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Why the connection with the US is no longer as important as it was Press/Media: Expert Comment Article (Belfast Telegraph Business Telegraph Economy Watch) assessing how important US is to NI economy in terms of: inward investment, the film and TV sector, trade and tourism Period2 Jul 2019 Media contributions Media contributions	[]
News Release Hannover Messe: Artificial muscles help robot vacuum manipulators get a grip Reports and Proceedings Saarland University Artificial muscles help robot vacuum manipulators get a grip image: The robot gripper designed by Stefan Seelecke and his team can grip objects with complex geometries and can adapt to changes in form, switching seamlessly between differently shaped parts. Paul Motzki (l.) and Lukas Zimmer (r.) helped develop the system. view more Credit: Credit: Oliver Dietze The robot grippers designed by Professor Stefan Seelecke and his team at Saarland University can grip and manipulate objects with complex geometries. The system can adapt almost instantaneously to changes in form, switching seamlessly between differently shaped parts. The articulated gripper is driven electrically, is lightweight and accelerates rapidly and is even able to tell whether it is holding the object securely enough. The ultrafine nickel-titanium wires that control the motion of the four fingers of the prototype can rapidly generate and release a powerful vacuum via suction cups located on the fingertips of the artificial hand. The engineers will be showcasing the potential of their technology at Hannover Messe (30 May – 2 June, Hall 2, Stand B28). In today’s automotive assembly lines, industrial robots manipulating and positioning heavy car body parts are an integral part of the vehicle assembly process. But the gripper systems that these robotic arms are equipped with are often not particularly adaptable. Problems can often arise when the robotic gripper has to switch to handling an object of a different shape, such as trying to take hold of a door panel of a saloon car after just having manipulated the door of an estate model. Flexibility is not a core feature in these conventional systems. If the new door has an opening just where the gripper wants to hold onto the panel, another robot will need to take over or things get complicated as the original robot will need to be retooled and reprogrammed. ‘At the present time, robot end effectors – the technical term for the grippers – can only monotonously grasp the same object over and over again, particularly when the assembly process involves handling flat or slightly cambered parts, such as metal or glass sheets,’ explains Professor Stefan Seelecke. Thanks to a novel development by his research team at the Intelligent Material Systems Lab at Saarland University and at the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology in Saarbrücken (ZeMA), these robots may be able to perform significantly more varied operations in future. The technology that the researchers have developed has the potential to improve the adaptability of end effectors, so that they can either be rapidly reprogrammed to accommodate a new workpiece without needing to interrupt the assembly operation, or that they are able to perform these readjustments themselves using machine learning algorithms. ‘This kind of adaptable gripper and manipulator system can help to make production and assembly operations much more flexible, especially when you consider the fact that our system does not require any heavy machinery or any electric or pneumatic drives. All it needs is an electric power source,’ says Stefan Seelecke. Seelecke's team will be at this year´s Hannover Messe, where they will be demonstrating a prototype that represents a significant step towards realizing this manufacturing goal. The prototype system is itself the result of numerous research projects and doctoral theses. The overall system features a number of ingenious novel developments in the field of robotics, including an articulated end effector that uses artificial muscles to enable the four fingers to move in any direction. Just like a human hand, the robotic manipulator can adapt itself to accommodate differently shaped objects and can therefore avoid, for example, the holes in the door panel of a different model of car. ‘Our system is therefore not limited to parts with the same geometry,’ says Paul Motzki, a graduate engineer who helped develop the system during his doctoral research work. Another feature of the Saarbrücken prototype – and one where it goes one better than the human hand – is that it has vacuum pads at its fingertips, which means that anything the gripper gets its fingers on is going to be held extremely securely. The artificial muscle fibres that control the motion of the arms, fingers and suction cups are composed of bundles of shape-memory wires. ‘If we allow an electric current to flow through these nickel-titanium wires, the alloy gets warmer and its lattice structure transforms in such a way that the wire shortens in length. When no current flows through the wire, it cools down and lengthens again. The bundles of ultrathin wires provide a large surface area through which heat can be transferred very efficiently, so the process of cooling and lengthening is very rapid,’ explains Paul Motzki. The artificial muscles can therefore tense and flex quickly just like human muscle fibres, which means that the four muscle-powered fingers on the robotic gripper can move and respond to changes very rapidly. ‘Despite their small size, these wires can generate a substantial tensile force. In fact, these shape-memory wires have the highest energy density of all known drive mechanisms,’ says the researcher. A short electric pulse is all that it takes to generate and then release a powerful vacuum. The robot arm is therefore able to pick up objects and move them around freely in all directions. The system doesn’t need compressed air to generate the vacuum, it is quiet and is suitable for use in clean rooms. No additional electric power needs to be supplied while the gripper is holding an object, even if the object has to be gripped for a long time or if it has to be held at an angle. To construct the vacuum gripper mechanism, the researchers arrange bundles of these ultrathin wires in the manner of a circular muscle around a thin metal disc that can flip up or down, like a frog clicker toy. The metal disc is attached to a rubber membrane and when an electrical pulse is applied to the wires, they contract and the disc flips position, pulling on the membrane, which, if the gripper is in contact with a flat smooth surface, creates a strong vacuum. The gripper reacts very rapidly and very precisely. ‘In normal robotic arms, the mass of the arm limits the amount of acceleration that can be achieved. Our technology means that we can create lightweight systems with excellent manoeuvrability,’ explains Paul Motzki. The system is controlled by a semiconductor chip. No other sensors are needed, ‘The shape-memory wires effectively act as fully integrated sensors providing us with all the necessary data. The control unit is able to precisely correlate the electrical resistance data with the extent of deformation of the wires. At any one time, the system knows the exact position of each of the bundles of shape-memory wires,’ explains Motzki. The engineers can therefore program the system to perform highly precise movements and, unlike the systems typically in use today, the prototype system can be reprogrammed even while the assembly arm is operational. Because the nickel-titanium wires have sensory properties, the arm is able to tell if the object is not being held securely. If it senses that the vacuum is not strong enough, it responds and the fingers tighten their grip. It can also issue warnings in the event of a malfunction or material fatigue. ‘And the in-built sensor functionality means that our system has integrated condition monitoring,’ says Paul Motzki, who together with Prof. Seelecke has now founded the company mateligent GmbH with the goal of bringing this and other intelligent material systems into industrial operation. Intelligent Material Systems Lab: mateligent GmbH:	[]
The subroutine SetFieldApp receives a field name and its properties as parameters, and assigns the properties to the field. The subroutine assigns the following field properties: field visibility, whether the field is required, the number of the page (tab) on which the field should be displayed, and the view order (from left to right and from top to bottom). Add a call to the subroutine SetFieldApp in the user-defined function FieldCust_AddDefect. For details on this function, see FieldCust_AddDefect. Sub SetFieldApp(FieldName, Vis, Req, PNo, VOrder) On Error Resume Next With Bug_Fields(FieldName) .IsVisible = Vis .IsRequired = Req .PageNo = PNo .ViewOrder = VOrder End With PrintError "SetFieldApp" On Error GoTo 0 End Sub	[]
Monthly Archives: September 2021 Just Imagine Imagine ascending to the peak of the highest mountain after a treacherous climb filled with setbacks, danger and unforeseen obstacles. Imagine your elation at finally stepping foot on the summit, surveying the path you took and reflecting on the grit, … Continue reading	[]
The Body Myth Rheea Mukherjee February 25, 2019 The following is from Rheea Mukherjee's debut novel The Body Myth. Mira, a teacher living in Suryam, is quickly drawn into the lives of Sara, a mysterious woman who suffers myriad unexplained illnesses, and her kind, intensely supportive husband Rahil, striking up intimate, volatile and fragile friendships with each of them that quickly become something more. Rheea Mukherjee co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and currently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore. The woman was sitting on a park bench in West Point Gardens, where I came every Sunday for a five-kilometer walk. She couldn’t see me, but I had stopped midstride to stare at her. I looked at her for three reasons: 1. her face was twisted in contemplation; 2. she was wearing a beige kurta with a transparent golden dupatta; and 3. she was fucking gorgeous. I am a woman who takes great pleasure in noticing other women, in raw appreciation for our sex, but also as a comparative study. I could not, however, take the time to assess her beauty. She was onto something strange. Her head darted behind and to the side; I was sure she was checking to see if anyone was looking at her. She was in the center of a vast bamboo garden. No one else was around. I was in the corner, out of her view. She looked back to the center, her facial muscles tweaked with confidence. She took a few deep breaths and started to tremble. I saw a man—white shirt, beige pants, thick hair—walking toward her. Suddenly, she began shaking violently, falling off the bench, saliva pouring out from her mouth. As she fell, the man broke into a trot and I found myself jogging toward her too. “Don’t put anything into her mouth, let her be,” he said firmly before I even reached them. I froze, holding my hands up in the air. He kneeled beside her and soothed her with his voice. “It’s going to be over soon, Sara. You’ve got this. It’s going to be over soon.” She seemed to stabilize:, her body stilled, her face relaxed. He scooped her up, pushed her hand back, took her dupatta dupatta and wiped her mouth. Then he looked at me. “Thank you for your concern, she has seizures sometimes.” A man had never appeared so authentic to me. It made my heart flare up with an unseasoned emotion, a longing to hold his hand. Perhaps his authenticity was all the more palpable because of the inauthenticity of her seizure. None of it, I was beginning to realize, seemed real. “Hey, I’m okay,” the woman croaked. She stroked the man’s face and looked toward me. “This is so embarrassing.” She sat up almost athletically and recrossed her legs on the bench. “I am Sara, and you are?” “Mira. Do you need to go to a hospital?” “No, she just needs to get back to her medication,” the man said with a hint of irritation, a dash of affection. “I hate taking it every day. If you saw my med routine you’d think I was eighty-four, not twenty-nine.” His name was Rahil and Sara was his wife. They’d been married seven years and had met in college. They didn’t seem shy, but I felt that there were only a certain number of questions they would answer, so I stopped. For a second or two there was silence. We heard a bird coo; we heard the feet of other walkers shuffle behind us. Rahil sat down by me on the mud, craning our heads to look up to Sara. Rahil reached toward me and dusted speckles of mud from my sneakers. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched me with absentminded affection. Sara looked down at my sneakers. “I love the blue laces.” “Cool,” Rahil confirmed, as he pulled one of my laces out and then proceeded to tie it back. I wanted to giggle. A grown man and woman amused with my sneakers in the middle of a park. A couple willing to Sunday socialize minutes after a medical emergency. I looked at Sara, trying to discern what had happened. Was she really okay? Why didn’t she want to go to a hospital? And had she in fact started her seizure only after she’d made sure Rahil had appeared in the park? Sara put her hand on Rahil’s head, ruffled his thick black hair, and asked him for some water. He pulled out an orange bottle from his backpack and handed it over. From her purse she pulled out a card of pills trapped in plastic bubbles. She popped a couple out of the foil, flipped them in her mouth, took a swig of water, and then immediately turned to me. “So what do you do?” It was one of those questions I couldn’t begin to answer. It was also one that had a very simple answer. “I teach English, at Seven Seeds.” “International School?” Sara asked. Her mouth moved like she was tasting the ghost of the pills she’d just taken. “Yeah . . .” I said. My voice trailed as I saw Rahil looking at me, deeply, endearingly. Sara’s eyes were right back on me. She seemed so present in the moment, and it made me uncomfortable. “We live close by. Come? We rarely have people over.” Her voice was syrupy sweet, like an adolescent talking to her bestie in high school. “But don’t you need to go to your doctor? You just lost consciousness.” My question quivered but retained authority. Testing her. Testing myself. Her face didn’t flinch. “Oh, but it happens all the time. I know what to do; I just need a change in medication. I will see my doctor tomorrow.” Their house happened to be only a kilometer away from the park. A small independent house on a lane that was dotted with houses as small as theirs and as large as small apartment buildings. In front of the house was a white metal table with matching chairs and pale blue pillows on the seats. Large potted plants surrounded the table, an oasis by the door. I imagined Sara and Rahil sitting there in the evenings, her lean legs propped on his thighs, her hair in a high bun, and cups of chai that sat with them as they talked the evening away. The living room was soothing pale blues and pinks. There were wooden side tables and a warm beige sofa that could seat five people comfortably. I plopped myself down and then awkwardly stood right back up, embarrassed that I’d sat without an invitation. Sara scrunched her face in amusement. “Make yourself at home, really, please, I am not saying that for the sake of it.” Rahil sat on a thickly cushioned chair opposite me. His khakis were spotless except for one splotch of mud on his left knee. His hair was notably thick and purposefully not cut. Sara sat right next to me, so close I could smell her. Soft, musky, with a hint of what I thought had to be rosewater. Rahil pushed his chair a few inches closer. I felt like prey, with two exotic, magnificent animals gathered around me, sniffing, wanting, hunting. I succumbed easily. Sara’s inquisitiveness was erratic, compelling, and kind, gently probing further with each question: “What kind of childhood did you have?” “Do you like being an English teacher?” “Why did you become a teacher?” And then that inevitable question shot through her lips. Was I married? My eyes lowered for half a second. I lifted my head in the next second and told them. “How did you live after your husband died?” Rahil nudged her only at that question and changed the topic to lunch. Sara didn’t argue, but added, “I couldn’t imagine living if Rahil died; I would simply kill myself the same day, absolutely, I would.” Sara ate precisely four times a day. Gluten-free, because one of her doctors was sure she had celiac disease. Breakfast at 8:30 a.m., lunch at 1:30 p.m., a small supper at 5:00 p.m., and dinner at 8:30 p.m. She ate nothing in between and had last eaten candy and chips four years ago. So long, she couldn’t remember what they tasted like. Her rigidity in her diet helped her cope, but her body continued to attack her every day: pains in her back and knees, nausea, and seizures. No doctor could put a finger on it. Sara’s eyes lit up only when she was asking questions, or when her health was being discussed. At first this made it hard to keep answering. My self-worth would rise, her interest in my life making me swell with stories. It was the specificity in her questions that would make anyone not just want to answer, but to do so articulately, precisely, vulnerably. But when I answered, the light dimmed and I was met only with a sturdy focus on my gaze, her face blank but composed. I realized I needed her eyes to stay on me. I’d answer anything. Deeply personal things I had never even thought of: How did I survive Ketan’s death? How did I break out of the young widow cliché? How did I manage to work? Where were my scars? Emotional pain can be so severe, so profound, so soul breaking, that it must reflect on the body. But I couldn’t seem to find my scars when I stood in front of the mirror. Perhaps they disguised themselves, moving across my skin like a flea on a cat. Maybe they were in the hollows where my neck meets my ears, or hidden in the curve of my back. Maybe the pain scarred the smile of my armpit, lurked in the quiver of my chin. It must have been there, coded into my consciousness and embedded into my genetic material, ready to pass on to a child one day. I looked at Sara. Dark skin, high cheekbones, a small forehead, wide shoulders, tiny hands with sea-blue nail polish. Her breasts were large, her cleavage pushing out of her V-neck blouse. Where did her pain reside? Because it was there—you could feel Sara’s pain, it ate at you, chewed your mind as you talked to her and laughed with her. Her pain was unadulterated energy, a ghost that pulled her and the person sitting next to her together. For a whole second, I felt the soul inside my body throb, thudding like a bass speaker at a club. I wanted to gnaw at her skin, stay with her until I inevitably found the purpose of life. This was Sara, from the very first meeting. Our afternoon wandered into evening. Sara couldn’t drink on her medication, but Rahil poured out whisky for the two of us. I got the sense that Rahil’s job was stable and that he was high up in the ranks. He talked about the city and its transitions in his years here, roping in quick nostalgic facts and anecdotes. Occasionally he’d throw an innocuous question at me. Sara would use my answers to ask the more probing follow-ups. At some point it became almost a rhythm in the room: superficial question, answer, probing question. We talked in hushed sentences for no reason, tilting back glasses of liquor, swaying to something old and mystical from Rahil’s speakers. Cloistered, safe, but at risk, like it was a night at our neighborhood speakeasy. We ate dinner together. Incredibly delicious leftovers from the fridge. A mild chicken curry with potatoes, brown rice, a cucumber and tomato salad. “Know what the secret ingredient is?” Sara asked. “My mother never made just regular chopped salad. She always grated ginger and mixed it in.” Rahil looked into his food and repeated the word ginger for no reason. It was six p.m. Tomorrow was Monday, and the amount of work and mundane tasks to come started to magnify and flood my whisky-warmed body. I could have stayed longer. Rahil’s body language was neutral, but Sara’s had become increasingly fidgety. I made my first motions of leaving after she went into the kitchen to refill her glass of water for the second time. When I started to stand up and walk toward the door, Sara’s enthusiasm rose again, sending an odd burst of hope through my gut. “You have the whole week ahead of you, but we all just had such a connection, we have to meet again,” Sara said. The thrill in her voice was familiar. That thrill that comes when you know you’re only minutes away from being able to retreat into your private space again. The relief that comes from knowing you’re done with the forced smiles and small talk that prolonged social engagement demands. Still, she hugged me earnestly, and I spent most of my hug inhaling her. Rahil gave me a quick side-hug and then stood by the door with his hands in his pockets. They didn’t walk me out to the gate, but they stood at the doorway, staring me out. From The Body MythUsed with permission of Unnamed Press. Copyright © 2019 by Rheea Mukherjee. More Story 31 Books in 30 Days: Lori Feathers on Anna Burns In this 31 Books in 30 Days series leading up to the March 14, 2019 announcement of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle...	[]
How To Cook Pasta By The Law The way I see it, cooking pasta correctly should be prescribed by law. And not abiding by it should be a proper felony, not even a misdemeanor. But I will concede that, as an italian, I might be exaggerating. This is going to be a simple and straightforward reference article about how to cook pasta correctly. It might sound unnecessary but believe me, the horrors that these eyes have witnessed are beyond anything EVIL you could imagine. Cooking pasta is quite simple, you just need a lot of water, salt, and of course pasta, but quantity is key, and it goes like this: • at least 2 lt of water for about 200 gr of pasta (which is a normal amount for 2 people). • something as close as possible to 15 grams of salt (that is about a very full teaspoon) So the ratio is simple, 7,5 grams of salt for every liter of water. The quantity of water is also important, pasta needs a lot of water, at least 1 liter per 100 gr of pasta. It can be more water, but it CANNOT be less: what will happen is that the starch concentration in the water (which is released by the pasta during cooking) is going to be too high, and the pasta will cook in glue, and the result will be way too sticky and glueish. And this is how you do it: • Put the water in a big pot and bring it to a boil • You can add the salt before, or once it’s boiling, it doesn’t make any difference, as long as you add the salt before adding the pasta. • Once the water is boiling, you add the pasta and let it cook for as long as prescribed on the pasta package. Good quality pasta will take longer, if you have pasta that cooks in 6/8 minutes you need to change brand. • Once the pasta is ready, and by ready I mean al dente (usually pasta packages also give an al dente time), you throw it into a colander to drain the water, and IMMEDIATELY add the sauce you have prepared already. I mean IMMEDIATELY, for fuck sake! You can add the pasta to the sauce pan and stir, or put the pasta back in its pot and then add the sauce there, but you have to do it fast. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES you leave the cooked pasta sitting by itself, undressed, in a bowl or plate: it will get cold and sticky, and if Italy find out, they might declare war on you, so be advised. Leave a Reply	[]
Bilingual Visual Car Seat Guide For Parents “Keeping Children Safer on [Your State’s] Roads” is a thoroughly illustrated, bilingual guide that supports correct car seat use and installation. Providing English/Spanish side-by-side, the Guide helps parents 1) recall information from car seat checks and 2) clarify what they need to pay attention to in order to use their children's car seats correctly. The Guide consistently encourages parents and caregivers to consult their car seat and vehicle owner's manuals. SKU: 1314 Call for pricing	[]
Fur Babies Dogs, Cats, Birds, Horses, Bunnies, and the list goes one. How they light up our lives with joy. Dogs, dogs, dogs, cats, cats, cats 522 Pins	[]
Family Leisure as a Context to Support Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention for Young Children with Complex Communication Needs Document Type Publication Date Families are often the most significant communication partners for children who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Because family-centered approaches are recommended practice in speech-language pathology, a primary role for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) serving children who require AAC is to support families in integrating communication into highly valued, existing family activities. Family leisure activities can provide a naturally supportive context for AAC, because they provide multiple opportunities for children to interact and practice using AAC with natural communication partners. This article aims to guide SLPs in utilizing family leisure as a context for AAC intervention. We describe the benefits and constraints of engaging in leisure for families with children with disabilities. We define family leisure, which includes two distinct types of leisure activities: core and balance. Finally, we provide a case example of a family that highlights the integration of AAC into both types of leisure activities. Article Location	[]
Posts Tagged: eruption Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption Items Needed: Masking Tape Tape Measure Several 2 Liters of Diet Coke and packs of Mentos Paper, Foam Cups, Tape, Scissors, etc. Camcorder and Tripod This was a great game for our youth. There is some kind of science principle that makes Diet Coke erupt like a volcano when you drop Mentos in it. This only works with “diet,” not regular. The more Mentos you can drop in at once, the bigger the eruption. Before the game, find a spot next to a wall where the Diet Coke can spill everywhere without creating a mess. Grass is good, because sidewalks and parking lots can get sticky. On this wall, make a vertical line with the masking tape. Use the tape measure to mark off 1 ft. 2 ft. 3 ft. etc. on the tape and draw thick lines at those intervals with the sharpie. You’ll need the ladder to get up high, and 9-10 ft. should be plenty. The lines need to be dark enough that your camera can see them from a safe distance away. Divide your youth into several teams of 5 or so members. You need as many 2 liters of Diet Coke and packs of Mentos as you have teams. Give the teams 5 min. to use the paper and items to create a cone or some object to deliver the most Mentos into the bottle. Set up the first bottle in front of the tape, and position the camera a safe distance away and start recording. Let the first team go to drop their Mentos in the bottle and make an eruption. Move the used bottle away, and put another one there for the next team. Each bottle needs to be in the same place, so you may want to mark that spot with a piece of tape. After the last team, head inside to watch the footage and see which team won with the highest eruption. Read more	[]
The place that one becomes by Lee Kaloidis from where i sit gratefully out back in the chair beneath the tree by the bird bath on a green lawn sprawling with sunlight, a stage for squirrels that fidget in circles and for birds that come and go to the feeder or peck the ground for the seed beneath it, rake and shovel leaning against the white house wall next to the reel mower that works as silently as a monk, gardens holding their last flowers to their chests, insects flashing like glass chips, sky a faded blue setting for a white hot sun that never rests, leaves that breathe like boats asleep on a lake, sipping cold coffee from an old cup at noon while everyone is off and away somewhere, at the very center of the place that one becomes but cannot aim to be. Lee Kaloidis is a visual artist with a history in poetry and improvisational music. He currently lives just outside of NYC with his wife and animals. More info can be found on his website @	[]
What is temptation example? What is temptation example? The definition of a temptation is an urge or desire to do something, especially something you should not, or it refers to a wrong or forbidden pleasure that is enticing. When you feel a strong urge to eat cake when on a diet, this is an example of temptation. What is the difference between trials and temptations? When God brings us into a difficult situation, it is for the purpose to grow our faith. We call this a trial. When the devil brings us into a difficult situation, it is for the purpose to demolish our faith. We call this a temptation. How do you deal with temptations? You can deal with temptation in different ways. The most important thing is: remember that you are in control—always….5 simple steps to understand and deal with temptation: 1. Find your triggers for the temptation. 2. Talk to your temptation. 3. Reframe your own beliefs and behavior. 4. Take action. How does God help us in time of temptation? God does not forsake us when we are tempted. He comes to our aid and gives us succour —the help we need to endure and overcome. “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18). What are the three ways to overcome temptation? • Take heed to Gods Word. • Pray for the Strength. • Forgo Self Gratification. • Grow into Spiritual Maturity. • Surround yourself with people of value. • Resist the Devil. • Run away from Dangerous Spots. How does prayer help us overcome temptation? Praying helps people stay in control of their emotions and behaviour, according to a new study. People turn to prayer ‘as a coping response to the high demands in life’ and are rewarded with increased strength and ability to resist temptation, researchers said. How can you avoid temptation? 4 Ways to Avoid Temptation and Reach Your Goals 1. Situation Selection: Whenever possible, avoid any situations where you know you will confront temptation. 2. Situation Modification: If you can’t completely avoid a situation that may involve temptation, do what you can to reduce the pull. 3. Distraction: Divert your attention away from temptation. What does the Bible say about avoiding temptation? Are temptations bad? The cat treats from MARS known as Temptations are being considered a deadly treat to a lot of caring cat lovers out there. While the treats aren’t “deadly” I wouldn’t consider them to be healthy either. You still need to be aware of the ingredients!” What are temptations in life? What are the ways of praying? Of course, there are different types of prayer: various iterations of supplication, thanksgiving, and praise, practiced via incantation, hymn, silent prayer…the list goes on. Sometimes people pray for personal benefit. Other times, for the benefit of others. Most major religions involve prayer in some form or other. Is temptation a feeling? Temptation is a strong desire or drive to do something. It typically has negative connotations, and tempting objects and behaviors are often presented as gratifying in the short-term but harmful in the long-term. For example, an ex-smoker might feel tempted to smoke.	[]
Helping science succeed Open Science Initiative issues new paper, recommendations Science Communication Institute > Papers-Reports > Open Science Initiative issues new paper, recommendations In early September of 2014, nSCI recruited and organized over 100 thought-leaders from around the world into a three month long online conversation—named the Open Science Initiative (OSI) working group—to begin looking into viable ways to reform the scholarly publishing system. The outcome of this conversation will be a working paper (the most recent version is linked here) which summarizes the many important facts and perspectives that were discussed on this issue, and also outlines recommendations for a new series of initiatives to push for workable reform measures. What are the problems with the current system of scholarly publishing? What are the different perspectives on these problems? What are some possible solutions? What should our goals and our guiding objectives be regarding improving access to research information? Should we even bother worrying about this issue (is the current state of affairs adequate)? What would a future with more open science look like? What might a future without more open science look like? How do we get from where we are now to where we need to be, considering there are so many competing interests and entrenched positions? Why might it be important to act now? The OSI working group discussed these issues and many others at length. The group also made these three important recommendations (the first two being majority viewpoints): 1. Convene an annual series of high-level conferences between all key stakeholders over the next 10 years to discuss, implement, adjust, and track major reforms to the scholarly publishing system. The first conference is currently being planned for early 2016. The delegate list will be an invited group of 200 decision-makers representing every major stakeholder group in scholarly publishing, participating with the understanding that they will try to reach an agreement on the future of scholarly publishing and will then work to help implement this agreement. The United Nations will be backing these conferences (through UNESCO) and will help mobilize broad and ongoing international support, participation, and funding. Very broad participation from US stakeholders—publishers, authors, federal agencies, companies who use research, institutions that produce research, and more—is critical to getting this effort up and running. While scientific research is certainly a global interest and enterprise, the US is the largest single producer and consumer of this research information, so without strong US participation, global adoption will be difficult to achieve. 2. Find answers to key questions related to reform, as detailed in the summary document. What do we really mean by “publishing” today? Are self-archiving mandates practical? Are impact factors accurate? Do embargoes serve the public interest? Are there better ways to conduct peer review? Why isn’t open access growing faster? These and many other questions have been identified in this report as starting points for discussion. 3. Investigate the possibility of constructing the world’s first all-scholarship repository (ASR). Our initial discussion regarding this repository is included in Annex 4. Conversations are currently ongoing on this matter. The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) will explore building the prototype ASR. We are currently preparing a briefing paper for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy so they can consider aligning upcoming federal compliance efforts with this LANL repository. A number of OSI working group members feel that creating the world’s first all-scholarship repository will need to be a precursor to truly comprehensive journal reform, and creating it the right way may end up having a greater impact on science discovery than anything ever attempted to date. As we push forward with this initiative, the OSI group will need the following kinds of help: Broad buy-in and participation from research agencies, companies and institutions; more input and perspective from publishers, research institutions, government agencies, the public, and other stakeholders; subject matter expertise (such as programming, database construction, user interface design, customer experience, and so on), hardware/hosting support, data integration support, conference support (facility support, logistics, etc.); outreach/PR expertise; and finally, backing by policymakers and major funders. Building this support base will be the only way to achieve effective and long-term sustainable reform. The budget for the first conference will range between $150k and $500k depending on how many of the costs we can cover for participants (more coverage is better—we don’t want people declining our invite on account of budget reasons). The repository effort can begin modestly but will eventually require millions of dollars annually, although much of the eventual operating cost can be recouped through sponsor support, advertising, and value-added services. A start-up budget of $10 million would help get a critical mass of experts working full-time on this project right away. This initiative already has a broad range of stakeholder support, but as we move forward we want to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table and also make it clear that we’re not just spinning our wheels to produce another white paper for discussion. OSI, nSCI, UNESCO, LANL, and others have committed to undertake an effort to actually shape the future of how we as a society value, share and use science. Care to join us?	[]
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UN experts will give "overwhelming" confirmation that chemical weapons were used in Syria, UN leader Ban Ki-moon predicted Friday, as he blasted President Bashar al-Assad as a war criminal. Ban did not say that Assad's forces carried out a suspected chemical arms attack near Damascus investigated by UN experts. But he said the Syrian leader has "committed many crimes against humanity." A UN team is expected to send its report on the August 21 attack to Ban on Monday. The UN leader stressed that he still does not have the report. But he predicted: "I believe the report will be an overwhelming report that the chemical weapons were used." Ban also gave a UN estimate that 1,400 people were killed in the August 21 attack at Ghouta, east of Damascus, which led to western threats of a military strike on Assad's forces. UN inspectors were in Syria to investigate the general use of chemical weapons in the country's 30-month-old conflict when the suspected sarin gas attack took place. The United States, Britain and France blame Assad for the attack. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, say opposition rebels used the banned gas. UN investigation leader Ake Sellstrom is expected to send his report to Ban on Monday. Sellstrom is not allowed to say in the report who carried out the attack. Diplomats say however that details, such as the type of chemical and missile involved, could indicate who carried out the attack. If the report is delivered Monday, Ban is expected to brief the UN Security Council within hours on its findings. While US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are discussing a plan to put Syria's chemical arms under international control, the Security Council's permanent members are discussing a possible resolution on the crisis. Ban has stepped up criticism of the Security Council for its failure to act over Syria. But he has never hidden his disdain for the tactics used by the Syrian leader in a civil war in which well over 100,000 people have died. In his new outspoken attack, Ban said that Assad must face "accountability" as part of any political solution to end the conflict. "What happened is that he has committed many crimes against humanity. Therefore, I'm sure that there will be surely the process of accountability when everything is over," he said. Ban said last year that Assad had "lost all humanity". His latest comments came after a UN inquiry said Wednesday that government forces had committed "widespread" killings and torture of civilians. But Ban stressed that the top priority must be "to help the fighting stop and dialogue, talking begin." In parallel to Ban's comments, the UN humanitarian chief raised concerns about access to areas around Damascus where hundreds of thousands of people are trapped by the fighting. "People are unable to leave sealed-off government or opposition-held areas, sometimes for months on end, and have run short of water, food, power and medicines," said Valerie Amos. "I am extremely worried by reports that more than 500,000 people remain trapped in rural Damascus." Amos said there were "very disturbing reports" about Moadamiyet al-Sham, near Damascus. "It is reported that the town has been besieged for the last 10 months, suffering daily shelling and armed clashes between government and opposition groups," the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Amos said UN agencies have been unable to get supplies into the town for nearly a year. Most of the 70,000 people in the area have fled, but some 12,000 people remain trapped and there are cases of severe malnutrition among children, the UN said. Amos said the UN has taken $50 million from its emergency finances to bolster the depleted fund to get supplies to people inside Syria and help the more than two million people who have fled to neighboring countries.	[]
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Ottoman bed bases work by lifting up from the side of the bed or the bottom of the bed, depending on the style of ottoman. They work on the principles of gas struts, which take the weight of the mattress as they rise up to open and down to close. At the opening of the ottoman, there should be a strap which you lift up a little and then the gas struts take over the weight of your mattress. Due to the gas-lift hydraulic struts, they stop any sudden movements or crushing down of the struts and mattress onto the bed frame. They’re a super important element as they give a helping hand to lift the bed up as without these struts, you wouldn’t be able to lift the weight of the mattress on its own! Ottoman Bed Gas Struts Gas-lift hydraulic ottoman beds mean: • They are a lot safer as the speed of the lift is controlled • When you lift it up, it stays up until you are ready to close it back down • It requires minimal effort as the gas-lift allows for an easy assisted lift open and closed Types of ottoman bed bases There are a couple of different types of ottoman bed base, om this section we look at your options and the benefits of each. Side opening Ottoman beds Some bed companies offer side opening ottomans. These are ideal if you have a smaller room and can only open the bed from one side. For example, if there was a wall at the bottom of the bed. They work on the same principle of gas struts and offer the same amount of storage capacity as foot-end opening ottomans, but are an alternative option, based on the space you have in your bedroom. Side Opening Ottoman Bed Foot-end opening Ottoman beds There are two types of foot-end opening ottoman beds. 1. Foot opening 2. Half opening Half opening foot-end opening ottoman beds are the ideal compromise as they usually include drawers and ottoman storage. Full opening ottomans use the full size of the bed for full capacity storage. Foot Opening Ottoman Bed What are the benefits of an ottoman bed? Ottoman beds traditionally offer more storage than standard divan beds with 4 drawer options. They are ideal for smaller spaces where 4 drawers would be restricted by bed side lockers for example, or simply a small room that is tight on space for storage furniture such as a chest of drawers. Generally ottomans are used to store household items such as bedding, towels, boxes, shoes and clothing to name a few. However, with all furniture, there are common weight restrictions. We recommend against storing extremely heavy items as it may cause damage to the ottoman base. How do I know if the ottoman is well made? When searching for your new ottoman bed, there are a few things to look out for to ensure you get a good quality bed. Like mattresses and bed bases, retailers offer a huge variety of options, but it is important to look out for a high quality, sound construction method. Look inside the ottoman closely to ensure the construction method has solid joints, and avoid flimsy joints or any traces of chipboard glued together. Ottoman Bed Build Quality It is important that your ottoman bed is constructed to a high standard as it has to take the weight of a mattress which can range from between 40- 80kg. A poorly constructed ottoman bed can collapse quite quickly after purchasing so it is important to consider these features when purchasing: • A solid platform top • Fully upholstered • 800-1000 newton gas struts • Can withhold up to 85kg in mattress weight • Stitch bond or Hessian backing underneath • Solid wood platform top and veneered MDF base construction Ottoman bases and divan bases are similar in the sense that they both come with storage options and are generally available in a wide range of colours, depending on the retailer. Ottoman bed base Divan bed base Storage capacity Ottoman storage only: Full opening storage capacity which offers the full capacity of the divan base or half opening storage capacity. Drawers as storage options: usually 2 or 4 drawers available. Room space required Minimal space required as the ottoman lifts up from the foot end or the side of the base. May require space for opening drawers. Important to be aware of bed side lockers at the side of the bed which may restrict opening. We recommend a solid platform top for firm support. Platform top for a firmer support. Will the gas struts lift my mattress? The gas struts are the most important element when purchasing an ottoman bed. Before purchasing, ensure that your current or new mattress is a suitable weight for the ottoman bed frame. This will ensure the gas struts can withhold the weight of your mattress when opening and closing. We recommend a maximum mattress weight of 85kg. Retailers sell many different types of ottoman beds which can come with low quality and higher quality struts. Plastic struts should be avoided as they will not hold the weight of your mattress and there is a risk of safety as they are lightweight and may fall down when lifted up if the mattress is too heavy. Ensure you opt for gas struts which are sturdy and are secured with brackets on to the base. DFI recommend 800 – 1000 newton gas struts as they will be most secure and withhold a heavy weight. Will my mattress slide off the ottoman base? This is a common problem with a lot of cheaper ottoman beds. The material that they use is generally much lighter and non-stick. This means that once lifted, the mattress can slip as it is not secure which can ultimately cause damage to nearby furniture or crush the headboard on the bed. DFI recommend ensuring that your ottoman bed is fitted with a non-slip cover to ensure your mattress stays in place. Important tips to remember! • If purchasing an ottoman bed ensure it can withhold the weight of your mattress (Usually up to 85kg). • They provide discrete storage solutions for those who like neat and tidy storage. • Ottomans can be heavy to lift before the gas struts take over the weight of the mattress. • Perfect for those who are unable to opt for drawers in a divan base due to bedside lockers or walls getting in the way. Do DFI Sell Ottoman beds? DFI are now stocking durable, futuristic and stylish Ottoman Gaslift Beds. Our customers have requested and we have listened. The DFI Gaslift Ottoman Bed with Wingback Headboard finished in a beautiful, trendy plush grey/charcoal fabric. Ottoman Bed With a variety of mattress options you can choose from, you can choose your perfect mattress to pair with this beautiful Ottoman set. You can chat with our sales team to get advice on what mattress would suit you best with the ottoman bed and also any questions you may need answered. Is the DFI Ottoman bed easy to assemble? The Ottoman bed comes flat packed and in 4 pieces making it very easy for the customer to place where they would want it before assembly. It comes with a QR code on the packaging which gives super easy instructions to build the bed in no time.	[]
How do property owners benefit? In addition to providing benefits to surrounding communities, property owners that clean up and reuse their brownfield properties may benefit directly by: • Avoiding potential environmental enforcement actions by federal, state and local regulatory agencies that could impose penalties and costly cleanups • Creating good will within the community • Enhancing the marketability of a property by reducing uncertainty regarding environmental liabilities and addressing due diligence steps typically required by lenders • Receiving tax benefits for cleaning up and reusing the property • Reducing the likelihood that contamination from the property will migrate off site or into the groundwater under the site, thereby limiting liability for, and long term costs of, cleaning up the property • Reducing the potential need to address liabilities associated with the property in financial statements and Securities and Exchange Commission filings Show All Answers 1. How do I get more information? 2. What are “brownfields”? 3. Why are brownfields a problem? 4. How does the community benefit? 5. How do property owners benefit?	[]
The primordial nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Publication date: Main author: Davidsson, B. J. R. IAA authors: Gutiérrez, P. J.;Lara, L. M.;Lopez Moreno, J. J. Davidsson, B. J. R.;Sierks, H.;Güttler, C.;Marzari, F.;Pajola, M.;Rickman, H.;A'Hearn, M. F.;Auger, A. -T.;El-Maarry, M. R.;Fornasier, S.;Gutiérrez, P. J.;Keller, H. U.;Massironi, M.;Snodgrass, C.;Vincent, J. -B.;Barbieri, C.;Lamy, P. L.;Rodrigo, R.;Koschny, D.;Barucci, M. A.;Bertaux, J. -L.;Bertini, I.;Cremonese, G.;Da Deppo, V.;Debei, S.;De Cecco, M.;Feller, C.;Fulle, M.;Groussin, O.;Hviid, S. F.;Höfner, S.;Ip, W. -H.;Jorda, L.;Knollenberg, J.;Kovacs, G.;Kramm, J. -R.;Kührt, E.;Küppers, M.;La Forgia, F.;Lara, L. M.;Lazzarin, M.;Lopez Moreno, J. J.;Moissl-Fraund, R.;Mottola, S.;Naletto, G.;Oklay, N.;Thomas, N.;Tubiana, C. Astronomy and Astrophysics Publication type: Context. We investigate the formation and evolution of comet nuclei and other trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the solar nebula and primordial disk prior to the giant planet orbit instability foreseen by the Nice model. <BR /> Aims: Our goal is to determine whether most observed comet nuclei are primordial rubble-pile survivors that formed in the solar nebula and young primordial disk or collisional rubble piles formed later in the aftermath of catastrophic disruptions of larger parent bodies. We also propose a concurrent comet and TNO formation scenario that is consistent with observations. <BR /> Methods: We used observations of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft, particularly by the OSIRIS camera system, combined with data from the NASA Stardust sample-return mission to comet 81P/Wild 2 and from meteoritics; we also used existing observations from ground or from spacecraft of irregular satellites of the giant planets, Centaurs, and TNOs. We performed modeling of thermophysics, hydrostatics, orbit evolution, and collision physics. <BR /> Results: We find that thermal processing due to short-lived radionuclides, combined with collisional processing during accretion in the primordial disk, creates a population of medium-sized bodies that are comparably dense, compacted, strong, heavily depleted in supervolatiles like CO and CO<SUB>2</SUB>; they contain little to no amorphous water ice, and have experienced extensive metasomatism and aqueous alteration due to liquid water. Irregular satellites Phoebe and Himalia are potential representatives of this population. Collisional rubble piles inherit these properties from their parents. Contrarily, comet nuclei have low density, high porosity, weak strength, are rich in supervolatiles, may contain amorphous water ice, and do not display convincing evidence of in situ metasomatism or aqueous alteration. We outline a comet formation scenario that starts in the solar nebula and ends in the primordial disk, that reproduces these observed properties, and additionally explains the presence of extensive layering on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (and on 9P/Tempel 1 observed by Deep Impact), its bi-lobed shape, the extremely slow growth of comet nuclei as evidenced by recent radiometric dating, and the low collision probability that allows primordial nuclei to survive the age of the solar system. <BR /> Conclusions: We conclude that observed comet nuclei are primordial rubble piles, and not collisional rubble piles. We argue that TNOs formed as a result of streaming instabilities at sizes below ~400 km and that ~350 of these grew slowly in a low-mass primordial disk to the size of Triton, Pluto, and Eris, causing little viscous stirring during growth. We thus propose a dynamically cold primordial disk, which prevented medium-sized TNOs from breaking into collisional rubble piles and allowed the survival of primordial rubble-pile comets. We argue that comets formed by hierarchical agglomeration out of material that remained after TNO formation, and that this slow growth was a necessity to avoid thermal processing by short-lived radionuclides that would lead to loss of supervolatiles, and that allowed comet nuclei to incorporate ~3 Myr old material from the inner solar system. ADS Bibcode: comets: individual: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko;Kuiper belt: general;protoplanetary disks	[]
