Unix introduced / as the directory separator sometime around 1970. I don't know why exactly this character was chosen; the ancestor system Multics used >, but the designers of Unix had already used > together with < for redirection in the shell (see Why is the root directory denoted by a / sign?).

MS-DOS 2.0 introduced \ as the directory separator in the early 1980s. The reason / was not used is that MS-DOS 1.0 (which did not support directories at all) was already using / to introduce command-line options. It probably took this usage of / from VMS (which had a more complicated syntax for directories). You can read a more detailed explanation of why that choice was made on Larry Osterman's blog. MS-DOS even briefly had an option to change the option character to - and the directory separator to /, but it didn't stick.

/ it is recognized by most programmer-level APIs (in all versions of DOS and Windows). So you can often, but not always get away with using / as a directory separator under Windows. A notable exception is that you can't use / as a separator after the \\? prefix which (even in Windows 7) is the only way to specify a path using Unicode or containing more than 260 characters.

Some user interface elements support / as a directory separator under Windows, but not all. Some programs just pass filenames through to the underlying API, so they support / and \ indifferently. In the command interpreter (in command.com or cmd), you can use / in many cases, but not always; this is partly dependent on the version of Windows (for example, cd /windows works in XP and 7 but did not in Windows 9x). The Explorer path entry box accepts / (at least from XP up; probably because it also accepts URLs). On the other hand, the standard file open dialog rejects slashes. //

The underlying Windows API can accept either the backslash or slash to separate directory and file components of a path, but the Microsoft convention is to use a backslash, and APIs that return paths put backslash in.

MS-DOS and derived systems use backslash \ for path separator and slash / for command parameters. Unix and a number of other systems used slash / for paths and backslash \ for escaping special characters. And to this day this discrepancy causes countless woes to people working on cross-compilers, cross-platform tools, things that have to take network paths or URLs as well as file paths, and other stuff that you'd never imagine to suffer from this.

Why? What are the origins of this difference? Who's to blame and what's their excuse?

Why does Windows use backslashes for paths and Unix forward slashes?
– phuclv Commented Aug 13, 2018 at 16:55

While your question is perfectly reasonable, your phrasing seems to imply that you think the UNIX approach was already a de facto standard and MS-DOS was unique in deviating from it. See, as a counter-example, how the Macintosh OS used : as its path separator until MacOS X introduced POSIX APIs. This question goes into the history of that decision and answers point to : and . as path separators predating UNIX's use of /.
– ssokolow Commented Aug 1, 2022 at 20:10

@ssokolow UNIX was there with its forward slashes long before MacOS and DOS were created.
– SF. CommentedAug 2, 2022 at 8:13

@SF. And, as the answer phuclv linked says, DOS got it from CP/M, which got it from VMS. I don't know why VMS chose \ when UNIX chose / seven years before VMS's first release (going by Wikipedia dates), but it wasn't a settled thing. Other designs were using : and . in the mid-60s, half a decade before UNIX decided on /, and UNIX broke from Multics's > because they wanted to use it for shell piping.
– ssokolow Commented Aug 3, 2022 at 5:31

Use of UNIX back then wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Almost all of industry and many schools used manufacturer-written and -supplied operating systems, especially from DEC. And within the more well-known CS schools (not that it was called "CS" then) there was also a lot of use of homegrown OSes. So the influence of UNIX wasn't as pronounced as it is today, as well - that took many years to develop.
– davidbak Commented Aug 3, 2022 at 16:51

A:

PC/MS-DOS 1 used the slash (/) as the command line switch indicator (like DEC's RSX11 and DG's RTOS before), so when DOS 2.0 introduced subdirectories, they did need a new one. Backslash () came somewhat natural - at least on US keyboards.

With 2.0 IBM/Microsoft also tried to reverse that decision and introduce a syscall (INT 21h function 3700h and 3701h) and a CONFIG.SYS option (SWITCHAR=) to set a different switch indicator. All manufacturer supplied commands would obey that new char. Set to a hyphen (-) would make the syntax more like Unix.

