the home leg pressing the error-prone Fenerbahce defense at every chance they got, and got a 3-0 lead after 60 minutes. But another stupid penalty given by Retsos plus lack of depth which brought fatigue allowed the Turkish team to make it 3-2 and a very close return leg...which started very wrong for Olympiacos, 1-0 down early on. The match "froze" for a big part and in the penalty shoot-out, Tzolakis who became starting GK at the 2nd leg against Maccabi Tel Aviv, saved 3/5, including the 5th one by Bonucci, and sent Olympiacos to heaven.
A rotated side managed to beat PAOK at home, dropped points to Aris and beat punching bag Lamia, and thanks to AEK's poor results vs PAOK, the title chase was also still on, with 3/3 wins in derbies needed.
Nobody was focusing on this: Olympiacos has a lot of titles, they can survive losing one. All eyes were on the prize: Aston Villa and the prospect of a final in AEK's stadium!
What followed was football giving back to Olympiacos what they deserved over the years: a perfect referee and VAR referee who didn't give any "home advantage" to the "big league" team, a perfect finishing night from the striker, and timing, always timing. Aston Villa scored early but the goal was cancelled because on an offensive foul (from the ones referees often miss), and Olympiacos shocks Villa Park in a counter attack with El Kaabi using Cash's heel to beat the offside trap by 1mm! 13 minutes later, El Kaabi doubles the lead with Mendilibar's press doing wonders against Lenglet and Olsen. Villa bounces back though, with a goal at the end of the 1st half (a limping Ortega couldn't follow Watkins) and equalize early in the 2nd half with Diaby catching Tzolakis by surprise. At this point the match reminds the Yassine Meriah-induced fiasco against Tottenham a few years ago, but this time Olympiacos doesn't crumble. Douglas Luiz gifts a penalty, and El Kaabi (who never misses penalties) completes his hat trick. 10 minutes later, Hezze who had never scored for Olympiacos tries a shot outside the box...deflection, Olsen doesn't react quickly, 2-4! Villa press a lot but tactical freezing of the pace and Luiz sending a penalty to the stands send Olympiacos back to Greece with the 2-goal lead.
In the week until the 2nd leg, reporters and English fans had started an irrational hype about Emi Martinez returning....forgetting that Villa needed 2-3 goals and a goalkeeper, even an elite one, doesn't really help much in that.
In a flaming Karaiskakis stadium, El Kaabi says thank you to Podence and Quini serving him a tap in on the counter and Villa has a mountain to climb and neither the stamina nor the morale to do it. Iborra and Carmo dominate the air, Retsos avoids his usual catastrophic error per match, Tzolakis is there when needed, and Villa has more or less the pointless possession that Spain's NT had in the World Cup.
El Kaabi puts the cherry on top with an identical VAR-verified goal: everyone believes he's offside, but a defender's heel keeps him onside. 2-0 and the dream of every Olympiacos fan (and nightmare of AEK and not only) is reality, final in Athens!
The league title is lost against a spirited and focused PAOK 3 days later. The club really wants to screw AEK for many reasons (mostly because of a fat Slovak referee gifting them a win in January in Piraeus) and beat them at home, sending the title to PAOK's hands. The domestic season ends with smiles after drawing Panathinaikos from 2-0 down and securing Europe for the next season.
The final is recent so I won't go into much detail: in an expectedly tactical and close match, Olympiacos made the dream come true in the way that the last 2 months went: El Kaabi goal in 116', dancing on the offside line, and VAR confirms that for the 3rd time he managed to find the millimeters separating glory from defeat!
Olympiacos caught their Moby Dick, lifted a European trophy in a season which was borderline disastrous for several months, filled haters with despair and fans with ecstatic joy and changed the club's history forever.
The golden team of the club, by order of matches started:
https://preview.redd.it/argksj27vq3d1.png?width=1086&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba929943966b48c707dc10dda899b8179e09094f
https://preview.redd.it/nvmla979vq3d1.png?width=1086&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9f1a574583d8fc9968af7f2dd2ae8a4fbd610f7
Rodinei: The best RB seen in Greece for many years, Rodinei is what Olympiacos fans dream from wing backs: a player with the technical skills of a no.10, who fearlessly runs forward and terrorizes opposition defenses when matched with Fortounis. He does leave gaps behind and isn't tactically very aware of crosses from the other side, but if he did that he would be in the Premier League. He almost became the black sheep when Livakovic saved his 5th penalty, but thanks to Tzolakis this moment cost nothing, and it would have been a huge pity for Rodinei. A cornerstone of the triumph!
Hezze: The soap opera tranfer of August was worth every second of waiting. Hezze started running in the summer and never stopped. A tireless athlete with the stamina of a long distance runner, the tactical awareness and tackle timing of a modern DM/CM, who held the midfield by himself every single match until February due to poor transfer planning, who also always has the clarity to pick the prime option when passing. The 22 years old Argentine was a hidden gem who shone very brightly once competent players played alongside him in the midfield, and got his personal reward as well with a goal in the Semi and the assist to the title-winning goal! Several European clubs are greedily looking at him, but there is the feeling that Marinakis is not going to sell him this summer.
Retsos: The most controversial player of the squad throughout the season. Retsos is an amazing CB 90% of the time, with an excellent ball-playing ability which made Leverkusen spend almost 20M for him when he was 18 years old. The other 10% of the time he has brainfart moments which usually lead to goals. In several matches throughout the year, he ruined his own excellent matches by giving an easy penalty or getting a red card or losing the ball where he shouldn't. He also had the bad luck to not get away with any of these errors - almost everything got punished with a goal while mistakes of others didn't end up in goals. This resulted to a lot of social media hate, peaking after the home match against Fenerbahce when his needless penalty kickstarted the return of the Turkish team in the tie. Nevertheless, he was still the 2nd best CB of the team and managed to not let his rollercoaster season affect him negatively in the final sprint, performing flawlessly against Villa and Fiorentina. If he stops the brainfart moments, he will become the best Greek CB ever.
Fortounis: The team captain lived a moment legends of the club were dreaming of. After 2 ACL injuries and a falling-out with Pedro Martins, he proved to everyone that he can make the difference at European-level pace, he can cover his wing back effectively (a chronic weakness of him), he can combine his lethal through balls with playing from the side and not strictly as no.10, and that Gustavo Poyet commited a crime by not having him in the national team (he rated Bakasetas more, lol). Fortounis gives solutions when matches get stuck, he opens the defenses and his creativity is a tool Olympiacos relies on so frequently that it's often taken for granted. He deserved this moment maybe a bit more than the rest. Top assister of the season!
Paschalakis: The starting goalkeeper for most of the season, dropped before the 1-6 against Maccabi. An old style keeper, with a huge body, very good reflexes, but with terrible ball-playing abilities and afraid to leave his line to clear crosses and corner kicks. Which was the reason, in parallel with the 7 goals in 3 days conceded to Maccabi and Panathinaikos, that Mendilibar changed him with Tzolakis. He had spectacular moments when the team wasn't well and there were many threats for the defense and accepted the secondary role in the end of the season with grace.
El Kaabi: Another amazing story reaching its climax. El Kaabi arrived in the summer with a career in Morocco, China, Qatar and one season in Turkish minnow Hatayspor. Noone was enthuiastic about him, and despite him quickly proving how easily he scores, there was still a lot of criticism about his limitations to control the ball and "break" it to the side and the fact he wasn't as technically skilled as prime El Arabi. His month in AFCON coincided with the team failing to score in many matches, and from February onwards he became an Olympiacos fan's dream of a striker: he was there in every single big match, finishing almost every one-touch chance he got: with his head, his feet, even a bicycle kick! He was what was expected from Tiquinho, from Oscar Cardozo, from so many bigger names who have passed from the team and never managed to be at the right spot at the right time as often as El Kaabi. 16 goals in Europe (2nd scorer of the club, in his 1st season!), 33 in total, 11 in 9 matches in the Conference League. 2 against Ferencvaros, 3 against Maccabi, 5 aganst Aston Villa and the golden goal of the final. That's an Olympiacos CF, the one the fans demand and rarely get to see. Clinical, always on the right side of the offside trap, present in big matches, 0 injuries. A player with an unremarkable career became a hero at Olympiacos and his name known in all Europe. What a story!
Masouras: When Olympiacos is struggling, Masouras is always there to fight and give solutions. When the team is rolling, he stands out negatively more often than not because he lacks the technical skills and quality a winger needs. Masouras became a bench player in the last 2-3 months and added his own part in the road to the title, as one of the clubs oldest players.
Ortega: The 2nd Argentine August arrival was the starting LB and had a lot of ups and downs. Tactically he isn't at the level he should be and makes it up with fighting spirit, technique and overlaps. He isn't Hezze, but covering the position occupied by the (hated by almost the entire fan base) talentless Reabciuk for 2 years, he had something rare: time. The bar was so low that there was patience to give him time to acclimatize and develop. As the rest of the team, he stepped up when it mattered and his 1st season in Europe ended ideally!
