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The 9mm Option
Developed in 1902 by Georg Luger, the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge can brag about being over 100 years old and more successful now than at any other time. Tested by the U.S. Army at the Springfield Arsenal in 1903, the round was actually adopted by the German Navy in 1904 and by the German Army in 1906. The U.S. Army - in 1911 - adopted the .45ACP. Given the plethora of 9mm weapons available, how widely the round is used, and how often I've carried a handgun in this caliber across the span of the last two and a half decades, I thought it would be enjoyable to look back at the weapons and which options I still have available today. Bear in mind I'm not going to list every 9mm handgun made - only the ones I can put my hands on within ten feet of me as I type - or used to own.
And before I get too far into this, let me assure you I'm not going to debate the .45ACP vs 9mm (or .40S&W for that matter). Here's why: if you're using modern hollow point bullet designs I'm just not sure there's a significant enough difference in terminal ballistics to argue about. I believe that shot placement matters more than hole size. Moving on...
Sig Sauer P226
I'm going to start out with the Sig Sauer P226 only because it's the first 9mm that I ever carried on a daily basis. In 1987 the police agency I was working for decided that the issued 6" Colt Trooper .357 Magnum revolvers were a bit outdated. It didn't help that not a single officer was carrying the issued revolver; each of us had gone out and purchased a 4" .38 or .357. So the agency decided to switch to the 9mm and went through an evaluation process to select one. The winner was the Sig Sauer P226.
The basics about the Sig:
Caliber: 9mm
Trigger Pull: 10 pound double action, 4.5 pound single action
Length: 7.7" (per Sig's website)
Height: 5.5"
Width: 1.5"
Barrel length: 4.4"
Sight Radius: 6.3"
When I went to the armorer school for Sig in 1988 (they were still in Virginia back then) I learned to like the P226 design even more. Sure, there was a couple of roll pins to deal with, but the gun - by and large - was fairly simple and highly reliable. During our selection process all officers who shot the Sig found it more comfortable than the other pistol options and most had no trouble qualifying with it as well as, if not better than, they did with their revolvers.
When I left the agency I had to give up my Sig and I haven't had a P226 in my armory since then - but that will be rectified shortly (I'm waiting for the paperwork to clear the state's folks now).
Heckler & Koch P7
While I was working for that agency and carrying the Sig P226 on duty, my off-duty gun - for awhile - was an H&K P7. The photo above right shows a P7M13 but mine was what eventually became the P7M8. Mine was so old that it still had the European style magazine release at the heel of the grip. The P7 is essentially a recoil-operated firearm with several unique features. The most obvious is the lever located on the front of the grip that pivots at the bottom. This lever performs a multitude of functions that most pistol aficionados expect other controls for. Double action trigger? Not to be found here. Squeezing the lever cocks the weapon. Single action trigger? Once the weapon is squeeze-cocked, that's what you have, but if you haven't loaded the action by squeezing the lever in, the trigger is a dead piece of pivoting metal that accomplishes nothing. Decocking lever? Not to be found. If the weapon is cocked it's because you've squeezed in the lever to load the action. To decock the weapon, simply loosen your grip to release the lever.
One of the most interesting features of the weapon, but one that isn't noticeable until you field-strip it, is the gas-retarded operation. My pistol came with tritium three-dot night sights and I was surprised to measure a six-inch sight radios (distance between sights) on the pistol. As compact as it appears, I was expecting the sight radius to be reduced. Not so. As a comparison, The Beretta M9 (92FS) and Glock mid-sized 9mm/.40 caliber pistols have approximately the same sight radius, the difference being 1/8 of an inch or less.
Shooting the P7 is a dream. Due to the gas cylinder that is incorporated into the design, the straight recoil and the 9mm caliber, the felt recoil is very light. This lessens the time required to get back on target and the fixed barrel increases the inherent accuracy of the weapon. Two examples are shown of test groups fired free-hand from seven yards - just over twenty feet. The groups we fired averaged two inches with the smallest coming in just under an inch and a half (1.5"). I miss my P7 and regret ever having sold it (especially given what they sell for now) but I don't see adding another one to my armory any time in the foreseeable future.
Beretta 92F / M9
At my next police agency the issued duty weapon was the Beretta 92FS. I can't say that - at the time - I was a huge fan of the Beretta 92F but it grew on me. The Beretta M9/92FS is a short recoil, semi-automatic pistol chambered for 9mm NATO ammunition. That's a 9x19 case with a 124g full-metal-jacket bullet. My agency issued Federal HydraShok 124g +P+ ammo and it functioned well. Internal, external and terminal ballistics had proven sufficient for our duty use. The barrel length of the Beretta M9 is just under five inches (125mm = 4.92": designed in Italy = metric measurements). The M9 has an ammunition capacity of 15 rounds in each magazine. If you add a chambered round, you have a total of 16. Extended 21 round magazines are available but became harder to find when the now-defunct infamous Clinton gun laws went into effect.
With an aluminum-alloy frame, and a steel slide, an empty Beretta M9 weighs about 2.1 pounds. Add in the fifteen round loaded magazine and you get a total weight of about 2.6 pounds. The trigger pull in single-action is 5.5 pounds, with the double-action pull straining the scale at 12.3 pounds. Since reloads are inevitable, the magazine release can be put into the frame to suit either a right- or left-handed shooter.
I spent eight years with this gun riding around in my duty holster - and out of it on more than a few occasions. I'd be quite comfortable with it in my hand today but I in my armory I have the .40S&W version - a 96F. They are externally identical so all my holsters work with both.
Glock Model 17 / 19
In about 1994, while I was carrying that Beretta 92F as my duty weapon, I wanted something smaller off duty - but I was hoping not to give up any capacity and I wanted an equivalent caliber so I only had to buy one type of ammo. My answer was the Glock Model 19. At 6.85 inches long and 5 inches tall, the G19 is definitely smaller than most duty pistols. I know some readers won't think it's fair to compare it to "duty" pistols, but I ask why not? The Beretta M9 (92F) carries fifteen rounds of 9mm plus one in the chamber. The SigArms P226 in 9mm carries 15+1. The G19 carries 15+1. I believe we are comparing apples to apples. If you really want to argue, compare the Glock 17 (17+1) to those other service pistols and realize what you're getting extra for the same size.
When I purchased my G19 it had standard night sights on it but I've since replaced those with the XS Sights 24/7 Standard Dot sights. I also had the slide duracoated OD Green for two reasons:
1. I like the way it looks, and
2. I can readily tell my gun from everyone else's if they're on a range table.
I've had a number of people tell me that the Glock is an ugly gun to which I reply, Pretty is as pretty does. The only Glock I've ever seen fail was one that the owner worked hard to screw up (brake cleaner and graphite don't mix well). A detailed strip and cleaning fixed it right up.
An evolution of the Glock Model 17, the operating system's "safe action" had been around for about a decade before I purchaed my first G19. I still have that same G19 and it's had over 20,000 rounds through it now. Except for the XS Sights and the duracoat, it's still stock just like the day I bought it. I've added +2 floorplates to a couple of the magazines but that's not a change to the gun, it's a change to the magazines.
Browning High Power
Anyone who has read my reviews for more than a few weeks probably knows that I'm a fan of the 1911 Government Model .45ACP pistol. What I've never discussed before is that I'm also a fan of another of John Browning's single-action designs: The High Power. While similarities between the two lead some to believe that one was designed as an improvement upon the other (with a debate on which came first), research shows that the development of each was independent of the other. The High Power was designed by John Browning and patented in 1922. He died in 1926 and full production hadn't yet begun. After Browning's death, a man named Dieudonne Saive, working for FN, fully developed and brought to production the High Power. In fact, Browning had to work around his own patents on the 1911 pistol because Colt had purchased them. It wasn't until those patents expired in 1928 that Saive was able to incorporate some of the design features into the High Power.
Once all design modifications, changes, upgrades, etc had been complete, the Browning-Saive "Grand Rendement" (High Yield in French; France originally commissioned it) was adopted in 1935 by Belgium's military. Ever since, the High Power has also been known as the P-35 or Model of 1935. In 1962 the design was modified to include an external extractor - an increase in reliability.
The Browning High Power was the first design to successfully incorporated a double-stack magazine design. This was created by Browning to answer the French requirement for a magazine that held 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition. Although Browning fell short by two rounds (the mags hold 13 rounds), he generated a big step in magazine technology by creating the double stack or staggered column magazine. Contemporary magazines do hold 15 rounds of 9mm and are available commercially on the internet.
One of the things that I don't particularly care for in this pistol design was also put in as one of the original requirements from the French: a magazine disconnect safety. The Browning High Power, without a magazine in place, won't function through pulling the trigger. Not only do I think this is a bad idea in any combat handgun, but by including this design feature the trigger pull was destined to be much harder and rougher than it should have been - especially for a single-action pistol.
The Browning High Power pistols have been used by a wide variety of military and law enforcement units internationally. During WWII both the Allies and the Axis powers used these pistols. To date over fifty of the world's armies have issued or authorized use of this weapon. Probably one of the best known special operations groups, the British Special Air Service (SAS) have used the High Power. Law enforcement teams that have used it include the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). No less than eight armies of the world still use this pistol, or some version of it, as their issued sidearm today.
The one I have in my safe I unfortunately only have one magazine for. I intend to remedy that as I enjoy this pistol and I look forward to being able to carry / shoot it more.
So that's my review of the 9mms in my collection - or that I've carried for any significant amount of time. While some folks refuse to carry a 9mm, it has a long history (over 100 years) of performance. It's even (a tad) older than the legendary .45ACP. As I said at the outset: I think shot placement is more important than the size of the hole. Your thoughts?
Stay Safe! | <urn:uuid:689deaad-40ca-432e-b164-291eb6ed995d> | 2 | 1.921875 | 0.022424 | en | 0.97194 | http://www.officer.com/article/10232363/the-9mm-option |
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Obama signs Pentagon bill maintaining Guantanamo and military detention
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This year, he remained silent on any commitment to these "traditions and values" and on the entire subject of future military detention. There was also no claim that he had fought tirelessly or otherwise to have offending provisions removed. Clearly, the language inserted last year in an attempt to mollify liberal and "left" supporters in advance of the 2012 presidential election was seen as no longer necessary.
If anything, this year's legislation has clarified even further the scale of the assault on democratic rights that has been signed into law.
In a closed-door meeting of Senate and House conferees, an amendment unanimously passed by the Senate providing limited protections to US citizens and permanent residents against indefinite military detention was stripped from the legislation without explanation. The amendment applied only to such citizens and residents abducted within the US, not to those grabbed overseas. It also left open that such detentions would be permissible given the possibility of a trial before a drum-head military tribunal and provides that an Act of Congress would be sufficient to abrogate the Constitution and the age-old right of habeas corpus, allowing the US military to arrest and effectively "disappear" US citizens within the US itself.
Nonetheless, even this amendment was ultimately ruled as overly restrictive on the use of military detention.
The vague and expansive language of the law enacted by Obama now permits the military to secretly grab virtually anyone deemed by the president to be an "enemy of the state" and throw them into Guantanamo or any other military prison to be held indefinitely without charges or trial.
It allows indefinite military detention to be employed against anyone, including US citizens, on the basis of unproven and secret charges that they have provided support to al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces," committed a "belligerent act" or given "aid" to "enemy forces."
With none of these terms defined, indefinite detention could be justified in cases ranging from antiwar protesters to journalists whose writings are deemed unduly sympathetic to Washington's many enemies. Workers on strike could be accused of committing a "belligerent act," as could someone viewed as overly critical of the US government.
What is involved here is not, as Obama's liberal critics would have it, merely political cowardice or a "failure to lead." As president, Obama has "led" in the direction demanded by America's ruling financial aristocracy and the military-intelligence complex. He has continued and deepened the crimes of the Bush administration, creating an apparatus of state assassinations as a virtual fourth branch of the US government.
It is not an accident that the president enacts legislation enshrining military detention without charges in law as his administration and the Congress prepare to make the working class pay for the economic crisis through savage cuts to social programs and a historic reduction in living standards. The ruling class anticipates social upheavals and is preparing accordingly.
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It’s Raining Rats
A killer disease returns to Mumbai
MONSOON MISERY Inside a flooded restaurant in Mumbai on 12 September 2005. A common sight in the city every monsoon
City reels under monsoon, Mumbai grinds to a halt as rains lash suburbs.
Even respectable journalese can state the literal truth sometimes. This year, like every year, the southwest monsoon took Mumbai by surprise. It arrived on schedule. It was not unusually severe. Our only surviving river, a viscid glide of filth, did not burst its concrete banks. Yet Mumbai reeled because with the very first showers, the municipal infrastructure collapsed irretrievably.
Right now, all of Mumbai is one vast suburb. Congested and potholed roads make the daily commute an odyssey. It was not just traffic snarls that kept many home this monsoon. They stayed home because they were too ill to work. Not all of them made the news: their diseases, ‘monsoon illnesses,’ were not notifiable.
Some were noticed. July began with eight cases of cholera, then there was the odd swine flu death, a few desultory pneumonias that may have been anything from avian flu to MersCoV. No public advisory of any practical use was issued.
The latest illness to make the news is leptospirosis. There have been four deaths from the disease. The best advice for the 20 million at risk is: ‘Don’t go barefoot in flooded areas.’
What kind of advice is that?
Is it okay to wade to work in chappals? Hasn’t anyone noticed the season’s unisex street chic? Sari, shalwar, jeans, trousers—everything hitched up way above water level. Don’t they know a rickshaw ride will get you a bath en route to the railway station?
Have puddle, will splash. But must we die from it?
Victims of leptospirosis may die of liver, kidney or respiratory failure. It is also a disease that can quickly become epidemic. And all we can find to say is don’t go barefoot in flooded areas?
Not that it’s bad advice, exactly. Yes, you can catch leptospirosis through abraded skin, and yes, don’t drink the water because rats urinate in it.
Is that very casual caution prevention enough? It reflects the bizarre disconnect between response and reality that defines our schizophrenic nation.
About a month ago, I heard experts on infectious diseases talk about ‘monsoon illnesses.’ Apart from the vaunted tests offered by their state-of-the-art laboratory, they had nothing new to say. I wondered how they had missed all the exciting shifts of thought medicine has explored in recent years. They were all professors, engaged in training tomorrow’s doctors, yet here they were spouting stuff already history when they were undergraduates twenty-five years ago.
When the talk turned to leptospirosis, the bored audience finally erupted. One physician barked, “What about garbage? What are you doing about clearing it?”
The experts reacted with surprise. The most eminent of them riposted, “Why are you asking us about garbage disposal? Whose garbage is it anyway?”
Another offered, “Garbage has nothing to do with it. Leptospirosis is caused by flooding.”
The question was answered by an embarrassed laugh. It is a common observation, it is well known, it is self-evident—yes, but why?
Following the Mumbai floods of 26 July 2005, 2,355 cases of leptospirosis were reported throughout Maharashtra. 167 people died. Earlier outbreaks (2000, 2001) had established that leptospirosis was endemic in the city. Reports of infection in children naively concluded with this circuitous statement: ‘Parents should warn their children to avoid areas flooded with contaminated water.’
Neither paediatricians nor epidemiologists nor parents thought to ask: Why are our roads flooded? Why is the water dangerously contaminated?
Leptospirosis today is a very different disease from what it was when first described, in 1889, by Adolf Weil. More specifically, it seems to be a very different disease in India. In very many ways, the changing story of leptospirosis is the story of the way we live.
The thrill of discovery is very apparent in the name: leptospira, ‘fine spiral.’ These delicate almost-not-there bacteria were first linked to Weil’s Disease in 1916. Leptospira are spirochaetes. Like their more famous relative that causes syphilis, leptospira are best seen in a dark-field microscope. Not all leptospira cause disease—a huge variety of leptospira are saprophytes that exist happily in muddy and aqueous environments without causing disease.
Leptospirosis is a zoonosis. Pathogenic (disease-causing) leptospira primarily infect many species—from cattle to cats and dogs to rats. Most of these species are maintenance hosts: the infection is transferred within them and they also form a reservoir.
Leptospira’s favourite hangout is the kidney and diseased animals shed the infective germ in urine. Many types (serovars) of pathogenic leptospira are known. Some animals, particularly small rodents, are reservoirs for specific serovars. Humans are incidental hosts. Human-to-human transmission of leptospirosis is, as yet, unknown. But judging from emerging patterns of the disease, it will not be long before we hear of this.
Leptospira flourish in alkaline water, rich in oxidising organic waste. In water and soil contaminated with urine from infected rodents, leptospira live for as long as seven weeks. Humans are infected through skin and mucosal contact with rat urine. At any given time, in an endemic area, like Mumbai, the amount of leptospira in a puddle is directly proportional to the number of rats in the vicinity.
The average rat is about as socially wired as a Mumbai teenager, and urine is its Twitter account. It tweets every few minutes of its lifespan, and it tweets everywhere. It pees on every surface it crosses, kitchen counter or sewer, they are all one to a rodent.
What does the rat tweet about? Any teenager can answer that—profile, availability, networking. Leptospira just happen to be on the page.
The rat that infects humans with leptospirosis is not necessarily sick. It might have dusted off a mild infection long back, but the microbe has colonised its kidney and coated the renal tubules with biofilms that can persist indefinitely. A rat in the prime of life will shed about 107 (10 raised to the power of 7) leptospira in every millilitre of urine for almost a year after it has recovered.
An urban rat (Rattus norvegicus) has the longevity of about three years, and it is ready to date and mingle by the time it starts tweeting at the age of three months. From then on, with single-minded dedication, each metrosexual rodent can produce around 2,000 offspring a year. Let us hope there are distractions, but even if rodentologists have fudged their math, we still are left with an awful number of rats.
Mumbai’s professional rat killers have been international news and Rat Race, Miriam Chandy Menacherry’s documentary, spares us no illusions. What methodology of sense does it make to pit a few hundred men, armed with flashlights and sticks, against 88 million rats?
And that’s just in one city.
What exactly happens when leptospira enters the human body?
It works its way to the bloodstream and sets off fever, bodyache, and chills—in no way distinguishable from a myriad other infections, bacterial, viral or protozoan.
In the first week of illness, a bad headache and fever are the principal discomforts, and if you’re lucky, recovery follows.
Very often, leptospira persist into a second phase of illness: small blood vessels all over the body are targeted, and, depending on the organ affected, a wide variety of life-threatening complications set in. Weil’s Disease, with jaundice and liver and kidney failure is just one of them.
Between 1988 and 1997, 524 cases of a killer fever ravaged the Andaman islands. For want of a better name, it was called Andaman Haemorrhagic Fever (AHF). Victims bled into the lungs and died of respiratory failure. In 1994, AHF was discovered to be one more vagary of leptospirosis. The Andamans continue to be a hotspot for leptospirosis, but haemorrhagic pneumonitis is a common complication of leptospirosis all over India.
Why? Is this something recent?
Researchers have recently sequenced the genome of two pathogenic serovars of Leptospira. It is to be hoped that we will soon learn what turns leptospira virulent enough to kill. Until we do, there is one obvious fact we persistently ignore: the ‘size of the inoculum.’ A whopping hit of even mildly infective leptospira can prove fatal. And Mumbai, with Himalayan embankments of stinking garbage on every street, has made certain of that.
How common is leptospirosis? More than 500,000 cases are reported globally every year, but that is unrealistic. India is rapidly rethinking the leptospirosis map. Northern states, which earlier were out of the reckoning, now find more than enough reason to suspect leptospirosis in most acute fevers. Kerala, Gujarat and Maharashtra, where the disease is endemic, are seeing more threatening forms of the disease. Gujarat and Kerala have Leptospirosis Control Programmes that actually work. Sporadically the disease manifests in an unexpected form as it did in Madurai where the eye was the principal site of infection.
Are these avatars so unexpected?
Sushruta, circa 1,500 BC, seemed to have seen them all. They are elegantly documented in his Samhita, which also contains an exhaustive treatise on rats that can be read with profit even today.
A quick look at the names leptospirosis has gone by tells us its story. Miner’s disease, Trench fever, Mud fever, Swamp fever, all speak of the longevity of leptospira in slush. It is part of the memory of all rice-growing nations—Japan calls it Nanukayami fever or autumn fever; British India called it paddy field fever or cane-cutter’s fever. Veterinarians were familiar with red water fever in calves, canicola fever in dogs, and swine-herd fever in humans. Leptospirosis was once an occupational disease. It was also largely agrarian. Butchers, sewer workers, fisherfolk, livestock farmers and veterinarians were the high-risk groups.
Just about anybody anywhere can catch leptospirosis today. It is commoner in tropical countries because we have more people, more wetlands and more reservoir species. It is rife in post-disaster situations everywhere. Outbreaks are common after floods and deluges.
What if an area permanently assumes the ecology of disaster?
A new geographical zone has defined itself on the leptospirosis map: the overburdened metropolis. In cities like Mumbai, with an exaggerated dichotomy between the haves and have-nots, more than half the population lacks sanitation. And it is this beleaguered section that keeps the city up and running.
Every highrise is wired to a nearby slum for life-support: domestic work, security, supplies and sundries. Between them is heaped a garbage mountain of their making. Children play in filthy puddles around it, fishmongers peddle their catch, dogs and cats prowl about hungrily. The only invisible element in this circus is the sutradhar of chaos—the rat.
The rat is everywhere, and so is leptospira.
Yes, leptospirosis is curable.
Yes, it can also kill.
No, there is no vaccine. Not yet. And considering the number of infective serovars, there will not be any very soon, one that is universally effective.
Yes, clinicians and researchers all over India are doing marvellous work. How much of this trickles through into policy? Control strategies can be debated and test schedules drawn up, but why not start with what is obvious? Why not clear the garbage first?
There are, of course, cogent reasons why clearing the city’s garbage has no bearing on leptospirosis—or indeed on cholera, dengue, malaria, encephalitis, enteric fever and the myriad gastrointestinal illnesses that afflict us. There have been no studies to show that these illnesses can actually decrease if the garbage is cleared. Other cities, other states, have even more cases of all these diseases, and even more rats perhaps.
And who said garbage is not cleared? Giant dumpsters kill schoolchildren every week, don’t they?
Oh, the stink? Get used to it, this is who we are. Whose garbage is it, anyway?
I was about to ask about civic pride when a rude laugh interrupted me.
Oh yes, in case you didn’t know, rats have many human traits. In addition to being sociable, empathetic and avid consumers of junk food, they also laugh.
This time the laugh is on us. | <urn:uuid:37b2c966-0784-4ad6-8a79-818c3f9bc8bd> | 2 | 2.078125 | 0.074069 | en | 0.958377 | http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/it-s-raining-rats |
The Enterprise Side of JavaFX: Part Two
by Adam Bien
Learn how to implement the LightView dashboard with JavaFX 2.
Published June 2012
Download: Java FX
In Part One of this three-part series, we discussed the service and model layer of a JavaFX application called LightView and focused on the conversion of REST services into a bindable set of properties. The entire communication layer, including Comet-style long polling, was encapsulated behind a boundary interface: org.lightview.presenter.DashboardPresenterBindings. The back-end services were made accessible through a set of bindable properties.
Here, in Part Two, I discuss the implementation of the LightView UI dashboard with JavaFX 2.
Web View Integration
The RESTful back end of the LightView application comes with a rudimentary HTML page that is used to start/stop the monitoring service, set the snapshot interval, and activate/deactivate the GlassFish monitoring capabilities, as shown in Figure 1. ("GlassFish" in this article refers to either Oracle GlassFish Server or GlassFish Server Open Source Edition.)
Figure 1. LightFish Configuration View
Figure 1. LightFish Configuration View
There is no additional benefit to re-implementing the JavaServer Faces (JSF) configuration view in native JavaFX controls. For configuration purposes, the JSF view is good enough to be integrated directly in a screen-scraping manner. Instead of accessing the REST services behind the scenes and rendering them into JavaFX components, the whole HTML page is rendered with a browser component inside the dashboard. The class org.lightview.view.Browser (see Listing 1) encapsulates the javafx.scene.web.WebView and only exposes the URI as a bindable StringProperty.
public class Browser extends Collapsible {
private StringProperty uri = new SimpleStringProperty();
private WebEngine engine;
private WebView webView;
private final static int HEIGHT = 280;
Browser() {}
Node view() {
if(webView == null)
return webView;
private void initialize() {
this.webView = new WebView();
this.engine = webView.getEngine();
this.prefHeight = this.webView.getPrefHeight();
public StringProperty getURI() {
return uri;
private void registerListeners() {
uri.addListener(new ChangeListener<String>() {
public void changed(ObservableValue<? extends String> observable,
String old, String newValue) {
if (newValue != null) {
String skipLastSlash(String uri) {
return uri;
return uri.substring(0, uri.lastIndexOf("/"));
public DoubleProperty getMaxHeightProperty() {
return this.webView.maxHeightProperty();
Listing 1. Encapsulation of the WebView Component
The URI StringProperty getURI() is directly bound to a text field:
TextField txtUri = TextFieldBuilder.
Any change to the URI StringProperty reloads and refreshes the contents of the javafx.scene.web.WebView without further intervention.
The URI property from the org.lightview.view.Browser component is directly bound to the textProperty of the TextField. This makes the interface of the org.lightview.view.Browser interface both narrow and convenient at the same time. The user of the Browser component has to deal only with the URI StringProperty, not with the javafx.scene.web.WebView or WebEngine functionality.
Some Eye Candy
The configuration view implemented in the org.lightview.view.Browser component is needed only to start or stop the monitoring process or set the monitoring interval. After the configuration, it can be minimized to provide more space for the monitoring widgets. Animated Browser hiding and recovery to the original size was extracted into a generic class org.lightview.view.Collapsible (see Listing 2).
public abstract class Collapsible {
protected double prefHeight;
private boolean minimized = false;
public boolean toggleMinimize() {
if (minimized) {
minimized = false;
} else {
minimized = true;
return minimized;
void minimize() {
void maximize() {
void animate(double toValue){ Timeline timeline = new Timeline();
new KeyFrame(Duration.seconds(1),
new KeyValue(getMaxHeightProperty(), toValue)));
protected abstract DoubleProperty getMaxHeightProperty();
Listing 2. Extraction of Minimalization into Collapsible Class
In the method Collapsible#animate in Listing 2, a DoubleProperty is increased or decreased to the double toValue value that is passed as a method parameter with the duration set to one second. The DoubleProperty is provided by implementing the method getMaxHeightProperty() in the subclass.
Interestingly, the class Collapsible has no reference to the actual javafx.scene.Node that is going to be collapsed. Only a DoubleProperty is "animated." The Browser subclass exposes the WebView#maxHeightProperty(), which is already bound to the Node internally. Without binding, the Collapsible class would have to get a direct reference to a Node class to be able to animate the size by serial invocation of a resize method.
Encapsulation for Simplicity
The main LightView responsibility is visualization of discrete numbers representing distinct application server subsystems, such as the pool size, the number of connections, the number of threads, or the number of failed transactions. Fortunately, these numbers are only loosely related to each other and can be visualized independently. Each monitorable value is going to be visualized by an org.lightview.view.Snapshot instance (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. An org.lightview.view.Snapshot Instance
Figure 2. An org.lightview.view.Snapshot Instance
The Snapshot visual component entirely encapsulates a javafx.scene.chart.XYChart component (see Listing 3). To change the value of the chart, you only have to change the state of the DoubleProperty value.
public class Snapshot {
private String title;
private String yAxisTitle;
private String yUnit;
private XYChart.Series<String, Number> series;
private static final int MAX_SIZE = 10;
private XYChart<String, Number> chart;
private static final double FADE_VALUE = 0.3;
private DoubleProperty currentValue;
private boolean activated;
private ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider;
public Snapshot(ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider, String title, String
yAxisTitle, String yUnit) {
this.title = title;
this.yAxisTitle = yAxisTitle;
this.yUnit = yUnit;
this.currentValue = new SimpleDoubleProperty();
this.idProvider = idProvider;
public Snapshot(ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider, String title, String yAxisTitle) {
private void initialize() {
final CategoryAxis xAxis = new CategoryAxis();
final NumberAxis yAxis = new NumberAxis();
final LineChart chart = new LineChart(xAxis,yAxis);
this.series = new XYChart.Series<String,Number>();
this.chart = chart;
private void registerListeners(){
this.currentValue.addListener(new ChangeListener<Number>() {
public void changed(ObservableValue<? extends Number>
observableValue, Number oldValue, Number newValue) {
public DoubleProperty value() { return currentValue; } public Node view(){ return this.chart; }
void deactivate(){
FadeTransition fadeAway = FadeTransitionBuilder.create().fromValue(1.0).toValue(FADE_VALUE).duration
activated = false;
void activate(){
FadeTransition fadeAway = FadeTransitionBuilder.create().fromValue(FADE_VALUE).toValue(1.0).duration
activated = true;
void onNewEntry(Number value) {
String id = "-";
if(idProvider != null)
id = String.valueOf(idProvider.get());
if(value.intValue() != 0){
this.series.getData().add(new XYChart.Data<String,Number>(id,value));
if(this.series.getData().size() > MAX_SIZE)
Listing 3. Encapsulation of XYChart in a Snapshot Component
An org.lightview.view.Snapshot exposes only a bindable value() DoubleProperty and the XYChart as an ordinary javafx.scene.Node to the user. Because javafx.scene.Node is a mostly generic visual component, the internal visualization can be changed without affecting the user. The Snapshot can be directly connected with the monitoring data using JavaFX binding in a one-liner:
public interface DashboardPresenterBindings {
ReadOnlyLongProperty getThreadCount();
//...other properties omitted
//connecting the presenter with the view
The chart updates are implemented in the method onNewEntry (Listing 3). The onNewEntry method, however, is not intended to be used directly and was, therefore, set to have package-private visibility. The Snapshot registers itself as javafx.beans.value.ChangeListener to the exposed value() DoubleProperty and converts all state changes into onNewEntry method invocations. A DoubleProperty in JavaFX context is easier to use than custom Java methods, and it also makes the interface more generic without inhibiting usability. The ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider provides the value for the x-axis. The value for the x-axis is fetched on each new arrival of monitoring data. The value is useful for the correlation of all visualization widgets.
The main driver behind the encapsulation is not reuse or extensibility, but rather simplicity. It is far easier to test an encapsulated piece of functionality than to test presentation logic that is held tightly together with binding and scattered across multiple classes. Pragmatic encapsulation makes a visual component easier to maintain, because concepts and metaphors are directly materialized in code.
Both methods DoubleProperty value() and Node view() could be extracted into a dedicated interface to decouple the user from the Snapshot class and make the API more explicit. Since both methods are the only methods with public visibility and the introduction of another Snapshot class is rather unlikely, a dedicated Java interface would only increase the code complexity without providing a concrete benefit.
Composition for Flexibility
The Snapshot views are integrated into a composite org.lightview.view.Dashboard view. The Dashboard instantiates, lays out, and organizes related Snapshot views into tabs (see Listing 4).
package org.lightview.view;
import javafx.collections.MapChangeListener;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.scene.Node;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.*;
import javafx.scene.layout.HBox;
import javafx.scene.layout.HBoxBuilder;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import org.lightview.presenter.ConnectionPoolBindings;
import org.lightview.presenter.DashboardPresenterBindings;
public class Dashboard {
DashboardPresenterBindings dashboardPresenter;
Stage stage;
private TextField txtUri;
private Browser browser;
private Snapshot heap;
private Snapshot threadCount;
//...other Snapshots omitted
private Grid grid;
private TabPane tabPane;
private Node uriInputView;
public Dashboard(Stage stage, DashboardPresenterBindings dashboardPresenter) {
this.dashboardPresenter = dashboardPresenter;
this.stage = stage;
this.tabPane = new TabPane();
private void createViews() {
this.vertical = new VBox();
HBox threadsAndMemory = new HBox();
HBox paranormal = new HBox();
HBox transactions = new HBox();
HBox web = new HBox();
String hBoxClass = "boxSpacing";
this.threadCount.view(), this.peakThreadCount.view());
this.totalErrors.view(), this.busyThread.view());
Tab threadsAndMemoryTab = createTab(threadsAndMemory, "Threads And
Tab transactionsTab = createTab(transactions, "Transactions");
Tab paranormalTab = createTab(paranormal, "Paranormal Activity");
Tab webTab = createTab(web, "Web");
this.tabPane.getTabs().addAll(threadsAndMemoryTab, transactionsTab,
paranormalTab, webTab);
this.vertical.getChildren().addAll(uriInputView, this.browser.view(),
this.tabPane, this.grid.createTable());
private void instantiateViews() {
this.uriInputView = createURIInputView();
this.browser = new Browser();
ReadOnlyLongProperty id = this.dashboardPresenter.getId();
this.heap = new Snapshot(id, "Heap Size", "Used Heap");
this.threadCount = new Snapshot(id, "Thread Count", "Threads");
//...other Snapshots omitted
this.grid = new Grid(this.dashboardPresenter.getSnapshots());
private void bind() {
//... other bindings omitted
MapChangeListener<String, ConnectionPoolBindings>() {
public void onChanged(Change<? extends String, ? extends
ConnectionPoolBindings> change) {
ConnectionPoolBindings valueAdded = change.getValueAdded();
if (valueAdded != null)
public void open() {
Scene scene = new Scene(this.vertical);
private Tab createTab(Node content, String caption) {
Tab tab = new Tab();
return tab;
void createPoolTab(ConnectionPoolBindings valueAdded) {
ReadOnlyLongProperty id = this.dashboardPresenter.getId();
String jndiName = valueAdded.getJndiName().get();
ConnectionPool connectionPool = new ConnectionPool(id, valueAdded);
Node view = connectionPool.view();
Tab tab = createTab(view, "Resource: " + jndiName);
private Node createURIInputView() {
final Button button = new Button();
button.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
public void handle(ActionEvent actionEvent) {
HBox hBox = HBoxBuilder.create().spacing(10).build();
this.txtUri = TextFieldBuilder.
Label uri = LabelBuilder.create().labelFor(txtUri).text("LightFish
hBox.getChildren().addAll(uri, txtUri, button);
return hBox;
private void toggleBrowserSize(Button button) {
boolean minimized = this.browser.toggleMinimize();
if (minimized) {
} else {
Listing 4. Organizing Snapshots into a Dashboard
Because Snapshot instances are already self-contained, the Dashboard only has to instantiate them and connect them with the underlying monitoring data. Each Snapshot is instantiated with a title and an ID provider that is needed to synchronize the x-axis of all the widgets (see the constructor in Listing 3 and method Dashboard#instantiateViews in Listing 4).