Dick Tracy Stories – 2002 Previous Year Shootout in the Snow (December – January) Walking home on Christmas Eve Tracy finds a man, fading fast with a gunshot wound in a snowy alley. He follows a elusive kitten into an abandoned building where another man with a gun engages him in a shootout. Very low on ammo and calling for backup Tracy learns the two are escaped convicts. Paramedics arrive while Tracy shoots it out and wrestles with the gunman, who shoots himself in the chest after falling through a floor. The convict outside, Bill Baily dies of his wounds and Tracy rescues the cat, giving it to Baily’s daughter for Christmas. Plush Mush Vacation (January – February) Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart are given two weeks vacation and tickets to Florida at the Plush Mush Towers. The Towers are expanding into a nearby swamp and nudist environmentalists are vandalizing the property. The owner, G.R. Eed asks for help and Tracy investigates, discovering Eed has been dumping sewage and waste water into the swamp. The EPA arrives and shuts down the Towers while Tracy gets the environmentalists to clean up the swamp. Pinhead Terrorists (February – April) The Pinhead disguises himself as a terrorist and he and Noodles blow up a bridge with Liz and Junior driving on it. Tracy manages to rescue the two before their car plunges into the river below while Pinhead sends a terrorist tape in to the TV. Looking for an even greater response, Pinhead hires a drunk pilot named Corrigan to write a “Everyone downtown dies at noon” in the sky. Corrigan spells it so badly the message is not received until to late and instead the police lock down the downtown area. Pinhead and his “Heads” gang (which includes Blockhead, Birdbrain, Chowderhead, Creepface and Schnozz) arrive downtown and engage in a shootout. Pinhead and Noodles are caught attempting to escape by Agent Mahony of the FBI. Stonehenge Theft (April – June) Stonehenge is discovered stolen and replaced with plastic replicas. Chief Inspector Whitehall of Scotland Yard suspects Americans and calls Dick Tracy for help. Together they try and track down the stones they believe were transported into America. Their search leads them to Dexter Q Snubb, president of the English Loving Union and then to Percy Brillig a snubbed former member. Tracy finally discovers Stonehenge was never stolen, simply buried back in England and Percy is arrested by the English. Heartless Mahoney Haunting (June – August) Tracy begins to have visions of Breathless Mahoney’s face, keeping him jumpy and sleepless. After a vision causes a car accident, Tracy takes a picture of the face in the mirror and runs it through the police scanner. It returns both Breathless (Deceased) and Heartless Mahoney (Missing). Tracy visits the last known address of Heartless in Des Moines, Iowa and finds she has died. Returning to work Tracy is botches a bank holdup when he wrecks a police cruiser and is taken hostage, allowing the villains to escape. Tracy is put on indefinite suspension and he begins to converse with the ghost who claims to be Deathless Mahoney, blaming him for the death of her two sisters. Tracy finds a miniature hologram device producing the “ghosts” and learns it is a Diet Smith invention. Fred Febbish the man in charge of the project was fired for selling secrets and Dick tracks down Fred and finds Deathless’s hideout. Confronting his tormenter, he discovers she is in fact a badly aged Heartless Mahoney who wanted to punish Tracy for her condition. Tracy cuffs her but then releases her on a bus to Tuscon, Arizona and returns to the station to get his job back. Red Hawk’s Car Wash Robbery (August – October) A lowlife snitch named Tweety warns Dick Tracy that the triggerman Red Hawk is getting out of jail after five years and will be gunning for the both of them after putting his bird gang back together. Hawk gathers his men together at the ACME seed company and plans to rob Suds Carwash, which is where all crooks have been selling their jewelry. He forces Tweety to tell Tracy, so he can also do in the cop. Hawk, Turkey, Crow and Owl begin the robbery, trapping Sam, Tracy, Suds and Squint in a jewelry vault that is rapidly filling with water during a wash. They escape by stripping off their clothes and squeezing out a pipe where a nude and bubbly Tracy fires on Red Hawk’s escaping vehicle. The getaway car crashes into a Pet Store and everyone, including Suds is apprehended. With the gang going to jail, Suds turns states evidence. Jewel is Kidnapped (October – December) Junior and Sparkle’s daughter Jewel and two other girls kidnapped by an abductor and locked in the basement of his house. Dick Tracy and Lizz work the case, finding a clue that leads them to the creeps house. Meanwhile Jewel escapes her captor and runs through out the city trying to escape pursuit. The child abductor follows Jewel down a manhole but gets stuck and killed by a passing car. Tracy rescues the two children in the house and then uses a TV station to help him find Jewel. B.O. Plenty and the Chameleon Gang (December – February) B.O. Plenty takes a job as Santa Claus over the holidays and is framed for a robbery after the Chameleon’s gang dress up as Santa and rob the store. Running from the police, B.O. dresses as a bear and crashes a costume party when the Chameleon strikes again. This time he is caught and Tracy takes him to the station and begins to track down the real culprits who just hit a bank posing as firemen responding to a call. Using B.O. as bait, Tracy lures the Chameleon into the Police station and apprehends the gang. Next Year Leave a Reply	[]
Cosmic Codebreaker, Pious Heretic BORN PREMATURELY on Christmas Day 1642, the year of Galileo’s death, Isaac Newton was sickly and not expected to live. He spent the first few days of his life in a shoebox behind the woodstove. His father had died a few months earlier, and while little Isaac survived the sicknesses of infancy, he endured a series of childhood traumas, including abandonment by his mother to his grandparents, that left him withdrawn and solitary. Eventually he came to believe that thinking about nature was of far more importance than social distractions like marriage, children, or even friends. As a young man, Isaac proved incompetent on the farm, once leading a bridle to the barn, unaware that the horse had escaped. Fences he was in charge of were always falling down, and court records chronicle numerous fines he received for allowing livestock to trample the neighbors’ property. More at home in the world of books, Isaac ended up in 1661 at Cambridge University, where the field hands on his farm had long said he belonged. He graduated without fanfare in 1665. To escape the plague, he returned home for two remarkable years. Out of this brief seclusion came what was essentially a set of blueprints for changing the world: his theory of universal gravity and a number of major contribution to optics. But no one knew, yet, what the daydreamy young man was up to. Newton returned to Cambridge University in 1667 and was soon, at age 26, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. His star continued to rise as he made important scientific contributions, explaining everything from the motion of the planets, to the swing of a pendulum, to the formation of rainbows. Or at least explaining such things to himself, as the lectures he was required to give were often delivered to an empty hall. After the publication of his notoriously difficult book known as the Principia, a Cambridge student pointed at him and said, “There goes the man that wrote a book that neither he nor anyone else understands.” Despite his general disinterest in explaining his ideas to the public, Newton’s work greatly impressed his fellow members of the Royal Society, and by mid-career he became very famous. But he harbored a dark secret that had the potential to bring his rising star plummeting to earth. Shortly after his widely acclaimed invention of both a remarkable telescope to collect light and an even more remarkable theory to explain light, Newton embarked upon a curious voyage of theological inquiry. The reasons remain hidden but were probably motivated by his impending need to be ordained in the Church of England, if he were to continue to hold the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics. Whatever the reasons, Newton began a sustained reflection on the Christian doctrines and decided that the Anglican status quo was a thorough corruption of the true, original Christianity. These considerations led him to write over a million words on theology and biblical studies—more than he wrote on any other subject. Newton’s theological investigations convinced him that the doctrine of the Trinity was bogus, a successful deception by St. Athanasius in the fourth century. Newton argued that the Scriptures had been altered and early Christian writers had been misquoted to make it appear that Trinitarianism had been the original faith. He became repelled by what he perceived as the false religion that surrounded him—an idolatrous faith that worshiped Christ as God, when he was but a mediator between God and man. Newton became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church, which had perpetrated the fraud, was the great whore of Babylon. To accept ordination into the Anglican Church would be to “worship the Beast and his image and receive his mark.” So Europe’s greatest scientist began to make plans to be unemployed. In January 1675 Newton wrote to the Royal Society asking them to suspend his dues, anticipating that he would soon be unable to pay them. Newton’s prestigious Cambridge University chair was located at Trinity College, no place for a Unitarian. Politics, however, allowed him to keep his post. Being the most famous scientist in the world had its perks. Though Newton was far from orthodox, he was deeply religious in a number of important ways. He had been involved in distributing Bibles to the poor. More important was the way he attempted to reconcile his science with his religion. Newton and the Rev. Richard Bentley (1662–1742) exchanged a number of letters on whether the universe, as disclosed by the new physical theories, evidenced design. In one of these letters Newton wrote, “I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity.” A popular misconception is that Newton espoused a purely mechanical model of the universe, theologically deistic, requiring of God nothing more than pushing the “start” button. While this is the way things unfolded over the next century, Newton was in no sense a deist. In fact, as is often the case with the founders of great traditions, Newton was not even a Newtonian. His work did lead to what become known as a mechanical description of nature, but this was far from how he saw it; tellingly, the French philosopher Descartes objected to Newton’s model because it was not mechanical enough. Newton’s scientific contributions are spread across a number of important works, any one of which could have established his greatness. But it was the Principia that most elicited the awe of a generation of thinkers raised on the simple, earth-centered cosmos of Aristotle. It is here that we find the birth of the science of mechanics, that extraordinary union of pure mathematics and careful observation that became the model to inspire science for more than a century. Newton here communicated empirical observations about the natural world, like the fact that bodies of different weight fall at the same rates, in precise mathematical language. The achievement was unprecedented. Newton changed not only our understanding of the world but also what we mean when we say that we understand the world. He demonstrated that it was feasible to write accurate equations describing the force of gravity, without trying to explain just what gravity was. This mysterious gravity provided a mechanism to hold the stars in place—the prevailing view, going back to Aristotle, envisioned a set of nested glassy spheres that fixed the heavenly bodies in space. Gravity also explained the movements of objects on the earth and in space—previously, most folk had believed material things were literally “motivated” by innate drives. Gravity kept the planets orbiting regularly about the sun. It held the atmosphere of the earth in place while it hurtled around the sun at what must have seemed, to the horse-riding residents of the seventeenth century, an unthinkable speed (now known to be about 67,000 mph). But the concept of gravity was hard for Newton’s contemporaries to swallow; it seemed a quintessential example of the occultic phenomenon of “action at a distance.” To suggest that the earth reached out through empty space and “pulled” on the moon was to speak nonsense, regardless of the mathematical precision of Newton’s explanation. But somehow, as if he alone still heard the faint music of Pythagoras, Newton knew that God was a mathematician, and that this was the character of the world. While the Principia is primarily a work of mathematical physics, there are some interesting theological interludes. In the second edition of the Principia, Newton suggests that comets might refuel the sun, replenishing the energy lost illuminating the earth. Newton’s intuition, informed by his concept of God’s providence, suggested to him that the God-given purpose of comets in the creation was to keep the sun healthy. Such speculation, while consistent with Newton’s view that God sustains the universe at all times, still stands out against what is otherwise a much more straightforward scientific approach. The last part of the Principia is a “Concluding General Scholium,” a short section written for the second edition to refute objections that the Cartesians had raised to the first edition. In many ways it is the most interesting part of the Principia. Here we find his oft-quoted coda: "This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being . . . "He rules all things, not as the world soul but as the lord of all. And because of his dominion he is called Lord God Pantokrator. For ‘god’ is a relative word, and has reference to servants, and godhood is the lordship of God, not over his own body, as is supposed by those for whom God is the world soul, but over servants. The supreme God is an eternal, infinite, and absolutely perfect being: but a being, however perfect, without dominion is not the Lord God.” Many scholars have speculated about the significance of Newton’s theological beliefs and any role they might have played in the development of his scientific ideas. The enthusiastic secularizers of the Enlightenment have dismissed his theological explorations as aberrations, the product of a great mind in decline. By contrast, contemporary creationists present Newton as one of their own, overlooking his considerable theological heresies. Certainly, his search for a profoundly rational explanation for natural phenomena was fully consistent with his prior belief in the rational creator at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But to what degree did this creator inspire Newton’s search for the hidden rationality of the world? To what degree was the rationality of the Creator derived from the rational substructure of the world, as disclosed in the work of Newton and those who followed him? All we can say for sure is that Newton’s theological affirmations and his scientific discoveries comfortably co-existed in his own understanding of the world. And Newton’s understanding of the world, at the time that he lived, far surpassed that of any other human being on the planet whose motions he did so much to explain. Sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. on March 20, 1727, Sir Isaac Newton died. He had suffered for some time with kidney stones, urinary incontinence, and gout. Less than three weeks earlier he attended his last meeting of the Royal Society. A week later he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, where his remains reside today. In his Memoirs, Newton provides a self-portrait of his contribution to the world: "I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but, as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” CH By Karl Giberson [Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #76 in 2002] Karl Giberson is a professor of physics at Eastern Nazarene College and editor of Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology. Next articles The Christian Virtuosi The Royal Society defended religion but laid the groundwork for irreligion. Chris Armstrong Microscopic Magnificence Antony van Leeuwenhoek found God’s great glory in his tiny creations. David F. Coppedge From the Editor — The Specter of Enmity Are the things of science and the things of God somehow incompatible. Chris Armstrong Testing the Spirits The heart stirring revivalism of the Great Awakening led Edwards to develop a new religious psychology. David W. Kling Show more Subscribe to magazine Subscription to Christian History magazine is on a donation basis Support us Subscribe to daily emails Containing today’s events, devotional, quote and stories	[]
Ansible is my favorite devops tool. I've used Chef extensively and despite my Ruby background, well, I hated it. I've slutted around with TerraForm; I've played with Puppet and I've put Salt on my food and servers but time in and time out, I always come back to Ansible. I even like Ansible enough that I wrote about it recently on a Quora post. One of the beautiful things about Ansible is that it does not require a server side agent. Ansible works via SSH purely and that means that as long as you can login to the server then you can use Ansible to provision it, update it, deploy stuff, etc. I just deployed my first ever Ubuntu 16.04 LTS box on AWS the other day and one of my surprises was that a which python failed. Oy vey. This means that you can't use Ansible without installing Python – or so I thought. Happily a bit of googling and I discovered the ansible_python_interpreter option which lets you override the default of Python 2 and use Python 3. This gets, oddly, embedded in the inventories file: The way to interpret this is all boxes in the [web] group use the /usr/bin/python3 executable.	[]
Foreword Reviews Jan in 35 Pieces A Memoir in Music 2018 INDIES Finalist Finalist, Autobiography & Memoir (Adult Nonfiction) This creatively structured, memorable memoir includes a mix of humorous anecdotes and classical music trivia. An accomplished cellist, Ian Hampton has played with the London Symphony Orchestra and numerous prominent string quartets. He is known for his versatility when it comes to playing pieces spanning centuries. As Jan in 35 Pieces: A Memoir in Music proves, he’s also quite a storyteller. The book mixes humorous anecdotes and classical music trivia with the chronology of Hampton’s life. It is a creatively structured and memorable work. Hampton writes his memoir in the third person, referring to himself by his nickname, Jan, which allows him to take a more novelistic approach. That choice makes the book more enjoyable, as does its unusual structure. As the title suggests, Hampton has divided his life into thirty-five chapters, each centered around a different piece of music. Each of these chapters tells an anecdote related to the piece before transitioning to a chronological portion of Hampton’s biography. For example, for Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the chapter begins with an adult Jan discussing the piece with one of his students, flashes back to 1946, when he first heard it, and then considers his later experience recording it with the London Symphony Orchestra; it recalls both instances while mixing in the story of the piece’s controversial 1913 premiere and an explanation of why it’s challenging to play. Works like Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, and even the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” receive similar treatment, with Hampton’s story melding to the music that played such a big part in it. This approach lets Hampton augment what could have been a straightforward biography with plenty of funny stories about his career, bits of dialogue between fellow string players that capture the camaraderie of musicians who have played together for years, and little snapshots of his colleagues’ biographies. Jan in 35 Pieces is a consistently interesting memoir that also serves as a well-written love letter to classical music and the experience of playing it. Reviewed by Jeff Fleischer Load Next Review	[]
Alkanes Content from the guide to life, the universe and everything 4 Conversations Introduction to Chemical Formulae Organic Chemistry \| Alkanes \| Alkenes \| Alkynes \| Alkanols Alkanoic acids \| Esters \| Alkanals \| Alkanones \| Further information Introduction to alkanes Alkanes are hydrocarbons - compounds that contain only carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. They can be obtained by the fractional distillation of crude oil and their uses include: • Fuelling cars, boats and planes • The production of alkenes from long-chain alkanes • 1 • The production of candle wax • Creating new road surfaces Structure of Alkanes The only bonds between atoms of an alkane are single covalent bonds. Therefore, alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons: they contain no double or triple bonds. The general formula of alkanes is CnH2n+2 where n is the number of carbon atoms in the longest carbon chain of the alkane. Alkanes contain a chain of carbon atoms, all bonded to each other by single bonds. Shown below is the carbon chain of the alkane that contains six carbon atoms. In its organic compounds, carbon must form four bonds with other atoms so any "unused" bonds are also shown. \| \| \| \| \| \| - C - C - C - C - C - C - \| \| \| \| \| \| As described above, an alkane contains only atoms of carbon and hydrogen. Therefore, hydrogen atoms are drawn where there is an "unused" bond on the above diagram. H H H H H H \| \| \| \| \| \| H - C - C - C - C - C - C - H \| \| \| \| \| \| H H H H H H In general, to draw the structural formula of an alkane: 1. Draw a carbon chain of the correct length. Each carbon atom should be joined to its neighbour or neighbours by single bonds. 2. Remembering that carbon forms four bonds in its organic compounds, add the correct number of hydrogens to any 'unused' bonds making sure to only attach hydrogen atoms to carbon atoms using single bonds. Naming Alkanes An alkane's name is formed using the following rule: The letters ane are added to a prefix which depends on the number of carbon atoms in the longest carbon chain of the alkane. The prefixes used are the same for all organic molecules. The list below shows the names of the first ten alkanes, with the prefix shown in bold italics. The numbers correspond to the number of carbon atoms in the chain. 1. methane 2. ethane 3. propane 4. butane 5. pentane 6. hexane 7. heptane 8. octane 9. nonane 10. decane Therefore, the alkane with six carbon atoms is hexane (shown above) and the alkane with ten carbon atoms is decane. Reactions of Alkanes Alkanes are highly flammable. Carbon dioxide and water are the only products of the reaction when alkanes are burned in excess oxygen. Carbon monoxide is also produced when alkanes are burned in insufficient oxygen. For example, when methane is burned in excess oxygen, carbon dioxide and water are produced. The strong single covalent bonds are difficult to break so alkanes are rather unreactive.2 Aside from being flammable, two other notable reactions are: Catalytic Cracking This is performed on an industrial scale to produce very useful chemicals called alkenes. Alkanes with long carbon chains are not very useful so they are heated in the presence of a catalyst (for example aluminium oxide) to produce an alkane with a shorter carbon chain and an alkene. For example, when decane is heated in the presence of a catalyst, octane and ethene are produced. C10H22 (l)→ C8H18 (l) + C2H4 (g) Reaction with Bromine Alkanes undergo a substitution reaction3 with bromine (Br2 (l)) in strong ultraviolet light. For example, when pentane reacts with bromine, 1-bromopentane4 and hydrogen bromide gas are produced: a bromine atom is swapped with a hydrogen atom. C5H12 (l) + Br2 (l)→ C5H11Br (l) + HBr (g) 1Alkenes are produced from alkanes by catalytic cracking2Breaking bonds in the molecule is essential if it is to react with another molecule.3A substitution reaction is one in which two molecules react by swapping atoms.4The name 1-bromopentane shows that the molecule is a modified form of pentane in which a bromine atom replaces a hydrogen atom on the first carbon atom along in pentane's carbon chain. Bookmark on your Personal Space Edited Entry Infinite Improbability Drive Infinite Improbability Drive Read a random Edited Entry Categorised In: Written by Write an Entry Write an entry Read more	[]
5 Muscles to Target for Paddleboarding Paddleboarding is a great sport that can be done on almost any open water, and the very brave are even venturing out onto rivers with their paddleboards! River paddleboarding requires an expert guide and extensive personal skills, but most lake and oceanfront paddleboarding is accessible. Be sure to learn how to swim first, and always wear a life jacket! I love paddleboarding because it can be done during most weather; however, your skill level will impact your ability to stay on your board and dry! So, paddleboarding can be year-round support depending on where you live. As far as a workout goes, paddleboarding is flexible; if you can manage to stay upright, your workout can range from an easy activity to a super challenging burn. As you will be standing relatively still, your legs may not get a thorough workout. They will, however, be challenged to stand firm to maintain your balance, and there are ways to bring them more into play. • Core: • Staying up on the paddleboard does require great balance, and the source of balance comes from the core. When remaining stationary on the board, you will recruit your entire core to maintain a statuesque posture. Think of standing tall, with your head, shoulders, and hipsstacked one on top of the other. Your hands will be gripping your paddle with your shoulders down and relaxed. When you are ready to begin movement via paddling, you will need to fire your core even more; the movement of your arms and shoulders will want to throw you off balance. By engaging your core, you can maintain your balance and give your core muscles a solid workout. • Ankles and feet: • Another strong player in maintaining your balance is your ankles and feet. I find that my ankles and feet work super hard during a paddleboard session. Your feet will be placed on the board about hip-width apart, and the muscles that serve your ankles and feet will be called in to play as your motion through the water rocks the board side to side and forward and back. As you dig into the water with your paddles, your feet will need to be strong so that they stay placed firmly on the board. Remember to wiggle your toes and shift your feet around a tiny bit as you want to avoid being in a tight position for too long. • Shoulders: • Your propulsion through the water will be driven by your arms moving the paddle. This is where you can alter the intensity of your workout; paddling slowly and gently will provide you with an easy activity while digging fast and hard will get your cardiovascular and muscular system working hard. Playing with the depth, length, and intensity of your paddling will alter the intensity of your workout and how hard your shoulder muscles will be working. Mix it up by paddling on one side only, and then the other or paddling side to side with each stroke. • Legs: • The legs will always be working at some level, as they work to maintain your balance and posture, especially when waves rock your board. To give your legs an extra challenge, do a mini squat with each paddle stroke. Or, to challenge your balance and legs even further, move into a stride or lunge position with your legs hip-width apart and one in front of the other. Now, with each stroke, perform a mini lunge. • Upper Back: • Just as with the shoulders and legs, you can easily alter the intensity of your workout by changing the cadence and power you exert in your paddling. When your paddle is in the water, and you are ready to pull the paddle back through the water, your upper back will come into play. Change your intensity by gently and slowly pulling the paddle back or by pulling it through the water as though your life depends on it. The faster your paddleboard moves through the water, the harder your muscles and cardiovascular system are working! Search our shop	[]
Perceptron: Robots that feel pain and AI that predicts soccer players’ movements – TechCrunch Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column, Perceptron (previously Deep Science), aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. This week in AI, a team of engineers at the University of Glasgow developed “artificial skin” that can learn to experience and react to simulated pain. Elsewhere, researchers at DeepMind developed a machine learning system that predicts where soccer players will run on a field, while groups from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Tsinghua University created algorithms that can generate realistic photos — and even videos — of human models. According to a press release, the Glasgow team’s artificial skin leveraged a new type of processing system based on “synaptic transistors” designed to mimic the brain’s neural pathways. The transistors, made from zinc-oxide nanowires printed onto the surface of a flexible plastic, connected to a skin sensor that registered changes in electrical resistance. Artificial skin Image Credits: University of Glasgow While artificial skin has been attempted before, the team claims that their design differed in that it used a circuit built into the system to act as an “artificial synapse” — reducing input to a spike in voltage. This sped up processing and allowed the team to “teach” the skin how to respond to simulated pain by setting a threshold of input voltage whose frequency varied according to the level of pressure applied to the skin. The team sees the skin being used in robotics, where it could, for example, prevent a robotic arm from coming into contact with dangerously high temperatures. Tangentially related to robotics, DeepMind claims to have developed an AI model, Graph Imputer, that can anticipate where soccer players will move using camera recordings of only a subset of players. More impressively, the system can make predictions about players beyond the view of the camera, allowing it to track the position of most — if not all — players on the field fairly accurately. DeepMind Graph Imputer Image Credits: DeepMind Graph Imputer isn’t perfect. But the DeepMind researchers say it could be used for applications like modeling pitch control, or the probability that a player could control the ball assuming it’s at a given location. (Several leading Premier League teams use pitch control models during games, as well as in pre-match and post-match analysis.) Beyond football and other sports analytics, DeepMind expects the techniques behind Graph Imputer will be applicable to domains like pedestrian modeling on roads and crowd modeling in stadiums. While artificial skin and movement-predicting systems are impressive, to be sure, photo- and video-generating systems are progressing at a fast clip. Obviously, there’s high-profile works like OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 and Google’s Imagen. But take a look at Text2Human, developed by CUHK’s Multimedia Lab, which can translate a caption like “the lady wears a short-sleeve T-shirt with pure color pattern, and a short and denim skirt” into a picture of a person who doesn’t actually exist. In partnership with the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, Tsinghua University created an even more ambitious model called CogVideo that can generate video clips from text (e.g., “a man in skiing,” “a lion is drinking water”). The clips are rife with artifacts and other visual weirdness, but considering they’re of completely fictional scenes, it’s hard to criticize too harshly. Machine learning is often used in drug discovery, where the near-infinite variety of molecules that appear in literature and theory need to be sorted through and characterized in order to find potentially beneficial effects. But the volume of data is so large, and the cost of false positives potentially so high (it’s costly and time-consuming to chase leads) that even 99% accuracy isn’t good enough. That’s especially the case with unlabeled molecular data, by far the bulk of what’s out there (compared with molecules that have been manually studied over the years). Diagram of an AI model's sorting method for molecules. Image Credits: CMU CMU researchers have been working to create a model to sort through billions of uncharacterized molecules by training it to make sense of them without any extra information. It does this by making slight changes to the (virtual) molecule’s structure, like hiding an atom or removing a bond, and observing how the resulting molecule changes. This lets its learn intrinsic properties of how such molecules are formed and behave — and led to it outperforming other AI models in identifying toxic chemicals in a test database. Molecular signatures are also key in diagnosing disease — two patients may present similar symptoms, but careful analysis of their lab results shows that they have very different conditions. Of course that’s standard doctoring practice, but as data from multiple tests and analyses piles up, it gets difficult to track all the correlations. The Technical University of Munich is working on a sort of clinical meta-algorithm that integrates multiple data sources (including other algorithms) to differentiate between certain liver diseases with similar presentations. While such models won’t replace doctors, they will continue to help wrangle the growing volumes of data that even specialists may not have the time or expertise to interpret. Spread the love Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published.	[]
© 2020 Texas Public Radio Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio. Play Live Radio Next Up: Available On Air Stations Toddler Milks: Filling A Nutritional Need Or A Marketing Niche? Toddler milks are more expensive and generally less nutritious than milk, says a researcher. Arian Melchor Manzanero Pool Getty Images/EyeEm "You're faced with a confusing array of labels that are similar looking, and it's not very clear when you're supposed to use one, or switch from one to the other, or actually stop using these, and give your child food," says Jennifer Pomeranz, a public health researcher at New York University who recently analyzed the toddler drinks in grocery store aisles. Her results appeared in the journal Preventive Medicine last month. The abundance of options reflects how much care parents tend to put into feeding their youngest family members. There's plenty of science showing that what kids eat in their first few years lays a foundation for their physical growth and brain development for the rest of their lives. But toddlers don't know how important their diet is. So when they push away new foods, parents get anxious. "For many parents, it's scary to move from breast-feeding or infant formula onto whole cow milk, that seems like a big change," says Steven Abrams, who chairs the American Association of Pediatricians Committee on Nutrition. That, formula makers say, is where toddler milks come in. Toddler milks are marketed for picky eaters, framed as a familiar, but more grown-up, version of the breast milk or formula they're departing from. "Milk-based toddler drinks can contribute significantly to nutritional intake of older infants and young children," Mardi Mountford, the president of the Infant Nutrition Council of America, said in an email statement. The Infant Nutrition Council of America is an association that includes Gerber products and three other formula makers. But what an anxious parent may not realize is that these toddler milks are typically more expensive than whole milk and less nutritious, Abrams says. "I don't believe them to be particularly harmful, but they're not necessary, and they're certainly not designed and regulated for infant use." Still, manufacturers are pursuing this market with gusto. In 2015, manufacturers spent $16 million promoting toddler milks, compared with $9 million on baby formula, according to an analysis from the University of Connecticut. Mead Johnson Nutrition, the company behind Enfagrow toddler transitions formula, noted strong growth in U.S. and Canada for their "growing-up milks" in their two most recent annual reports, in 2014 and 2015. Why did you look into toddler milk labels? Besides regulating the composition of infant formula, the FDA sets standards for labeling products for babies. Manufacturers have to include a specific nutrition panel and a statement to "use as directed by physicians," and they can only make certain kinds of claims about infant formulas on packaging. Once a formula is intended for a child older than 12 months, those regulations don't apply, so it made sense to survey the 17 toddler milk labels available when this study was conducted. Do you have recommendations about these formulas? My view is that these companies created a fake feeding period that they filled with this new product. We're adding in now another few years of processed food consumption that didn't previously exist. But to regulate the products that will remain in the market, it would help to assign them a standard name, so parents know what they're buying, she says. Requiring labels to clearly specify that toddler drinks aren't for infants would remove some of the confusion. A directive encouraging parents to check with a pediatrician before feeding a child a toddler drink would also be good. Given that most toddlers do well with food, water, and milk, pediatricians don't typically recommend these transition formulas.	[]
Power And Inequality: Role Of Inequality In Increasing The Crime Rate • Words: 2168 • \| • Pages: 5 Download PDF The increasing crime rate all across the world is a great concern for the legal authorities and also the researchers have identified numerous factors behind the increased crime rate. The major dimensions that are considered the real causes behind an increased crime rate includes poverty and inequality. But recently the numerous research studies have identified that inequality is considered to be the main driving factor behind increasing crime rate. This essay also argues that inequality contributes to crime rate as compared to poverty. It is strongly argued that inequality rather than poverty is the main driver of crime all across the world, and the two forms of inequality includes the social inequality and the economic inequality. For this reason it is important to understand the concept of crime, which states that it is an act of conditional violation, law breaking in a straight forward sense and also these activities include the conditional violation of the criminal law which is agreed upon within the given jurisdiction (Stewart et al., 2002). Similarly by understanding the concept of poverty, the researchers have identified that poverty can be defined as the condition, in which the individuals get short of the resources and they do not have sufficing resources to meet their personal needs. Most of the research studies have conducted an extensive research to define a relationship between poverty and crime. But on the other hand, the other research studies have also identified that there is no link between the poverty rate and crime rate. These research studies are based on the surveys conducted from different imprisoned women, and they have revealed that although they faced poverty throughout their lives but they committed crime because of powerlessness and crime. And the analysis of these research findings shows that they committed crime not because of poverty but they did it as they have experienced violence at their homes, or they consumed drugs for tackling their issues and later got involved in the drug related crimes. In addition, it has been presented in the different research studies that there is a direct and strong link between income inequality and an increasing rate of crime. The research studies have also discussed that income inequality is a structural violence which is triggered among individuals because of a huge gap in their income level. Also, by analyzing this fact from a socio-psychological point of view, it is considered that income inequality results in the hierarchical societies and the people living in these societies are highly concerned about the attainment of status and it ultimately becomes the goal of their lives (Hipp, 2007). With an increase in the status competition, the gap in the income of individuals make it difficult for them to obtain social status and success including good jobs, nice houses and good education. And it increases frustration of individuals, and the respond to this frustration with violence, and it fuels the criminal acts in the society. The social sciences researchers have also claimed that income inequalities results in the increased crime rate because people who are unable to achieve social status and they are deprived of obtaining resources, considers the violence and crime as a most convenient route to achieve social status and resources. Also the economic inequality is strongly linked with the increased rate of crime and violence. Moreover, it is also argued that inequality increases the crime rate due to the presence of certain mechanisms, and these may include escalating social tensions to increasing economic returns to criminal activity. A report published by the United Nations Development Programmed, mentioned that the lack of capacity of governments in terms of institutions, police forces and judicial systems as well as a significant increase in the ratio of single household parents also increases the probability and chances of crime in the countries. The institutions are not adequate enough to meet the security challenges and to control the crimes like drug trafficking, human trafficking, theft, robberies etc (Wilkinson, 2002). Also the different researchers have identified that if the inequality has not declined it will increase the homicide rates in the next few years. Also the analysts have stated that if the society is divided between losers and winners, some of these losers may turned into the homicides who get involved in numerous crimes just for the sake of filling income gap and inequality, they are facing while living in the society. Also the greater income gaps result in the property crimes and the poor have greater incentives in stealing from the rich, as by doing so they can cover the income gaps and also they can achieve the social status which they actually desired for. These findings provide a clear picture of the link between income inequality and increasing crime rate. This relationship has causal effects although the other determinants of crime are been controlled, but if income inequality exists, it results in the high level of implications for the underclass to act violently and this class is forced to compete with the upper class for gaining higher income and achieve high level of status. The most common phenomena is that the high levels of inequality gives greater incentives for the increased rate of crimes, and if the crime rates are less severe the crime rates would also fall. By considering the cases of rich countries, such as United States, which has a high level of income inequality, it can be seen that such an inequality would result in the increased crime rates in the long run (Lofstrom and Raphael, 2016). For this reason, the international monetary fund, OECD and other organizations are highly concerned about this issue and they have warned that the accelerating inequality rates would harm the societies regardless of economic conditions. Also many Americans view inequality as an outcome of the consequences when the abilities and talents are not distributed evenly throughout the society. The rich are becoming rich because they work smarter, harder and highly productive. Save your time! We can take care of your essay • Proper editing and formatting • Free revision, title page, and bibliography • Flexible prices and money-back guarantee Place Order The notion that inequality results in increased crime rate as compared to poverty is also supported by the analytical framework presented by Gary Becker who has stated that the crime rates are greatly dependent on the penalties and risks associated with the apprehension linked with the incentives and rewards linked with the crimes (Fajnzylber et al., 2002). The relationship between inequality and increased crime rate is being observed by the sociological theories and it is also described that the people living in lower class areas are said to have higher official crime rates because of the consistent levels of inequality. Moreover this finding is also analyzed by applying the theory of relative deprivation, in which it is mentioned that the social tension is breed by inequality because the people who are less well off, feel dispossessed when they are compared with the upper class or the wealthier people. This feeling of unfairness and being disadvantaged leads the poor to look for satisfaction and compensation by all means and it includes committing crimes against both the rich and the poor. On the other hand, it is also important to understand that most of the crimes inflicted by poor on poor weakens the relative deprivation theory as it does not validate the relationship between inequality and crime. It shows that the characteristics of the victims are not dependent on their relative wealth but also on the inequalities in security services that are provided to them. The observation of the research studies shows that crime rate is highly prevalent in the poor communities, and social classes because of inequality in the police services and poor people do not afford the high levels of security which is required to provide them protection against different crimes. Besides income inequality, the social inequality is also considered one of the greatest reasons behind increasing rate of crimes. The social inequality includes the discrimination based on the racial and ethnic issues. The social inequality results in the increased discrimination and these people get engaged themselves in criminal activities as they feel disadvantaged and they feel that they are deprived of their basic rights. When they feel disadvantaged, they seek compensation and satisfaction by involving in any means so that they can satisfy their ethnic and racial satisfaction, and also by doing so they satisfy their social status (Ingraham, 2018). These individuals also commit themselves in victimizing the rich and poor. The researchers have also identified that inequality does not only include income inequality and this form of inequality also includes inequality on the basis of age, color, religion, gender and race. Also these researchers have identified that social injustice is a major contributing factor behind the increased crime rate. According to a research conducted by the Human Rights Watch, it can be stated that the ethnic minorities are highly disproportionate and they are discriminated and represented in the US criminal justice system. These ethnic minorities also experience legal discrimination and stigma because of the inequality and they get themselves involved in the criminal activities to get justice and obtain equal status and respect in the society. Although poverty is the main reason behind an increased rate of crime and the research studies have also described that as the youth does not have equal opportunities for getting education, they involve themselves in the criminal activities. If the unemployment rate is reduced, it also decreases the crime rate. And also it has been mentioned in the research studies that most of the highly developed and economic stable countries also face a higher crime rate as the people want to satisfy their social needs and also they like to get a higher social recognition, and by committing crimes they find means to satisfy their needs (Vauclair and Bratanova, 2017). Moreover the further cause of increasing crime rate is the dysfunctional family setup and lifestyle and it is seen that if a child is raised in a dysfunctional family setup, it leads him to the criminal life in his future. Moreover family violence and several other issues also contribute to the increased crime rate and it shows that people who are abused and neglected by their families, get easily get attracted to the crimes. And the characteristics like poor supervision of parents also leads to the increased criminal activities of the children. Hence all these research studies shows that inequality is greatly linked to the criminal activities and increased crime rates, though it’s an economic or social inequality. These forms of inequality are the major contributor of crime and it is a highly impacting factor for increased crime rate as compared to the poverty. In addition the several research studies have also stated that there is a need of applying and bringing several solutions to resolve these issues where the contributing factors towards poverty can be eliminated and these issues can be resolved. It is important for the state and federal government to resolve these issues because the increasing crime rate has a destructive impact on the overall economic development and also these issues raise a high level of insecurity and violence in the societies (Webster and Kingston, 2014). The most important solution is to eradicate inequality in all its forms so that the people would have an equal level of income and social status which would help them to avoid being indulging in the criminal activities. Moreover the government institutes should focus on increasing the economic stability of the countries, as a result of which there are equal employment opportunities and also the people would raise their social status equally. In short there is a need of adequate steps for which these issues can be resolved and also the crime rate can be controlled. To conclude it can be stated that inequality plays a major role in increasing the crime rate as compared to poverty and it is not necessarily the income inequality but also it is the social inequality. When the individuals are deprived of their basic rights and also these individuals are placed at the lowest levels of social hierarchy, they get attracted to the increased crimes, for fulfilling their desires and needs and also they find every mean to earn higher income and to acknowledge their social presence. 1. FAJNZYLBER, P., LEDERMAN, D. & LOAYZA, N. 2002. Inequality and violent crime. The journal of Law and Economics, 45, 1-39. 2. HIPP, J. R. 2007. Income inequality, race, and place: Does the distribution of race and class within neighborhoods affect crime rates? Criminology, 45, 665-697. 3. INGRAHAM, C. 2018. How rising inequality hurts everyone, even the rich [Online]. Available: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/06/how-rising-inequality-hurts-everyone-even-the-rich/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b1feeb2e001a [Accessed]. 4. LOFSTROM, M. & RAPHAEL, S. 2016. Crime, the criminal justice system, and socioeconomic inequality. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30, 103-26. 5. STEWART, F., HOLDSTOCK, D. & JARQUIN, A. 2002. Root causes of violent conflict in developing countriesCommentary: Conflict—from causes to prevention? bmj, 324, 342-345. 6. VAUCLAIR, C.-M. & BRATANOVA, B. 2017. Income inequality and fear of crime across the European region. European journal of criminology, 14, 221-241. 7. WEBSTER, C. & KINGSTON, S. 2014. Anti-poverty strategies for the UK: poverty and crime review. 8. WILKINSON, R. G. 2002. Unhealthy societies: the afflictions of inequality, Routledge. Make sure you submit a unique essay Cite this Page Power And Inequality: Role Of Inequality In Increasing The Crime Rate. (2022, March 18). Edubirdie. Retrieved July 5, 2022, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/power-and-inequality-role-of-inequality-in-increasing-the-crime-rate/ “Power And Inequality: Role Of Inequality In Increasing The Crime Rate.” Edubirdie, 18 Mar. 2022, edubirdie.com/examples/power-and-inequality-role-of-inequality-in-increasing-the-crime-rate/ Power And Inequality: Role Of Inequality In Increasing The Crime Rate. [online]. Available at: <https://edubirdie.com/examples/power-and-inequality-role-of-inequality-in-increasing-the-crime-rate/> [Accessed 5 Jul. 2022]. Power And Inequality: Role Of Inequality In Increasing The Crime Rate [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2022 Mar 18 [cited 2022 Jul 5]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/power-and-inequality-role-of-inequality-in-increasing-the-crime-rate/ Join 100k satisfied students • Get original paper written according to your instructions • Save time for what matters most hire writer Fair Use Policy Check it out!	[]