In fact, in paths, the OS didn't care. All dedicated path names, like in syscalls, can be written with either slash. It's only within the command line scan of each command, that simple slashes get interpreted as switch indicators. The idea was that people could/should migrate to a Unix-like style, but that didn't catch on.

With DOS 3.0 the SWITCHAR= option got removed fom CONFIG.SYS, but the syscalls are still availabe up to today. //

A:

The README.txt file in the MS-DOS 2.0 source code, which was apparently intended to guide OEMs on how to build custom DOS builds for their hardware, indicates that the decision to use backslash was requested by IBM: Microsoft had been originally intending to use forward slash, and the change happened late in the development process. This is probably why the kernel ended up supporting the use of either character -- it was, presumably, too late to change over fully.

The user manual contains some significant errors. Most of these are due to last minute changes to achieve a greater degree of compatibility with IBM's implementation of MS-DOS (PC DOS). This includes the use of "\" instead of "/" as the path separator, and "/" instead of "-" as the switch character.

This is true, but very widely misinterpreted – the forward slash as an option character did not come from IBM, IBM's own operating systems (mainframe and minicomputer) never used that syntax. What IBM objected to, was Microsoft's proposal in DOS 2.0 to change it from slash to dash – IBM cared about backward compatibility. But IBM wouldn't have had a problem if Microsoft had made it dash all along, starting with DOS 1.0; IBM didn't care what the syntax was in the initial version, but they didn't want it changed in a subsequent.
– Simon Kissane Commented May 26, 2023 at 1:47

Regarded by many as the most comprehensive anthology of all time, ‘The Harvard Classics’ was first published in 1909 under the supervision of the Harvard president Charles W. Eliot. An esteemed academic, Eliot had argued that the elements of a liberal education could be gained by spending 15 minutes a day reading from a collection of books that could fit on a five-foot shelf. The publisher P. F. Collier challenged Eliot to make good on this statement and ‘Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf’ was the result. Eight years later Eliot added a further 20 volumes as a sub-collection titled ‘The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction’, offering some of the greatest novels and short stories of world literature. The exhaustive anthology of the ‘The Harvard Classics’ comprises every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject up to the twentieth century. This comprehensive eBook presents the complete anthology, with Eliot’s original introductions, numerous illustrations, rare texts and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1).

https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/the-harvard-classics-parts-edition-2/

NatGeo documentary follows a cutting-edge undersea scanning project to make a high-resolution 3D digital twin of the ship. //

In 2023, we reported on the unveiling of the first full-size 3D digital scan of the remains of the RMS Titanic—a "digital twin" that captured the wreckage in unprecedented detail. Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, and Atlantic Productions conducted the scans over a six-week expedition. That project is the subject of the new National Geographic documentary Titanic: The Digital Resurrection, detailing several fascinating initial findings from experts' ongoing analysis of that full-size scan. //

The joint mission by Magellan and Atlantic Productions deployed two submersibles nicknamed Romeo and Juliet to map every millimeter of the wreck, including the debris field spanning some three miles. The result was a whopping 16 terabytes of data, along with over 715,000 still images and 4K video footage. That raw data was then processed to create the 3D digital twin. The resolution is so good, one can make out part of the serial number on one of the propellers.

"I've seen the wreck in person from a submersible, and I've also studied the products of multiple expeditions—everything from the original black-and-white imagery from the 1985 expedition to the most modern, high-def 3D imagery," deep ocean explorer Parks Stephenson told Ars. "This still managed to blow me away with its immense scale and detail."

In Winston Churchill: The Roaming Lion, a six-hour course, Dr. Larry Arnn examines Winston Churchill's life, philosophy, and political legacy through a comprehensive analysis of his military experiences, leadership principles, and views on governance. The lectures explore Churchill's evolution from a soldier-writer to a statesman, highlighting his perspectives on warfare, democracy, and individual liberty, while examining how Britain's geography and history shaped his strategic thinking. The course delves into Churchill's complex political philosophy, including his approach to just war, constitutional government, and the balance between social welfare and individual freedom.