The Snapshot views (javafx.scene.Node instances) are wrapped with javafx.scene.layout.HBox for layout purposes. Sets of the Snapshot widgets visualize related monitoring data and are organized into javafx.scene.control.Tab instances (see the second half of the method createViews()).
In the method Dashboard#bind(), each Snapshot is connected with the corresponding value from the DashboardPresenterBindings. To introduce a new widget you will have to do the following:
1. Make a available from DashboardPresenterBindings.
2. Instantiate a Snapshot in the Dashboard view.
3. Assign the Snapshot to a Tab.
4. Bind the Snapshot with a corresponding value from the presenter interface.
The interface DashboardPresenterBinding defines the binding API of the org.lightview.presenter.DashboardPresenter and was discussed in the previous article. Communication with the RESTful back end and conversion of XML data into bindable properties are the main responsibilities of the service layer exposed by the DashboardPresenter.
During LightView startup (see Listing 5), the DashboardPresenter is instantiated and passed together with the Stage to the Dashboard view's constructor.
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import org.lightview.presenter.DashboardPresenter;
import org.lightview.view.Dashboard;
public class App extends Application {
public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
DashboardPresenter dashboardPresenter = new DashboardPresenter();
new Dashboard(primaryStage,dashboardPresenter);
Listing 5. Starting LightView
The method main is simple. The command-line arguments are passed to the method Application#launch. The JavaFX runtime invokes the method Application#start, which instantiates the Dashboard after instantiating the DashboardPresenter.
LightView comes with a minimal set of CSS rules externalized in the lightview.css file. The CSS file is loaded as a resource and added to the javafx.scene.Scene (see method Dashboard#open()in Listing 4):
The CSS file contains only the spacing for the widgets and styling for the chart title:
-fx-padding: 10 10 10 10;
.chart-title {
-fx-font-size: 1.0em;
All JavaFX components are stylable via CSS. The lightview.css file can be used to change significantly the look and feel of the entire application without changing the source code.
On-the-Fly Composites
The idea of the separation of view and bindings was also applied to monitor a JDBC connection pool. Each connection pool comes with several monitoring values, such as the number of free connections, the number of connections in use, the length of the wait queue, and the number of mistakenly unclosed connections. These independent but related values are visualized together with the org.lightview.view.ConnectionPool class (see Listing 6).
public class ConnectionPool {
private HBox box;
private Snapshot freeConnections;
private Snapshot usedConnections;
private Snapshot waitQueueLength;
private Snapshot connectionLeaks;
private ConnectionPoolBindings bindings;
private ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider;
public ConnectionPool(ReadOnlyLongProperty idProvider, ConnectionPoolBindings
connectionPoolBindings) {
this.bindings = connectionPoolBindings;
this.idProvider = idProvider;
private void createSnapshotViews(){
this.freeConnections = new Snapshot(idProvider,"Free Connections",
"Connections", "");
//...other Snapshot instantiations omitted = new HBox();
//other additions omitted
private void bind() {
//other Snapshot binding omitted
public Node view() {
return box;
Listing 6. Encapsulation of Connection Pool Monitoring
ConnectionPool is a composite of Snapshot views. From the outside, it looks like a Snapshot, but it actually manages several Snapshot instances internally. Similarly to the Dashboard view, a ConnectionPool expects a ConnectionPoolBindings instance and binds the Snapshot view to the monitoring data internally.
In contrast to "usual" Snapshot views, which represent always existent monitoring data, the number of installed connection pools depends heavily on application configuration. For this reason, the ConnectionPool views are integrated on-the-fly in the method Dashboard#createPoolTab (see Listing 4).
The number of created connections is dependent on the contents of the ObservableMap<String, ConnectionPoolBindings> returned by the method DashboardPresenterBindings#getPools(). The Dashboard registers itself as a listener (see the end of the method Dashboard#bind in Listing 4) and gets notified upon each change to the contents of the ObservableMap. Every addition results in the creation of a new ConnectionPool view with the corresponding DashboardPresenterBindings instance. Removal of undeployed connection pools during monitoring was not implemented for simplicity reasons. In the unlikely case of connection pool undeployment during monitoring, you would have to restart the application to get rid of the superfluous monitoring tab.
Data Binding and Tables
In addition to the visual representation with charts, all the monitoring values are displayed in a TableView (see Listing 7).
import javafx.collections.ObservableList;
import javafx.scene.Node;
import javafx.scene.control.TableColumn;
import javafx.scene.control.TableView;
import javafx.scene.control.cell.PropertyValueFactory;
import org.lightview.model.Snapshot;
public class Grid {
private ObservableList<Snapshot> snapshots;
public Grid(ObservableList<Snapshot> snapshots) {
this.snapshots = snapshots;
public Node createTable(){
TableView tableView = new TableView();
ObservableList columns = tableView.getColumns();
columns.add(createColumn("monitoringTime","Monitoring Time"));
columns.add(createColumn("usedHeapSizeInMB","Heap Size"));
columns.add(createColumn("threadCount","Thread Count"));
//...other columns omitted
return tableView;
private TableColumn createColumn(String name,String caption) {
TableColumn column = new TableColumn(caption);
column.setCellValueFactory(new PropertyValueFactory<Snapshot,String>(name));
return column;
Listing 7. The TableView Wrapped in the Grid
The org.lightview.view.Grid widget expects a javafx.collections.ObservableList instance that contains Snapshot domain objects in its constructor. The bindable ObservableList is passed in the TableView#setItem method as a parameter. New entries in the ObservableLists are directly reflected as rows in the TableView.
The columns of the TableView are created with the javafx.scene.control.cell.PropertyValueFactory with the name of the property to bind and the visible header text. The name of the property has to correspond to the attribute of the model object. A column with the name "threadCount" : columns.add(createColumn("threadCount","Thread Count")) has to correspond to the name of the attribute in the model class:
public class Snapshot {
private int threadCount;
The PropertyValueFactory shrinks the amount of code that is needed to implement a grid view. You can bind an attribute of a domain object to a column with a single line of code. With reflection and annotations, you could even automate the whole process.
Structuring Non-Trivial JavaFX Applications
JavaFX encourages encapsulation without forcing you to build models for each visual component. With the availability of bindable properties, the boundary between the view and the model can be reduced to an expressive set of bindable properties. Wrapping JavaFX components with ordinary Java classes further reduces the complexity. Instead of dealing with low-level JavaFX mechanics all the time, you can build simple components and break down the complexity of the presentation logic into understandable pieces. CSS skinning further helps with the separation of the code that is needed for the implementation of the presentation logic and the visual appearance of the application on the screen. You can adjust significant portions of an application's look and feel directly in CSS files without touching the actual source code.
See Also
About the Author
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Chapter 9: Dyed in His Hue
If the body is covered with dirt,
Water can wash it away.
If the clothes are soiled and polluted,
Soap and water can wash them clean.
Even if mind is filled with evil,
Love for His name can dye you in His hue.
Saint or sinner are no empty words;
All our actions have been recorded.
Man sows and he himself reaps the harvest.
Nanak says, By divine order are some saved and others reborn.
By visiting holy places, austerities, compassion, and good deeds,
You may gain respect from others;
But he who listens to God and meditates on His name,
His heart is filled with love and he is deeply cleansed.
All virtues are Yours, O Lord. Nothing is in me.
Without virtuous actions, no true devotion exists.
Yours is the only true word. You are the sound.
You are Brahma. Your power is magnificent and self-directing.
What was that time, what date, what season,
What month when You assumed form and creation began?
The pundits knew it not,
Or they would have written it in the holy books;
Neither did the kazis know,
Or they would have put it in the Koran;
Nor did the yogis know the day, the time,
The season and month when it happened.
The creator who creates all creation,
He alone knows.
How should one praise Him and express His greatness?
How can one know Him?
He is supreme. His name is great.
Everything happens as He ordains.
Whoever credits himself as worthy,
Gains no honor before Him.
Religion is an internal bath. When we travel from place to place our clothes become dirty and collect dust. This is easily removed by washing. But as we travel through time, dust gathers on the mind, which is not as easy to remove as the dust in the clothes. Because the body is external the water required to cleanse it is available outside; since the mind and its dust are within we have to acquire some cleaner within.
Every moment the dust keeps gathering within, even if you do nothing but sit. A man may indulge in no activity, yet his body requires a bath each day. The mind is never inactive, but always doing something or other; a tranquil mind is rare. So dust is gathering on your mind every moment, which, no matter how many times you bathe during the day, cannot be cleansed by the outside water.
This sutra relates to water within. It is priceless. If you understand it well enough to recognize the lake within, you will have acquired a key to transform you life. Whatever keys you hold now, none is effective. Had even one worked, there would be no further need to understand Nanak. Though you have many keys, your ego will not allow you to admit that they are useless.
Mulla Nasruddin was a servant in a rich man’s house. One day he told his master, “I wish to retire. I can serve you no longer. After all there’s a limit to one’s endurance. You have no faith in me, and I cannot bear it any longer.”
“How can you say, Nasruddin,” the master asked, “that I do not trust you? Aren’t the keys of my safe always lying on the table?”
“Yes,” said the Mulla, “But none of the keys fits the safe.”
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The Decline Of Weights & Measures
by Anonymous (8/12/1996)
[Cited as an example of the decline of Weights & Measures]
Our community is discarding the useful weights and measures learnt by centuries of experience by replacing Imperial with Metric measure. The following article is from Keefe university, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. It is about the proposed metrication of the United Kingdom but it clearly reveals the defeat of commonsense that metrication entails.
SURELY the most irritating excuse produced for the European Commission's banning of British Imperial weights and measures is the claim that feet and inches, gallons and pints, pounds and ounces do not belong in the "modern world". This claim has never cut much ice. The USA put Neil Armstrong on the moon using Imperial measurements and continues to use feet and inches in designing space satellites. The most modern desk-top publishing computer programmes use fractions of an inch to measure letter sizes, and electronic weighing scales in supermarkets display pound and ounces on digitalised readouts. What is not so well known is that it is in fact the metric system, which is outmoded and flawed, seriously hampering efficient practices of measuring, division and tallying.
The problem with metric is that every unit is based on the number ten. In weight, for example, there are 10 mg in 1 cg, 10 cg in 1 dg, 10 dg in 1 g, 10g in 1 Dg, 10Dg in 1hg, 10 hg in 1 kg, 10 kg in 1 Mg, and so on. Although metric's decimal structure is much acclaimed by supporters of conversion, the rigidity of constant multiplications of ten frequently means that metric measures overshoot desirable or useful proportions. Take the experience of the metric system in the building industry as an example. Metric fails to produce any intermediate unit between the decimetre (4 inches) and the metre (40 inches) and so deprives builders of the Imperial foot, used throughout history and suitable for a wide range of building needs such as planning grids. As a result, the building trade sector, both in Britain and in Europe, has created the "metric foot" of 30 centimetres together with larger units of 120 or 90 centimetres (metric yards) into which metric feet may divide. Metric in the building industry survives because the metre can be discarded in favour of measures that reproduce the very Imperial units metric was intended to replace.
Cans of soft drink provide another example of metric inefficiency. Drink cans cannot be produced in metric units because there are no metric measures available that reflect normal drinking quantities. The litre is much too big and the centilitre is much too small. Instead, the canning industry has had to divide the litre by about a third and produce a non-standard metric measure of "330 millilitres" in order to produce a suitable quantity. The figure of 330 millilitres does not constitute an exact third of a litre because no metric measure can be divided by three without producing an infinitely recurring decimal(3.333333 etc). Thus, three cans of Coke make 0.99 litres, not one litre. Rather than streamlining our system of measurement, metrication disrupts it.
Metric's inappropriate divisions are compounded by the fact that metric is based on abstract scientific principles which are aloof from everyday uses. The metre is defined as
"The length equal to 1,650,763.3 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p to base 10 and Sd to base 5 of the krypton 86 atom."
As fascinating as such equations are to atomic scientists, metric measures do not bear any relevance to the vast diversity of human activities such as commerce, construction, surveying, cooking and weighing new-born babies. Whereas the British system has evolved around the essentials of what people carry, drink or work with (producing the pound, pint and foot), the metric system is a combination of unergonomic units based on a number that can seldom be cleanly divided and from which important proportions cannot be expressed as single units. Metric is workable only by abandoning its standard measures, the metre, kilo and litre, and replacing them with units of different sizes based on human needs and totally unrelated to "wavelengths in a vacuum". And because of metric's decimal structure, desirable quantities can only be represented by larger numbers of numerous digits: the logical unit of one pound of tinned food therefore becomes the metric standard of 420 grams; one gallon of engine oil becomes five litres of oil; a straightforward foot of fabric becomes twenty-five centimetres of fabric; two inch wide masking tape becomes fifty millimetres; a pint of milk becomes five hundred millilitre units; and roof-boxes, baths and tables previously measured as five or six feet explode into hundreds of centimetres or thousands of millimetres.
Such conversions do not make numbers more logical or streamlined, just bigger. There is no magic process by which measuring the world in metric improves it. Selling petrol by litres instead of gallons does not improve efficiency or solve world pollution. Enforcing metric measures in the building industry does not make houses faster to build or ensure superior quality. Nor is there any evidence that converting clothing sizes from inches to centimetres will make clothes easier to fit.
Any glance at history will confirm the use of metric does not ensure success. Whereas Britain's industrial growth during the 1800s was at a time of Imperial measurements, Britain's decline from the 1960s was during the very first move towards metric. Going decimal in 1971 did not prevent the period of inflation that followed, nor has the metrication of school education improved the level of learning. During the Second World War, countries that used Imperial measures were victors while losers used metric. If metricators only studied the metric countries they are so keen to copy, they would find that most have adapted the metric system to reproduce Imperial measures that existed prior to their own metrication. Examples include the French "livre"and the German "Pfund" (500 grams, about one pound in weight), and the Swedish inch (25 millimetres). Numerous European industries have not yet converted to metric: the German gun industry, the Dutch plumbing trade and the Swedish timber industry all use Imperial measures. Belgium, home of the European Union, uses acres, not metric hectares. And it should not be forgotten that the most powerful economy in the world uses Imperial measures: the United States of America.
The lack of closely-argued research by the British Government to demonstrate the supposed "benefits" of metrication is even more astonishing considering that the costs of transferring to metric amounts to a staggering 12 billion. Having lost the technical argument, metricators resort to the claim that Imperial measures are "complicated and difficult to understand". This is rather like suggesting people are unable to grasp the concept of a right angle because right angles consist of ninety degrees rather than 100. It is a simple fact that we all live in an "irrational" 365 or 366 day year in which the measurements of hours, days and months involves units as diverse as 60, 24, 7,14, 28, 30, 31, 12 and 52. Although there is not a single ten involved in measuring the passage of time, this writer has yet to meet anyone who cannot tell the time because of the "confusing" division of hours into 60 rather than 100 minutes, or who is unable to remember the day because there are seven days in a week instead of a logical "ten".
The entire metric attack on Britain flies in the face of European Union President Jacques Santer's assurance in May 1995 that European Union did not threaten the UK's national identity or cultural traditions. The reality is that the European Union is intent on abolishing almost every British measure by means of European Union directives 89/617 and 80/181 which have compelled the metric conversion of a vast range of packaged foods, liquids, carpets and commercial documents affecting industry, local authorities and public sector administration. Small concessions such as the printing of Imperial measures in small print along metric on food packaging are likely to be withdrawn in 1999, and the few areas to escape this year's imposition, in particular the weighing of loose fruit in pounds and ounces, will be banned on January 1st 2000.
But surely, argue the supporters of European Union, Britain is now a part of Europe and should accept European ways. Here in lies the Great Euro-Lie. If the European Union regarded Britain as much a part of Europe as France and Germany, then it necessarily follows that pints are just as European as litres, and miles as European as kilometres. The European Union's hostility to the European way of life which has developed in Britain reveals that its definition of "Europe" is a strictly selective one. It defines what is European and what is not — and its campaign against European culture in Britain reveals that British people have no place in Europe other than as 57 million featureless numbers to add to the growing Euro-bureaucratic machine. An English village sweet shop can no longer sell four ounces of butterscotch but has to say "113 grams" and 9 by 4 inch envelopes will be re-labelled "229 x 102 millimetres" in a clumsy attempt to show how accurate metric can be. The British people, who have been quite happy with pints and pounds, will be forced instead to learn words like "decagram" and "hectalitre". But nowhere are the effects of metrication more ludicrous than in our courts. Any witness who refers to a six-inch knife will be told by the judge to say a "152 millimetre" knife and instructed to speak only in terms of centimetres and metres. Thus, even to speak in non-metric language will be banned by the European Union in some circumstances.
The sheer unpopularity of European Union directives 89/617 and 80/181 may be gauged by the Government's threat of £5,000 fines and six month prison sentences for those who use Imperial measures. Due to the Government's attempt to sneak the changes in unnoticed by the public at large, confusion and contradiction has surrounded just who and what is affected by the directives. Doorstep milk pints may stay (for the time being) but milk cartons have to go metric. Shandy in pints is banned but pints of beer may remain. Pizza restaurants may continue to refer to seven inch pizzas rather than "177 millimetre" pizzas, but it remains unclear whether bicycle shop assistants risk prosecution if they say that a cycle has an 18-inch wheel instead of an European Union approved "457 mm" wheel. And will the police be guilty of a criminal offence should they refer to a suspect's height in some official document as "six feet"? The classification "criminal" is a serious one and should be reserved for people who rob, assault and kill. That people like grocers and tailors can go to prison for failing to observe surreal metric-diktat is an indication of the mad Euro-whirlpool into which we are all being sucked.
Metrication is not the only form of uniformity being imposed by the European Union. Brussels has already phased in European Union passports and is now pushing the idea of a Euro-driving licence (complete with mugshots). This is likely to be followed by some sort of Euro-identity card. Perhaps Brussels might like to also consider scrapping British Bank Holidays and replacing them with Euro Holidays? Or introducing a Euro-wide telephone box design, or a single Euro-uniform for postmen, or the abolition of the British legal system? Or triangular tea-bags?
It defies belief that when there are so many real problems confronting Europe such as the war in Bosnia, Brussels finds time to fiddle about with such issues as whether manufacturers from outside Cornwall and Yorkshire should be permitted to call their products Cornish pasties and Yorkshire puddings. The European Union is presently considering a proposal by the European Parliament to set up a "European Observation Station" to monitor flying saucers. No less than 20,000 directives interfering in every conceivable subject from carrots and cucumbers to carpets and coffins have flooded out of Brussels. One of the European Union's most recent directives has been its historic decision to forbid the use of a harmless colouring dye in frozen mushy peas. As a result, frozen mushy peas will be sold yellow in colour from June 1996.
"I don't know what we're going to do," says John Clark, sales director of frozen mushy pea producer, Lockwoods of Ambergate, which employs 24 people. "We have been producing mushy peas for thirty years . . . We feel this is a case of the big boys in Brussels pushing around small British firms. "
Lockwoods of Ambergate will stop production in December 1995.
Other firms to feel the pressure of Euro-remoulding include rural garages which make small sales of petrol and have found it difficult meeting the cost of spending thousands of pounds on metric pumps. According to garage owner Frank Robertson from Cloughton, North Yorkshire,
"It's uneconomic to lashout on new pumps serving litres."
Mr Robertson's Orchard Garage opened in 1929 and has now closed as a result of metrication. According to a motor trade estimate, four thousand rural garages have closed. All thanks to the streamlined beauty of "European Union".
Europe has a long history of producing regimes and ideologies committed to the concept of the European superstate: Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia. Now we have the Brussels Bureaucracy, intent on invading every nook and cranny of our national life and imposing conformity and obedience on 365 million people. But there remains —just—a glimmer of hope. Although the European Union can force unpopular directives by means of legal and bureaucratic coercion, it has failed to realise that forcing people to measure their height in centimetres does not make people like centimetres. Forcing people to use kilometres instead of miles will not make them like kilometres. And forcing British people to carry European identity cards will not make people feel European.
Rather than forging a new European identity, the European Union's constant pushing is more likely to increase resistance, and it is in this that the seed of the European Union's future destruction will lie. "Metric Day" has cut Imperial measures down in swathes and has been a devastating defeat for commonsense. Yet anti-metric sentiment can be heard in pubs, offices and supermarkets across the country. Here and there individuals are turning to face the metric onslaught. Property consultant Mike Natrass of Birmingham's Natrass Giles, recently turned down a merger proposal when he learnt that the other company was going metric. He said, "We are British and don't want to see things that are British being lost." Another businessman, Bruce Robertson, owner of the Trago Mills Store Group in Devon and Cornwall, has made public his intention to risk fines in order to resist metrication. And spearheading the fight is the British Weights and Measures Association established by Vivian Linacre. Mr Linacre has vowed to stop metric absorption at all costs and is to challenge compulsory metrication in the European Court of Justice. Britain has four years before the current wave of metrication is completed. This period must be used to bring urgent pressure on our Government to halt the process it has so negligently permitted by giving the people of Britain a clear assurance that the mile and the pub pint will remain. The Government must decriminalise Imperial measures, resist the European Union's banning order on pounds and ounces on January 1st 2000, and, most important of all, restore the teaching of Imperial measures in education. Such a stand will at last tell the bureaucrats of Brussels that Britain is not about to be stamped, streamlined and standardised according to specifications decided by officials the British people did not elect. Otherwise, for every inch we give the European Union, they will take a mile, or, as the European Union would prefer to say,
"Give us 25.4 millimetres and we will take 1.609 kilometres. "
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spying on saddam
who killed unscom?: analysis
navigation, see below for text
SCOTT RITTER A former U.S. Marine intelligence officer, he was lead inspector for UNSCOM's Concealment and Investigations unit. He resigned in late 1998 on the heels of escalating intransigence by Iraq in its dealings with UN inspection teams.
scott ritterWell, there's a large number of players involved here [in killing UNSCOM]. You have Iraq, which was not complying fully with Security Council resolutions. What I mean by fully is they weren't letting UNSCOM complete that last few percentage points to get us up to 100 percent.
So, Iraq is complicit. But that'd been happening for eight years. UNSCOM was alive and well and breathing for seven years. So, you can't say that Iraq killed UNSCOM because Iraq behaved the same way throughout, and UNSCOM still existed.
The Security Council created UNSCOM under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, and that carries with it a promise to enforce its own law, and the Security Council wasn't enforcing its law, and that helped to perpetuate this cycle of cheat-and-retreat confrontation, and then, backing down.
You could say the Security Council killed UNSCOM, but again, that's a process that's been taking place for years, and UNSCOM was still alive, well, breathing, kicking, doing its job.
Now we come down to the final two players. You have an executive chairman who, for whatever reasons, has become enamored with the support of the United States. You have a United States administration, the Clinton Administration, which, as we've seen with Madeleine Albright's unfortunate statements of 1997, have decided to pervert international law and say that it doesn't matter what Iraq does with disarmament, we're going to keep economic sanctions in place.
Now, these sanctions are becoming harder and harder to defend, on two fronts. One, what good are they doing? Are they having an impact on the target, Saddam Hussein? The answer is no. Who suffers under sanctions? Innocent Iraqi people. Thousands of children under the age of five die every month because of these sanctions, and while the American public might be oblivious to this, believe me, the rest of the world is not, and the longer we continue this program of economic sanctions targeted against Iraq, the more isolated the United States becomes.
But Richard Butler had come to a decision that we couldn't carry out certain activities without the support of the United States. That the United States was somehow our No. 1 backer in the Security Council, and he allowed the United States to start calling the shots. An inspection a little too confrontational, Richard? Why don't we pull the plug on it, buddy, and stop it.
I think the Clinton Administration has made it far, far worse than it ever needed to be. In part, they simply didn't invest in the maintenance of international opposition to Saddam. It's not enough to pick up the phone when Saddam does something and the crisis is at hand. You've got to invest in these relationships so if and when Saddam does something, people are prepared to push back. The Clinton Administration tended not to do that.
They've also either been unwilling to use force in a serious way.-- It's been often feckless. At times they've threatened to use force, then haven't followed through. So we've had the worst of all worlds -- a lot of pin pricks. But every time you use military force, you draw down on your political capital. You draw down on the resolve of this international consensus to confront Saddam. But we weren't getting enough for it.
So it seems to me the Administration has often gotten it exactly wrong. They did some things -- enough to anger or at least alienate a lot of the international community -- but not really enough to either help UNSCOM or to really change what Saddam could and could not do. So I think we've paid a price for our policy.
barton gellman[With UNSCOM] you begin to get a picture of just how convoluted, how Byzantine, the politics and operations of this world's first experiment in multi-national intelligence could be.
You are necessarily drawing on the most closely guarded techniques and capabilities of member states. You are bringing a coalition together that has quite different ideas about what UNSCOM should be doing, and suspicions of each other, and secondary agendas which could be served by this interesting device of an agency which gathers all of this kind of information. And it just became a mess.
Ultimately, I think that's what destroyed UNSCOM. UNSCOM as presently constituted, is never going back into Iraq. I think that the era of intrusive, on-demand inspections in Iraq is probably over, as well.
It may be that UNSCOM simply had an impossible mission from the beginning. The French have been saying for awhile -- and I think the American government has come around to this view -- that the only way to disarm a country against its will is to occupy it. We did it after the Second World War with Germany and Japan. Came in, wrote a new constitution for Japan. Expunged everyone that the U.S. wanted to expunge from the Japanese power structure. And started over.
George Bush made a conscious decision not to do that in Iraq. Norm Schwarzkopf had contingency plans for pressing on to Baghdad, toppling the government, and installing a new government. George Bush said, "That's not what we're going to do." They then passed a resolution backed by these overwhelming military forces that said, "You, Iraq, are going to disarm from these special weapons or else." They did not put the ground forces in place to compel that behavior. They thought they could do it with threats and with an oil embargo, and they couldn't.
But what killed UNSCOM is that these rivalries and these overlapping and competing agendas ultimately ate away at it from within.
There is a school of thought out there now that is blaming Butler for UNSCOM's decline. I'm not sure I agree. Fundamentally, he was dealing with a different hand. The biggest thing that changed was that sanctions fatigue and different national agendas set in and UNSCOM support on the Security Council, which was always uneven, declined.
At the very moment that UNSCOM felt the need to use ever more intrusive and controversial methods to find Iraq's weapons, the Security Council was more and more uncomfortable with what UNSCOM was doing. And nobody could have played that hand successfully, in my opinion.
By the end there simply was not the international consensus to do what UNSCOM needed to do to find Iraq's weapons. You had this delicate balance all throughout the last several years, in which the United States and UNSCOM and Britain were desperately trying to hold onto the hammer of military threats to secure Iraqi compliance, and throughout that period they are watching the Security Council support erode.
dr. khidir hamzaIn a sense, Ritter, by doing this, almost destroyed now UNSCOM.... These revelations, which he had to share, the international inspection system itself now is in danger, because not many states would be forthcoming in allowing such an inspection system anymore, without calculating the possibility of ... having spies from the big power in charge of the teams.
You had Iraqi informers inside the international--
readings & links + chronology + synopsis + tapes & transcripts
frontline + pbs online + wgbh
web site copyright 1995-2014 WGBH educational foundation
| <urn:uuid:15dd4151-d37b-471f-ac0c-9820654f9584> | 2 | 1.726563 | 0.181042 | en | 0.979514 | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/unscom/experts/whokilled.html |
Insurance has existed at least since Babylonian legal codes, which 3,700 years ago required that citizens be reimbursed for robbery and have their debts canceled if natural disaster ruined crops. Today policies cover everything from death to a pianist's stubbed pinky. Indeed, Americans buy nearly half the insurance sold worldwide each year, and the industry has grown so massive it now employs three times as many people (1.8 million) as the U.S. Postal System and has more assets ($700 billion) than the nation's top 50 corporations combined. Undaunted, financial writer Andrew Tobias, 34, has taken on the insurance behemoth in a new book, The Invisible Bankers (Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, $15.50). A native New Yorker, Tobias earned both a B.A. in Slavic languages and literature and an M.B.A. from Harvard before joining the staff of New York magazine in 1972. He is the author of two best-sellers: Fire and Ice, a biography of Revlon founder Charles Revson, and The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need. Tobias, who lives alone on Manhattan's Upper West Side, untangled some of the mysteries of America's Gross National Premium for Allan Ripp of PEOPLE.
How powerful is the insurance industry?
Powerful enough to be exempt from federal trade and antitrust laws. In 1944, when the Supreme Court ruled that the insurance industry should be subject to such laws, the industry got Congress to pass a bill which in effect spares the insurance business from federal regulation. On the state level, Massachusetts, for example, has 400 registered lobbyists. Of them, Ford has one, Harvard has two and the insurance industry has 60. The insurance company usually gets what it wants.
How lucrative is insurance?
Extremely. State Farm has a larger capital base—more accumulated profits—than either Bank of America or Citicorp. The Prudential owns more buildings, including the Empire State Building, than any company in America. In recent years Sears, American Express and ITT have made more money from insurance than from retailing, credit cards or telecommunications.
As potential victims, don't we want insurers to have a lot of money?
Unquestionably, insurance companies should be rich enough to pay our claims, unlike the 68 firms that went bankrupt after the Chicago fire of 1871. At its best, insurance spreads the risks against personal loss. Some publicly held insurers even pay healthy dividends. Even so, America's 4,800 insurance companies often do their primary job with enormous inefficiency.
What kind of inefficiency?
U.S. policyholders paid some $200 billion in premiums in 1981—about $900 for every individual. But what was the return? Insurance companies regularly pay back 65¢ or 40¢ and in some cases only 10¢ for every premium dollar they take in. By comparison, Blue Cross uses 93¢ of every premium dollar to pay benefits.
Where does the premium money go?
Like savings banks, insurance companies invest our money in bonds or mortgages. They use our premium dollars plus the interest made on them to pay our claims, pay their expenses and make a profit. But whereas a savings bank is able to return on demand every dollar we deposit plus interest, insurance companies keep the interest plus a large chunk of our premiums. And they can take months or even years to reimburse policyholders.
How can such laggardly service and poor payoffs go unchecked?
The insurance-buying public usually has no idea of the poor value it gets. One credit card company—to take an extreme example—offers $250,000 worth of flight insurance to its cardholders for only $3. Sounds like a great deal, until you realize that the odds of being killed in a plane crash on a scheduled domestic flight are less than one in a million. Thus the insurer rakes in $3 million for every $300,000 to $400,000 it pays out in claims.
What about insurance that covers more common accidents?
Incredibly, auto insurance, which is required by law in most states, is still sold one policy at a time. A leading California auto insurer, for instance, has 70,560 different rates. Imagine how expensive Social Security or unemployment insurance would be if it were handled that way. More burdensome are the legions of adjusters and lawyers who can add months and subtract dollars in every disputed claim. As a result, honest policyholders who don't inflate their claims receive less than 500 in benefits for every dollar they pay for auto insurance.
Do you see any alternatives?
Ideally, we should have a system under which every driver is automatically covered. This would eliminate the enormous cost of single-policy sales. Since so much personal-damage money is eaten up by fat litigation fees, such a plan should be completely no-fault. Such coverage could be sold automatically at the gas pumps on a pay-as-you-drive basis, with a 30¢ or 40¢ premium charge added to each gallon. An average motorist who drives 12,000 miles a year getting 20 miles to the gallon would be covered at a cost of about $300. We'd still be dishing out the same $40 billion in national premiums, only we'd get back so much more than we now do in benefits. At the very least we should have some form of group auto insurance.
How big a part does fraud play in affecting insurance rates and coverage?
Many people find it all too easy to file phony or padded claims, rationalizing that it's their way of evening the score with the insurance companies. The pastor of one Chicago church filed 76 accident claims in four years and collected $85,000 before his scam was uncovered. Overall, fraud accounts for billions of dollars a year in claims. And you and I are paying for it. Fire insurance, as it is currently written, actually encourages arson—America's hottest profit maker.
Is such a high ripoff rate inevitable?
It is as long as insurers keep up the incentives by failing to investigate thoroughly fraudulent claims or pay legitimate ones. One company denied disability to a stroke victim, claiming that "with crutches, a foot brace and an attendant, she could make occasional visits to the doctor," and some insurers tried evading the claims of looting victims in New York's 1977 blackout by insisting a riot had not happened. Bad faith on one side breeds bad faith on the other. The problem is that false claims only return to haunt us in the form of higher premiums.
What is the difference between whole life and term life insurance?
Term life insurance is simply that: insurance. If you die, they pay. The premium naturally goes up every time you renew as you grow older. In whole life, you are also building up an equity fund which you can borrow against or in your later years cash in. Your premiums start out considerably higher than term, but they remain constant for the duration of your policy.
Which is the better buy?
Most people should buy term insurance. Your dollar stretches much farther. Inflation rates have wiped out any savings benefits from whole life policies. Instead of paying $1,200 a year for $100,000 of whole life insurance coverage, a family should pay $200 for term and invest the difference, if they have it, where they have more control.
What can consumers do to make sure they're properly insured?
The cardinal rule is to shop around. It's one thing to pay a few dollars more for the same coverage, but some people are paying twice and three times what they have to. The second rule is to insure only against losses you can't afford to bear yourself. In other words, opt for the highest deductible you can. It will lower your premium. Doing this, you will be able to take all but $100 of any uninsured loss as a tax deduction. Many families are paying for the right to make small claims, but not making them for fear of seeing their rates hiked or policies canceled.
Is the industry likely to reform itself?
No. There has to be a change in the law. For example, in almost every state it is illegal to sell low-cost group auto insurance, illegal for savings banks to sell low-cost life insurance, and illegal in all states for retailers of insurance to cut prices. The industry is beginning to feel pressure from consumers during the current economic crunch. Why should they make a poor investment when they can get a better return elsewhere—from treasury bonds or money market funds? This forces companies to improve their policies. Still, shoppers should beware: When buying insurance, an ounce of prevention may only be worth a half pound of cure. | <urn:uuid:1d88f047-70fb-4690-9ee5-7a953aa6225e> | 2 | 2.0625 | 0.579593 | en | 0.957335 | http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20081895,00.html |
VHDL Compilation and Simulation with ModelSim
1. What you will learn
1.1 How to create a working directory for the VHDL tools.
1.2 How to compile a VHDL description.
1.3 How to simulate the VHDL description.
2. Getting started
This tutorial and those that follow it assume you are familiar with the Unix environment and commands within it to create directories, list, copy, and move files, etc. Knowledge of a text editor available on Unix systems like vi or jove is also required. If you are not familiar with Unix, it is recommended that you obtain the relevant take-outs from University Computing Services on these subjects and study them. or see the Basic Introduction to Unix available on-line.