Last Updated 26 Jan 2021 Racial Discrimination Words 1811 (7 pages) Order custom essay Racial Discrimination with free plagiarism report Color discrimination can also occur in the absence of race discrimination when members of the same race are treated differently because of their skin color. An example that relates to color discrimination in the workplace is the employer does not hire anyone darker but hires light-skinned or white persons of all races. Final type of racism in workplace is language discrimination. Language discrimination means treating someone in a different way only because of his or her native language or further characteristics of speech. An example of language discrimination on the job is when an employee may be subjected to language discrimination if the workplace has speak-English-only rule, especially if her primary language is not English. An employee may also be the victim of language discrimination if she is treated less favorably than other employees because she speaks English with an accent, or if she is told she does not qualify for a position because she does not speak English well enough. But language discrimination doesn’t only happen on the job, a person may be denied access to businesses or government services because he or she does not speak English. Racial discrimination is everywhere. In the Philippines, we can say that racial discrimination is evident, especially to those who belong to a tribal minority or ethnic groups. Even the media manifested racism, most of the advertisement that can be seen in the television could let us think about racism. Like for example, the commercial about a whitening soap or lotion, they used image models have dark complexion skin. And in order to promote the effectiveness of their products they have to show that their models are whitened by their products. So meaning having dark skin is not good to look at. Though it is just an advertisement but still it could be another form of racial discrimination among dark people. But not only those advertisements in television, but even also some of our local “teleserye” or “telenobela”. In that, I can say that racism is prevalent in the Philippines. Racial discrimination of Filipinos doesn’t exist only within the country but also to other countries. Why do most people from Western and other rich countries discriminate Filipinos? And why do they usually think of us as Gold diggers and stuff? How inferior it is to hear that thing if you were in our part either it is not easy to take that in your part knowing that people around the world describes Filipino as a Domestic Helpers. In the Philippine history, Spanish colony has made a big change in the country and has made contributed positive things and negative things. The friars (Spanish friars of the past settling in the Philippines) is putting into the minds of the students and of the people that they are the Superiors since they are white and the Indios (Filipino’s of before) are brown. In that thing you can already see that there is racial discrimination. One positive thing I can give upon their (the Spanish) contribution to the Philippines is Christianity in the land. This has been the greatest thing Filipino’s at this present is proud of and has made most us religious, God-fearing, prayerful and these things but in the other hand on the negative side, Spanish made us traumatize on the things they have done like being innocent, and idiots. They kept on punishing the people of before if they won’t pay their debts. In fact, we Filipino’s are the real owner of this land and there is no need for us to be demanded on the debts rather it’s in our whim to demand those things from them since they were foreign in the land. But look at what they did, because of power with so much guns, good swords and equipped soldiers, they controlled the land and called the Filipino’s as squatters. Now at the present times, the effects of those traumas have occurred from the cause. We ought to be blameless if we can’t improve our economy that well, but time will come we will prosper since we have a kind of land that is much fertile and with lots of resources to cater the world. People would think we are poor, yes we are poor. Eventually, we are poor in terms of economy that is why most of us go to other lands just to be slaves and we don’t care for as long as we can feed our families after those wages and labors being given. Though the world describes Filipina’s as DH or Domestic Helpers but in our land we call them as Heroes- heroes of our family. If you get to know our culture, I know you would understand everything why we come into certain things. For as long as we live happily, that’s all it takes. The talks of the people won’t stumble us down in fact we become stronger and stronger every day. It doesn’t mean we hate people the way they see us, well it’s normal and it’s there will and choice to hate us. We can’t stop them from it, but all I can say is that, respect is what we ask for. Respect us as humans and as a person. We cannot really avoid such discrimination, so many laws now implemented about anti-racial discrimination but still it is always there. Racism existed throughout human history. In the Philippines, last November 2011 the senate passed a bill that would prohibit and penalize racial discrimination in the workplace, educational institutions, and services. Senate Bill 2814 also known as the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2011, according to its sponsor Sen. Loren Legarda, would provide a lasting and effective solution to discrimination in the country. Legarda said that based on the 20th Periodic report submitted by the government to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in 2008, the Philippines does not formally recognize the existence of racial discrimination in the country. She quoted the country’s official stand in the report as saying “racial discrimination is alien to the prevailing mores and culture of the Filipino People” and that “racial discrimination has never officially or factually existed in the Philippines, neither in a systemic nor formal nor intermittent nor isolated manner” because “Filipinos have essentially the same racial and ethnic origins. ” Legarda said the government has to formally recognize the existence of racial discrimination in the country. The bill stipulates penalties on acts of racial discrimination in employment, education, delivery of goods, facilities and services, accommodation, transportation, media, and in search and investigatory activities. Persons who “request, induce, encourage and authorize or assist others to commit acts of discrimination or profiling” would also be held liable. We need to acknowledge that discrimination exists before we can eliminate it for we cannot eradicate something that is considered a ghost by others. We must strive to transform our society into an open-minded and sensitive community where no child is subjected to name-calling because of his distinct looks; we must build a nation where each individual's beliefs and principles are respected and everyone is given equal opportunity to achieve his full potential as a person and as a Filipino citizen. Sources: http://www. senate. gov. ph/press_release/2011/0511_legarda2. asp http://www. philstar. com/Article. aspx? articleId=751133;publicationSubCategoryId=63 http://socyberty. com/ethnicity/racial-discrimination/#ixzz27l5k6GU6 Racial Discrimination essay Get professional help and free up your time for more important courses Starting from 3 hours delivery 450+ experts on 30 subjects get essay help 124 experts online Cite this page Racial Discrimination. (2017, Jan 10). Retrieved from Save time and let our verified experts help you. Hire writer	[]
Frequntly Asked Quetion (FAQ) Q. What else you need to know about Authy Some services/applications will provide you with a security code when you are setting up the 2FA with them. This code is to be able to recover the account in case you lose the phone or device where Authy is installed. Some others do not provide that code, so if you lose your device, you will have to contact them to restore access to your accounts. Authy has a backup feature that we recommend enabling, but remember to keep your master password in a safe place. Authy’s support team replies are well organized and respond very quickly. That’s another reason why we recommend them. Powered By MemberPress WooCommerce Plus Integration	[]
Custom Name and Color Hello My Name Is Badge Price $10.50 Enter the text exactly as you would like it to appear, including capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. If you're anything like me, your car has a name to go with his or her personality. The problem is, they can't talk (from what I've experienced anyway). To help, I've created this way to help your car tells others what their name is. The best part is that you get to pick the color to match! You might also be interested in	[]
History Timelines Ancient Rome and Trade Ancient Rome and Trade We are searching data for your request: Forums and discussions: Manuals and reference books: Data from registers: Wait the end of the search in all databases. Trade was vital to Ancient Rome. The empire cost a vast sum of money to run and trade brought in much of that money. The population of the city of Rome was one million and such a vast population required all manner of things brought back via trade. Trade Routes The Roman Empire was criss-crossed with trade routes. There were sea routes that covered the Mediterranean and Black Seas and numerous land routes using the roads built by the Romans. Trade and moving the Roman Army around were the two principle reasons for building roads. The most important port was Ostia as it was the nearest major port to Rome itself. Ostia was situated at the mouth of the River Tiber and was only 15 miles from Rome. Many ships travelled between Ostia and the major North African city of Carthage, a journey that took between three and five days. Trade routes across the Roman Empire Sea Routes Ships also arrived from Spain and France at Ostia. All their goods could be quickly moved to Rome itself as they were taken in barges to the city up the River Tiber after slaves had transferred the products from the merchant ships to the barges. Ironically, Ostia was to play a major part in the downfall of Rome when Alaric the Goth captured Ostia in AD 409 knowing that this would starve Rome of much needed food. The Romans did what they could to make sea journeys safe - lighthouses were built as were safe harbours and docks. The Roman Navy did what it could to make the Mediterranean Sea safe from pirates. The Romans made trade as easy as possible. There was only one currency used and there were no complicating customs dues. Trade was also encouraged by many years of peace within the Empire. Trade was vital to the success of the Empire. When the Empire collapsed, trade throughout the lands that had once made up the Roman Empire, also collapsed. The Mediterranean Sea became a dangerous place for merchants as there were no powers to control the activities of pirates who marauded as far north as the English Channel. What was acquired from where? Britain exported lead, woollen products and tin. In return, it imported from Rome wine, olive oil, pottery and papyrus. British traders relied on the Romans to provide security within the Empire. When this collapsed and Europe was seemingly overrun by Barbarians, no one could guarantee traders that their produce would get through. Also, without the power of Rome, who would be willing to buy what was produced in Britain and other parts of Europe? 1. Matthan It is known to a god! 2. Eadsele I mean you are wrong. Enter we'll discuss it. Write to me in PM. 3. Cwentun It is remarkable, rather valuable information Write a message	[]
Corked Counter - April Update Since the beginning of the year I have been keeping track of the number of corked bottles of wine I have come across. Again, for my purposes here I am just considering 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA). TCA typically comes from cork but may also come from barrels and other sources. A number of people have asked me what a wine affected by TCA smells/tastes like. The most frequent descriptions are ‘musty’ or ‘moldy newspaper’ or ‘damp basement.’ Looking for TCA is part of the purpose of checking a wine when it is presented at a restaurant (where at least you have the good fortune of being able to send it back). Unfortunately in many cases consumers don't know what to look for and just think that the wine is of bad quality. To try to make the count as accurate as possible I have: only included wines that I have personally checked (meaning that they hadn't already been screened); and only included wines that used cork as a closure (excluding synthetic corks, glass stoppers, and screw caps). Since the start of the year I've sampled 274 wines that fit these criteria. Eight of these wines have been corked, making the percentage currently about 3%. One interesting question is, what constitutes an acceptable level? I'll continue to give periodic updates throughout the year and will also continue to increment the 'Corked Counter' along the side of the blog. Feel free to share your stories and thoughts. Sean P. Sullivan 1. I am very sensitive to corked wine and can pick it out in a group of experienced tasters when no one else does until I mention it and they really stop and pay attention. Even then, sometimes others will say "I don't get it." I don't think any level is acceptable. It isn't just the addition of one taste or aroma. It impacts the whole profile of the wine. I understand that cork taint can actually affect the profile and finish of the wine at levels that are not perceptible by taste or aroma. I told someone about bottle of wine from a good producer that had a front end but absolutely no middle or finish. He said this can be the product of otherwise undetectable cork taint. I went to my trusty Google and found an article in a technical industry publication; the kind with chemistry and stuff that is over my head. It confirmed what I had been told and discussed the effect of cork taint on wine independent of taste or aroma and mentioned how it can result in a wine like the one I described. Sorry, I can't give you the chemical discussion. 2. Anon, I agree that I have seen a certain flavor stripping and change in the mouthfeel of corked wines. Even if the aroma can be difficult, sometimes or for some, to notice, the effect on the perception of the wine might not be. Thanks for the comment. 3. I've noticed that most of the time a tainted wine carries multiple faults some of which are more prominent then others. A faulty cork leading to a TCA taint can lend itself to some oxidized characteristics. Also an interesting thing to note is the threshold for fault perception varies from person to person. Someone who may drink only primarily wine under screwcap may be more sensitive to wine under cork. For example, I have a friend who spent a couple years in Australia where he drank wine almost exclusively under a screwcap enclosure. When he got back to the states he was so sensitive to the cork influence on wine that he found himself hypersensitive to corktaint and because of that had trouble drinking wine in the states. All very interesting things to think about. 4. TylerH, interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. 5. So started a business in which they repackage wine into 50ml bottles. Originally this was make it more convenient to send samples to reviewers, but now they sell sampling packages to the public. In moving the wine from the original 750ml bottles to the 50ml bottles they use a machine that detects TCA and rejects the bottle if it is found. Should bigger producers of wine subject their bottles to this type of testing before it ships from the winery? Would the process catch some, if not most of the contaminated corks? I wonder if TCA is detectable before the cork is inserted into the bottle. 6. Carl, Wineries I have talked to vary greatly in terms of how seriously they take the issue of cork taint. One winery I spoke with declorinates all of the water coming in to the winery to decrease the risk of TCA in the barrel. They also used only batches of cork that had been tested three times for TCA. Finally, they kept track of all of the corked wines that were opened in the tasting room to track the percentage of taint. So there are numerous steps that can be taken. Of course all of these steps come at a cost. It should also be noted that the quality of cork can vary greatly, so paying for higher quality cork can produce far less contamination. Again, this comes at a cost. Of course this begs the question, what is the cost of a corked bottle of wine? Your comment will be published after it has been moderated.	[]
Animal Crossing Wiki Kid Cat Gallery Spandex is the best disguise. ― Picture quote, Wild World Kid Cat (1ごう, Ichi Gō?, #1) is a jock cat villager. His theme and Japanese name are a reference to Kamen Rider. He is one of the five superhero villagers, the others being Agent S (No. 2), Big Top (No. 3), Rocket (No. 4), and Filly (No. 7). His initial phrase, "psst," is a sound made when confiding a secret and is an onomatopoeic word used to describe the sound a feline makes. He has the fitness hobby. Kid Cat in Animal Forest e+ Kid Cat is a white cat with a red helmet. His helmet has a white stripe down the middle and a blue "1" on the forehead area. His ears stick out of his helmet and are light blue on the inside, matching the light blue gradient on the end of his tail. In earlier games, Kid Cat appeared to be wearing black and red sweatbands; however, in New Horizons this is replaced by red coloring on his legs and arms that likely represent a red spandex suit. In later games, he also wears white boots with metal soles. He has large, wide-open eyes which are covered by his helmet's visor. He initially wears a No. 1 shirt, which matches his red helmet. Kid Cat has a jock personality and has a great interest in sports and bodybuilding. Jock villagers are hyperactive and motivated, but often come across as self-centered and dense. As a jock villager, Kid Cat is very interested in his hobby, and may compete against the player at catching bugs and fish. Jock villagers get along with peppy, cranky and sisterly villagers, but conflict with the laid-back lifestyle of lazy villagers. Snooty villagers may also be difficult to get along with for Kid Cat. In Animal Forest e+, Kid Cat's house is identical to Deena's, only that he has used the Chainlink Fence and the Western Carpet. He also has one gyroid, the Mega Harmonoid. No stereo is in his house either, and therefore, no music. In Wild World, City Folk, and New Leaf, Kid Cat's house has an exercise-type room, as if in a locker room or on a playing field. His wallpaper is the Chainlink Fence. He has the Blue Bench, Red Drum, Blue Bin, Iron Frame, Retro TV, Office Locker, clothes Line, Weight Bench, Basketball Hoop, and a Robo Stereo which plays Go K.K. Rider!. In New Horizons, Kid Cat's house is similar to his previous homes, resembling exercise equipment in an urban area. In the back of his house, from left to right, he has a mountain bike, basketball hoop, and a weight bench. In the front of his house, he has a pull-up-bar-stand and an oil barrel, garbage pail, and cardboard box crammed into a corner. The cardboard box has a tape deck that plays Go K.K. Rider. For wallpaper, he uses the Chain-Link Fence, and for flooring, he uses the Sandlot. AFe+ Kid Cat House.jpg Animal Forest e+ (interior) WW Kid Cat House.png CF Kid Cat House.jpg Wild World (interior) City Folk (interior) NL Kid Cat House.jpg NL Kid Cat House Ext.jpg New Leaf (interior) New Leaf (exterior) KidCatNHin.jpg NH Kid Cat House Ext.png New Horizons (interior) New Horizons (exterior) Pocket Camp Kid Cat was released with Pocket Camp on October 25, 2017. Kid Cat's preferred theme is sporty, and he primarily gives wood as a reward. His profile reads: ❝ Kid Cat claims he will fight tirelessly to protect his town against impeding evil! Unfortunately for him, that's going to be a pretty boring task!❞ Campsite Invitation Requirements Friendship Level: 5 Furniture/Item Required Materials Price (Bells) Craft Time Fruit Drink 30 preserves, 3 friend powder 1060 2 hours Corral Fence 6 wood 800 3 minutes Hammock 3 wood, 3 cotton 420 1 minute Cable Spool 60 wood, 3 natural essence 2090 9 hours Changing Room 60 steel, 3 cool essence 2310 6 hours Friendship Rewards • At level 7 friendship, he will reward the player with a No. 1 shirt and sparkle stones (x1). • At level 15, he will request the player to craft a spherical radar. • At level 20, he will reward the player with a pic of Kid Cat and sparkle stones (x1). amiibo Card amiibo Card[1] Amiibo card back.png #197 Kid Cat Type Cat Star sign Leo Birthday 8/1 Roll value 6 Hand sign Rock Request A superhero base Amiibo 197 Kid Cat.png 196 Freya #197 Kid Cat 198 Agent S • His name in the German version of City Folk was a translator's mistake - "Petra" being a feminine German name. • Kid Cat is one of the few villagers to have footwear, as he wears a pair of white boots starting from New Horizons. • Kid Cat is most likely a reference to the famous Japanese Tokusatsu franchise, Super Sentai, better known for its US adaptation Power Rangers. Due to him being part of a team of five superheroes which all have suits with different colors, all having a number, 1 being Kid Cat's number referencing that the leaders are usually represented by the number 1. In a Sentai team, red is the color used by the leader, and his picture quote is also referencing the fact that the suits used in the Super Sentai series are made of spandex. • Similarly, Kid Cat's pose looks exactly like the transformation pose in Kamen Rider, a series made by the same person who created Super Sentai, Shotaro Ishinomori. • Kid Cat's Chinese phrase "喝" means "drink". This is probably a reference to how athletes must stay hydrated regularly. In other languages Kid Cat Language Name Japan Japanese １ごう France French Câlin Spain Spanish Gatomán Germany German Pit Italy Italian Zampa The Netherlands Dutch Kid Cat China Chinese 阿一 Āyī South Korea Korean 1호 ho	[]
There are different types of dampness which can affect your property, it is very essential to acquire genuine methods to take care of every other problem. If one employs wrong technique to rectify dampness then it can further cause serious damage to their property. This is the main reason why home owners prefer to acquire genuine guidance of specialist damp surveyors. Benefits of acquiring services of expert professionals When you hire the services of professionals then there is nothing to fret about since they have various certifications viz. CRDS or CSRT. Professionals also provide thorough report about different types of dampness which can affect your residential property. They then provide you an estimated figure which will incur when you fix the problem. Professionals also have good contacts with repairers thus you will find it very convenient to find a good worker who would take care of the dampness in your house. Through the guidance of experts, one can also find a genuine method to acquire damp solution for a long time period. Professionals will also guide you about the necessary changes which you can employ in your property that will make it more secure in the future. Why is it essential to take their service in time? Apart from property damage, dampness leads residents of the house, especially elderly and children at utmost risk of asthma and bronchitis. Moreover, moulds also lead to immunological ailments inside the body. Thus, it is very essential to take genuine guidance of professionals to make your house neat and tidy.	[]
Health Care & Medical Case Study: My Experience With A Guide to Getting Arm Muscles For most men, getting bigger arm muscles is their dream. This is possible for the individuals that focus on getting the bigger arm muscles. For the progress to be realized within few days, an individual is required to have a working out plan for the muscles. This can be obtained by looking into some blogs and read more on the workout plans. One will be in a position to learn more about the incorporation of the working out plans with the increasing mass density of the arms. One will learn that the arm muscles include the triceps and the biceps. For the triceps, are located at the back upper part of an arm. Just as its name, the triceps possess three parts which are the medial, long, and lateral head. The biceps as also the name suggests have two parts that are basically the long and the short parts. Biceps are essential in the movement of the forearm. Therefore, for an individual to be in a position to figure out how to increase the arm muscles, one should find a way on how to deal with the biceps and the triceps. For an individual to learn more about the ways of increasing the mass density of the triceps and biceps, some of the outlined factors in this site should be put into consideration. The first guide to making sure that the arm muscles grow bigger in this website is that if gathering more info. On the different on the arm muscles. In that, one should ensure that they understand the type of biceps and triceps they have. Identifying the right workout plans for an individual arm is made possible when one understands the types of biceps and triceps that they possess. Also, one will understand what types of exercises fit their type of triceps and biceps. This is attributed to the difference in the exercise to be done for both the triceps and biceps. Injuries can be avoided in this case by making sure that an individual looks for this company that will be guiding in the exercises. Also, a good eating plan should be introduced. Muscle building foods in this case are the best. One should ensure that the eating plan chosen is new to incorporate into the new workout plan. This helps the body to adjust to the changes and avoid stressing them. Therefore, the effectiveness of the workout and the eating plan become effective. Almond, lean meats, seafood, and eggs are some of the simple types of food that are rich in the muscles building nutrients. Vegetables and fruits such as blueberries should not miss in an individual’s plan. The reason being that the vegetables and the vitamins contain vitamins that are crucial in building muscles. Suggested Post: my review here	[]
My Notes from the Underground Come, gentle night I run away from the Crystal Palace, Greedily storing up impressions, one day I, too, will emerge from the underground, and master the path to chaos. The Contemplator In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky makes reference to this painting by Ivan Kramskoy (The Contemplator, 1876) in describing Smerdyakov: “he stands as if he were lost in thought, but he is not thinking, he is ‘contemplating’ something.” A contemplator greedily stores up impressions he had been under while contemplating, even without realizing it. Why and for what, he does not know. Perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, “he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both.” There are contemplators. Look around.	[]
How can our gratitude contribute to world peace? Every day we witness the brutality of war and atrocity, and can feel hopeless or doubt that anything we do as an individual can have a positive impact. International Day of World Peace was celebrated last week so now might be a good time to reflect on how our own gratitude can make a difference. I love the Zen saying: If there is light in the soul, There is beauty in the person, If there is beauty in the person, There will be harmony in the house, If there is harmony in the house, There will be order in the nation, If there is order in the nation, There will be peace in the world. If we are to bring about world peace, we first need to ask ourselves if how we think and what we say and do can make a difference. This is not a trite question. We need to ask this first if gratitude is to have relevance and be a transformative force. Gratitude brings light to the soul because it shines a light on our sense of interconnectedness with one another. It immediately awakens us to what we receive from each other. This extends beyond our immediate connections with people we know personally to include a wide array of people who contribute to our world. For example, just reflecting on gratitude for the rice we are about to eat at meal times can expand our awareness of those who planted the rice in India and then to those who harvested the rice and transported it and sold it. Thousands of people could have our thanks extended to them in this way. Such a sense of interconnectedness brightens the ‘light in our soul’ because it moves us out of our individualism and separateness and towards a recognition of our absolute dependence on others. This may make us feel less indifferent to the senseless hurt inflicted on others. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has argued that it is a sense of interconnectedness that is required if we are to assume the “radical responsibility” for the other that is needed to make us act ethically and behave truly as a human being. When we acknowledge what we receive from another it has a motivating force that urges us to give back. One of the most powerful ways to give back is to acknowledge to others what we have received from them. This brings about what the social anthropologist Margaret Visser describes as “reconnaissance” – recognition of the others’ value in their very humanness through expressing gratitude to them. For example, if we go to the corner store and the shopkeeper looks tired at 9 pm after a long day’s work, we might say something like: “I really appreciate your efforts in keeping the store open this late at night so I am able to buy this milk”. It seems like such a small gesture but one that could have an enormous impact in a world where that shopkeeper is seen as someone who is there solely to provide a transactional service, so not particularly deserving of our thanks. Every time we express genuine gratitude we are basing our relationships less on transactions and more on a sense of appreciation for being given to by another. As sociologist Georg Simmel says, gratitude provides the moral cohesion of humankind. When people feel recognised through the gratitude expressed by others, they feel more affirmed. Margaret Visser tells us that this is essential to our sense of belonging, identity and relationships. Most importantly she teaches us that we cannot give affirmation – this reconnaissance through gratitude – to ourselves. It must be given to us by others. Gratitude also shines a light on the state that is its opposite – resentment. The words we use towards and about others are key points of reflection as to whether they arise from resentment or gratitude. If we find ourselves backbiting or gossiping or disparaging, we are doing the opposite of reconnaissance or interconnectedness. We are separating and dividing ourselves from others and disaffirming them. At the core of most wars and atrocities is the resentment we hold in our hearts. Our reflection on how we could do things differently next time, not only steers us back towards gratitude and personal integrity, but is a crucial step towards world peace. We are taking ‘radical responsibility’. Our own gratitude can make a difference. Australian Orders International Orders & eBooks Australian Orders Ships immediately. International Orders & eBooks Let’s stay connected Sign up to receive newsletters and resources from Kerry.	[]
The PJ Tatler You Won't Believe the Disgusting Smear that a Democrat Just Launched in the Immigration Battle Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is getting desperate. This is coming from a member of the party of unrestricted abortion. The party that is funded by Klan Parenthood, the eugenics-advocating abortion industrial leader that has built its business by killing millions of minority babies for profit.	[]
Recycle Games Two games on the theme of recycling developed for a course on Computer Games. Used Pygame as the game engine. Clean up! The story line consisted of a boy cleaning his room by collecting objects and dumping them in a dustbin. Each time that he dumped the objects in the dusbin he is prompted by a question on recycling. The final score reflects his performance in both the task. Spick And Span This game is based in a futuristic scenario when planet earth has run out of its resources and have started invading other planets to loot them. The game is a training module for soldiers before they are sent to other planets.	[]
The Saudi-Arabia-Iran Cold War and the Looming Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East by Angelo Olayvar “While recognizing our limitations in fully perceiving the complexities and ambiguities pertinent to the Middle East conflict, we feel compelled to articulate our concerns on matters which are critical in modifying tensions in the area and moving toward a solution.” – Church of the Brethren 1975 Resolution: Concern for Peace in the Middle East. The Church of the Brethren has long been concerned with issues of war as it goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ. The adherence of the Church to pacifism and promoting non-violent means of resolving conflicts is driven by its faith in the love of Christ. The instability of the Middle Eastern region greatly concerns the Church of the Brethren due to the immoral and unethical engagement of the United States military in the past decades. It is just and right to analyze and scrutinize all of the factors that exacerbate the conflict. The main focus of this blog would be the rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Islamic Republic of Iran and the looming nuclear arms race between the two states. 75 years ago — June 15, 1946: the United States presented the ‘Baruch Plan’ to the United Nations as an effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world. The ‘Baruch Plan’ would require an immediate halt to the development of nuclear weapons by all countries, followed by the close monitoring of peaceful nuclear programs. In exchange for this proposal, the United States promised to turn over all its nuclear weapons to the agency — at a time when the United States possessed a monopoly on these destructive weapons. This plan, however, was rejected by the Soviet Union due to its fear and distrust of the United Nations – which was dominated by the United States and its Western allies. In turn, the Soviet Union presented their counterproposal, however, it was rejected by their American counterparts as expected. The series of events that followed the rejection of the plans both presented by the United States and Soviet Union resulted in the inexorable collapse of negotiations between the states, which eventually led to an extremely dangerous nuclear arms race. Today, the world faces a similar dilemma. The rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran is stirring up events that could lead to a nuclear arms race between the two countries. Furthermore, US involvement in the Middle East via military engagement, weapons sales, defense transfers, and security assistance are fueling the instability of the already volatile region. The rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the many factors that has destabilized the Middle East. It has plunged the region into a cold-war style conflict that is complex, fueled not only by political differences but religious ones. It elicited events that casted the region into a state of geopolitical instability defined by despair, countless deaths, endless wars, worsening humanitarian crises, and a looming nuclear arms race between the Saudis and Iran. The effects of the instability of the Middle Eastern region can be felt all over the globe due to the far-reaching negative implications it presents to global peace and security, global economy, and promotion of human rights. How did the rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran come about? After the 1979 Iranian revolution the last Shah of Iran was overthrown, ending the 2,500-year-old Persian monarchy. It resulted in the establishment of the Islamic theocratic state of Iran with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the Supreme Leader. He reinvisioned the purpose of Iran: establish Iran as a Middle East regional power through Shia Islam. Today, Iran strongly believes that the dynamic political climate of the Muslim world is needed to be seen as forces of change in the Middle East, a region which is long exploited by the US and other Western powers. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim state, which had seen itself as the long-established leader of the Muslim world and guardian of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest place in Islam, is threatened by the rise of Iran and its idea of how the Muslim world should be. Throughout the years, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been involved in conflicts all over North Africa and the Middle East, even extending their competition in South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. Both countries have funded, trained, and armed opposing groups in the Middle East in order to establish power and dominance in the region. The involvement of the two Islamic states in conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have resulted in disastrous humanitarian crises. It is important to note that these two Muslim countries would have not been able to successfully compete with each other without the support of powerful countries such as the United States, China, and Russia. With the United States backing Saudi Arabia and Russia and China supporting the Iranian cause, the complexity of the Middle Eastern cold war makes the region more volatile and prone to prolonged and intense conflict. Although Iran’s nuclear program is not specifically aimed at Saudi Arabia, it stokes fear and distrust among its neighbors, especially to the Kingdom. Currently, Saudi Arabia does not possess any nuclear weapons and is a party to most relevant nonproliferation treaties and agreements. However, as mentioned by the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman on CBS program 60 Minutes in March 2018, “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible”. The rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Iran exacerbates the potential for a nuclear arms race between the two countries. Countries rely on weaponries to protect their sovereignty, preserve national security, and ensure their survival. Oftentimes, some countries pursue the production and/or acquisition of weapons that would give them an advantage over their competitor. In the context of the Saudi Arabia-Iranian rivalry, both states want to protect their sovereignty and national interests. The Iranian nuclear program greatly concerns the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to the threats it poses to their national security and interests. This compels the Kingdom to pursue policies that will address the issues posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Recently published reports declare that Saudi Arabia is working with China to build industrial capacity to produce nuclear fuel. The analysis of the report has alarmed many experts and American lawmakers because there might be a hidden agenda behind the cooperation between the two countries,which may allow the Kingdom to process raw uranium into a form that could be enriched into a fuel for a nuclear weapon. If the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia successfully produces its own nuclear weapon, it may result in the nuclear arms race with its rival, Iran. The United States along with it Western allies and its unlikely ally — Russia — need to ensure that no other countries obtain nuclear weapons, especially in the volatile region of the Middle East. Producing weapons that are capable of causing cataclysmic events that can result in the extinction of the human race is ludicrous. If the United States and the world is bent on preserving global peace and stability and ensuring the survival of the human race, they would provide mechanisms that would prohibit the proliferation and eliminate nuclear weapons. In the context of the Middle Eastern Cold War, Saudi Arabia and Iran need to step and pursue diplomatic measures before adopting irrational decisions and repeat the same mistakes that the United States and Soviet Union did before. They need to set aside their differences, political and religious, to ensure that they would not obliterate each other and cause irreversible consequences. Leave a Reply	[]
Central Retinal Vein Occlusion Treatment in Tampa, FL The physicians and the staff at Retina Specialists of Tampa are dedicated to providing the highest standards of care in the treatment of eye diseases. As are retina specialists with many years of experience, Dr. Tarabishy, and Dr. Dunn are committed to excellence in patient care, treating central retinal vein occlusion in Tampa, FL. We specialize in the pain-free treatment of the most challenging retinal disease cases and continuously work to provide our patients with the best possible experience, and the best possible outcome. For each, we create a treatment plan tailored to their specific needs. What is Central Retinal Vein Occlusion? The eye works like a camera. It has two parts, a lens, and a film. The film layer lines the back wall of the eyes and is called the retina. The part of the retina that is responsible for central vision is called the macula. It has arteries that provide blood flow and veins that drain the blood. The arteries and the veins share a common tubing. Over time, the arteries can become hardened and compress the veins. If too much force is applied, it can block a section supplied by a retinal vein. If too much force is applied, it can block the main retinal vein of the eye. This is called a central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO). Complications of CRVO The blockage may be mild and cause no vision-threatening changes or symptoms. In these cases, patients are recommended to undergo a medical evaluation by their primary care doctor and their eyes are monitored closely. In other patients, the blockage may be more severe and cause treatable vision-threatening complications such as macular edema or neovascularization. Macular Edema The most common complication is macular edema. Patients with this condition generally experience a considerable improvement in vision with treatment and maintain excellent vision over the long term. Macular edema involving the area of central vision is treated with intravitreal injections. This refers to a procedure in which medication is injected into the white of the eye in a typically painless procedure. The medication is injected every month for a period of at least six months. There is typically a very rapid improvement in vision within the first three months of treatment and then a slow improvement and stabilization of vision by month six. After a period of six months, the frequency of injections is either slowly decreased or injections are stopped completely. If injections are stopped completely, patients will be monitored for signs of recurring edema. There are some patients who only need a few injections during their entire treatment and others who require treatments every four weeks for years. Retina specialists are unable to know the precise number of injections that a patient will need or for what duration. The treatment plan is tailored to the patient’s response at each visit. Abnormal Blood Vessels Another possible complication associated with a branch retinal vein occlusion is the development of abnormal new blood vessels within the retina. These new blood vessels leak and bleed resulting in a temporary loss of vision. The areas with the poorest blood flow are the parts of the retina responsible for creating this undesirable hormone and encouraging new blood vessel growth. This is treatable with an in-office procedure called panretinal photocoagulation, abbreviated PRP. Why Does CRVO Occur? Now, let’s talk about why this condition occurs and how patients may decrease the risk of a branch retinal vein occlusion in the other eye. This condition occurs due to a hardening of the arteries. Hardening of the arteries is caused by a combination of age, high blood pressure, and or high cholesterol. While diabetes itself is not a risk factor for branch retinal vein occlusion, it can contribute to the hardening of the arteries. Therefore, patients are typically asked to undergo evaluation for diabetes. Determining if these conditions are present and controlling them if they exist will decrease the risk of the condition worsening or spreading to the fellow eye. There are a number of uncommon causes of this condition that make up an extremely small minority of branch retinal vein occlusions. Retina specialists may order special blood tests if they think this may be the cause. What Should Patients Watch Out For? The new onset of worsening blurry vision may be a sign of worsening swelling in the macula. Patients should contact their retina specialist if they note worsening vision as this may be a sign that treatment is needed sooner than the next scheduled visit. The onset of many floaters may be a sign of bleeding in the eye which may also require an evaluation and treatment prior to the next scheduled visit. Pain and headaches on the affected side may be a sign of high eye pressure. High eye pressure in this condition can be severe and require prompt treatment. When To Contact Retina Specialists of Tampa Untreated swelling in the macula can cause permanent vision loss if present for weeks to months without treatment. Abnormal new blood vessels can form which may bleed and temporarily decrease vision. Your eye care specialist may be able to detect these in the early stage and initiate treatment to decrease the risk of vision changes. Treatment at the correct duration helps to maximize vision.	[]
Can it change? Using real-time data visualisation as a social commentary. What if you and your friend bought the same t-shirt from an online website at different timings (say you bought in the morning and he bought in the evening) but surprisingly the design is different? This project tries to answer the question - Can fashion be a medium for social commentary for the things happening around us? The design attributes of the product is subjected to change according to an ecological data. In this case, water pollution data from plastic waste dump into ocean is used to change the design attributes of the t-shirt design. This project uses artistic data visualisation (eco - visualisation) to convey complex data like pollution through a daily-used object like t-shirt. Tools: Processing programming (p5.js), Adobe illustrator. Artboard 9.png Artboard 10.png Artboard 11.png	[]