Podence: The short legend! When he got sold to Wolves, Olympiacos suffered for years, unable to find a winger of his quality. From players who are usesless without open space (Bruma), overweight players (Rony Lopes) to downright joke players (Onyekuru) and players who didn't give a shit (De La Fuente), everyone failed miserably to replace Podence. His return was greeted with joy and he showed why he is loved and was so hard to replace: the team's best dribbler, he improved his weak finishing in England (2nd scorer and 2nd assister of the season), he loves Greece and the club and gave everything he had most of the time (apart from his falling out with Carvalhal), he has a character and and an ego, he wins a lot of fouls, he is a tiny demon messing with every defender. He scored the 1st goal of the miracle against Maccabi, a screamer against Panathinaikos, he served on a silver platter to El Kaabi. Him, Hezze and El Kaabi were the summer transfers who changed the image of the team the first months.
Mady Camara: The less said, the better. An ungrateful, selfish player who believes he deserves to play in a bigger league and a bigger team, reluctantly stayed after Roma (and nobody else) wanted to buy him, chose to try hard only when he was personally interested, and was iced out of the team in January for refusing to renew and get sold, opting to leave as a free agent. Enjoy watching your teammates celebrate from your sofa, Mady!
Ntoi: An academy product, 20 years old, Ntoi was a DM in his youth career and was turned to a CB by Michel last season. He has good and bad qualities, not ready to be a starter for a team playing a high line but giving it all in Istanbul when he was needed in the return leg. He was the 1st bench option at the position for most of the season and he is with Tzolakis and Retsos one of the academy players who wrote their name in the history books with the title.
Quini: In Olympiacos, when you are a more limited player with a role to offer solutions from the bench, you are either a fan cult figure of a lightning rod for blame and hate. Quini zigzagged between the two, and his step-up when it mattered the most was one of the X factors. A veteran RB with a career in Segunda, he was asked to play LB often (thank Richards for being always injured) with mixed to poor results for most of the season. But with Ortega out against Villa, he had to step up for 3 halfs against the 4th PL team's wingers, and step up he did. He managed to limit the threats and assisted El Kaabi in the return leg to seal the presence in the final. Everyone played a part!
Chiquinho: Among the January transfers, he was the less flashy. Unknown to most people, the bar was low given the multiple failures of the last years when buying players from the Portuguese league, he soon proved everyone wrong and was one of the 3 January signings who turned the season around. An all around midfielder, playing both at no.8 and no.10, controlling the tempo and rushing forward when needed, with Hezze and Horta/Iborra he changed the way the midfield worked and turned the tide. He came with just 500k euros!
Carmo: Perhaps a 15M CB is what is necessary for Olympiacos to have a decent defense. Carmo came on loan from Porto in January and showed from his first game that he would be a season-changer. Strong, dominant and confident, he became the leader of the defense and changed the fate of the club. His block in Fiorentina's chance in 121' was his personal rubber stamp to a season his arrival turned around. Porto's asking price is high, but there's hope Olympiacos will manage to keep him. Best CB after Ruben Semedo and without criminal tendencies. He is worth every euro.
Tzolakis: Among so many stories, the one of Tzolakis is the greatest. The 21 years old goalkeeper was second for most of the season, with his performance in a few matches in previous seasons being lukewarm. Mendilibar made him starter before the return leg against Maccabi, valuing his quick thinking and skill to play with his legs and come out of the box when needed, and nobody could image what would follow. The young GK played with the confidence of a seasoned veteran, had flawless matches against Maccabi and Fenerbahce and became the ultimate hero in Istanbul by saving 3/5 penalties! From there with morale sky high, he was a rock until the end of the season, with 2 clean sheets in the 2nd Semi and the Final, and from another young prospect who was thinking of leaving to find playing time, you're looking at the starting GK of Olympiacos for years to come!
Alexandropoulos: The former Panathiniakos youngster on loan from Sporting scored one of the most crucial goal of the seasons: the equalizer against Genk in early August when half the squad hadn't arrived yet. His contribution came in the less flashy part of the season, but it was just as valuable. He didn't find much playing time the last months since Mendilibar preferes technically skilled midfielders and he's a bit clumsy, but if he stays there's a lot of room for improvement.
Horta: A technically artistic albeit a bit soft CM, Horta gave much needed solutions and filled the midfield of Olympiacos with quality and simplicity. Releasing pressure from Fortounis and Podence, sometimes from the bench sometimes as a starter, Horta was another missing piece of the puzzle which fell in place. He also put the nail in AEK's coffin with 2 goals which took the title out of their hands!
Navarro: You can't have 100% success in January transfers. Navarro is not a great goalscorer, he can't do much against parked buses, doesn't have the positioning of El Kaabi or the skill of Jovetic, and it's frankly a mystery why Porto values him at 8M.
Iborra: Extreme makeover, football edition. Iborra in a 4-2-3-1 system looked like a geriatric dinosaur, unable to follow the pace, slow, tired and generally useless. Mendilibar saw something in him though and when he changed the system in a 4-3-2-1 with both Hezze and Chiquinho alongside him, the 36 years old Spaniard turned to a leader in the pitch: calm, methodic, dominant in the air, he was a different player and lifted his 5th European trophy, with significant contribution to it!
Biancone: A rather mediocre CB with no attributes to make him stand out, he played in league matches mostly before March.
Jovetic: The Montenegrin veteran stayed away from injuries, with the correct usage (coming from the bench), and proved his quality: technique, experience and big moment goals, with the 5th against Maccabi his highlight. Everything you can ask from a substitute forward!
Carvalho: A meme player who cost the Greek Cup with a missed 5th penalty, mediocrity and lack of mental strength, a Mendes plant who made a career with almost zero skills to play anywhere above Rio Ave.
Biel: A player completely unfit for the brutal environment of Olympiacos. He rarely managed to show his talent, he cracked under pressure, he doesn't fight back but his performance takes a nosedive if things go wrong. Shipped to Augsburg in January.
Richards: The medical center's permanent resident, he showed flashes of quality, but what's the point if his body is made of glass?
Freire: A wrong transfer from the start, a mediocre player, error prone, not a great match with any of the other CBs, left in January. Night vs day compared to Carmo.
Gelson Martins: A proper winger, with acceleration, dribble and threat to the defense. Not in the European list because only 3 changes were possible in January, but he rested the starters in the league and is a big hope for the next season as long as he stays healhy.
Porozo: Average, never justified the hype, not worse than Freire but his lack of an EU passport led him to being ommitted from the squad more often than not due to league rules, and left in January.
Solbakken and Scarpra: Flops of the season. Came with much fanfare and high expectations, and offered nothing. We're still waiting for a player coming from Forest to be in the "good" and not the "mediocre" or "bad".
Abbey: A prospect CB who came from Reading in January, showed raw talent in several matches and will play more next year.
El Arabi: A club legend says goodbye in the best way possible. At age 37, he couldn't have the role he was used to, but what better way to close his career in the club? His last game was the winning final, his last goal was the 6th against Maccabi Tel Aviv. With 20 goals he is the club's top scorer in Europe, in the top 10 scorers overall, and the most talented all around CF seen for at least a decade. Thanks for everything!
Vezo: A Mendes transfer, probably in a silent deal to bring us the good Portuguese alongside. Didn't play much, not sure what his level is, he is no Carmo though.
Vrousai: Academy player, on loan to Rio Ave to find game time.
Cabral: He got injured at the only part of the season where he could have found minutes. Came as an extra solution for Greece, can't say we saw it.
Brnic: Started the season strongly but with Podence's arrival he couldn't find space in the squad.
Apostolopoulos: Academy player who debuted with the first team against Aston Villa! Mendilibar proved he isn't afraid at the slightest with his debut.
Ramon: I forgot he played. One of our many mediocrities out on loan.
Goals and Assists:
https://preview.redd.it/k5610bxy7s3d1.png?width=1096&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd72b3af7f997c59d998cab2c3eaf2d9f4de6d8b
https://preview.redd.it/t7z0b4d18s3d1.png?width=1083&format=png&auto=webp&s=39883104a48096d10ea8158cce861c9361896342
Future:
Apart from the obvious (the title itself), Olympiacos won the chance to change the next years for the club as well: the direct spot in the next Europa League league phase means a proper pre-season without qualifiers. It means planning without must-win matches in the summer.
The club completes 100 years in 2025 and Marinakis was already talking about the EL Final in Bilbao! Wild, but shows the mood to raise the budget, keep the key players and aim even higher!