This tutorial also assumes that you are familiar with the VHDL language itself, or are in the process of learning it. Consult the VHDL tutorial available from the tutorial web page if you are unfamiliar with VHDL.
2.1 First, you should create a separate directory under your home directory to hold the designs for this tutorial:
>> mkdir tutorial
>> cd tutorial
The ModelSim tool needs a work directory (VHDL library) for the compiled VHDL files. Create this directory with the following command:
>> vlib work
3. Examine and compile the code for this lab
3.1 Using your favorite text editor, create a file called package.vhd with the following contents:
PACKAGE resources IS
-- user defined enumerated type
TYPE level IS ('X', '0', '1', 'Z');
-- type for vectors (buses)
TYPE level_vector IS ARRAY (NATURAL RANGE <>) OF level;
-- subtype used for delays
SUBTYPE delay IS time;
END resources;
3.2 Compile the VHDL code:
>> vcom package.vhd
>> vcom and2.vhd
4. Simulate the compiled code
4.1 Start up the ModelSim simulator
>> vsim and2 &
4.2 View the waveforms of the selected signals by selecting, in the signals window, View->Wave->Signals in Design. Use the left mouse button to pull down the menu. This will create a wave window that looks like a graph, with the signals on the vertical axis and the time along the horizontal axis as shown below:
4.5 Add some additional forces and run the simulation by typing the following commands into the main window:
VSIM 5>force -freeze /and2/a 1 0, 0 20
VSIM 6>force -freeze /and2/b 1 0
VSIM 7>run 40
After using the Zoom->Zoom Full command in the wave window, it should look like the one below:
4.6 Quit the simulator by typing quit in the main window and confirming yes in the dialog box.
5. Create, compile and simulate the D Flip Flop code
5.1 Using a text editor, create a file called dff.vhd which contains the following code:
USE work.resources.all;
ENTITY dff is
GENERIC(tprop : delay := 8 ns;
tsu : delay := 2 ns);
PORT(d : IN level;
clk : IN level;
enable : IN level;
q : OUT level;
qn : OUT level);
END dff;
ARCHITECTURE behav OF dff IS
one : PROCESS (clk)
IF ((clk = '1' AND clk'LAST_VALUE = '0') AND -- rising clock edge
enable = '1') THEN -- ff enabled
IF (d'STABLE(tsu)) THEN -- check setup
IF (d = '0') THEN -- check valid input data
q <= '0' AFTER tprop;
qn <= '1' AFTER tprop;
ELSIF (d = '1') THEN
q <= '1' AFTER tprop;
qn <= '0' AFTER tprop;
ELSE -- else invalid date
q <= 'X';
qn <= 'X';
END IF;
ELSE -- else no setup
q <= 'X';
qn <= 'X';
END IF;
END IF;
END PROCESS one;
END behav;
5.2 Compile the dff.vhd file:
>>vcom dff.vhd
5.3 Simulate the DFF:
>>vsim dff &
5.6 Quit the simulator by typing quit in the main ModelSim window.
6.0 Run the dff simulation again, using a do file
As mentioned previously, you can use a script file, called a do file, to automate tasks like repetitive simulations for debugging purposes. The syntax of the commands for each action you want the tool to do can be looked up in the ModelSim documentation, but a better approach is to simply execute the command once in the actual tool, and then capture the resulting command from the main window into the do file.
6.1 Using a text editor, create a text file, called dff.do , that contains the following commands:
add wave -r /*
force -freeze /dff/clk 0 -repeat 20
force -freeze /dff/clk 1 10 -repeat 20
force -freeze /dff/enable 1
force -freeze /dff/d 0, 1 15, 0 49
run 100
6.2 Start the simulation of the dff again:
>>vsim dff &
6.3 Execute the dff.do file by either using the Macro->Execute Macro... item from the main menu and selecting the dff.do file in the dialog box that comes up, or typing the following into the main window:
VSIM 1>do dff.do
A wave window with the same simulation results you got above (minus the cursors) should appear.
6.4 Quit the simulator by typing quit in the main ModelSim window. | <urn:uuid:d6c0f22b-f4d4-43ae-a496-520bf959d964> | 3 | 2.625 | 0.137506 | en | 0.78458 | http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhklenke/tutorials/vhdl/labs/lab1_tutorial.html |
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Re^2: RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks"
by ait (Friar)
on Jan 02, 2011 at 17:48 UTC ( #880087=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
in reply to Re: RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks"
in thread RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks"
I think you are more likely to get feedback if you move the code on your scratchpad to the body of your RFC....
Makes perfect sense, although I was trying this time to faithfully follow the instructions here Tutorials. But I will do as you recommend because it seems to make more sense.
I really appreciate you have taken the time to write this. The circuit-board analogy is because I come from a Electronic Engineering background, but the inspiration and implementation techniques actually came from stuff I had picked up from Mark Jason Dominus' HOP.
Anyway, the topic at hand is interesting because it's related to balancing design, testing, assertions (as you well pointed out), diagnostics and debugging. Much like in electronics, you run the tests (whether it's a test-bench or embedded self-tests) but if a board fails, you have to test the circuit at each stage to see what is going on. Newer circuits that use I2C actually perform very granular self-tests in an automated fashion and also auto-diagnose themselves (e.g. most modern Phillips appliances do this). So whether this is testing, diagnosis or debugging seems to be actually dependent on the granularity of the test, and ultimately in the eye of the beholder.
A test will tell you that something failed, a diagnosis may dig deeper to help you pin-point the problem. In the Perl testing harnesses, you could probably accomplish this by conditioning more granular tests only if a higher level test failed (regardless if integral or unit test). More commonly as you point out, by unit testing each low-level component and then testing the aggregates, assuming of course, that the code is sufficiently factorized to accomplish this, and this is a again by design, as you also point out.
Back to the circuit analogy: you may have a distinct overall function, say the horizontal drive in a TV set (maybe analogous to a class). This in turn might be divided into 3 distinct parts: a) the h-sync circuitry, b) the middle-stage drivers, and c) the horizontal transistor that drives the fly-back primary (a,b,c maybe analogous to methods/functions or could also be modeled as an association [i.e. simple, aggregation or composition] depending on design needs). The I2C self-test (analogous to integral or unit tests) may indicate a problem with the voltage feeding the middle stage drivers, but within that part of the circuit you have several other tests points (not visible to the I2C) that are used to further diagnose the problem by measuring voltages or by looking at reference wave patterns (analogous to manual debugging). As to how far/deep the unit tests go, is again by design, and design in turn is based on needs, so I don't think there is any definite correct design rule here. Some I2C tests are so particular, that will many times immediately tell you which particular component needs to be replaced, other times it just points out the circuit/section and you have to place your oscilloscope lead in the test-points to figure out which component is failing.
So how far/deep the test must also go to diagnose the failure depends on the granularity of the code, which is a design constraint, in turn based on real-world needs. This may be similar to how much normalization is actually needed, or practical, in an RDBMS model, which many times depends on the real-world needs of that particular system. Furthermore, real-world performance issues may also force you to de-normalize an RDBMS model, or to rethink a complete layer entirely. For example, you may arrive at the conclusion the RBDMs suck at querying real-world objects, so you incorporate another element, say for example CouchDB, that better handles the de-normalized real-world object queries, completely separating the write and read paths. Now, before I divert too far OT, maybe I should start by explaining why this need arose in the first place, and perhaps this may shed some light on whether the test-point analogy makes any sense, or is of any use for Perl automated testing or not.
This idea came to me because I was having a hard time debugging a long function that scores the matching of text fields using Wagner-Fisher. The function in question calculates the individual scores of several text fields which are compared to several text fields in several different groups (from an XML source). Then, the best scores from each group are selected and narrowed down to the individual best match of each group. The function itself is a helper of 2 other functions that take these results and select the best match based on the average score. There is no recursion, but a lot of sub-processing of XML data using XPath and iterating through the different groups to calculate the individual scores for each field in each group and feeding that result to the other functions that in turn aggregate the results and help narrow down to the best match. So you see, the code is already sufficiently factorized into 3 functions but the scoring function although long, makes little sense to break up into smaller functions, or to encapsulate in smaller classes (though with enough time and budget this may not necessarily hold true).
The reason I implemented this debugging/testing technique is to make sure that we were scoring correctly at every step, and that when we add new logic, I could make sure that the programmer who later touched this code (or myself) would not screw up the not so complex but lengthy scoring algorithms. This is because previsions were left in the code for additions or modification of groups, fields, scoring rules and these have been changing since we've put the product through beta testing with key customers. I agree with you, this code is far from perfect, but this test point / granular testing (diagnosing or debugging) technique has proved very useful at this stage of development, and it's probably more a question of choosing the right title for it.
Your comments, and this comment Re: RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks" by swon made me re-think this if this is actually a testing or a diagnosing/debugging technique. In my particular case, I think it's both, and that may lead to some interesting discussions and conclusions here.
On your comments in particular I think that you have a strong point that this could be avoided with better code design, and that probably holds very true. On the other hand, budget and time constraints many times don't allow to design every class and library perfectly up front, so we must all take a more iterative approach to this, and fine grain testing like this has proven instrumental in iterating and evolving this particular class.
Another interesting fact is that many times architectural constraints don't allow for "ideal" modeling in any single paradigm, this case being a particularly good example. This library is a Model class for an application in Catalyst, so a basic design constraint is to try to leave as much code pre-loaded in a Catalyst "instance" and only create new objects that are specific to an individual HTTP request. This means that even though the overall design pattern is OO with Moose, the "instance" classes are more functional libraries than anything else. Also, we have to account for different deployment techniques such as mod_perl with pre-forked processes or using threads with mod_worker where the non-mutable data of the interpreter is shared amongst threads.
In this case, 'ideal' object modeling would represent a huge performance penalty in having to instantiate objects with a lot of code, so the objects in this design are light-weight objects that have a per-request lifespan. The instance code on the other hand, has to make sure we don't have any global data (object attributes) that would create a problem when using the methods (functions) of these long-lived objects that are more akin to an OS shared object (aka dll). This of course does not excuse the fact that these model "instances" could benefit from better design choices to begin with, and I agree. Which reminds me of when I wrote RFC Mocking an Accessor with Test::MockObject (also inspired by test code of a Catalyst application) chromatic said "If you have to mock an accessor, you're probably mocking too much.", and he was right. Because after giving it further thought, I realized that it was better to completely separate my Model classes from those of Catalyst (eliminating much of the need to mock in the first place), and then integrate them back to Catalyst using a very thin layer of "Catalyst Model" classes. Of course, if I would have carefully RTFM on "Extending Catalyst", I would have noticed this recommendation clearly spelled out ;-). Then again, the mocking of accessors technique proved to be equally useful later on.
At this point my conclusion is that a change of title and a bit of generalization might better classify this technique, although in the end it may prove not to be very useful after all, who knows. Maybe something like "Using Test-Points for Better Diagnostics", "Adding Diagnostics to your Tests using Test-Points", "Adding Granularity to your Tests with Test-Points", or something along those lines.
Comment on Re^2: RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks"
Re^3: RFC: Tutorial "Introspecting your Moose code using Test Point Callbacks"
by ELISHEVA (Prior) on Jan 02, 2011 at 18:25 UTC
You sound like you might be limited in the amount of refactoring you can do, but there is one technique I'd like to share, just in case it might fit and you find some opportunity to do some refactoring.
Oftentimes, when a function turns big long and ugly and it doesn't make sense to refactor, the chief culprit is a large amount of state data shared among the different steps of a function. The classic example of such a function is a giant loop that is pushing and popping a stack in lieu of recursion, but there are other examples as well.
In these cases I have often found it quite helpful to design and build a functor object. This is an object whose data is all that ugly automatic data shared throughout the function (in your case, it might be something like the current state of your scoring variables). Then I define a set of small focused functions each reading and setting the shared data as needed. This eliminates the need to pass lots of data between methods, but still allows me to break the long ugly function into small conceptual chunks.
Nearly every time I do this, I watch the algorithm and all its problem areas unfold before my eyes. When each chunk of the algorithm has the breathing room to live in its own subroutine, I often become aware of a set of edge cases and conditions that ought to have been checked for but weren't. Something about code living in its own little home seems to invite a closer look at the algorithm and all of its associated if, ands, and buts. Furthermore, there is no longer a concern about all of those hairy conditions clouding up the overall logic because they are nicely encapsulated in a subroutine.
Another advantage of this approach it that it becomes much easier to run just a part of the algorithm. If you want to run everything, you call the functor's run method. Since little data is being passed from subroutine to subroutine, this "run" method starts looking like a list of steps. Depending on your granularity needs you can sometimes break the list into a part A, B, and C and make each of those a subroutine and then run just a part of the algorithm, do some tests, then run another part. This would be much much harder to do if A, B, and C were wired together by data passed from one to another via parameters rather than shared from within the object.
Just a thought.
Update: explaining how a functor object can affect the ability to stop and start a process.
Thanks again for your valuable input. I will definitely consider your functor recommendation. Regarding the use of callbacks to test or diagnose specific spots inside a function, do you see any situation where it can be useful? Or do you consider that it always boils down to a design or refactoring issue? Lastly, did my comments on these sub-tests as a way to diagnose a failed test make any sense?
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- Pet forum for dogs cats and humans
Congratulations on the adoption of your new human!
July 23rd, 2004, 04:46 AM
Congratulations on the adoption of your new human!
Humans can provide you with hours of fun and entertainment, and an
almost unlimited source of tasty things to eat. However, your new human
needs love, attention and, above all, training. Remember, a well
human is a happy human, and a happy human is much easier for a dog to
live with. And manipulate.
First of all, let's go over a quick check list of things you need for
your new human:
GreenPapers or Plasticy-Card-Things.
These items provide much needed amusement for humans. They will spend
hours playing with them, worrying about them, and caressing them. Most
importantly of all, though, are the many tricks you can train your
to perform with them. A well trained human can learn to trade all of
GreenPapers for an entire sack of cookies, given proper training.
Moving Den.
A moving den is vital to the well being of all humans, as it gives them
a place to yell at other humans from behind the safety of their glass
windshields. Unlike us dogs, humans can be shy about yelling at each
other from behind the fence or front door, so the moving den (or
car/truck/van, as humans like to call them) provides a valuable place
for your new human to let off steam. Your human can also be taught to
transport you to dog parks, cafes and pet treat emporiums with just a
little bit of work on your part.
Plastic Yelling Toy.
A plastic yelling toy, or 'phone', as humans like to call it, is
essential to your new human. They will spend hours using it to extoll
your beauty to all of the other members of their pack. Remember,
that humans can become so absorbed in their talking toy that they might
neglect you, or ignore their training lessons. Learn to pull the cord
from the wall with your teeth if this happens.
Plastic Yelling Box (aka 'Computer'). See Plastic Yelling Toy for
Now, let's move on to basic training.
The first thing you need to do is teach your human to respond to basic
Mastering "The Stare" is the foundation of all good human training.
Practice it, and the world is your oyster. Or steak. Few humans have
proven to be immune to this technique, but if you happen to find
yourself saddled with one who is, feel free to trade them in for a more
tractable example of the breed.
Basic technique for the S T A R E is as follows: Corner human someplace
where they have limited opportunity for movement. For example, try
the S T A R E when your human is distracted by their plastic yelling
box, or the large-hot-thing-which-makes-food. Gaze unblinkingly into
your human's eyes. Do NOT break eye contact -- this is vital. When you
are certain the human has your full attention, signal your intent to
them with a long, soft, quietly drawn out whine.
The whine combined with the S T A R E should by now have your human
fully mesmerized. It is time for the full frontal approach, and this is
where it gets tricky. Gently place your paw on the human's leg, not in
frantic clawing motion, but rather with a calming pat. Clawing is best
left to felines and other such uncouth beasts.
Since humans are, believe it or not, actually quite eager to learn,
yours should by now be trying out various options to see just what
action it is you want them to perform. In short order, they will
begin to list off "Wanna go out?" "Are you hungry?" and other
inquisitive statements.
When they finally arrive at the trick you require them to perform,
signal your approval with a series of bum wiggles, spins and dashes in
the direction which you would like your human to go.
Be patient! Unlike us, humans can take a while to learn to respond
immediately with what you had in mind. The human 'mind' is not as
evolved as ours, so frequent and prolonged repetition of the training
session will be required. I have managed to train some in as little as
one hour, whereas it once took an entire month to train a male human to
cook me steak at 4 am.
Remember. being a dog is a state of mind. It is being able to convey to
your human with merely a whimper the statement : "You may walk upright,
but we both know who makes the rules around here, don't we?"
July 23rd, 2004, 06:16 PM
LOL! This deserves 4 "bum wiggles"! :D | <urn:uuid:d2e672b2-e30c-4b7a-8c2d-2b8f5eb3c54e> | 2 | 1.570313 | 0.02551 | en | 0.941812 | http://www.pets.ca/forum/archive/index.php/t-5807.html |
Monitoring the Brain with Flexible Electronics
flexible electronics1
flexible electronics2
Electrodes are electrical conductors--meaning that electrical charges can travel through them. They are used in scalp EEGs to monitor the electrical activity of the brain, as shown here. They are also used in EKGs (electrocardiograms) to monitor the electrical activity of the heart, and in other monitoring
The human body is largely controlled by three pounds of fat and protein--the complex organ that we call the brain. There are some 100 billion neurons in the brain that transmit and receive electrical signals related to thoughts, feelings, movements, and countless other processes.
Sometimes things go wrong. The disorder epilepsy is characterized by seizures that result from the abnormal, excessive firing of neurons in the brain, which often happens for no apparent cause. In cases where medicine is not effective at controlling the seizures, some patients benefit from a surgery that involves removing or isolating the part of the brain causing the seizures. However, this requires knowing the exact location of the brain where the seizure-causing activity originates.
A new brain sensor developed by a team of researchers working at the intersection of materials science, neurology, and electrical engineering could represent a significant improvement in the ability to detect exactly where abnormal brain activity starts in a person with epilepsy, and how seizure activity progresses through the brain.
The first step in determining the seizure onset zone, the physical location where seizures originate, is to monitor the patient's brain activity before, during, and after a seizure. This is usually done with techniques like scalp electroencephalograms (EEGs) and functional MRIs, among others. But if these results are inconclusive, doctors may go one step further and place an array of electrodes directly on the patient's brain, for a test called an electrocorticogram (ECoG).
An ECoG is more informative than an EEG because the electrodes, which detect the electrical signals in the brain, are much closer to the brain activity-- the signal doesn't have to be strong enough to travel through the scalp in order to be detected. This means that an ECoG can create a more detailed map of brain activity and better distinguish where a seizure originates.
Most ECoGs use an array of 16 electrodes that are attached to a frame, or a more flexible grid structure that can have up to 64 electrodes spaced about 1cm apart. Although this technique provides a much better picture of brain activity than an EEG, the surface of the brain is far from smooth. You might recall from biology class (or maybe from a gelatin mold or stress ball) that the surface of the brain is very wrinkly, with lots of folds and grooves, so electrodes placed even 1cm apart are still missing out on a lot of the intricacies of the brain.
This is where the new design has potential. The design incorporates something called flexible electronics, which enables the array to conform much more closely to the wrinkly, folded surface of the brain and pack in hundreds of electrodes.
The term flexible electronics refers to mounting electronic components (like transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes, etc.) on a flexible surface, instead of on a rigid chip. Scientists have been exploring flexible electronics for several years because of the flexibility they provide when space or shape is concerned. They are used, for example, in cell phones, solar cells, keyboards, and even electronic tattoos. A team of researchers with expertise in biology, electrical engineering, materials, and neuroscience joined forces to redesign the array and incorporate flexible electronics technology, with funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Other Examples of Flexible Electronics
memory chipAn electronic memory chip created by researchers at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) that can be bent or twisted and still keep functioning.
Photo Credit: Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, NIST
Olympus Stylus camera with skins removed
Olympus Stylus camera with skins removed, showing flexible circuit assembly.
Photo Credit: Steve Jurvetson, Creative Commons
A flexible array of LEDs mounted on paper.
Photo Credit: Bok Yeop Ahn
Instead of having wires connected to each of the up to 64 individual electrodes on the array, the new design links the electrodes together electronically within the array, so much less wiring is needed. With the new design, as many as 360 electrodes can fit in the space previously occupied by only 64! The new array can fit right to the contour of the brain and take nearly 300 additional data points, creating a much more detailed map of the brain. Ultimately, this could enable doctors to pinpoint the origin of seizures more accurately and down to a smaller region, possibly reducing the amount of the brain that is removed during surgery.
new electrode
The new electrode array developed by Brian Litt (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine), Jonathan Viventi (Polytechnic Institute of New York University and New York University). Photo Credit: Travis Ross and Yun Soung Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The new design is also significantly thinner--instead of being about as thick as a credit card, the new design is thinner than a human hair. This, combined with the flexibility of the array, means that at some point doctors might be able to drill a hole in the skull and insert a rolled up version of the array into the brain. Then, they could unroll the array once it's inside. This would make the surgery much less invasive since doctors wouldn't need to expose a section of the skull large enough for the entire array.
This new array hasn't been approved for use in humans, but it has undergone preliminary testing on cats, whose brains are physically similar to humans. This small device could have a lot to teach us about the mysteries of the brain, and will hopefully be able to provide some much needed relief to people suffering from epilepsy.
For more information, check out these resources:
Technology Review: An Ultrathin Brain Implant Monitors Seizures
Read more about the new array design, its potential, and what researchers have already learned about the brain activity caused by seizures.
National Geographic: Brain
Explore the anatomy of the brain.
Epilepsy Foundation
Explore resources related to epilepsy and life with epilepsy through these extensive links.
St. Louis Children's Hospital: Subdural Electrode Recording
Read more about how ECoGs are used to help children with epilepsy from St. Louis Children’s Hospital, a pioneer in the technology.
MedlinePlus: EEG
Find out how EEGs are performed, why people have them, and what they look for. | <urn:uuid:0b755f7b-ca0a-439e-99d4-9ebf29d48cd5> | 3 | 3.484375 | 0.20576 | en | 0.9309 | http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/flexibleelectronics.cfm |
Raspberry Pi PC goes on sale, quickly sells out
The Raspberry Pi, a credit card-sized computer designed and built for enthusiasts and priced at under £22 - went on sale in the UK on Wednesday only to sell out minutes later.
The computer, which was created by Robert Mullins and Eben Upton and released by the Raspberry Pi foundation, went on sale at 6am at computer shops RS Components and Premier Farnell and is designed to get people excited about computing just as they did in the heyday of the BBC Micro.
The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer board that plugs into a TV and a keyboard. It has a HMDI socket, a video output, two USB ports, Ethernet, audio output and SD card slot. Power is provided either by a battery or a standard mobile phone charger.
It might look like a board of electronics and nothing more, but it is a miniature ARM-based PC which can be used for many of the things that a desktop PC does - like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays High-Definition video.
The idea of the new computer is to not only to encourage kids and adults alike to program, but also to be used as a low-cost media centre.
Both RS Components and Premier Farnell are taking pre-orders for the second batch when it arrives. | <urn:uuid:1405694c-c5ab-4882-a50a-f2a35c3d0f9f> | 2 | 1.960938 | 0.203915 | en | 0.961101 | http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/114542-raspberry-pi-sells-out-in-minutes |
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Excerpted from Chapter 1: An Arab Malaise (footnotes omitted), from The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Making of a New Era by Lin Noueihed and Alex Warren. Reprinted by arrangement with
An Arab Malaise
Good rulership is equivalent to mildness. If the ruler uses force and is ready to mete out punishment and eager to expose the faults of people and to count their sins, (his subjects) become fearful and depressed and seek to protect themselves against him through lies, ruses and deceit… They often abandon (the ruler) on the battlefield and fail to support his defensive enterprises… The subjects often conspire to kill the ruler. Thus the dynasty decays, and the fence (that protects it) lies in ruins.
—14th-century Tunisian philosopher Ibn Khaldun, Al-Muqaddimah
cover art
The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Making of A New Era
(Yale University Press; US: May 2012)
Not a single Arab country made it onto the 2011 list of top global risks issued by Eurasia Group, a multinational consulting firm that helps clients identify looming instability. Some perennials, such as the Iranian nuclear standoff, were mentioned, but domestic change in the Middle East was simply not on its radar – even though protests had been spreading since late 2010. After all, despite their dysfunctional economies and ossified political systems, Arab rulers had proved remarkably resilient to both domestic pressures and external shocks. They had survived the end of the Cold War and the so-called ‘third wave of democratization’ that swept away dictators from Portugal to Indonesia, from the 1970s onwards.
Arab regimes, if not individual leaders, had made it through a series of wars and three unpopular peace deals with Israel. They had largely crushed violent Islamists. They had adjusted, as mostly Sunni Muslim rulers, to the Shi’ite resurgence ushered in by Iran’s 1979 revolution, and they had survived the sectarian and political tensions wrought by two US-led wars against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Syria, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had all survived the deaths of veteran leaders and managed relatively smooth successions. Syria, the only republic on this list of monarchies and dynasties and the one most vulnerable to a succession crisis, had set a precedent with Bashar al-Assad’s carefully-choreographed takeover in 2000 from his father Hafez, who had ruled for the previous three decades. Mubarak, who had led Egypt for thirty years without naming a vice president, took note as he groomed his son Gamal for the presidency.
Democrats around the Arab world lamented the birth of the first Arab ‘jumlukiya’. Literally translated as ‘republarchy’, the word fused together jumhuriya, Arabic for ‘republic’, and malakiya, Arabic for ‘monarchy’. With the creation of this monstrous hybrid dropped the last fig leaf of legitimacy. There could be no more pretence that national interests came before the interests of the ruling family, and the sect or tribe to which it belonged. In Tunisia, another Arab republic, it was widely suspected that Ben Ali, whose only son was a toddler, was grooming his son-in-law for the top job. There were fears that the first lady, Leila Trabelsi, derided by Tunisians as a latter-day Marie Antoinette, had her own eye on high office.
Rather than invest in the future of their countries, these leaders dedicated much of the wealth and power of the state to ensuring their own survival. Coercion, or the threat of it, was widely used in a region whose governments spend a higher proportion of their state budgets on defence and security than any other. In 2009, an average 4.6 per cent of Arab GDP went on military spending, compared to a global average of less than 2 per cent.
Much Gulf Arab military spending is intended as a deterrent against Iran, a non-Arab Shi’ite power in a region dominated by Sunni rulers, but the aura of an impregnable state, possessed both of the latest weaponry and of support from Western countries, also put off potential opponents from mounting any serious challenge for power. It was not just the amount spent on the armed forces, but also their composition, that discouraged revolt. Some rulers and their families fortified their power bases by filling the military and interior security forces with members of their own tribe or sect, creating a patronage network and ensuring that those who bore arms owed their allegiance to the leadership rather than the state itself. The Saudi Arabian National Guard, for instance, is a separate force that bypasses the defence ministry and draws its soldiers from tribal elements historically loyal to the royal family and dedicated to protecting the king from a family rebellion or a challenge from the regular army. Bahrain, meanwhile, has resorted to recruiting foreigners, who were less likely to balk at shooting or beating protesters and had no stake in local politics.
Tellingly, the army in Tunisia was considerably more professional than most in the region and considered itself to be an institution of the state rather than the private security wing of the ruling family or party. In Tunisia and Egypt, furthermore, tribal ties are weak and both countries are home to majority Sunni populations ruled over by Sunni rulers, who focused on crushing opposition parties or rival elite figures rather than shielding themselves from competing sects or clans.
An underlying sense of fear was also perpetuated by intelligence agencies, or mukhabarat, that employed spies at every level of society. This was manifested in different ways in different countries. Egypt or Bahrain did not feel oppressive day-to-day, but Syria was another story. Men in lurid shirts and leather jackets loitered in hotel lobbies, hiding behind newspapers and listening to the conversations that went on. It was casually assumed that phones were tapped and on no account was any political conversation to be undertaken in taxis, whose drivers were widely believed to be informants. One in Damascus openly admitted that he worked for Syrian intelligence, describing how he had been based in Beirut before the 2005 withdrawal of Syrian forces but by 2010 was forced to supplement his paltry civil servant’s salary with taxi fares.
Intelligence agencies operated in a legal grey area, carrying out arrests and operating secret jails where political prisoners, numbering thousands, were abused or tortured. Many of these prisoners were Islamists, but any journalist or academic worth his salt could expect to be in and out of jail on trumped-up charges, or no charges at all.
The Syrian regime had maintained emergency law since the Ba’ath Party coup of 1963, Egypt had done so since 1981 and for long stretches before that, while in Algeria emergency law had been in place since 1992. This effectively suspended constitutional protections and gave rulers much wider scope for arbitrary arrests. It meant that a journalist who stepped over the line could suddenly find him- or herself in a military or security court on charges of undermining national security that would normally be reserved for cases of terrorism or espionage. The absence of the rule of law meant that no one knew exactly what was permitted and what was not, forcing critics to play a dangerous game of self-censorship as they tried to make their point without tripping up on one of the many red lines that criss-crossed the public sphere.
But it was not all repression. Authoritarian rulers also built alliances among prominent tribes, families and business elites to bolster their rule. Libya’s Gaddafi rewarded the clans who helped him to recruit fighters in the war against Chad with plum government jobs, or put the scions of loyal families in charge of public sector companies. In Syria, the ruler was Alawite but the established Sunni business families were among the main beneficiaries of Assad’s economic liberalization policies of the 2000s. In Saudi Arabia and among some Sunni monarchies, political bonds were strengthened through marriage, much as they had been among European aristocracies in centuries past.
The economic reforms introduced in Syria, in Tunisia, in Libya and beyond had lifted the pall of oppression that hung over these countries in the 1980s and 1990s. New cafés, restaurants and shops opened up. Foreign high-street brands arrived in upmarket districts. The lot of most Syrians and Libyans had improved a great deal since the 1980s, when imports were effectively banned but local industries could not produce enough goods of sufficient quality to meet demand. Yet such reforms were intended to protect the incumbent rulers by relieving economic discontent and staving off calls for deeper change.
Facing US pressure or domestic demand, some Arab dictatorships and dynasties even introduced more meaningful elections, but they worked to curtail any concrete changes the ballot box might bring. When one party can change the laws to its benefit, can wield the security forces to intimidate its opponents, the judiciary to jail its critics and the state-run media to campaign on its behalf, there is no real choice. Either electorates were not allowed to vote freely or the body that they were voting for lacked any meaningful powers. This system proved effective on at least two fronts. Firstly, it applied a veneer of plurality to systems that were in reality based on a single party that saw itself as the state. Secondly, it divided the opposition. After years underground, some activists felt that, since they could not beat the system, they should try to change it from the inside.
Together with this ran the promotion of a cult of personality. Rulers projected the image that they would be there for eternity and that, if they were not, their son or other relative was waiting in the wings. A giant poster showing Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, his son, the crown prince, and his uncle, the prime minister, hung from the side of a building just a few metres from the Pearl roundabout where protests would be concentrated in early 2011. In Libya, billboards were filled not with ads but with pictures of Gaddafi showing the number of years he had been in power. Faded posters showing the Colonel next to a large number 39 were juxtaposed with newer ones of Gaddafi 40 or 41. Visitors could buy Gaddafi watches, baseball caps and T-shirts from shops in central Tripoli.
Alongside this crude propaganda that appeared to belong to another era, Arab rulers demonstrated a knack for ‘upgrading authoritarianism’ to survive the challenges posed not only by globalization but also by new media and the growing international emphasis on human rights. One of several tactics they employed was to curtail, co-opt, compete with and thereby undermine efforts to build a strong civil society through the creation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Arab NGOs first started to proliferate in the 1980s, largely in response to openings from above. Authoritarian rulers apparently thought that tolerating small and powerless groups would burnish their democratic credentials abroad while incurring little cost at home. But local NGOs that focused on issues from human rights to corruption eventually became a thorn in their sides. Rather than attract bad press by banning all groups, they harassed and repeatedly detained offending members. They introduced laws that required NGOs to register, which then allowed the state to legally reject troublesome critics, limit their sources of funding, or restrict the scope of their activities. While weakening independent groups, Arab governments also set about sponsoring semi-official NGOs that received privileged access to donors, conferences and officials. These could not act independently and were muted in their criticism while competing for funds and publicity with the weaker and smaller independent groups.
Many of these government NGOs, or GONGOs, were led by the glamorous wives of Arab kings and presidents, and were dismissed by grassroots activists as ‘First Ladies’ Clubs’. Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president, was the sponsor of seven NGOs focused on issues such as youth, women’s rights and rural development. All operated under the umbrella of the Syria Trust for Development, which she also chaired, and which advertised itself as a non-profit and non-government organization through which the state would partner with local NGOs to foster development. Yet it was notoriously difficult for any rights-based NGOs to operate legally in Syria, which is home to 1,500 civil society groups compared to 5,000 in its much smaller but much freer neighbour Lebanon.
Gushing Western media coverage also made it easier to present a sanitized view of developments in the Arab world. Asma al-Assad was glamorous, charming, British-born, and the subject of a fawning Vogue story which described the democratic principles governing her family’s life, and was published the same month that Mubarak was overthrown. Jordan’s Queen Rania, another beautiful first lady, boasted a string of accolades from Glamour magazine’s Woman of the Year to a place on Forbes’ Most Powerful Women list, thanks to her work for charity and for NGOs that sought to empower women. These first ladies were popular abroad, but their unveiled, slick and empowered images bore little resemblance to the lives of ordinary women and made no mention of the undemocratic ways of their husbands.
If one generalization could be made about countries as different as Yemen and Tunisia, it is that their rulers were survivors, adept at repressing or co-opting their enemies and adapting to changes, from the end of the Cold War to the rise of social media. They had simply been around so long that they exuded an air of stability that masked the growing discontent among their people.
The Arab Exception
The club of Arab dictators had proven so resilient that a whole body of academic literature and journalistic commentary had developed to explain why emerging countries were industrializing, growing, creating jobs and shifting towards more representative government, while the Middle East fell ever further behind. Pundits spoke of the ‘Arab exception’, unfavourably comparing Arab countries first to Asia’s ‘tiger economies’, then to the BRICs, the rising powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
There were several permutations to the ‘Arab exception’ argument, ranging from the suggestion that these societies were simply not ‘ready’ for democracy because their patriarchal nature predisposed them to authoritarian rule, to the opinion that Islam, as a religion, was intrinsically incompatible with democracy. Another explanation was that the United States had propped up authoritarian rulers in countries including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and Tunisia because a confluence of geopolitical interests in the region – its desire to defend Israel, to ensure a steady supply of affordable oil, to hold back Iranian influence following the 1979 revolution, and to curtail any Islamist threat – trumped any ideological desire to spread democracy.