Play Live Radio Next Up: Available On Air Stations In Aircraft Modelers' Friendly Skies, Drones Bring Turbulence Model airplanes cluster near the runway on a flying field in Boyds, Md. Ribbons of tickets trade hands for a drone raffle. It's DC Drone Day on a field in the part of western Maryland where suburbs give way to parks, rolling hills and farmland. The field is a weekend hangout spot for a , one of several local clubs for people who are into flying things; specifically, pilots of radio-controlled things; even more specifically, aeromodelers. Aircraft modeling is a decades-old hobby that counts tens of thousands of followers in the country and has seen its share of changes in technology. Drones arrive as the latest revolution, and aeromodelers are sizing it up with a sense of both intrigue and apprehension — like staring down the new guy at school who's got the cool kicks and somehow, keys to all the secret parts of the building, but sometimes does incredibly stupid things that ire the gym teacher into making everyone run laps. Except in this case, that could mean new regulations. The District of Columbia itself is a no-fly zone, but a dozen flying clubs from surrounding areas — including DC/RC ("RC," as in "radio control") — hosted DC Drone Day, a sort of drone appreciation event. On the DC/RC field, a narrow road slices into a vast grassy range and stubs into a picnic area. To the left is a mini-runway. A cluster of model airplanes crowds one end. Two remote-controlled planes thread the overcast sky with high-speed loops and barrel rolls. Their deep, waning engine yawns meld with the chirping of birds. To the right is a plot of grass designated for model helicopters — and now also their cousins, the drones. There, alone, is Thomas Pfarr. His quadcopter hovers above, buzzing like a giant wasp. "I'm the club photographer," says Pfarr. His drone is up in the air filming the escapades of others. Pfarr pops the trunk of his SUV. During the day, he helps build giant space telescopes, like the famous Hubble and now its successor, the James Webb. In his spare time, he builds and flies aircraft models. Pfarr got into flying as a kid, going out to neighborhood baseball fields to launch control-line planes. You maneuver a cable tethered to a plane, a bit like a kite but with far more mechanics and speed, and the aircraft flies in circles. "I couldn't afford back then any of the radio-control equipment; it cost more than a car," Pfarr says. "A thousand dollars back in 1960, you could buy a Volkswagen for that." We've not been on anybody's radar, so to speak, for decades. (Drones and owners who don't realize they're pilots) have inadvertently, or consequently put us on that radar. The aeromodeling hobby has undergone numerous technological metamorphoses over its 80-plus years: Radio remotes replaced line controls; electric engines overtook gas and jet ones; and the aircraft got lighter, cheaper and easier to fly. Now, Pfarr is into flying scale replicas of warplanes, but he also has a soft spot for the fun stuff, like electric foam planes. "We actually have a contest where we shoot paintballs at them to try to knock them out of the sky," he says. Through the opened trunk, Pfarr's SUV looks overtaken by a giant oblong construction, maybe 8 feet long, painted red and silver with a "Western Air Express" logo. "Every part on here is handmade," Pfarr says. The plane is 30 years old and he has rebuilt it. Before the creation of plane-building kits or "almost-ready-to-fly" aircraft — in which as little as a few screws can stand between opening a box and enjoying the flight — this was a crucial skill. Months or years had to be spent constructing models from wood: acquiring plans, cutting, shaping, assembling. The aircraft in Pfarr's trunk is a vintage scale replica of the biplane that made a 1926 mail run from Los Angeles to Reno, Nev., and now rests on display at the Udvar-Hazy museum in Virginia. Another, venerable craftsman had created the model all the way from its blueprints; Pfarr spent six months restoring it, mostly its mechanics. "There's no manufactured item on it," he says, "other than the engine." I ask Pfarr how many models he has scratch-built in his lifetime. "Not that many," he replies. "Maybe 20." In the distance, Andy Kane spins a propeller of his Stearman biplane, a one-third scale model, kick-starting its engine by hand. What Pfarr says about Kane is this: "He can just fly anything, at any moment, at any time without any issue, and you just say, 'How the hell does he do that?'" Model aviation enthralled Kane so much as a teenager that he got licensed as a general aviation pilot, logging more than 1,800 hours and spending 30 years in Civil Air Patrol. "When you're flying that model and you're standing on the ground, you imagine yourself being inside that plane. That's where the thrill is for me," Kane says. Miniature aircraft fly like the real thing — wind gusts, turbulence and all. "Of course, takeoff is is the second-greatest thrill," Kane says. "Landing is the first." When recreational drones came onto the market, Kane was intrigued, and even got a commercial license to use one quadcopter for gutter inspections in his day job as a heating and air-conditioning contractor. Their latest promising draw, he says, is first-person-view obstacle racing. But at their most basic, the very things that made drones a mass hit subtracted from their excitement for many RC veterans. Takeoff and landing happen with a click of a button. Two simple controls and an app can be enough to direct the flight, much of which is automated and computer-stabilized. "You're operating a device; you're not really flying," says Kane. "As a photographer it's great," says Pfarr. "From a flying point of view, it's absolutely boring." The drones' comparatively low learning curve is also at the heart of perhaps the modelers' biggest misgivings. For eight decades, aviation enthusiasts have been flying at local Academy of Model Aeronautics clubs like DC/RC — with their mentorships, insurance and safety rules that predate even the formation of the Federal Aviation Administration. All of a sudden, fly-by-night drone rookies started taking to the skies whenever and wherever they wished, often aimlessly, and landed, constantly, in the headlines. "Honestly, I could see it right away," Pfarr says. "The idiots are going to kill us." The Academy of Model Aeronautics says about a quarter of its roughly 190,000 members fly multirotor aircraft, those quintessential drones. As drone sales climbed, the organization had a choice: sideline the scene ("Airplanes aren't drones!" say some of its members) or embrace it ("Get with the times!" say others). For years, AMA members have inhabited a special legal niche: Congress has all but shielded aviation hobbyists from FAA regulations as long as their "unmanned aircraft systems" are flown purely for recreational use, as part of a "nationwide community-based organization" (read: AMA) and in compliance with that group's safety guidelines (don't fly above 400 feet, near airports or over people, etc.). But what if, one day, that legislative caveat disappeared? "These basically fly themselves; they're all computerized," Thomas Pfarr says about drones like his DJI Phantom quadcopter. Alina Selyukh / NPR "Unmanned aircraft systems," as defined by the FAA, does not distinguish between a hand-crafted warplane replica, a glider aircraft or a decked-out racing drone. The distinction lies in the purpose of flight. And, as it stands now, any aircraft — including a quintessential drone — is "model aircraft" when it's flown recreationally within the appropriate safety code. "It's almost impossible to separate ourselves from [drone pilots]," says Rich Hanson, AMA's government and regulatory affairs representative. "So we think the best strategy is to try to educate them and bring them into the fold." And so — even if many drone fliers think of themselves closer to photographers or gadget enthusiasts than aircraft modelers, and even if some RC old-timers remain separatist — AMA is embracing drones as the latest adjunct to the hobby. For one, it's the likely new generation of members. AMA's membership grew from about 139,500 in 2010 to roughly 164,600 in 2013 and then to nearly 187,700 last year. The organization doesn't attribute all the growth to drones, though, but also to increased marketing. For another, modelers say uneducated, rogue drone pilots give the hobby a bad rep — or worse, prompt new restrictions. "There isn't a tension," says Pfarr, about drone fliers and aeromodelers, "other than the tension that, if these are used and cause trouble," he glances toward his drone, "it's only trouble for everybody else." Earlier this year, the FAA began requiring federal registration of all "unmanned aircraft systems" over half-a-pound in weight. States and cities are weighing geographic drone restrictions. This legislative session alone, Hanson says, some 200 to 250 pieces of legislation in some form address drones. RC veterans' biggest fear is that the push to restrict drone flying zones would cost them their flying fields. And Hanson worries about too many regulatory obstacles alienating young people interested in aviation. In 2015, AMA's spending on federal lobbying (though still teeny by Washington standards) jumped to its highest in six years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Often, Hanson says he raises concerns about a proposed bill or ordinance, only to hear: Oh no, we don't have a problem with modelers, we worry about those drone guys. "We've not been on anybody's radar, so to speak, for decades," Hanson says. Drones and owners who don't realize they're pilots "have inadvertently, or consequently put us on that radar." This summer, new federal rules for small "unmanned aircraft systems" are expected to draw the lines of allegiance starker yet: Recreational drone fliers may either join a "community-based organization" like AMA and abide by its safety rules, or go solo and face up to the FAA. Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit	[]
Article ID : 00248052 / Last Modified : 07/02/2020 What is the right side of the headphones used for? The right side is only used for the Sidetone function. You can talk using the microphone only on the left side of the headphones. Note: The Sidetone function is a feature that makes it easier to talk using the headphones. This function helps the headphone microphone to pick up sounds and play your voice naturally.	[]
my world of work and user experiences January 31, 2019 Where is our Office 365 data located? Filed under: Office365 — Tags: — frederique @ 20:23 I am involved in the roll-out of Office 365 at a company, where they still have a lot of data on file shares. We explain that we are moving into the cloud and that sometimes prompts the question where the data will actually live. Good question. “In the cloud”… to some people it sounds rather out there. We are a down to earth company, we don’t have our head in the clouds, so what do you mean working in the cloud?? But of course the data “in the cloud” is stored solidly in Microsoft data centers. So where are those data centers in which our data are stored then? For one thing, it is always data centers plural: Microsoft copies our data to at least two different locations, so that they will be safe even if something catastrophic happens at one of the datacenters. I’ve heard colleagues say that our data is stored in The Netherlands, but that is only a partial answer. You can check where your data is stored via: But make sure you scroll beyond the picture, because some services in Office 365 may store data in other locations. For this company, with headquarters based in The Netherlands, the bulk of the data resides the Euopean Union, mostly The Netherlands and Ireland. However, there are exceptions: • Sway lives in the United States. That does not bother us much, because Sway is hardly used in any of the organizations I’ve worked at. • Yammer lives in the United States too! That is cause for more concern, because Yammer is used more extensively. Fortunately, Yammer is not the most likely place for people to share sensitive, confidential information But it is still something to take into account in our Office 365 governance and its associated guidance. Microsoft data centers for the European Union. But for some services, the data is stored in the US. Powered by WordPress	[]
NAME Dist::Zilla::Plugin::Test::Kwalitee - Release tests for kwalitee VERSION version 2.03 SYNOPSIS In "dist.ini": [Test::Kwalitee] skiptest=use_strict ; Don't test for strictness. DESCRIPTION This is an extension of Dist::Zilla::Plugin::InlineFiles, providing the following file: xt/release/kwalitee.t - a standard Test::Kwalitee test AUTHORS * Harley Pig * Caleb Cushing * Marcel Gruenauer * Kent Fredric COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2011 by Alan Young. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.	[]
We have a hand-me-down crib that has a drop side and I'd like to sell it but I'm wary of re-distributing a recalled crib. FWIW, We never used it because our first foster placement was much older than crib age and we're doing some purging as we get ready to move. I'm not prepared to move furniture for theoretical future children. It definitely has drop sides. I'm guessing it is five or six years old. It's last tenant is four now, and I know it was given to her parents by another family. So it predates the drop-side ban. But I put my whole weight on the drop side and it didn't budge. So it seems sturdy to me. And the CPSC's poster about crib safety says "Prohibit traditional drop sides" but actually shows the exact mechanism that this crib uses: Crib Safety Are there some drop-side cribs that are safe? Or should I be throwing this out/selling it only as a toddler bed? PS. I did read What should I look for in a crib? • Without the make & model number, it's very hard to determine this. I don't think anyone can say for sure. Dec 10 '14 at 23:30 • 2 I'd take the drop side off and sell it as a toddler bed. We've used our ex-crib that way successfully for years :) – Acire Dec 11 '14 at 0:10 According to the CPSC, you should not resell it and should disassemble it prior to discarding it. Is it okay for me as a consumer to resell, donate or give away a crib that does not meet the new crib standards? A consumer should not resell, donate or give away a crib that does not meet the new crib standards, such as trying to resell the product through an online auction site or donating to a local thrift store. CPSC recommends disassembling the crib before discarding it. Is the answer different if a piece (“immobilizer”) has been added to my drop-side crib to prevent the side from moving up and down? Consumers should not sell or give away a drop-side crib that has an added immobilizer because it still will not meet the new crib standards. Although your crib may appear similar to the crib in the poster, if it is more than four years old (manufactured before 2010) it is unlikely it meets the standard: How do I know whether the specific crib that I own/use in my child care facility meets the new standards? You cannot tell from looking at a crib whether it meets the new standards. It is not likely that cribs in use before the Commission issued its crib rule in December 2010 will comply with the new standards. If you still know the model number and manufacturer, you can check with them, both about whether it is recalled, and whether it is safe: If you are considering purchasing new cribs that meet the standards, you may want to ask the manufacturer or retailer whether the crib complies with 16 CFR 1219 (the new standard for full-size cribs) or 16 CFR 1220 (the new standard for non-full-size cribs). Your Answer	[]
Old truths must be constantly re-stated if they are not to be forgotten. To Homer, the dawn was “rosy-fingered”; to Shakespeare, it was “in russet mantle clad”; to Housman, “the ship of sunrise burning”. The scientist can explain exactly why the sky looks as it does in the early morning, the physiologist why we perceive as we do. Yet no one suggests that there is no dawn at all, or that its appearance has changed over the centuries, or that any one of these percipients was mad or deceitful. Why should our knowledge of the Creator be less capable of variety and development than our knowledge of any aspect of Creation? Raymond Chapman (1924-2013) English author, academic [pseud. Simon Nash] The Ruined Tower (1961) Link to this post More quotes by Chapman, Raymond Visited 24 time(s). Leave a Reply	[]
‘Follow your passion’ is an expression that always pops up when it comes to picking a profession or maintaining a career. Passion is defined as an intense interest or desire for doing something. Why is this seven-letter word so significant in determining whether one should stick to their day job or not? 1. Passion leads to focus With passion, one tends to give it their all in their work. Every detail matters to them, as their work is not considered a chore but a task that they would gladly complete with utmost care and precision until the end. When one is passionate about their work, it is easy to be deeply absorbed in the task and to be unperturbed by any distractions or interference. 2. Passion opens up creativity Passion allows an individual to complete a task while utilizing all resources. Creative juices gets flowing when one is deeply into the work that he or she is assigned to. There are no barriers or a single way out when it comes to problem solving. Creativity and ingenuity that is channeled by passion is an aid in this sort of situation. 3. Passion brings excellence When one is passionate about their work, they would only settle for excellence. Enthusiasm about a job or trade would permit an individual to strive and bring about the best outcome possible in any given task. It would not be enough to complete a task; it becomes an obligation to provide the best result or solution possible. 4. Passion energizes you Who needs coffee when you’ve got passion?! Passion invigorates you and gives you the energy needed to finish any errands. You wake up every morning looking forward to your work and the satisfaction that it brings. You would even stay up late or work overtime because you feel that you have the strength and will to finish a task as soon and as efficiently as possible..	[]
Manning sentenced to 35 years By ANN MONTAGUE – Socialist Action USA U.S. Army whistleblower Pfc. Chelsea (Bradley) Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for giving hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. The military judge, Col. Denise Lind, offered no explanation for her sentence. As military guards conducted Manning from the courtroom on Aug. 21, his supporters shouted out, “We will keep fighting for you!” The response to the sentence was swift. Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, stated, “The only person prosecuted for the crimes and abuses uncovered in the WikiLeaks’ releases is the person who exposed them. That alone proves the injustice of even one more day in prison for Bradley Manning.” Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said, “This is a sad day for Bradley Manning, but it’s also a sad day for all Americans who depend on brave whistleblowers and a free press for a fully informed public debate.” “It seems clear,” Wizner noted, “that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information in the future.” Three and a half years will be credited to Manning’s sentence for time served. This will include time for the period that the judge ruled he was mistreated at the Marine Corps Brig at Quantico, Va., before being moved to the prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Throughout his time at Quantico, he was designated a “maximum custody” detainee and locked up alone for at least 23 hours a day. He was forced to sleep naked for several nights and required to stand at attention naked in the morning. He will have to serve one-third of the sentence before he is eligible for parole. Manning faced a possible 90-year sentence. The government had denied him a whistleblower defense and the right to describe intent or to show that his actions harmed no one. U.S. prosecutors asked for a sentence of 60 years while acknowledging Manning’s youth. But it was clear that the true motivation for the prosecution’s request for the extremely long sentence was to deter future leaks. Prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow stated, “There is value in deterrence.” “Pfc. Manning was one of the brave Americans who was not willing to remain silent,” defense attorney David Coombs told the media. “Instead he decided to provide us with information that he believed would spark reform, would spark debate and he provided us with information that he believed might change the world.” “Perhaps the biggest crime was that he cared about the loss of life that he was seeing and couldn’t ignore it, and was struggling with it.” The forensic psychologist who testified in Manning’s defense, Capt. David Moulton, told the military court, “Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was going to really change how the world views the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and future wars. … It was his opinion that if through crowd sourcing that enough analysis was done on these documents, that it would lead to greater good.” Three days before Manning was sentenced, British authorities made their own effort to intimidate whistleblowers when they detained David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, and confiscated his laptop. Greenwald has been writing articles based on leaked information from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Officials told Miranda that he was being held under Britain’s Terrorism Act, and threatened him with prison if he didn’t “cooperate.” It was reported recently that the NSA has no idea what or how much information Edward Snowden has in his possession. Clearly, the United States and Britain are terrified about what information might be revealed next concerning their war machines and surveillance networks. Manning downloaded the leaked material to his computer when he was deployed as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010. What did he actually reveal? The most widely seen information was seen in the “Collateral Murder” video, which showed an Apache helicopter attack on a group of people walking in a Baghdad street in 2007. Two of the victims were employees of Reuters news agency. A member of the helicopter crew yelled “dead bastards!” at those they killed. They also blew up a van of civilians who had stopped to help the initial victims of the first round of gunfire. The “Reykjavik-13 Cable” was the first leak to be published by WikiLeaks; it describes frank discussions of meetings between the U.S. embassy chief in Reykjavik and members of the Icelandic government. The scornful attitude of the U.S. representative towards their nation in the middle of its banking crisis so angered activists in Iceland that they edited the “Collateral Murder” video, which was soon released worldwide. The “Iraq War Logs” were 75,000 Army documents that detailed U.S. nighttime raids with reports from U.S. troops on the ground. These reports have been used to track civilian casualties that officials previously had said were not available. The “Afghanistan War Logs” were 75,000 pages of documents that The New York Times described as “a ground level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is more grim than the official portrayal.” The “Guantanamo Files” included 700 detainee files and 250,000 State Department cables detailing CIA extraordinary renditions, in violation of international law, of people suspected of “terrorism.” Shane Kadidal, a lawyer for the Center For Constitutional Rights, believes the volume of the material is part of the importance of these leaks: “It is one thing to tell a few anecdotes based on a few items, but to be able to say across the board that most of the men that are there shouldn’t be there and are people that could be safely released, that is pretty staggering.” The leaks also showed the hypocrisy of the U.S. collaboration with Arab dictators while proclaiming a commitment to democracy. The Bradley Manning Support Network will continue to keep the spotlight on Manning. They have organized international support through education and activism about his case as well as raising $1.4 million for his defense. Even as the sentence was handed down, the network announced that they were teaming with Amnesty International to launch a petition asking President Obama for a pardon. At the same time, Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, is preparing to bring the case to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to address violations of due process rights. Manning was detained without trial for more than three years in violation of his Constitutional right to a speedy trial. He was only awarded four months off of his sentence for the psychological torture he suffered while in solitary confinement for more than nine months. The U.S. Marine Corps was never held accountable for Manning’s treatment. Also, President Obama declared Manning guilty in April 2011, more than two years before the trial began. This constitutes unlawful command influence, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Center For Constitutional Rights has made clear that all of the supporters of Bradley Manning must continue to struggle for his freedom and raise the demand that President Obama issue a pardon for Manning. [Update: Aug. 23] The campaign to free Manning immediately showed that the push for a presidential pardon will be more aggressive than simply a legal maneuver and e-mail petitions. On Aug. 22 Ursula Rozem and Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre interrupted President Obama’s speech at Henninger High School in Syracuse by raising a sign saying, “Free Bradley Manning,” and shouting, “President Obama, you must free Private Manning. With all due respect sir, Private Manning exposed war crimes. Private Manning exposed torture. Private Manning aided the public, not the enemy. Private Manning is a hero.” The two women were then escorted off the premises. They then issued a longer statement about why they had interrupted the president and detailed his record of prosecuting whistleblowers.] [Update: Aug. 23] This article was written immediately after the sentencing, on Aug. 21. The next day, Manning provided a statement to the press, “As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.” In future articles, Socialist Action will respect Chelsea Manning’s wishes, and refer to her using female pronouns.	[]
International Trade, Transportation Chains and Logistics International Trade, Transportation Chains and Logistics Source: Rodrigue, J-P (2012) “Supply Chain Management, Logistics Changes and the Concept of Friction”, in P.V. Hall and M. Hesse (eds) Cities, Regions and Flows, London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-68219-0. International trade is based on the notion of exchange, which involves what is being traded, the partners involved as well as the transactional environment in which trade takes place, namely customs procedures (tariff and non-tariff barriers). International trade is seen as a series of commercial transactions between trade partners that tracks the value of what is being traded and the types of goods these transactions involve. Classification regimes. such as the standard international trade classification, allow for well-defined trade categories to which customs rules can be applied. The extent of trade, either in value or volume, is an abstract expression of the quantity of goods being exchanged as they do not represent the actual physical flows supporting trade transactions. The physical realization of international trade requires a transport chain. It is a series of logistical activities that organize modes and terminals, such as railway, maritime, and road transportation systems, and thus the continuity along the supply chain through a set of stages, the most common being: • The first stage in the transport chain is composition, where loads are assembled at the origin, often on pallets and containers. Composition is an important process as it tries to achieve economies of scale over a transport chain by providing larger and easier to handle load units necessary for international trade. • The cargo being traded then moves along the transport chain using a transport mode, commonly rail or road, to reach a terminal where it is transshipped on an international transport mode (port or airport depending on the nature of what is being transported). Additional economies of scale become possible as several load units can be consolidated into a single large shipment, such as a containership. • Once cargo enters another country through a gateway (point of entry), customs inspection takes place as the cargo is transshipped over the inland transport system. Customs procedures and delays are among the most constraining factors in global freight distribution. • The final stage of the transport chain, decomposition (the last mile), occurs in proximity to the final destination. Loads are broken down into units corresponding to effective demand, such as store orders. If the demand concerns retail goods, urban freight distribution strategies may be required. In the operational reality of modes and terminals, international trade is a series of physical flows that may not necessarily use the most direct path but the least cost path. Inland corridors where economies of scale are more effective shape the structure of freight flows and the selection of the port of exit. On the maritime side, transshipment hubs have become strategic intermediary locations helping consolidate maritime flows and connecting different maritime systems of circulation. In such a setting, the container has become the fundamental element facilitating transfers between modes and supporting international trade flows. Distribution centers play an important role in physical flows since they can act as a buffer, helping reconcile the temporal and spatial requirements of demand.	[]
The comfort of watching pandemic saga Station Eleven during the COVID-19 pandemic Take refuge from news of a real pandemic with post-apocalyptic pandemic series Station Elevenstreaming on Neon from December 17. Adapted from the award-winning novel of the same name, and with an emphasis on exploring humanity over misery, Station Eleven provides calming reflections on the current times we’re living in, writes Liam Maguren. When COVID-19 put the world on pause, the world pressed play on the unlikeliest of films: Steven Soderberg’s 2011 flick Contagion. It may have seemed senseless, perhaps masochistic, to watch a film about a pandemic during an actual pandemic. But for most, especially those riddled with fear and uncertainty, it was a source of comfort. Writing for Vulture, Kathryn VanArendonk put it clearly: “I watched [Contagion] because this current pandemic crisis makes me terrified, and a story about exactly that same thing is one way to grapple with that fear… When we’re confronted with that helplessness in real life, watching some version of it — any version of it, and ideally one where at least some people survive — is comforting. It’s a model for how we could respond.” We’re now at the end of 2021, having spent months living with the damage Delta’s left in its wake while the new Omicron variant reawakens that sadly familiar fear of the unknown. If stories help soothe your worries, HBO’s latest pandemic saga Station Eleven might just provide the perfect source of comfort. Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s Arthur C Clarke Award-winning novel and starting production mere months before the coronavirus outbreak, Station Eleven‘s timing couldn’t be stranger. Centred on a pandemic that quickly kills off most people on the planet, the miniseries captures both the havoc of the deadly flu and the 20-year aftermath where survivors attempt to rebuild the world anew. It’s a dense plot, dedicating its first three episodes (all arriving on Neon December 17) to set up key players and scenarios across different timelines. It’s hard to tell where episode four and onwards will go—constant cameos of a comic book and a spaceman refuse to make sense so far—but with its emphasis on exploring humanity over misery, Station Eleven already provides calming reflections on the current times we’re living in. It could have been worse Not to minimise the impact of COVID-19, but there’s grim comfort in knowing something bad could have been worse—and the deadly flu in Station Eleven is so, so much worse. It only takes a quick shopping trip for the world to descend into chaos here. The first episode centres on Jeevan (Himesh Patel), who we first see attending a production of King Lear. An actor collapses during a heart attack, causing Jeevan to jump up on stage to help, only to realise he has no idea what he’s doing. With his confidence kicked in the chin, Jeevan then gets a tipoff about a humanity-threatening killer flu. To complete the worst day of his life, he’s forced into becoming the reluctant guardian of Kirsten (Matilda Lawler, who made herself known in Disney’s Flora & Ulysses), a girl with no-one else to turn to in the middle of a dark winter’s night. Filled with good intentions but cursed with overwhelming knowledge, Jeevan isn’t too far off from Patel’s fantastic turn as Jack in Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, but instead of being the only person who remembers The Beatles, he seems to be the only one who realises current civilisation’s about to end. Nature thrives when humans stop Through an astonishing use of match-cuts, Station Eleven makes the agreeable point that the planet has a great shot of surviving the climate crisis if human beings were to just stop what they’re currently doing. While the first episode largely takes place during the hours of the pandemic, every so often the camera will linger on an environment then sharply shift to the same place years into the future. The noise of the city evaporates into the sound of birdsong. The grey-soaked concrete streets are covered in greens of foliage. Streaks of sunlight replace blankets of snow. The effect is both striking and haunting, a simple reminder that the doom of current civilisation comes to the benefit of nature. While the death of all human beings is one answer to the current climate crisis (and one I’d personally like to avoid), the second episode of Station Eleven presents an alternative solution by providing a glimpse into low-impact living—a window made possible because of the pandemic. A golden opportunity for change Mackenzie Davis (Terminator: Dark Fate) plays the adult Kirsten 20 years after the deadly flu, now a member of a travelling theatre troupe. It’s not exactly the tribe you think someone in a survival situation would join, but Station Eleven isn’t looking to retread the same beaten and bloodied path of The Walking Dead or The Last of Us. Instead, it shows how the darkest moments can pivot us towards significant moments for change. The troupe are but one of many in this depopulated Earth trying to preserve what they can about the human race. And, by all accounts, they’re having a great time doing Shakespeare in the Park for surviving communities out there. Their lives are simple but fulfilling. Every day’s an opportunity to paddle in the clean water. Every night’s an opportunity to chinwag next to a bonfire in the plentiful woods. The world may be deprived of the internet and a global economy, but happiness remains as attainable as it ever was. There’s just less pollution now. There is, however, a sinister and violent undercurrent running through this world, one that Davis plays very well towards. If anything, it’s a contrast that highlights the peace that’s been achieved in what is technically the post-apocalypse. Work-life is not life Episode three will test a lot of people with its drastic shift in the story. Stick with it, and you’ll be rewarded with a hugely satisfying observation of the absurdity of our current 9-to-5, career-obsessed, workaholic culture. Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall) leads this episode as Miranda, a character who barely got an introduction up until now. She’s soft-spoken and keeps to herself, quietly fostering her talent for drawing while working her way up the career ladder. Somehow, she fell in love with the extroverted thespian we saw die in the opening ten minutes of episode one, played by the ever-charming Gael García Bernal. As their rosy relationship devolves into a messy marriage, their high-profile careers prove to be their biggest burden. Miranda realises this the day the world realises it’s doomed, leading to one of the saddest and most absurd boardroom meeting scenes you’ll likely ever see. It does a fantastic job illustrating how employment can sadly define and overtake one’s life, something that’s contrasted heavily by the previous episode’s capitalist-free world. In a more subtle and capitalism-friendly way, this episode also shows the absurdity of seeking comfort in work, even amid a pandemic. As I write this during the COVID-19 pandemic, the irony is not lost on me, but it’s to Station Eleven‘s credit that it made me feel human about it. I find that comforting.	[]
Multichannel Orchestration: The Key to Customer Engagement The Expectation Age has upended how brands market to consumers. The era of the empowered buyer has put even greater pressure on brands with direct and indirect sales channels. How can they provide seamless customer experiences when data is siloed, messages get lost in the ecosystem, and experience competitors now threaten their business? To explore this topic, Ansira commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate multichannel marketing engagement strategies among relationship marketers in both the B2B and B2C spaces. Forrester surveyed marketers across industries to better understand these brand-to-local struggles. What does the research reveal? Forrester’s research unearthed the following key findings: • Top priorities across brands include growing revenue and improving customer experience and retention. Marketers want to ensure customer retention and engagement, and they are ready to invest heavily to ensure that customers’ experiences with their brands are relevant across all touchpoints. • Many marketers struggle with ensuring consistent experiences for customers across touchpoints. Marketers from both high-growth and slow-growth organizations alike struggle with multichannel orchestration’s complexity. • To overcome those challenges, organizations plan to invest in technology solutions and managed services. Marketers see through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) as a way to solve channel marketing challenges, as a mechanism for better engagement with existing customers, and as a way to increase new customer acquisition. Importantly, they are coupling TCMA investments with investments into loyalty programs and data insights platforms to maximize their customer understanding and deliver consistent multichannel experiences. Why download this white paper? Forrester’s in-depth survey yielded several important recommendations for empowering channel partners, ensuring brand integration through automation and services, and, ultimately, improving customer experience. Let's Start a Conversation	[]
The little green box AS8033-377x228When walking around in office buildings that are protected by expensive electronic locks, requiring to swipe your access badge to be able to get in (or out), you have probably also noticed a little green box on the side with the text “emergency door release” written on it. This “Security bypass boxes” will let you through the door without an valid access pass. If the physical security setup, and the security team have not been required to do compromises due to HSE requirements (e.g. emergency escape routes) or have been a sleep during the planning, this little green boxes will only allow your to get out from a security zone and not in. HOWEVER, as always compromises and mistakes are done and you will find that these little green “security bypass” boxes will grant you access into paces where an valid access pass should be to only way to get in. Ah yes, its very nice that you have this super duper expensive physical access control system with electronic locks and encryption keys that have not yet been hacked, But why do you have these green boxes on each side of the door? These little green boxes can (and should) be connected to an alarm system, triggering an alert when the button is pushed. And if the alerts are monitored a guard might be dispatched to check out what is going on. But when you think about the chance for multiple guards will come storming down the hallway as soon as you have triggered the green “security bypass box” will be rather small. Its usually no room in the security budget for that to happen. Remember to lock the door a771d8983e149cccdf438779fc6bb4d2So what this little green box does, is that it will actually cut the power to the magnetic lock (same as what happens when the fire alarm is triggered) . This means that the door will remain unlocked after you have passed through it, something that will might raise suspicion and an increased risk that someone (hopefully) will report it. This can easily be mitigated by using a small plastic reset tool (example in the picture to the left). By inserting this tool on the underside of the green box you will reset it to its original state and the door will be locked after you pass through. And its likely that the guards monitoring alerts will conclude that it was just another false alarm. Not sure where to get such a tool? well get a 3D printer and start creating all the little reset gadgets you need. OBS – Remember to get a permission slipp Note that if you wish to test this, you must make sure that you have obtained permission from the relevant stakeholders (The landlord, the company that uses the office, the guard company ++) If you don’t have that, this will be considered breaking and entry. And.. DON’T TOUCH the red one, that can land you into all sorts of trouble (unless there is a real fire.	[]
Photo courtesy artist Following the release of her most recent single “Won’t Pick Up The Phone,” singer-songwriter Nya converses with Variance's Ethan Ijumba to discuss her wide variety of influences, musical journey, and general background about her upbringing as an artist and as a human being. Be sure to scroll down below to read the full interview between two; as well as for more information and related to Nya, be sure to follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @ThisIsNya EI: Before going into your musical journey, originally what state or city did you grow up and/or raised in? Nya: This is an interesting question for me. I am originally from Tampa, Florida. Tampa is a great city, but I never felt I fit in there. Currently, I split my time between LA and Jose Ignacio, Uruguay, as my fiancé is Uruguayan. I have been lucky enough to live in some remarkable places, from New York to Paris, but I honestly did not know what it was to fall in love with a place until Jose Ignacio. It's home. EI: From having a background that had you travel, did you have a lot of inspirations musically regarding your sound and persona artists-wise? Such as any specific songs, albums, artists, etc.? Nya: I have been obsessed with anything involving storytelling since I was very little. I love film, TV, and reading. I take so much visual and sonic inspiration from these avenues. My artistic expression is the only area of my life in which I say bring on the drama. Films like In The Mood for Love or Requiem for a Dream are constant visual references. Books like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises shifted my perception and approach to writing in all forms. As far as artists that inspire me, I am a huge fan of Sade. She has this effortless sensuality and grace that I would love to possess even half of. The inspiration for the content of my lyrics has to come from my life or surroundings; I need to mean it to write it and sing it well. I love the consciousness and wit of artists like Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse, Marvin Gaye, and Erykah Badu, to name a few. I want to talk about real life and all the messy stuff that comes with it. As I am sure you can tell, I like a lot of music, so I take sonic cues from many directions. Inspiration is everywhere, so the question is always, how do I take all these separate threads and join them to create my sound. That is an ever-evolving part of my musical journey. EI: With that being said, was there a specific age that you when you got your start in music and were there any specific artists that you looked up to that made you want to pursue a career as an artist? NYA: I accidentally fell into love with singing at 16. Voice lessons had initially been a means to an end to get a part in the school musical but quickly became more than that. When I sing, I swear it's transcendent; I feel free in those precious moments. The burden of my neuroses, of the past, lifts, leaving me at my best. At that time, I was already writing stories and poetry for fun, so it was a pretty natural transition to songwriting. My first artist obsession was with Frank Sinatra when I was around 10. Singers like Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse, and Lauryn Hill communicate emotion. They make you feel. Something about that kind of soulfulness just entranced me. Towards the end of high school, I participated in this program with the Grammy Foundation. Amongst this group of young musicians, writers, and performers, I finally felt a sense of belonging. That's when I knew that even though being an artist is far from a safe bet, I was hooked. EI: With having that deep range of artists you were brought up on, aside from the music you compose genre-wise, are there any other genres that you listen to as well? Nya: I listen to most genres, especially as the construct of the genre itself becomes less relevant. For the past couple of years, my favorites have been genre-bending artists/ bands like The Internet, Nao, Tyler, the Creator, Remi Wolf, Benee. I never stop listening to Sade, Amy Winehouse, and Lauryn Hill. But basically, anything with soul at its core is usually something I like. I love hip hop from Outkast to early Kanye to Questlove to The Fugees; it is a genre at the forefront of innovating popular music while remaining soulful and poignant. I feel more drawn to the cadences, rhythms, and lyrics of hip hop than almost any other genre. EI: Again based on your diverse listening selections, what exactly are the inspirations and influences you have when composing songs? Is there a specific process you have when writing hooks, verses, choosing beats, etc.? Nya: Since I came from a singing and poetry background, rather than starting as an instrumentalist, I often begin writing a song with melodies and lyrics first. With the help of my producer or co-writer, I then take those ideas and give the song its chord structure. I frequently write to chords or tracks and am open to changing my process based on how my collaborators work best. I believe great music is the result of a great collaboration. When working this way, though, which is a pretty common approach, I will freestyle melodies in the booth, and then my writing partners and I, Dr. Frankenstein, so to speak, tie the song together. For example, this melody is good for the chorus, or this part sounds like a bridge. When I listen to a beat or track, I know I love it in the first 6 to 11 seconds; it's wild how fast you just know. That's the magic of music; it's so intuitive, something to be felt. Which means you can't overthink it. As a chronic overthinker, I definitely struggle with that sometimes. EI: With that being said, based on all that you look to accomplish as an artist, are there any other goals and areas career-wise that you look to one day venture? Nya: Getting a music career off the ground is an all-intensive thing, so that is my main focus currently. However, down the road, I would love to pursue more work in public health and philanthropy. I went to NYU for a few years majoring in global public health. It's a broad field from epidemiology to public health outreach, but I genuinely enjoyed it. I have lived through what a failing mental health system creates, as have millions of other people, and it's heartbreaking. If I could use whatever success I have to make a difference in that field somehow, well, that is the dream! Photo courtesy artist EI: So for those who don't know you or haven't heard your music, how would you describe it, based on the sound, themes, and elements incorporated? Nya: My music tends to be slightly cinematic, and it is always soulful at its core. But honestly, I think it is constantly evolving and improving, especially sonically. My goal every time I write is to get better, so I am always learning something new. However, I hope the commonality throughout that evolution is that my music is sincere. I am trying to speak from my heart and share a piece of myself with whoever might be listening. EI: Additionally, is there anything listeners expect from you in the future music-wise? Are there any upcoming projects, singles, that you have set to release? Nya: There are so many exciting things coming up. I will be releasing the rest of the Requiem of Me EP and some accompanying visual content during the remainder of this year. Additionally, I am currently writing my first album, which I plan to release next year. I am beyond excited to finish and release all this new music and collaborate with an incredible team of creatives, including producer/songwriters Brian Kennedy and Midian, on this upcoming album. EI: When it comes to that point, is there anything you would like to be remembered for as an artist and as a human being? Nya: I am goofy and nerdy, and I was a late bloomer. I struggled in my teenage years with bullying and pretty turbulent home life. My point in saying all that is I understand feeling alone and broken and lost. Music was my lifeline, so I hope more than anything that my music will help people know they aren't alone. I hope that I can lighten the load, even if it's just for 3 minutes. It's hard to know where life and the music industry are going to take you. I want to live a happy life, be a kind person, and I want to make great music; I believe the rest will turn out as it’s meant to.	[]
Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low Peak, Again It’s been a winter for the books in the Arctic. Capping off a season of sustained, mind-boggling warm weather and stunted sea ice growth, the annual Arctic sea ice maximum hit its lowest level ever recorded. That marks the second straight year that the winter maximum ice extent set a record low. Click image to enlarge. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center/NASA Earth Observatory “I’ve never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic,” Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement. “The heat was relentless.” Along with other indicators like global average temperature and sea level rise, the record-setting sea ice cover is a key example of how much climate change is affecting the planet. Diminished sea ice can impact the ability of Arctic species like polar bears and walruses to find food, and could impact the weather across North America, Europe and Asia, though that connection is still contentious. The record low maximum doesn’t necessarily guarantee a record-low summer sea ice minimum, though, as ice melt depends heavily on Arctic weather patterns through the spring and summer months. Last year’s minimum was the fourth lowest on record. Overall, though, Arctic sea ice has seen a clear decline since satellites first began monitoring it in 1979. Since that time, winter sea ice extent has dropped 3.2 percent per decade, while the summer minimum has seen an even steeper drop of 13.7 percent per decade. That decline is linked to the rapid warming of the region, which is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe. This winter, that warmth reached astounding levels, with air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean ranging from 4°F to 11°F (2°C to 6°C) above average in nearly every region. That incredible warmth helped contribute to January and February successively setting the record for the most anomalously warm months globally in more than 130 years of record keeping. You May Also Like: Pacific Ocean Pattern Could Predict U.S. Heat Waves Climate Change Is Coming For Your Maple Syrup Renewable Energy Investments Set a Record in 2015	[]
To Stabilize or Not to Stabilize? overhead press, stability, abdominal exercise In a recent article here on Breaking Muscle I reviewed some evidence suggesting the muscles of the core weren’t actually worked best by exercises targeting the core. In the study, exercises like the overhead press had the greatest effect on the muscles of the core. Because these muscles are suitable for stabilization, it seems that they are worked best in a stabilizing role, rather than by being targeted directly. However, this effect might be different for prime movers. A prime mover is a muscle that actually performs the mechanical work of an exercise. Some of our muscles are less suited for stabilizing and more suited for moving weight around. The results of the study on core muscles makes us wonder what the best way to work a legitimate prime mover is. In a study this month in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, researchers examined how stability affects the prime movers. Let’s be clear about the kind of stability we are talking about here. Unstable surface training has long been in vogue, but we Breaking Muscle readers know it to be nonsense. To that end, the researchers in this study acknowledged that most real life activities occur on a stable surface, but with unstable implements. I’ve long believed that more stability is better for muscle. Stability allows you to lift more, and lifting more is better for strength. Strength is good for everything. A simple argument, but there it is. That argument, however, might not always be true. In this study, the researchers looked at the overhead press in the following variations: • Seated barbell presses • Seated dumbbell presses • Standing barbell presses • Standing dumbbell presses Their theory was that from sitting to standing and from bar to dumbbell, the stability decreased. As stability decreases, prime movers tend to work harder to move the weight, but the potential load also tends to be lower. It seems like a bit of a balancing act. overhead press, stability, abdominal exerciseIn this case, the anterior and medial deltoids, a major prime mover in the overhead press, were worked more as stability decreased. That means they were worked the most when standing with dumbbells. This trend didn’t hold true for the other prime movers that play a lesser role in the overhead press, such as the biceps or the triceps. Using a barbell allows you to “spread the bar” and get more out of engaging the triceps. overhead press, stability, abdominal exerciseThere are two things to note that aren’t mentioned in the article. First, I strongly suspect that as you familiarize yourself with a dumbbell lift, the effect on the deltoids will partly diminish. Being in the groove means more stability, but still less weight. Second, the idea that unstable implements increase muscle activity is not a universal rule. Take a squat for example. Dumbbells reduce the weight lifted in a squat to such a degree that it would be impossible to achieve the same muscle activity that you can with a barbell. So there it is, and it’s mostly food for thought. The dynamics of lifting are such that the stability or lack thereof of the implements you use mind can make or break your results. Test each option, but don’t swallow any dogma whole. Different positions and implements will always have advantages and disadvantages. 1. Atle Saeterbakken, et. al., “Effects of Body Position and Loading Modality on Muscle Activity and Strength in Shoulder Presses,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27 (7), 2013. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.	[]