Elon Musk to pay record-breaking $12 billion tax bill
CNBC’s Robert Frank reports on Elon Musk’s tax bill which is the largest in history. Musk will pay a total of $12 billion for 2021. Frank joins ‘Squawk on the Street’ to discuss the details.
Wed, Dec 15 202110:51 AM EST

FischerKing
@FischerKing64
Remember that free trade with China, allowing it into the World Trade Organization, was in pursuit of a foreign policy agenda. The thinking was China would move toward democracy, become a stakeholder in the international order.

That didn’t happen. It was a failed experiment. So all those jobs lost with the goal of liberalizing China were for nought. So if we’re still dealing with an authoritarian regime engaged in a mercantilist policy, complete with currency manipulation - it’s time for the USA to try something else.
2:52 PM · Apr 7, 2025
·

James Lindsay, anti-Communist
@ConceptualJames
VIDEO: Historian Frank Dikötter reveals the secret of how the CCP took advantage of Bill Clinton to get into the WTO and force the West to destroy our manufacturing capabilities and hand it over to the CCP and its People's Republic. Absolutely mind-blowing video.

2:29 PM · Apr 5, 2025
·

Jeremy Keeshin
@jkeesh
In 1945, six women pulled off a computing miracle.

They programmed the world’s first computer—with no manuals, no training.

Then, a SINGLE assumption erased them from tech history for decades.

The story of how ONE photo nearly deleted computing’s female founders: 🧵

Kathy Kleiman, a young programmer, found old photos of women standing beside ENIAC—the first general-purpose computer.

When she asked who they were, curators said: “Probably just models”...

But Kleiman had a feeling they were something more:

Program ENIAC—a machine the world had never seen.

It was 8 feet tall, 80 feet long, and weighed over 60,000 pounds.

The engineers built the hardware...

But someone had to figure out how to make it do anything:

They were the world’s first programmers.

First, they were hired as “human computers” to calculate missile trajectories during WWII.

Then chosen for a top-secret project unlike anything before:

Security restrictions kept them out of the ENIAC lab.

They had to write programs using only blueprints and logic diagrams.

No manuals. No programming languages...

So how do you code something no one’s ever coded before?

By inventing the process from scratch.

They built algorithms, flowcharts, and step-by-step routines—on paper.

Then, once granted access, they programmed ENIAC by physically rewiring it...

And that’s where things got even harder:

There was no keyboard.

Programming meant plugging thousands of cables into the right configuration—by hand.

It was almost impossible to program.

But they pulled it off anyway:

History Nerd @_HistoryNerd
The Titanic didn’t sink the way you think.

J.P. Morgan had a first-class ticket on the Titanic.

But he canceled at the last minute.

His biggest financial rivals stayed onboard—and never made it back.

Here’s the truth about the ‘unsinkable’ ship:

History Nerd
@_HistoryNerd
·
Apr 7
J.P. Morgan was the power behind the White Star Line.

At the time, he was consolidating control over the U.S. financial system through the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Three of the biggest opponents to the Federal Reserve were aboard the Titanic:

1. Benjamin Guggenheim (mining magnate)
2. Isidor Straus (co-owner of Macy’s)
3. John Jacob Astor IV (one of the richest men in the world)

All three opposed Morgan’s plans for the Federal Reserve.

None of them survived.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan had a first-class ticket on the Titanic—but canceled his trip at the last minute.

In 1985, researchers discovered the Titanic wreck.

But when they examined the hull, they found something shocking:

The metal plating was bent outward. //

3. Three of his biggest rivals died aboard

4. There are serious discrepancies in the Titanic’s construction, sinking, and insurance.

Coincidence? Maybe.

Or maybe one of the greatest financial schemes in history.

No one can prove the Titanic was deliberately sunk.