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I’m an American who recently spent a month traveling, living and working remotely in the Amsterdam Red Light district, and I wanted to share a thorough compendium of tips and my personal takes on a few things.
This is going to be more for people already planning on going to Amsterdam rather than people wanting to see if it’s worth going, but you might get something out of it, too. It’s also geared more for a medium-length stay rather than a quick visit.
I’d love to answer your questions as well. Fire away!

Vondelpark

I’m putting this at the top, because I think it’s great and people need to know. So, this is the city’s most famous park. It’s a very nice if standard park and is a great “scene” on a nice day, filled with people walking, biking around, and enjoying themselves. Don’t miss out on the stork nests in the closed off areas - really cool.
But! There is this fantastic app you can download to your phone that uses GPS to play amazing music that changes, depending on where you are in the park. The music was composed by the current composer-in-residence at the Concertgebouw, Ellen Reid, and it’s set up to be a live “soundtrack” to the park, with the music from different areas looping and overlapping each other. It makes for an amazing experience (as a solo traveler) - and I think anyone visiting Amsterdam should try it. It’s magical, and I highly recommend it.
More info here on the project, but apparently the Vondelpark location isn’t on the website (it’s in the app if you download it): https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/

Orienting Yourself

The city is a bit of a maze and it can feel overwhelming and confusing at first, but I eventually made sense of it. I think the trick is to get familiar with the city based on the water more than on landmarks or roads.
Think of the Dam as the core of the town (it’s what it’s named after, anyway). To the north you have the IJ, and then the Amstel running south and east from it, originating in the Rokin canal just south of you. You have two main canals that sort of serve as the edge of the inner medieval city: the Singel on the west and south, and the Kloveniersburgwal south and east, running up to Nieuwmarkt. Outside of that, in concentric half circles (to your west, south, and east) you have the main canals: the Herengracht, Keizersgracht, Prinsengracht, and finally the Singelgracht (not to be confused with the Singel).
To the west of these canals is the Jordaan, where the streets run at a diagonal angle from what you were just on before. The Museumplein is right at 7 o’clock just outside the Singelgracht, and just north of that is Vondelpark, which runs SW to NE.
This is obviously incomplete, but this is the image I had in my mind, which helped me know pretty much where I was, even when wandering around and not paying attention. Knowing which canal you’re on keeps everything organized.
TL;DR - just be able to locate the IJ, the Amstel, and the main canals, from inner to outer: Singel / Kloveniersburgwal, Herengracht, Keizersgracht, Prinsengracht, Singelgracht. It does wonders.

Cash

Before the trip, I researched whether having cash was important in Amsterdam. Based on what I read, I decided that cash was unnecessary and didn’t bother.
Not true!
Maybe most of the time cash was unnecessary, but I needed it for a few things:

1. Some bathrooms, lockers at museums, and other small facilities needed a coin. It’s good to have a few 50 cent and 1 euro pieces on you.
2. A lot of restaurants outside the center of the city take debit but only from Dutch banks. I couldn’t use the VISA-based debit card from my American credit union at these places and had to go to an ATM. There was always one nearby, so no big deal, but it’s good to know.
3. Most vendors in stalls do take cards, but a few don’t, and all of them prefer cash.

So I could see a large number if not the majority of tourists not running into these situations, but I did indeed need cash on my trip.

Cafes / Coworking Spots

Kind of key for me, a remote worker, reader, writer.
I went to a lot, but here are the best ones I found for having a hot beverage and removing the many contents of my backpack on the table. (I am the reincarnation of Uncle Iroh, so tea is important to me in these places. But Amsterdam is not really a tea-drinking city, so I’ll include short, parenthetical tea reviews). In no particular order:

• Screaming Beans (multiple locations, including Negen Straatjes and Waterlooplein). Great place, good scene, good menu items. The Waterlooplein location was much more spacious than the 9 Straatjes one, but I enjoyed both. (Tea: all locations have one really good oolong).
• Any Library (OBA - Openbaar Bibliotheek Amsterdam) - all the ones I visited have cafes inside and are great places to work. I often went to the one just north of the red light district (Oosterdok), and there were plenty of great places to work. There’s even one attached to the Foodhallen (Tea: I didn’t look exhaustively, but what I saw was cheap bag tea; I brought my own from home).
• Werkplaats - This is a very spacious, cavernous hotel lobby / coworking space designed for this type of thing, but the main shared-desk area is nonetheless always packed. Great pastries (try the cheese croissants and the shortbread). (Tea: gross bag tea)
• Berry (Oud-West). Small, but really great, relaxed place that is also a small coworking spot. Very cozy. (Tea: decent)
• Midwest (Oud-West) - You want to walk inside this community center and find the Kantine, which is in a former school gym. Very relaxed, cozy, friendly. Locals were coming in and having conversations with one another; there was a great community feeling. Really great background music. There were a lot of other interesting things happening in the building. Be advised that if you planning on staying more than an hour or so they charge you a coworking fee (I think around 12 euros). (Tea: good quality, but herbal only = boring)
• Ulmus (Oud-West) - Right next to Midwest. This is almost just a sidenote, because there is barely any seating here and doesn’t really deserve to be on a list of good places to work. But, if you get a table, there’s a great atmosphere to chill in for at least a little while. Locals coming in to buy loaves of bread. There’s a good vibe, despite 95% of the floor space being the bakery itself. The baked goods are amazing. The creme-filled cruffin is what will tempt you - and is totally worth getting - but the almond croissant is on another level, and I bought a second immediately after finishing the first one. (Tea: great, including beautiful teaware)
• Coffee and Coconuts (De Pijp) - This place is huge, trendy, and fun. It opens out onto a busy street with a lot of outdoor seating, but the interior (a former theater) is voluminous and spans 3 stories, all very cozy. I didn’t have any food, but it looked good. I loved this place, despite (Tea: same herbal brand as Midwest, boring).
• La Maru (Haarlem) - Great atmosphere, excellent pastries. (Tea: good)
• Huis de Pinto (City Center, near Nieuwmarkt/Waterlooplein) is in a community center in an old mansion near the Rembrandthuis and has a beautiful library room dedicated to studying. It’s very welcoming, and technically free (but you can and should donate). I unfortunately was only in sync with their limited visited hours one time (basically just a few hours in the afternoon).

Food

Amsterdam has a lot of wonderful and famous street and specialty foods, which you’ve probably already heard of (stroopwafels, appeltaart, fries, pannenkoeken, haring, etc.). Do not waste a minute standing in line for any of these or seeking out the highest-rated places. These items are hard to mess up, and one place is just as good as any other. I think the one exception is the appeltaart. No need to stand in line (e.g. at Winkel 43), but make sure you get one at a place where they’re baked in-house, otherwise you’re going to end up with microwaved styrofoam. There are plenty of great little bars near Winkel 43 that have just as good if not better appeltaarten. I heard good things about De Laatste Kruimel (one location near Rokin, the other in 9 Straatjes).
I walked through Foodhallen, and I found the whole place overcrowded and overpriced, but I’m sure the food is good and worth eating, if you want to go there. The building and surrounding area is very cool and busy, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Conversely, I thought Albert Cuyp market was going to be a crowded circus, but I never found it overwhelmingly full. In fact, I really liked it (particularly the chicken stands).
There is a great if small farmer’s market in Nieuwmarkt on many Saturday mornings, if you happen to be in the area. They have vegetables, fruit, fresh baked bread, cheeses, and a few food stands (I saw haring/kibbeling, fresh juice, dutch sandwiches, vegan Indian food).
There’s an abundance of great Surinamese and Indonesian food that’s characteristic of the city. Don’t miss out. This cuisine is also great for people on budgets. One thing to note is that the fancier places are not set up for solo diners, but there are plenty of smaller / takeaway places if you keep your eyes open. You can usually get a rice dish (rice plus veggies + meat/tofu) or a roti wrap. Please note that in the cheapest / most convenient places the food is usually kept in large dishes inside cold or room-temperature deli displays and then microwaved. No judgements - just wanting to make sure you know what you’re getting. (In the US, these would either be kept in a refrigerator or warm in steam trays).
I feel like you can never go wrong with the European-style Shoarma or Doner, either. This is old news for Europeans, but I think these places might be overlooked by Americans. It’s not quite the same as what you would get in the US. In particular, I can only get good chicken doner sandwiches in Europe. It’s cheap, delicious, and filling. Try it out, yanks.