The US commitment to protecting Israel’s security has, indeed, led it to work closely with leaders in Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, all of whom signed peace deals with the Jewish state, and to apply pressure to those who had not. When Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat broke ranks and signed a unilateral peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the deal was sealed with the promise of $1.3 billion a year in US aid and unwavering support from Washington. The Camp David peace accord won back Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured by the Jewish state in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, but cost Sadat his life in 1981, when he was assassinated by an Islamist militant.
So unpopular was the agreement both at home and among other Arab states, that Sadat’s funeral was attended by three former US presidents, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, but only one Arab leader. Once host to the Arab League, Egypt had been thrown out and its leader was as unpopular among his own people as he was in the region. Sadat’s economic liberalization, or infitah, policies also cemented Egypt’s shift from the Soviet into the Western sphere and, though they provoked bread riots in 1977, the reforms were lauded by the United States.
US financial, military and political support continued under Sadat’s successor. Mubarak worked with the United States and Israel to enforce a blockade of Gaza that began in 2007, with the aim of isolating Hamas, despite television images of widespread civilian suffering and protests on the streets of Cairo. Even as thousands of Egyptian protesters braved tear gas and rubber bullets to demand Mubarak’s resignation in 2011, US officials appeared reluctant to admit that his record on human rights and democracy was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment.
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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111 A.D.) was not only one of the great Islamic philosophers, he is also considered to be, after the Prophet Muhammad, the foremost authority on Islamic theology and jurisprudence. What most people don’t know, however, is that al-Ghazali wrote extensively on the topic of happiness. Indeed, his monumental Revival of the Religious Sciences, which runs over 6000 pages and 4 volumes, was reprised as a shorter text in Persian, labeled the Alchemy of Happiness. In this we see some of his core ideas: that happiness consists in the transformation of the self, and that this transformation consists in the realization that one is primarily a spiritual being. The ultimate ecstasy, al-Ghazali contends, is not found in any physical thing, but rather lies in discovering through personal experience one’s identity with the Ultimate Reality.
One of al-Ghazali’s nicknames is “The Proof of Islam,” and he is called that not only because of the sagacity of his writings, but because of the quality of the life he lived. He was appointed Professor of Theology at the University of Baghdad at the tender age of thirty-three. But for the next five years he was gripped in a spiritual crisis, trying to find a rational foundation for Islam’s basic principles as outlined in the Qu’ran. He finally concluded that there was no rational way to refute skeptical doubt, but that there was another way to discover truth, one hinted at by the prophet Muhammad and the sages within the Sufi tradition, the mystical side of Islam. This way was that of immediate experience, an inward discovery that depends not on logic but on intuition and imagination. The prophets of all times are the ones who have experienced this reality based on transforming themselves away from a self-centered to a God-centered existence.
Armed with this new insight, al-Ghazali left Baghdad and all of his material possessions (except some books which were later stolen by thieves, a sign that he had to also leave those behind), as well as his cozy position at the University. He went to Syria to live with Sufi monks and to adopt a lifestyle that was solely based on discovering the real truth about the self and one’s relation to God. Then he went on the pilgrimage to Mecca, where he became convinced that he had been appointed to be the next great reformer of the faith. His task was to transform Islam, away from the mere adherence to rules, to the inward mystery of a live encounter with God. This would prove the key secret to happiness, one that would satisfy the very purpose for which Man is created.
The Alchemy of Happiness
In the Alchemy of Happiness, al-Ghazali begins by writing that “He who knows himself is truly happy.” Self-knowledge consists in realizing that we have a heart or spirit which is absolutely perfect, but which has been covered with dust by the accumulation of passions derived from the body and its animal nature. The essence of oneself is likened to a perfect mirror which if polished would reveal one’s true divine nature. The key to this polishing is the elimination of selfish desires and the adoption of a contrary desire to do what is right in all aspects of one’s life. As he writes, “the aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.”
Such a task is not easy, thus it would seem that genuine happiness is not a state most people can attain. Indeed, al-Ghazali emphasizes that only a few people have attained this supreme happiness, which is the ecstasy of union with the divine. These people are the prophets, which appear in all times and places, as messengers to remind mankind of their true purpose and their ultimate goal. The prophets are those who have succeeded in cleansing their inner mirrors of all the rust and dirt accumulated by bodily desires and comparisons with others. As a result, they can see in their waking moments what other people only see haphazardly in their dreams, and they receive an insight into the nature of things through an immediate flash of intuition rather than through laborious learning.
The most striking claim that al-Ghazali makes about the prophets is that they are the happiest people, for they have achieved the ultimate goal of human existence. Al-Ghazali writes that every person is born with a “knowing pain in the soul” resulting from a disconnection from the Ultimate Reality. The tragic condition of Man is that our eyes have been so distracted by physical things and pleasure, that we have lost the ability to see the unseen. This is why people are so unhappy: they are trying to relieve this pain in the soul by recourse to physical pleasure. But physical pleasure cannot relieve a pain that is essentially spiritual. The only answer to our condition is a pleasure which comes not from the body but from self-knowledge.
This self-knowledge is not to be attained by mere thinking or philosophy, however. Indeed, as a practicing member of Sufism, al-Ghazali refers to two ways of achieving the ultimate state of happiness: through dance (the whirling dervishes) and music (Qawalli, as represented in modern times by the songs of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example). One of the basic dances of the Sufi dervish consists in simply spinning around a large nail placed between the first two toes of the left foot. This symbolizes the idea that everything revolves around God, that He is the center as well as the circumference of every activity. As one spins, the boundaries of the self begin to fade away, and one becomes completely absorbed in pure love. Euphoria is achieved when we lose consciousness of the self and become focused on something we are completely and ultimately related to. In this way, the Sufi dance or music is similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “Flow,” except on a higher level– the level of absorption not to a mere task, but to that task which is a metaphor for one’s commitment to Ultimate Reality.
In the process of arguing for this conclusion, al-Ghazali makes many other interesting observations about the nature of happiness. He points out that there are different faculties within the soul, and that a corresponding happiness is connected with each faculty. Each part of the soul delights in that for which it has been created. But the highest function of the soul is the perception of truth; hence it is the greatest happiness one can obtain. Al-Ghazali uses an analogy to describe this; one would be much happier to meet the King of a country than its Prime Minister. Similarly, one should be much happier to discover the Ultimate Reality than some conditional lesser truth.
In a similar vein, al-Ghazali writes that unhappiness is created by enslavement to desire and the belief that one should satisfy only one’s own desires (as governed by base instincts and appetites). He maintains that everyone perceives, even in that bewildering state, that something is amiss, that we are living an inauthentic life that needs correction. This nagging feeling is the source of our greatest joy, for once we become conscious of it we can be led in the opposite direction, towards the life of meaning and self-transcendence.
Al-Ghazali loved to tell the following parable as one that illustrates the secret to genuine happiness. Bayazid was a famous “drunken Sufi” who was accosted by an unhappy man who claimed that he had fasted and prayed for years but had found no joy. Bayazid told him that even with three-hundred years of ascetic devotion he would still find no happiness. “Why?” the man asked. “Because your selfishness stands between you and God,” Bayazid replied. The man pleaded to be taught the way to overcome his selfishness. Bayazid answered that if he were to shave his beard, wear a loincloth, put on a feeding bag full of walnuts, and stand in the marketplace shouting “A walnut for everyone who slaps me,” then he would be truly happy. Of course, the man went away disappointed, for he was unable to carry out this suggestion. But Bayazid knew there was no other way. We cannot imagine how to be happy, but such wild imagination is the secret to happiness.
Al-Ghazali teaches us the following about achieving true happiness:
• Happiness depends on our faculties: if we exercise our higher faculties (like Reason, Imagination), we will be happier than if we exercise our lower ones (mere physical pleasures)
• There are examples in history of truly happy people, and they were “prophets”—people who have attained a perfect union with Ultimate Reality
• We are happy to the degree to which we can emulate these prophets
• We are all born with a “knowing pain in the soul,” which causes us to seek happiness, but most of us seek substitute pleasures deriving from the body which cannot resolve a pain that is essentially spiritual.
Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid. The Alchemy of Happiness. Trans. And ed. Claud Field and Elton I. Daniel. London: M.E. Sharpe, 1991.
A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy. Blackwell: 2007.
Nasr, Seyyid Hossein. Living Sufism. London: Mandala Books, 1980.
Recommended Reading:
The Alchemy of Happiness
Do you know?
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Address to the People of Western Europe on Soviet-United States Relations
November 4, 1987
Greetings. I'm speaking with you from here in Washington via the satellite channels of WORLDNET and Voice of America. This is but another demonstration of the dramatic effect technology is having on our lives. Science is shrinking distances, overcoming obstacles, and opening borders. Today individuals in distant lands are working, trading, and even playing together on a global scale. We are, as would never have been thought possible a century ago, truly becoming a community -- perhaps even a family -- of free people, united by humane values and democratic ideals, and sharing in a prosperity that is closely linked to the trade and commerce between us.
Earlier in this century, during a time when fascism and communism were on the rise, there were those who believed that the light of democracy might well be extinguished. It was feared that the era of representative government, of political and economic freedom, would prove to be a short interlude of history and would disappear just as the democracy of Greece and the Roman republic had vanished.
Well, our cause may have seemed precariously perched, fragile, and without the power projected by strutting troops and mass political spectacles; but it should be clear now that the courage and resilience of free people are too easily underestimated, as is our resolve to cooperate, to see a common purpose, and to act together in our own defense.
Victor Hugo once wrote: ``People do not lack strength; they lack will.'' Well, in my life, I have time and again seen evidence that gives me great confidence that those who live in freedom do indeed have the will to remain free, even under enormous pressure, even against great odds. Those of us who lived through the Second World War saw that in the British people, whose indomitable spirit never broke under heavy bombardment. We saw it in the French troops and resistance fighters, who battled to free their homeland; in Polish Home Army soldiers, who rose in Warsaw; in the moral heroes throughout the continent, including within Germany itself, who resisted nazism often at the cost of their own lives; and others who risked all to save Jews, sometimes perfect strangers, from the death camps. We saw it in Normandy, where Americans joined with people from all over Europe to breach the Atlantic Wall and head inland, joined together in one mighty crusade to rid the continent of Hitler's National Socialism and all the horrors that went with it.
Yes, and in the four decades since the end of the Second World War, the free peoples of the world have continued to prove their courage and, just as important, as never before to demonstrate their solidarity with one another. The North Atlantic alliance, a lasting triumph of unity and cooperation among free peoples, has maintained peace on the European continent for four decades. It has been the shield of democracy and the greatest deterrent to war in history.
Four decades of European peace have been no accident. They have been earned by those in uniform who stood guard, and paid for by all of us whose taxes kept our allied forces manned, equipped, and armed with the conventional and nuclear weapons needed to deter aggression. We've all had to do our part, or it wouldn't have worked. But it has worked. The alliance has been prepared to meet any challenge. The message to anyone who would threaten the peace has been simple and direct: ``Don't even think about it.''
And when our will has been tested, we've come together as allies, as people whose destinies are inextricably linked, and have acted in unison to meet the challenge. It has not been easy, yet we've done what was necessary to keep our countries free and to preserve the peace. That certainly was true of the alliance's response to the vast expansion of Soviet military power in the late 1970's, especially their introduction of the new SS - 20 intermediate-range missiles. It was in 1977 when the Soviet Union deployed its first SS - 20's. This triple-warhead weapon could hit anywhere in Western Europe and much of Asia. Though NATO had no comparable missile to counter this new threat, by August of 1982 the number of Soviet INF missiles had climbed to over 300, with more than 900 warheads.
What we were witnessing was an attempt to tip the military balance of power in Europe and erode the security bond between Europe and the United States. It tested our cohesion and could well have had serious, even catastrophic, long-term consequences had the alliance not acted with resolve. But we did act.
In December of 1979 Western leaders made the decision to move forward on a two-track approach. First, the United States would negotiate with the Soviets in an attempt to convince them to withdraw their new missiles. Second, as long as the Soviets continued on their course and kept their missiles in place, NATO would deploy in Europe a limited number of Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles. What the alliance sought, however, were fewer missiles, not more.
Our plan depended upon unflagging solidarity and steadfastness of purpose, even under immense pressure. And the pressure was put on. Had the nuclear freeze and unilateral disarmament protesters won, Europe would now be condemned to live under the shadow of Soviet nuclear-armed INF missiles. To democracy's credit, the political courage of farsighted European leaders carried the day. That resolve has now made it possible to achieve an historic agreement -- an agreement that will eliminate a whole class of United States and Soviet INF missiles from the face of the planet.
The agreement we are now hearing is based upon the proposal that the United States, in full consultation with allied leaders, put forward in 1981: the zero option. The plan will require the Soviets to remove four times as many nuclear warheads as the United States. Not only will the entire Soviet force of SS - 20's and SS - 4's be destroyed but also the shorter range SS - 12's and SS - 23's. It'll be the first mutual reduction of the world's nuclear arsenals in history. And more than that, the shorter range Soviet missiles that will be eliminated are capable of carrying not just nuclear but also chemical and conventional warheads. Thus, we will be making a promising start in cutting back these threats to Europe as well.
Achievements like this are not the result of wishful thinking, nor are they made more likely by loud proclamations of a desire for peace. Lasting progress derives from hardnosed realism, strenuous effort, and firmness of principle. I can assure you that any treaty I sign will be realistic and in the long-term interest of all the members of the alliance, or no agreement will be signed.
The Soviet Union, for example, has a poor record of compliance with past arms control agreements. So, any new treaty will contain ironclad provisions for effective verification, including on-site inspection of facilities before and during reductions and short-notice inspections afterward. The verification regime we've put forward is the most stringent in the history of arms control negotiations. None of us in the alliance can settle for anything less.
Arms reduction -- if done with care to ensure the continuing credibility of our deterrent, both nuclear and conventional -- is in the interest of all Western countries. And any INF agreement should be viewed not as the end of the process but the beginning, a first big step. We and the Soviets have also been negotiating possible reductions in our strategic arsenals, which for us is a high priority. Again, it's an American proposal that is the centerpiece of the negotiation -- a dramatic proposition to cut our strategic arsenals in half. Considerable progress has been made, and further movement can be expected if Soviet flexibility is evident.
What is totally unacceptable, however, is the Soviet tactic of holding these offensive reductions hostage to measures that would cripple our Strategic Defense Initiative. We won't bargain away SDI, which offers the promise of a safer world in which both sides would rely more on defenses, which threaten no one, than on offensive forces. It shouldn't escape our attention that the Soviets themselves have been spending billions on a strategic defense program of their own.
Much has been heard as of late about reforms being instituted within the Soviet Union. Glasnost, we are told, is ushering in a new era. Well, who cannot but hope these reports are true, that the optimism is justified? Good sense, however, dictates that we look for tangible changes in behavior -- for action, not words -- in deciding what is real or illusionary. We will, for example, closely watch the condition of human rights within the Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine that a government that continues to repress freedom in its own country, breaking faith with its own people, can be trusted to keep agreements with others.
Yes, this year some people, including a few very prominent individuals, were permitted to leave the Soviet Union. It's better than the record of recent years, yet many more emigration and divided-family cases remain. And let us remember: Denial of the right to emigrate is only a small part of the problem of the repressive Soviet system. A recognition of freedom of speech, religion, and press; a release of all prisoners of conscience; an ending of the practice of sending perfectly sane political dissidents to psychiatric hospitals; tolerance of real opposition; and freedom of political choice -- these things, which we all take for granted, would signal that a true turning point has been reached and would offer hope of positive changes in the international arena, as well.
If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand. The further the Soviet leadership opens their system and frees their people, the more likely it will be that the tensions between East and West will lessen. Reflecting this, we also hope to see changes in Soviet foreign policy. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is most certainly a dreadful quagmire. The Afghan people have proven themselves the bravest of the brave. They will continue to have the sympathy and support of free nations in their struggle for independence. Soviet leaders can win accolades from people of good will everywhere and free their country from a no-win situation by grounding their helicopter gunships, promptly withdrawing their troops, and permitting the Afghan people to choose their own destiny. Such actions would be viewed not as a retreat but as a courageous and positive step.
Another sign to look for -- this one closer to home for you on your side of the Atlantic -- would be a loosening of the Soviet hold over Eastern Europe. Why should the peoples of Europe remain divided as they are with barbed wire, watch towers, and machineguns? Why shouldn't all Europeans be free to travel, to visit one another, or to conduct business with each other? Shouldn't the Brezhnev doctrine finally be renounced? Four decades after the war, why should 17 million Germans be treated like prisoners in their own land? A true opening-up and recognition of their sovereign independence would be welcomed by all the peoples of Eastern and central Europe, and it would not threaten the security of the Soviet Union or anyone else.
A few months ago, I visited Berlin. I stood there alongside the cruel wall that symbolizes so powerfully the scar that divides the European continent. It's time for that wound to heal and that scar to disappear. Wouldn't it be a wonderful sight for the world to see, if someday General Secretary Gorbachev and I could meet in Berlin and together take down the first bricks of that wall -- and we could continue taking down walls until the distrust between our peoples and the scars of the past are forgotten.
A few moments ago, I recalled the valiant fight 40 years ago to liberate the European continent. Who cannot help but appreciate that, in that epic struggle, the peoples of the Soviet Union fought bravely and sacrificed so immensely to defeat the common enemy. After the war, we became adversaries, at times bitter adversaries. Yet this need not have happened and need not continue. Any philosophy or leader suggesting that there is a predetermined course of history and that conflict between our peoples and systems is inevitable is wrong. We are not condemned by forces beyond our control. We, all peoples in every land, can shape the world in which we live and determine the future. We in the Western democracies have been doing just that. Together we've built a freer and more prosperous way of life, a community of free people. I'm certain you agree with me that the door is open to all who would join with us.
German literary figure Heinrich Heine has written: ``Do not mock our dreamers. Their words become the seeds of freedom.'' Well, today our vision, not only of a more peaceful world but of a world of freedom in which democratic rights are enjoyed in every land, seems ever more in focus, almost as if it is within reach. We will continue to watch and to be hopeful, yet we must also remain vigilant. The strength and viability of the alliance remains essential, even as an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union opens new opportunities for peace. It is just such strength as NATO has demonstrated that is a precondition to such progress. Weakness, vulnerability, and wishful thinking can undo what has been accomplished by standing firm.
This, nevertheless, can be a time of great change. As you're likely aware, General Secretary Gorbachev has accepted my invitation to come to Washington for a summit in early December. We'll be discussing face-to-face the wide spectrum of issues I've spoken to you about today. I, in fact, expect we'll sign that agreement concerning U.S. and Soviet INF missiles during the time of our meetings.
For our part, the commitment of the United States to the alliance and to the security of Europe -- INF treaty or no INF treaty -- remains unshakable. Over 300,000 American servicemen with you on the continent and our steadfast nuclear guarantee underscore this pledge. Those who worry that we will somehow drift apart or that deterrence has been weakened are mistaken on both counts. Our ties will be strengthened, not diminished, by this success. Such an historic reduction in nuclear weapons, as now appears on the way, will be a resounding vindication of the unity, strength, and determination of the alliance.
As far as our ability to keep the peace, the NATO strategy of flexible response will continue to ensure that aggression, at any level, is blocked. A viable deterrent force of nuclear weapons of many types, including ground-based systems as well as those carried by aircraft and submarines, still protects Europe and remains in place. And we have agreed with our allies that the existing imbalances in conventional forces and chemical weapons must be redressed prior to any further nuclear reductions in Europe.
The alliance has had underway for some time a program of modernizing our forces so that a credible deterrent is maintained over the long term. That is why major initiatives are moving forward to upgrade NATO's conventional strength. And after 18 years of unilaterally refraining from any production of chemical weapons, improvements are being made in our modest chemical weapon inventory. The Soviet Union, of course, possesses what is by far the world's most extensive chemical weapon stockpile.
But just as we're doing in our INF talks, we're also seeking through negotiation to correct the disparities we face in both the chemical and conventional areas. In fact, in 1984 the United States, with allied support, proposed an effective global ban on chemical weapons. As far as conventional forces, the alliance stands ready, if the East meets us halfway, to make reductions in central Europe through mutual balanced force reductions, or MBFR, as they are called. At the same time, in Vienna an agreement between East and West is being sought that would mandate new negotiations on conventional stability from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains.
Our common security agenda, as you can see, is broad and ambitious. An INF agreement is an important first step, but only the first one toward our greater goal. And let there be no doubt, the citizens of the United States fully understand and appreciate that we are partners for peace with you, the peoples of our fellow Western democracies. That's why we applaud what we see as a new willingness, even eagerness, on the part of some of our allies to increase the level of cooperation and coordination among themselves in European defense. The growing cooperation between France and Germany is a positive sign, as is the modernization of the British and French independent nuclear deterrents, which are both vital components of the Western security system. Last week the foreign and defense ministers of the Western European union issued an impressive declaration. It reaffirmed the importance of maintaining our nuclear and conventional deterrents and affirmed a positive Western European identity in the field of defense within the framework of the Atlantic alliance. We welcome these developments.
Over these last four decades, all too often the United States has been viewed as the senior partner of the alliance. Well, today when the economic strength of Western Europe and the United States are fully comparable, the time has long since come when we will view ourselves as equal partners, and a more equal relationship should not diminish our bonds but strengthen them. It should not limit our potential but expand it.
Goethe, the soul of German literature, once wrote: ``If you would create something, you must be something.'' Well, in these last four decades the people of the United States and Europe have been a force for progress and freedom on this planet. And only a few short years from now, as mankind literally enters into a new millennium, we will have laid the foundation for a prosperous and free future. We've proven wrong -- dead wrong -- those doubters and despots who earlier in this century thought democracy was soon to be extinct. We have ensured that, in the centuries ahead, it is free people who will dominate the affairs of mankind. And let me predict that, someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.
There's a story that was brought to my attention a few years ago about an elderly couple who live in the small town of Marstel on the island of Aero in Denmark -- Natalia and Nels Mortensen. For the last 40 years they have tended the grave of a young man they never met. They dig the weeds and place flowers, and always there's a small American flag. When it becomes worn, they replace it with another.
They are watching over the final resting place of U.S. Air Force Sergeant Jack Wagner, who died when his plane was shot down on June 20th, 1944, near Aero, which was then occupied territory. Jack Wagner's body washed up on shore a few days later, and the word quickly spread through the tiny community. When the Nazi occupation troops came to bury the young American, they found nearly the whole town of 2,000 had been waiting by the grave since early in the morning to pay tribute to the young flyer. The path had been lined with flowers. And when the troops laid young Jack Wagner in his grave, the townspeople conducted a funeral service and placed red, white, and blue flowers on his grave, along with a banner that read: ``Thank you for what you have done.''
Jack was a 19-year-old American from Snyder County, Pennsylvania. The Danish townspeople had never met him, but they knew this young man had given his life for them. He cared enough for people he'd never met to make the supreme sacrifice for their freedom. The Mortensens never forgot this. They still care for that grave as if he was a member of their family, and in a way, he was. Just as we are all part of the family of free people.
Many young people from all of our countries have died to preserve the freedom we now enjoy. Many of our children still serve. They stand together on the ramparts of freedom. We care about each and every one of them as if he or she was our own. Let us be as brave as they are brave, as proud as they are proud.
Thank you for letting me share these moments with you. God bless you.
Note: The President's address was recorded on November 3 in the Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast by the U.S. Information Agency on WORLDNET television and the Voice of America at 8 a.m. on November 4. | <urn:uuid:9ec6f2d6-487b-44b0-955d-15f58740e75b> | 2 | 2.09375 | 0.018164 | en | 0.971634 | http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/110487a.htm |
Fossil May Explain Man’s Evolutionary Transition From Water To Land
June 26, 2008
Scientists believe the discovery of well-preserved fossils in Latvia may explain the evolutionary history of how our ancestors moved from water to land.
Swedish researchers have reconstructed parts of the animal, which had a fish-like body but a head that appears better suited to land than water. The four-legged fish, known as Ventastega curonica, would have looked similar to a small alligator, the scientists say, and may in part explain the process of evolution.
Researchers Per Ahlberg and Henning Blom from Uppsala University in Sweden said the 365-million-year-old species eventually went on to became an evolutionary dead end.
The first backboned land animals, known as tetrapods, were the ancestors of modern day amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals such as humans. It has long been known that tetrapods, animals with limbs rather than paired fins, evolved from a group of fishes during the Devonian period about 370 million years ago. However, fossils of tetrapod-like fishes and fish-like tetrapods from this time were still rather different from each other and do not provide a comprehensive picture of the intermediate steps in the transition.
The discovery in 2006 of an intermediate fish-tetrapod, known as Tiktaalik, advanced theories about the transition, but unexplained gaps remained between Tiktaalik and the earliest of the true tetrapods. But the new fossils of the very primitive Ventastega curonica seem to complete the story on this phase of the transition.
“From a distance, it [Ventastega curonica] would have looked like an alligator. But closer up, you would have noticed a real tail fin at the back end, a gill flap at the side of the head; also lines of pores snaking across head and body,” Alhberg said.
The reconstructions made by Ahlberg and Blom together show that Ventastega was more fish-like than any of its contemporaries. Its teeth and skull shape are neatly intermediate between those of Tiktaalik and Acanthostega (another transitional species).
“I would draw the inference that Ventastega probably had limbs very much like Acanthostega. These were little things sticking out of the sides, with a strangely high number of digits. You would have seven, eight, maybe even nine toes per foot, rather than five or so which you would expect to find in modern day animals,” he explained.
Ventastega eventually died out, and other creatures went on to become our distant land-living ancestors.
Image Courtesy Arthur Weasley (Wikipedia)
On the Net:
Uppsala University
The research is published in the journal Nature. An abstract can be viewed here.
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If the GOP is going to raise taxes by limiting deductions, here’s one way to do it that would result in the least damage
As Erick explains in today’s featured story, “Reasonableness,” it appears that Boehner and McConnell are prepared to give in and agree to raising revenue by limiting deductions. The premise is that this is less likely to impact small businesses (the job creators) than raising rates.
This is correct. However, we can’t ignore that limiting deductions will have a significant effect on many middle class taxpayers. Before the GOP goes down this road, I hope they will consider how to do this in the least harmful and intrusive manner. For to pretend that this will NOT impact the middle class is a complete lie. A great many middle-class taxpayers will be hurt. I’m thus presenting one possible methodology here for comments.
First, some quick background data.
Every taxpayer gets a standard deduction, if they do not itemize on their return. This then, is their “floor.”
For the overwhelming majority of middle class filers who itemize, their deductions consist of the following: mortgage interest, real estate taxes, state and local income taxes, and charitable contributions. It’s much harder to deduct medical expenses, though some still are able to do so, and there are also the few job related and miscellaneous deductions that some can take.
There are valid arguments for limiting deductions that can, and should, appeal to conservatives. This is because giving preference to certain expenditures skews behavior; it lets government use the tax code to influence the public’s actions.
Let’s briefly discuss the three most common deductions:
1. Mortgage interest and real estate taxes: These were put in place to subsidize the American dream of home ownership. I believe this is a worthy goal. There are some proposals to allow these for only one home, the primary residence, and possible cap the interest deduction on these mortgages to a maximum of $300,000 principal amount.
2. State and local income taxes: Taxpayers living in states with no income tax are in effect subsiding those who vote for high state income taxes (predominantly “blue” states) as being able to deduct these from the federal return results in a not-inconsiderable savings. We can be assured that blue state congressmen will do everything possible to keep this in place.
3. Charitable giving: Obama philosophically wants to curtail this, as he would like to see big government as the source of all benefits for its citizens. I suspect that the vast majority of conservatives would continue to donate at the same rate, but they will obviously feel the cost of doing so.
Instead of “tweaking” these components, why not allow people to act according to their own inclinations and preferences. Since the standard deduction is a “floor,” why not just have a “ceiling” for itemized deductions. Maintain them exactly as they are, just cap the amount in total that can be taken.
But here’s the real beauty of this approach. Do not express the cap as an absolute number, as is done now for the standard deduction. Rather, do so as a percentage of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).
This treats everyone exactly the same. It is thus 100% “fair”
Here’s one way it could work:
For AGI’s of $50-100k, the cap on itemizing deductions would be 25% of AGI; from $100-150k, it could drop to 20%.
Thus, if your AGI is $80k, your cap for itemized deductions would be $20k. You calculate them as before. If they total $15k, that’s all you get to deduct. If they total $25k, all you can deduct is the $20k cap. It would also be possible to allow a phase in, perhaps over a 2-3 year period, for those find themselves exceeding the cap, to limit the impact.
Analysis of current income tax return data ( which is far beyond my ability) would allow us to determine the percentages and the brackets that would be “tax neutral” for the vast majority of taxpayers, and thus provide the least amount disruption, while still achieving the goals of raising revenue by limiting deductions.
Again, the two key advantages of this approach:
1. It’s the least intrusive, in that it does not attempt to skew behavior, and allows most taxpayers to act as before. Particular special interest groups, (i.e. realtors, or blue state congressmen) will find it much harder to preserve their own sacred cow.
2. It’s absolutely 100% FAIR. Everyone, I mean everyone, gets the same percentage of their AGI as a ceiling for their itemized deductions.
It also shows that the Republicans in Congress have not forgotten the voters who elected them in the first place.
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Improving Online Video Creative Use and Monetization
Improving Online Video Creative Use and Monetization
Harvard Law Professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig, a strong advocate for narrower restrictions with copyright law around online video, explained what platforms exist today that have the best system for protecting copyrights, while at the same time encouraging creative usage of that video by others.
In a streaming-video presentation I watched Lessig give last month, he discussed how to overcome legal problems with enforcing copyright law (as it exists today) with online video, and have a better copyright system in place that benefits everyone doing video online. A streaming video copy of Lawrence's presentation is available on his Blip.TV channel. The following is the question exactly as it to Lessing, and followed by his answer – which is actually portions of answers taken from from different questions during the same Q&A session. (Call it my own "re-mixing.”)
Question: Mr. Lessig, what kind of technical and legal platforms exist today that can best leverage and assure (i.e., protect) the rights-owners of online video, as well others who want to put someone else's video to creative use online?
The Recommended Video Platform
Lessig: For a technical platform, I think it's about what you're allowed to download and do stuff with the content. It's been an important evolution in YouTube's history that there's no a simple way to get the videos that YouTube has, and download them in a high-quality version to your machine so you can do stuff with it.
Other sites have had this forever: Blip.TV… my favorite competitor to YouTube… and where all of my lectures get hosted, has allowed this from the very beginning and has allowed people to mark that content with licenses that freely market as usable or shareable. I think that's an essential part; that you can take and do stuff with the content that's not wrapped in Digital Rights Management in a way that disables that.
YouTube – moving slowly towards more freedom
Lessig: I think YouTube should ultimately recognize that it is not in their interests to have any control system that blocks types of innovation with video; and that these different platform standards just inhibit that kind of remix creativity. I'm actually encouraged that Blip.TV's competition with YouTube has gotten YouTube to recognize the value in alternative formats. Blip.TV have begun to make YouTube recognize why encouraging a wider range of freedom here is important.
I think YouTube is moving; not quickly enough, but I think they're moving in the right direction here, and people putting more pressure on them to do it is the right way to do it.
The legal platform solution…
…narrow down the copyright system
Lessig: But the legal platform is just as important. The legal platform has got to be clear to enable people to be free to make this kind of creative work, without the unnecessary restrictions of copyright. So what would that be?
I'm a deep believer that copyright is an essential part of the digital future. We've got to have a system of copyright. But it's got to be narrowed and focused in the places where it could actually do some good. It does no good when it tries to regulate amateur creativity. There's no reason why somebody making a YouTube video… needs to worry about clearing the rights to the music, or anything else they want to do as they engage in that kind of creativity. It makes no sense because there's no market for anybody, and nobody loses businesses if people engage in this kind of creativity; and we want them to engage in this creativity.
We know that if we tax it, as Ronald Reagan taught us, "tax it and you get less of it." We should free that creativity from copyright's control.
…Exempt the amateur from copyright law
Lessig: My take is that amateur remix should be exempted (from copyright law). Not "fair use," but "free use" under copyright law. And instead, we focus on the commercial entities that might profit from this use.
The Creative Commons' non-commercial license is an experiment to encourage and enable that. The reason we launched it was we just recognized that there were many people who see the idea of taking people's creativity and doing stuff with it for non-commercial purposes as a different thing from taking people's stuff and doing things with it for commercial purposes… To enable that kind of cultural meaning created this device to facilitate non-commercial sharing.
Improving Online Video Creative Use and Monetization
…and make Google accountable for advertising profits from unauthorized, published commercial video
Lessig: For example, if Google makes money for people making videos, and they run ads next to it, then Google should be paying for the remixed content that is displayed on Google, not the underlined creators. Right now, American law is exactly backwards. Right now, when you post it in YouTube, the law says that you, the creator, who hasn't cleared the rights to using that music in the background, have violated copyright law. But YouTube, if they take it down with 10 days of notice, is immune from any liability under copyright law. That just makes no sense.
Author's note: Viacom, owner of Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central, has argued in their lawsuit against Google that YouTube (owned by Google) became the leading video site by rampantly infringing on copyrights – including showing copyrighted video clips without permission, and making money off the traffic and advertising from those clips. Google/YouTube maintains it followed copyright laws of the Internet.
Encourage the amateur, and charge the professional.
Lessig: The system ought to be that we encourage the amateur creativity (with online video), and then tax and regulate the commercial (business) profiting from that creativity. There are lots of hard lines to draw there, but we should be trying to draw that line to make sure that this amateur stuff remains free.
Author's note: by "amateur creativity," I don't believe Lessig had amateur porn video in mind. When I did a Google image search under "amateur creativity," that's all I could find. But it got me thinking, would Lessig would also 'encourage' that kind of amateur creativity? ("Free use for free love" has an interesting ring to it. ;)
Improving Online Video Creative Use and Monetization
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dribble in a sentence
Example sentences for dribble
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Why else these incessant, endless dribble of hateful comments.
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For all of you yelling about how this is mindless dribble or that the point isn't new at all dont get the point of this article.
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He learned to dribble and collect his ball from the floor before all the others.