• Total units 48 Units • Areas of interest European Languages, Language Studies • Major code FREN-MAJ • Academic career Undergraduate The French Language and Culture major aims at developing students' ability to understand, pronounce and speak standard French and to read and write French as it appears in newspapers, magazines, media, cinema and literature. All courses emphasise the importance of culture, history, politics and society, and draw on a variety of material from written, audio-visual and electronic sources. Students gain fluency in French and at the same time develop their knowledge of France, in both European and global contexts (e.g., Africa, Asia, North America and the Pacific). Students’ entry level depends on their prior knowledge of French, and the exact sequence of courses leading to the major depends in turn on the point of entry. Learning Outcomes 1. communicate proficiently and confidently in French 2. identify the structure and uses of French 3. demonstrate an understanding of the societies and cultures of France and the Francophone world, and their socio-historical contexts 4. construct a schema of the connections between France and its geographical, social and cultural origins 5. recognise the importance of intercultural communication. Other Information FREN2021 and FREN3008 may be taken more than once if Topic is different Back to the top FREN3006 Intermediate French I FREN3007 Intermediate French II FREN3010 Advanced French I FREN3011 Advanced French II FREN1003 Introductory French I FREN1004 Introductory French II FREN2021 Selected Topics in French Studies* FREN2024 Continuing French I FREN2025 Continuing French II FREN3012 Global Paris: Culture, History and Identity in the French Capital FREN3107 Current Affairs and the French Press (Advanced) FREN3108 Imagining the French Empire: French Colonialism on Film FREN3515 The Sounds of French: Phonetics and Pronunciation A maximum of 6 units from completion of courses from the following list, which must be completed in a French topic: LANG3001 Translation across Languages: the Translation of Literary Texts LANG3002 Translation across Languages: Specialised Material LANG3003 European Narrative LANG3005 Language and Identity in a European Context ARTH2080 Art and Visual Culture of the Long Eighteenth Century, 1660-1815 ARTH2081 Art of the European Courts, 1500-1815 HIST2223 The French Revolution and Napoleon PHIL2059 Love, Death and Freedom (20th Century French Phenomenology) *FREN2021 Selected Topics in French Studies may be completed more than once if the topic is different. Back to the top	[]
Alanya (ancient Korckesion] which fe 168 kms. to the east of Antalya is situated on a rocky peninsula. With Its unique defensive position and well-sheltered harbour, the city played an important role during the Hellenistic period and served as a refuge for pirates under the Roman rule. After being captured by Alaeddin Keykubat I, the Seljuk Sultan, and turned into a naval base, the city grew in size and population and was called Aiaiye which later became Alanya. Following the decline of the Seljuks, Alanya passed into the hands of the Karamanlis. Remains of the walls from the Classical age can still be seen on the peninsula. The present castle built by Alaeddin Keykubat ! consists of three walls. In the early ages there were boat stations along the sea where ships loaded cedar. Owing to its strong defenses Korakesion was able to resist successfully the troops of Antiochue who Invaded Cilicia. Alanya assumed importance in the Seljuk period with its shipbuilding Industry, but it suffered heavy destruction later during the battles between the armies of Sultan Mehmet II, and Karamanogul-lan, ond like other cities in this region, it never regained its former level of prosperity. The Walls: The old part of the city is surrounded by walls. The outer walls surrounded the peninsula, and the inner walls divided the Castle into three parts for defensive purposes and were built during the reign of Alâeddln Keykubat I: Remains of an older wall dating bock to Greek and Roman times can also be seen here and there. One can go from one of these sections to another by means of fortified courtyards. The highest section is the Inner Castle. The original Seljuk and Ottoman settlements were in the section between the Second and Third Wails, There is an inscription belonging to Keykubat 1, above the entrance to the First Wall. This inscription is dated 1230. There are in this part, the Castle Mosque (Kale Camii) which is built on the foundations of a Seljuk Mosque in the XVIth century, the Bedesten, the Mosque and the Türbe (tomb) of Akshebe Sultan, The entrances to the Inner, Middle and Outer Walls, and their inscriptions date from the Seljuk period. The Castle Walls are twa-storled. The Castle has four main entrances, which were formerly covered with three layers of iron‘plates. The Bedesten: This is a Turkish building in the inner Castle to the northeast of the Mecdiiddln reservoir and Akshebe Mosque. !t consists of 26 rooms and a store-house all looking on a rectangular courtyard 13 meters wide and 35 meters fong. There are two rooms on both sides of the entrance, four rooms on the opposite side, and ten rooms on the longer sides of the rectangular courtyard. The rooms are 3.50 x 5,40 meters, end their entrances are built of brick In arched form. The Bedesten Is believed to be either a store-house for the Castle or an Inn. Ruins Of Alanya >> Related Posts Leave a Reply	[]
What Kind Of Punching Bag Do I Need For Kickboxing? (Question) If you’re wondering what weight and size of heavy punching bag is best for you, the general rule is that heavy bags should be approximately half your body weight. A 200 pound person may find a 100 pound bag suitable for use. For most adults, hanging bags should be at least 80 pounds to provide a good experience. Is hitting a punching bag a good workout? • Its not the actual hitting of the punching bag that is the part of the workout that is good. The best part of the workout is the fact that you are encouraging short, sharp blasts of workout. This type of exercise can almost be classed as HIIT, since you are working at a very high intensity for short periods of time. What type of bag is best for kickboxing? Angled heavy bags come with a shape that’s wide on top and tapers towards the smaller bottom. They are great for boxing-kickboxing training and for improving punching form. Do you need a punching bag for kickboxing? The short answer is yes, and here is why. A punching bag allows you to practice almost every move that you would use in a traditional boxing or kickboxing match. Practicing against air can only get you so far–this is known as shadowboxing. A punching bag gives you resistance and the illusion of an opponent. What punching bag should I start with? Beginners should opt for a shorter bag, in the 3-to-4-feet range, while more experienced trainees may want one that’s 5 feet or longer. If you’re going to be practicing a lot of kicks, in addition to punches, you may want a longer bag with a larger striking surface. You might be interested: Manny pacquiao kickboxing Are punching bags good for kicking? When you first start kickboxing, there is nothing worse than kicking a rock hard bag. The FightCamp punching bag is super soft and stable, with padding along the entire length of the bag, making it an ideal option for kickboxing training. You will be able to practice low kicks and high kicks without risking injury. Is 70 lb punching bag enough? HEAVY BAGS It works great for strength training because it resists your strikes. These bags can weigh between 70 and 150 pounds and are usually cloth filled. They are most useful for kicking and punching. For example, if you weight 160 lb., your heavy bag should weigh roughly 80 lb. What is a banana boxing bag? The famous Fairtex Banana Bag is designed to give you a full contact, total body workout. A must have industry standard punchbag that can be seen in gyms worldwide. Constructed of Syntek Leather with heavy duty water resistant and non-tear nylon lining with nylon web straps. How can I practice kickboxing without a bag? How to Punch Harder Without a Punching Bag 1. Use a punching bag substitute. 2. Practice punching with your whole body. 3. Punch slowly. 4. Exhale as you punch. Breath out from your chest and stomach hard and fast when your punch comes out. 5. Punch straight, not curved. 6. Perform punching drills. Is a 40lb punching bag good? For most adults, hanging bags should be at least 80 pounds to provide a good experience. 40 pounds: optimal for youth boxers and young beginners. 70 pounds: designed for teenagers and beginners. 100 pounds: suitable for intermediate boxers. You might be interested: Which Is Better Kickboxing Or Boxing? (TOP 5 Tips) Do you need gloves for a punching bag? A boxer typically punches the heavy bag while wearing hand wraps and boxing gloves. Punching the bag without wraps or gloves can toughen the skin while strengthening the bones, muscles and connective tissue of your hands. Following a few simple techniques will allow you to safely hit the heavy bag with no gloves. Do punching bags build muscle? Power punching is a great way to build muscle in the shoulders, arms and back. By adding heavy body strikes and uppercuts, you can also target your pectoralis, biceps and traps, giving you a complete upper-body workout. Keep the sets brief, and be sure to throw punches in bunches. Are Everlast punching bags good? The Everlast 40-Pound Heavy Bag is a great option for those who are just getting started. While a bit smaller than a full-size heavy bag, it still provides a sufficient striking surface to practice most movements. Its high quality synthetic outer covering provides good durability at a reasonable price point. Leave a Reply	[]
Basic linux interview questions and answers pdf Monday, February 25, 2019 admin Comments(0) Here we will bring to you Linux Interview Questions and all other aspects of Linux Interview, which is must for a professional in this cut-throat. For someone new (and even not so new) to Linux®, there are hundreds of questions, This paper addresses a number of miscellaneous questions, both. 11 Basic Linux Interview Questions and Answers - Download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or read online. Language: English, Spanish, Portuguese Country: Nepal Genre: Environment Pages: 363 Published (Last): 03.10.2015 ISBN: 332-7-42294-577-4 ePub File Size: 17.72 MB PDF File Size: 8.72 MB Distribution: Free* [*Regsitration Required] Downloads: 39507 Uploaded by: KASI 8) What are the basic components of Linux? Just like any other typical operating system, Linux has all of these components: kernel, shells and. New 54 Linux Admin Interview Questions And Answers Pdf, You can crack the What is the basic difference between UNIX and Linux Operating System?. Frequently asked Linux Interview Questions with detailed answers and examples . So you should reinstall the core operating system, and then restore system. Network administrator maintains system network which includes network configuration and troubleshooting. Question 6. Linux has tougher program permissions before installing anything on your machine. It is the default account every time you install Linux. A good preparation and a smart approach may help you get through this interview. To list all the files beginning with A command: Mv Fileo. A shortcut method would be: Copy a file to make a new file. Use the output operator e. The tar program is an immensely useful archiving utility. It can combine an entire directory tree into one large file suitable for transferring or compression. Files come in eight flavors: Use tar command The GNU version of the tar archiving utility: What Does Grep Stand For? Top provides an ongoing look at processor activity in real time. Three modes - Command mode: Insert mode: Text is inserted. Command line mode: Use command: ZZ that is save changes and quit. Use command line: Current line and two lines below it. I think at this point that 1 million is a low number. I am in contact with other set-top box vendors that are talking about numbers in the lOs of millions for their products. These numbers actually make the OLPC numbers seem small, which is in it amazing. Most importantly, why it all matters — and it really matters a lot. That effort will not be without some sacrifice, but if we are to maintain our ability to use and program our machines, and have fun with them, we have to act now. What Are Mysql Transactions? Each row has two additional columns associated with it - creation time and deletion time, but instead of storing timestamps, MySQL stores version numbers. Explain Mysql Locks. Table-level locks allow the user to lock the entire table, page-level locks allow locking of certain portions of the tables those portions are referred to as tables , row-level locks are the most granular and allow locking of specific rows. 11 Basic Linux Interview Questions and Answers Explain Mysql Architecture. The front layer takes care of network connections and security authentications, the middle layer does the SQL query parsing, and then the query is handled off to the storage engine. Nonvolatile Read Write Memory, also called Flash memory. It is also know as shadow RAM. Stack is a portion of RAM used for saving the content of Program Counter and general purpose registers. Flag is a flip-flop used to store the information about the status of a processor and the status of the instruction executed most recently. Which Processor Structure Is Pipelined? All x86 processors have pipelined structure. What Is A Compiler? Compiler is used to translate the high-level language program into machine code at a time. The Execution time is less compared to Interpreter. Differentiate Between Ram And Rom? What Is Called. What Is Cache Memory? Cache memory is a small high-speed memory. The cache memory is only in RAM. What Is Interrupt? Interrupt is a signal send by external device to the processor so as to request the processor to perform a particular work. Static RAM: No refreshing, 6 to 8 MOS transistors are required to form one memory cell, Information stored as voltage level in a flip flop. Dynamic RAM: Refreshed periodically, 3 to 4 transistors are required to form one memory cell, Information is stored as a charge in the gate to substrate capacitance. In primary storage device the storage capacity is limited. It has a volatile memory. In secondary storage device the storage capacity is larger. It is a nonvolatile memory. Primary devices are: Secondary devices are: Floppy disc I Hard disk. Microprocessor contain ROM chip because it contain instructions to execute data. What Is Meant By Latch? Latch is a D- type flip-flop used as a temporary storage device controlled by a timing signal, which can store 0 or 1. Linux Interview Questions Interview answers and pdf questions basic linux In Microprocessor more op-codes, few bit handling instructions. But in Microcontroller: It has limitations on the size of data. Most Microprocessor does not support floating-point operations. Is The Address Bus Unidirectional? The address bus is unidirectional because the address information is always given by the Micro Processor to address a memory location of an input I output devices. High-density n- type Complimentary Metal Oxide Silicon field effect transistor. Similarly processor has 16 bit ALU. What Is A Microprocessor? Microprocessor is a program-controlled device, which fetches the instructions from memory, decodes and executes the instructions. Most Micro Processor is single- chip devices. You use the touch command to create an empty file without needing to open it. Top Linux Interview Questions And Answers Answers a and e point to invalid commands, though either of these might actually be aliased to point to a real command. Answers b and c utilize editors, and so do not satisfy the requirements of the question. The kill command by itself tries to allow a process to exit cleanly. You type kill -9 PID, on the other hand, to abruptly stop a process that will not quit by any other means. Answers b and d are only valid in some contexts, and even in those contexts will not work on a hung process. You can use rmdir or rm -rf to delete a directory. Answer a is incorrect, because the rm command without any specific flags will not delete a directory, it will only delete files. Answers d and e point to a non-existent command. It can also be used to create a new file. The -r option tells the cp command to recurs the directories. The -P option retains the original permissions. The dd command is a special copy command often used for floppy disks and tapes. What Could Be The Problem? In order to delete a file, you must have write rights to the directory containing the file. Using the -c option with the grep command will show the total number of lines containing the specified pattern rather than displaying the lines containing the pattern. The -n option when used with sed prints only the lines containing the pattern. Z extension indicates that this is a file that has been compressed using the compress utility. The zcat utility provides the ability to display the contents of a compressed file. If you do not unmount the floppy before removing it, the files on the floppy may become corrupted. Quotas are set on a partition by partition basis. If your users have home directories on different partitions, you will need to configure quotas for each partition. The repquota command is used to get a report on the status of the quotas you have set including the amount of allocated space and amount of used space. Also, any changes that are made are seen by all the users with access. When the sticky bit is set on a world writable directory, only the owner can delete any file contained in that directory. Your Default Umask Is What Does This Mean? The digits of your umask represent owner, group and others in that order. The 0 gives read and write for files and the 2 gives read only for files. When using sed to do a search and replace, its default action is to only replace the first occurrence in each line. By default, expand converts tabs to eight spaces. Use the -t option to change this behavior. If the number of lines to display is not specified, the first ten lines of the specified file are displayed. The asterick tells head to display the content of each file in the present working directory. The od text filter will dumpt the contents of a file and display it in 2-byte octal numbers. The paste text filter usually joins two files separating the corresponding lines with a tab. The -s option, however, will cause paste to display the first file, dog, then a new line character, and then the file cat. The default page length when using pr is 66 lines. The -l option is used to specify a different length. The tac text filter is a reverse cat. It displays a file starting with the last line and ending with the first line. What Command Should You Use? The tail utility displays the end of a file. The tells tail to display the last fifteen lines of each specified file. That means new computer can be added to the network without any risk of manually assigning unique IP address. What Is Nfs? What Is Its Job? NFS enables filesystems physically residing on one computer system to be used by other computers in the network, appearing to users on the remote host as just another local disk. The file server is a machine that shares its disk storage and files with other machines on the network. We can use two major techniques to handle the collisions. They are open addressing and separate chaining. In open addressing, data items that hash to a full array cell are placed in another cell in the array. In separate chaining, each array element consists of a linked list. All data items hashing to a given array index are inserted in that list. The major advantage of a hash table is its speed. The Best Linux Interview Questions & Answers [UPDATED] Because the hash function is to take a range of key values and transform them into index values in such a way that the key values are distributed randomly across all the indices of a hash table. What Is Write Command? The write command enables you to write an actual message on the other terminal online. You have to issue the write command with the login ID of the user with whom you want to communicate. The write command informs the user at the other end that there is a message from another user. Even if they are in the middle of an edit session, write overwrites whatever is on the screen. The edit session contents are not corrupted; you can restore the original screen on most editors with Ctrl-L. The root login does not restrict you in any way. When you log in as root, you become the system. The root login is also sometimes called the super user login. With one simple command, issued either on purpose or by accident, you can destroy your entire Linux installation. For this reason, use the root login only when necessary. Avoid experimenting with commands when you do log in as root. You can then either specify its size or the ending cylinder. To specify the number of commands to list, use -n. This is the super user account also known as root. Syslogd-The syslogd daemon is responsible for tracking system information and saving it to specified log flies. To the screen or display-By default, your shell directs standard output to your screen or display. Top-The top utility shows a listing of all running processes that is dynamically updated. Who Owns The Data Dictionary? The SYS user owns the data dictionary. By using this command immediately after booting your computer, you will see the boot messages. Use the -r option to remove the password from the group. The split text filter will divide files into equally sized pieces. The default length of each piece is 1, lines. What Utility Should You Use? You can use the z modifier with tar to compress your archive at the same time as creating it. What Command Should You Type? This command uses the x switch to extract a file. Here the file memo. By default, your shell directs standard output to your screen or display. Linux Tutorial. Linux Practice Tests. October 23, Theories apart, we are proud to announce a new section on Tecmint , dedicated to Linux Interview. Here we will bring to you Linux Interview Questions and all other aspects of Linux, which is must for a professional in this cut-throat competition world. A new article in this section Linux Interview will be posted on every weekend. Linux questions answers interview pdf and basic We will start with Basic Linux Interview Question and will go advance article by article, for which your response is highly appreciated, which put us on a higher note. The Number of Lines of codes varies on daily basis and an average of more than 3, lines are being added to Kernel. How much you learned for the above questions? How it helped you in your Interview? Till then stay healthy, tuned and connected to Tecmint. We are thankful for your never ending support. I think it should be pointed out, regarding 3, that the number of lines of code in Linux changes — generally upward — with each kernel release, and no-doubt the numbers shown in the answer are now outdated, but no-doubt were true at the time this article was written. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. How to Install Nagios 4. How to Install Ubuntu Ending In: Interview Questions Basic Linux Interview Questions. Kernel is the core of Linux Operating System. Shell is a command Line Interpreter, Command is user Instruction to Computer, Script is collection of commands stored in a file and Terminal is a command Line Interface. Linux Kernel contains 12,, Lines of codes out of which 2,, Lines are comments. So remaining 9,, lines are codes and out of 9,, Lines of codes 7,, are written in C Programming Language. Yes, I do agree. Linux was written for x86 machine, and has been ported to all kind of platform. Linux made a very promising future in mobile phone, Tablets. In-fact we are surrounded by Linux in remote controls, space science, Research, Web, Desktop Computing. The list is endless. Slackware is the odd in the above list. Slackware is a Linux Operating System. Linux has had about viruses listed till date. None of them actively spreading nowadays.	[]
[csmith-dev] Extending csmith for c extensions Hi all, We 2 people have started to work on extending csmith for c language extensions. We are currently reading the c language extensions in gcc documentation. Where and how do we start exploring the csmith and to extend it,what else do we need to learn? Sameeran joshi.	[]
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Monthly PC Tips Wash Your Hands Before You Type June 2021 – by Per Christensson Over the past year, we were reminded hundred of times to wash our hands. It's good advice to prevent spreading germs but it's also a helpful way to keep your keyboard clean. Before you start typing on your keyboard, it's a good idea to wash your hands. If you don't have a sink nearby, you can use one of those 20 bottles of hand sanitizer you have lying around from 2020. By wiping off your fingers before you start typing or using your mouse, you'll keep your input devices nice and clean. Woman Washing Hands While washing your hands keeps germs from spreading to your keyboard and mouse, it also keeps them free of dirt and grease. Sunscreen, lotion, hair gel and other greasy products can quickly build up on your keyboard. Dirt and other small particles can find their way between the keys and cause problems when typing. If you use a laptop, the dirt from the keys may transfer to the screen when you close it. So keep your hands clean and your computer will stay clean too. If your keyboard and mouse get so dirty you need to wipe them off, remember to let them dry before using them again. Monthly Tips Archive	[]
migration to SOA Here I describe typical requirements and considerations for the adoption of or migration towards service-orientation. requirements and considerations for migration to SOA 1. A unique SOA transition plan is needed to plan the migration on a technological, architectural and organizational level. The plan is unique to the requirements, constraints and goals of an organization. It’s balanced between tactical requirements and strategic benefits of service oriented computing. content of a transition plan: 1. organizational business vision 2. impact analysis 3. dynamic transition architectures 4. phasing strategies 5. estimated inventory scopes 2. A central repository is needed for all documents. 3. The amount the agnostic solution logic increases the application-specific logic decreases. The overall solution logic is reduced because of the shared and reused agnostic services Schreibe einen Kommentar	[]
Chicago Auto Show 2008 Chicago Auto Show My father always loved going to the Chicago Auto Show every year. He would go several times each year and he would always take my brothers, sister, and me the first time he went. He always managed to get free tickets either through work or some promotional event. Somehow, he always found free tickets and took us every year. When I was older, he would go with just me so we could take our time and really look at all the cars. He loved looking at the cars and we loved collecting bags and bags full of automobile literature, pamphlets, key chains, and anything else they gave away there. My father was a mechanic at Curtiss Candy, so he loved to show off his knowledge of all things mechanical while we were at the auto show. So if they had a motor displaying the internal parts, my father would explain how the internal combustion engine worked. My brothers weren’t all that interested in his explanations, but I always tried to learn something new everytime we went to the auto show. My father always fantasized about owning all the latest expensive sports cars. He would always insist that we sit inside the car, behind the wheel. Then, he would explain all the features of the car, as if he were a car salesman. My favorite part of the show was the celebrities who made appearances. They were so accessible to everyone. Usually all the Chicago sports teams such as the White Sox, the Bulls, the Bears, the Blackhawks, and the Cubs sent a few players to represent them. I don’t really remember exactly who specifically showed up, but I do remember that if you waited long enough after their presentation, you could walk right up to them, shake their hand, and talk to them. We would always wait to meet the celebrities, but I was too shy to actually talk to them. I was content with shaking their hand and standing close enough to listen to them talk to others. The only Chicago player I really remember meeting there was Walter Payton. I also remember meeting Jesse Owens who came every year. He was always so patient just standing there waiting for everyone who wanted to greet him. And long after the auto show was over, we still had our bags of automotive literature to entertain us well into the summer. Published by David Diego Rodríguez, Ph.D.	[]
Our Environment, Our Responsibility As a leading user of one of nature's most precious and inspiring resources, and creators of something that people literally live on every minute of the day, we have a special responsibility not just to our environment, but to each other. Here's how we live up to that responsibility.	[]
hatecrimesI was watching Truths that Transform this week, and during the social action part of the program, his organization and a spokesperson for Concerned Women for America talked about the threat to free speech that hate crimes and hate speech laws pose, especially to churches that want to preach about the immorality of homosexuality. Below, I present their argument, which I mostly agree with, with the caveats I mention. But here’s the executive summary: Hate crimes laws are redundant with existing laws that cover those same crimes, can demand punishments out of proportion with the crime, and are Trojan horses for ushering in hate speech laws which threaten the free speech of opponents, usually to liberal social policy, by erroneously equating disagreement and moral criticism with hate. 1. Are hate crimes worse than ‘regular’ crimes? They do inspire more fear, because crimes based on ideology, rather than just personal corruption and things like drug abuse, seem more premeditated. But the fact is, the crime itself is of the same magnitude no matter what the motive. Is a racially-motivated murder worse than one done for money? Is the rape and murder of a woman any less heinous or hateful than that of a gay by heteros? Are the threats and intimidation of a mafioso demanding protection payment any worse than the threats of gang members who sell drugs on the corner and control the commerce and traffic in a neighborhood? Threats and intimidation should be treated with equal censure. If minorities feel like the punishments for those intimidating them are not enough, the answer is not to create special laws for them, but to treat all such intimidation as equally heinous, and if need be, strengthen existing law. We do not need a separate code for hate crimes that is more severe than the punishments for the same crimes motivated by some other hatred, fear, addiction, or greedy reason. The downside of having stricter laws for such crimes is that often, these new rules are now used to disproportionately punish people who are accused of being motivated by some specific and more “evil” hate, but are really not. While we may want to assess whether an action was premeditated or not, our judicial system should not be in the business of assessing motive – the detective solving a crime might need that, but the judge needs to look at the crime itself. I know some will nit pick and disagree, but my main point is that assessing motive in court is a fools errand, and having a separate code of punishment for the same crimes is not only wasting our time being redundant, it is rife with the potential for injustice. 2. Remember Matthew Shepard? Matthew Shepard was a gay man who was brutally murdered by two heterosexuals. The tragic murder, however, has been leveraged by the pro-gay lobby to not only raise awareness of anti-LGBT violence and intimidation, it has been used to champion legislation to punish such crimes. And while the awareness is good, the legislation is problematic. Complicating the story is the testimony of the killers in this case. The killers were drug dealers who had previous drug dealings with Shepard, and one of them actually testified that he beat up Shepard, not based on his orientation, but based on the affect the drugs had on him. Former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the case, also believed robbery was the primary motive. “Matthew Shepard’s sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” he said. ‘All I Wanted to Do Was Beat Him Up and Rob Asked directly whether he targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, “No. I did not. … I would say it wasn’t a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him.” Rerucha attributes McKinney’s rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. “The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs,” Rerucha said. Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells “20/20” the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior. “In the first weeks after you’ve stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It’s completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off” Rawson said. “If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today,” Rerucha said. This complication does not lessen the horror of the murder, but it does mean that the pro-gay lobby is really just using this high visibility case to push their cause. 3. How many hate-based crimes are committed each year, and how many against gays? In 2005, FBI statistics on hate crime show that of the 7163 incidents, 1017 were related to sexual orientation. That is significant, and it is important to note that only 21 of them were anti-heterosexual crimes. So we see that gays are victims of this type of crime more than non-gays. So activists may have a point in raising awareness, but if they want to create laws, they need to consider the impact, abuse, and limits of such laws. 4. Remember Jesse Dirkhising? Jesse Dirkhising, 13 years old, was brutally tortured, raped, and killed by a male homosexual couple. The left-leaning press ignored it, but the lefties were unapologetic: On 4 November 1999, Jonathan Gregg addressed the issue in Time magazine. He asked: “Could it be because we in the media elite were unwilling to publicize crimes committed by homosexuals because it didn’t suit our agenda? The next stop in that line of reasoning was clear: That news is controlled by a bunch of gay-loving liberals only too happy to wield a double standard.” In his opinion, Gregg wrote that the discrepancy in media attention was: No lesson? How about that such crimes are often NOT hate-related, but are nonetheless as heinous as any other? I’m glad that heteros are not using this to pimp their own brand of needless, redundant hate-crimes legislation. But of course, they don’t have the associated social agenda that the pro-gay lobby does, and THAT is the real difference here. 5. How hate crimes laws are used to usher in hate speech laws Again, I am not justifying hate crimes, and let me also say that I am not justifying speech that directly incites violence. But what I am saying is this – hate crimes laws can not be divorced from hate speech laws, and these are nothing more than the blasphemy laws of the secularist, pro-gay left. In an effort to rightly quash speech that directly incites violence against gays, in their mistaken idea of what hate is, they are also quashing all moral criticism of their sexual identity and lifestyle. To them, it’s just discriminatory, which is hate (everything is hate to the left). But here’s the chilling effect – who else will seek such protections? How about Muslims who don’t want their Shariah law publicly criticized or judged? In fact, this is exactly what they DO, but these laws are called blasphemy laws. And what we are seeing on both of these poles, both fanatical left and religious right, are the erosion of free speech rights, ushered in within the Trojan Horse of unneeded hate crimes legislation. 6. What we SHOULD do about crime and ideologies that encourage it Look, all crime is hateful on one level. I mean, should we convict a black youth of a hate crime because the misogynistic rap music he listened to motivated him? Should we ban all misogynistic lyrics and jail those who use them? Of course not. The answers are simple, and current law covers them. • Violent crime is a crime is a crime, and should be persecuted and punished as we do today. The rape or murder of an individual is not any less awful just because it was done out of lust than hate. • Speech that DIRECTLY incites violence should be illegal, just like libel or slander, and appropriate punishments, be they fines or jail time, should be determined. • Speech that is derisive, demeaning, or profane, or abusive, though regrettable, is not a crime. If it were, half the rap albums on the stands would be illegal. What do we do with such speech? We label it to protect children, and maybe we restrict it’s sale. But that’s it. The white supremacist and the atheist who hates religion both have the opportunity to have their say and let society and public opinion decide their case, as long as they are not directly inciting violence. • Moral disapproval is NOT hate speech, EVEN if the speaker is motivated by hate, disgust, or disapproval. Even if SOME people take such speech and use it to justify or motivate themselves in their own violent acts, this speech can not be considered illegal. Inciting disgust or disapproval is not a crime – otherwise people of all ideological stripes would be stripped of their right to criticize, even judge others publicly. Hate crimes legislation is really a waste of the taxpayers time, and is almost exclusively used by the pro-gay lobby towards one end – to garner social and legal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, and to squelch critics by taking away their rights of free speech. Christians should be wary of any such hate crimes legislation, and be willing to endure the puerile accusations of hate as they examine every proposed law for such anti-freedom and anti-American efforts. We don’t want violence, but we don’t want the liberal blasphemy laws to clamp down on what we say or think. That’s what fascists do.	[]
Thursday, August 30, 2007 Common Courtesy and The Law Disclaimer: I realize that I'm focusing on a very narrow aspect of society and indirectly ignoring other aspects. Oppression is served in a variety of ways: it's doled out like street flyers, it startles you like a friend tapping your shoulder in a grocery store, it's unloaded on you from a dump truck, it's unpleasantly discovered like a hair in your ravioli, it's suggested by an authority figure . . . the list goes on. I've lived in a few environments where oppression dominated me, though the oppressors had good intentions for their constructs. And, granted, if one has a decent head on her shoulders, she can ignore the laws that can potentially oppress; and she can simply live a happy life. I find that many rules and laws that are legislated for the good of the community are unnecessary when common courtesy is prevalent. The article, "Welcome, Students. Now Watch It." from the New York Times, that provoked my musings is currently on my blog under the "Interesting" section. One example is the no-sleeping-in-the-subway law. Really, I shouldn't sleep in the subway? I shouldn't expose myself to possible unlawful actions performed at my expense? This is common sense. (Although, I don't mind the vagrants sleeping on the subway. If I were homeless and needed a decent rest, I would scrounge up four bucks to take a round trip from Inwood to Rockaway. And I wouldn't be bothering anyone, asking for money--I'd be getting my beauty rest). We should have laws against stealing, but not laws that help prevent one from being exposed to theft. Another obvious solicitation of advice from The Man is the pooper-scooper-street-signs you see everywhere. "It's the law." That's why we shouldn't let our dogs shit all over the sidewalk? How about, I don't want to step in shit the next time I take my dog out for a walk. I realize I'm picking on a few mundane laws and there are many laws that aren't mundane and are necessary to prosecute offenders in order to control crime. They don't have much theft in Singapore because they chop off a hand for punishment. I'm not saying that is a good or bad form of punishment, I'm simply saying that it's effective. But I'm talking about laws against dog shit and napping and using the lever brace on gas pump handles and walking on the grass, etc. A person feels as if he is being condescended to if he takes the laws personally. I don't, but have in the past. Now, I just think they're stupid. People who don't take the time to think about the stupidity of these laws are even more likely to get upset about them, especially if they are fined for violating one. Oklahoma has a law that says you can't drive through a yellow light unless you are presently in the intersection when the light turns yellow. What?! So now we aren't only worried about running an orange light, but a blue light as well. How do they prosecute this? It's a subjective law. Civilian: "My windshield was past the crosswalk when the light turned yellow." Police Officer: "No, your fender hadn't even reached the crosswalk before the light changed." I'm not coming down on The Man and I'm not for anarchy. I just think we could thin the books by removing a few of these frivolous laws. Where is the dividing line between frivolous laws and necessary laws? That is the headache of all concerned parents. Do I give her a little breathing room or do I drop the hammer this time? Because oppression breeds rebellion, but a hands-off approach can be equally dangerous. What is the answer to this quandary? Am I talking in circles? Yes. But this is what I do know: the government prosecuting subway sleepers is the same as Daddy grounding his son for not putting his toothbrush in the holder. Maybe I'm just a liberal hippie, but I don't think so. Tuesday, August 28, 2007 The Monastic Oath (Part 2) Friday, August 24, 2007 It's Friday and I Shall not Go Out: The Monastic Oath (Part 1) I'm trying to embrace the monastic lifestyle in the city that lacks no temptation. And it's not that bad. To say that I'm a monk is incorrect. I'm married--there goes chastity. I rarely leave the house--that knocks out charity but for my gracious internet gestures. So, when I refer to the monastic life, I'm really saying, "I'm poor." I'm between jobs at the moment and doing some temp work, but other than that I'm diligently trying to make peace with the city and my wallet. I survived a week and a half with no frivolous expenditures and couldn't take it anymore . . . . Thus begins our lengthy saga. I went to The Ding Dong Lounge on Columbus and 105th for a drink. I ordered a Long Island. Hey! it's only one glass. The bartender informed me with raised eyebrows and inflection rising: "it's ten bucks." I paused. Why did he tell me that? Do I look like a die hard beer drinker that decided to take a walk on the wild side? Do I look like an out-of-towner (I kinda am) that wanted to drink a beverage that was named after a certain region of the city? Do I look young and therefore unaware of the higher price of a Long Island in comparison to other cocktails (In my defense, I do have a fairly manly beard--good coverage, no major patches)? Or has this everyday bartender--middle aged man with longish hair and a black t-shirt that reads "F*** the Movement" stencilled in white letters on the back--tuned in to a higher plane of consciousness or spirituality reserved for monastic individuals and is signalling to me that I should refrain from this oath breaking substance. I said, "no problem." He brought me my drink and I tipped him nicely (to say, "Thank you," but not too nicely, which would say, "I'm an out-of-towner trying to fit in"). Then my night began. And I didn't finish my first drink until three hours later. This is what happened: The bartender was running his ipod through the sound system; his battery went dead, which immediately put the twelve clients into a disorienting rage. He ran over to the DJ stand where two turntables, a mess of dust, CDs, disheveled LPs and wires were all jumbled together helter-skelter. He couldn't figure out the system before he had to run over and make another drink. I asked him if I could help. He gave permission. I got the system going with one of the horrible LPs that was strewn across the shelf. I, then, ran home to get my one vinyl record (this will be explained in some distant future blog), that I had recently purchased on Bleecker, Wilco's Sky Blue Sky (this is chronologically before my previous blog in which I purchased Smile--yeah, I know, that's why I'm working on the monastic life now). When I returned, another client had the same idea--had gone home to grab some LPs--and we cordially fought over the DJ position. Luckily, he was soused and I had barely started my single drink of the night. I proceeded to amaze the eight remaining clients with my subtle transitions and my sensitivity to their needs and moods. The crazy drunk that thought he could DJ had brought Aretha Franklin's Live at the Fillmore (which was very cool, and I had never heard), Johnny Cash's Live at Folsom Prison, some Mos Def album and some obscure jazz album. The man had taste. I interwove these sounds very nicely with the cross-fader and my slight of hand. About an hour after my DJ career began, the tardy professional DJ appeared and took control (with CDs! amateur). And back to the Monastery I went. To be continued . . . The Universe. Brian Wilson. And a Theremin? "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aide." -Goethe I know that is one of the most quoted quotations of all time, especially over the last seven years since Cameron Crowe put it into the mouth of his fictional mother in Almost Famous. But there is another reason why: because it's true and encouraging. We all need encouraging truths. In my case the mighty forces are simply a force, which happens to be Brian Wilson. I know that Wilson said that "music is the voice of God" in his Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction, but seriously . . . my recent experience is a bit strange -- and apparently a bit "New York." When we were looking for apartments we ran into a record shop on Bleecker Street (obviously we had already found our apartment and were goofing around, because we can't afford an apartment on Bleecker -- I'm a former English teacher from Oklahoma!). Rebel Rebel is the name of the shop. I don't know the guy's name that has been running it the last three times we were there, but he's cool and nice and doesn't at all resemble any of the dorks in High Fidelity. I grabbed a copy of Smile by Brian Wilson from this same shop on Monday. I had never heard it before and had the opportunity to have my initial listening experience on vinyl. It's beautiful, strange and spiritual -- all characteristics of Brian Wilson's virtuosity. I simply wanted an album that I could listen to without wanting to skip every other song, and I found one of the best albums I've ever heard. I never read any of the reviews when it came out in 2004, and I'm glad I didn't -- now I can have this blind-sided crash into it. I love Pet Sounds, but this is simply in a different category (notice that I didn't say higher or better category. And for those of you that don't like the album, Smile, for it's lyrics: I understand. But you're missing the point). This all leads to what happened yesterday. My wife had been eager to see Williamsburg the Musical but had forgotten to reserve tickets. So we walked down to The Village Theater and were informed that the show was sold out. An old guy dressed in black with some weird carrying cases strewn across the sidewalk beside him stopped us and handed us a flyer advertising Theremin. I can be a geek at times, but I'm apparently not a big enough geek to know what and who Theremin is (maybe I'm stereotyping this whole concept and everyone else in the world knows who Theremin is and I'm a fool for even considering otherwise. Okay, I'll accept that.). I once saw a long-haired weirdo playing a theremin on a Billy Joel concert DVD, but I didn't know what he was doing. In a nut, Leon Theremin was the Ruskie who invented the theremin around the beginning of the 20th Century. The theremin is the first electric instrument and is played without the musician making any contact with it. He invented this thing, demonstrated it to the American public, and disappeared off the face of the planet. What the hell does this have to do with Brian Wilson? Well, Brian Wilson started going crazy, due to his massive consumption of narcotics and his trying to deal with his own "musical genius." According to the play, Wilson believed that his destiny would be complete if he could uncover the mystery of what happened to this Russian inventor. The play was fantastic. I'm not going to write a review about this, either, but will say that it encompassed everything I enjoy in theatre. A bizarre or unusual concept is brought to the public through a medium that is best suited for it. For example, there is no other medium that could tell a humorous, odd, and intelligent story through live performers consisting of four actors and a weird gray haired man in the orchestra pit, playing the only instrument in the pit -- a theremin. No other medium could produce the same ethos. I thought the weird guy and the concept of the play would make the production campy, but it didn't. Everything was entertaining and enlightening. My main point: I've had two great experiences with art in the same week, both are accidental, and both involve Brian Wilson. What does this mean? I don't know or care. I am simply delighting in the fact that this experience would be virtually impossible in Tulsa. Not impossible, virtually impossible. Is synchronicity limited to NYC? No! But this is eccentric, even for synchronicity. We're talking about vinyl and live theatre; both are, arguably, dying art forms, and, therefore, have very few compatible comparisons. It'd be like an accordionist stopping outside your window to play you and your wife's wedding song directly after you returned home from your honeymoon -- and your song is "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. This may be a stretch, but not buy much. I mean, come on, there is only one dying art form in this synchronous analogy, the accordionist, and he's only an outcast of pop culture; he is still in high demand in almost every state of the Union due to the not-so-subversive mariachi movement. So, I give New York credit, even if it doesn't entirely deserve it. If you've had a similar experience in Quapaw, Oklahoma, excellent! But I'm going to continue to ride my displaced-person's high while listening to Mr. Wilson sing about his excitement over grocery shopping: "I'd jump up and down and hope you'd toss me a carrot." Genius! Sunday, August 19, 2007 Dr Robert and His Similarities to the Potted Plant on E.T. My bamboo plant is the barometer of my overall well being. My wife, Mrs. Okie, and I got a bamboo plant, along with a few other plants, while she was going through a nurturing phase. All the rest of the plants died because we are egocentric and not nurturing, but Dr. Robert survived. (She named our pseudo-cacti-plant, "Chubbs," and I named our bamboo after the Beatles song. Chubbs fell off a shelf and never recovered from the trauma while Dr. Robert danced by the hand of Mrs. Okie to the song he was named after.) I initially thought it was a good idea to have living things that you didn't have to potty-train in the house. But instead we had dying things. And it was very depressing. We'd come home to see all these brown wilting creatures that looked like the vegetation of the Bog of Eternal Stench. I eventually had to cart them all off to the dumpster while Mrs. Okie was out running an errand (she knew her darlings were in pain, but she couldn't put them to sleep). But Bob made it (we rarely address him informally, not because we have intimacy issues, but because we have a Sponge Bob Square Pants stool. So when we say, "hand me Bob," we are talking about the stool and not Dr. Robert.) Dr. Robert stuck around for reasons that could only be described as spiteful. In plant speech he said, "Get bent! I'm not going anywhere!" And he became family. Well, as stated in my profile, we moved here three weeks ago. We were concerned and didn't think Doc was going to survive the transition. We had our neighbor and dear friend baby-sit him while we spent a week, prior to the move, apartment hunting. I think our neighbor had a rough week, because Dr. Robert didn't get much attention and began to look like the late, traumatized Chubbs who took the dumpster dive. But he pulled through. Even after the 30 hour Penske-truck-ride. In fact, we set the Doc outside on the fire-escape to get some sun, and I accidentally knocked him over and broke his vase while stepping out for a cigarette. Pieces of the vase and the pebbles that supported him rained-down five stories, ringing and bouncing off the lower levels of the fire escape, but Dr. Robert only fell a couple of steps. Now he happily resides in a red plastic cup on top of our CD tower, and has never looked better. I'm telling you The Doctor's biography because his phases in life directly correlate to my own. Like E.T.'s potted plant that mirrored his and Eliot's well being, Dr. Robert mirrors mine. It was hell looking for an apartment in the city (Doc felt our pain). We were exhausted but excited during the physically demanding move (though his leaves remained wilted, his color returned). Everyday life in New York is a huge change from Tulsa (the vase to the plastic cup). But we are happier than ever, now that we live in the City (he's taller, greener, and has more leaves than ever before). I believe that he is a barometer and not a crystal ball. If our plumber, who is currently working on our toilet, has a fit of rage, becomes homicidal, and snaps The Doctor's spine over his knee, I don't think we will suffer a similar fate. But it's actually nice to have a living friend in the house, who can empathize with my wife and I, but never rants about his fledgling relationships, drunkenly whines about his job frustrations, argues over politics, or does any other annoying thing that human friends inevitably do when you maintain a close relationship with them. So we're a tad less ego-centric, and though I still don't want a pet, I think I'll put Revolver on and give my buddy a fresh cup of water. Monday, August 13, 2007 Scents of New York New York has a multitude of fragrances that bombard you everyday on the street. In Oklahoma, you don't experience a variety of aromas while walking down the street. Because you never walk down the street. You drive everywhere you want to go. I lived in Tulsa (the second largest "city" in OK) for eight years, and the longest distance I walked was from a no-door-ding-parking-spot to the front doors of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. While driving, you do get an occasional whiff of a water treatment plant and inevitably ask the person in the passenger seat if she farted. Or you catch the scent of a skunk or a chicken farm on the outskirts of town and try to hold your breath for a mile (unless you use my great-grandfather's advice, "Breathe it in deeply and get the worst over with, right off the bat). But that's it. In NYC, however, I'd be insane, for reasons that don't need to be explained, to own a car. And I walk through a cornucopia of scents everyday. I feel like I'm in a twisted version of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but instead of tasting "cherry," "strawberry" and "schnauzberry" flavored wallpaper, I smell things that are pungent and often indefinable as I cruise down the sidewalk. But there are a few scents, good and bad, that all New Yorkers must know like the back of their hand, because they don't wince, lose their balance and scream "whoa" like I do when they come across them. Here are the major ones. 1. The Subway. It's a warm sunny day and you begin your descent into the subway. On the second tier of steps that leads down to the platform, it hits you: rank B.O. But that's not all! It is always mixed with the musty, dank, thick-as-chunky-mustard smell of the subway itself. And there is a difference between the two scents, even if the sour subway aroma resembles that of the smell of a few of my relatives after a day in the fields. The two scents some how meander along the walls, tracks and platform, but never quite blend together. 2. Foyers. The inside of every foyer in every apartment building in New York smells identical. Okay, obviously I haven't been in every single one, but I've been in at least half a dozen buildings in each of the Burroughs (except the Bronx, I don't know anyone there but may have to venture up there to validate my observation). The scent is hard to define because, after living here for only three weeks, it's already as familiar as my clean bodily scent. I can't smell myself unless I have just finished running three miles, which is my dirty bodily scent (B.O.) and the first of the two key ingredients to the aforementioned "subway" smell. Only your spouse or girl/boyfriend knows your clean bodily scent. They smell it on your shirt or after you get out of the shower. When I get out of the shower, my wife says she likes my smell; I think I smell like Suave: Ocean Breeze body wash. So, maybe I'll go back to Oklahoma for a couple of weeks and return, better equipped, to describe this allusive scent. 3. Food. I don't really need to describe this one. But it's amazing how many different kinds of food I can smell at different times of the day while I sit on my fire-escape and smoke a cigarette. I live on the fifth floor and my fire-escape is above a poor excuse for a courtyard that is surrounded by the walls and windows of my building and another that sits on the other side of the courtyard. These two buildings and 40 (approximately) windows serve up fragrances from a smorgasbord of ethnic dishes. Even with my dulled smoker's sense of smell, I can enjoy Indian, Mexican, Soul-Food, American, and Ethiopian (I think it's Ethiopian. It's the only one I'm not completely sure about) wafts of delight--all before 2 p.m. (I know I need to get a job. I'm working on it. I just moved here! Jeez!) And unless I'm really hungry, this is one of the scents I enjoy most. 4. Women. I don't need to describe this one either. But I will say it is nice to walk up out of a subway, or B.O.-chunky-mustard hell, and enter into the light of day as a woman walks by (Yes, I know that all women don't smell great, but most smell better than men.) A soft citrus breeze. A cool floral wave. A sexy perfume. A nice ________ (fill in the blank). You know what I'm talking about. And it's never arousing, you don't have the opportunity to get aroused while hoofing it down the busy streets of New York. It's just a pleasant surprise and momentary escape from the multitude of other scents that bombard you. 5 - 100. I could tell you about dog vomit and shit, human vomit and shit, car exhaust, Starbucks, retail stores, wet cement, hot asphalt, cigarette smoke (which obviously doesn't bother me), wet grass, fresh rain . . . and a multitude of others, but you know most of them or wouldn't want to hear about the others. And how many pseudonyms can one think of for scent? I tip my hat to food critics. 6. or 101. Vomit. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the above, but I am curious if many other New Yorkers have had this same experience. I've been here three weeks and have come accross vomit three times. I know it was human vomit at least once, because it was on the subway and an attempt had been made to conceal it--it was partially enclosed in a plastic bag and covered with newspaper. On second thought, it could could have been a doggy bag, I don't know. But three times in three weeks? The other times were on the sidewalk and on a running trail in Central Park. The only time I actually smelled it was in the subway--it wasn't horrible, but there is no air circulation on the subway. A faintly putrid aroma just sat in the car and was given an extra dose of oxygen everytime the doors opened, but the air always comes in. Is this normal? Should I expect to see a puddle of vomit every week for the rest of my future in New York? This is all still novel for me and I'm interested in discovering more. Hopefully I won't be cursing these smells before the year is out. We'll see. Oh, fall! No matter where you live, the fall season always brings a different spin on everything, especially smells. But don't worry. I won't wait two months just to write and tell you, again, about my olfactory adventures in The City.	[]