Non-Vondel Parks

I like walking around in parks, here are my reviews of the ones I was able to visit:

• Amsterdamse Bos. Huge, popular, lush. Definitely worth checking out. There’s a great pannenkoeken spot at the NW corner, and a massive rowing course that’s fun to watch. One thing that tripped me up is that the bus that takes you to the entrance from the nearest Metro station isn’t GVB - so expect to get two tickets to get here via public transit (if you don’t have a pass that covers both).
• Frederiksplein: Technically a square rather than a park, but there’s a bit of greenery here. Small and not much to see, do.
• Sarphatipark: Some nice water and trees, but also small and not much to see here.
• Erasmuspark: Even though it’s small, I thought this was really nice; would enjoy spending more time here. It gets surprisingly woodsy in places, and the moatlike canals are just pleasant to walk along.
• Rembrandtpark: Not bad, over all. I only saw a little of this one, but I found it a nice enough place to stretch my legs. Despite being larger than Erasmuspark, I didn’t feel it was as much of a “retreat.” I didn’t feel its structure was conducive to really wanting to hang out there more. More for running / walking through.
• Beatrixpark: The area around it is a bit harsh / urban, but I kind of liked this park. There’s some interesting art, and I like how the lawns kind of slope to the water in certain places. I found it very relaxing overall and would have come again.
• Park Frankendael: Very cool little park, an old estate. Compact and medieval, like Erasmuspark, with some lush areas and winding canals. At the Western edge there is a big community garden, and also an area where people own little plots to have their own gardens with private cabins. Worth coming back to.
• Oosterpark: Very pleasant. Has kind of a wide, open, urban park feeling to it (like Vondelpark, and as opposed to the more medieval or forestry parks). Not much to see in a touristy sense, but a good place to hang out (as evidenced by all the people there).
• Gaasperplas: I basically ended up here as the result of deciding to take a Metro line to its terminus. It’s really pretty and lush, very much like a forest, with of course plenty of water and water fowl. Super refreshing. I highly recommend this place for anyone needing a break from the energy of the city.
• Noorderpark: Probably my least favorite. It’s narrow, uninteresting, and right by a highway.

Museums / Attractions

I won’t bother telling you about the big museums - you will probably decide for yourself whether you’re going and to which ones.
I have to add the compulsory: if it’s important to you to go to the Anne Frank or Van Gogh museums, get your tickets yesterday.
What I do want to share is that Amsterdam has an armada of wonderful small museums, all very well put together with beautiful spaces and artifacts, compelling stories, some creative presentations. I was always pleasantly surprised at the quality of the experience, and I usually ended up staying way longer than planned. They’re small museums with big museum energy.
My favorites were:

1. Museum of the Canals. This one would be fantastic as the first museum or place you visit, because it really helps you understand both the geography and history of the city. It’s a great “Amsterdam 101.” The audio/visual shows are well done, too - they even have a doll house version of the building the museum is in, full of holograms depicting life from different eras. It’s awesome.
2. Resistance Museum. This one seems small but is dense with stories you will find yourself wanting to take in deeply. I would set aside 3 hours for this one. It might not take this long, but you want to go slowly.
3. Our Lord in the Attic. This one seems to make a lot of hidden gems lists, and I think that’s well-deserved. It’s an intense historical experience that has a lot more complexity to it than “Catholic Church hidden in the top stories of an old house.” Full of artifacts and period-accurate rooms, with a good English audio tour.
4. Rembrandthuis. Your appreciation here somewhat depends on if you like 17th century art, but you do get a good sense of the man’s timeless personality, and his impact on art. They do a good job teaching you the importance of Rembrandt’s etchings and etchings in general, which I honestly had no interest in before my visit. The main studio and collection room are just fascinating. Also, his kitchen was on point.

An honorable mention goes to the Embassy of the Free Mind. It’s a unique, fascinating place, but I have to say that it’s not much of a museum and the admission fee, roughly the same as the ones listed above, felt way too much. It’s a really cool library with some display cases and text, but it’s not a museum. It’s got an extremely cozy and pleasant cafe, and they have cool concerts, lectures, and other events there, so it’s worth putting on your radar. And it’s totally worth visiting if you don’t mind the fee or have a Museumkaart or something (you could think of it as a compulsory donation).

Learning Dutch

Some people wonder if they need to learn Dutch going to Amsterdam, because everyone speaks English.
While I can confirm that I didn’t talk to a single person who couldn’t speak English, I think it’s worth learning at least some Dutch. It’s simply the language of the land, and it’s important to be “literate” where you are, for your enjoyment, enrichment, and safety. I find it inherently disempowering to not be at least trying to learn the language; though I understand not everyone cares or has that energy.
I recommend anyone interested in linguistics spend at least a little bit of time with Dutch just to see where it overlaps with English. It’s a great experience of what kinship between two languages is like; you get a strong sense that English and Dutch were the results of two different rolls of the same dice, so to speak.
I did a sizeable chunk of the Duolingo Dutch course before heading over. I would say Duolingo helped me mostly to read the language, despite all the emphasis on audio. (Note: I have a lot of experience learning languages, including a strong background in reading German, so that gave me a boost). I tried speaking Dutch when ordering food - and people would try to humor me - but I quickly discovered that Duolingo simply doesn’t give you enough variety of phrases to really be able to hold up a conversation.
I think the bare minimum should be the following:

1. Pronunciation. Learn how to read Dutch words out loud and get comfortable with how things are spelled and how they sound.
2. Dank je wel - “Thank you”
3. Alsjeblieft or alstublieft (more formal) - “Please” or “You’re welcome”
4. Ja - Yes
5. Nee - No
6. Fiets - bicycle
7. Uitgezonderd - “Except for” - You’ll see this word on street signs with a picture of a bike or scooter, meaning that bikes/scooters can go through but cars can’t.
8. Nooduitgang - “Emergency exit”

Riding Bikes

Amsterdam is a city extremely friendly to bikes - but the cycle culture, the sheer quantity of aggressive cyclists, and the relatively complex rules of riding make cycling somewhat intimidating for novices. If you’re here for a while and cycling makes sense for your route, or you’re a strong cyclist and couldn’t live without biking around - by all means bike in the city.
For others, you can get along just fine with public transit and walking. But I would highly recommend renting a bike for a day or two and only riding it to get out of the city into the countryside - which is an outstanding way to spend a day and really a can’t-miss experience in the Netherlands.
What I did personally was rent a bike in Noord and ride out to the Waterland area, which a local advised me to visit. It was really one of the highlights of my trip - see if you can do something like that.

Getting out of Town

I made the decision, partly due to my mood that month, partly due to my schedule, to not stress about heading out of town very much and just focus on Amsterdam itself. So I don’t have much advice here.
Waterland by bike, as I mentioned, was a great day trip. But that’s not very far, and I think it’s technically still Amsterdam.
I had the opportunity to visit Haarlem and Zandvoort one day. I’ll say neither were super thrilling or anything on that windy day in April, but both were nice. Haarlem is really very charming, and I wish I had spent more time there. It’s really easy to get to; barely counts as being outside Amsterdam. The only attraction I visited, besides a cafe (La Maru), was the windmill at the northeast side of town. It was great, and I got to see it working - though be advised it’s a reconstruction.
There were great views at Zandvoort (I think you can see all the way to the Hague? Correct me if I’m wrong), but otherwise I found it to be an average beach town. Probably there’s a better vibe in the summer.

Splendor

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to a small venue I went to several times during my trip: Splendor Amsterdam. It’s a musician-owned venue and arts organization that has at least 1 to 4 inexpensive concerts every single week. There’s a bar inside too, that’s open before and after the shows. There seems to be a regular group of patrons there; everyone is very friendly. It’s classical, jazz, folk, experimental - there’s a lot of variety.
Check it out, if you’re looking for something to do some evening: https://splendoramsterdam.com/.