Small pieces of rock continue to dribble down from the highwall.
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A society which allows an abominable event to burgeon from its dungheap and grow on its surface is like a man who lets a... more
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groundbreaking in a sentence
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As discussed previously, this project is a landmark, groundbreaking renewable energy project if it goes through.
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Yale hopes climate change conference is groundbreaking.
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Remakes and sequels aren't groundbreaking, generally, nor are they generally big blockbusters.
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In Memory of Gray McGhee: "All Souls"
"ALL SOULS" by May Sarton
(A poem selected by Gray's brother, Russ McGhee, and printed in the booklet for the memorial service in July '98)
Did someone say that there would be an end,
An end, Oh, an end to love and mourning?
Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,
The cold bleak voices of the early morning
When all the birds are dumb in dark November -
Remember and forget, forget, remember.
After the false night, warm true voices, wake!
Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,
Through the pale sunlight once more gravely speak.
Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
''Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven.''
Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
And memory makes kings and queens of us.
Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real heaven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
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Explore the Blog Explore Blog
Time to Get Moving: How a Function-Focused Approach Helps Caregivers and Those They Care For
Nov 22, 2011, 12:00 PM, Posted by Elizabeth Galik
By Elizabeth Galik, PhD, CRNP, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar
Older adults with dementia are more likely to be physically inactive, require assistance with personal care activities, and have more medical problems than older adults without dementia. There is a tendency to promote sedentary activities rather than exercise among older adults with dementia for fear that they will fall or injure themselves if they are allowed to be mobile and physically active.
Despite the gradual and progressive cognitive and functional decline associated with dementia, there are benefits to keeping older adults engaged in their own personal care and physical activity. These benefits include slight improvement or maintenance of functional abilities, fewer behavioral and depressive symptoms, better sleep, and fewer falls. A function-focused philosophy of care is designed to prevent or minimize functional decline and optimize the function and physical activity of older adults regardless of their memory impairment. It promotes the belief that all older adults are capable of and benefit from some improvement or maintenance of functional potential, even though the function may not be entirely independent, such as passive range of motion through hand-over-hand feeding, or encouragement of self-propulsion in a wheelchair.
Caregivers also benefit from using a function-focused care approach. Even small improvements in the functional performance of older adults with dementia may decrease the physical requirements of caregiving, such as heavy lifting, and also may result in psychological benefits for the caregiver, such as increased self-confidence and improved satisfaction with his/her caregiving role.
There are a variety of caregiving “tricks of the trade” that are crucial to function-focused care activities with older adults with dementia. These strategies include: (1) adapting communication techniques; (2) care and consistency; (3) enhancing sensory experiences; and (4) incorporating humor and play.
Adapting Communication Techniques
Communication techniques that are designed to encourage and motivate older adults with dementia to participate in functional activities should include short, simple verbal cues given while directly facing the individual. Because of short term memory impairment, reminders, encouragement, and praise should be utilized. Physical gesturing, demonstrating, and role modeling are effective for those individuals with difficulties understanding speech.
Care and Consistency
Individuals with dementia are more likely to be active in their own care when routines are predictable and caregivers are consistent. A sense of trust and a caring attitude is helpful in eliciting maximum participation in functional activities.
Enhancing Sensory Experiences
Approximately two-thirds of older adults with dementia exhibit apathy and passive behaviors. For these passive individuals, enhanced sensory experiences can be motivating. For example, visual, color contrast between the food and the serving dishes may help with attention to the task of eating. In an exercise class, the use of familiar music can motivate cognitively impaired individuals to dance and move.
Incorporating Humor and Play
Humor and playful activities are often used to prevent catastrophic behavioral outbursts among older adults with dementia. This same strategy can also be utilized to motivate these older adults to be actively involved in their own personal care activities. Some suggested activities that are appropriate for older adults with dementia include: indoor and outdoor hiking programs and parades, balloon toss, beauty makeovers that focus on grooming, movement groups, and dances.
Let’s get moving!
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Do the Keebler elves have names? Are they related to your elves?
-- Skitch, Solana Beach
To Matthew Alice:
Recently I bought a box of crackers, specifically a 16-oz. box labeled Krispy original. The crackers have 16 pinholes each. Most saltines for years have had 13 pinholes, Krispy (formerly Sunshine) included. Why the change? The pictures on the box show the old 13-hole cracker. I called consumer service, which invites questions but is a bit short on answers, although with a helpful attitude. Your attitude is not unhelpful, but is definitely something special.
-- Mary Krimmel, the net
Special enough to take your question seriously, Mary. Any legitimate journalist would have stuck it up on the office bulletin board with all the other crackpot mail-- the interstellar-radio-hat, the psychic-cat ladies, and the rest. But for some reason I can't explain, the buzz about Universal Alice LLC is that we actually solicit crackpot letters, so I feel obligated to deal with them. Though I still reserve the right to suggest that some of you very badly need to go back and get that GED, or learn welding in your spare time, master 3-D Scrabble, take many vigorous walks, or something,...anything.
No one was more amazed than I was when the research elves tracked down someone who knew the answer to your question. Or, anyway, someone who knew someone who knew the answer. Close enough for me. But first, let's take a field trip of the imagination to the Keebler kitchens and follow a typical Krispy saltine. An endless ribbon of dough squeezes onto a conveyor. It passes under a roller that pokes in the pinholes and the dotted lines that separate each cracker unit. The conveyor rumbles through the oven, and baked golden squares appear at the other end. So what critical function do those pinholes serve? They allow steam to escape as the cracker puffs up (making it crispy), and they keep each cracker unit from blowing up into a cracker pillow as it bakes.
According to Deep Dip, our appetizer informant, Keebler makes both 13-hole and 16-hole saltines. They come from two different bakeries with slightly different conveyor mechanisms. (We have no hard data to suggest 16-hole Krispys are any crisper than 13-hole Krispys.) Anyway, the picture on the package only promises you 13 holes. So when you opened the box and found you had three extra holes per cracker unit at no extra cost, I assume you were pleased.
And now on to a touchier subject. The Keebler elves: Ernest J. Keebler, Ma Keebler, Zoot, JJ, Elmer, Fast Eddie, Professor, Roger, Doc, Leonardo, Sam, Buckets, Casey, plus Zack and Flo, Keebler's elves of color. Yes, they're related to the research elves, though nobody likes to talk about it. The Alice elves actually tried out for that Keebler gig. Practiced for weeks, went to the audition, sang and tap danced their little hearts out, only to lose the job to cousins in the Midwest branch of the family, true snobs who love to talk about how their ancestors came to America on a very tiny replica of the Mayflower. But don't feel sorry for the Alice elves. They're just as happy that they don't have to live in a hollow tree.
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Scorning smokers
E-cigarettes emit water vapors, not toxic secondhand smoke
Since 2011, the San Francisco Department of Public Health has backed legislation to hold e-cigarettes under the same public smoking laws as traditional tobacco products. Currently, San Francisco's continually expanding smoke-free ordinance bans cigarette consumption in nearly any public place. This consists of Muni stops, festivals, parks, farmers' markets, non-smoking apartments and, unfortunately for all you nicotine-addicted bingo lovers, the obscure addition of "charity bingo games."
San Francisco has yet to pass any regulatory laws regarding e-cigarette consumption, or "vaping." But Nick Pagoulatos, a legislative aide to Sup. Eric Mar, a staunch sponsor of San Francisco's many anti-smoking policies, says a plan is in the works.
"Currently there is nothing on the books," Pagoulatos told the Bay Guardian. "But there has been discussion with the health department [which is] working something up and the Mayor's Office has been talking with them as well. The timing is unclear, but at some point it will happen."
California Senate Bill 648, approved in May and currently on its way to the California Assembly, would elevate similar e-cigarette regulations to a state level. So why are California and San Francisco pushing so hard to regulate these products?
"The suspicion is that allowing people to vape these things reinforces the culture of smoking," Pagoulatos said. "It continues in the tradition of making smoking look cool, even if it's not actual smoke."
Traditionally, San Francisco's smoking ordinances have derived from the hazards of secondhand smoke on innocent bystanders, but the regulation of e-cigarettes evokes an entirely new basis for public smoking laws.
California has an active history of anti-smoking legislation beginning in the 1990s when San Luis Obispo became the first city in the world to ban smoking in all public buildings. In 1998, the public smoking ban elevated to the state level, specifically because of the health risks posed to bar and restaurant employees by secondhand smoke. This year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to extend the already strict non-smoking laws to cover festivals and street fairs and require landlords to designate their building units as smoking or non-smoking. Now, vapers in California face a similar threat.
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Shark Info 2 / 02 (07-20-2002)
Modern technology aids shark protection
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Salmon Shark
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Fact Sheet: Salmon Shark
Salmon shark
The salmon shark Lamna ditropis.
© Dietmar Weber / Shark Foundation
German: Lachshai
English: Salmon shark, Pacific porbeagle
French: Requin-taupe saumon
Spanish: Marrajo salmon
The biology of the salmon shark (Lamna ditropis)
The biology of the salmon shark (Lamna ditropis) The salmon shark is a commonly found species which can live both in coastal and oceanic regions, preferring cool, northern waters. Like several other species from the Lamnidae family, they can maintain their body temperature with the help of a vascular net (rete mirabilis) which maintains the water temperature around their bodies. They swim both underneath the water's surface and in depths of up to 150 meters. This species is found solitary or in schools and aggregate when feeding.
The salmon shark has a spinal-shaped, lightly bulbous body with conspicuously large gill slits and a conical snout. The first dorsal fin is very high and erect, originating just over or slightly behind the pectoral insertions. Their second dorsal fin is minute and begins just about over the beginning of the anal fin. They have strong keels on the caudal peduncle, with a secondary keel on the caudal base, and a crescent-shaped dorsal fin.
The salmon shark has a dark gray back and a white belly. The coloring changes on the sides and is marked by dark spots and blotches. The first dorsal fin is dark up to its free rear tip.
Salmon sharks are found in the northern and eastern Pacific around Japan and Korea. Their range stretches from the Bering Strait to southern California, and they may even venture to Baja California and Mexico.
Salmon frequently gather at the mouth of a river before swimming upstream to spawn. This periodical accumulation of salmon regularly attracts larger numbers of salmon sharks into regions of North America.
Their average size is between 250 and 280 cm long, with a maximum size of about 300 cm.
As their name implies, salmon shark prefer to feed on Pacific salmon (from the Oncorhynchus family), but their diet also includes other bony fish.
The salmon shark reproduces aplacental viviparously (ovoviviparous). Cannibalism in the uterus is common with this species, i.e. the embryos in the uterus eat the less developed eggs. Generally salmon shark bear up to four pups per litter. Males mature when reaching a length of approximately 180 to 240 cm.
Similar Species
Salmon sharks could be mistaken for mackerel sharks (Lamna nasus), however, clear identification is possible by comparing the free ends of their first dorsal fins. With the salmon shark it is just as dark as the dorsal fin, with mackerel sharks it is white and shows a clear dividing line.
Danger to Humans
As with other species from the Lamnidae family, salmon sharks could be potentially dangerous due to their size.
It is not certain as to what extent the salmon shark must be considered an endangered species. However, their populations could be threatened because they are fished by Japanese longline fishermen in the northern Pacific.
May be published only by indicating the source: Shark Info
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There are short margin accounts as well. They function in much the same way. The difference, though, is that you're betting that the stock will go down in price, rather than up. The concept is simple: you sell a stock that you don't currently own, and if you're right, you buy it back later at the lower price. The difference between the selling and repurchase prices is your profit (we ignore trading costs and taxes). Tiger asks, "How do you sell stock that you don't...
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BOEM Atlantic seismic testing map
The area of the Atlantic being targeted for seismic testing. (Map from BOEM's website.)
The growing fight against oil and gas exploration off the NC coast
Those state leaders are members of the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition (OCSGC), a group promoting expanded offshore drilling that's chaired by McCrory. Its other members are Republican Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, and Sean Parnell of Alaska.
McCrory and his OCSGC colleagues asked Jewell to support seismic testing for oil and gas reserves off the Atlantic Coast, which is currently protected by a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling. They got their answer three days later, when the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) published an environmental analysis that endorsed a plan for seismic exploration in Atlantic waters.
Jewell -- the former CEO of outdoor goods company REI who started her career as an engineer for what was then the Mobil oil company -- is expected to formally approve the testing plan next month, McClatchyDC reports. BOEM is accepting comments on the plan here until April 7.
McCrory cheered BOEM's announcement. “This decision is the right step toward more jobs for North Carolina, particularly in our rural areas near the coast," he said in a statement.
But while seismic testing in the Atlantic appears to be winning support from federal officials, who say the current plan would "minimize impacts to marine life," McCrory is meeting opposition in North Carolina coastal communities -- including from members of his own party.
The town of Carolina Beach, N.C. held a special meeting on Friday, Feb. 28 -- the day after BOEM approved seismic testing -- where council members unanimously passed a resolution opposing seismic testing off the state's coast. Of the council's five members, four are Republicans and one is a Democrat.
"The town of Carolina Beach does not support the current proposals," council member Steve Shuttleworth, a Republican, told The Star-News newspaper. "Particularly the frequency, the volume and the areas for seismic testing, as well as the potential threat to marine life."
The resolution addresses potential harm to recreational and commercial fishing as well as tourism. Located about 15 miles south of the historic port city of Wilmington, N.C., Carolina Beach is a tourist attraction, with one of the East Coast's last remaining beachside boardwalks, numerous charter fishing boat businesses, and a state park for fishing, camping and hiking.
Just three miles down the coast from Carolina Beach is the town of Kure Beach, N.C., where Mayor Dean Lambeth's (R) recent decision to sign onto a letter endorsing seismic testing triggered a backlash from his constituents. Hundreds of them packed a January council meeting to protest the mayor's action, pounding on the walls and booing Lambeth. The controversial letter had been written by America's Energy Forum, a project of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's largest trade association.
"...[W]e really weren't represented by our mayor in this decision," Kure Beach resident Joanne Durham said at the meeting. The council has not taken a formal position on seismic testing.
And last month, 102 marine scientists and conservation biologists wrote a letter to President Obama opposing finalizing the environmental impact statement on seismic testing until the National Marine Fisheries Service completes its new Marine Mammal Acoustic Guidelines lest the statement be "scientifically deficient and quickly outdated."
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If the seismic activity was
If the seismic activity was that bad for sealife...why is the fishing so incredible in the gulf? They have been doing seismic studies for decades and continue to do so.
Gulf stream is the power of
Gulf stream is the power of the Atlantic Ocean. So much depends on it. If the studies on the west coast told them not drill nor seismic test, why would we let them near the gulf stream? Why over-harvest the prey, cause continuous pollution via bio-accumulation, and then deter them from huge areas via deafening air pulses? How much do we care about our marine friends?
Our coastline
There is a positive alternative to oil and gas on our coast. It is simple; it's wind. You can dig a hole and stick a turbine in it. No explosion or spill. If there is a hurricane, the turbine might fall over - that would be the worst thing that might happen.
There is plenty of science saying that the NC shores would be absolutely perfect for the wind energy. You can look it up.
In fact, some of those same governors have attended meetings to discuss wind. (Unless they were actually covering up for Big Oil; it wouldn't be the first time.)
NC is 5th in the nation in solar energy. If you would give NC a chance, wind would be the same. The sad thing, though, is that Big Oil and Gas would not get a penny of it.
Please support wind - tell everybody why - don't give up to those who want to dynamite our coastline.
I'm begging you.
Oil Exploration off North Carolina
Wind and Solar are the way to go! Our coast must not be contaminated by the oil industry.
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Latest questions and answers: (updated May 19)
Question: You mentioned the Asian and White students dominating the graduating class of Lakewood. To what do we account for the Asian successes? Those students are not seeing their faces in text books, being taught by their own or being of the same culture as most of their educators and yet they are succeeding. Many of their parents don't even speak English as a first language whereas that is not a battle felt by African-American students. For me this reiterates the emphasis placed on education in the home being a key factor. Are there any studies done on this?
Tom Tobin: The success of Asian students and other immigrant groups is a very intriguing one that the Times plans to explore in coming months as part of a continuing look at the achievement gap. There have been studies on this topic. One of the academics quoted in our stories, anthropologist John Ogbu, has delved into this area. He distinguishes between "voluntary" immigrants, such as Vietnamese families who have settled in the Tampa Bay area in recent years, and "involuntary" immigrants, such as black Americans whose ancestors were slaves. To paraphrase very loosely, Ogbu theorizes that many black families have built up a distrust of school systems over many decades based on the way they have been treated in American society. The result, he says, has been a certain resistance to the material taught and the school environments created by mostly white school staffs. Other immigrants, he says, don't have that history and thus are able to put aside that baggage (my word) and concentrate on what is being taught. Some even adopt what Ogbu calls "white ways." As a group, they tend to be more successful than black Americans, Ogbu says. As you can see, this is a very complex and sensitive area.
Question: Why is it that the media usually ignores Asians when discussing educational performance gaps?
Tom Tobin: We discussed Asian students at length as we designed this first series of stories several months ago. We quickly came to the conclusion that the achievement gap is an enormous topic that could not be adequately covered in one story or even a few stories. Our efforts will continue throughout the year. We decided to write about the black achievement gap first because the nation has been trying to solve that problem for the better part of 50 years. We plan to examine the impact on Hispanic and Asian students in coming months.
Question: Isn't it possible that evolutionary selection by the sub-Saharan environmental conditions may have favored attributes other than those of academic achievement?
Tom Tobin: I have spent months studying many theories about the reasons for the achievement gap. That is not one I have come across.
Question: I was wondering why the Amish and Mennonites, who take vows of poverty, and live in greater poverty than the blacks in all the states I've lived in, don't go to jail in Florida (according to "Showcap" data) and do well in reading and academics? I thought poverty caused the achievement gap. Why doesn't poverty affect the Amish and Mennonite reading and test taking skills?
Tom Tobin: Anyone who takes a vow of poverty is impacted differently than someone who is born into poverty or suffers from poverty involuntarily, as are many black students. We also don't know if your premise is true. I have not seen any data on how Amish and Mennonite children fare on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test or any other standardized test.
Question: Has integration hurt the Black students? Also, do you think Catalog of Choice is segregation again? What's the solution? Who is actually helping to bridge the gap: parents, Pinellas County Schools, the state, the NAACP? Where's the solution in all this?
Tom Tobin: Several questions there. I'll address a few of them. Your question about integration is the subject of some very strong discussion locally and across the country. I've spoken with black parents and grandparents who went to all-black schools. They speak of a time when black students felt more loved and successful among their black peers. They recall that black teachers were more apt to notice and help when students were struggling. Not graduating or getting a C was almost unthinkable, they said. On the other hand, there is very compelling data showing that black students don't do as well today in predominantly black schools. What's the solution? In the words of a local school board member, "If any of us had the answer we'd be on Oprah." The search for solutions continues. But you touched on a big one - parental involvement. There is universal agreement that the gap would at least be narrowed significantly if more parents involved themselves in schools, turned off the TV and read to their children from an early age. In Pinellas County, we see that the gap is narrowest in the fundamental schools, where parental involvement is mandated. But not every family can maintain the requirements set down by those schools. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the gap is in part a problem of size. Some school districts are so large that even the very best ideas have trouble getting implemented because of sheer numbers. Try getting 8,000 employees on the same page, be they teachers, journalists or widget makers. Would Florida be better off with smaller school districts? The last article in our series is about a small school district that is having some success closing the gap.
Question: Has anyone looked at the "achievement gap" strickly by economic status, removing ethnicity from the equation? It seems to me that poverty and the lack of opportunity that goes with it are much more important factors in achievement than skin color. It is also a much more practical way of looking at the issue because then we can work at getting to the root of the problem.
Tom Tobin: Poverty is a big factor but not the only one. Many, many studies have done just what you said - removed ethnicity from the equation and looked at the impact of poverty. When they do that, the gap still exists. Pinellas did its own study in 1999 and found that poverty was a prime determinant in the gap. But the numbers in the back of that same report showed that a black-white gap existed among non-poverty students at many schools. I also wonder whether focusing on poverty is a more practical way to get at the problem, as you say. We haven't found a solution for poverty either. I'd submit we've been trying to solve poverty a lot longer than we've been trying to close the gap.
Question: I have an 11 year old white daughter who just made it to 5th grade. She failed kindergarten and 3rd grade. She is still not reading at the level of her other 5th grade peers. I even placed her in private school in an attempt to bring her up to speed to no avail. If money and emphasis is to be placed on low achievers, why not allocate that for all underachievers? Why does my daughter have to over looked for special assistance because she is white?
Tom Tobin: I don't know if your daughter has been overlooked. What I have seen in many special classes designed to close the gap is a mix of black, white, Hispanic and Asian kids getting help. These classes tend to be disproportionately black, but low-performers of other races seem to be benefiting as well. In Hillsborough County, school officials tell us they don't consider black and white when it comes to getting kids extra help. They say they want to help all low performers. School officials on both sides of Tampa Bay also tell us they make every effort to ensure that high performing kids aren't shorted in the effort to help low performers. They say they try to seek a balance. Maybe you have cited an instance where they haven't succeeded.
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SRI Blog
Detecting Neurodegenerative Diseases Before Damage Is Done
The brain has amazing capacity to overcome large deficits, which means that by the time a neurodegenerative disease becomes apparent, the damage is extensive. In the case of Parkinson's disease, for example, more than half of the midbrain region called the substantia nigra can be completely destroyed without any evidence of a problem. But once a threshold of 65- to 70-percent damage has been crossed, the trajectory goes over a cliff and the telltale motor symptoms of Parkinson's appear.
Alzheimer's disease is similar. Plaques and tangles can be developing in the brain and neurons can be dying, but the compensatory mechanisms of the brain are so great that there are no behavioral symptoms—until the brain can no longer overcome the damage. By that time, there may be no hope for treatment. Unfortunately, we are a long way away from having any sort of treatment that can repair the massive destruction that has occurred by the time the disease is detected.
In SRI's Center for Neuroscience, my colleagues and I are searching for an indicator that could help diagnose neurodegenerative diseases much earlier, hopefully years before the damage is so extensive that nothing can be done. If a marker is found in both humans and animal models, it could also help guide the development of new treatments and be used to monitor patients to determine if potential treatments are effective.
Our search for a translational biomarker for measuring the presence and progression of neurodegenerative disease centers on the use of the electroencephalogram (EEG). Put simply, an EEG is a measure of the sum of all electrical activity across different regions of the cerebral cortex. Healthy neurons produce electric currents in the process of releasing neurotransmitters and relaying signals. When neurons get sick, their electrical patterns can change long before they die. When large numbers of cells start changing their electrophysiological properties due to the progression of a neurodegenerative disease, we believed there would be measurable changes in the readout of the EEG. And that is what we found in Huntington's disease, as described below.
Using EEG to diagnose brain dysfunction is not a new idea. Numerous studies have found changes in the EEGs of patients suffering from various neurodegenerative diseases as well as in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases. However, finding EEG changes that are indicative of the presence of disease prior to the onset of symptoms has been difficult to ascertain.
Huntington's disease is unique among the neurodegenerative diseases in that it is the only major one for which we know the major cause with certainty. In Huntington's disease patients, a genetic mutation in the Huntingtin gene produces a change in a protein that makes it toxic to neurons. Because Huntington's disease has a known inheritable cause, we are able to determine if a person has the disease decades before they become symptomatic. Thus, we recognized the opportunity to study the diagnostic value of EEG in Huntington's disease patients at various stages of the development of the disease.
UCLA Professor Andrew Leuchter has studied EEG patterns in Huntington's disease patients and several years ago published an important finding about how EEG patterns changed in pre-symptomatic Huntington's disease patients compared to controls. These changes progressed as patients got closer to being symptomatic. Dr. Leuchter was able to use EEG as a biomarker that could identify a patient having the disease 10 years prior to its onset. This work validated the concept that the EEG can be used as a biomarker for the presence and progression of a neurodegenerative disease.
For the last three years, SRI researchers have been studying EEG patterns in mice that have a condition similar to human Huntington's disease. Our findings that an EEG “signature” could indeed identify early changes in the brain were recently published in the journal Brain. SRI's findings and Dr. Leuchter's findings both support the hypothesis that the EEG can be used to diagnose neurodegenerative disease and that it might also be used as a biomarker to help measure the efficacy of potential new therapeutics.
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Neeraj Rawat
The idea is very interesting and perfectly logical we just need optimize our ECG analysis part...
please cure multiple sclerosis please.
Could the eminent neurosurgeons find a cure for ALS i.e amyotrophic lateral sclerocis . I am very anxious to know details of treatment if any.
Ervin Ormon
After reading about the research being done by SRI with the EEG to try and determine if there are translational bio-markers for measuring the presence and progression of neurodegenerative disease, it occurred to me that it would be a could idea to study the adult children of older people that have already been diagnosed with any neurodegenerative diseases. For example lets say we have a man or a women in there fifties that has a parent that has been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, then the healthy brains of the offspring in there fifties and sixties could be studies over a period of 5 to 15 or more years to see which if any of them develop neurodegenereative diseases. I believe that it is more likely that the children with parents having developed similar diseases will be more likely to develop them also due to genetic similarities, diet, environment and a host of other factors they may have in common. I also have some ideas on developing computer software to help analysis the data to find any correlating patterns. Many questing have to be asked of the individuals to extrapolate the information. I am a software developer and I found the article to be thought provoking.
Wow! Great to find a post knocking my socks off!
J P Singh
I think that the research of EEG patterns will go a long way helping patients who have both neuro and kidney failure diseases , my mother had symptoms of the neuro disease due to my mothers acute kidney and diabetic problems. Today the death of neurons in our brain and the disfunctioning of the various parts of our body are due to stress improper health diet and pollution issues as well . So we have to go a longway before we can find a solution to this though EEG and research will help a lot.There is a definate link between diabetes, kidney failure and the degenerative process of the neurons in the brain and a lot more research has to be done to prevent more loss of human lives .
Michelle Agnew
yes yes... interesting... I have a dear friend who has basically multiple organ failure... but the kidneys are the worst as they produce high ammonia levels and his liver is sick and failing and cannot rid of the ammonia quick enough hence....dementia type behavior. He tried getting out of his friends car on the 10 fwy @ 70 mph; he didn't even recall doing this! The medication basically is hiigh doses of lasix (so you are urinating non stop) and this other stuff "lactalose" sp? that makes you have to be in the bathroom non stop as well. Not a very pleasant way to live. So I hope they do MORE and MORE research... it is critical to support your local teaching hospitals , etc. Thanks... Michelle
alangilan marquez go
this article is both timely and highly informative. I wish there could be an extensive discussion about a condition called bipolar. Is it also a neurodegenerative disease? can it be an adverse effect of long term substance abuse? If so, how effective are the present drugs for it? Thank you very much for whatever you can share on this.
I am desperate to know why my speech has become so wretched, AND why I cannot think clearly. If I am saying a fairly long sentence[s] I often can't remember how it is to end. Then cannot quote my first utterance. I am 63 - this started 3 yrs ago. I think. Help?
What about PET scans, and what about really good psycho-social questionnaire/ assessments or timed tests? If everyone was given a baseline assessment in their 20's per their doctors office, then when needed decades later another testing event could compare results. What's so hard about that? We can test memory- short and long term that way. We should be able to test processing abilities and processing speed that way and the sophistication of a writing sample. At least that is something to put into place that shouldn't cost too much money for the masses.
Phil Barbour
The redundancy of the brain is amazing. I believe a study at the Cleveland Clinic maping electronic stimulation of stroke patients currently ongoing. My guess is that a chemical trail is left in the brain which should be searched out. The basic chemical research of the brain is on going and each clue will lead on to new advances. | <urn:uuid:5bba1ff4-135b-498c-b656-0e5a0068345d> | 3 | 3.421875 | 0.212207 | en | 0.957048 | http://www.sri.com/blog/detecting-neurodegenerative-diseases |
Stingrays are members of the group of fish that also includes sharks and skates. Sharks and rays have skeletons made of flexible cartilage instead of bone. What makes rays unusual is that their wing-like fins stretch out flat from their bodies, making them look like a disc with a tail.
Fins and Stingers
The fins on the side of a stingray's body act like wings to help it "fly" gracefully through the water. Many stingrays have sharp, venomous spines along their whip-like tail. They can defend themselves by lashing their tails out if threatened by a shark or other predator. At the Zoo, keepers trim the spines much like trimming fingernails, so the stingrays in this exhibit are safe to touch. Wild stingrays don't get manicures, so beach-goers should avoid stepping on these animals in the ocean.
Eyes and Mouth
A stingray's eyes are perched on the top of its flat body. This helps it keep a lookout, even when the rest of its body is buried in the sand. The stingray's mouth is located underneath its body - a good adaptation for feeding on ocean bottom dwellers like crabs, clams and shrimp.
Gills and Spiracles
Like other fish, stingrays breathe with the help of gills. They have a row of five gill slits on the underside of their bodies. Besides gills, stingrays have an extra adaptation to help them breathe while resting on the bottom of the ocean. These additional openings, which are near their eyes, are called spiracles. Instead of sucking sandy water in through their gills, they can pull clear water in through the spiracles and then force it out through the gills. | <urn:uuid:511684fe-39a1-4902-ab56-f8ac7f347f1a> | 4 | 3.765625 | 0.469285 | en | 0.964537 | http://www.stlzoo.org/visit/thingstoseeanddo/stingraysatcaribbeancove/raysanatomy/ |
By Wikipedia
Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane (pronounced Kaa-nay) (1880–1972) was a notable Indologist and Sanskrit scholar. He received India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna in 1963 for his scholarly work that spanned more than 40 years of active academic research that resulted in 6,500 pages of History of Dharmasastra. He was born in a conservative Chitpavan Brahmin family in the Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra, India. The historian Ram Sharan Sharma says: "Pandurang Vaman Kane, a great Sanskritist wedded to social reform, continued the earlier tradition of scholarship. His monumental work entitled the "History of the Dharmasastra", published in five volumes in the twentieth century, is an encyclopaedia of ancient social laws and customs. This enables us to study the social processes in ancient India."[1]
Famous works[edit]
The town hall of Asiatic Society of Bombay whose resources Kane researched; Later, Asiatic Society commemorated him with an institute in his name
Dr. Kane is famous for his magnum opus in English, History of Dharmasastra subtitled Ancient and Mediaeval Religions and Civil Law in India. This work researched the evolution of code of conduct in ancient and mediaeval India by looking into several texts and manuscripts compiled over the centuries. It was published in five volumes; the 1st volume was published in 1930 and the last, in 1962. It runs to a total of more than 6,500 pages. Dr. Kane used the resources available at prestigious institutes such as the Asiatic Society of Bombay and Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, among others. The work is known for its expanse and depth – ranging across diverse subjects such as the Mahabharat, Puranas and Kautilya – including references to previously obscure sources. The richness in the work is attributed to his in-depth knowledge of Sanskrit. His success is believed to be an outcome of his objective study of the texts instead of deifying them.
Kane wrote the book Vyavaharamayukha and was in the process of writing an introductory passage on the history of Dharmasastra for this book, so that the reader would get an overall idea apart from the subject of the book. One thing led to another and this project snowballed into the major work that it is. All the same, he was categorical in saying that it is difficult to find an English equivalent of the word "Dharma." His output in the form of writings across the three languages of English, Sanskrit and Marathi spans nearly 15,000 pages.
Dr. Kane was rewarded as Mahamahopadhyaya (Etymology: Maha+Maha+Upadhyay = The greatest among the great teachers), usually shortened to MM as a prefix in the writings that refer to him. He served as the Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University. His services were requisitioned and enlisted for establishing Kurukshetra University in Indic studies. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award in 1956 for History of Dharmasastra Volume IV for his research under the Sanskrit translation category. He was also an honorary member of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
Indian law[edit]
Kane believed that the Indian constitution made a complete break with the traditional ideas prevalent in India by engendering a false notion among the people that they have rights, but no obligations.
Given the encyclopaedic and authoritative nature of his work, it is often used in debates in Polity. One such issue that cropped up during Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was whether ancient Indians ate beef and both the groups quoted extensively from Kane's work to support their viewpoint. This issue became important as the Hindus traditionally revere Cow as a mother and hence eating of Beef is prohibited. Another such issue was whether the girls in the ancient times had the right to wear the Yajnopavita (the sacred thread), restricted only to the men folk in the recent past.
See also[edit]
Dharmasastra and Dharma
1. A write-up on MM Dr. P.V. Kane
2. Publication dates of volumes[dead link]
3. Sahitya Akademi Award[dead link]
4. Honorary member of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
5. Evolution of MM Dr. P.V. Kane’s Magnum Opus
6. Constitution making a complete break with traditional ideas of India
1. Biography (Chapter 2.2) (German site, biography in English)
2. Kane's chronology of Dharmasastra literature (At the bottom of the article) (German site, chronology in English)
Other sources[edit]
External links[edit]
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Basic Pie Pastry
The key to m aking a flaky crust is to avoid overmixing when adding lemon-lime soda to the flour and shortening mixture, Process just until the mixture comes together.
To flute the pie's edges, position your index finger or thumb on the inside of the crust. Place your other hand's thumb and index finger on the outside edge and pinch around the index finger to form a V shape. | <urn:uuid:44a6a6bc-ed29-4cd5-baf1-2d5c607c3eaf> | 2 | 1.726563 | 0.056617 | en | 0.844051 | http://www.tasteofhome.com/cooking-tips/how-to-s/basic-pie-pastry |
PCI express
By AtK SpAdE
Nov 2, 2005
1. Once and awhile i have things that bug me. It never a major problem, just things that i dont understand. (one of these was how to pronounce howards last name)
Anyways this time its PCI-express. I understand it uses serial, blah blah blah.
But why isnt PCI-X8 or PCI-X1 used? Is there a flaw, or has it just not caught on?
Another quesition is it abbrviated PCI-X or PCI-E?
2. vnf4ultra
vnf4ultra TechSpot Paladin Posts: 2,195
Pci-express is pci-e. Pci-X is another type of slot used in servers.
Pci-e x1 has some uses, like firewire cards, sata cards, gigabit ethernet cards, matrox even has a graphics card for it.
I think some sata controllers can use a pci-e x8 config(x8 isn't as popular). I don't know what x4 would be used for.
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This conversation is closed.
Has Objectivism been bad for Capitalism and Democracy?
Ayn Rand's Objectivism has been in the forefront of what became economic philosophy for the U.S. for the last three decades. The current economic travails of the U.S. and the Eurozone are directly related to neo-liberal economics, which comes from a rigid laisse-faire approach to markets. However, the charge is that government intervention society and economics has been what caused this crash.
