harksam yenena alealah
Tracee Hsiang
Hearts, also known as Microsoft Hearts,[1] and The Microsoft Hearts Network prior to Windows XP, is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game with the same name. It was first introduced in Windows 3.1 in 1992, and was included in every version of Windows up to Windows 7. Despite the name, the game rules correspond to those of Black Lady in which the queen of spades is a penalty card, in addition to the cards of the heart suit that are the only penalty cards in the traditional card game of Hearts. An online version, named Internet Hearts was included in Me and XP.
Hearts was first included in Windows with Windows for Workgroups 3.1, Microsoft's first "network-ready"[2] version of Windows, released in 1992,[3][4] which included a new networking technology that Microsoft called NetDDE. Microsoft used Hearts to showcase the new NetDDE technology by enabling multiple players to play simultaneously across a computer network.[5] This legacy could be seen in the original title bar name for the program, "The Microsoft Hearts Network" (although network play was removed in the Windows XP version).
Hearts continued to be included in subsequent versions of Windows, but was absent in all Windows NT-based OSes prior to Windows XP including Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. From the 'Help' menu, Hearts offered a quote from Shakespeare's famous play, Julius Caesar (act III, scene ii): "I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts...". Later versions of Windows starting with Vista removed this quote.
On The Microsoft Hearts Network for Windows for Workgroups 3.1, the default opponent names are Anna, Lynda, and Terri. In later versions, the three default opponent names, Pauline, Michele, and Ben, were specified by the program's developer. One is the spouse of a Microsoft employee who found a program bug, one was a Microsoft employee who resigned in 1995, and one is an employee's child who frequented the Microsoft worksite.[6] The names are not used in the Windows Vista version of the game, instead favoring the three cardinal directions that the computer players pertain to depending on their side of the window ("West", "North", and "East"). This version of the game no longer prompts for a player name to be entered at startup, and instead uses the name of the currently logged-in user account as the player name.
Gameplay follows the rules of a version of the Black Lady variant of Hearts. When the game is first loaded, the user is prompted for their name, and then the game begins. The computer uses all three hands against the player. The game ends when at least one player has 100 or more points at the end of a hand. The winner is the one who has the fewest points.
The user is given thirteen pseudo-random playing cards, and selects any three of them to pass. For the first hand, cards are passed to the left; for the second, to the right; for the third, across; and for the fourth, the passing stage is skipped entirely, and the players keep (or "eat") their cards. On the fifth hand, the cycle starts again, passing to the left. In any case, after passing three cards, the players receive three cards, and play begins.
The aim is to avoid gaining points, which are incurred by winning a trick including point cards, which are any Hearts and the Queen of Spades. Any Hearts taken incur 1 point each, and the Queen of Spades incurs 13 points.
For each hand, the player with the Two of Clubs leads first, and they must play that card. Subsequent leads are by the winner of the last trick. For tricks after the first, any card can be led, except that a Heart cannot be led until Hearts have been "broken". Hearts are broken with the first Heart played in the hand, which can be done in only two situations:
Players must follow the suit led if able to (with any card of their choice in that suit) - otherwise they may play any card, except that a point card cannot be played to the first trick in each hand. Notwithstanding the above rules, in the highly improbable event that a player receives all thirteen Hearts as their hand, or twelve Hearts and the Queen of Spades, then a heart card may be played in the first trick.
The concept of revoking, failing to follow suit when able, does not exist in the computer version of Hearts. In real-life card play there is a penalty for any revoke that is discovered to have taken place; in the computer version the computer does not permit players to revoke and instructs the player to follow suit.
Any players who took point cards incur the appropriate points for those, which are added to their previous score. But any player who succeeds in taking all point cards (worth 26 points) has successfully "shot the moon", and they incur no points, while the other players incur 26 points each.
After each hand, a scoreboard shows the current and previous scores of all four players, with the current leader's (or leaders') score written in blue. Each of the players has in front of them all of the point cards accumulated during the preceding trick, for easy identification of who got how many points (and a quick check to see if a player shot the moon). The game ends when one player reaches 100 or more points, and the winner is the player with the lowest score. A tie is possible if two or more players have the equal lowest score, and if the human player is one of them, the computer credits him or her as the winner.
I say my body knows the way when I slow down enough to listen to it, to really hear it. The flush of heat tells me something; the need to fall to the floor tells me something; the desire for togetherness tells me something; the strong back tells me something.
I say the salt in my tears is like the salt in the ocean, that my body is not so far from the places I turn to for nourishment, that we are made of the very spaces and places we hold such deep reverence for, that perhaps we can hold ourselves the same way, as vast and mysterious and miraculous as the sea itself.
I say there are one thousand ways to practice loving, even in the face of what feels like the opposite of love, the opposite of life... maybe especially there. I say starting with even just one of those ways is usually a good idea.
I say there is such a wide difference between ignoring and intentionally taking space, between bypassing and making room for more, between pretending and consciously creating the room necessary to truly be present with all of it, the hurt and the magic.
I say thank goodness for music and art and good food and laughter and water and blooming yarrow and rest and friendship and privacy garden hangs and imaginary play with toddlers and backroads and local farms and linen and generosity and books and partnership and awe and wonder, even now, especially now.
Human Stuff is a weekly-ish newsletter. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or send to someone you love. Thank you for reading, \u2018heart\u2019ing, sharing, commenting, subscribing, for being here. It means something.
What do you say in a world that is so impossibly heartbreaking and heart-opening at the same time? What do you say when there is a constant hum of grief amid the most astounding beauty, the deepest orange sunset you\u2019ve ever seen, the wordless love of your people? What do you say when you are experiencing your own personal momentum amid collective chaos? What do you say when you face a climate catastrophe alongside the bright dreams of joy and presence for your and every child\u2019s future? What do you say when Othering seems more common than Belonging? What do you say when your \u201Cleaders\u201D cannot lead with heart? What do you say when you remember your own wholeness, and then forget, and then remember, repeat? What do you say when you know all of this will end someday? What do you say when you want to remember the lushness of this world, even as it is intertwined with unimaginable cruelty? What do you say?
I say the belief that any of this is mine to do alone reveals the individualism that seeped into the culture I grew up in. I say I want less me and more we. I say it\u2019s okay that we feels scary sometimes when aloneness has felt so, so safe.
I say it\u2019s so important to be on good terms with yourself, to know your own heart, to trust your integrity, to believe your own knowing, to let yourself live your beliefs out loud, even when it\u2019s scary or wobbly or painful to be in the practice of doing just that.
I say it is so much easier to see the sacredness in another when I refuse to turn away from it in myself \u2014 it is so much easier to see the humanity in another when I choose to honor and cultivate and allow my own full range of aliveness to exist.
I say we each have our unique gifts and contributions, some that may seem larger or more grand and impactful than others but all that matter, all that are needed, all that are worth pursuing in the ways we\u2019re able to.
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