But here’s what we do know:

1. J.P. Morgan controlled White Star Line

2. He canceled his trip at the last minute

3. Three of his biggest rivals died aboard

4. There are serious discrepancies in the Titanic’s construction, sinking, and insurance.

Coincidence? Maybe.

Or maybe one of the greatest financial schemes in history.

Ninety-nine years ago, H.L. Mencken - the "Sage of Baltimore" - released his book, "Notes on Democracy," which I really need to go read again. Mencken was no fan of big government, even by the standards of the 1920s; in fact, you could argue that he was no fan of government at all. What's interesting about his work is his prescience.

Granted, society and politics run in cycles. The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory is one attempt at defining these cycles. So is the old saw that goes, "Tough times make tough people; tough people make good times; good times make weak people; weak people make tough times." //

Mencken. He wasn't an optimist. But when you read his work, you wonder if he didn't have some kind of premonition as to what's going on in the United States today. Back then, in the Roaring Twenties, Mencken made this observation:

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all.

Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently – one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings.

In other words, the only legitimate role of government is to protect the citizens' liberty and property. //

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself … Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.

All government … is against liberty.

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. //

Sarcastic Frog
2 hours ago
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself …"

This was true in ancient times; it was true in 1926; and its true today.

Unlike almost every other country, the US was founded on rebellion- people thinking for themselves and resisting the pressure to obey the government for the sole reason of "because we tell you to."

There are those who hate this quality and actively push against it with their NewSpeak and pronouns and "canceling".

I hope we will always have the rebels, who think for themselves and resist the conformity.

anon-t75 Sarcastic Frog
2 hours ago
"A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson. //

anon-t75
2 hours ago
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." ~ Thomas Jefferson. //

idalily
2 hours ago
My favorite Mencken quote: "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." Not sure quite why I love it. I just do.

On this day in 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded a company called Micro-Soft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It has been about a year since we reported on the major revelation that many thousand original North American Aviation manufacturing drawings survived destruction during the 1980s because one of their employees, Ken Jungeberg, saved them from incineration. Furthermore, as we also discussed last year, AirCorps Aviation worked out a deal with Jungeberg in 2019 to secure these historic artifacts for their longterm preservation. Ever since their arrival at AirCorps last winter, Ester Aube, the company’s manager for their technical documentation division, AirCorps Library, has been working diligently to preserve and catalogue this massive archive. With so many drawings to review, this would be a daunting task for anyone to undertake successfully, but Ester has applied her keen intellect, professional training and substantial skillset to systematically document and collate these drawings into a practical and valuable resource for aircraft restorers, historians, and the aviation-minded public at large. Additionally, Aube has delved deeper into the process, tracing personal details for several NAA technicians who originally drafted these drawings, because their stories are no less important to the narrative than the documents themselves; this aspect of aviation history has received little prior attention from the wider world …until now.

AirCorps Aviation of Bemidji, Minnesota has just announced that they have acquired a massive trove of original manufacturing drawings for North American Aviation (NAA) covering types such as the P-51, T-6, B-25 and P-82. This is a remarkable development, and all due to a lone engineer at NAA named Ken Jungeberg who had the foresight to save these drawings when they were days away from destruction at North American’s plant in Columbus, Ohio during the late 1980s. But before we discuss this find, it is perhaps first worth reflecting upon what it represents…

Just a few of the thousands of WWII-era North American Aviation aircraft manufacturing drawings which Ken Jungeberg saved. (image via AirCorps Aviation)

The American aircraft industry produced just under 300,000 aircraft between 1940 and 1945, a staggering feat by any measure, especially considering that just 3,600 rolled off U.S. assembly lines during the entirety of 1940. While aviation companies such as Boeing, Douglas, Curtiss and their like would design the aircraft, and put them together at their factories, it was simply impossible for them to both make all of the components and subassemblies on site and keep up with production demand. They had to subcontract out the bulk of this work once a design received an order for full-scale production. Indeed, much of America’s entire manufacturing base was involved in this effort – from small ma and pa furniture shops to industrial giants like Ford and Chrysler – whether they were making map cases or wing panels. Some companies, such as Ford, even had their own aircraft assembly lines, like the one in Willow Run, Michigan which built B-24 Liberators.