Preços Baixos Preços Baixos is a growing retailer in the northern region of Portugal with 8 stores in the Porto and Braga districts. They chose MITIC to develop a new website as a central stage of their communication and engagement with customers. Project Summary Preços Baixos is a retailer in northern Portugal. As part of the company's expansion strategy, they wanted to set themselves apart from other retailers by having a new channel to interact and engage with their customers. MITIC developed a performance-focused website that provides all the necessary info to customers and allows them to post their own feedback. The website follows a functional design approach, with distinct pages for distinct customer goals, such as checking the latest promos, learning about the pick-up service, or posting a testimonial. This has certainly improved Preços Baixos' footing in their target market while also improving customer relations. banner-precos-baixos-fotografia-loja-pão (1) Presenting the Promotion Flyers As happens with almost every supermarket chain in Portugal, Preços Baixos publishes weekly or monthly flyers with their upcoming promotions. These are the prime promotional material that generates customer interest and leads to increased sales. As such, the website was developed so that the promotional flyers are easily accessible and can be intuitively flipped like a book directly from the website. By centralizing all this communication in a single place, Preços Baixos reduced customer friction and simplified its internal processes. banner-precos-baixos-fotografia-loja-fruta (1) Giving Customers a Voice Aware that their customers are the main stakeholders of their business, Preços Baixos made sure that they were given a voice to be heard by all. This was materialized in the form of a feedback page where customers can write their own testimonial. Once this testimonial is approved by Preços Baixos, it is displayed dynamically on the feedback page. As a result, Preços Baixos highlighted its transparency and made it easier to receive honest customer feedback that can be vital when growing a retail chain. And now... As Preços Baixos keeps expanding its operations, we make sure that the website remains updated to the latest standards. We pride ourselves in providing world-class support, and this has been a key point of this relationship that will certainly last.	[]
@article {670560, title = {Strengthening the research base that informs STEM professional development and curriculum improvement efforts: A meta-analysis}, journal = { Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis}, volume = {41}, number = {3}, year = {2019}, pages = {260-293}, abstract = {We present results from a meta-analysis of 95 experimental and quasi-experimental pre-K{\textendash}12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professional development and curriculum programs, seeking to understand what content, activities, and formats relate to stronger student outcomes. Across rigorously conducted studies, we found an average weighted impact estimate of +0.21 standard deviations. Programs saw stronger outcomes when they helped teachers learn to use curriculum materials; focused on improving teachers{\textquoteright} content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and/or understanding of how students learn; incorporated summer workshops; and included teacher meetings to troubleshoot and discuss classroom implementation. We discuss implications for policy and practice.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/TSKJ7XQBAHYPHFRIUTSV/full}, author = {Lynch, K. and Hill, H. and Gonzalez, K and Pollard, C.} }	[]
A General Apple Rant_ February 14, 2020 @22:40 I have not really had the time to sit down and have a good rant about Apple lately. I swear that I try not to get too emotionally invested in products but since I end up using one Apple product or another just about every day the annoyance just seems to pile up and eventually I just need to let it out. I will start on a somewhat nice note by remembering that since switching to OSX back around Snow Leopard and iOS back in 2017 it has mostly been a decent experience. At first I really liked having simple access to Unix style tools in an OS that I didn't need to screw around with. I also appreciated the privacy features and consistent user interface in iOS. More and more though it seems like Apple's famous engineering and design talent in both the hardware and software world has... diminished... Your hardware sucks There are several YouTube channels run by independent repair shops / techs that will expound heavily on the awfulness of Apple's hardware design. I was hit by the 2011 GPU issue, have had to replace several keyboards, and several batteries in my two personal MacBooks. For work I have had a late 2015 MacBook Pro and a 2019 MacBook Pro and while the 2019 has been OK so far the 2015 had the screen cable fault and was finally replaced because the battery decided to expand so much it bent the bottom plate of the unibody. I still hate the touchbar keyboard, even though the 2019 is supposed to be better than the first generation and frankly it seems like the touchbar was a feature that nobody was asking for. Speaking of features nobody was asking for, in what I gather were attempts to shrink the thickness of their devices I'll point to the deletion of the 3.5mm headphone jack from the iPhone and the MagSafe 2 connector as some of the more heinous decisions made by Apple in the hardware design space. Of course the headphone jack might have been less about shrinking the phone and more about getting people to buy AirPods, HomePods, and Beats headphones since it seems that the iPad maintained its jack to the current generation. But ohhh boy that MagSafe 2... I really liked the original MagSafe connector. It saved my 2011 MacBook Pro several times but I swear if you look at the MagSafe 2 sideways it will just fall out of the laptop. I can't tell you how many times I have been away from home trying to connect into my laptop only to find that it was asleep because a strong gust of wind or the cat bumped the cable out. Useless. Your software also sucks I don't even know where to begin here. I mean, it's just getting appalling and sadly predictable that every release of every OS from Apple is going to have some inane brokenness that is completely new and unique. Sometimes they get fixed (for example, you couldn't scroll the screen in iOS mail while it was animating the selection in 13.0, but thankfully it was fixed around 13.1, though the animations still make selecting messages to delete take noticeably longer), but like my bug reports on home control sometimes they don't get fixed. Some of the issues like CarPlay requiring Siri are easily ignored but some are not. I have a couple of recent experiences below but a really quick search seems to turn up several other posts bemoaning some of the same things I've experienced. This one even includes several links. 32-bit apps Post-Catalina upgrade Steam library I'll just leave this here. Catalina and External Displays At work I have a 2019 MacBook Pro with 2 external screens. It seems like starting with Catalina the OS no longer remembers which display goes where when you disconnect and reconnect them. This is really disheartening because this used to be something that macOS did really well. It also means that any time I take my laptop to a customer site for a meeting I will likely have to screw with the display preferences upon returning to the office. Do they not... test these things? automount bizarreness in Catalina I have been using automount(8) in macOS for years now. It lets me have a folder on my laptop contain virtual connections to my various NAS devices. The nice thing about this is that they are only connected to when needed, so if I am using my laptop outside of my network the folders will just fail to open, but once I get back home they will work just fine. This is super easy to setup and a very convenient way to extend the capacity of your device without using cloud services. In my case my automount master map (which describes what maps connect to which virtual folders) looks like this: # Automounter master map +auto_master # Use directory service #/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid /home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder /Network/Servers -fstab /- -static /System/Volumes/Data/Users/mernisse/Shares auto_nfs The /System/Volumes/Data bit is a new location cooked up by one of Apple's hair-brained schemes wherein they make the OS read-only during operation and stuff the user's data into a separate partition that is read-write. In general this sounds like a good idea but in typical Apple fashion the present implementation is half-baked at best. One of my favorite side-effects of the change is that if you change any system configuration files, like for example your automount maps, they will overwrite them during the next update. So right out of the gate this means I have to keep restoring the automount maps every time they push an OS update. After figuring out that particular gem, I noticed that my automounts would disappear randomly and that any large copies to or from those folders would crash or fail for no reason. There was no information in the log files or in Console.app. Even more troubling the fact that after 12 days there were over 1600 copies of the same automount map showing 'mounted' by the system. kitsune@21:21:08 ~ >mount \| grep -c auto_nfs kitsune@21:22:17 ~ >uptime 21:22 up 12 days, 2:10, 2 users, load averages: 2.06 1.96 2.00 On a normal system you will have a mount line for each map on my system it would usually look like: map auto_nfs on /Users/mernisse/Shares (autofs, automounted, nobrowse) About a day after I noticed the above the laptop basically stopped doing anything other than beach-balling for minutes at a time. Quality. iTunes.app Music.app I'd also like to take a moment to point out that their splitting of iTunes into a bunch of different pieces somehow only made the festering pile worse. Your attitude sucks I wrote about this a bunch before, but since I am ranting I feel the need to once again point out that it is not in the least bit reasonable that I cannot write and install software for a device I own without jumping through some unreasonable hoops set forth by the manufacturer. I also can't give a friend a copy of that software without even more hoops. I understand the privacy and security hand waving excuses but at the end of the day I bought this thing, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. I can install a self-signed CA that lets me browse to HTTPS websites, potentially man in the middle SSL connections from everything including the OS, but I can't install a binary that I made. Yeah, that's secure. People don't do anything over SSL using certificates. Frankly, this is Apple using their monopoly position over their hardware stack and their duopoly position in the mobile device and personal computer market place to harm their customers. They force their users to use their App Store so they can then turn around and force developers to give them a cut of their revenue. They continue to produce less reliable, less durable, and less serviceable hardware, and every software release seems more rushed and user antagonistic than the one before it. It is either corporate malfeasance edging their products towards planned obsolescence or terrible management driving unreasonable schedules and cost reductions. Either way it boils down to ineptitude at every level. The sad fact is that in a lot of ways they remain the best option on the market today, so I feel stuck, however I fear that if they continue down this road they will end up back where they were last time they didn't have Steve Jobs at the helm. Subscribe via RSS. Send me a comment.	[]
Rubrik acquisition enhances vendor's artificial intelligence Rubrik, which uses artificial intelligence in ransomware detection and governance offerings, bought additional AI technology for more proactive data management assistance. With the acquisition of a company specializing in artificial intelligence, Rubrik has boosted its technology in an area that is fast becoming a key piece of data protection and management. Opas AI's concentration is in AI for root cause analysis. Rubrik claims the technology will help its data protection and data management customers respond quicker to problems and potential issues in IT. The Opas AI technology will help users take advantage of their data and "make them much more efficient, and be able to respond to anomalies in the operational environment, in a much more timely manner," said Vinod Marur, senior vice president of engineering at Rubrik. With the sheer amount of data in use by organizations, it's important to get as much intelligence on it as possible. "And the best form of that is slightly more proactive than reactive," Marur said. "It's always easier if you're able to ... proactively alert the user, so that they can take remedial action in a nonemergency situation." The Rubrik acquisition of an AI company "looks like a first [for a backup vendor], and it's certainly an interesting and timely move," said Christophe Bertrand, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "This is definitely the way things are going," Bertrand said. "Rubrik is very smart in beefing up their capabilities with this acquisition." Increased interest in artificial intelligence Opas AI, which was headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., developed an AI-based causation engine that can understand the behavioral parameters of applications and their underlying infrastructure. With the new technology, Rubrik hopes to provide users with more proactive alerting, shorter problem resolution cycles and increased availability. Headshot of Rubrik's Vinod MarurVinod Marur "[Opas AI staff] spent a lot of time thinking about this problem space and started having some very good breakthroughs," Marur said. The Rubrik acquisition comes at a time when artificial intelligence is a major trend in IT. More organizations will increase spending on artificial intelligence this year than any other area of technology, according to this month's ESG research report, "2020 Technology Spending Intentions Survey." Sixty-four percent of organizations in the survey said they will increase investments in AI this year compared to 2019 spending. It's the first time in ESG's research that AI has surpassed such areas as cybersecurity and public cloud services as the top technology for spending increases. This is definitely the way things are going. Rubrik is very smart in beefing up their capabilities with this acquisition. Christophe BertrandSenior analyst, ESG AI in backup can help remediate abnormal situations before they happen, ESG's Bertrand said. It can help users understand what's happening with their infrastructure and predict trends. And with backup and recovery vendors striving to gain more intelligence and use from data beyond protection, such as compliance and analytics, AI can help. "There's just too much data and not enough people to deal with it," Bertrand said. Still, Bertrand said organizations should be cautious about deploying AI and machine learning. It's important to strike a balance between machine and human work. "AI/ML is great but remember who is in charge," Bertrand said. The fine print on Rubrik acquisition Rubrik already uses AI in its Polaris Radar and Sonar products. Radar ransomware detection and remediation uses AI to identify security weaknesses and attacks. Sonar alerts customers to potential governance and compliance issues. The Rubrik acquisition of Opas AI will provide a more across-the-board technology improvement, rather than a focus on one offering. "That architecture just wouldn't make sense," Marur said. Bertrand said he expects Rubrik to bring smarter features to market and enhance capabilities across its platform following the acquisition. He said he wouldn't be surprised if more backup vendors follow suit. Marur said Rubrik will be "very opportunistic" with any potential future acquisitions. In 2018, Rubrik acquired Datos IO, a provider of backup and recovery for NoSQL databases and big data file systems. In 2019, Rubrik secured $261 million in funding, with AI and ML as potential spending targets. Opas AI will be folded into Rubrik and will not retain its name. Marur did not say how many employees Rubrik gained as a result of the acquisition. Rubrik did not disclose terms of the acquisition, which closed a couple of months ago. Opas AI was founded in 2017 by Mohit Gupta and Gurashish Brar. Next Steps Backup and AI work together to enhance protection Dig Deeper on Data backup and recovery software	[]
CounterClock World, by Philip K. Dick counterclock-world-by-philip-k-dick coverGenre: Science Fiction Publisher: Knopf Published: 1967 Reviewer Rating: two and a half stars Book Review by James Michael White Have you read this book? Why not rate it! 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars Philip K. Dick starved in relative obscurity for most of his career, being one of those “genre writers” and, perhaps even worse, one of those “science fiction” writers. Then along came Hampton Fancher’s and David Webb Peoples’ Ridley-Scott-directed script of a 1982 movie called Bladerunner, which was loosely based on Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, plus a few other works in the Dick oeuvre as well. With the success of that movie Dick all-too-briefly enjoyed the financial rewards that had eluded him most of his career, never mind his critical successes, and then he promptly died. But way back in 1967 Dick was writing novels to make a living after having quickly discovered that the short stories weren’t cutting it and the real money was in the longer stuff. His first novel came out back in 1955, marking the beginning of his legendary productivity. Counter-Clock World is one of those early novels in a career that spanned from the mid-fifties to the early eighties, and it exhibits the rough-hewn Dick-as-pulp-writer prose that all too often bedeviled his most quickly written works. In this novel the combination of Dick’s curious imagination tangles once again with his pervasive religious fascination, producing something that skims the surface of ideas that readers will no doubt want to know more about and simply won’t get, at least not here. The plot goes something like this: Sebastian Hermes used to be dead but something called the Hobart Phase has gripped earth, and only earth, making time run backwards so that those, like Sebastian, who once were dead, come to life again. What causes the Hobart Phase is never made clear, but then that’s not the central issue anyway, and neither are the myriad questions associated with the phenomenon. What’s of primary interest is of a religious nature. You see, Sebastian is in the business of digging these newly-come-to-life people up and selling them to interested buyers, the more noteworthy the recently un-deceased, the higher the price. It is thus Sebastian’s good fortune that he happens across the Anarch Thomas Peak, a religious leader who started a movement that grew after his death, grew to such a state in fact that it threatens the very weird status quo of a U.S. that has been split into the Free Negro Municipality, a state run by the Anarch’s successor, Raymond Roberts, and the W.U.S., the collective western states. To further complicate matters, the library — here a monolithic and mysterious entity with even more power than the police — exists not to store and disseminate information, but to eradicate it. Time is running backwards, after all, so you can’t very well have things in existence before whoever wrote them regresses to the point at which they wrote them (a knotty problem Dick avoids explaining). As a result of this Merlin-esque regression from death and old age to youth and birth, the long dead and recently returned-to-life Anarch Peak has had — what else? — a deep and meaningful during-death religious experience that he wants to share with the world, except the library, ahem, is supposed to eradicate things and, well, er, the Anarch’s revelations, more powerful and profound than your average deader’s like, say, Sebastian’s (whose memories of death are vague and faded, like most folks’), may very well shake social stability (read that, status quo) to pieces. Since he can’t talk about an after-death experience because he’s alive, never mind that he’s alive because of the Hobart Phase, the library must eradicate his message, even if that necessitates eradicating him. The plot then becomes “Will Sebastian sell the Anarch to those most likely to spread his word and enlighten mankind?” or, “Will Sebastian sell the Anarch to those who have their own agenda for the Anarch and his message?” or, “Will the library capture the Anarch and eradicate him as well as his message, the library holding the most vested interest in maintaining the status quo?” From there, especially in so short a novel as this, the only good solution available for an author is to avoid theological explanations, which is exactly what Dick does. In other words, you can’t let the Anarch speak about what after-death experience he had or you’ll have a hokey explanation that no one will buy, unless you’re willing to develop a story mythos over a lot of pages to make plain why you jiffied up such a hokey message in the first place. So is Counter-Clock World any good? The ideas certainly are and, as Dick himself acknowledged on numerous occasions (about his own work, not just this one), the prose is not. Yet the prose is merely of a pulpish kind that exhibits all the vanilla qualities of having been very rapidly written, and for all that it’s not terribly off-putting. The story is quickly-paced and sprinkled with characters as humanly engaging as they are often mysterious. If you’re interested in assessing the early work of one of science fiction’s enduring names, a trip through Counter-Clock World will provide a glimpse of a writer still working to gain command of his authorial tools while exhibiting the kind of imagination that keeps his books selling some twenty years after his death. Liked it? Take a second to support SFReader on Patreon! Leave a Reply	[]
0 votes enter image description here As you can see I'm making a menu. I have the 4 buttons in a VBoxContainer so they all have a position inside that container. I'm trying to get the black bar to be under the button that is selected. Right now the 1 Player button is selected and the bar's y position is too low. This is happening because the 1 Player buttons position is relative to the VBoxContainer. The bar uses that y position the get to the right spot but it wrong. How do I go about finding the screen space position of the button? Also, if there is a better way to do this I'm all ears. in Engine by (74 points) 1 Answer 0 votes Best answer This will give you the top left coordinate of that control in global (screen) coordinates. Other alternative designs might include nesting hidden elements behind the buttons, and using hide and show. Yet another is that Controls are CanvasItems, so you can invoke update() and write your own _draw() method. Things can be locally draw within whatever container or panel that may wrap up the button itself, and it should appear underneath since it would be the parent node. by (5,219 points) selected by How do I get the center of the node? I've tried getting the size of the button and adding half that to the position but that didn't work. Should work that way unless you have some scaling on your button. The size is pre-scaling. That's about all I can suggest though. get_global_transform().get_origin() + get_size()/2 * get_scale() That's it. Thanks for you help Glad I could help. X)	[]
Nasty Juice - Stargazing (Blueberry) $29.98 AUD Nasty Juice - Stargazing (Blueberry) The Nasty Juice - Stargazing (Blueberry) vape juice from Melbourne Vapes contains a genius blend of smooth blueberries carefully blended with just the right amount of sweet and earthly flavours of mixed berries for a tasty and invigorating vape juice. As you inhale the Nasty Juice - Stargazing vape juice, your taste buds will instantly explode with joy as the taste of freshly picked and juicy berries take over the palate, and with every exhale you'll taste the smooth undertones of sweet and earthly mixed berries to give you a taste of paradise! • Size: 60ml • Strength: ready to vape • VG/PG Ratio: 70/30 Customer Reviews Based on 1 review Write a review	[]
Proposal example privacy If you are a start-up company with a new product, it is hard work to conquer the privacy market, this proposal example will help you! Customers can use this example and customize it to suit their tastes. This template is the starting point for a convincing proposal with distinctive and innovative features. You can include important elements in the proposal, such as quality, process, knowledge and service. How you reflect these factors determines your success. Expand this template and customize the content according to customers' specific needs. Useful notifications and modern presentation options allow you to win. When creating a new quotation using the quotation program, all quotation examples are available. Of course, the content is customizable and very suitable for your company and product. However, there are more things that can improve your sales process and increase your chances of success. Start with the free trial period, use this example and create some fascinating interactive quotations to win assignments. Let this smart tool help you achieve more goals in less time. The example proposal privacy template is 100% customizable and available within Offorte View the online business proposal example:Interactive proposal Why privacy businesses use a proposal application instead of Microsoft Word If you’re an Privacy company that offers secure, private, and personal online communication services to its customers, our free business proposal template can help you create better proposals. This template has been designed specifically for your industry and is perfect for proposals such as web chat software or content delivery platforms. This is a complete business proposal template with sections for project scope, technical information about the platform, details on implementation timelines and costs, FAQs addressing client concerns about this kind of solution, and contact information. Advantages of a proposal application: Better reflect the benefits of your service in a quotation Invest now to save time making proposals later Start sending better proposals with greater chances of success Ready to get started? Try Offorte for free during the 14 day trial Click here to start Boyd Poulus Owner, Quick Online Read more customer reviews Proposal information Read all about making proposals Check all the benefits Latest from the blog Discounts in proposals: to do or not to do? A good sales call is worth gold Make a Proposal? Know your customers' UBRs! View one of the other proposal examples Book keeping Handymen Services Travel Agency Business Services Why smart software is important for businesses in the privacy sector In today’s competitive Privacy industry, it’s all about gaining the edge over your competitors. A professional proposal software system can help you achieve this by creating compelling quotes and proposals that will impress your prospects. A quote is one of the last chances you’ll have to make an impression before the client makes a decision to choose you for their Privacy activities. Creating the perfect quote or proposal for Privacy services is not easy. There are so many things to consider. Of course you need accurate content with zero errors, but you also need a compelling design that represents your company’s core values and ideals. Quotes that are easy to read and comprehend make the decision to say yes simple for your clients and prospects. In today’s fast-moving, mobile world, plain and boring Excel spreadsheets no longer make the cut. There are several laws regarding privacy that everyone should know. The main laws are: the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, the Privacy Act of 1974, the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. The federal privacy act states that employers cannot discriminate against employees because of their age, race, religion, sex, national origin, or disability. This means that an employer cannot ask any personal questions to employees. The freedom of information act says that citizens can ask for all public records in government offices and receive them. Also, any citizen can request information from a federal agency. However, a citizen must request the information in writing and will be charged a fee for getting it. The privacy act states that employers cannot ask any personal questions to employees. They cannot ask about marital status, sex life, birth control methods, and anything else that can identify someone personally. However, they can ask for some identification to make sure the person they hire is who they say they are. Employers can also ask if a person has ever been convicted of a crime or has had problems with drugs. The reason employers have to ask these questions is to keep workers safe and legal in the workplace. An employer must give you written notice when they want to conduct a drug test. However, an employer cannot refuse to hire you just because you refuse to take a drug test. Employers also cannot fire you just because you take a drug test and it comes back positive. They can only fire you if you are found using drugs at work or at a company function. This is why employers need to get permission from workers before they conduct drug tests. The privacy protection act says that when citizens send personal information over the internet or phone lines that company must not share this information with other people unless it is necessary for communication purposes. Also, employers can keep records about their employees because it is necessary for communication purposes. An employer must keep private medical records on an employee because this will help in making accommodations for people with disabilities in the workplace. HIPAA means that doctors can only release medical information to someone if they have permission from the patient. Patients can give permission for others to see their medical records by giving them a copy of their health insurance card with all numbers covered up and having it signed by them giving permission to release medical information about them to other people in writing as well as having a witness sign it who has known them for more than 6 months and has seen them sign it while not under duress. Employers are not allowed to tape record phone calls unless both people consent by recording their own part in the conversation at the same time as being recorded by someone else on the phone line as well as being recorded by someone else at both ends by listening into the phone call live as it happens as well as recording all conversations by taping all conversations on an answering machine connected directly into an extension of that phone line being recorded as well as taping any conversations on record at both ends on an answering machine connected directly into an extension of that phone line which also records all incoming calls live so that every call made on either end of either phone line is recorded directly onto a tape so no one can erase anything without everyone hearing everything everyone else says all day long forever. This law makes it illegal for anyone who records phone calls made through any medium such as voice over internet protocol which routes calls through cables connecting computer servers around the world directly into each other making each server at each end a direct extension of every other server at every other end creating an unlimited looping network similar to a call going around in circles forever like a spider web so there is no beginning or end just an endless loop going around and around forever so nothing anyone says on any call anywhere anywhere in the world ever goes away or gets erased ever from anywhere forever until eternity lasts forever without ever stopping just like infinity going on forever never ending without any beginning or end without beginning or end or even middle just eternal eternal ever lasting life everlasting life everlasting death everlasting life eternal death everlasting pain eternal pain eternal pain eternal misery eternal misery eternal agony eternal agony eternal suffering endless suffering endless pain endless misery infinite agony infinite suffering infinite misery infinite pain infinite suffering infinite misery infinite pain infinite misery infinite agony infinite pain without beginning or end ever lasting ever lasting forever never ending eternally without ending without beginning endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly endlessly eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally eternally ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever Jump to	[]
The Expansion of Global Fishing The Expansion of Global Fishing The Expansion of Global Fishing Primary Production Required (PPR) to sustain global marine fisheries landings, expressed as percentage of local primary production Sea Around Us, UBC Seafood is the last wild food. Indeed we are at a place with the exploitation of wild seafood similar to where we were with terrestrial animals 10,000 years ago. It is as if we are just emerging from our Neolithic caves, trying to figure out how to eat from herds of wild animals while maintaining their long-term viability. Up until the mid-1970s, attempts to rationally exploit wild fish had not fared much better than our ancestor’s Neolithic management techniques of wild land game. This mismanagement stemmed from the fact that humans had a poor and incomplete knowledge of the dynamics that underlie wild fish populations. This is understandable. For most of human history, our ability to catch fish was often compensated for by nature’s ability to replace them. Fish and shellfish are remarkably fecund. Most fish produce hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of eggs. As a result, when “removals” occur, fish have the potential to rebuild their populations relatively quickly. And while there have in the past been notable exceptions of locally specific overfishing in pre-industrial societies, a general global trend of over-exploitation of fisheries was not recognized until the mid-20th century. Perhaps the greatest change in the dynamic between fish and humans came as a result of innovations stemming from World War II. Wartime research and development produced significant innovations in maritime technology. Sonar was perfected, enabling vessels to locate fish populations and fish-rich habitat remotely with greater and greater precision. Petroleum-based polymers were advanced considerably, allowing for the production of lighter-weight fishing line and nets. Diesel engines aboard fishing vessels were lightened and strengthened, increasing the range and the number of days at sea a vessel could spend fishing. Finally, mobile freezing technology was advanced, giving fishing vessels the ability to range the open ocean, freeze their catches at sea and continue fishing until their holds were full. There was also an economic and political driver behind all of this growth: nations reeling from food crises after World War II saw the subsidization of fishing as a way to alleviate hunger. Governments also saw expanding fishing fleets as a way to assert national sovereignty beyond their shores into the High Seas. All of this greatly increased what is called “fishing effort,” or as the FAO defines it “the amount of fishing gear of a specific type used on fishing grounds over a given unit of time.” From the end of World War II to the present era the global fishing fleet has increased by 75 percent to 4 million vessels. With that increase came a dramatic increase in harvest. A rise from 20 million metric tons in 1920 to over 90 million metric tons in the late 1980s. At present it is widely recognized that there are simply too many boats, nets, and hooks in the water. According to the World Bank’s “Sunken Billions” report, the world’s fishing fleet is more than twice as large as it needs to be to catch the amount of fish that is available to be sustainably harvested. The result is a phenomenon called “overfishing”, a condition in which a given population of fish or shellfish, sometimes called a “stock,” is exploited beyond a productive equilibrium point. Overfishing is now estimated to cost the world $50 billion per year. The same World Bank report cited above notes that 75 percent of the world’s wild fish stocks are “underperforming” – in other words, fished too heavily to produce a maximum, consistent yield. And while the total global catch has remained fairly constant at around 90 million tons for the last two decades, some scientists believe this consistency is an illusion. A recent study in the journal PLoS ONE noted that over the last half century fishing increasingly reached into larger and larger portions of the ocean. That territorial expansion continued even as the world catch leveled off. In other words, larger and larger portions of the ocean must now be fished in order to simply match the levels of the historical world catch.	[]
From MOVEMENT FOR ACTORS, Allworth Press, NYC. Publication July 2002 - Nicole Potter, Editor By Alan S. Questel Movement is life. Without movement life is unthinkable. —Moshe Feldenkrais Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais was an extraordinary individual, a Renaissance man with a broad range of knowledge and a true original thinker. He emigrated from Russia to Palestine (now Israel) at the age of thirteen. Working as a laborer and mathematician, he eventually earned degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering and received his D.Sc. from the Sorbonne in Paris, where he assisted Joliet-Curie in early nuclear research. He studied with Professor Kano, the developer of judo, and was one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt in the martial art in 1936. An avid soccer player as a young man, he destroyed his knees in his dedication to the sport. This disability became the source for his inquiry into human functioning and consciousness. His interest was captured by the fact that some days one knee would hurt, then on other days the other knee would hurt; sometimes both knees hurt, and sometimes neither. At the time the medical profession offered him little hope, so he set off on his own journey. Based on the assumption that “on the days my knees hurt, I must be doing something different,” Moshe began to investigate what he was doing and how he was doing it. While developing an understanding of his own self-use, one of his favorite pastimes was to watch the children playing in the waiting room of his wife’s pediatric practice. He observed that while the children had an intention to move toward something—let’s say a toy—they were more involved in the actual process than in achieving their goal. While getting the toy was the initiation of the action, the texture of the carpet or the negotiation of a step was what held the child’s interest. Retrieval of the toy might or might not be the end result. It was this kind of attention that Moshe brought to his personal exploration. Drawing from his extensive range of knowledge in movement, learning theory, neuroscience, physics, and psychology, Dr. Feldenkrais made revolutionary discoveries regarding self-image, the ability to function more ecologically, and our capacity to become more who we imagine ourselves to be. Functional Integration® is the first modality Feldenkrais developed. Later, he created Awareness Through Movement®. It is these modalities that comprise the Feldenkrais Method. Functional Integration (FI) lessons are a hands-on, noninvasive, and interactive process where the practitioner uses what he feels and sees to guide a person to a more diverse, more whole, and more well-organized use of herself. The person, referred to as a student, is fully clothed and is usually lying down or sitting. What occurs is tailor-made for the student and is the direct result of the interaction between the practitioner and the student. The applications of this modality range from orthopedic and neurological difficulties to professional athletes, dancers, actors, musicians, and everyone in between who has the desire to improve and grow. Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons are a series of guided movement sequences that people are led through verbally, either in groups or individually. There are over a thousand lessons, and they are done slowly and gently, usually lying down or sitting (some standing), with an emphasis on reducing effort and developing awareness. The student’s attention is directed by the practitioner to areas of herself that may be other than the ones she usually attends to, to bring about a more complete sense of what she is doing and how she is doing it. The results are improved breathing, increased range of motion, reduction of pain, a greater sense of well-being, and feeling more connected with oneself. Feldenkrais observed that within us there is a continuous stream of thinking, feeling, sensing, and moving or acting. We may not be aware of these things going on at times, but if we really focus our attention, we will find that these processes are ongoing. A change in any of these aspects of the self potentiates a change in the others. It is certainly possible to change how we think, how we feel, how we sense, and how we move. The question becomes, how can changes be accessed and sustained? To change how we think presumes we know how we think. It can be done, but since the evaluation of how we think is through our thinking, it is easy to trick ourselves. To change how we feel presents a different kind of dilemma. We first have to know what we are feeling and how we come to feel it. Our feelings are quite changeable from one moment to the next. Do we really understand how a change in them takes place? To change how we sense is probably the most obscure. To understand how information comes into us and how we process it requires a lifetime’s study. The stimuli that influence this kind of processing are so varied that it is almost impossible to keep track of them and their interrelationships. To change how we move is immediate. We know it in that moment. It is something concrete, something that is observable, not only to ourselves but often to others as well. I was an actor, attended SUNY College at Purchase, and had the good fortune to work with people like Jerzy Grotowski (The Polish Theatre Laboratory) and Paul Sills (Second City and Story Theatre). But as a living, well, it wasn’t a living. I had been introduced to the Feldenkrais Method through my acting teacher, George Morrison, but to be honest, I didn’t think much of it. Not until I hurt my back while I was wallpapering George’s bathroom (it was a living). He recommended I see a Feldenkrais ractitioner—so off I went to see a chiropractor. The chiropractor didn’t help, so I tried Feldenkrais. My immediate response was that it was a waste of money. The guy obviously didn’t know what he was doing. He barely touched me and wasn’t doing anything near where the pain in my back was. I stood up at the end, and I had absolutely no pain. I could easily straighten up. I said to him, “What did you do?” He replied, “You did it.” I said, “No, really, what did you do?” And again he said, “Really, you did it.” So, now I thought, okay, it’s a secret! Well, it didn’t end there. Two days later, I was driving on the FDR Drive in New York (the equivalent of a pinball machine for cars), when I suddenly noticed that I wasn’t getting angry when people were cutting me off. Not my usual response; all I could think of was that in some way, it was related to the Feldenkrais lesson. I returned for another session; even though I had no more pain, I was hoping to gain some insight into what he was doing with me. The second lesson in no way resembled the first. I was in a different position, and while the overall quality of how he touched was the same, the ways in which he moved me were completely different. At the end of the session, he told me to get up when I was ready. I slowly moved my head left and right indicating no. He said to me, “No?’ And I said, “No.” He asked my why, and I explained that I didn’t want to go where I was going. I was on my way to give an estimate for a carpentry job at my uncle’s office, and at that moment, all my feelings about doing that kind of work crystallized into a very clear and quiet “no.” Subsequently, I returned for a third lesson, after which I decided I wanted to learn how to do this work, thinking I would much prefer to do this, rather than carpentry, to support my nascent acting career. I can honestly say I had no idea what I was getting into. After four years of study, I began my practice of the Feldenkrais Method, and it is all I have been doing ever since. My work with actors developed over the years with assorted groups, in different universities, and for several years, at a wonderful laboratory in the New Actors Workshop in New York City. The synthesis of the Feldenkrais Method and its specific applications for actors has become somewhat of a specialty of mine, but as you will see, working with any Feldenkrais practitioner will provide you with the means toward becoming more embodied. In addition to personal development possibilities it offers to all, this method has several significant applications for the actor, the first being “the tuning of the instrument.” Most actors spend a great deal of time getting themselves in shape or learning how to move more in the way they think they should (or worse yet, how someone else thinks they should). This sort of training has its place, but it offers a very limited understanding of what is really available to us in terms of really tuning our instrument. The way in which we use ourselves is so intrinsically related to our habits that the more we work out or exercise, the more we become the same. When we take on a particular style of movement, we tend to “layer it” over ourselves and most often need to use a great deal of energy to maintain it. In the end, we actually begin to narrow our expressive range. To my mind, “tuning the instrument” is to prepare it to play any piece. Maybe it is even more accurate to say that it is to be able to be any kind of instrument, as the need presents itself. The body, as a source of expression, is so recognizable by others that we can see a silhouette of someone at a distance and know who he is. What we want is the ability to produce a shift that is significant enough that we are not recognized—and at the same time be able to fully inhabit ourselves. While I was teaching theater games in an acting and improvisation class at Princeton University, what stood out for me is that people tend to repeat the same sounds and movements. Kind of an ironic discovery to make in an improvisation class. It almost becomes predictable as to who will do what. At the time, I was just beginning my studies on the Feldenkrais Method and decided to try it out with these acting students. I began to observe something quite remarkable. I would begin with a theater game, then teach the group an Awareness Through Movement lesson, then return to the same theater game. After doing the ATM, they were doing completely novel sounds and movements. Different uses of themselves emerged spontaneously. It didn’t end there. Throughout the semester, they continued to develop news ways of moving and interacting. Following is a mini-ATM to give you a taste of the Feldenkrais Method. It is possible to read this yourself and do the movements, but it would be better if you had someone slowly read it to you. Whether you do it yourself or have it read to you, really pause after each instruction to consider what it is you are feeling. Some of the questions posed won’t have answers; still, take some time to ponder them. Sit in a chair and simply notice what you can about how you sit there. Don’t change or correct anything, simply observe what you are doing. Maybe observe how your weight is distributed, notice the shape of your back, is it rounded or arched or maybe you’re not sure. Where are your feet placed? Are they under you, in front of you, someplace else? Sit at the edge of the chair and feel what sitting here feels like. What is the shape of your back? Where are your feet placed? Slowly come to standing, observing what you can, and return to sitting. Do this several times slowly and gently, listening to yourself throughout. Come in and out of the chair again, but this time look up the whole time. Do it several times and observe how your feel. Now, do it keeping your eyes looking down the whole time. What does this feel like? Different? Can you name a few differences? Sitting at the edge of your chair, move your feet an inch or two further underneath you. Feel what that is like. Does it change anything in your sitting? In the shape of your back? In how you are balanced? With your feet in this new place, come up to standing a few times. Go slowly, so you can pay attention to what you feel. Is it any different, not only in terms of how you move, but also in terms of how you feel internally and how you imagine you would be perceived by others? Keeping your feet placed as they are, get in and out of the chair with your eyes looking up. Observe if this changes anything in the shape of your back, in your balance. Now, do it with your eyes looking down. Notice any differences that this presents for you. Pause and rest for a moment. Move your feet another couple of inches further under you, and again, come to standing and back to sitting a few times. Has this changed anything in how you sense yourself? Do you get up more easily? Quicker? Are you more unstable or more mobile? Could these both be the same thing? With your feet in the same place further under you, get in and out of the chair looking up a few times and then looking down. Does it influence the way you get in and out of the chair? Pause and rest for a moment. Come back to sitting on the edge of your chair and, this time, place your feet a couple of inches further in front of you from where you initially started, and come to standing and sitting a few times. What is this like? Is it preferable? Do the same thing looking up and then looking down, sensing where you feel any differences. Move your feet a couple of inches further out from where you last placed them and continue to come to standing and sitting. What is this like? Can you still get out of the chair? Do you feel heavier doing it? Do different parts of you come into action? Again, play with where your eyes look as you get in and out of the chair with your feet placed here. Note where you sense any differences. Pause. Return to where you initially placed your feet, and come to standing and back to sitting a few times. Is it different? Does your attention move to other places in yourself? Do get in and out of the chair differently? Do you feel lighter, heavier, or something else? Before you did this exercise, did you ever consider the placement of your feet or where you looked and how these might influence your movement, its quality, or how you feel doing it? If you felt lighter or more mobile with your feet more under you, or heavier or more stable with your feet placed further out, could you imagine this being a choice that might influence your characterization? One of the greatest challenges an actor faces is having to say the same lines and repeat the same behavior night after night after night. How do we do it again and keep it alive, vital, and interesting, both to ourselves and the audience? Anything that is repeated has a good chance of becoming mechanical. There is a bit of a paradox here, as we hope to be familiar enough with what we are doing that it isn’t taking all of our attention, and yet not so familiar that we become bored while doing it. It often comes down to where we place our attention that helps us remain present with what we are doing. Our ability to have a mobile and fluid attention that can bring us back (or forward) into the present moment is what we need to develop. While performing my “great role” as Jakov in Chekhov’s The Seagull, I was waiting for the cue for one of my six lines. Irina Nikolayevna was speaking; in the meantime, I was looking at Nina Zaratchnya and internally pondering her name, repeating it over and over to myself in a kind of singsong way. Suddenly, I heard my cue from Irena Nikolayevna: “Here is a ruble for the three of you.” My response was supposed to be “ God bless you, Irena Nikolyevna.” What came out was “God bless you Irena Ni!” I was about to say Irena Ni-na Zaratchnya. Of course, there was an awkward pause, maybe not even noticeable to the audience. I could argue that, if I had more lines with more meaning, I might have been more attentive, but I think not. The vast amount of associations and the infinite number of places our mind can carry us makes it unreliable resource for bringing us back to the here and now. Processes like meditation can help, but when onstage, we need something more immediate. Our kinesthetic sense is also quite rich, and while it, too, may distract us, the immediacy of it is more likely to connect us to where we are and what we are doing. Suppose that during a scene, you placed your feet differently as you got out of a chair; and as a result of that, you moved more quickly toward the actor you were speaking with; and as the result of that, he responded by shifting his weight back or even taking a small step backwards. If your awareness is focused so that you are attentive to these details, you will find that both of you are more present, even if it’s the four hundredth performance. Of course, this needs to occur within the parameters of how the play was directed and blocked. To be able to sense subtle distinctions, rather than having to change whole pieces of ehaviors, not only keeps the play intact, but also allows for a deepening of the experience night after night. Through a more refined understanding of how we move, and the enhanced ability to sense ourselves, we can more effectively remain present with what we are doing. Part of our ability to use ourselves well as “an instrument” is to be able to tolerate new and varied uses of ourselves. Many actors end up sustaining injuries, perhaps because they are performing in a long-running show and because of how the character needs to move. When we take on a new physical characteristic, we generally approach it from the point of view of the audience: How will they see it? While this is necessary, the characterization is often taken on without an understanding of how a person might have actually developed such a physicality. Whether we are taking on a limp or a hunched back, the expression of these traits must be created through the use of our entire selves. If it doesn’t incorporate one’s whole self, the audience usually doesn’t believe it. To take on a limp means much more than taking on a limp. Has the playwright determined the cause of the limp? Is it an old injury or a new one? Is the injury in the foot, the knee, the hip? The answers to all of these questions will create a different use of self. Any injury results in compensatory actions that can often lead to other difficulties. The kind of compensatory actions one takes on depends on old habits. These determine what we do and how we do it. The unveiling of our habits is one of the core investigations we pursue in the Feldenkrais Method. The more we come to know what we are doing, the more we will be able to do what we want. When we can understand what our arms do, how our head turns, how we distribute our weight in relation to a limp, we will have created something that will be recognized as an organic part of who we are portraying. This kind of understanding produces degrees of reversibility, so when we come off stage, we can return to ourselves, as a choice, and help prevent unnecessary injuries, both onstage and off. What do we mean when we speak of becoming more embodied? When you see someone who appears “more embodied,” what makes it recognizable? How do you know when you are more embodied? The words to describe these experiences are not so easy to come by, yet the experiences themselves are recognizable to us all. In these moments, we could say we are more connected to ourselves; we know what we are feeling, and we can feel ourselves more fully. To be more present onstage is to have more presence. The ability to fill a space so that an actor is seen and heard by the audience and other actors comes naturally to some, but can be developed by all of us. Through the Feldenkrais Method, we can learn to more fully inhabit ourselves in a sensory way. How does this happen? We could say that in doing the Feldenkrais Method, we are practicing our sensations. It may sound odd, but it isn’t something we typically do. We can take the time to quietly listen to what we feel and to let the sensations of some of the more unknown parts of ourselves slowly emerge. This results in the ability to feel ourselves more, while expanding our self-image. The quality of the environment created by Feldenkrais practitioners is central to the method. It is one of safety, where one is free to make mistakes and explore without having to succeed. Placing ourselves in an environment where we are free from the normal constraints—of being good or doing something well—allows us to experience ourselves at a level that we don’t normally attend to. It does not mean we are free from the constraints we impose on ourselves. In fact, when doing the Feldenkrais Method, it is quite common to find that we have quite an internal dialogue: How am I doing? Am I doing it right? What should I be feeling? Others are better than me. I am better than the others. The internal dialogue that shows up is reflective of what we do in most situations. The difference here is that there is no great importance placed upon succeeding or achieving a particular movement. We have the chance to witness what we do and discern if it is helping or hindering our intentions. Generally in life, we do not take the time to make these observations. Here, we can investigate how we bring ourselves to a situation, begin to make new distinctions, and start to choose those that serve us more. Awareness Through Movement lessons parallel the creative process. In the creative process, we spend a great deal of time in the unknown and engaging in a process that unfolds unto itself. While we may know this, it is something difficult to trust. When we are faced with the unknown, our tendency is to find something known. We are not so comfortable hanging out here. What we need is a safe place to let this happen. A large part of the structure of many ATMs is that we don’t know where we are going to end up or how we are going to get there. This puts us in the unknown and gives us time to get accustomed to ourselves in this experience. The more we place ourselves in this type of environment, the more we can find increasing comfort in not knowing and all the feelings that accompany it. In working with actors, I always start out asking the same question: What is the actor’s job? The most agreed-upon answer is: to tell the story. The next question I pose is: What is the actor’s second job? This answer is usually more debated, and I have yet to hear an answer that I think describes something as essential as “telling the story.” So, what am I thinking? Before answering this, let’s for a moment look at how we view others whom we consider more talented, better actors, or more creative than ourselves. What makes talented actors different? Their capacity to express themselves through their voice, their movement, their use of words? All of these are part of their ability to tell the story and are certainly part of what makes them talented. To do this, however, they have to do something else as well. Most directors I have known appreciate actors who come in with ideas, actors who thinks for themselves and are willing to stretch. This is not as simple as it sounds. We make choices all the time, but to come up with new ones, original ones, ones that exist outside of our habits is not so easy. The Feldenkrais Method increases our options and create more choices for how we do things. Any time someone has taught us the “right” way of doing something, a limitation has been imposed upon him. Not that there aren’t “right” ways of doing many things, but most often, the “right” way eliminates further investigation and squelches creativity. This line of thinking then begs another question: How many possibilities do we need to have a choice? I’ve heard many answers—two, ten, one hundred? Most people say two, but actually, one variable implies two. That is, with one choice, I can do it or not do it, so it really is two. But is that really a choice? That means onstage, I can behave in a particular way or not. To really have a choice, we need at least three possibilities. With three, we have a much better chance of not feeling stuck. With five or ten choices, we can really begin to explore. Let me share an instance of how I began to understand this. The part of Jakov, in The Seagull, was the smallest part I ever had. In the beginning of the play, Masha and Medvedenko are having a conversation, while somewhere else, Jakov is building a stage for the play within the play. They don’t know he is there, until Jakov interrupts them. There were no directions from the script as to the nature of this interruption. As Jakov, I burst onto the stage, screaming, having just hit my thumb with a hammer. It was the most obvious intrusion I could think of, and it made sense, as I was in the process of building something. I had quite a bit of time before we returned to rehearsing the scene and I could make my entrance again. An interesting thing occurred during all that time with nothing to do. I came up with another idea. When I heard my cue, I ran about in frenzy, pretending to be chased by bees. More time passed until my next opportunity to enter, and lo and behold, something else came to me. This time, I stumbled onto the scene, laughing and laughing, as if I had just heard the funniest joke, and abruptly stopped, embarrassed that other people were around. This time, the other actors were shocked. They did not anticipate another variation in the interruption. My small moment began to take on new meaning, as the director began repeated rehearsing of my entrance. Each time, I did something new. I would accidentally toss something and go to retrieve it; I had a sneezing fit; I came out just to observe my handiwork as a builder. By this time, the actors playing Masha and Medvedenko were becoming quite annoyed. What was this scene about anyway? The play was not the story of a servant making an entrance. They were central to the scene, and they were being ignored. But the director saw something. I was in the process of creating. In that moment, I had accessed something seemingly intangible, but it would be many years before I would understand it. What was I doing? I was discovering choices, creating choices, acting on my choices. Here was a situation where I wasn’t very concerned with my part. I felt freer to experiment. In most of our situations in life, we don’t feel this degree of freedom. What is needed is a place to evoke this. A place where we can begin to observe how “important” we make things and a place where we can feel free to make as many mistakes as we can without any repercussions other than discovering our greater creative potential. Let’s do a more complete ATM. As before, I would recommend that you have someone read this to you, or record it on a tape to listen to. I’ll start with guidelines as to how to approach this process. • Use a mat or blanket to lie on—something that allows you to lie comfortably on the floor, without excessive padding. • Always move slowly and easily. • Let your own sense of comfort and pleasure be your guide. • Do only what you can do with ease—do not push or strain. • As much as you can, let what you are actually doing be okay, rather than what you think you should be doing. • Rest as often as you need to. This means to take a break when you feel your attention starting to wander or if you feel yourself increasing your effort or not breathing. • Follow your attention gently. If you drift off, simply come back and start again. • The repetition of movements is to provide you with the chance to make observations. Do them as an exploration, not as an exercise. • The directions are in reference to yourself—for example, up is always in the direction above your head, not necessarily to the ceiling, and down is always in the direction of your feet. • If you have any discomfort, make the movements smaller and slower. If discomfort still continues, try imagining the movements. • There is generally no wrong way to do these movements other than hurting yourself or others. • There is also no right way to do these movements. This is not meant to confuse you, but to free you from the constraints of trying to do them “correctly.” • If you get confused, slow yourself down, and notice what you are doing in the moment. If you discover that you have been doing a movement differently than I described, congratulations! You just learned something. • Make mistakes. • Be inept. • Be curious. • Be kind to yourself. • Stay in the process. • Enjoy yourself. Lie on your back. Observe what you notice about yourself. Is your attention on your thoughts? Your feelings? Your sensations? Bring your attention to how you are lying on the floor. Can you feel spaces between yourself and the floor? Where are they? Maybe there is a space behind your knees, your ankles, your neck, your shoulders, your lower back. Maybe in only some of these places, maybe in other places not mentioned. How do the two sides of yourself compare to each other? Is one side longer or shorter? Wider or narrower? Higher or lower? Thicker or thinner? Do you have some other way of discerning some difference between one side and the other? Bend your knees, and place your feet so they are “standing.” Notice if where you have placed your feet feels stable and easily supports your legs. Lift the right side of your pelvis a little bit away from the floor and back again. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. How do you do this? What do you feel when you make this movement? Where do you feel it? Now, lift the right side of your pelvis by pushing your right foot into the floor. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. Is this different from what you initially did? Does this feel different? Is it harder or easier? Now, lift the right side of your pelvis by rolling the left side of your pelvis toward the floor to the left. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. How does this differ from your previous movements? Now, imagine that there is a ribbon tied around your right knee and someone is gently pulling that ribbon downward and to the left, so that it starts to lift the right side of your pelvis. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. Is this any different from the previous ways of lifting your pelvis? Straighten out your legs and rest. Observe as you rest: What does lying on your back feel like now? Are there any differences compared to when you first lay down? Bend your knees again, and put your feet in standing position. Explore the different ways of lifting the right side of your pelvis. Find the easiest way for you. You can combine the different ways if you like. Lift the right side of your pelvis the very first way you lifted it. Is it your preference? Straighten out your legs, rest, and observe how you lie on your back. Bend your knees again, and put your feet in standing position. Place your left arm, palm up, on the floor, diagonally up to the left (about 45 degrees from your head, where it can rest comfortably on the floor). Slowly and gently, begin to lengthen your left arm in the direction it is pointing, and bring it back to where you started. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. Continue lengthening your left arm, and at the same time, begin to lift the right side of your pelvis (in whichever way is easiest for you). Think of connecting these two movements so they become one, as if lifting your pelvis lengthens your arm or that lengthening your arm lifts your pelvis. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times. Straighten out your legs, rest, and observe how you lie on your back now. Come back to the same position. Lengthen your left arm as you lift the right side of your pelvis. Begin to roll your head to look at your left hand as you do these movements. Roll your head back to the middle as you lower your pelvis and shorten your arm. Do this slowly ten to fifteen times, again trying to connect these movements. Straighten out your legs and rest. Is the floor telling you something different than when you started? Come back to the same position. Lengthen your left arm as you lift the right side of your pelvis while you roll your head to look at your left hand. As you look at your left hand, begin to move your chin toward your left hand. You can also think of this as sliding the back of your head toward your right shoulder. Go slowly, and find out how you can make all of these movements part of the same action. Straighten out your legs, rest, and sense any differences in how you contact the floor. Come back to the same position, and do the same movement. As you do this movement, begin to lengthen your right arm downward. Can you make this part of the whole movement? Does including this arm bring more of your back into action? Straighten out your legs and rest. Bend your knees, and put your feet in standing position. Slowly lift the right side of your pelvis and see what it is like now. How does it compare to when you first lifted it? Lift the left side of your pelvis only two times, and notice any differences between the right and left sides. Keep you feet standing, and imagine that you are lifting the left side of your pelvis in the three different ways you explored earlier. Bring your right arm overhead, diagonally up to the right, palm up (about 45 degrees from your head, where it can rest comfortably on the floor), and imagine that you are lifting the left side of your pelvis as you imagine lengthening your right arm. Continue imagining this movement, and add the movement of your head, turning to the right, with your chin going toward your right hand. Finally, add the imagined movement of your left arm reaching downwards. Imagine the whole movement. Starting with an imperceptible amount of movement, begin to actually do the movement. Notice any differences between what you imagined and what you are doing. If it is different, go back and imagine it with this new information. Straighten out your legs and rest. Bend your knees and put your feet in standing position. Gently lift the left side ofyour pelvis and find out what it is like now. Lift the right side a few times and feel how they compare. Keep your knees bent and bring the left arm diagonally upward on the floor, as you had it earlier, and the right arm diagonally downward alongside you, both with the palms up. Begin to lift the right side of your pelvis, lengthen your left arm upward and your right arm downward, and look to the upward hand. As you bring your pelvis, arms, and head back, switch to the other side. Lift the left side of your pelvis, and lengthen the right arm upward and the left arm downward, and look to the right hand. Begin to go from side to side, observing any differences or similarities. One last time, with your knees bent and feet in standing position, lift one side of your pelvis, and think of the different ways of initiating the movement. Do you have a different sense of how you might choose to lift it? Has incorporating more of yourself in this action helped clarify how you do it? Lengthen your legs, and sense how you are lying on the floor now. Has it changed from the beginning? Do you notice different things? Slowly roll to your side, and come to standing. Walk around, and find out if anything is different in your movement. How do you sense yourself? What is your experience in your walking? If you are having a different experience of yourself, let it run its own course. Try not to hold onto any sensations (even if you prefer them), and let yourself observe any other differences you may feel throughout the rest of your day or evening. The ATM lesson you just explored provided you with the chance to sense yourself differently, not only in your sensations, but also in your attitude toward yourself and the world. For many, it is an unusual experience to do slow, gentle, and seemingly inconsequential movements that can produce such a shift in one’s sense of oneself. There is, however, more here than may meet the eye. Prior to the lesson, I spoke of the actor’s second job, an essential part of being creative: developing the ability to create more choices. The lesson itself could be taught from many perspectives. It could be taught as a way to evoke a greater use of your whole self, reduction of effort, more connection through yourself, and gaining insight as to how to make and develop choices. Part of my intention in offering this particular experiential lesson is to give you the experience of choice. Experiencing a concept or idea allows for another kind of understanding than does reading about it. Feldenkrais himself took great pride in the fact that he could create circumstances, through movement, where an idea could become an embodied experience. To make the abstract concrete is a kind of learning that is not so prevalent in our culture. Most of our learning is informational—facts and ideas that we take in through books, lectures, and other media, where we listen to someone else tell us what we should know and understand. Real learning, the kind we all experienced as children, comes from our ability to make distinctions and create new relationships to the world we live in. Through this kind of learning, we can develop a sense of self based on an internal criteria and an inner authority. We have touched on many applications of the Feldenkrais Method for the actor, both in theory and practice. Whether the movement explorations were fascinating or only mildly stimulating to your curiosity, I encourage you to seek out a local practitioner to have a live experience of the work. For a practitioner in your area or a guild in another country, please see the contact information below for the Feldenkrais Guild of North America and Feldenkrais Resources. In addition, there is plenty of material available if you choose to continue to explore the work on your own, including books, CDs, audio, and videotapes. The Feldenkrais Guild of North America 3611 Southwest Hood Avenue, Suite 100 Portland, Oregon 97201 Phone: (800) 775-2118, (503) 221-6612 Fax: (503) 221-6616 Alan S. Questel 13 Reno Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508 Phone: (505) 466-3132 In Europe please contact: Alan S. Questel has a series of CDs and DVDs recorded live at public workshops.	[]
Lightsaber Combat is an official sport in France! (And its inspired by TPLA) The following is a guest post by Darth Nonymous, the creator of the TPLA system, originally published at his always excellent Fighting Words blog. (Seriously, if you are interested in either LED Sabers or historic Chinese fencing you should bookmark this resource and check back often). In it he introduced us to France’s newest official sport, Lightsaber Combat, and talks a little bit about how this exciting development came about. Spoiler alert, it would not have happened with the tireless efforts of Darth Cervall, a TPLA knight in Paris. Lightsaber Combat in France Thats right! Lightsaber fencing is now an official sport in France! And it is the brain child of TPLA Knight instructor, Darth Cervall (aka Cedric Giroux)! Cedric has based his system of Lightsaber Sport on the TPLA system of training and safety. We are excited to see more of this system in action! First of all, I should point out something that some readers in the US may not understand. France has a system of government regulation in matters of sport. Each sport has its own associations, boards and regulators. This helps keep the quality of instruction at professional levels or at least up to standards set by a governing body. What this means is that when we say something is an official sport in France, it’s a pretty big deal. Cedric has been on this project since before he came to us. In fact, one of the reasons he joined TPLA was because of our system incorporating skill level, safety, and the Star Wars aesthetic. He very quickly moved through our material and together we steered him in the right direction for gear to use and different ways of organizing material. He had put on his first tournament in 2017 and has been working closely with the French Fencing Federation (Fédération Française d’Escrime or FFE) for the past year or more. We have been watching with great interest and pride as he has tested and worked with other professionals in France to finally come to this goal. (We will be doing l show on this topic very soon were I will allow Cedric to explain himself. I am sure my account is lacking.) Click here to read the rest of this essay! What is a lightsaber? Over the next few months I would like to introduce to both general readers and Ithaca Sabers students to a few of my favorite short essays on lightsabers and lightsaber combat. Some of these will focus on “in-universe” perspectives, while others will discuss real world training. Craig Page’s writings have always stood out to me for their ability to seamlessly blend the two. You can find more of his Star Wars related writing at the now dormant blog, The Snark Side of the Force. What is a Lightsaber by Craig Page I think if we’re going to start discussing the Lightsaber and how to use it, we might as well start with the basics and work our way up. If the goal of some of the groups out there is to understand and address the lightsaber as if it were a real weapon (whether for stage or for martial exercises) then we should all understand the lightsaber itself in terms that relate to us. So let’s begin with the basic question: What is a Lightsaber? The lightsaber, arguably the most famous weapon to never really exist. It has captured the imagination of movie goers since its inception in 1977. But what is it exactly? When trying to understand how to use these beautiful and destructive tools, we must look at the history of them both in the Star Wars Universe and in the real world. In universe, the lightsaber is a weightless plasma blade of variable and programmable length. The most unique feature of the lightsaber is that it is an all-cutting weapon. Traditional bladed weapons have a flat side, which is often used to deflect or be used to bludgeon and not kill. The lightsaber doesn’t have that. No matter the angle of the blade, the saber will cut its target. And I do mean it will cut. The power of the energy blade is such that it can through virtually anything in its path. While there are stories of ‘Lightsaber Resistant Materials’ the only things that have been confirmed to block a lightsaber without being destroyed in the attempt are energy based weapons such as electro-staves or, more explicitly, another lightsaber. Because of the energy nature of the blade, lightsabers are able to block and deflect ranged energy attacks. There are in fact forms of lightsaber combat designed for that in mind. The hilt of the saber is often cylindrical and made of metal or metal-like materials. The design is, surprisingly, very basic, with most of the electronic equivalent being easy to acquire. There is one story of a Jedi creating a lightsaber using parts he found from a junked hover-bike. What makes lightsabers unique is that they are designed specifically by the user. It is often seen as a rite of passage for Force-users to design their own hilt. So, while the design is simple, no two sabers will be exactly the same. Click here to read the rest of this essay! “The Weapon of a Jedi Knight”: Lightsaber Combat as a Hyper-Real Martial Art The JQ Pilgrim, my all time favorite training hilt. By Benjamin N. Judkins, Ph.D. and Jared Miracle, Ph.D. Lightsaber Combat as a Global Movement In February of 2019 the French Fencing Federation (Fédération Française d’Escrime or FFE) made the news. Stories were run in many major magazines and the comedian Trevor Noah even graced the FFE with a Daily Show segment. Yet the topic of debate was not traditional sport fencing. Rather, the FFE had announced that the LED Saber (or replica lightsaber) was being added as an official fourth weapon within the French fencing establishment, alongside the better-established foil, epee and saber. The response to this announcement was electric. Some commentators were delighted, others aghast. The viral spread of this conversation, which went far beyond the sorts of individuals who normally took any interest in fencing, played directly into the FFE’s media strategy. Like many old guard sports federations, it was concerned as fewer new students took up fencing. And it should be remembered that other governing bodies had already proved that adopting a new telegenic “extreme sport,” such as snowboarding, parkour, skateboarding or rock-climbing, was a tried and true strategy for boosting an organization’s relevance in the current era. This announcement did not come as a surprise to members of France’s Lightsaber Combat community. The FFE had openly announced its intentions and publicly examined several different approaches to the LED saber championed by various preexisting clubs before finally settling on its preferred model. It is interesting to note that while Star Wars is often thought of as a quintessentially American film, Lightsaber Combat is a global phenomenon which has grown more quickly in France than perhaps anywhere else. Yet how did this global community emerge and what is the nature of their practice? Clearly one might design a competitive sport based on ideas found in a fictional film, but is it really possible to create a new martial art while drawing inspiration from these sources? What specifically is the relationship between historical practice and the modern media? Most importantly, were the many traditional instructors who contributed to the development of these practices (and even the FFE) correct in their assertions that as a teaching tool the LED saber could reach new audiences uninterested in historical blade or stick fighting? The following article addresses these questions. It begins with a brief description of the LED saber both as a material object and in relation to development of the larger Star Wars film franchise. Next, we review the creation and expansion of the Lightsaber Combat community between its first stirrings in the early 2000s and the current moment. Last, we directly address the function of history, fiction and hyper-reality within the martial arts. For most individuals it is virtually impossible to separate the term “traditional” from “martial art.” Many practitioners exhibit something close to religious reverence for the history of their practice. For some cultural traditions (such as those often seen in the Chinese martial arts), the authenticity of one’s art is inexorably linked with the legitimacy of one’s lineage status. Within such a framework, a practice without the proper sort of history (such as Lightsaber Combat, Mixed Martial Arts, or even something like the Keysi Fighting Method) could not be fully accepted as a “legitimate” martial art. Much debate has occurred recently in scholarly circles as to how we should define the concept of “martial arts” in a cross-cultural context, and whether engaging in such a definitional exercise is even a good idea.[1] Benjamin Judkins has made his own contributions to this discussion specifically addressing why lightsaber combat should be accepted as a martial art (for theoretical purposes), and the ways in which this realization effects our understanding of how these communities function.[2] We do not intend to relitigate those debates here. In this article we instead focus on a related problem. Practitioners often claim to be deeply impacted by the historical legacies of their arts. Yet the development of the interdisciplinary field of Martial Arts Studies has demonstrated that a great many of the claims passed on within traditional hand combat communities actually fall into the realm of myths and legends. Most of the Chinese martial arts practiced today are not the product of an ineffable past. Instead, they are the legacies the final decades of the 19th century and the Republic of China period (1911-1949). Rather than being an “ancient Korean art,” Taekwondo developed as a clear attempt to appropriate and nationalize Japanese Karate in the post-war period. Further, the entire understanding of the “Samurai Spirit” promoted in many Japanese Budo contexts is largely the product of nationalist reformers (some working with Western sources) in the Meiji period rather than an authentic reflection of the medieval past.[3] While all martial arts have a history, it does not always bear a close resemblance to the stories venerated by their students. What happens to our experience of the practice of a fighting system when we cannot attempt to historicize our legends? Can real techniques be transmitted and honed when we are forced to fully accept the mythic nature of the exercise? The Star Wars films, after all, may be the most successful modern myth ever produced, but no one would claim the lightsaber as history. Yet the very nature of Lightsaber Combat forces one to practice as if they were. Origins of a Community One suspects that fan-sponsored lightsaber duels began to occur the day after George Lucas’ epic space opera opened in 1977. Yet the first identifiable Lightsaber Combat organizations did not emerge until late 2005 and 2006. Given the immense popularity of these films, and the iconic nature of their signature weapon, how should we understand this delay? The current generation of replica lightsabers (including the LED illuminated stunt sabers most often used in a martial arts context) date only to the early years of the 2000s. They were initially developed as part of the marketing effort surrounding the release of the prequel trilogy (1999, 2002, 2005). It was at this time that Lucasfilm began to issue licensed replicas of a number of weapons seen on screen. These had detailed metal hilts, sound effects, and blades that appeared to ignite. It was difficult for individuals who held these early sabers not to feel as though they had just been given a relic from that far off galaxy. Soon third-party vendors entered this market space, offering simple training sabers with in-hilt LED modules and hollow polycarbonate blades. These sabers still had aluminum hilts, though they tended to be more ergonomically designed and better balanced that the original film props. And while some of these sabers were marketed to collectors, other (nearly indestructible) weapons were developed specifically for staged choreography and martial arts applications. It was only a matter of time before a variety of martial artists decided to seriously investigate what these new sabers were capable of within a training context. This desire to more fully explore the world of lightsabers was encouraged by the franchise’s marketing efforts. In 2002, Dr. David West Reynolds (an archeologist employed as an author by Lucas Film) published an article titled “Fightsaber” in the October issue of the Star Wars Insider fan magazine.[4] While lightsabers had dominated much of the personal combat on screen (and they played a progressively greater role in each new film), nothing had ever been said about the specialized training needed to wield such a weapon. Dr. Reynolds, who was not a martial artist, sought to fill this lacuna by exploring the “seven classic forms of lightsaber combat” as taught in the fictional Jedi temple. His descriptions borrow much from the image of the Asian martial arts which circulates in popular culture. This tendency towards Orientalism only grew as successive video games, novels and comic books sought to expand the lore, drawing on an ever-widening body of pop culture references. Again, it was only a matter of time before actual martial artists started to ask what combination of real-world fighting techniques could best replicate the alluring reality that was starting to emerge around the idea of lightsaber combat. The inexpensive, durable and versatile nature of LED sabers as material objects ensured that a wide variety of practitioners would be swept up in the task of reconstructing the “lost” systems of lightsaber combat. For some this was simply an extension of their Star Wars fandom. In other cases, individuals saw it as an intellectual and technical puzzle deepening their appreciation for various stick and blade based martial arts. Given the global appeal of this franchise, it is probably impossible to know, with certainty, where the very first dedicated lightsaber group emerged. Greg Ember, who has carefully tracked the creation of groups within this community, hypothesizes that the first schools or performance troops may actually have formed in either Russia or the Philippines.[5] Lightsaber combat remains extremely popular in Russia and across Southeast Asia. However, the first group to generate sustained media attention was NY Jedi, which began to offer classes in New York City after marching in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in 2005. The press coverage that this group would generate (along with the creation of the Saber Guild in 2006) led to an explosion of other small clubs across the Eastern seaboard of the United States in the coming years. Most of this first generation of groups focused on a type of fight choreography that attempted to emulate the techniques (and even costumes) which were seen in the films. They often organized themselves as non-profit enterprises and would perform at fan gatherings and charity events. However, as there was not yet an ecosystem of specialized lightsaber schools and organizations, many of their members actually had a relatively diverse set of interests and practices. Perhaps the first truly specialized group to emerge was Ludosport, created in 2006. This Italian organization used the same LED sabers to develop a fast-paced combat sport. Their approach to Lightsaber Combat is unique in that they favor light contact and tend not to wear protective gear beyond light gloves and occasionally eye protection. While organized as a sports league, Ludosport offers instruction in a set of progressive techniques (originally drawing inspiration from the seven classic forms of lightsaber combat) that have been carefully selected and modified to allow for safe play with minimal gear. For much of the next decade Ludosport expanded its network of academies across Europe before, in 2016, opening its first location in North America. Nor has Ludopsort been the only actor to approach Lightsaber Combat as a competitive sport. The publicity preceding the 2015 release of The Force Awakens helped to support a wave of specialization within the Lightsaber Combat Community. On May 4th of 2015, two important groups were created. In North America, this date saw the formal emergence of the Saber Legion, a heavy dueling league featuring full contact, full force striking. Participants in these contests typically wear heavy hockey, motorcycle or HEMA armor, much of which has been selected and decorated to invoke a specific persona. On the same day, the Sport Saber League was created in France. It occupies what might be thought of as a middle ground requiring the use of Fencing masks, heavy gloves, and some other minimal equipment while only allowing medium intensity contact. A third category of Lightsaber Combat groups also emerged in the lead-up to the most recent trilogy of Star Wars films. While choreography clubs and sport leagues often appropriated the pedagogical or tactical insights of traditional combat systems, this last set of organizations explicitly identify themselves as martial arts schools. This is something that leagues such as Ludosport or the Saber Legion have been hesitant to do, even when their members or creators have been traditional martial artists. This rhetorical choice reflects a more fundamental shift in the goals and self-understanding of these groups. The growth and differentiation of the community in recent years has allowed for the establishment of a number of schools focused on questions of “realism.” In a few cases (like the Lightspeed Saber League, formally organized in southern California in 2016) this discourse centers on the hypothesized nature of the lightsaber as a weapon with very unique characteristics. Depending on how these are understood, one can then attempt to derive a body of technique fitting this mental map. More common are schools that seek to achieve a sense of “realism” in the sorts of techniques employed. This approach allows them to use the lightsaber as a means of testing and teaching a vast range of real-world fighting philosophies that might not otherwise come into contact with one another. One cannot easily walk into a Kendo school to test your HEMA techniques against unsuspecting Japanese martial artists. The historic, national and even ideological aspects of these practices tend to prevent this sort of exchange, except in special limited circumstances. Yet the ahistorical nature of the lightsaber, as well as the complex mythology that surrounds it, tends to encourage exactly this sort of “creative play.” In some cases, this means mixing and matching techniques from within a single cultural framework. Other organizations might draw on a much wider variety of source materials in their attempt to realize the full breadth of the “seven classical forms of lightsaber combat,” essentially imagining each component as a distinct and separate art. One of the first, and most influential, martial schools within the Lightsaber Combat community is the Terra Prime Light Armory. Established in 2012 it has posted instructional videos on YouTube in order to create an open-source instructional system drawing on a variety of Chinese (and to a lesser extent European) fighting styles. Indeed, the creators of this system viewed the lightsaber as an ideal tool to both test and preserve these techniques in a quickly changing era. It should also be noted that the TPLA’s approach and progressive curriculum formed the basis of the LED saber program recently adopted by the FFE. Further, it has recently entered into a partnership with the FFE to promote their competitive ruleset in the United States. Unsurprisingly, there is often a regional component to the relationship between martially oriented lightsaber groups and the historic styles from which they draw. HEMA techniques appear more frequently in European lightsaber schools. Likewise, organizations like the Saber Authority (established in 2014) have promoted systems with a distinctly Southeast Asian flavor, drawing on their region’s rich traditions of stick and blade work. Instructors in this last group of schools often express enthusiasm for two ideas that may at first appear to be in tension with each other. On the one hand, they note the freedom that the LED saber grants them to test and combine styles that might not otherwise meet on culturally neutral ground. This allows for genuine martial exchange and a welcome escape from the “politics” of the traditional martial arts. At the same time, they also note the LED saber’s potential to reach new audiences, popularizing and preserving skills which have emerged from historic martial arts. When commenting on his students who regularly compete in Saber Legion tournaments, Steaphen Fick, a noted HEMA instructor who also runs a saber training program notes: “One of the things that I like about working with them [the Lightsaber Combat Community] is that they are taking what is essentially a silly weapon and learning how to bring it to life. The skills that they learn, the questions they ask and the work they put into learning the lightsaber is what makes it a valid martial training tool.”[6] Lightsaber Combat as Martial Art Such commentary about the efficacy of lightsaber training as a martial art in the same capacity as other, more established styles raises still more questions about its legitimacy among the broader fighting arts community. It also draws attention to the question of history and tradition, providing a comparative lens through which to consider their pragmatic purpose in the study of any given close combat system. When the ostensible goal of a martial art is to become skillful in a given mode of fighting, why bother maintaining nonfunctional behaviors at all? Traditional practices are embedded in many systems, including uniforms, courtesy behaviors like bowing and the use of honorifics, and the memorization of foreign words and phrases that serve no special function. From a combat efficacy standpoint, for example, there is no pragmatic reason to practice solo, dance-like patterns while counting in Japanese. Likewise, a resident of any developed nation today has no logical combative goal in studying traditional swordsmanship. Even in martial arts marketed as practical for personal protection, such as Brazilian jiu-jitsu, there is often an element of the traditional (e.g. judo uniforms, a colored belt ranking system). Likely no component of the martial arts is more tradition-bound, however, than their origin stories. As with all types of folklore, these oral traditions are often transmitted informally between practitioners, usually growing more extraordinary over time, and tend to conform to certain “tale types.” The narrative structures of these stories are so formulaic, in fact, that they match common folk tale structures found internationally. These stories are usually fantastic in some way. Perhaps the style’s founder was inspired by watching two animals fight, or a physically weak individual developed techniques that enabled him to overcome larger opponents, or, in some of the more ancient cases, a demon or god transmitted knowledge to the founder. Regardless, folklorist Thomas Green has argued that “martial arts folk histories reflect the desire of modern practitioners to establish credibility through association with a legendary past.”