Events are listed by the day. Events that happen every week appear first, one time stuff after that. If you have anything you’d like people to know about, comment here or message me and I’ll add it in. If you’d like further info about any of the events, look it up! I usually don’t have any extra to add.
Large Scale, Ongoing, and Multi-Day Events

• TallyFest 2024, Saturday at Cascades starting at 10am. This isn't just an event; it's a vibrant showcase of 200 years of Tallahassee's rich history and culture. Immerse yourself in a day filled with family-friendly activities, a dedicated Kid Zone featuring young entrepreneurs, and even a Pet Zone for our furry friends. TallyFest is more than just a festival; it's an experience for every member of the family! Enjoy live entertainment throughout the day, featuring local talents and artists that capture the essence of Tallahassee's artistic spirit. We're calling out to all vendors! Be part of history as we're on the lookout for 200 vendors to commemorate 200 years of Tallahassee. Kid entrepreneurs, this is your chance to shine! Explore the heart of Tallahassee with our Shop Local Passes, offering exclusive deals from local businesses. Indulge your taste buds with a diverse array of food from our vendors and partner restaurants. As the sun sets, the celebration continues with a spectacular post-event concert from 5 pm to 7 pm. Feel the rhythm, embrace the spirit, and make memories that will last a lifetime. Whether you're a local or a tourist, TallyFest invites you to join the festivities, Celebrate Tallahassee’s Bicentennial year, explore the vibrant culture, and create unforgettable moments. 🌟 Save the date, spread the word, and get ready for a day of pure Tallahassee magic!

Local Running, Walking, and Biking Info: https://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/
Guided Paddling Outings all around the area: https://www.facebook.com/hsmithoutdoors
Tallahassee Film Society Showings: https://www.tallahasseefilms.com/tickets/
Book Clubs for all tastes: https://www.facebook.com/midtownreadeevents
Live Theater:

• Making Light Productions: https://www.makinglightproductions.org/
  
• Theatre Tallahassee: https://theatretallahassee.org/
  
• Mickee Faust Club: https://www.mickeefaust.com/
  
• Monticello Opera House: https://www.monticellooperahouse.org/
  
• FSU School of Theatre: https://theatre.fsu.edu/productions/
  
• Young Actors Theatre: https://www.youngactorstheatre.com/
  
• Quincy Music Theatre: https://quincymusictheatre.com/
  
• Tallahassee Hispanic Theater: https://tallahasseehispanictheater.wordpress.com/
  

OutdooFarmer’s Markets:

• Lake Ella Grower's Market: Wednesday and Saturday, 11am-2pm. You can always find organic vendors, and foragers: The Holistic Cannabis Community, Artzi Farms, Hickory Nut Gifts, and others. Including Pita Queen! Farmer's Market Nutrition Program Coupons gladly accepted!
  
• Tallahassee Downtown Market: Saturdays, 10am-2pm, Park Ave Parks. Vendors display their arts and fine crafts, jewelry, handmade soap, pottery, Fresh from Florida produce, hand-raised beef and pork, fresh baked bread, jams and jellies, and honey. Live music from different local musicians every Saturday.
  
• Frenchtown Heritage Market: 524 N MLK Jr Blvd. Third Saturday of the month 10am to 2pm. Come grow community and support your local farmers and makers, while you get your groceries for the week! Don’t forget! We match SNAP/EBT, so you DOUBLE your money to go towards locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables! If the guy with the pineapple is there, get it. This is currently only happening on the third Saturday of the month for the next few months while road work is completed.
  
• Tallahassee Farmers Market: 2904 Kerry Forest Pkwy, Saturdays, 8am to Noon. Come see us at Tallahassee's longest-running farmers market! We are a year-round market, featuring local farms and vendors that provide the best seasonal produce, meats, baked goods, and more. We welcome you and your whole family (leashed pets included) to come out and meet your local farmers! Ample parking is available between our lot and the shopping center lot next door (by Red Elephant). Come early for the best selection.
  
• St. Marks Community Market: Saturdays, 9am to 1pm. Come enjoy local artists, crafters, bakers, farmers, and gardeners in beautiful downtown St. Marks!
  

THURSDAY, 5/30

• The Hub at Feather Oaks: Bingo. 6pm
  
• Dreamland BBQ: Weekly Open Blues Jam. If you'd like to sing, please bring your own mic. 6pm
  
• Honest Living Vape: Chess-Master Thursdays . Beginners and experts, join us every Thursday from 6-9 for Chess-Master Thursdays. All ages. Bring your board or play ours! Tournaments coming soon! 6pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing Co: Open Mic Night! Join us on Thursdays from 6:30-9:30 PM for Open Mic Night hosted by the incredible Mike Ingram of The Brown Goose! This is your chance to show off your skills! Whether you're a musician, poet, comedian, or have a hidden talent, we can't wait to see what you bring to the stage. 6:30pm
  
• Lake Tribe: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Takko Market Square: Bingo Night. 7pm
  
• The Getaway Grille and Bar: Karaoke with Jared Walker. 7pm
  
• Amicus Brewing: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Smitty's Taphouse: Trivia Lab Thursdays. Teams of 6 or fewer players can compete for $30 / $20 / $10 Prizes + The Golden MacGuffin prize table! New format! Interactive smartphone answering for your comfort and safety! 6 Fun Rounds - 42 Total Questions. 7:30pm
  
• Cap City Video Lounge: MST3K Thursday: Night of the Blood Beast & The Brute Man. Join us Thursday as we climb aboard The Satellite of Love along with Joel, Tom Servo and CROOOOW for a gnarly creature double feature of brutal beasts and men out for blood! 7:30pm/free but donations encouraged
  
• Studio D: Bachata Fever. We always have a bachata workshop at 8 pm before Bachata Fever. We dance afterwards to the sounds of DJ Bacharod. The class is at 8 pm and Bachata Fever will start at 930 pm. Many times people are learning in class and may feel uncomfortable social dancing while they are still learning moves. We have a welcoming environment so stay and have fun and dance with everyone. That is how we learn. 8pm/Class $5/Bachata Fever $5.
  
• The Sound Bar: Comedy Night. 8pm
  
• Finnegans Wake: Open Mic. 8:30pm
  
• Brass Tap in Midtown: Karaoke with DJ Rah. 9pm
  
• 926: Karaoke. 9pm
  
• Bird’s: Karaoke with Nathan. 9pm
  

• Blue Tavern: Mes Amis. 5pm
  
• Black Dog Café: French Conversation. A bientôt j’espère. 6pm
  
• The Sound Bar: Feddun's Follies. Feddun's Follies is a variety show featuring comedy, juggling, and music! 8pm/$5
  
• Blue Tavern: Paddy League “Medicine Ball” Album Release Show with Miss Mango. 8pm
  
• The Bark: Hedwig and The Angry Inch Movie Screening. 8pm/free
  
• Fire Bettys: Slasher Bash: The Velocipastor. Drink along with us as local comedians bash this 2018 cult classic! 9pm
  

FRIDAY, 5/31

• Blue Tavern: Happy Hour with Steve Malono. 5pm
  
• Lake Tribe Brewing: Flannel Fridays with Live Music. 6pm
  
• Hobbit West: Friday Night Dart Tournament. Anyone can Enter! Sign ups at 7:30, Darts fly at 8:00/$10 entry fee
  
• Ouzts Too: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 8pm
  
• Just One More: Karaoke with DJ Rah. 9pm-11pm/21+
  
• 926: The Hot Friday Night Party and Drag Show. 9pm/$5/18+
  

• Mission San Luis: The Thatch is Back Celebration. Join us to celebrate completion of the re-thatching of the Apalachee Council House at Mission San Luis with food, crafts, and games for all ages. FREE SNOW CONES by SneauxBalls 11:30-2:30. E's Weenies FOOD TRUCK onsite throughout the event. FREE BEER SAMPLES by Lake Tribe Brewing 3:00-6:00 pm. Thatching presentation. Ballgame demonstrations. Yard games. Braiding and paper crafts. Yaupon tea sampling. 10am-6pm
  
• Blue Tavern: A Bicentennial Celebration of Old-Time Music with Little Mercies, Flathead String Band, and the Bunny Bread Bandits. 5pm
  
• Lake Tribe: Barber Brothers. 6pm
  
• The Getaway Grille and Bar: CJ and the Deadmen. 6pm
  
• Salty Dawg: Brett & "Dangerous" Dave. 6:30pm
  
• The Sound Bar: Pineapple Tuesday. 7pm
  
• The Wine House on Market Street: David Detweiler. 7pm
  
• The Bark: Swamp Rats with Psycho Tropical, Village Idiots, and Petty Problems. 7:30pm
  