For example: America's dreadful healthcare system is both the best in the world and the worst in part due to the profit motive; and it is in the form that it is as a response to Roosevelt's very socialist approach to wage controls following WWII. So has objectivism been bad for us or do we need more of it?
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Dec 2 2011: Here's my take on "anything" being bad or good. Objectivism included (even though I know little about it.)
When we assume we can substitute "a system" for conscious, responsible action, we are setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment.
And to blame our failings on any one system is a rationalization and "scapegoatism." And it invites antagonism. For example if we say, "Objectivism has been bad for Capitalism and Democracy" we alienate anyone who believes in Objectivism. And the "Objectivists" could, justifiably, say it wasn't "us" that screwed up, it was all of you non-Objectivists that got in the way of an otherwise sure thing.
We love labels. They make it easy for us to think we are thinking.
Communism. That's bad.
Communism. That's good.
Capitalism. That's bad.
Capitalism. That's good.
Like we actually know what communism is, or capitalism, or anarcho-capitalism, or any "ism." We don't know because none of them actually exist and none of them will ever exist. They cannot. I think that should be obvious by now. But I don't think it is.
How about this: We accept we don't actually know what will work (because we don't) and we start by defining what "works" means.
Then we figure out how to do what works by trial and error.
That's pretty much what we are doing now ... at least the trial and error part. I don't think we are clear on the concept of what "works."
That might be a good thing to agree on.
For me "works" would include stuff like: No one goes to sleep hungry (unless they want to); good healthcare; good education; ecological responsibility; sustainability; and so on.
The Chinese describe what they are doing as "crossing the river by feeling the stones." It seems to be working for them. China has come a long way in 30 years.
Now, for those of us who don't like to think, we might hear "China" and go through a series of steps something like this:
China -> communist -> communist -> bad.
And we'd miss some very powerful lessons.
• Dec 2 2011: Thomas
I agree with you to a point. It is easy to blame systems and not accept personal responsibility, but all of us are tied into systems. Some systems (I think like Objectivism of Rand) are poorer than others. Just as personal choice can change individual circumstances, personal choice can change whole systems. The problem I see here is that with the competing systems we have right now, there is no good alternative for as you say "what works." I think that is what we are searching for here. I think your what works list is a pretty good place to start. We build systems from world view and the challenge here is to understand where our current model of reality might take us and how that might help "what works."
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Dec 2 2011: Hi Michael,
Yes, I agree with me to a point too. 2000 characters requires ideas to be somewhat truncated.
Systems do have a powerful impact on our behaviour, they enable us, they constrain us, they clarify, they distort, they direct, and they deflect. And our systems are extremely, extremely complex and in a constant state of flux. That is, "The System" that exists now, quite literally, did not exist even one second ago. Things have changed.
Somewhere "an objectivist" just died. Somewhere else a socialist just assumed the mantle of power. And so on.
If we relate to the system through the filter of some ideology we will never be able to "see" what is there. And if we cannot see, we cannot know in what direction we might turn to our best advantage.
Seeing "systems" (and by that I mean ideologies) blinds us. Seeing people clarifies our vision.
I have never met "a communist" or "a capitalist" I have only met people.
This is why I say, if we could agree ... IF ... WE ... could ... AGREE ... if we could agree on the outcome we seek (a tall order!) we might then be able to move in that direction through a process of trial and error. We could measure our "success" by how close, or how far, we were from achieving our desired outcome.
However, if we assume communism, anarcho-capitalism, or objectivism will lead to "the greater good" we will simply attribute any failure to our inability to be "perfect" communists, capitalists, or objectivists. (And it will always be "someone else's" fault.)
• Dec 2 2011: Thomas
You did have a good "truncated" answer. There are systems of thought, both worldviews and their resulting mental models of reality that do actually in fact exist. They can be studied, outlined and described. While I have never met a system either have met and do meet people who hold to and construct their reality around those systems. I understand what you want to say about "labeling" people and that is not what I am speaking of. I am not naive enough to think that just because someone lives in China that they are "evil communists." Hopefully that sort of thing has no place.
While your idea of system may have some merit, they are not nearly as transitory as you describe them. Here is the problem: People who construct their reality using these systems effect the world around them. Obviously some do more than others. The "objectivist" system and mental model has in fact distorted much of US thought anyway. The selfish individual and corporation have damaged our economic system.
Now, we can agree at least some of us anyway that your outline is a good one. Sufficient food, access to clean water, adequate shelter for the region, access to health care are some of the most basic. As individuals we can influence how others see their world, influence some of their views and perhaps begin working on those things "that work." One way to do that is to differentiate and discuss some of these larger systems, look at their models of reality and decide "does that get us closer" to what we want. Yes, we want to speak about individuals but we also need to speak about the models of reality those people hold.
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Dec 3 2011: Hi Thomas,
We have a TV commercial from a bank that goes as you state in your comment: "they enable us, they constrain us, they clarify, they distort, they direct, and they deflect", as you replace "they" with money that is and then it goes on until it says: "It depends on what you are doing with it together.
So the "system" maybe lays in the hands of those that work with money: bankers, speculators, stockholder, security agents, brokers, estate agents, you name it, the whole lot.
Governments are interwoven with that system by loans and is trying to support the peoples interests which doesn’t work anymore. Look at Greece and the rest of Europe, it’s a burlesque.
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Dec 2 2011: Hi Michael,
Yes I agree, it is useful to understand "systems of thought," "worldviews" and "mental models."
I also agree, they are not as transitory as my answer may have implied: some last millennia, some a generation or two, some die in infancy.
What I didn't make clear was, I was referring to "The System." That which actually exits. It constantly changes. The changes can be subtle (civility) or they can be extreme (civil war.)
For example, Hu Jintao will soon be stepping down as Chairman of China. What will happen when the next Chairman (probably Xi Jinping) takes over? Another Mao? Another Deng?
Steve Jobs died. That changed "The System." I teach "soft skills" in China, that changes The System.
We need to operate within The System and to do that, a working knowledge of systems is useful (but not essential.)
However, if we want to change, understanding how we think is critically important.*
Why do we create systems in the first place?
Why, once we have created one, do we attach ourselves to them so strongly and defend them so aggressively (think "Capitalists," "Socialists," "Christians," Militant Atheists," "Vegans?")
If we argue "systems," we will NEVER agree (based on past observations.)
[For a demonstration observe what will happen in this thread ... we will discuss systems ... and we will not reach agreement.]
If we focus on "outcomes," we cannot argue whether we have met them or not (if they are clearly defined. "Freedom" and "free market" are not clearly defined outcomes.)
It starts with us and how we think.
* We don't REALLY think as much as we think we do. We notice patterns. A system is a pattern.
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Dec 3 2011: Hi Thomas,
Kong Zi is right of course. To wait until this is a common understanding is a long stay.
The methodology you propose is practiced by two of our parties for many years. One for 45 years and the other one at least 30 years with an emphasis on environment.
They attract 15 to 20 percent of the voters as for all other people this is much too complicated.
Most votes today go to a party that isn’t really a party at all but one man that say out loud and clear all stupid phrases that people tell each other as they complain about politics.
They blame immigrants for their misfortunes, or something else that’s easy to point at.
Maybe the system of democracy isn’t the way to get where you want to go.
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Dec 3 2011: Hi Frans,
Yes money is a huge part of The System. It's interesting that money itself is "symbolic."
Symbols are easy to manipulate.
• Dec 2 2011: Thomas, Thank you. I think you said something very important here.
No one of the theoretical frameworks of political systems or economics have ever been implemented fully. It is not possible and I think there are many reasons why. But, people need to understand the world view that creates these philosophies and how they interact with one another. We need a new "ism". But, Randian thinking still heavily dominates the thinking of those in power regardless of party affiliation. A "free market" in which people believed they were obligated morally to do what was best for the corporation or even the community would work if there weren't so many who were focused on doing what was right for themselves right then regardless of the consequences to the corporation as a whole. Rand thought that Altruism as taught by the churches was immoral. I think that a society lacking in altruism is suicidal.
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Dec 3 2011: Hi Sharon,
While it is interesting to discuss the ins and outs of different schools of thought, I think we make a mistake when we blame our behaviour on any of them.
We tend to learn how to operate within any given system (de Bono calls it "ludecy.") Some learn better than others and, quite naturally, exploit that advantage.
It does not matter what system we employ, some will understand it and use it better than anyone else.
So it's not REALLY Objectivism, or Communism, or Capitalism, or Statism that is the problem.
For me, it is NEVER about the system. It is ALWAYS about the people (you and me.)
"As the saying goes, the best way to ride a horse is in the direction that the horse is going. Only by first aligning to the direction the horse is going is it possible to then slowly and deliberately steer it where you’d like it to go. Simply trying to pull the horse immediately in the desired direction will just wear you out – and you’ll probably just upset the horse in the process."
• Dec 3 2011: I agree with you that it is not about the system. Largely because what system exists is always turned by the people within the system. However, I do think it is vital to understand the schools of thought that defines the world view of the people. I think Rand, and Nash were both very influential in shaping the world view of people in a manner which changed capitalism as a system into something less functional. You cannot change the movement of an entire society if a significant majority of the people are still heavily influenced by this form of thinking. To use your example you cannot change the direction of the horse if the horse is convinced you are trying to drive it off a cliff. The US is currently involved in a "hearts and minds" battle in my mind. Each side is fighting vehemently for "freedom". But they define freedom differently without being able to see that neither freedom is possible without the other....
The very term "free market" is not easily quantified. For it to function properly it still must have the constraints of property and contract law. So, it is free by it having its freedom curtailed. If you want a fully free market you can look to Somalia. Free market advocates will argue this point forgetting that they themselves count on the rule of law to make the markets function properly. Over the last 30 years more and more people have violated the law and the "system" has not been used to rein in that behavior. As a result, formerly free market advocates like Greenspan have found themselves behaving in ways that are very contrary to free market principles. What I am seeking is the point where the framework failed. And I wonder if it was the influence of Rand or Nash that moved it in that direction.
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Dec 3 2011: Hi Sharon,
Acknowledging you likely know more about the American experience than I do (I'm a Canadian living in China - although I have lived in America for three years) I agree with you.
It is for the reasons you state, that I think focussing on outcomes is effective. We can never live up to "ideals" and, when we try to, we can always say we have not met "these outcomes" BECAUSE we have not measured up to "these ideals." Fine. When will we live up "these ideals?" Well, we say, "We're doing OUR best so it has to be someone else's fault ... let's find them. Ah ... it must be the ____ [fill in the blank.]"
Objectivism has obviously had an effect on American and world policy if only because Greenspan was affected by it (and we know it's effects were not limited to Greenspan.)
Our systems are based on "symbols" (not the least of which is money) - symbol's meanings can be changed - both arbitrarily or naturally. And our "relationship" to symbols can also be changed arbitrarily.
Because the meaning of a symbol is based on agreement ("red" means stop, "green" means go. Why?) Agreements are not always as meaningful to all stakeholders who enter into them.
Now we have (at least) two variables - what does the symbol means and what does the agreement mean.
In my opinion, the best thing we can do is find out what the other party thinks they mean and then choose to align ourself with their meaning or not.
I find we all want the same outcomes, more or less, so I usually find a way I can "plug in" to any system. When I'm operating within a system, I do whatever I can to achieve the desired outcome and improve "The System" in the process (if I can ... and I'm not sure I can.)
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Dec 4 2011: QUOTE: "Free market advocates will argue this point [that "free markets" ... must have the constraints of property and contract law] forgetting that they themselves count on the rule of law to make the markets function properly."
Yes, exactly.
Whenever we are dealing with symbols and agreements, regulation will be required.
"Natural" systems do not require external regulation, they are self-regulating. When we "add" things to a "natural" system, we also need to add a means of regulating the addition - nature will not accommodate it. (Think the Dutch landing on Mauritius and the extinction of the dodo.)
What are some "symbols and agreements" that we have added to a "natural" system? There are two BIG ones: ownership and money (a symbolic medium of exchange.) These will require regulation.
As Charles Wheelan puts it, "Anyone who tells you that markets left to their own devices will always lead to socially beneficial outcomes is talking utter nonsense. Markets alone fail to make us better off when there is a large gap between the private cost of some activity and the social cost."
[I put the word natural in quotation marks not because I see humans and what we do as "unnatural" it's just that we add a degree of complexity to our otherwise "natural" environment.]
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Nov 30 2011: first observation: i have no idea why you americans praise rand, and don't even know about the real scholars who formulated economic, social and philosophical theories that rand herself used. if you read mises or rothbard, you will have a very detailed, well sourced description of what and how states do, and how they distort and choke the free market. you would also be able to understand the difference between the monetary school, the neo-keynesian school and the austrian school of economics.
the united states does not have a laissez faire economy. not even close. money is not free. banking is not free. defense is not free. justice system is not free. education is not free. there are literally millions of regulations to follow. no man on the earth would be able to list all the direct interventions to the market, prices, quality and procedures.
not only that. but the acceptance of such ideas, let them be of rand or of mises or rothbard, is very low. just look at the figures. ron paul is the most known libertarian on the planet. he can make like 15-20% votes at best, 3rd or 4th place in his own party, not even enough for a nomination, let alone winning. other libertarian candidates, the few that exist, can't even get near the senate or the congress. as a sample, look around on these forums. how many libertarians you can find? how many minarchists? and how many people that call for more regulations and stronger state? how many socialists? the numbers speak for themselves.
i have no idea why are you trying to pose as a minority. you are the majority. you reject unregulated markets, just as almost everyone else does, bush, obama, perry, romney included. you can relax, because you will not face a free market economy anytime soon.
• Nov 30 2011: Krisztian, I want to understand you. I agree that the US does not have a laissez-faire eonomy and that no one economic theoretical framework has been applied completely. It is patently impossible for any of the frameworks to be done totally.
But, it is hard to read tone in a text post. You sound almost angry. And I am puzzled about the phrase why you praise rand and the phrase why "you" pose as a minority. I am very deliberately not choosing a side, I am opening a debate. If we are praising Rand then we are asking for an unregulated market. I am confused, your opening paragraph and your last aragraph seem almost to contradict one another.
I, personally am quite conversant with von Mises and Keyens both. I am conversant with the Austrian school and Neo-liberal economics. So, is Objectiveism good or bad for capitalism and democracy?
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Dec 1 2011: i don't think that we need to discuss my motivation. but very briefly: yes, i'm mad at common misconceptions, and i think they should not exist. but it is not important at all.
another thing that is not too important, but interesting is your motivation. you say you are not choosing sides, only opening a debate. but in the opening statement, you write "Ayn Rand's Objectivism has been in the forefront" ... "current economic travails ... are directly related to neo-liberal economics, which comes from a rigid laisse-faire approach to markets" ... "America's ... healthcare system is ... worst in part due to the profit motive". it does not strike me as a neutral position.
what is important is arguments and counterarguments. so i provided counterarguments to your arguments, which you ignored. and i don't get it, since you also stated that you are "opening a debate". but then not debating.
by you americans i meant some americans, not majority of them. it was bad wording actually. what baffles me is when libertarianism comes up, someone always says, ah, that ayn rand stuff. no it is not. rand was one libertarian with rather original an unorthodox views. i personally don't know objectivism too much, but i'm afraid it is a pop-philosophy. the opening pages of "theory and history" from mises are much deeper and more precise.
but my major point was: nor randian, nor misesian and especially not rothbardian views has any effect on anything in the US or any other part of the world. the concept they put forward is largely unknown, in less degree ridiculed, and disagreed by the rest.
there are other free market-ish schools out there, for example the chicago school. in some degree, neo-keynesian economics also call for some form of capitalism with a more or less free market. but these schools are different in major ways, in their core, from libertarian philosophy and austrian economics.
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Dec 1 2011: Krisztián,
Not bad! First post and you've already set yourself up as an antagonist.
Like you, I do not know much about Ayn Rand. I have not read any of her work. I have one of her books on my shelf but have not read my way through the books that are ahead of it yet.
However, I do know Rand has been quite influential. She had many disciples many of whom were influential in their own right.
For example Nathaniel Brandon (psychology of self esteem) and Alan Greenspan (you may have heard of him?)
Greenspan was a part of "The Ayn Rand Collective" a group who read Atlas Shrugged while it was being written. Rand and Greenspan remained friends until she died in 1982.
You seem to have quite an extensive understanding of economics. You would probably find people are eager to hear what you have to say if you were not so mad all of the time.
Some people do not know what you know. That's okay.
Some people know more than you. That's okay too.
Some will agree with you. Some won't. There's no need to get angry about it.
• Dec 1 2011: To open a debate one must to some degree present a persepctive which encourages a counter point. But, tone does matter, simply because I can say the Sun is shining in a happy tone and convey two pieces of information the sun is shining and for reasons as yet not understood I am happy about it. Or I could say the sun is shining in an angry tone of voice which will again convey two pieces of information. The latter would inevitably prompt a question from the other conversant - IE you seem angry about the sunshine. Why?
I want to understand why..... The economic situation in America effects people all around the world and there is indeed horrible ignorance of the basic principles of economics here in the US. The rest of the world does have some right to be quite angry about that. But, economics is presented as a mathematical science when in reality it is a philosophical issue taken on faith. No economic model has ever - ever - been implemented at a country wide level. They always end up being a balance between opposing ideas. I question since we seem unlikely to throw out any one philosophy and incapable of implementing any one philosophy? How do we winnow out that which is good and bad in each?
Can we come up with a new framework?
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Dec 1 2011: thomas, there are 350 million people in the US. *everyone* has at least a few followers. i don't know how greenspan ended up there, but i suspect it was his romantic early years. some become marxist, some become "randist" it seems. the mature greenspan was a great enemy of the free market, or at least acted so.
btw it seems that you are fascinated by my character. i accept that, but could you please not express that devotion publicly? i would not like these conversations to be about me. i'm not that narcissistic. if you can't help it, please open a conversation about me, and put that stuff there, analysis and proposals included.
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Dec 1 2011: Krisztián.
I have sent a personal "proposal" to your e-mail through TED.
• Dec 1 2011: Sharon
I believe, like many other end of the road enlightenment ideas, this one has sent us down the tubes. When people act in their own self-interest, either as individuals or corporations, selfishness and self-consumption is the only result. Laissez-faire is fine if you are acting on the principle of self-interest and just want to continue to live that way.
The ideas are weak and selfish and we need less of them. While I do not wish to have government encroachment into every aspect of life, that is not, the logical outcome of rejecting this way of thinking. The common good, moral action by individuals, corporations, social systems and government should be how we think. Maybe one day we will get there.
• Dec 1 2011: Objectivism is closely tied to the people who developed the Chicago school of economics which has very much taken over the thinking of the world's leaders for the last three decades. I beleive that the implementation of much of htese economic philosophies have been disasterous. Perhaps, more simply I could reword my opening question: Is it the application of Randian philosophy what caused these policies to fail?
Let me lay it out: Under Rand people have what she referred to as a moral obligation to pursue "enlightened self- interest". A neo-liberal economic model allows that the less the state interferes with the market the better it operates. If humans still will be good if given the chance, why did so many commit fraud when given the opening to do so? If humans behave in enlighteened self interest why did so many enrich themselves at the expense of the entire economy? Is that enlightened self interest?
The problem appears to be where these two ideas intersect. So do either or them work apart and they only went bad when combined? Or could they both still work?
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Dec 1 2011: do you happen to have any readings that explain how rand's views influenced chicago school? i'm not an expert on chicago school, but i happen to know some things about their views on monetary policy. those policies are not in the same league with austrian views. so either rand had completely un-libertarian views on that issue (which i doubt), or the chicago school is far far away from rand's position.
again, i'm not exactly familiar with rand's views in detail. i just know that she was a libertarian, and so it is quite logical to assume that she shared the libertarian point of view in most cases. the libertarian view on "self interest" is the following: people are not saints. corporations are especially not saints. we don't live in a utopia. you have to and you will always have to defend yourself from evil intent, theft, selfishness, and other things. if we let people to organize their lives, they will find the best ways to defend themselves, and arrange things in a way to maximize cooperation and minimize crime. the state is unable to contribute to this. whatever the state does will create injustice and inefficiency.
although, i'm aware that rand somewhat idolized entrepreneurs. it is a false view. corporations do good only because they have to. they are not good on their own. on the free market, corporations have to serve the people, or they go bankrupt. if the state gets involved, corporations can avoid serving the people, and can specialize in stealing public money. and some will certainly do. they call it bailouts. i call it theft.
• Dec 2 2011: The connections between The Chicago School and Rand are people. Milton Friedman won the Noble Prize (although there really is no such thing, but that is another story) in economics for the theoretical framework called the Chicago school, after the University where he taught. Friedman and Greenspan, were both part of Ayn Rand's inner circle of friends. Freidman, Greenspan and Rand were all present when Reagan was inaugurated and heralded the beginnings of the attempted implementation of the Chicago school of thought as economic policy. I questions whether or not the influence of Rand was part of why this policy failed as badly as it did, when theoretically, at least, it could have succeeded.
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Dec 2 2011: okay, i start to see that you don't make any distinction between free market schools. but there are fundamental differences.
free market thought is like 200 years old or something like that. hard to tell an exact point time. at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 2 major schools of economics, the british school and the austrian school. what we have today, was grown out of the british school. the austrian school almost went extinct. the british school formed into multiple branches, like keynesian, chicago and neoclassical.
rand together with mises, rothbard, hazlitt, kirzner and hayek, followed the largely ignored and forgotten austrian school. it is a completely different school of thought.
the branches of the british school has and had great influence on policy making. austrian economics never had.
now, it is possible that rand's views had some influence on some young economists, and shaped their development in some way. but apparently not enough to follow her advices in important issues.
greenspan, for example, actively intervened into the market to "fix" it as chairman of the FED. friedman also called for huge monetary expansion. it is something a randian would immediately reject as a horrible idea.
reagan. it is well known in austrian circles that government expenditures are one of the key factors. taxes are not that much. if you lower taxes, but keep the spending, it won't help one bit. it is also well known that without solid money, without free enterprise and without stable and predictable environment removing some regulations arbitrarily won't help one bit. reagan planned to reduce the spending, but didn't do. also planned to reduce regulations. but it didn't happen either. despite its weaknesses, reaganomics still delivered some good results.
• Dec 3 2011: Arguing the "schools of thought" to a certain extent where the free market ideology is concerned is trying to count the angels dancing on the head of a pin. It is almost irrelevant as none of them have ever been implemented. Your point is pretty much what I am saying. All of these people said and wrote one thing and yet did something entirely different when pushed. Why? Greenspan was very close to Rand and her influence helped sway him about interventions all of the time, yet he let things go in some areas and intervened in others. Why? If it wasn't Rand, why did these people behave contrary to their own teachings and ideas? Reaganomics should have worked. Clinton's actions should have worked. But they didn't. What we got was the worst of both worlds. An unregulated market still being tinkered with by the FED but now lacking rule of law..... Why?
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Dec 3 2011: you are trying to argue economic policies and thought without actually knowing what certain people represented and believed. you try to understand these things by psychology and sentiments, because you don't know the actual teachings of these schools. it is demonstrated buy the fact that you admit, you see no difference between these schools of thought.
let me cite just an example. austrian economics is unique in teaching that money must emerge on the free market in order to function. any sort of manipulation of money hurts the economy. all other schools treat money as a tool to tweak the economy. austrians claim that increasing the money supply has two effects. first, it redistributes money from everyone to "wall street" (that is, banks, and financial institutions). second, it creates speculative overinvestment in some areas. for an austrian, money is almost sacred in its importance. functioning economy requires stable and reliable money.
if greenspan truly believed in randian (austrian) views on economics, he would not expand the money supply as he did. clearly, he abandoned his early views, and subscribed to keynesianism. the problem with his actions is not too much "free market-ism", but too few. what he did was anti-rand anti-mises anti-austrian to the core.
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Nov 30 2011: Can you define objectivism?
• Nov 30 2011: I am sorry, you're right of course.
by Ayn Rand
My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
Copyright © 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.
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Dec 1 2011: There's little wisdom, if any in this philosophy.
To me it's a childish statement and truly sad as it had any support.
As with Marxism it misses any understanding about the reality of the human psyche.
It is devoid of any insights from historical, sociological, biological and anthropological nature.
To live and act according to such a view on the world everything has to become necessarily messy. | <urn:uuid:adc8b2ae-a77c-4c44-89e3-448f545e7d2d> | 2 | 1.59375 | 0.099862 | en | 0.973575 | http://www.ted.com/conversations/7546/has_objectivism_been_bad_for_c.html |
Combi-boiler and heating
Posted by Jim on September 07, 2002 at 18:14:30:
I have a combi system. I'm wondering to what extent the central heating system should heat up when using the hot water.
I recently had a plumber in to fix my boiler, as the pipes leading from it were making very painful banging noises, and making the boiler go to 'lock out'. The plumber changed the pump and automatic outlet valve as the boiler was overheating.
Now, just after I finish having a shower, the hot water remaining in the pipes seems to move itself into the radiator closest to the boiler. It gets properly hot, and so isn't just a conduction of heat issue.
I'm worried that my boiler heats up the water too much (as water is always piping hot) and for some reason is getting to places where it shouldn't. I thought the two systems were distinct?...
The radiator valves are open, as I'm paranoid about the painful pipe noises returning if I close them, and the hot water has nowhere to go. It might 'overheat' the boiler again!
Replies to this post
There are none. | <urn:uuid:184f8402-ba39-453b-bec9-a727fef6f354> | 2 | 1.835938 | 0.029174 | en | 0.97923 | http://www.terrylove.com/wwwboard/messages2/27079.html |
The Average Scores in ACT
What Is Average ACT Score
The ACT results are considered by colleges in the USA as part of the admission criteria for admission to their courses. In order to decide which colleges you should apply to, you can use the average test scores as guidance. This article will help you to understand the meaning of average scores, and its importance.
What Is Average ACT Score?
The average test score can have different meanings. For most people, this term refers to the average score of the students who were admitted to a particular college. For example, if there were only three people who were admitted to a college and if their scores were 20, 22 and 24, respectively. The average for this college is 22.
On the other hand, some people may be referring to an individual student's average score. The test consists of questions on four subjects. These are English, Science, Mathematics and Reading. You will get a separate score for each of these. These four scores are then converted to a composite score. This is sometimes referred to as the average score.
This term can also mean the average score that is obtained by the students taking the ACT. The composite score of the test ranges from 1 to 36. The average score is 21, that is, most students who take the test, obtain a score of 21.
What Is the Importance of the ACT Scores' Average?
The importance of the the average score is that it can help you to select a target score for yourself in the test. Since the average score obtained by the people taking the test is 21, you need to score much above this if you want admission to one of the best colleges in the USA. The scores of the students admitted to these colleges in the past, reveal that the colleges want a composite score above 30. If your score is in the 30’s then you should definitely apply to the best colleges.
The scores released by the colleges are in the form of 25th and 75th percentiles. These percentiles may be given only for the composite scores, or for the scores in the individual tests as well. Some schools will consider the Writing score as well. The 25th percentile score means that 25% of all students admitted to that school, obtained that score or less than it. For example, if the 25th percentile of a school is 30, it means that 25% of the admitted students either obtained a score of 30 or that they obtained a score of less than 30 in the test. If the 75th percentile of this school is 34, it means that 75% of the admitted students scored 34 or less. In other words, 25% of the students scored above 34.
In order to decide which schools to apply to, you should consider the average score that is, a score of 21, and the percentile scores of the schools that you are interested in. If the school you want to join is one of the 'elite' schools, you will need a score much above the average score. In fact, your score should, at the very least, be around the 25th percentile score for that school.
The ACT result is not the only criteria that colleges consider for admission. Other criteria are performance in the SAT, any special skill or experience that you may have, your letter of application and any reasons that you can provide, in order to prove that you will 'fit' into their institution. | <urn:uuid:87f0fec4-fbb5-4606-86cc-db4a4bc3b67c> | 3 | 2.984375 | 0.081934 | en | 0.971699 | http://www.testpreppractice.net/ACT/act-test-scores-average.html |
The Fresh Loaf
News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts
Wheat Harvest in Kansas
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PMcCool's picture
Wheat Harvest in Kansas
In spite of the crazy, rainy weather of the past week or two, farmers in Kansas and other Great Plains states are trying to get the wheat harvested whenever field conditions allow. On my way home from work this evening, I saw these guys making their way across a field:
Wheat harvest, Johnson County, KS
As soon as I got home, I gathered up my camera and my 5-year old grandson and headed back to the field so that he could see what a combine looked like and what it did. And to grab these pics, too. Yes, those are office buildings in the background of the picture, above. Johnson County is home to a number of Kansas City suburbs and more farm land gets paved every year for subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks, etc. Hard to complain about it too much, since I'm part of the problem.
Here's a closer shot of the combine as it crossed our line of sight:
Wheat harvest, Johnson County, KS
This last shot shows one of the two combines at work in the field stopping to unload into a waiting semi-truck trailer:
Wheat harvest, Johnson County, KS
In this shot, you can see a traffic light and part of a house in the background.
My grandson was quite impressed by the big machinery, even though he didn't completely understand what was going on. I tried to explain how the kernels from the stalk of wheat that I plucked for him were the part of the wheat that was being harvested and that it would be milled into flour for breads, cookies, pies and so on. I know he understood the food end of it and he knows what flour is; I just don't think he has a concept of how something growing in a field could be turned into those things. It will come, eventually. At least he has had an introduction to one of the steps in the process.
Oh, and for the curious among you, it's winter wheat. It was planted in October or November of last year.
browndog's picture
This is really intriguing, I've seen pictures (a son who adored trucks as a very little boy. Do I know from backhoes or what?) but my, a real on-the-job combine. In Wisconsin the farms are huge enough but they were all dairy in my area, with the occasional massive field of sunflowers a little further south. Here in Vermont there's not much left for working dairy farms, and the substantial ones are mostly in the Champlain Valley. Many of us keep some livestock and there's always the hay to get in--even there, round bales are just starting to be common--still plenty of hands-on 35 lb square bales to be had. So the contrast for me is pretty sharp.
Great pictorial, thanks.
>Hard to complain about it too much, since I'm part of the problem.<
That's okay, we'll do it for you.
subfuscpersona's picture
thank you so much
Trishinomaha's picture
Made me homesick - I'm from Wichita originally and my grandfather was a wheat farmer around the Pratt area and farmed into his 80's. I've actually been on one of those big combines out in the wheatfields (a great place to play hide and seek with the cousins by the way) and have ridden in the truck to level the grain when the combine funneled it in. Thanks for starting my day with some good memories - I even almost remember the smell - earthy and wonderful!
susanfnp's picture
Thanks for the photos! I think sometimes those of us who don't see these sights often tend to forget that flour is something that comes from grain in a field, not a bag in a store.
PMcCool's picture
When I was a small boy, probably about 4 years old, the farmer across the road from my parents' farm arranged a threshing day. His grain (oats, I think, or maybe rye) had been cut a few days earlier with a binder and the sheaves were stacked in shocks. On threshing day itself, I was absolutely agog to see a steam-powered tractor come chuffing down our road, towing a thresing machine. While one group of men maneuvered the threshing machine and the tractor into position and fitted the drive belt between the two, others fanned out into the field with tractors and wagons to pick up the grain and bring it back to the threshing machine's location.
The sheaves were pitch-forked into the hopper at one end of the machine (I can't remember if they had to remove the twine first, or if it was sliced up as the grain traveled through the machine) and clouds of dust rolled out as the grain traveled through. There was a marvelous symphony of creaking and scraping and whirring and puffing and squeaking as the tractor and threshing machine labored. Soon a thin stream of kernels began pouring into the burlap bags at the other end of the threshing machine, while the straw and chaff arced up and away from what looked like a giant stove-pipe and then descended to the ground, where it grew into a shining, golden mountain as the day wore on.
Too young to be of much use, I went wherever my curiosity took me. Sometimes I "helped" the men bagging the grain, admiring their skill as they tied the bags closed with short pieces of twine, looping some sort of hitch knot in a motion that was too quick for me to follow. Seeing someone's muscles and veins bulge as he lifted the filled bags (probably 80-100 pounds each) onto a truck impressed me no end. Other times I just hung back and watched the machinery, marvelling at its size and power and complexity. Keep in mind that the tractor and threshing machine combined would not have equalled even one-half of the weight or size of the machines pictured, above. Still, they were enormous to a little boy. Most of the time, I was probably just underfoot, looking at it from an adult's perspective. I do remember how good the lemonade tasted when the ladies who were cooking sent out big coolers full of it from time to time.
The thing that amazes me today, and that I really didn't understand even then, was why our neighbor chose to do it at all. Combines were already commonplace, although they were very small (compared to the monsters in the photos, above) and towed by tractors, instead of being self-propelled. Part of it may have been nostalgia. Part of it, perhaps the biggest part, was for the social connections with other farm families; a communal gathering that ostensibly benefitted just the one but really benefitted everyone who participated.
Whatever his reasons, I am tremendously grateful that he did. It granted me a window into the past, when that sort of thing was very much the norm for my parents and grandparents. And I am grateful that I could share a small part of that with my grandson yesterday, even if we were purely spectators and not participants.
pumpkinpapa's picture
We have about 100 acres of volunteer winter wheat (it was leftover after last years harvest from a planting in the fall of 2005) due to be harvested next week likely. If anyone is interested in shots from the harvester cab, hopper, etc. the cash cropper is always warm to such things. After the wheat the straw is harvested, if there is any left that is.
The main problem for us is that Ontario is experiencing a drought as we have had about 40 mm rainfall since April 1st. There are 2-3 inch cracks in some places! So irrigation is a must but I never got in my pumpkin crop.
This is shot of the wheat behind us:
winter wheat july 2007
Speaking of round bales, I just brought in 2 of them for my sheep, only 400-500 pound rolls. One from the first cut this year which is the best quality in 20 years but only half the average volume due to the lack of rain, while the other was left over from last year when we had the normal rainfall which gave us a surplus of hay but a shortage of straw
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That's a pretty, pretty scene, pumpkinpapa, and PMcCool and Trish, beautiful memories. It's something how a couple of pictures of a machine and a wheat field has evoked so much, thanks for sharing.
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scott lynch
Reading this thread reminded me of the years I lived in eastern WA in the region known as the Palouse. They grow lots of wheat there, durum if I recall correctly, and it is beautiful country--very hilly. The farmers will often plant or harvest on contour lines, so when you look out over a long vista it looks like a topographic map.