[7] Legends are an important part of life. Humans rely on the inspiration and framework found in legends and myths to make sense of the world, as well as their place in it. These stories do not simply conform to established mythical structures—they are ultimately about finding (or creating) conformity to structure in our own lives. The historiographical events that led to any given martial art’s creation are inevitably complicated and muddy compared with the clean, formulaic renditions espoused by their practitioners. Indeed, as Judkins has written of martial arts history, “Often these genealogies exist only in the realm of popular lore.”[8] If the exponents of a martial art are cognizant of its fictionalized origin story, it is at least worth considering that a new style emerging from such a fantastical background is equally legitimate in every capacity to which that word might apply. Lightsabers are not imminently practical weapons for daily self-defense, but then neither are whips, flails, broadswords, deer horn knives, or polearms. Jedi clothing is not the most practical athletic wear (however comfortable), but it is no less imminently practical than the pleated skirt-like hakama or even a judo outfit. Within any group of people, such impractical features as myths, costumes, and irrational beliefs serve very practical purposes. Uniforms of any type are a powerful means of creating group identity and cohesion. We are naturally defensive of those who appear to be members of our tribe. For the same reason, military recruits and marching bands spend painful hours training to step in precise formation with their units, not because modern warfare or music calls for it, but because it creates a collective rhythm, a sort of “flow state.” Belief in an art’s extraordinary origins gives the individual an opportunity to project a personal identity onto known (or at least suspected) mythic structures, extending his agency beyond the self and into a realm above the mundane. This state of “hyper-reality” is a portal that allows individuals to perceive themselves as existing within a constructed reality; that is, substituting the mundane for the preferred, potentially necessary, extraordinary. This is useful from a survival standpoint as the human brain is capable of understanding the world as a harsh, unforgiving, essentially meaningless exercise in futility and suffering. Instead of accepting such a reality, though, a hyper-real existence is one in which the suffering has a purpose and actions accompany a teleological outcome. As the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz famously wrote of cockfighting in Bali, our actions become “stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.”[9] It is largely through these mechanisms that the martial arts have become a powerful pathway for asserting personal agency in the modern world. When one puts on a karate uniform to undergo formal training, there is an uncomfortable blurring of the line between daily mundane reality and the costumed fantasy that plays out in the minds of those within the practice space. This line is very clear among lightsaber groups, however, as trainees don acknowledged costumes and may even use Star Wars-inspired character names. The result of both karate and lightsaber combat is the same; yet there is greater clarity about the nature of the exercise among the lightsaber group. This is also true of origin narratives. Not only does Star Wars fulfill classical mythic structure, but George Lucas himself has been quite vocal about his intent to do so, stating that “I consciously set about to recreate myths and the—and the classic mythological motifs. And I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that existed today.”[10] It is instructive to compare the transparent origins of lightsaber combat with an origin narrative from the classical Japanese martial arts which did so much to inspire them. In 1159, Minamoto no Yoshitsune (then a young man) was driven into exile on Mt. Kurama by Taira no Kiyomori, where he was to live as a monk. The mountain was heavily wooded and known to house supernatural creatures. As chance would have it, Yoshitsune became acquainted with a tengu(a sort of magical, crow-like goblin), which taught him martial arts. He became uncannily powerful, skilled in arms, and could run and jump with preternatural agility. He then staged a coup and seized back his hereditary position of power. This story is the basis for a number of martial arts styles in Japan. Historiographically, it is highly unlikely that the Twelfth Century warlord received tutelage from a mystical folk spirit. One would be hard-pressed to locate a practitioner of the Japanese martial arts today who genuinely believes the story’s accuracy. Instead, the classical combat arts community engages this and similar narratives with a comfortable skepticism, even as the tale continues to be passed on to new students with the utmost seriousness. The function of such fantasy is, rationally, not to convey historical trivia, but to contribute to the creation of a larger life schema, portraying aggrandized interpretations of both physical and cognitive behaviors encouraged by the school. Just as group identity and flow states facilitate profound development from an athletic standpoint, they can also be applied in this sense to develop the trainee’s personality through a constellation of psychosocial immersion and proprioceptive education. Such didactic tactics have been employed by governments to recondition public thought and behavior. For instance, Japanese youths were mandated to train in kendo, judo, and other martial arts during the early Twentieth Century. There was little expectation that these would be useful battlefield methods, but rather the goal was to indoctrinate children with the morals the ruling institution found most desirable. Although less extreme, this same basic function and methodology is visible in Lightsaber Combat communities. The Star Wars narrative is largely a chronicle of morality. It conveys the values and preferred qualities of modern heroic archetypes portrayed in dramatic fashion. These qualities are embodied in the Jedi knights, whose role one inhabits while participating. Whether taken strictly as a sporting endeavor or accompanied with detailed costuming and pseudonyms, the fact that lightsaber combat communities are organized entirely around the iconic fantasy weapon unites them in a symbolic, tangible, somatic expression of shared principles. While the lightsaber may not be real, those values and identities are. Specific definitions of “martial art” notwithstanding, the essential qualities that attend those activities are exhibited by lightsaber combat. Compared with many “traditional” martial arts, however, the endorsed personal qualities in lightsaber groups are made clear due to the recent advent of their origin narratives. Rather than making affectations to legitimize a fictional history, they overtly embrace the fictional narrative. This, in turn, situates training and competition not as serious, life-or-death preparation for conflict, but as a community-oriented form of creative play. Fick’s support of the lightsaber as a useful training implement points to the benefits of openly accepting a pleasurable pursuit as such: to wit, reduced stress on the trainee results in improved performance precisely because the stakes are not high, yet the practice carries powerful meaning because of the deeply mythic structure of its origin narrative. Given the natural instinct found in many animals to develop skill through play, it seems that, as Alan Watts suggested, “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”[11] About the Authors Benjamin Judkins holds a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University and is co-editor of the interdisciplinary academic journal Martial Arts Studies. With Jon Nielson he is the co-author of The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts (SUNY Press 2015). His research interests include the international relations, globalization and the function of the martial arts in the modern world. He is an instructor in the Wing Chun system and has been conducting research with the Lightsaber Combat community for a number of years. Jared Miracle is the author of Now with Kung Gu Grip! How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America (McFarland 2016). He received his doctorate from Texas A&M University and serves on the editorial board of the journal Monumenta Mythica. He is a disciple of the Shinkage-ryu, a former professional fighter, and spent years traveling to pursue an education in traditional jujutsu, Shandong mantis fist, aikido, Okinawan kempo and kobudo, the Horiuchi style of batto and kenjutsu, as well as Mongolian wrestling, archery, and other systems around the world. His interests include ritual violence, popular culture, and the archaeology of ideas. He primarily works as a writer and martial arts instructor. [1] Wetzler, Sixt. 2015. ‘Martial Arts Studies as Kulturwissenschaft: A Possible Theoretical Framework’. Martial Arts Studies 1, 20-33; Paul Bowman. 2019. Deconstructing Martial Arts. Cardiff: Cardiff University Press. 44. [2] Judkins, Benjamin N. 2016. ‘The Seven Forms of Lightsaber Combat: Hyper- reality and the Invention of the Martial Arts’, Martial Arts Studies 2, 6-22. [3] Benjamin N. Judkins and Jon Nielson. 2015. The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts. Albany: SUNY Press; Udo Moenig. 2015. Taekwondo: From a Martial Art to a Martial Sport. London: Routledge; Oleg Benesch. 2014. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford UP. [5] Personal correspondence, April 16 2016. [6] Personal Correspondence February 21, 2019. [7] Thomas Green. 2003. “Sense in Nonsense: The Role of Folk History in the Martial Arts.” In Thomas A. Green and Joseph Svinth (eds.) Martial Arts in the Modern World. Wesport, Connecticut and London: Praeger. 5. [8] Judkins 2016, 8. [9] Clifford Geertz. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. 448. [11] Alan Watt. 2003. Become What You Are. Boston, London: Shambalah. 29.	[]
Jurassic Park Wiki Movies Games Toys Merchandise Sinoceratops is a genus of ceratopsian that lived in China during the Late Cretaceous, living about 72-66 million years ago. Sinoceratops is a very significant centrosaur because not only it is the first ceratopsid to be ever discovered in China, but it is also one of the largest centrosaurines ever discovered. It lived alongside Shantungosaurus, Zhuchengtyrannus, and Zhuchengceratops. Like most centrosaurs, Sinoceratops had a single nasal horn and no horns above its eyebrows. However, what distinguishes this ceratopsian is its frill pattern, which is a series of forward-curving frill horns that run around the top of the frill. There is also a series of low set knobs on the top of the frill, which is not seen in any other known ceratopsian. Wikipedia has a more detailed and comprehensive article on Sinoceratops Sinoceratops was cloned by Ingen 2014 during the time of Jurassic World. However, the exact attraction in which it was included is unknown, as the Ceratopsian was not mentioned in any official promotional material for the park. Perhaps some were in the Gyrosphere, as shown in the third episode of first season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Shortly after the Jurassic World Incident in 2015, a Sinoceratops was hunted by the big game hunter Mitch, who kept his groomed head in his tent as a trophy. A while after, several Sinoceratops were among the dinosaurs in the stampede attempting to escape the Scorpios rex. One bumped aside an empty Gyrosphere with a Stegosaurus, while another fatally crashed headfirst into a large rock that Sammy Gutierrez and Brooklynn were hiding behind. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom It is revealed that there are surviving Sinoceratops populations remaining on Isla Nublar after the 2015 Incident, but will now face an impending danger, alongside many other creatures, in the form of an erupting volcano. These clones look incredibly similar to their real life counterparts except the clones has its fenestrae exposed on the living creature, which no ceratopsian had, a taller frill, is much larger than the original, being 8.1 meters (26.57 feet) instead of 6 meters (20 feet) when fully grown, has a dew claw on the back legs, and two spikes on the center of the frill similar to that of a Pachyrhinosaurus. Its body color is a bright forest green with a white underside. There is white on the face, a circular orange, white and green pattern beneath the holes in the frill and on the sides of the frill. It also has white with black tipped spikes. Carnotaurus fighting a Sinoceratops The Sinoceratops is first seen licking a paralyzed Owen Grady before being scared off by some approaching lava. While multiple Sinoceratops were seen during the stampede, the only major appearance of it is when a Carnotaurus grabs one that had lagged behind the stampede. After a brief fight, the Sinoceratops is able to break away and flee with the other dinosaurs. Gallimimus with HCN.PNG Several Sinoceratops were captured by Ken Wheatley and his mercenaries, and they were last seen escaping the Lockwood Manor along with many other dinosaurs. The remaining Sinoceratops continue to roam the wilds of the U.S.A. Jurassic World: Dominion Sinoceratops will return in Jurassic World: Dominion. Promotional Images Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Behind the Scenes • It was meant to be Pachyrhinosaurus in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, but it was later changed to Sinoceratops after the first trailer was released. This is likely the reason as to why the Mattel toy looks more similar to Pachyrhinosaurus than to Sinoceratops.[1][2] • At one point, the holes in the frill were instead meant to be only in one individual and were meant to be a wound rather than being part of the clone's biology. This appears to be a reference to the film Walking with Dinosaurs, where the main character, Patchi the Pachyrhinosaurus, gets a similar frill wound from a Troodon bite. • The scene where the Sinoceratops licked Owen in the face after being double-crossed by Wheatley is influenced by a brief moment from a chapter in The Lost World titled "Heat", where a Stegosaurus licked Sarah Harding in a similar manner after she was betrayed by Lewis Dodgson. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Dinosaurs AllosaurusAnkylosaurusApatosaurusBaryonyxBrachiosaurusCarnotaurusCompsognathusGallimimusIndoraptorMosasaurusParasaurolophusPteranodonSinoceratopsStegosaurusStygimolochTriceratopsTyrannosaurus rexVelociraptor Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Dinosaurs AnkylosaurusBaryonyxBrachiosaurusCarnotaurusCeratosaurusCompsognathusDilophosaurusDimorphodonGallimimusIndominus rexKentrosaurusMonolophosaurusMosasaurusOuranosaurusParasaurolophusParasaurolophus luxPteranodonScorpios rexSinoceratopsSmilodonSpinoceratopsSpinosaurusStegosaurusTyrannosaurus rexVelociraptor	[]
Tony Innocent Fortson Baby Tony Rector was born Aug 16, 2016. He was abandoned outside the hospital after his mother asked someone to hold the baby while she went to the store. She never returned and Social Welfare asked that Neema come pick up the baby. He is a healthy little boy and will be loved and cared for at Neema until a forever family can be found to adopt him. All adoptions are handled through Arusha’s Social Welfare department. Neema does not charge or accept money for adoptions or referrals. Tanzania law states you must reside in Tanzania 3 years before you can adopt a child. James 1:27 (NIV)	[]
Always ready to hand: the battery-powered KHB medium pressure cleaner Medium pressure cleaner KHB Innovative Kärcher medium pressure cleaner KHB 5 Battery with 18 V Li-Ion rechargeable battery. This means that intermediate cleaning around your house can be done quickly, flexibly and without power connection. Show 1 to 4 (from a total of 4 products)	[]
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 The Build is Broken, Now What? Your team is hard at work, testing and coding and planning, and suddenly the build breaks. Now what can you do? The broken build might not be your fault at all, and besides you have work of your own to do. You could go ahead and practice business-as-usual, but this is probably a bad idea. Here's what I say: • Never pull from a broken build. Assume that version control is poison. If you are not the one fixing the build (and shouldn't you be?) then you should leave it be. The last thing you want to do is import brokenness into your local build environment. Import from a "green" build, and you will know that any brokenness is your problem. • Test locally before considering pushing code to the CI build, even though it takes a bit more time. There is really no good time to NOT know that you've broken something. A little "due diligence" goes a long way. • Never push to the CI server if your local build is broken. If your build is broken, it inconveniences only you. If someone is working on the build and you push a second mistake, they won't know if they fixed it or broke it worse. If the build is not broken, why bother pushing errors to it? • If you're not fixing the build, never push a working local change to a broken build. This is a kindness akin to not walking in the dirt your mother is sweeping up. If you push a change while the build is broken, the person fixing the build will have yet another update/build/test cycle on his hands before he can push his fix to the server. Don't punish the volunteer by pushing your changes. Wait, pull, merge, retest. We have installed annunciators for teams. Sometimes they are flashing lights, sometimes a glowing orb, sometimes speakers playing a particular noise, sometimes it's just a person standing up and yelling that the build is down. Usually there is some electronic communication (jabber message or email) as well. Why do we all need to know that the build is broken, and how long it is broken? So that we can alter our behavior. Someone needs to jump in and fix the build quickly, and everyone else needs to let them or help them. By leaving the build broken, continuing to build and push code as always, or pushing additional errors into the build, we are just getting in the way of the team. Build annunciators should let you know when you need to get out of the way. They don't have to be piercing and shrill or overly bright, but they need to keep the team aware that the build is not "green." It's not just a good idea... well, actually it is. 1. And remember that it is perfectly valid, and sometimes necessary, to just revert the change (or set of changes) that broke the build. The primary objective is to return to green; the secondary objective is to apply the most-recent changes. Languishing for hours or days in red while fiddling with your latest changes is not the best approach. 2. How about time-boxing the fix-time for build breaks? It might sound a bit harsh but I've seen it working perfectly well. If the person who broke the build could not fix it in, let's say 15 minutes, he needs to revert the change back. With teams which are working in real CI environments, build breaks might be really annoying. This policy at least helps to keep the pipeline going. 3. Another of my teams has fully converted to the guidelines here. They consider it an antisocial act to push a non-fix to a broken build, and unprofessional to leave a build broken for any longer than ABSOLUTELY necessary. If you commit code and don't wait to be sure it passes the CI test builds, you are persona non grata for a few days. It isn't the intolerance that makes me grin, it's seeing a constant commitment to keeping the system in a runnable state. I think people are getting addicted.	[]
CDK5RAP2 primary microcephaly is associated with hypothalamic, retinal and cochlear developmental defects Marcella Zollino, Hala Nasser, Liza Vera, Monique Elmaleh-Bergès, Katharina Steindl, Pascaline Letard, Natacha Teissier, Anais Ernault, Fabien Guimiot, Alexandra Afenjar, Marie Laure Moutard, Delphine Héron, Yves Alembik, Martha Momtchilova, Paolo Milani, Nathalie Kubis, Nathalie Pouvreau, Sophie Guilmin Crepon, Florentia Kaguelidou, Pierre GressensAlain Verloes, Anita Rauch, Vincent El Ghouzzi, Severine Drunat, Sandrine Passemard Risultato della ricerca: Contributo in rivistaArticolo in rivista 2 Citazioni (Scopus) Background: Primary hereditary microcephaly (MCPH) comprises a large group of autosomal recessive disorders mainly affecting cortical development and resulting in a congenital impairment of brain growth. Despite the identification of >25 causal genes so far, it remains a challenge to distinguish between different MCPH forms at the clinical level. Methods: 7 patients with newly identified mutations in CDK5RAP2 (MCPH3) were investigated by performing prospective, extensive and systematic clinical, MRI, psychomotor, neurosensory and cognitive examinations under similar conditions. Results: All patients displayed neurosensory defects in addition to microcephaly. Small cochlea with incomplete partition type II was found in all cases and was associated with progressive deafness in 4 of them. Furthermore, the CDK5RAP2 protein was specifically identified in the developing cochlea from human fetal tissues. Microphthalmia was also present in all patients along with retinal pigmentation changes and lipofuscin deposits. Finally, hypothalamic anomalies consisting of interhypothalamic adhesions, a congenital midline defect usually associated with holoprosencephaly, was detected in 5 cases. Conclusion: This is the first report indicating that CDK5RAP2 not only governs brain size but also plays a role in ocular and cochlear development and is necessary for hypothalamic nuclear separation at the midline. Our data indicate that CDK5RAP2 should be considered as a potential gene associated with deafness and forme fruste of holoprosencephaly. These children should be given neurosensory follow-up to prevent additional comorbidities and allow them reaching their full educational potential. Trial registration number: NCT01565005. Lingua originaleEnglish pagine (da-a)jmedgenet-2019-106474-N/A Numero di pagine11 Stato di pubblicazionePubblicato - 2020 • CDK5RAP2 • MCPH • intellectual disability • primary microcephaly • retinal alteration • sensorineural hearing loss Entra nei temi di ricerca di 'CDK5RAP2 primary microcephaly is associated with hypothalamic, retinal and cochlear developmental defects'. Insieme formano una fingerprint unica. Cita questo	[]
Doug's Darkworld War, Science, and Philosophy in a Fractured World. Teutoburg Forest and Varus’ Lost Legions with 4 comments It was fall, 9 AD, in what is now Lower Saxony in Germany. Today it’s a civilized land, then it was Germania, a recently conquered barbarian province of Rome on the far side of the Rhine. It had been 40 years since Augustus Caesar had defeated Antony and Cleopatra in the battle of Actium, and Rome had enjoyed 40 years of expansion and victory. Lucius Varus was a young Roman Legionary in the 17th Legion, one of three legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus, his uncle. Lucius had never seen combat before, but this might be it. Some Germanic tribes were in rebellion against their new Roman rulers. The Romans were marching into the Teutoburg forest, three legions strong, over 15,000 crack Roman legionaries, with thousands of auxiliary troops including a body of Roman cavalry. The narrow track they were marching on was very muddy. It was raining, raining very hard. The legionaries had to march in narrow file down the muddy track, and soon were stretched out for miles. Lucius wasn’t worried , because he trusted his uncle Varus, an able leader and administrator. Better, they were being guided on their way by a trusted German tribal leader, Arminius. General Varus was so confident that he hadn’t even sent any cavalry ahead to see if the road was clear. What could go wrong? As my esteemed readers have likely guessed by now, this doesn’t sound good. 15,000 troops spread along a narrow forest path in the rain. With thousands of camp followers interspersed throughout the column. Did I mention that Roman bows didn’t work in the rain, their sinew bowstrings expanded when wet making them limp and useless? And the mostly wood and leather Roman shields were almost useless as well. At some point Arminius announced he was going to take a quick mushroom hunting expedition, and he and his entourage road off into the gloomy wet forest. More than one Roman eyebrow went up at that I’m sure, even legionary Lucius himself might have begun to wonder just how many German warriors could hide in a forest this size. History doesn’t record what general Varus thought as his trusted guide rode away. Well, Lucius didn’t have long to wonder just how many Germanic warriors could hide in the forest. Turns out it was a lot, thousands and thousands, maybe ten thousand or more. Arminius in fact had planned the ambush from the beginning, the whole rebellion was a ruse designed to lure the Romans into a trap. And trapped they were, the Germanic warriors attacked the column of Romans from both sides without warning. The Romans weren’t in battle formation, and even when they tried, Arminius had grown up in Rome and knew how the Romans fought and how to counteract them. The fighting was terrible, and the Romans by far got the worst of it. By nightfall they had been able to set up a fortified camp, surrounded by thousands of victorious Germanic tribesmen. Lucius was still alive, as was General Varus. Roman legions had fought their way out of worse places. And the morning they did, with dreadful losses. The rains continued, their bows and shield remained useless. Then the Romans tried to escape through another forest, again with Germanic warriors attacking them from all sides. They set up another fortified camp, but the situation was dire. So they improvised, and made a desperate night march to escape. And walked into another trap set by Arminius. A fortified leather and wooden wall 100 yards wide was in front of them , a lake to their left, an unclimbable hill to their right. A reconstructed section of the wall is illustrated above. Germanic armies were before and behind them, there was no escape. The Romans tried to storm the wall with their last best warriors. It failed. The Roman second in command fled with the cavalry, but they were quickly overtaken and killed by Germanic riders. Germanic warriors closed in on the trapped and disintegrating Roman legions. Many of the Roman officers including General Varus fell on their swords or died fighting, the ones that were captured regretted they hadn’t fallen on their swords, what the Germans did to them was far worse. Most of the Roman camp followers and soldiers were killed, a small number were enslaved. Including Lucius and some of his friends. All sources agree the Roman defeat was total, the entire army was killed or captured. When Emperor Augustus was told the news it is reported he pounded his head against the walls of his palace shouting: Quintili Vare, legiones redde! (‘Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!’). And thus ended 40 years of Roman expansion. The Germans destroyed the few Roman cities and forts in Germania, what Romans could escape south of the Rhine did. The battle standards of three legions had been captured, the shame of the loss was so great that the legions were never reconstituted, an unprecedented occurrence. The Romans did get revenge though. In 14-16 AD huge Roman armies invaded Germania and crushed Arminius’ forces in several battles. They captured his pregnant wife, destroyed his coalition, and recaptured two of the lost standards. They found piles of bleached bones at the Teutonburg Forest battle site, and buried them with honours. This was the end of any threat posed by Arminius, his attempt to unite the German tribes was broken, and soon he was murdered by jealous rivals. In 41 AD another Roman campaign was conducted, and the third standard was recovered. And the last chapter in this story takes place around 50 AD. The Chatti, one of Arminius’ former coalition of Germanic tribes, started raiding Roman lands. Bad idea. The Romans raised two armies, invaded Germania, trapped the Chatti tribe between them, and annihilated them. And what did they find when they overran the Chatti forces? Lucius and his friends, captured and enslaved by the Germans in the Battle of Teutonburg forest forty years earlier! Apparently both the rescuers and the rescued were incredibly surprised by this. Never in their wildest dreams did the victorious Romans expect to find survivors from Varus’ lost legions. The Romans had been held has slaves for forty years, they never expected to be rescued. It’s a pretty good bet that Lucius and his friends experienced almost unimaginable joy, they must have thought they were dreaming at first. Have a good Memorial Day everyone. (The above image is from Wikipedia and is used legally in accordance with their stated guidelines. The story above is accurate in the big details, but many particulars of the events chronicled are still unknown. So while I write above with certainty, in fact some of the above is simply the best modern speculation based on fragmented history and modern archaeological findings. I also used poetic license in two cases. Lucius the individual is fictional, though the Romans did indeed discover and free some captured legionaries from Varus’ lost legions forty years after the fact. And Arminius was believed to have left the Romans the night before their march began.) Written by unitedcats May 31, 2010 at 11:46 am Posted in History, War 4 Responses Subscribe to comments with RSS. 1. Long time to keep prisoners, 40 years….. June 1, 2010 at 8:57 am • The Russians were fond of hanging on to prisoners for years December 15, 2013 at 8:51 am 2. What a very different world we’d be living in if Arminius had succeeded in uniting Germania. Thanks for the history lesson! Geoffrey Rose June 1, 2010 at 9:13 am 3. Good post Doug, interesting historical story with a little bit of poetic license to add some spice. Its hard to believe the Romans were so arrogant or confident that they didn’t see trouble brewing. Then again maybe they were just so focused on the task at hand and battling the elements they didn’t appreciate their vulnerability, hind sight is 20/20. Joah V. June 1, 2010 at 11:54 am Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Google photo Twitter picture Facebook photo Connecting to %s %d bloggers like this:	[]
Keep Your Teeth Healthy 5 Simple Tips To Keep Your Teeth Healthy A white set of teeth is what all we seek. But is it really easy to get? Maybe not. You have to take proper care everyday, you have to be gentle with your teeth like you are with your skin. Even if you presently have a healthy set of teeth you have to take some extra care to keep it healthy. Here we are sharing top 5 tips that will increase the strength of your teeth and will keep it brighter like you want:- Brush your teeth well- This is the most important yet ignorant advice. Don’t be harsh on your teeth. Take your time. Move the toothbrush very gently in a circular way. Poor brushing is the primary cause of gum recession and cavities. So just be very careful while brushing. Make sure you have removed all the hidden food particles. Go for a monthly dental check-up- Most dental problems are invisible, and also people have a tendency to underestimate dental issues. Don’t ignore even minor dental issues. If you are sensing toothache for a while don’t suppress it by just taking painkillers. Pain killers can give you a temporary relief but it never disinfects your teeth. So in such condition it’s better to consult a Chelmsford Dentist. Go for a monthly dental check-up even if your teeth are fine. It prevents your teeth from being damaged and infected. Most dental problems Stays away from soft drinks- We all enjoy having soft drinks but it’s a potential threat for our teeth. Such soft drinks contain high amounts of sugar which can damage our teeth gradually. Also these soft drinks cause acidic reactions in your mouth and affect the enamels. People who consume such soft drinks often develop a yellowish tone on their teeth. So it’s better staying away from drinking soft drinks. Use fluoride based toothpaste- According to the research evidence it could be stated that Fluoride strengthens our teeth the most. It helps to prevent any kind of teeth infection like cavities and gum infection. So an easy solution is using toothpaste that contains a high amount of fluoride. Use mouthwash right after eating- Now this is a healthy habit. Wash your mouth with a mouthwash right after having every meal. This technique works the best to keep your teeth healthy. When we eat desserts the sugary element of the food gets stuck on our mouth and makes it damaged. So no matter what you eat, cultivate the habit of using mouthwash right after every meal. All the above listed tips are easy to follow yet effective. Also make yourself more punctual. Don’t miss a single session of dental check-up.	[]
Updated version of the site v1.5 🎉 With suggestions for improving the site, write totelegram: @Razilator Latest comments @Razilator Site update to version 1.5 The site has been updated to 1.5.1 (I just fixed all the jambs of my own patch).. Therefore, I constantly restarted the site. Now everything seems to be working. Update logs: 1. The most important thing is the auto-update system for mods, it checks mods every 2 days for updates. So far this is done for Project Zomboid, Kenshi, Rimworld (anything from steam) 2. Template fixes 3. Improved the comment system. 4. Improved the notification system. 5. Legacy code fixes. 6. Changing the structure of site models. 7. Many future plans) 3 days, 11 hours ago @ktin9527 Total War: Warhammer II: DLC Unlocker all good 1 week, 3 days ago @Razilator Rain Wash The mod has been updated to the latest version. 2 weeks ago @Razilator Sims 4 Mod / CC Manager carnalxerotica, glad you found it useful! 2 weeks, 1 day ago @carnalxerotica Sims 4 Mod / CC Manager this mod is really helpful :) 2 weeks, 1 day ago @Razilator Radiant Primordial Hive 2 months ago Vanilla Armour Expanded Link Info Language Version Loads Loaded Created by Go to download 7.1 MB Multi 2021-11-13 0 21/01/2022 в 18:01 PyWorker Go to download 7.1 MB Multi 2021-08-23 14 03/11/2021 в 18:55 PyWorker See change notes for details. Added Siegebreaker (former Heavy Marine) and Trooper armors as well as their prestige variants: Thanks Avery, Logger and Chowder for help! We can all agree that in vanilla game, the peak of technological progress is a set of power armor. The way to get there? Through Flak pants, jackets and vests. After playing this game for so long, I became tired of using the same armor over and over again - no variety in content leads to no variety in gameplay. This is exactly the reason why me and Trunken decided to create an Armour Expansion! Vanilla Armour Expanded is part of a series of mods expanding on everyday life on the Rimworld. When paired together with a brand new Vanilla Weapons Expanded and Vanilla Apparel Expanded, you can bring something to your game that will keep you interested in it for days. Armor is spread across several new technologies that need to be researched which in turn adds valuable game time before you achieve everything there is to achieve. New items cover all technological eras, from wooden armours of neolithic tribes, through chainmails and chestplates of medieval kingdoms, bulletproof vests and ghillie suits of the modern era combat all the way to two, brand new variants of a regular marine armor - one of them with an integrated ranged shield belt! Pawns go bald when wearing a ballistic goggles - this is currently hard coded into the game and I have no way around it. I recommend using [KV] Show Hair with Hats mod to get rid of this problem Headgear is clipping through another headgear / Balaclava renders over the helmet The way the game code is written, there are no separate layers for headgear, which means I can't tell the game to render balaclava under the helmet. The game renders the latest worn apparel higher, so wear balaclava first and then the helmet and it should work fine. Nothing I can do about it until the game code is updated to allow for layers on headgear. No other issues are currently being tracked. Please report any bugs in a discussion board called “Bugs”. Q: Is it Combat Extended compatible? A: The patch is integrated into the github version of combat extended. Once you download it, it will automatically be applied if this mod is found. Q: Do these armours spawn on enemies? A: Yes, these pieces of apparel have necessary tags to spawn on all the pawns in the game. Q: Can I request a feature? A: Yes, please use “Requests” discussion board. Q: Why is your mod special? A: I am a vanilla player. Anything that doesn't suit vanilla game makes me cringe and I stay away from it. I did however find the game lacking after some time, therefore I've created these sets of armor to be as accurate and as close to vanilla graphics style as possible. What is special? The best part is - nothing in this mod is special at all. Nothing will make you go "Oh that's unusual", because the whole purpose of this mod is to blend into the existing game. Q: Is this mod save game compatible? A: Yes, you can add it and remove it whenever you like. Bear in mind that if you add it to an existing save, you need to update all the stockpile settings to include these items. Q: Do you accept commissions? A: Yes, I do. Please find me on RimWorld discord which I will link in the Links section below. Name is OskarPotocki. Q: Will you keep updating this mod? A: Yes, but not often. I have worked hard and for a long time to make a list of armors that I’d like to see added and I have added them. If some feature request catches my attention, I will add it. I plan to release several add-ons to this mod, most notably “Raiders” add-on and “Spacer Apparel” add-on. Q: Raiders wearing ghillie suits have their name removed and I can’t click them! A: That’s a feature, making it harder for you to spot them on a map. Q: Pawns with prosthetics/bionics can't wear boots or gloves! A: it's because of a vanilla limitation/feature. replaced bodyparts will lose their child bodyparts, but the game won't show you that.	[]
Federal tax changes Impacts of recent Federal changes 4/16/21 update: Instructions updated for federal unemployment insurance exclusion FTB is currently reviewing the overall impacts of the recent federal legislation as it relates to California income tax filing. Our review will include applicable methods for resolving any differences for taxpayers who have already filed their income tax returns. FTB will be providing additional information in the near future. Changes to federal AGI may impact the ability of a taxpayer to claim certain credits, including CalEITC. Whether a taxpayer is entitled to the credit is dependent upon a taxpayer’s particular facts and circumstances. For taxpayers who have not yet filed, FTB has updated its instructions specific to the changes related to the federal unemployment insurance exclusion. For taxpayers who already filed, FTB is also evaluating the potential impacts to taxpayers claiming the CalEITC. You do not need to file an amended return at this time.	[]
Discover Your Design District DISCOVER AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY DESIGN.kanju’s curated collection of contemporary African art and luxury decor is the largest and most varied collection in the United States. kanju provides design lovers with a penchant for the unique and extraordinary with access to Africa’s cutting edge art, rare antiques, stunning heritage furniture and decor, and customization services that allow you to modify or create handcrafted designs to satisfy your unique requirements.	[]
Get to know your Fire Starter: Bincho Basics June 28, 2018 3 min read Get to know your Fire Starter: Bincho Basics What is this Binchotan you speak of? Charcoal made from Japanese oak is called Binchotan, they take this hardwood andpyrolyze it (use intense heat to convert most of the wood into carbon) like other charcoal. The process used in Japan has been refined and improved to get a much higher carbon content than western lump charcoal by and heating it at the normal 400-700℃ range for awhile, and then quickly raising the temperature to over 1000℃, then quickly cooled using a white powder of earth, sand, and ash. Binchotan is sometimes called ‘white charcoal’ after the white dust that is sometimes left on it from the smothering process. This process results in making it almost pure carbon. While binchotan is typically thought to burn hotter than other charcoals, this isn’t necessarily true. The truth is it burns cleaner, longer and at a more consistent temperature. It lasts for anywhere between 4-6 hours and usually keeps a temperature of around 370℃ (700℉). If you are done cooking and your charcoal is still burning you can quench it in a bucket of water. Once it’s extinguished take it out of the water and you can reuse it… after it’s dried of course. How do I light Binchotan? The easiest way to start any charcoal is to use a thing called a chimney. It’s like a big can with a divider between the top and bottom. The divider has openings that allow a fire lit under it to affect charcoal set on it above.You light it by stuffing paper in the bottom of it or putting it on a gas burner. Without one you’ll have to light it like a campfire. I am no Boy Scout so I find my chimney to be a worthy investment. In a chimney binchotan takes about 25 minutes to get the coals going, but really they won’t be at their peak of infrared awesomeness for about an hour. Once they are white hot put them into the bbq. To make hotter, faster force air on it, I prefer using a shop vac with the hose set up to blow air (if you accidentally use it to suck up hot coals, we will not be held responsible for the ensuing hilarity, but we would like to see the video of the incident), a hair dryer also works. If you force air on it during cooking gritty ash will get on the food so make sure there’s none over the coals at that time. Some subscribe to the tenting method to speed up the transition to cooking temperature. To do this cover the grill with a baking sheet or tin foil, and make sure the vents are open. Once the charcoal has a deep red glow, spread it out evenly for as much cooking area as you need. You can use binchotan to mineralize water and absorb flavours. Boil a piece of binchotan to sterilize the outside of it and add it to a pot of rice, a jug of water or put it in your fridge to absorb odors. Cooking temperature may only be reached an hour from when you start the coals, so plan accordingly. It takes a longer time than typical charcoal to get going, a drawback to be sure, but the tradeoff is the way it burns at a consistent temperature for a very long time. Once you are cooking use the vents of the konro to control the heat by controlling the airflow. More air means more heat. We also carry the very awesome Pok Pok Thaan Charcoal, who made this great video, if you prefer to learn from funny videos that reading, will be very useful to you. Mike Wrinch Mike Wrinch Mike was a chef for 15 years and and has been a knife aficionado for most of them. His love of Japanese knives began, coincidentally, when Knifewear began. Mike decided that it was time to get out from behind the stoves and hanging out at Knifewear wasn’t paying the bills so he hired himself. We rehabilitated him into a life of knives and shaving in 2012. He loves to talk about food and cooking as well as knives. Mike is the General Manager of all our shops.	[]
Reviews from Inside Current and formerly incarcerated persons have been reviewing the new edition of Concrete Mama. Here is what some of them have said: Ed Mead: “Concrete Mama is a great book for viewing a slice in time at the Washington State Penitentiary during the late 1970s, but the limitations of the authors to track this process over an extended period limits its usefulness as the history lesson it could have been. What makes up for this limitation of the book is Dan Berger’s outstanding introduction. It was drafted from the comfortable perspective of viewing Concrete Mama, and imprisonment in general, during the forty years since the book was initially written. He fills in the gaps left by Messrs. McCoy and Hoffman. The book is worth the price just for Dan’s informative introduction. Dan is a part of the Prison History Project and his introduction to Concrete Mama is something every prisoner should read. They will learn their history as a community. As for outside people, Dan quotes Therese Coupez, an incarcerated George Jackson Brigade member as saying we should not be “viewing prisons and prisoners as somehow a different, exclusive, unrelated issue from the rest of society.” Or as Dan quoted McCoy in his original introduction, prisoners are an “uncommon Community” rather than a “mass of anonymous men.” With that said, let me give you some background information.” Continue reading…	[]
Alesh Sanni calls out colleagues for not promoting new movie Actor Alesh Sanni has called out some of his colleagues for not promoting his new movie Rancor. In an Instagram post on Monday, the Yoruba movie star wrote a cryptic message about those who only promote other people’s sad news and not their success. “People don’t promote your success but only sad news about you. With or without you ama surely make it big and you won’t have choice than to celebrate me. It might be too late cos I won’t even recognise you then,” he wrote. The actor has been using the hashtag #Rancorthemovie to promote the film on social media. Some of his colleagues like Iyabo Ojo, Sotayo Sobola and Uzee Usman promoted the film on their social media pages. Executive produced my Alesh, the movie features Clarion Chukwurah, Nancy Isime, Lateef Adedimeji, Mofe Duncan, Bimbo Thomas, Wale Ojo and others.	[]
USA Canoe/Kayak and the American Canoe Association aca-logoAt the height of the Cold War and in the shadow of an Eastern Bloc boycott, the 1984 Olympic Games took place in Los Angeles, California. USA canoe and kayak athletes had been performing well leading up to the Games and ultimately Greg Barton would win a Bronze in the K1-1000 flatwater event. Four years later at the 1988 Games in Seoul, Korea and Greg Barton made history by winning Gold in the K1-1000, then just 20 minutes later he and Norm Bellingham won Gold in the K2-1000. At about the same time (1987), Los Angeles had closed the financial books on their Games and profits were divided among the participating National Governing Bodies (NGB’s) with one of the financial beneficiaries being the USA canoe and kayak NGB of the American Canoe Association. The presence of Olympic money buoyed by Olympic success in flatwater sprint caused conflict, with the ACA Board wanting to use the money to seed the base of the sport while the sprint team took a more short term view on improved training facilities and equipment. As a result USA flatwater sprint started the legal process of succeeding from the ACA and ultimately ended up creating the US Canoe & Kayak Team (USCKT) based in Lake Placid, NY. That divorce from the ACA was bitter for many involved and continues to shape opinion even today. To further complicate things, the US Olympic Committee and International Canoe Federation would only recognize one National Governing Body per nation, so once the divorce paperwork was finalized, USCKT ended up representing all the competitive disciplines including the now Olympic discipline of whitewater slalom, which despite debuting in 1972, was now included in the 1992 Games in Spain. USCKT also assumed leadership of wildwater, marathon, polo and the other non-Olympic disciplines. In 1992 whitewater slalom returned to the Games after a 20 year hiatus in Barcelona, ESP where Joe Jacobi and Scott Strausbaugh won Gold in C2 Slalom and Dana Chladek won Bronze in the K1W Slalom while Greg Barton took home the Bronze in the K1-1000 flatwater event which would be the USA’s last Olympic flatwater medal. The 1996 Games in Atlanta, GA saw Dana Chladek win Silver in K1W Slalom. The USA didn’t win any canoe and kayak medals in 2000 in Australia but in 2004 in Athens, Greece, Rebecca Giddens won the USA’s last Olympic canoe and kayak medal, a Silver in K1W whitewater slalom. Bottom-line is that after the ACA / USCKT split, the upward trajectory of the USA canoe and kayak medal count took a sharp nose dive, with whitewater slalom representing most of the high points. And yet over this same time period, recreational canoe and kayak participation had exploded and given birth to today’s leading industry brands, massive canoe clubs and a general increased popularity in outdoor sports. The ACA would go on to focus on these millions of recreational paddlers with a primary focus on safety, education and advocacy, while USCKT (now USACK) would focus only on elite competition. As a result, by 2014 ACA membership would total in excess of 35,000 while USACK’s would be less than 2,000. After the split, USCKT relocated to Lake Placid, NY then in 2002 moved to Charlotte, NC and more recently Oklahoma City, OK, each move underlined by a desire for better access to potential sponsors and resources. But sadly, those financial dollars never materialized and the US Olympic Committee was (now) USACK’s primary source of funding. USACK finally hit rock bottom in 2014 when the USOC announced severe funding cuts in its USACK support, limiting resources to one slalom coach and athlete support for one slalom athlete. Thanks to some successful politicking they negotiated to also fund the slalom head coach position. With the resignation of the USACK Executive Director, a redirection of those financial resources also permitted the funding of a flatwater sprint director. In concert with these dramatic financial restrictions from the USOC, came the announcement that the ACA and USACK would merge, turning back the clock to a pre-1987 organization where one organization would cohesively represent the recreation and competitive interests of the entire paddlesports community. As part of the agreement, Wade Blackwood, Executive Director of the ACA, would also take over as CEO of USA Canoe/Kayak. So what does the future look like for competitive paddlesports? Well, the current ACA leadership team has a history of success and sees the whole paddlesports picture as one would expect from an organization that represents the recreational interests of millions of paddlers. However, it would be naive on our behalf to assume that now these two organizations are back together that things will immediately swing upwards or that we could ever climb back to where USA canoe & kayak was back in the 80’s and early 90’s. The paddlesports landscape is very different today than it was back then and both olympic disciplines are even further removed from the recreational interests that we see on our rivers and lakes. Furthermore, the cost of producing an Olympic medal continues to rise. A 2008 Australian study suggests it costs $40m(AUS$) to produce just one gold medal while a 2012 British study suggests £10m per medal. But at the very least we now have organizational efficiency and an “opportunity” that has been missing for decades. We now have an incredible opportunity to expose competitive canoe and kayak of all sorts to a huge base audience that just might choose to give it a try or maybe become a volunteer, donor or simply a fan. The pressure is now on the boots on the ground to own this new organizational relationship and the future of competitive paddlesport and create a pathway to success for its membership. In just the last couple of years, organizations like the Oklahoma Boat House District, Nantahala Outdoor Center/Nantahala Racing Club and ASCI have all hosted a canoe and kayak World Championships and are creating lasting paddlesports legacies that will fuel tomorrows American competitive paddlesports landscape for years to come. So let’s give the American Canoe Association our full support and see where they lead us because it can only be up.	[]