But have you ever wondered how it was possible to have such a prolific output of high quality aerial machinery when each aircraft assembly line received component parts from so many different independent subcontractors? How was it possible for all of those many thousands of parts to fit together properly in such a repeatable fashion?

The answer is pretty simple; it all came down to the quality of the manufacturing drawings which the aircraft company engineers created during their design process. If you had a coherent set of accurate drawings showing how to make each part, and how to put each assembly together, then you could rely upon skilled workers at disparate factory locations to produce components whose dimensions complied with design tolerances. Of course, there were times when problems arose, but when they did, the engineers usually found solutions. But a coherent set of manufacturing drawings was key to this effort.

However, every single component, from the tiniest rivet to the entire aircraft, required drawings to properly describe them. Obviously, the more complex parts and sub-assemblies required multiple drawings, sometimes hundreds. Highly skilled draftsmen and women created all of these drawings by hand by – usually using pencil on vellum drafting paper. Drawings could sometimes be massive too, extending ten feet or more. The finished product was designed to be practical, fully describing the part and how it fit into an assembly. Drawings were often exquisitely beautiful too – more works of art than simply functional. //

But then along came AirCorps Aviation with their AirCorps Library project. For a small annual subscription of just $50, you have access to serious engineering details, including manuals, for several dozen American WWII-era aircraft designs. They have also digitized the engineering drawings for a number of these aircraft too, such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair and B-17 Flying Fortress. While they haven’t digitized everything available yet for each aircraft design – it’s a massive process – it is a fascinating resource for anyone with even a passing interest in WWII aviation. //

This is why the news about the preservation of more than 15,000 original drawings produced by North American Aviation that relate to such iconic designs as the T-6 Texan, P-51 Mustang and B-25 Mitchell is such a revelation. AirCorps Aviation has gained access to these drawings, and is presently cataloguing and copying them for their subscription library. However, the fact that these drawing still exist at all is down to the dedicated efforts of just one man, Ken Jungeberg. His name will resonate in aviation lore for generations to come due to his foresight in saving such historically important documents. For further details on this remarkable news, we will let AirCorps Aviation’s Ester Aube continue the story…

Thousands of original North American Aviation technical drawings undergo preservation and cataloguing, highlighted in museum exhibit. //

In April of 2023, Ester Aube finalized and installed an exhibit at the EAA museum using the drawings and telling the story of the draftsmen from North American and highlighting their contribution to the war efforts. When the collection was initially received from Ken Jungeberg, they had promised to do something to help get the story of the draftsmen out to the general public and get some of the drawings in public view so that people could enjoy and learn. The exhibit will be in the museum until September of 2025. “I chose some, cherry-picked some really amazing drawings to highlight in that exhibit,” says Aube. //

With so many drawings and aircraft to sort through, Aube started the project working on a specific aircraft, the P-51, because both AirCorps Aviation and the many aircraft in the warbird community would get a lot of benefit from such extensive original engineering drawings. At this point she estimates she has catalogued a little over 15,000 drawings just for the Mustang, and has also ventured into the smaller size drawings for the early B-25 models, which will be her next branch to catalogue. “The cataloging process is very labor intensive,” she says. “So I’m cataloging part number and the description, which under normal circumstances isn’t as important. But because this collection contains so many experimental and pre-production drawings, you have to catalog the description because that part number isn’t listed anywhere in a parts catalog or it’s not referenced.” North American did have a part numbering system, but all the pieces of data are needed or else the searchability is difficult. So part number, description, the date it was drawn, name of the draftsman, the material the drawing was done on, and the factory it was made in all are recorded during the cataloguing process. There are drawings from factories in Inglewood, Kansas City, Dallas, and even some from the Canadian Car Foundry in Ontario, Canada’s largest aircraft manufacturer during World War II.