I found pictures here that capture some of it:
A long view of the area
At work cutting wheat
(tried to capture the photos but was unable, sorry)
Look at the combine. Note that the cutter is tilted parallel to the slope but the cab of the machine is dead vertical. The farmers in this hilly country use self-leveling tractors and combines. If you've ever driven a tractor on a side-hill you will know that it is scary indeed.
Detail of a self-leveling combine here:
Speaking of scary, I had a friend who drove a wheat truck and she said that handling the truck on those slopes covered with slippery stubble and chaff was pretty hairy.
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Microsoft's Roslyn invites VB to Windows 8 party
C# in disguise?
The Hejlsberg talk was not all new. The two big features he presented – asynchrony and compiler as a service – have both been presented before. That said, the asynchronous features in C# 5.0 are more significant now that Microsoft has shown its new Windows Runtime (WinRT), with which it hopes to compete in the tablet market. Around 15 per cent of the APIs in WinRT are asynchronous, with no alternative provided. The idea is to force developers to build apps with responsive user interfaces.
Concurrent programming in C# was in the language from version 1.0. The effort since then has been to make it more efficient and easier to code, especially since mistakes can introduce subtle bugs. C# 4.0 introduced the Task Parallel Library, an abstraction that simplifies coding to some extent, but the new async features are even easier, especially when used with existing APIs like those in WinRT.
Anders Hejlsberg, by Gavin Clarke
Hejlsberg: "It is all about orchestrating execution"
In a nutshell, C# 4.0 will rewrite your code at compile-time to make it asynchronous. Developers can code almost as if it were synchronous, though they still need to pay attention to what is happening under the covers.
There are two new keywords: async and await. If you declare a function or method to be async, this tells the compiler to rewrite it for you. This does not automatically make it asynchronous, but only if you also use await in the body of the function.
The await keyword is used before a function call. The function then exits immediately, so the user can continue to interact with the user interface. If you wrote further code in that function, below the await statement, then this gets executed later, after the awaited function completes. C# preserves state such as the value of variables.
You can already get equivalent functionality in C# 4.0, using the ContinueWith method of a Task. The new approach is more natural though, especially as you can use multiple await statements in the same method. "It is all about orchestrating execution," said Hejlsberg.
By contrast, the compiler as a service project – codenamed Roslyn – is not just syntactic sugar. Microsoft is creating an API for the C# and VB compilers that will let you use them in your runtime code. In fact, it is building new compilers for C# and VB in managed code that both use and create the APIs. This will enable a number of new features, including evaluating C# expressions at runtime, more powerful refactoring and navigation tools, and a C# interactive prompt in Visual Studio.
Evaluating code at runtime was already possible, using a feature called Reflection, but Roslyn is both far more extensive and easier to use. Hejlsberg showed a ScriptEngine object that lets you use C# as a scripting language within your applications. You could use this to enable users of your application to run macros or extend it with their own user-defined functions.
"I'm not going to say when we ship this," said Hejlsberg, implying that it may not be part of Visual Studio 11, which will ship around the time of Windows 8. A Community Tech Preview (CTP) is promised for the middle of this month.
Developers may notice Roslyn more by what it enables, than by using the features directly. Tools in Visual Studio that generate or modify code will be more capable, because they can get a deeper understanding of what your code does by compiling it on the fly and inspecting the syntax tree returned by the compiler.
By way of example, Hejlsberg showed how a tool built with Roslyn can convert C# to VB and vice versa. It will be ideal for VB developers moving to C#, who can simply paste their old code; unlike those old Visual Basic 6 porting tools, this one will most likely work fine.
Maybe those skeptics who said that all .NET languages were really C# in disguise had a point. ®
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Running to keep up
How do you know when you’ve got a really good idea? Apart from all the usual indications of brilliance, I think truly great ideas announce themselves over time by popping up in different places. Look, for example, at the design of the Erlang language. Erlang borrows a concept of component isolation from the hardware design of highly-reliable telephone exchanges and uses it to allow the coding of robust, fault-tolerant software systems. That’s one example of an idea crossing domain boundaries, but the same idea turns out to make Erlang an effective language for achieving parallelism on multi-core CPUs and in networked applications. It turns out the basic concept of component isolation is useful all over the place.
I have recently come across another example of this kind of idea migration in a blog post by Steve Streeting on what he calls Work 2.0, or being an interruptible programmer. Steve’s basic observation is that the programmer’s fundamental tool is their concentration, which they tend to apply ferociously over long periods to immerse themselves totally in a task. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, these long periods of deep concentration aren’t good for the programmer’s physical health: the human body just isn’t designed to sit still for so long, especially not at a desk. Secondly, the modern office environment doesn’t allow for uninterrupted concentration. Even if a programmer is lucky enough to have a quiet, private office she can concentrate in, and co-workers who respect the fragility of that concentration, she is unlikely to escape the meetings, quick chats, conference calls and briefings which cluster the business landscape like dandelions on a recently mown roadside verge.
So what to do? Steve’s answer could almost have been borrowed from a 1970s operating system manual. Make the programmer interruptible by maintaining task state in some non-volatile storage which can be easily reloaded into working memory when required. Or, in non-geek terms, write down what you’re doing as you’re doing it, so an interruption doesn’t cost so much when it inevitably occurs. You just re-read your notes and you’re back “in the zone”.
I’ve been trying Steve’s approach out at work for the last couple of weeks, and I’ve found it beneficial in a number of ways.
1. It really does help to make you interruptible. If everything is written down, even trivial things, it makes it very easy to context switch away to another problem with confidence that you can come back to what you were doing with little disruption. Beyond that, I find the act of writing things down helps to root ideas in my mind, as well as ordering my thoughts more rationally. It is easier to prioritise tasks when they’re written down in front of you.
3. As a consequence of being more interruptible, interruptions cause less friction when they occur. I get less frustrated, and can concentrate on being more helpful. Everyone’s a winner.
5. Keeping notes on what you’re doing has the unexpected benefit of helping to keep your gumption levels up. This week I didn’t manage to complete the task I was “supposed” to be doing, which could be depressing. But reviewing my list of what I actually spent my time on I could see that everything I did was valuable and necessary, and it allowed me to focus on the things I did rather than the things I failed to do. It helps to minimise that nagging feeling of “running to keep up”.
7. It works really well for cross-referencing, or looking up a detail when someone asks about something a few weeks later. Our notebooks at work have an index in the front that makes this even easier. The index can be kept up to date in otherwise unproductive times e.g. during wandering meetings.
9. It makes managing a context-switching workflow easier. Some programming tasks allow you to immerse yourself, whilst others necessitate long periods of waiting around for the computer to do something. Full test builds are good examples of the latter. If you’re only prepared to work on one thing at once, long periods of idleness really kill productivity. If you’re able to effectively switch to another task in the periods of waiting you can get a lot more done.
As with any new working technique, Steve’s approach for interruptible programming takes a bit of time to get to grips with. Reviewing his original article to write this post I see that I’ve missed some of the points that he made on ignoring tangential issues and negative prioritisation, which could be useful. Even at this early stage, however, these concepts have helped me to be more productive, and perhaps more importantly, to feel like I’m making progress even when the tasks are coming thick and fast.
One response on “Running to keep up
1. Steve
I’m glad to hear you found my post useful! :) I just came across your site via a pingback, and it was nice to read someone else’s experience of applying it.
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This is a topic coming up on the Christian boards a lot and I figured I’d turn to the TA community for some insight. In referencing the atrocities of the crusades, the inquisition, etc. the typical response that comes back cites Hitler, Stalin , Mussillini, Kim-Jong Il and Mao for committing similar atrocities in the name of atheism. They throw out the names but fail to cite specifics.
In my research, I found Mussillini to have converted from Catholicism to atheism and then back to Catholicism, Kim-Jong Il apparently subscribes to the Juche religion, which supposedly is based on Christianity, simply replacing the trinity with the leader and his family, and I can never understand why Hitler even makes it onto the list… He was Christian and acting in the name of god.
As for Stalin and Mao, they ran an atheistic state, but were the atrocities associated with each really done in support of an atheistic ideal, or were their motivations provided separate of their atheistic views?
I’m not much of a history buff and my research has yielded very little useful information.
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-the great American Nobel Prize winning physicist, Steven Weinberg
If you stop worrying about religion and start worrying about faith, you start to see the actual crux of the problem for mass murders by states. Because, in the end, all these leaders convinced people to do the killing. The people they convinced were either already killers, or were talked into to it by appeals to faith, be it in gods or the state. This is about mechanisms and states of mind. Religion is a long standing "reason defeater" that is easy to manipulate into whatever you think needs to happen, but it is only one of many.
"Atheism" is a red herring -- why xians in the US lie about history
Let's stay "at home" to see what's behind today's corporate support of right-wing religious and political ideology. A xian nation? What liars fundies are. Why must they delude themselves?
For all of US history, political and religious ideology masked genocide and exploitation -- for more than 150 years directed by corporate control.
US history books never accurately portray the crucial roles genocide and slavery (and "God" and alcohol) played in America’s uncontrolled experiment in corporate control, still on-going.
Important components of the “American experiment” in freedom have included “involuntary servitude”, mass murder, land expropriation, internal deportation, and imperial militarism. The last, a form of American political suicide, bleeds our armies and financial resources away in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen.
• Brute facts — not lying religious ideology
The American empire filled out its continental expanse by about 1900. The Canadians kept territory now firmly a part of British Columbia. Mexico — was not so fortunate. Warfare brought the American experiment into Texas. Gold led to the expropriation of California. Even if the slave trade did not follow commerce, genocide did not take a holiday. The last members of a peaceful California tribe were slaughtered almost within living memory.
Mark Twain and other members of the Anti-Imperialist League fought against the likes of Presidents McKinley and TR Roosevelt to stop American gun-boat expansion across the Pacific and in the Caribbean 1898-1907. Today's Republican thugs and know-nothings from Reagan to Bush II to the current crop of mental pygmies for President are atavistic monsters intent on reclaiming an America of greed and worldwide domination.
• Just one facet of current corporate imperialism at home -- the 12 million man march
Creating and exploiting of one the world's great migrations -- of mainly Mexican workers to the US -- escapes comprehension. Twelve million people have moved north! When in any fifty year period in recorded history has such a vast movement of people crossed from one cultural zone into another?
Now the white descendants of those who found land, water, and clean air for the taking (and despoiling) are ethnically, linguistically, and culturally distinct from both its former native inhabitants or their former Mexican overlords. They will not oppose the corporate forces behind a vast migration still underway.
There is no going back. Whatever good and harm results belongs to a new, emerging culture. Entropy doesn’t reverse itself. And, history records mostly human induced entropy.
• But, of course, illegal aliens do not come to enjoy themselves in their ancestors old haunts. They have come in over a short time. If there are criminals among them, that shouldn’t be surprising; the human jackal always follows the human herds. The vast majority want work, not plunder.
They were invited, and are still being invited, by US businesses, small to very large, to labor under generally bad conditions, for bad wages, for which they enjoy the privilege of paying social security taxes whose benefits they cannot enjoy.
Three things Americans have demanded from their "neighbors" to the South: imported illegal labor, imported illegal drugs, and silence about both.
• You don’t see many people crossing our undefended border with our neighbor to the North. Canadians apparently feel well enough off economically, not to envy the “American experiment.” They need not be economic migrants. And our “culture” alone lacks pull.
America's is a pull economy — Americans wanted drugs, and they have them. They wanted cheap labor to exploit and degrade, and Americans have it. But, the long silence is over.
Tell your fundie "friends" they are not only deluded by a dead religion -- but also by right-wing ideology sponsored by rapacious international corporations whose power now exceeds that of any nation.
the anti_supernaturalist
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questions + answers
What is genetic engineering (GE)?
Also known as genetic modification or manipulation (GM), genetic engineering is a form of biotechnology that allows scientists to move genes between different species. Using various laboratory techniques, scientists can create life forms that could not occur naturally.
Genes are small lengths of DNA, the living blueprint of life found in the cells of all living things. Genetic engineers use viruses, bacteria and a device called a “gene gun” to randomly move genes from one organism into another.
In the genetic engineering of food, these techniques are used to make crop plants grow differently. The resulting life forms are often known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Currently, genetic engineering is mainly used to produce two types of crops.
1. Herbicide-tolerant crops: these are genetically engineered to resist herbicide farmers spray on the crop to kill weeds and represent 80% of GE crops.
2. Bt crops: these are genetically engineered to produce their own pesticide to kill certain insect pests and represent 20% of GE crops.
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Good Question: Avoid a big cell phone bill while in Europe
Last Modified: Friday, April 18, 2008 at 6:44 p.m.
I'm heading to Europe this summer, and I want to bring my cell phone, but international roaming looks expensive. How do I keep costs down?
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Switch out your SIM card - the little chip in the phone that carries your account information - for a prepaid local one, and pay local rates.
Don't be intimidated by the prospect. The SIM card, or Subscriber Identity Module, is almost always located in the phone's battery compartment. You'll probably have to remove the battery to get at it, but you don't need any special tools. If you can't figure it out, get a European to show you - they're used to switching SIM cards when they switch carriers.
You do need to do some homework first, but it's worth it, unless you're just staying in the foreign country for a few days. U.S. carriers generally charge about $1.29 per minute for international roaming, while local prepaid rates are around 20 U.S. cents per minute for outgoing calls, and incoming calls are free.
There are a couple of hurdles here, though. For one, not all U.S. phones work in Europe because of differing radio frequencies and technologies. The chance that your phone will work are best if your carrier is T-Mobile USA or AT&T Inc., but check your manual or the carrier's Web site to see if you have a "world phone."
Except for a handful of models, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. phones don't work in Europe (and don't use SIM cards), but do work in parts of South America.
If you do have a "world phone," it still has to be unlocked for it to accept a SIM card from another carrier. Contact the carrier: It may give you the code to unlock the phone. Otherwise, an independent cell-phone store may be able to do it for a fee.
Putting a local SIM card in your phone means you're using a local number. The good thing about this is that locals can call you cheaply, instead of dialing your U.S. number. The downside is that people calling you on your U.S. number won't reach you, just your voicemail.
Of course, there's a way to deal with this as well.
Most U.S. cell phones can be set to forward calls to another U.S. number, but they won't forward overseas. To get around that, set up an account with a Web site like TollFree It gives you a U.S. toll-free number that will forward to an international number for $10 a month, with about 90 minutes of talk time included for calls forwarded to Western Europe. Then, set your phone to forward to the toll-free number. Incoming calls will bounce from your U.S. number to the toll-free number to the overseas number.
Now, you may complain that all this is a bit complicated. There are services that take care of the details for you, like RangeRoamer and Call in Europe. You can buy or rent a world phone from them before your trip, complete with a SIM card. The prices aren't quite as low as local SIM cards, but they're better than roaming rates.
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UPI en Espanol
Study: More planets might support life
Sept. 10, 2012 at 7:53 PM
ABERDEEN, Scotland, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- There could be more distant habitable planets than previously assumed under the criteria they would need surface water to support life, British scientists say.
Up to now astronomers have estimated the possible numbers of habitable planets in distant solar systems by assuming they were in the "habitable zone" of their systems where surface water might exist that could support life, the BBC reported Monday.
"It's the idea of a range of distances from a star within which the surface of an Earth-like planet is not too hot or too cold for water to be liquid," researcher Sean McMahon, a doctoral student from Aberdeen University, said.
"So traditionally people have said that if a planet is in this Goldilocks zone -- not too hot and not too cold -- then it can have liquid water on its surface and be a habitable planet."
But a new model by Aberdeen researchers allows scientists to identify planets that might be outside the "zone" but could still have underground water kept liquid by planetary heat.
Planets can have two sources of heat, they noted, energy that comes from its star and that generated deep inside the planet.
Beneath Earth's crust, for example, interior heat means that even when the surface is frozen, water -- and life -- can exist underground.
"There is a significant habitat for microorganisms below the surface of the Earth, extending down several kilometers," Aberdeen Professor John Parnell said.
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Top Definition
The term used to descibe someone with a fucking huge forehead. The term oftern referres to Julien Lescott (Who has the fattest beefiest forehead anyone has even seen, it's fucking abnormal, I would check that beast out if I were you) Otherwise known as a meathead or a fucking dockoff forehead.
Oi lad, you seen the size of that kids Beefhead?'' *Points at Lescott* ''Fuck that's huuuuuuuge, that's a head and a half right there son!
5 more definitions
An individual with a head too large for their body.
Did you see Tom the other night? He let himself go, and now he's not just a fatty, but a total beef head!
by Travis Touchdown February 15, 2008
Someone with an incredibaly large head
If there head looks to big for thier body they are a beef head
by Davo September 09, 2003
A casual, yet effective insult to a person antagonizing, criticizing or making fun of you.
A person that is sassing you.
A person stealing your thunder.
synonymous with idiot, beefcake, wiener, butthead, etc.
That beefhead is ridiculous, all yellin at the referee!
Oh no, that beefhead took all of the vanilla pudding.
by ssg44 September 11, 2011
a person with a beef head or a large head that is bigger than average size
Danny Morton has a big beef head LMAO! his head is fukin huge the beef head
by Foster August 12, 2004
variant of meathead, but with the bovine provlivity of standing around blinking stupidly when any word of more than one syllable is spoken to them. Beefheads are also more heavily built than meathead. Academics are currently devising a standardised physiological test which will be able to identify which football players are meatheads and which qualify as beefheads
by M May 16, 2003
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The Barry Manilow song played during strip poker.
Hey Andy, why don't you play it off. I like to look at your sexy, pale body.
by Doco The Magic Dragon and Larry September 08, 2003
9 more definitions
Top Definition
To play it off is when you do something embarassing in front of other people and act like you meant to do it.
1)We leaned out of the car to wave at Sam; however, Sam was not in the car, so we played it off by sticking our hands on top of the car.
2)At an orchestra concert, I put my violin up too early so I played it off by scratching my chin with it.
by n0000000000b June 10, 2004
1) To act as if something which has been brought up as a major occurance is really nothing special.
2) To escape punishment or an uncomfortable situation by denying allegations of involvement, esp. by placing blame on another person
1) Sukisoya thought the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was tremendously horrible, but Gerard played it off as a necessary step for progress
2) Mrs. Lowery accused me of stealing the test key, but I played it off on my home boy Reggie
by The Rabid Definer September 17, 2003
To act indifferent when someone asks you about something or an uncomfortable situation presents itself.
Most often done when pretending something doesn't bother you that actually does.
The hip, less dramatic way of "being empathetic"
"The guy I like a lot just fucked my best friend, but I played it off like I didn't care."
by Kristen December 03, 2003
to act like it didn't happen
"She just told me 'no'"
"That didn't stop Kobe, play it off"
by Matt September 22, 2003
Too divert attention away from something
When i fell down da otha day i had 2 play it off
by Shay September 12, 2003
feign indifference
I was totally freaked to see my ex-old lady there, but I'm cool. I played it off like I didn't care.
by jred September 11, 2003
To make someone believe that you don't know something, or that something doesn't bother you.
He was bothering me but I just played it off.
I didn't want her to know I was drinking, so I played it off.
by Jen September 22, 2003
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Top Definition
See: Grass def.3, Snitch def.1, Rat def.1
Sammy the Bull is like a nickname for someone who snitches, usually getting the accused into some serious form of trouble due to their grassing. Comes from Salvatore 'Sammy the Bull' Gravano, who grassed on John Gotti.
Mostly used to describe those who engage in illegal activity themselves, and then grass about their so called friends, so that they themselves don't get into any trouble.
"And the Sammy the Bull award goes to, Fat Joe." - Tony Yayo (Tattle Teller lyrics)
by AshBartlett December 10, 2005
1 more definition
One who believes in manifest destiny, therefore able to dominate in all aspects of life including JV puck.
Common phrases utilized by the Bull include: "Yeaaaaaa Boiiiiieee", "Do you like to party? you must.", "One minute", and "Nizzaaaaww".
Sammy the Bull on right wing, Sam Lagor playing center, and Mara on line all the way baby.
by PJ Mara March 19, 2008
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June 2002
• print
• FAQs
An Interview with Judge Royce C. Lamberth
Judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was appointed to the federal bench in 1987. Before joining the Judiciary he was a U.S. Army Captain in the JAG Corps, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Chief of the Department of Justice Civil Division. He recently completed a term as presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Q:You've called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "the least known, but probably most important court in the war on terrorism?" Why?
A: The FISC has nationwide jurisdiction to authorize the United States government to conduct electronic surveillances and physical searches for national security purposes when the target is a foreign power or the individual is acting as the agent of a foreign power. Major international terrorist groups may be targeted by the FBI, CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies. Since 9-11, invaluable intelligence information has been sought and obtained as a result of warrants and orders issued by this court.
There's no question that every judge who has ever served on this court has thought it was the most significant thing they've ever done as a judge. When I did the hearings on the embassy bombings in Africa, we started the hearings in my living room at 3:00 in the morning. And some of the taps I did that night turned out to be very significant and were used in the New York trials of the people indicted for the bombings. I heard one of the key applications of the millennium period at 2:00 a.m. after a person was arrested in Seattle with bomb materials found in his car.
Q:How does the court function? How does it approve or disapprove warrants for surveillance? Are the court's actions reviewable?
A:Applications for electronic surveillances and physical searches are presented to individual judges of the court who conduct virtually all the hearings at a special secured courtroom in Washington. Currently, one judge comes to Washington each week for two days for a regular sitting of the court. Emergency motions have, or may be, presented to the presiding judge or another available judge between regular sittings. Every application is a formal written application, sometimes 40-50 pages in length, with great detail showing the evidence and what reason there may be to suspect the person. Each application is supported by an affidavit of the investigative agent who is responsible for the surveillance, and who personally appears before the judge to respond to any questions, along with the Justice Department lawyer from the Attorney General's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. Each application also is accompanied by a certificate signed by the head of the investigative agency involved who certifies the need for the surveillance, and by approval by the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General that all statutory requirements for the surveillance have been met. They can't present it to the court until it has been signed by the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General.
There is a court of review composed of three judges of the courts of appeals from three different circuits. But there has never been an appeal in the history of the court.
Q:Why was the court formed in 1978? What process, if any, was in place before the court was formed?
A:Warrantless electronic surveillances authorized by the Attorney General apparently were begun before World War II by President Roosevelt, based upon the President's inherent and constitutional powers as chief executive officer, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and his responsibilities to conduct the nation's foreign affairs. The intelligence agencies provided targets for the Attorney General's approval. But in a number of criminal prosecutions in the 1960s and early 1970s, the government's warrantless electronic surveillance program came under judicial scrutiny resulting in the Supreme Court in 1972 striking down warrantless surveillance if it was directed towards domestic organizations. The
Supreme Court said it made no judgement with regard to electronic surveillance of foreign powers or their agents. The congressional investigations in the mid-70s about alleged intelligence abuses led to the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the creation of this court.
Q:How many members does the current court have, who appoints them, and how long do they serve? What specifically is the role of the presiding judge?
A:The Chief Justice appoints the members of the court. Originally, the court had seven members from seven different circuits, appointed for seven year non-renewable terms. The first judges appointed served staggered terms so that only one judge was replaced each year. This year, however, Congress amended the statute to add four new judges and provide that three must live within 20 miles of the District of Columbia. The four new judges have now been appointed by the Chief Justice and they all entered on duty May 19, for staggered terms of four, five, six and seven years. Congress increased the number of court members because they thought there would be more cases as a result of the war on terrorism.
The new presiding judge is Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia, who replaced me when my term expired on May 18. The presiding judge presides over the annual conference of the court held at the Supreme Court, which is attended by the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and the directors of the FBI, CIA and NSA, and the members of the court. We have an annual conference on or about the anniversary date of when the court actually got started on May 18, 1979. Our conference this year was May 14. The presiding judge also runs the court, sets the schedule—the normal administrative duties of any chief judge.
Q:How does the court ensure that every warrant for surveillance is proper and necessary, and that personal rights are protected?
A:All of the proceedings are ex parte so we do understand that the judges of the court have a special duty to protect the rights of absent parties, to ensure that there is a proper basis for the surveillance sought. The judge carefully explores all the constitutional and statutory questions presented by what is being sought—always mindful of this special duty to absent parties. The court views the personal accountability of the Attorney General and the head of the investigative agency for each request made to the court as a way to ensure that everything we see is well scrubbed before it is presented to the court.
I believe that the variety of judges who have now served on this court—Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, from east and west and north and south—has been a real strength of this court in demonstrating that when we approve a surveillance request there really is a valid national security basis for this surveillance. And that it is not being done for some improper political motive. What we add to the process is some assurance to the public that there is a valid national security reason for the surveillance.
Q: Amendments were made to the FISC statute following 9-11. Can you tell us how these amendments affected the court and its workings?
A:The impact of the amendments to the statute remains to be seen. The increase in the membership of the court has enabled us to go to weekly sittings. Additionally, in certain emergencies the Attorney General can place surveillance for 72 hours. Prior to the amendments he could only do it for 24 hours, if he immediately provides notification to the court that he is exercising his emergency power. This has somewhat reduced the number of Saturday and Sunday hearings and some late nights because you don't have to get the paperwork to the judge within 24 hours. Additionally some surveillance periods are extended, so renewals will not have to be presented as often as before and ultimately that will reduce the numbers the court has to review. Some of the periods went from 45 to 90 days for searches, some of the periods of electronic surveillance, if you were an officer of a foreign power, went from 90 days to a year.
Q:As a judge in the District Court for the District of Columbia, you've had considerable experience with spy and terrorism cases. How does a judge conduct a trial in which national security may be at odds with a defendant's right to a fair trial?
A:I have found the Classified Information Procedure Act to provide all the tools that I have needed as a district judge to successfully navigate the tricky questions presented in spy cases, as well as terrorist cases. The Act provides the necessary framework for the judge to protect information that is vital to our national security and at the same time ensure that the criminal defendant is given access to the information needed for his defense. Sometimes this may be substitute information that deletes certain details to protect intelli- gence sources and methods, but I have not yet seen a case where I was unable to ensure a fair trial. For example, the fact that we have a CIA station in a particular country is probably classified because it would impair our foreign relations with that country if we admitted that we had a station. But if in your trial, all you say is, "A CIA station in a foreign country, or even in a Latin American country," you give the defendant everything he needs, and yet you protect your classified information.
The statute really works wonders. In one of the Iran Contra trials, the head of operations for the CIA said he needed to use in his defense every deepest, darkest secret our country ever had. I was able to successfully get through that trial. It took 50 opinions that were classified top secret at the time they were issued, but I got through it.
Q:I've heard of unpublished opinions, but top secret opinions? What becomes of the court's decisions? Are they published?
A:Virtually all orders and opinions of the FISC are classified. Many of my district court opinions in spy and terrorist cases have been initially classified, pursuant to the Classified Information Procedure Act, but the vast majority have subsequently been declassified and made publicly available with only words and phrases and sometimes footnotes redacted. So large portions of those are all on the public record now, even though they initially were classified.
Q:Can the war on terrorism be fought through the federal courts? And how do you weight national security against a defendant's rights?
A:Ultimately the defendant's right to a fair trial trumps everything. If he cannot be assured his right to a fair trial, if the government wouldn't disclose the information, the case would have to be dismissed. That's what the Classified Information Procedure Act provides. I've tried several terrorists now, and I have always found that in every instance, the defendant's rights could be protected, with the information he really needed in his defense.
I think the war on terrorism cannot be won in the courts. But I think the courts have an important role in ensuring, as we fight the war on terrorism, that we don't lose the rights of our own citizens, and that we don't hamstring our intelligence agencies so that our nation cannot survive.
Q:How do you maintain two separate yet very active and demanding dockets—one as a federal trial judge and the other as presiding judge of FISC?
A:The period since 9-11 has been the most difficult of my judicial career. Serving on the FISC is time consuming, but it just happens that since 9-11 the FISC has been a very onerous process. Actually, the amendments adding new judges, and saying three of the judges have to be within 20 miles of D.C. probably will turn out to be beneficial, because you can share around the emergency duties better. With three judges on the court nearby, it will ease that somewhat. | <urn:uuid:6d6e7515-79ee-4672-9be8-c4595b736015> | 2 | 1.664063 | 0.144907 | en | 0.974867 | http://www.uscourts.gov/News/TheThirdBranch/02-06-01/An_Interview_with_Judge_Royce_C_Lamberth.aspx |
Old English Lunch
William Overington
Copyright 1998 William Overington.
"Look Jane, it's no use" said David Albert in despair. Jane Hove looked at him and said nothing.
He continued, "Edith Gatford just does not seem to understand that we are a commercial business. I know she is a good administrator and I have an admiration for the way she sticks out to get what she considers important academic subjects but she seems to live on a cloud. I too take a pride in what I'm doing and I think that she sometimes forgets that. When I go off to meetings to get try to get big advertising contracts I'm not on some kind of holiday, it's hard grinding work. You'll just have to tell her that her idea for the course on Old English is going to have to be scrapped. I can live with the Bessel functions and the optolabe research because John and Henry will largely be getting all that going themselves, but the Old English has got to be done by outsiders and it is just too expensive."
Jane Hove looked rather disheartened.
"Look Jane, I'm not unsympathetic to it all, and I'm not unsympathetic to your personal feelings in being the person to have to tell her, but I've got to go and negotiate a contract tomorrow and that's all that there is to it. If I can't sell advertising space we're in a problem and Old English is the least of my worries."
Jane responded, slowly and deliberately.
"It is not just a question of Old English, it is a matter of the agreement that was made."
"Jane, Jane, I've heard this all before. I have work to do, you have your task, kindly do it!"
Jane felt her jaw drop.
She turned on her heels indignantly and left the room. She would resign. She would not be spoken to like this!
Jane was half way through collecting up her personal items from her desk when she stopped.
'No, I shall not resign' she thought.
'I shall resolve this management problem and gain professional experience in the doing of it. If I was willing to resign I have nothing to lose by staying and trying to solve it. I'll save the day. I'll get Old English included.'
The next morning Jane began to put into action what she had thought out overnight. The key issue was that Old English was too expensive in relation to the interest that it was likely to attract in terms of student numbers. True, advertising was not in learning packages but only in routing pages and indexes but nevertheless if people weren't looking in the indexes then the advertising was not being seen. Yes, Old English could perhaps be grouped with history, the ever popular history, but then it would be strongly subsidised by history and David Albert is just not going to wear it. 'So I'll try to get an individual sponsorship deal for Old English so that it will pay its way on its own. Edith wants Old English; Edith can help get the sponsorship deal. I'll go and see her and ask for her help in getting the sponsorship.'
If Edith Gatford had been puzzled when Jane telephoned her to suggest a meeting over lunch somewhere away from either of their workplaces with the excuse that it would avoid interruptions, she did not show it. So now here was Jane entering La flava floro, a small restaurant where she had not been before in a town half way between their workplaces. Edith had suggested the venue. Jane looked around for Edith expecting to see her, as Edith was always punctual.
"Excuse me, are you waiting for someone?" asked a waiter.
"Yes, I believe a reservation has been made."
"What name please"
"Miss Gatford made the reservation."
"Ah, are you Ms Hove?"
"Yes, is Miss Gatford here?"
"No, she has not arrived yet."
"Are you sure, do you know her?"
"Well, not personally, but no one has arrived that I have not approached."
Jane sensed that something was wrong. Edith was always so punctual.
"May I show you to your table?" asked the waiter.
She wondered whether to go or wait, then she looked at her watch and realized that she was still three minutes early, so she decided to wait.
Just as she was turning to follow the waiter towards the seating area, the swing doors clearly labeled STAFF ONLY swung open and Edith entered.
"Jane, I hope you haven't been waiting long" chirped Edith happily.
The waiter looked confused and puzzled.
'Edith, yes, Edith, punctual with a minute to spare' thought Jane 'but what goes on here?'
"Hello Edith, I thought .... you, from the kitchen? .... err .... shall we .... err?"
The waiter led the way to the table.
"Yes, my sister owns this place, I came over early and have been catching up on family news."
"Your sister?"
"Yes, not obvious is it, married women taking their husband's surname and all that, so the proprietor's name above the door gives no clue."
The conversation remained at superficial level for some time. Jane realized that Edith was just not going to say "What is this all about?" and any move would have to come from Jane. Jane mused as to what would happen if they finished the meal and she just said goodbye as if two old friends had been out for a social lunch together. 'I bet Edith wouldn't even blink' she thought. 'She'd just let me do it. No, I'm just going to have to be the one to go onto the business matter. How am I going to do it?'
"Old English" said Jane out loud and suddenly.
Edith looked surprised, which was unusual.
'Well,' thought Jane 'I don't think I've ever seen her look surprised before.'
"The .... err .... Old English is presenting a few problems at our end" said Jane.
"Ah" said Edith.
"The thing is, IFDEP cannot .... is not .... can't fund the Old English."
"Fine." said Edith.
Jane was quite perplexed at this. She had imagined Edith digging her heels in about an agreement being an agreement and voting procedures and having been to the press conference on that basis and .... fine!
"That's not a problem to you?" asked Jane somewhat cautiously, thinking as she said it that she should have perhaps just accepted that Edith had said "Fine."
"No problem" said Edith.
Jane did not know quite what to do. She had delivered the very message that David Albert had required her to deliver and that was .... fine. Yet this did not seem like Edith, something was up.
A long pause.
"Edith, I've been dreading telling you, I felt professionally embarassed. I almost resigned over the issue."
"Oh don't do that" responded Edith "I have a volunteer to write the course. He wrote in three months ago. He'd like to get some eutotokens so that he can be a member of the society and it's a labour of love for him."
"I'm afraid that IFDEP just won't give him anything. If you can find some other sponsor ...."
"No need. In our constitution is a clause that for every ten eutotokens sold we may issue one eutotoken ourselves directly. We haven't done it yet so I've got quite a fund of eutotokens stored up. I expect he'll get far more eutotokens than he needs for society membership. I'll send him a catalogue with them. The new tableware with the company logo might be ready by then. I'll get a one off collectweight made for him."
"Oh!" said Jane, wondering if this had far reaching implications, far, far beyond Old English.
"So," asked Edith "do you think that IFDEP would be able to find disc space on its server to host a ready prepared free to the end user learning package on Old English as long as IFDEP doesn't have to pay anything towards its authorship?"
'Yes' thought Jane 'I expect that IFDEP will want to find the space.' | <urn:uuid:f0896abb-dbae-48b7-bf78-8fba0f053100> | 2 | 1.8125 | 0.080588 | en | 0.987388 | http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto0005.htm |
They're not homemakers, they're "Makers."