• American Legion Hall: The Rhythm Remedy Rockin Soul Dance Revue. 7:30pm/$10
  
• Fire Bettys: Pharaohs Of Funk. 8pm
  
• Corner Pocket: The 850. 8pm
  
• House of Music: Public Address Band. 8pm
  
• Dukes and Dotties: Queen of Hearts. 9:30pm
  

SATURDAY, 6/1

• Brinkley Glen Park: Invasive Plant Removal. Join Master Gardener Volunteers at this weekly invasive plant removal event. This is a great way to learn to ID our invasive plant species and how to remove them. We recommend wearing long pants and sleeves, closed-toed shoes, gloves, a hat and mosquito spray. Bring gardening tools such as hand clippers, loppers, trowels, etc. if you have them. We are removing coral ardisia bushes and berries, nandina, tung trees, Tradescantia flumenensis, cat's claw vine, winged yam, Japanese climbing fern, skunkvine and more. Directions: The best way to get there is to take Meridian Rd to Waverly Rd, go to the next intersection and turn left onto Abbotsford Way, then turn left at the next road called Woodside Dr. At the stop sign turn left onto Lothian. Lothian ends in a cul-de-sac and there is a sign that says Brinkley Glen Park. 8:30am-11:30am
  
• Gamescape: Saturday Gaming. Gamescape has relocated from Railroad Square to the Huntington Oaks Plaza (Suite 302, next to the Library) at N Monroe St and Fred George Rd. Open gaming tables are available. Noon-6pm
  
• Duke’s and Dottie’s: Line Dancing Plus Lessons. 7pm/21+
  
• Bird’s Oyster Shack: Laughterday Night Fever. * Join us every Saturday at Bird's Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack for a free comedy show!* 8:30pm
  
• 926: Latin Night. Dance to the irresistible beats of Zeus and prepare to be dazzled by a spectacular drag show at midnight. It's more than a party, it's an experience. 9:30pm/$10 21+, $15 under 21
  

• Ology Powermill: Greyhounds Pat and Chill. Come out and meet some of our wonderful Greyhounds up for adoption hosted by Gold Coast Greyhound Adoptions (GCGA) and Adoptable Greythounds of Florida (AGOF). Check out our available hounds from the Tampa Bay area! Gold Coast Greyhound Adoptions, Gulf Coast Chapter: https://www.gulfcoastgreyhoundadoption.org/adopt.html and Adoptable Greyhounds of Florida https://agof.org/available-greyhounds/ . Please contact us in advance if you are interested in a specific greyhound that you would like to attend this event! Get pre-qualified to adopt that day if you fall in love by completing an application now through www.gulfcoastgreyhoundadoption.org OR https://agof.org. We're very excited to have our first Meet and Greet at this location! Please reach out if you have any questions about the details of the event. 2pm-5pm
  
• Lake Tribe: Latitude 30. 6pm
  
• The Bark: Sarah Morrison with Jonas Van Den Bossche and Zoya Zafar. 6:30pm
  
• The Wine House on Market Street: Douce Ambiance. 7pm/$10
  
• Blue Tavern: Pat Puckett. 8pm
  
• 1617 Atkamire Dr: Punk’s Not Dead featuring Psycho Tropical, Danitza, Lex & Fly Agaric, and Castover. Funds go to help The Vault and the local music scene. 8pm/$10
  
• 409 Murat St: Death by Punk featuring 40 Bitches and Gangs of Paris. 8pm/$7
  
• Fire Bettys: Drunk Spelling Bee. Grab a drink, have a seat, and get ready to watch participants tackle some of the most "unique" words the English language has to offer! 8pm
  
• The Bark: Queens of The Bark Drag Night featuring Drag Race contestant Kandy Ho! 10:30/$15 cover, make sure to bring cash to tip the performers
  

SUNDAY, 6/2

• Bicycle House: Sunday Ride. Ride at 10:30 AM from Bicycle House. We will ride the Cascades trail to the St Marks trail and down to Wakulla station and return, about 31 miles. Ride speed is 12 to 14 mph, with periodic regroups. Vernon Bailey is the ride leader. Vernon is a new CCC member who’s been biking for 50 years enjoys riding with small groups and weekend touring. 10am
  
• Flippin’ Great Pinball: $25 Sunday Funday. Every Sunday spend a fun-filled time with the family for only $25 plus tax at the arcade! Our normal all-day family admission of $34.99 is just $25 and that includes up to a family of 6 (two adults and four kids). Experience affordable family fun that everyone will enjoy. Noon-8pm Not sure if this is back up yet.
  
• E Peck Greene Park (Behind the LeRoy Collins Library): Food Not Bombs Free Mealshare. We offer free vegetarian/vegan food, water, coffee, personal care & hygiene products, bus passes, and clothing when we have some available to those in need. Contact foodnotbombstally@gmail.com to find out about getting involved. Noon-2pm
  
• LeRoy Collins Library: Tallahassee Go Club Meetings. Come play the captivating ancient game of Go, also known as Baduk, with some friendly games and discussions. Beginners welcome. Visit https://www.tallahasseegoclub.com for more information. 1pm
  
• Gamescape: Pokémon League. Come learn, play, and trade with the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the Pokémon video games! We LOVE seeing new players, so come learn how to play! We play both the Trading Card Game and the Video Game casually and competitively. The store offers lots of different seating arrangements to meet our group's needs, as well as food, drinks, and Pokémon products for purchase. We are also hold regular, officially sanctioned tournaments for Pokémon Trading Card Game and Video Game Competitions! 2-4pm
  
• The Plant: Open Jam. All instruments, all players welcome. 4pm-9pm
  
• Pedro’s: Mariachi Clasico. 6pm
  
• Fermentation Lounge: Open Mic Night Hosted by Conor Churchill. 7pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing: Comedy Night. Come have some laughs with us on Sunday nights! If you are interested in participating in the show, reach out to therealsleepypfloyd@gmail.com 7:30pm
  

• Eve on Adams: Lauren Mullinax. 11am
  
• Dukes and Dotties: This Is My First Rodeo, a Wild West Market Fundraiser for RR Sq Businesses. Market, Screen Printing, Music and more! Music by Lex & Fly Agaric, Sleepybug, and No Parts. 1pm-6pm
  
• Common Ground Books: Community Clothing Swap. Join us for our monthly community clothing swap! Anyone is free to bring and/or take clothing. 2pm
  
• The Hub at Feather Oaks: Allie & Salty. 3pm
  
• Tallahassee Nurseries: Sunday in the Word Garden. In partnership with esteemed Florida artist Katee Tully, Tallahassee Nurseries presents a celebration of poetry and spoken word. We welcome several locally-renowned poets and writers as they share pieces of prose. 3:30pm/free
  
• The Sound Bar: JC and The Backscratchers. 4pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Fundraiser for Railroad Square Tenants and City Dogs Cafe featuring live music from Larry McCraw, Bog Lillies, Buck Banzai, Chris Seepersaud, Pineapple Tuesday, Kelly Goddard, Brass Wizard, and Subpotent. 4pm-11pm
  

MONDAY, 6/3

• Just One More: Bingo. 5pm-6:30pm
  
• The Getaway Grille and Bar: Margarita Monday, Open-Mic Night hosted by The Saltwater Cowboy. 5:30pm-8pm
  
• American Legion Hall: Cha Cha - Weekly Lessons. 6:15pm/$5
  
• Hangar 38: Bingo. 6:45pm
  
• Vino Beano: Tipsy Trivia. 7pm
  

TUESDAY, 6/4

• Blue Tavern: Happy Hour. 5pm
  
• The Getaway Grille: Tuesday Night Bikes and Trikes. 6pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing Company: Tuesday Night Beer-go! 6pm
  
• Crafty Crab: BOOMIN' Karaoke. 7pm
  
• Gamescape: Hobby Night. Slay the grey together! Join your fellow gamers and turn your pile of grey miniatures into a battle ready army. Need some painting tips? Feel free to ask at hobby night. You can bring any miniature for any game to paint. 7pm
  
• Ology Midtown: Jazz Jam Sessions. 7pm
  
• Beef O'Brady's: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Island Wings: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Brass Tap in Midtown: Trivia. 1st Tuesday of the month is General Knowledge with rotating themes the rest of the month. 7pm
  
• American Legion Hall: Tallahassee Swing Band Tuesday Night Dance. 7:30pm
  
• Fire Bettys: Comedy Night. 8pm
  
• Poor Pauls: Trivia. 8pm/21+
  
• Blue Tavern: Bluesday Tuesday with Bill Ricci. Every Tuesday is Blues Day @ the Blue Tavern and Blues Meets Girl is a Tallahassee favorite. This perfect, intimate venue provides just what you need for both a mid-week break and authentic blues music experience. 8pm/$5
  