Ken Jungeberg’s efforts saved a vast collection of North American Aviation’s WWII engineering drawings from being lost. In this interview, Ester Aube of AirCorps Aviation shares his story and her role in their preservation. //

During World War II, long before the advent of computer-aided design, thousands of skilled draftsmen meticulously created tens of thousands of engineering drawings for every aspect of each aircraft model produced. These drawings were not only precise and detailed—ensuring different factories could manufacture components to exact specifications—but also works of art in their own right. Without the dedication of preservationists and archivists, many of these irreplaceable documents might have been lost forever. Thanks to the vision of a select few, however, these drawings are being safeguarded—not just as historical artifacts but as invaluable resources for the warbird restoration community. In 1988, Ken Jungeberg, head of the Master Dimensions Department at North American-Rockwell’s Columbus plant, was granted permission to save a large collection of non-current engineering drawings from the company archive. //

In this video interview, Ester Aube, Manager at AirCorps Aviation, shares Ken’s story and her role in preserving these invaluable engineering drawings.
https://youtu.be/eK--vNanN_U

Delta Air Lines is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a grand renovation of the Delta Flight Museum, reopening on April 7. Located at the airline’s Atlanta headquarters, the museum showcases a century of aviation history with expanded exhibits, interactive experiences, and rare aircraft like the Douglas DC-3 and Spirit of Delta Boeing 767.

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers and as applied in contemporary law. Its particular aim is to provide lawmakers with a means to defend their role and to fulfill their responsibilities in our constitutional order.

What role did religion play in Johnson’s life? Boswell tried to present him as a High Anglican Tory and Christians today of a conservative inclination today see Johnson as an antidote to what they consider to be the optimistic rationalism of some enlightenment thinking. //

Nicholas Hudson, in his book Samuel Johnson and Eighteenth Century Thought, sums this up:

Few writers were so knowledgeable or sociable to combine many sides of contemporary thought into an understanding of life distinctive for its humanity and good sense. His learning and complexity make his writings especially useful as the starting point for a broader investigation of eighteenth century thought. [18]

then write up the marketing letter, format it and let it all rip on a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer. Many, was that thing loud. Made the whole office grimace when I kicked it off. //

Re: Loud printers
You've obviously never used an ICL 1900 lineprinter: these could print at 160 characters per line at up to 1300 lines per minute. The mechanism was based round a hollow drum the full width of the paper with 160 rings of characters, each containing the complete character set. These were organised so that each embossed row had the same character in every position. The embossed drum was installed behind a row of 160 hammers and a inky ribbon the full width of the paper: both paper and ribbon scrolled vertically, though not at the same speed. The print hammers were driven off a very latge capacitor in the printer's body.

The printer was loud enough when printing invoices, etc, but George 3's print driver could easily outdo it. It separated documents by outputting, IIRC, a page throw, a job title, 10 full width lines of 160 asterisks and another page throw: when this happened the printer almost jumped off the floor and made a noise similar to a short burst from a machine gun.

These ICL printers were much louder than any IBM lineprinter I've ever heard running. That's because IBM used train printers: the character set formed a rotating chain running across the paper path and were designed so that only one character could hit the paper at a time. //

Re: Loud printers
Impact printers were getting fairly close to their practical limits in terms of printing speed. There was a flurry of development in the early 1970s to come up with better solutions. Xerox produced something that was kind of a hybrid between a drum printer and a photocopier - a set of flash lamps illuminated the correct characters on a drum transferring their images optically to the selenium copier drum. That got printing up to around 4000 lines a minute. Honeywell introduced an electrostatic system using a dielectric paper that raised speeds to 18,000 lines per minute.

However, it was IBM that developed the first laser printer - the IBM 3800. Its initial version managed only a shade under 14,000 lines per minute, but a later version raised the speed to over 20,000 lines per minute - around 2.8 km/h. With paper running that fast , a laser and a hot fuser unit, suddenly noise was not the only hazard. There's a fascinating training video for operators that shows the massive scale of the beast.