• 4th Quarter: Professor Jim's Tuesday Night Trivia. Popular for a reason! 8pm
  
• Argonaut Coffee: Trivia Tuesday. 8pm
  
• The Sound Bar: Karaoke. 8pm
  
• Fire Betty’s: Open Mic Comedy Night. 8pm/21+
  
• 926: Tacos and Trivia. 9pm
  

• Blue Tavern: Bubbles Brown. 8pm

WEDNESDAY, 6/5

• Sugar and Spice Tally: Game Night. Join us every Wednesday Night for community game night. Bring your own or use ours! Let me know if you need to reserve space for a large group. Free to attend! 5pm
  
• Goodwood: Wonderful Wednesday. 6pm/$5
  
• Level 8 Rooftop Lounge: Trivia. 6pm
  
• La Florida Coffee & Wine: Trivia Night. 6pm
  
• The Great Games Library: Open Game Night. 6pm/free
  
• American Legion Hall: Sue Boyd Country Western and More Dance Class. Session 2 - Beginner 6:30 to 7:45 pm What: East Coast Swing and Waltz. Cost: $8.00 per person. Wear comfortable shoes you can turn in. 7:45 to 8:15 - Practice dance with paid admission. 8:15 to 9:30: Intermediate - 2 Step and WCS. $8.00 per person or $13.00 for both classes. Vaccines are required. Face masks are optional. Changing partners is optional. 6:30pm
  
• Perry Lynn’s Smokehouse in Quincy: Wed Night Open Mic w/ Steven Ritter and Friends. 6:30pm
  
• Hangar 38: Trivia. 6:45pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing Tallahassee: Trivia. Teams up to 6 players for three rounds with 10 questions and a tie breaker each round. Winners are by round so don’t worry if you need to come late or can’t stay the whole time! Prizes include a round of beer, a 6 pack and a gift card! 7pm
  
• Proof: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Vino Beano: Wine Bingo. 7pm
  
• Fermentation Lounge: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Wednesday Open Mic with Doc Russell. The open mic night that has run continuously for almost 20 years, once housed at the Warehouse, lives on at the Blue Tavern. Doc Russell continues as the host with the most. Sign up starts at 7:45pm/free to attend
  
• Fire Betty’s: Karaoke! 8pm/21+/free
  
• Dukes and Dotties: College Night and Line Dancing Lessons. 8pm
  
• Finnegans Wake: Trivia. 8pm
  
• The Sound Bar: Open Mic Night. 8pm
  
• Cap City Video Lounge: Anime Wednesday. 8pm
  
• South Station: Summer Movie Nights. 8:30pm/free
  
• The Bark: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 9pm
  
• Peppers: Karaoke. 9pm
  
• 926: Dragged Out Wednesday. 10pm
  

• The Sound Bar: Old Porch Swing. 7pm

DISCLAIMER: Ο λόγος που γράφω αρκετά longposts στα Αγγλικά είναι για να μπορούν να διαβάσουν και ξένοι redditors τέτοια ποστς.
Hello there, what a fucking season it has been. From having Carlos Carvalhal as coach and losing to Lamia to beating Maccabi, Fenerbahce, Aston Villa and most notably as of now, Fiorentina in the final to win our first ever European trophy in our history. It feels like a childhood dream is complete and no thanks is enough to everyone involved in this, from Marinakis who removed the effects of last year's mistakes to Mendilibar for turning a complete shell of a team into one that can beat any opponent. So now, after a long time, it is time to rate the 25 players signed this year in reverse order, based on contributions in proportion to expectations. Disclaimer, some picks may be controversial as it will be difficult to rate players in the higher positions. So without further ado, let;s begin.
Not Classified - Jordan Holsgrove
The only player who will not be classified as he never played a match for the team this year and spent the season on loan at Estoril. I think he will be a squad player next year, however, so let's wait and see.
24th - Gustavo Scarpa
1,5 years of hype, followed by gut-wrenching disappointment for the worrst recipient of the number 10 kit since Emre Mor. I don't get why the media were so hyped about a player who never had any impact whatsoever in his half-season here, especially for one who was billed as our saviour after our disastrous 2022-23 campaign. Thank goodness he was a Nottingham loanee, otherwise getitng rid of him would have been much harder.
23rd - Ola Solbakken
A catastrophic summer mistake, we turned down the incredible Kiril Despodov for him, and I assume the reason why is because he was chosen by Mourinho to play for Roma. Sadly, it felt that we were watching a completely random player for us and much like Scarpa, being a loanee meant we got rid of him easily. Currently at the Japanese league, which shows how quickly he regressed ever since leaving Bodo. And a what would have been if we got Despodov instead of him, as we saw how good he is at PAOK.
22nd - Nicolas Freire
An early-season Cordon signing, but unlike the vast majority of them who would flourish under Martinez and Mendilibar, he was a defensive liability for most of the time, with Retsos being forced to cover for him as well. After that, he got injured, disappeared and got his loan terminated. Currently at Inter Miami living the wet dream of every Argentine, being teammates with Messi.
21st - Ivan Brnic
Signed from Maribor as "the next Podence'' (pretty ironic considering the real deal would join on deadline day), but never did much on the pitch even at the one match he started despite early promise, and got relegated to the B team. A concerning thing is that recently he wasn't even in the B-team squad in recent months, which raises question marks about his future here.
20th - Jovane Cabral
Although January was one of our greatest transfer windows in recent history. Cabral failed to do much unlike his fellow teammates and just vanished after several substitute appearances. Nothing else to see here, as a loanee he will leave the club and people have already forgot that he was in the team in the first place, mirroring last year's signing of Zymer Bytyqi.
19th - Giulian Biancone
A full-time signing from Nottingham after a difficult campaign in the Premier League, Biancone took some time to play due to a recurring injury, but even when he played he was not something to write home about. With him suffering another injury as of now, his future is not the best here. Other than that, a pretty forgettable signing.
18th - Ruben Vezo
A January signing to increase rotation in the defense, but as of now I am rating him at this position because we have not seen much from him as of now. On the matches he played, he did show solid ability however, so next year he can rise up further, I believe. Nothing else to say here.
17th - Jackson Porozo
A player I believe we never utilized properly, showed from that night against West Ham where he was excellent all-around. Other than this match, he showed flashes of ability in general but sadly never got the chance to become a full-time starter and had his loan terminated mid-season to go to Kasimpasa in Turkey, where he became a starter quickly. A shame we never got to see more of him.
16th - Fran Navarro
The second player to arrive in january and a much-needed reinforcement in the striker position, at least when he was on his good day, because for most of the time he was invisible and not doing much, especially under Carvalhal. He did score a few notable goals round and there, but never had the consistency to justify his massive buyout clause. Will pretty much exit the team after his loan spell.
15th - Omar Richards
Once a rival for Alphonso Davies in Bayern for the LB position, his injury troubles brought him here to recover from a leg break at Nottingham. It took a while for him to get it going but his ability was clear when he played. Inconsistent due to his lack of activity for 1,5 years but on his day was a really effective full-back. Now sadly his injury troubles haven't really stopped, which is the reason why I put him here, but other than that a great player to have and I hope he stays.
14th - Sotiris Alexandropoulos
A signing that shocked the Greek footballing world due to his past at Panathinaikos, he was integral in early season under Martinez thanks to the goal that pretty much kick-started our European campaign. He showed flashes of ability several times beyond that, and his stamina was an incredible asset to have, but his lack of consistency was there and sooner than later he slipped down the pecking order after the trio took over and Iborra also rose up. Despite this, I liked him and would be content to see him full-time, although it may be unlikely.
13th - Nelson Abbey
Perhaps one of the most shrewd pieces of business we did in recent years, we grabbed one of England's brightest prospects for literal peanuts thanks to Reading's ownership being so incompetent they make Todd Boehly look like a genius. Although he did not play much, on the matches he played he showed incredible potential and was one of the best players on the pitch, even against teams like PAOK. We have a gem in our hands with Abbey and I believe that next year he can become a breakout star with the right management.
12th - Quini
Now this is where it becomes more difficult to rate players as the following 12th had many important contributions during the season. In 12th place I start with Quini, the second player to join under Cordon. In early-season he became something of a cult hero thanks to his versatility and great technical ability, although his lack of pace made him decline for a while, but despite a few mistakes and weak performances round and there, he was quite great especially in late-season. I mean, his assist against Aston Villa when he was filling for Ortega was a sign that he was more than just a squad player. Overall, a pretty decent and cheap signing that helped a lot in many occasions.
11th - Gelson Martins
Marinakis gave us a New Year's gift on the opening day of 2024, and what a gift it was. An incredible player back at Monaco, Gelson Martins gave us immense quality on the flanks and costing just 3 million euros, it was also shrewd financially. Sadly, the reason why he did not make the top 10 is because of the injuries that prevented him from playing more - and being the reason why he did not make our UECL squad - as well as a few moments of inconsistency, but other than that he has been a very good signing and by next year when he will be formally registered in European matches, he can become a catalyst for several key matches
10th - Stevan Jovetic
When he joined Olympiacos, eyebrows were raised due to his injury record when he was at his peak, and early on he wasn't that great, to the point where he seemingly fell off the radar, but under Mendilibar he rose up again and scored plenty of clutch goals, with the most notable ones being against Maccabi Tel Aviv and Fenerbahce, as well as the equalizer against Panathinaikos in the season finale. While inconsistent, his class was always there on his good days and despite only scoring 7 goals in total, the clutch character of them make him an overall great signing and why he is in the top 10 here.
9th - Francisco Ortega
Our most expensive signing of this season and the replacement of Oleg Reabciuk, Ortega joined from Velez Sarsfield for 4.5 million euros as a highly-rated LB with the ambition of making it to Europe. The fact he also made the Argentina shortlist at the international scene is also a massive achievement. Now on the match aspect, he was a solid, albeit sometimes inconsistent, defender with good offensive and defensive capabilities and overall with more development can become something even better next year. I mean, it was his first season in Europe so inconsistency makes sense with this, but overall a great signing with room for improvements.
8th - Vicente Iborra
If someone told me that Iborra would make the top 10 here I would be laughing as he was a much maligned signing early on due to his age and lack of speed, to the point that he was surplus to requirements by the time Diego Martinez was sacked and rumour had it that he would leave in January. But under Mendilibar, his form rose up rapidly and he was an incredible asset on the midfield against Fenerbahce and especially both matches against Aston Villa. I mean, there is a reason why he has four UEL title wins, all of them as a starter for the teams that won it, and he would eventually win his fiftih and likely final european trophy with us. It is a shame that he is 36, if he was younger it would have been a no-brainer to keep him more. In the end, Cordon was right all along to make him our first signing of the entire season.
7th - Panagiotis Retsos
The reason why Retsos is listed here is because last year he was on loan from Verona and formally returned full-time this summer, to the surprise of many as he was horrible last year. As written in a past longpost, the experience with him was a massive rollercoaster as he began the season very strongly, helping us qualify for the UEL group stage and has been a very good defender in general, but at times his weak concetration span was costly at many occasions, with the bad habit of making late-game blunders overshadowing his otherwise solid defensive profile. The match against Fener was important for him to make a proper-restart and ever since he reminded us why he was once an undisputed starter at Leverkusen before his injury troubles. His performance at the final despite a head-on collision with Andrea Belotti is a reminder that he has always been a great player, he just needed to work on his confidence and concetration. Who knows how good he will be next year.
6th - Chiquinho
Now we head to the final six and best signings of the season, so rating them is much more difficult and beginning with the first three of them, they would be rated at any position between 6th and 4th. Beginning first with the "in-between" player of the midfield trio that changed the entire team as a whole, it is Chiquinho, a player that joined for literal peanuts from Benfica and proved himself to be a great player, having traits seen in both of his fellow teammates that will be talked later on, as in stamina and technical abiility, hence the in-between term I used. An incredible player on his day and an extremely important asset to have when you want to have control in the midfield.
5th - Andre Horta
The second part of the midfield trio is the technically gifted one, that being Andre Horta. An absolute computer on the pitch, albeit used as a super-sub in European matches due to using Iborra for his experience, Horta has some of the best passing we have ever seen in years and attacks starting from his footwork was a common sight this year, thus being integral to many matches in this campaign, from changing the tempo of the game in the final against Fiorentina to his incredible brace against AEK in the league. Having a relatively approachable buyout clause of 5 million euros means that the chances of seeing him in 2024-25 are very high. Hopefully Marinakis gets the job done in the summer.
4th - Santiago Hezze
And lastly, the man with three lungs and the most hyped signing of the summer, that being the incredible Santiago Hezze. Honestly, I believe the entire midfield trio is a joint fourth place thanks to their contributions, but I decided to put Hezze above for how integral he was for the entire season. Signed for 4 million euros while fending off competition from Benfica and Anderlecht, while already coming from an active at the summer football league, Hezze became an important piece of the starting eleven under all coaches and never showed signs of fatigue or loss in form even without a formal summer break. No matter the circumstance, he would be one of the best players of the team in every match he played and chances are that at some point he will be sold for an enormous fee if he continues like that.
3rd - David Carmo
One of our most important signings this year following a transfer saga with Porto, Carmo pretty much changed the entire defense as we know it, as before his arrival on loan it was a complete shitshow, leaking goals from virtually everywhere, culminating in the horror defeats against Freiburg and PAOK that resulted in the sacking of Martinez. When Carmo joined, the entirety of our backline just completely changed, becoming a much more norbal and stable one capable of neutralizing any attacker, as seen against both Aston Villa and Fiorentina, and him and Retsos formed pretty much the best defensive duo we have seen in recent years, with Retsos bringing the speed and footwork and Carmo bringing the physicality and headers, and Carmo in particular could shut down even the most powerful attackers in simple yet effective ways. Now sadly, his buyout clause is set at an enormous 18 million euros, which makes his permanent stay a difficult task to achieve, but I hope that we find a way to keep him after beating Fiorentina.. If we do so, we will have a defensive backbone for years to come.
2nd - Daniel Podence
Transfer deadline day arrives and the team brings a surprise returnee, that being none other than Daniel Podence on loan, fresh from his best year at Wolves. While he did not have the best of starts and fell out with Carvalhal, once Mendilibar joined his performences simply went on a completely different level, far beyond anything he did on his first stint with us and showing us once again why he is the fan favourite of the squad. From his silky dribbling to the ability of scoring from borderline improbable ways - see his goal against Panathinaikos - he inspired the entirety of our second half of the season and helped us conquer everyone, from the comeback against Maccabi to trashing Aston Villa. With a solid buyout clause - same price as Horta - there is only one way to go forwards: sign him full-time. We are his favourite club, so we must do it at all costs.
1st - Ayoub El Kaabi
You saw this one coming instantly. While a completely different player from the mighty El Arabi, El Kaabi proved to be his successor, and the best of all, he joined on a free transfer from an obscure Qatari club following the Turkey-Syria earthquake that ended his spell in Hatayspor (and resulted in the tragic death of his teammate, Christian Atsu.) He proved instantly his worth as a deadly target man, but his true explosion in form would come after AFCON where he just started scoring against every one he saw, beginning from his goals against Ferencvaros followed by his stunning bicycle kick against Maccabi. But the best was yet to come as against Aston Villa he scored a combined total of 5 goals in both matches, effectively destroying a team worth 6 times our size. And he ended the season with the winning goal against Fiorentina, one that will be forever immortalized in our history. For a player that fans saw him as a flop when he joined, he became our best signing for obvious reasons and his name shall remain in our history for all eternity.

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I mean, I understand that it was the industrial revolution that ultimately brought about the modern world. So, no wonder it's such a big deal.
But, I feel that the industrial revolution largely had a delayed effect, and that people who lived during the industrial revolution haven't really noticed anything revolutionary. I mean, if you read Jane Austen's novels, or War and Peace, it all paints the picture of the old world, without too many revolutionary changes. People still living as they lived for hundreds of years.
I understand that it was the Industrial Revolution, that made our modern world possible. But I feel that the amount of change that happened in 20th century is kind of underappreciated. I feel the biggest change to ever happen in history happened between around 1880 and 1970. These 90 years changed everything. EVERYTHING.
It started with electrification. Then came bicycles, cars, modern Olympics, airplanes, antibiotics, theory of relativity, communism, extreme population growth, world cups, fascism, Nazism, totalitarianism in general, 2 world wars, nuclear weapons, quantum physics, digital computers, space exploration, the United Nations, pretty much all the international organizations and institutions known today, oral contraceptives, sexual revolution, demographic revolution, decolonization, civil rights movement, movies, radio, television, jazz, rock'n'roll... etc
I feel like the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) just laid the grounds for the actual revolution that happened from around 1880 till 1970, though arguably it's still continuing...
I feel like we need some other term to describe what happened from 1880 to 1970.