While they may raise children, cook, clean and honor their spouses, the women celebrated in the PBS-AOL collaboration "Makers" are the daring ones who ventured out of the house to lead the women's liberation movement, who broke barriers and became emblems in the fight for equality.
"Makers: Women Who Make America" is a broadcast and digital effort, already online and premiering as a three-hour documentary narrated by Meryl Streep on PBS on Feb. 26.
Bra burning? Yes, that's part of the story, along with Supreme Court appointments, the first female astronaut, anchorwomen, congresswomen, corporate executives, coal miners, Boston marathoners and more.
Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Marlo Thomas, Billie Jean King, Judy Blume, Sandra Day O'Connor, Pat Schroeder, Hillary Clinton ... these and other pioneers recollect the old days, when women were expected to get a "Mrs. degree" at college and settle into the perfect kitchen.
Prominent women from sports, politics, the arts and literature share personal stories, notably Colorado's own Linda Alvarado, founder, CEO and president of Alvarado Construction and co-owner of the Colorado Rockies. She is highlighted as an example of a business leader, Hispanic, no less, who had to prove herself again and again to, as she says, "break the cement ceiling" (see sidebar).
Linda Alvarado made her mark in what had been an exclusively masculine field. Her first construction project was a bus shelter. "You could only do 20
Linda Alvarado made her mark in what had been an exclusively masculine field. Her first construction project was a bus shelter. "You could only do 20 at a time; I did 340." (
Through it all, the authoritative father figures of TV news pop in to read headlines: Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor and, in an especially patronizing tone, Harry Reasoner.
The evolving challenges are recounted from shattering the glass ceiling to the pressure to be "supermoms" and the realization of the impossibility of "having it all."
"I don't think I was prepared for the ambivalence of motherhood and career," says noted feminist Letty Cotton Pogrebin's daughter Robin.
The rise of the so-called Moral Majority in response to the women's movement is treated, too, but without critical analysis.
The series throws a bone to the retrograde few now and then, letting anti-ERA crusader and conservative activist Phyllis Schafly have her say, giving voice to those women who felt insulted that anyone wanted to liberate them. Does a documentary focusing on the women's movement need this kind of "balance"? Viewers will judge for themselves.
The issues of abortion and violence against women necessarily take a bit of the spotlight here. The fragmenting of the movement around the issue of lesbian rights is duly noted.
Famous figures illustrate halting steps forward, from Madonna to Anita Hill (the former a symbol of women gaining agency over their sexuality, the latter an example of the losing battle for women's claims of harassment to be taken seriously).
The current shift of attention to the plight of women globally and the incidence of rape in Third World countries is noted but not fully explored.
The tone is proud: So much progress in such a relatively short time. Yet feminism still has a long way to go. Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, says "a world where men ran half of the home and women ran half of our institutions would be a much better world." | <urn:uuid:4eb662d4-5c36-455f-84c2-40684add505b> | 2 | 2.09375 | 0.019429 | en | 0.962074 | http://www.vivacolorado.com/ci_22673677/makers-narrated-by-meryl-streep-tells-history-womens?source=most_viewed |
People often talk about art when they're actually referring to something else. We hear about the art of the deal, the art of medicine. There's the art of cooking. And the art of politics. Even the art of baseball. Aren't comedians and rock stars called artists?
In fact, it seems that nearly every human endeavor is seen in terms of art--except, that is, for the crafts: glass-making, ceramics, weaving, metalwork or jewelry. Pity the visual artist working in one of these fields, because, unlike the cook, the politician or the ballplayer, he needs to continually remind the viewer that the product of his labors constitutes a work of art.
The art world has long distinguished "art" from "craft" to the disadvantage of the latter. According to this view, "art" is seen to occupy a lofty cultural realm, whereas "craft" has a more down-to-earth connotation--the pure visual appeal of paintings, for example, versus the utilitarian role of bottles. This prejudice is even sometimes codified in art curricula and some museums as a distinction between the "fine arts" and the "minor arts." Little wonder, then, that many artists working in craft media self-consciously struggle to settle the argument in their own favor.
That's surely the goal of most of the artists in Glass: A Fusion of Art and Craft, an excellent show at the Arvada Center that even refers to the raging debate in its title.
The show was organized by assistant curators Susan Sagara and Rudi Cerri, and they did a good job of selecting examples by more than a dozen artists working with glass. All but one of the artists are active in Colorado, and between them they map out a broad territory that ranges from expected vessels to more unexpected sculptures.
Many of the participants address issues of art from the perspective of craft, using functional objects to achieve a union of technique and aesthetics. Lauri Thal has blown handsome trumpet-shaped compotes that recall the modern glass of 1950s Scandinavia. The simple hydrostatic forms are set off by the muted colors of the glass. Less successful are Thal's wavy, plate-glass sculptures, which likewise make reference to the medium's liquid quality; they're covered in sandblasted decorations, the work of Melissa Malm.
More elaborate technically, but still mostly functional, are the works of Brian Maytum, Susan Di Marchi and Chuck Lopez. Maytum displays a vase, a bottle and a sculptural paperweight. The bright interior colors can be glimpsed through facets cut in the clear-cased glass surfaces. Di Marchi goes a few steps further, with vases and perfume bottles that have been elaborately etched and sandblasted in geometric patterns, some of them featuring hot applied elements as decorations. Di Marchi's sense of color is superb; in one large vase that has a neoclassical feel, a creamy lavender is perfectly paired with a rich shade of teal. Lopez presents three rectilinear vases that have been mold-blown, producing deep surface ridges in a diagonal pattern both inside and out. On the exterior, the effect resembles the treads of a tire; the vases' interiors, though, are mostly white, giving Lopez's pieces a source of inner light.
Among the most interesting works are those that keep one foot in the functional legacy of glass and the other in the world of sculpture. James Clarke's perfume bottles of glass and stone differ little in concept or effect from his closely related sculptures, which he executes with the same materials. Joan Reep also blurs the distinctions between bowls and sculptures with big, blobby sea forms of swirling, earth-toned glass that incorporate metal wire and bronze. Reep makes her intentions clear: These "bowls" aren't to be used at the table.
The most ambitious of the hybrid works are the pieces by two of the region's best-known glassblowers, Kit Karbler and Michael David. Karbler and David have collaborated since the 1980 founding of their studio and workshop, Blake Street Glass, a genuine cultural treasure that has since emerged as a center for local glass-making. The duo's perfectly blown bowls, many with elaborate bases, have had their sides cut away, denying their utilitarian role. The bowls can't hold anything--other than the viewer's interest.
The standout of Karbler and David's pieces is "Mesa Llena de Color," a sculpture that looks like a decorated coffee table. Various examples of their characteristic cutaway bowls are affixed to either the plate-glass top or the legs. One witty element has a form that at first looks like a table leg; on closer inspection, one sees that the component never connects to the floor. Karbler and David have assembled so many different examples of their work in "Mesa Llena de Color" that the piece could be seen as a (not too) portable gallery.
Another group of artists presents glass that is purely sculptural and refers not at all to the functional arena. Heidi Stein's "Untitled" and "Industrial Growth" look fragile and dangerous at the same time, combining faceted glass in deep jewel tones with found mechanical elements. The juxtaposition of rusted cogs, gears and nuts with gleaming glass spikes provides just the right visual rhythm.
It's nature, and not industry, that provides J.B. Barrett and Eric Haddick with their very compatible inspirations. Both artists, whose work is among the strongest in a very strong show, principally use white or clear glass blown into phallic shapes that also suggest plants and other organic forms.
Barrett's "Nuts Again" is a totemic, blown-glass figure surmounted by what looks like a star-spangled condom--just below which are a pair of mold-blown acorns. The same kind of adults-only theme is seen in Barrett's three marvelous "Rayguns."
Haddick's pair of "Roman Trees" are more quietly organic. Two three-legged tables made of braided iron rods are each surmounted by a complicated blown-glass construction that represents a conventionalized tree. As objects, they're reminiscent of floor lamps, a form that Haddick addresses elsewhere in the show with notably less success.
Entirely different from all of the other glass sculptures are Carole Sharpe's busts that correspond to the four seasons. These pieces have been assembled using found materials--most often broken, industrially produced glass bowls and light fixtures, as well as shards of mass-produced porcelain. Those materials are then held together by an elaborate network of bronze caming. The busts vary greatly in color and detail, but they're unified by their similar forms and by the use of the same mold-blown glass face in each.
The show's artists, whose work fills several galleries at the Arvada Center, may seem to have resolved the conflict between art and craft once and for all. But similar efforts have been made by glass artists for centuries, and the pedants still won't budge. Is glass an art form, or is it a kind of craft? As this dazzling exhibit demonstrates, those questions may best be answered with yet another one: Who cares?
Sponsor Content | <urn:uuid:5397ce85-3a5a-451e-886f-f1802ad3542a> | 2 | 1.984375 | 0.032309 | en | 0.961456 | http://www.westword.com/arts/glass-act-5055518 |
You can't tell the players without an atlas. Or a body count.
Since the 1988 Olympic Games, Germany has reunified and the Soviet Union has broken into fifteen pieces. Two Yemens have become one, while Czechoslovakia has split itself into Czechs and Slovaks. The city of Sarajevo, once famous for the assassination that triggered World War I and for hosting the 1984 Games, has been reduced to a bloody pile of rocks. Gorbachev is out. Clinton is in. NATO wants to use force. Soon-to-be-extinct nations, as-yet-to-be-founded nations and soon-to-be-annexed nations battle to raise their tenuous flags at the back of the world's parade. And hey: Parts of Los Angeles close to the sites of the 1988 Games have since been scorched by riot fires and knocked down by earthquakes. The two Koreas remain at each other's throats, and the French have never forgiven the Americans for trying to prepare onion soup in Chicago.
Moreover, Norway always will hate Sweden, and vice versa.
And at the airport in Lillehammer last week, the cops were frisking figure skaters for concealed weapons.
In view of the New World Disorder it's harder than ever to crow about the "Olympic ideal"--that sweeping vision of fresh-faced, hard-bodied young people competing against one another for the sheer love of sport and exchanging enamel lapel pins amid the bliss of international harmony. When the Serbs and the Bosnians sit down at the peace table, that will be the time to join hands across the sea. When the British loosen their ancient grip on the Irish, sing out then. When the Libyans...oh, you fill in the blank.
Fact remains, there's a stubborn element of fantasy--if not delusion--these days in the grandiose utterances of Olympic boosters. Nationalist fervor and tribal hatreds aren't going away anytime soon--and the "Olympic movement," no matter how well-intentioned, has never been much help. A sportsman named Hitler hosted the Olympics back in 1936, and look what that did for world peace.
So while visitors from several former-and-future nations are discovering that their currency is no good in the souvenir shops, and Olympic ticketholders wrangle with 11,000 TV cameramen for the last smoked herring at any price in all Norway, the rest of us may as well content ourselves for the next two weeks with lounging by the blazing hearth with our snifters of warm brandy and our significant others.
We'd all do well to turn on the boob tube with great caution.
Sports nuts with no other life--and inmates of the state hospital--probably will insist on watching the whole damn thing between now and February 27--every bobsled run and mogul leap. Fine. The Games of the Umpteenth Olympiad still hold some attraction--Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan trying to poison each other's food in the cafeteria line, for instance--but even as expressions of shameless nationalist fervor, they've lost their edge. Residents of Maryland and Oregon still can get choked up when the Stars and Stripes is raised aloft and the band plays the anthem (an event that may not occur often in these games), but an increasing number of the world's viewers won't even recognize their nations' new flags as they go up the pole.
Besides, since the demise of backward speed skating--an actual Olympic sport in the 1880s--the events have lost their, well, their social and geopolitical relevance. Skidding a big soup tureen over a patch of ice may still remind some folks of the Huns stoning the Romans, but most of us couldn't care less.
What we probably need are some new Olympic events. Ones with real-life implications. Imagine, for instance, the TV schedule blurbs for...
ICE KENDO--While casual viewers probably will watch only the much-heralded Harding-Kerrigan matchup in the bantamweight class, authentic fans will tune in super bruiserweights Ludmilla Stench of Latvia and Margaret Force-Pennington of Great Britain. Competing on a rink specially reinforced with titanium undergirders, the skaters simultaneously will perform the compulsory figures and whale on each other with lengths of drainage pipe. Stench's coach reports that both fractured shoulders have cleared up just fine, her nose has been reattached and she's in high spirits as the favorite to take the gold.
DIE-ATHLON--In this new Olympic event, versatile athletes from 37 countries will don cross-country skis for a 30-kilometer dash over snowy hill-and-dale. At five-kilometer intervals, however, competitors will pause to open fire on spectators with the high-powered sniper rifles strapped to their backs. Eight shots will be fired at each station. Ten points will be awarded for every man, woman or child wounded or killed; ducks and geese are worth five points each, members of the International Olympic Committees three points. The early favorites for medals include the Serbians, whose uncompromising training methods have honed them to a fine edge, and...well, the Germans.
SHALOM AND GIANT SHALOM--The most intellectually challenging of the new international events, the competition will begin February 16 with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government pledging to implement a revolutionary peace accord in the Middle East. However, through clever verbal jousting, outbreaks of violence in the Olympic Village and ever-denser tangles of charge and counter-charge, the event will zip downhill faster and faster toward a dizzying conclusion on February 27--when the competitors will declare that no conclusions have been reached at all and that they once again will part company as mortal enemies. PLO coach Yasser Arafat has his charges razor-sharp for this one, but the well-balanced, physically superior Israeli club of skipper Shimon Peres could pull the upset.
KHMER LUGE--In this lively test of speed, nerve and will, homeless peasants from all 172 Olympic nations will be herded into the ice venue and persecuted for their religious, economic and social beliefs. In the second stage of the event, held in the middle of the night, the peasants will be forced to slide unclothed along a two-mile course of black ice before being deposited into the fjord. Favorites to mount the winner's podium include Cambodia, Serbia and...well, the Germans.
CLAIM JUMPING--Incorporating for the first time the popular surgical bombing event, this competition has its historical roots in the age-old notion that the only good Poland is a Poland constantly invaded, dissected and reconstituted by assorted Russians and Germans. In the Lillehammer heats and finals, a ten-acre mixed-use parcel in the center of the city, speckled with public buildings, condominium units, four restaurants, three gas stations and a major arms plant, will be put up for grabs by teams of the competing nations. Assassinations of local officials are worth ten points, takeovers of police headquarters thirty. Public abdication by the mayor of Lillehammer will score 100 points, and if a team is able to rename the city and arbitrarily redraw its municipal borders in such a way that half the world believes that's the way things always were, it wins the gold medal outright. Once again, the event is a new one, but already there are so many competent teams heading in that it's impossible to predict the medal finish. But here's a hint: Keep your eye on the Iraqis.
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Media centre
WHO launches project to minimize risks of radon
In an effort to reduce the rate of lung cancer around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) is launching the International Radon Project to help countries reduce the health risks associated with radon gas. The Project will identify effective strategies for reducing the health impact of radon, promote sound policy options for countries and increase public and political awareness about the consequences of exposure to radon.
Radon is a natural radioactive gas that emanates from the ground into the air. Radon gas in the air is present worldwide, its concentration depending on the highly variable uranium content of the soil. It is the second most important risk factor for lung cancer, causing between 6 and 15% of all cases Yet, there is little public awareness of radon as a threat to human health, that can be mitigated with relatively simple measures.
Although the average exposure to radon varies enormously, recent studies have shown that, when exposed to a radon concentration of 100 Bq (Becquerels)/m3, a non-smoker's risk of lung cancer by age 75 years increases by 1 in a 1000 compared to non-exposed persons. Among those who smoke and are exposed to the same radon concentration, the risk of lung cancer is about 25 times greater. On a global level, tens of thousands of lung cancer deaths annually can be attributed to radon. Most of the radon-induced lung cancer cases occur among smokers.
Radon is a chemically inert, naturally occurring radioactive gas without odour, colour or taste. It is produced from radium in the decay chain of uranium, an element found in varying amounts in all rocks and soil. Radon gas escapes easily from the ground into the air and emits heavily ionizing radiation called alpha particles. These particles are electrically charged and attach to aerosols, dust and other particles in the air we breathe. As a result, radon progeny may be deposited on the cells lining the airways where the alpha particles can damage the DNA and potentially cause lung cancer.
Due to dilution in the air, outdoor radon levels are usually very low. Radon can also be found in drinking water, the concentration depending on the water source, and this can sometimes present a hazard. Radon levels are higher indoors, and much higher radon concentrations can be found in places such as mines, caves and water treatment facilities, and an increased lung cancer risk has been found in uranium miners. For the average citizen, by far the greatest exposure to radon comes in the home.
The concentration of radon in a home depends on the amount of uranium producing the radon in the underlying rocks and soils as well as the routes available for its passage into the home and the rate of exchange between indoor and outdoor air. Radon gas enters houses through openings such as cracks at concrete floor-wall junctions, gaps in the floor, small pores in hollow-block walls, and also sumps and drains. Consequently, radon levels are usually higher in basements, cellars or other structural areas in contact with soil, and the radon concentrations in houses directly adjacent to each other can be very different.
Radon exposure in homes can be easily mitigated during the construction of new homes, but existing buildings can also be protected from radon. Most measures such as increasing under-floor ventilation and sealing cracks and gaps in the floor require simple alterations to the building, but other approaches may have to be taken in areas with high radon concentrations. Overall, reducing radon exposure is an important contribution to the goal of good quality indoor air.
The project is initially expected to run for three years (2005-2007). As a first step, the WHO International Radon Project is setting up a global network of radon scientists, regulators and policy makers to collaborate in the project. Coordination will be provided by WHO. Working groups will focus on risk assessment, exposure guidelines, measurement and mitigation of radon levels, investigations of cost-effectiveness and risk communication. WHO guidelines based on this work will help national authorities to develop, promote and strengthen activities at country or regional level. The WHO fact sheets produced in the course of the Project will be a central communication tool to increase public awareness about radon. The WHO International Radon Project also aims to create a global radon database and provide improved global estimates of the disease burden associated with radon worldwide. Overall, together with global tobacco control activities and initiatives on healthy indoor air, the Project is expected to be a key step towards reducing lung cancer risk word wide.
For more information contact:
Mr Gregory Hartl
Communications Adviser, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments
Telephone: +41 22 791 4458
Mobile phone: +41 79 203 6715
Fax: +41 22 791 4725
Dr Hajo Zeeb
Radiation and Environmental Health
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Gas Prices May Lead to One-Cent Tax for Bonifay
By: Hermelinda Vargas
By: Hermelinda Vargas
Gas prices are forcing drivers to keep an eye on their mileage, and some new car buyers are even considering cars they wouldn't have considered before gas prices went sky high.
Some governments are also considering their own measures to deal with the higher costs. Finding an unhappy gas customer isn't very hard these days.
Traveling musicians say their budget for their trip from Texas is tighter than expected because of gas prices, but individuals aren't the only one's feeling the squeeze. The city of Bonifay is now considering a one cent sales tax to make up for the increasing cost of operating the city's cars and trucks.
"Gas is two dollars now. Last year it was probably $1.30, so you see what it does: we have garbage trucks and we have work trucks. It's just tearing us up that's all," says Jake Jacobs, Bonifay Mayor.
Mayor Jacob proposed the tax this week. If put into effect, Bonifay customers would not only be paying for more for their gas, they'd also be paying more for anything they buy within the city except food and medicine.
Jacobs says the city needs to offset gas costs or risk trouble with other bills down the line.
"I don't see any hope of getting out of it with what you see on the news. It looks like it's going up," says Jacobs.
Other local governments are also being hit hard by the extra fuel costs, but so far none have made any drastic cuts in services.
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One of a kind
Culture | Clones are not the same as the originals, after all
Issue: "Welfare to work," March 16, 2002
The main problem with pets is that they die. When a faithful animal companion gets hit by a car or does not come back from the vet, it can be a traumatic experience for both children and adults.
What if you could bring back your beloved dog or cat? Not as the old-in-dog-years hound or a cat at the end of his nine lives, but as a puppy or a kitten again, the same animal but with a whole new life?
That's the promise of pet cloning, which Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom" column has dubbed the "killer app" of cloning technology; that is, an application of biological engineering that-unlike many high-tech discoveries-might actually make tons of money.
The concept has inspired a new line of high-tech businesses that go by names like PerPETuate and Lazaron. Thus far, they are only selling DNA collection and storage ($700 to take a pet biopsy, and $10 a month storage fee, until cloning is technologically feasible). But now a company called Genetic Savings & Clone has successfully cloned a cat.
If this works, could the same process someday be used to bring back deceased children and other relatives? Could you bring back yourself? A genetic Xerox of yourself, to be born again as a baby to live your life all over again? Lazaron, named after the man Jesus raised from the dead, is clearly already thinking in these terms. For $95, you can have a "DNA capsule" made, storing a human hair, nail-clipping, or tooth ("an excellent source of DNA") in a tiny resin container that will preserve your genetic code for later.
Is cloning a secular, scientific method of attaining everlasting life, not in heaven but back in this world? Would it result in a materialistically engineered reincarnation?
One problem is that, to the surprise of researchers, the cloned kitten, named CopyCat or "CC" for short, is not a carbon copy after all. The adult cat that was cloned is an orange, black, and white calico. CC is a black and white tabby. The two are genetically identical, but they do not look alike at all.
It turns out, genes do not determine everything about a living being. In animals, DNA alone does not determine coat-color patterns. Nor, says lead scientist of the project Mark Westhusin, does it determine the "personality" of an animal. An affectionate cat could be cloned into an aloof cat. As Mr. Westhusin told Newsweek's Anne Underwood, "Cloning is reproduction, not resurrection."
This is not the only problem with cloning. Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal, is undergoing accelerated aging. At only 5, she was struck by arthritis, and scientists have found that her cells show the wear and tear of a much older animal.
Many cloned animals are born dead, and others die soon after, with oversized organs, deformities, and sometimes being twice the size they should be. Though now there are hundreds of cloned cows, pigs, goats, and mice that appear healthy, serious problems sometimes arise when they reach adulthood.
A study published in the latest edition of Nature Medicine by scientists at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine reports on how cloned mice suddenly, when they reached adulthood, developed obesity. It isn't that the mice stopped working out when they hit middle age, spending all their time watching TV and drinking beer and eating snacks while reclining in little Barca loungers. Their insulin levels were out of whack and they lacked the hormone that regulates appetite.
In a commentary accompanying the article, Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly, concludes, "It is questionable whether there are any clones that are entirely normal."
The most brutal aspect of cloning is the number of embryos that are first engendered and then thrown away and killed before finding one that will "take" in a donor womb. What is done with animals is also done with human cloning experiments, including those designed simply to "harvest" their stem cells, using human babies as the raw material in grisly factories.
In the case of the cloned cat, the ratio of "unsuccessful" embryos to the one that finally worked was about the same as in all other cloning experiments. CopyCat was the sole survivor of 87 kitten embryos.
Gene Edward Veith
Gene Edward Veith
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Coop's Corner: Napster deserves a break
Summary:The time has come to start thinking creatively about how to coexist in this digitized new world.
The participants in the Napster debate raise interesting and lively questions about the future of music on the Internet. They unfortunately refuse to think through their analyses to a real conclusion.
Nobody here is suggesting that modern industrial structures should be trashed in favor of unfettered anarchism. To be sure, artists should be fairly compensated for their work. That's why the advent of new and interesting technologies is forcing the music industry to think creatively -- hey, what a concept! -- about how to flourish in this challenging world of the future.
But with all due respect to Judge Patel and the folks applauding her decision to issue a preliminary injunction blocking Napster from allowing the unfettered exchange of copyrighted music -- I would borrow the punch line from a famed Saturday Night Live sketch: The question is moot.
Even opponents of Napster understand that the industry must embrace the new technology or wind up getting bypassed by history. Indeed, even Napster critics acknowledge the music industry must reinvent itself because the old structure is teetering.
It's useful to draw a distinction between Napster the technology and Napster the Web site. Leaving alone for the moment the wisdom of the judge's ruling, Napster represents a technology approach that can not be shut down. Napster may be vulnerable to judicial restraint because it uses a centralized directory -- not so Gnutella and Freenet.
The self-serving declarations of victory by the recording industry in the aftermath of Judge Patel's ruling might make for a good headline or two. But they purposely ignored these larger technology challenges that loom on the horizon. The music industry may prefer to shut its eyes to these transforming events, but the fact is that its world changed the day digitized music hit the Internet.
Napster bashers maintain that consumers are gleefully stealing from record companies they consider to be greedy, immoral and even criminal.
And this we know how? There are some 20 million registered Napster users, and it's awfully difficult for me to believe that the vast majority is comprised of gleeful cyber-shoplifters.
If anecdotal evidence of this great Napster conspiracy were presented in a court of law, the opposing lawyer would easily get it tossed out as hearsay. To be sure, there are doubtless folks out there in the great cyber frontier who believe that copyright is a quaint notion that should not apply to the modern era. Yet as the evidence dribbles in, lo and behold but the facts suggest that music sales are on the upswing. Might this bogey be rooted more in the imagination of the music industry than in fact?
You bet it is.
Let's focus on the larger issue: Can all participants in this debate get what they want? Some people have suggested encryption as a possible solution. I don't think that's the end-all and be-all, but at least that's a more promising point of departure for debate than issuing a flat 'nyet' and a lawsuit.
The musicians, the ones who are actually creating the "content," have a vested interest in establishing one-to-one connections with their fans on the Internet. Might there not be some sort of way these music transmitting technologies could allow them to more effectively communicate -- and yes, sell stuff -- to their listeners?
The time has come to start thinking creatively about how to coexist in this digitized new world. Consumers want the convenience of listening to music on the Internet. If they can't get it from Napster, they'll go somewhere else.
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Say command: How speech recognition will change the world
Summary:Fueled by connected devices, natural speech recognition has emerged from the research lab as the killer app for, well, everything.
It beeps. You begin to speak.
"Send text to Erica: Let's have lunch."
All of these phenomena operate under a strict series of laws, of course. Our ability to understand them is only as sufficient as our ability to assemble a large enough data set to represent them. And aside from the occasional once-in-a-lifetime discovery that redefines those rules -- such as when scientists discovered bacteria last year that survived on arsenic, an element not among the six known to constitute life -- the rules remain constant.
It is, therefore, a tremendous feat to marry the rigid world of computers to the squishy, volatile world of spoken language. And yet your new smartphone, $200 on contract, just managed to accomplish it in seconds.
Simultaneously, your speech was evaluated locally, on your device. A recognizer installed on your phone communicates with that server in the cloud to gauge whether the command can be best handled locally -- such as if you had asked it to play a song on your phone -- or if it must connect to the network for further assistance. (If the local recognizer deems its model sufficient to process your speech, it tells the server in the cloud that it is no longer needed: "Thanks very much, we're OK here.")
Based on these opinions, your speech -- now understood as a series of vowels and consonants -- is then run through a language model, which estimates the words that your speech is comprised of. Given a sufficient level of confidence, the computer then creates a candidate list of interpretations for what the sequence of words in your speech might mean.
If there is enough confidence in this result, and there is -- the computer determines that your intent is to send an SMS, Erica Olssen is your addressee (and therefore her contact information should be pulled from your phone's contact list) and the rest is your actual note to her -- your text message magically appears on screen, no hands necessary. If your speech is too ambiguous at any point during the process, the computers will defer to you, the user: did you mean Erica Olssen, or Erica Schmidt?
All this, in the space of three seconds.
It was certainly on the mind of Bell Laboratories research physicist Homer Dudley in 1940, when he was granted a patent for the "Parallel Bandpass Vocoder," a device that analyzed the energy levels of sound samples through a series of narrow band filters, then reversed the process by scanning the results and sending them to more filters that were attached to a noise generator.
The year prior, Dudley received a patent for his Voder speech synthesizer, a valve-driven machine that modeled the human voice with the help of a human operator manipulating various controls. It built on years of research conducted by his colleague Harvey Fletcher, a physicist whose work in the transmission and reproduction of sound firmly established the relationship between the energy of speech within a frequency spectrum and the result as perceived by a human listener. (Most modern algorithms for speech recognition are still based on this concept.)
But it wasn't until 1952 that Bell Laboratories researchers developed a system to actually recognize, rather than reproduce or imitate, speech. K.H. Davis, R. Biddulph and S. Balashek devised a system to recognize isolated digits spoken by a single person. Much like its digital successors, the system estimated utterances (e.g. the word "nine") by measuring their frequencies and comparing them to a reference pattern for each digit to guess the most appropriate answer.
Advancements quickly followed. In 1956, Harry Olson and Herbert Belar of RCA Laboratories developed a machine that recognized 10 syllables of a single talker. In 1959, James and Carma Forgie of MIT Lincoln Lab developed a 10-vowel system that was speaker-independent; the same year, University College researchers Dennis Fry and Peter Denes focused on developing a recognizer for words consisting of two or more phonemes -- the first use of statistical syntax at the phoneme level in speech recognition.
Development of analog systems based on spectral resonances accelerated in the 1960s. In 1961, IBM researchers developed the "Shoebox," a device that recognized single digits and 16 spoken words. In 1962, Jouji Suzuki and Kazuo Nakata of the Radio Research Lab in Tokyo, Japan built a hardware vowel recognizer while Toshiyuki Sakai and Shuji Doshita at Kyoto University built a hardware phoneme recognizer -- the first use of a speech segmented for analysis. The following year, NEC Laboratories developed a hardware digit recognizer. And Thomas Martin of RCA Laboratories developed several solutions to detect the beginnings and endpoints of speech, boosting accuracy.
"The limitation was essentially man in the loop," Nahamoo said. "To build anything, a person had to sit down, look at a visual representation of a signal that was spoken for a given word, and find some characteristics -- a signature -- to then write a program to recognize them. Based on that, a reverse process could be done. This was extremely slow because the discovery of those characteristics by a human brain was taking a long time. That was the main roadblock. The characteristics -- the specifics that would give away a sound or word -- had to be discovered automatically. Human discovery was very slow."
By the late 1960s and 1970s, modern computers had emerged as a way to automatically process signals, and a number of major research organizations tasked themselves with furthering speech recognition technology, including IBM, Bell, NEC, the U.S. Department of Defense and Carnegie Mellon University. Scientists developed various techniques to improve recognition, including template-based isolated word recognition, dynamic time warping and continuous speech recognition through dynamic phoneme tracking.
"A lot of the interest in speech recognition was driven by DARPA," Nahamoo said of the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm. "DARPA was actively funding it from the early days, and its sister organizations in government naturally had their own reasons for their interest. The difference between government and industry was that the industry from a business perspective was not under pressure to replace the GUI -- graphical user interface. But government had the need to be able to process massive amounts of spoken content in different form and fashion to be able to extract insight from it. They drove the industrial institution as well as universities to help scientists innovate."
The 1980s brought a shift in methodology from basic pattern recognition to statistical modeling in an attempt to recognize a fluently spoken string of connected words. Each organization had its own reasons to further research in the field: the U.S. Department of Defense sought to lead research and development in the lab; IBM sought to produce a voice-activated typewriter for office transcription; AT&T Bell sought to provide automated telecommunication services such as voice dialing and phone call routing. In all cases, speaker-independent systems were preferred and mathematical rigor was the method of choice.
"The computers made things systematic," Nahamoo said. "You could repeat it and plot it and tabulate, organize and model data. It allows us to build more and more refined models of different things. We have three orders of magnitude more complexity today than we did in the early 1970s. They gave us the ability to refine the model."
The 1990s brought a sharp focus on pattern recognition and a proliferation of use cases, from air travel information requests to broadcast news transcriptions to recognizing spontaneous, conversational speech. It was here that the most difficult challenges, "disfluencies," were confronted: speakers who cut themselves off mid-word, hesitate or correct themselves, not to mention handling the various non-word fillers that pepper casual speech, such as "uh" and "um."
As humans and machines stepped closer to each other, a renewed focus on two-way conversation -- including the management of ambient noise -- emerged. Researchers believed that the speech-to-text process was the optimal first step to allow recognition systems to respond; Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists developed the Pegasus and Jupiter systems as a result, which offered airline information and weather information, respectively. AT&T's How May I Help You system and later, its Voice Recognition Call Processing system, successfully cut down on the escalating expense of call centers by allowing machines to handle basic requests.
It's a miserable December day in Manhattan and pedestrians up and down Lexington Avenue are ducking under scaffolding and scampering down the sidewalk in an attempt to shield themselves from the rain.
I'm standing inside the sleek lobby of the W Hotel, looking somewhat like the drowned rat I spotted in the subway on my way uptown. I'm waiting to meet with Zig Serafin, general manager of the Speech at Microsoft group. When I make it to the right room, I knock on the door and enter. Zig's not here -- he's sitting in his office in surprisingly sunny Redmond, Wash. But with a little help from an Xbox, we're quickly in a videoconference -- and from the way he's looking at me, he's probably wondering why anyone would want to live in precipitation-heavy New York City.
You see, the Kinect can hear you (as we're demonstrating through our videochat), see you (ditto) and understand you -- it follows basic spoken commands from across the room.
As we continue talking about how humans interact with technology, I begin to piece things together. A month before, Microsoft launched its Windows Phone mobile platform, catapulting the company back into the smartphone race. It remains a dominant player in the PC sector. Its free BING-411 service -- a directory assistance line named after its search engine and launched in 2007 -- was powered by Tellme, the former name of Serafin's group. And it has quickly become a major player in the automotive industry by partnering with Ford and Kia to offer a voice-activated telematics system that turns the phrase "I'm hungry" into an action item.
All of these products have speech recognition services available for users. All, I realize, are nodes through which Microsoft can collect data to improve its system. Empowered by the proliferation of Internet connectivity, Microsoft is circling the wagons on speech recognition. And few consumers are aware it's even happening.
Speech recognition research is hardly new at Microsoft. The company pursued it under Bill Gates' leadership beginning in the early 1990s and through a series of acquisitions -- Entropic in 1999 for server-based speech recognition, TellMe for voice services in 2007 -- slowly commercialized what had long been an R&D pursuit.
Aside from the implementation of the technology in its most popular consumer devices, the company also runs between 65 and 70 percent of all directory assistance requests in the U.S. Various voices, accents, ambient noise conditions and of course requests -- it is an enormous and constantly-growing source of data.
Across town, Google is also pursuing speech recognition through the development of its own system. During a visit to the company's office in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, speech technology chief Mike Cohen told me that the company has been working in the area for seven years, primarily because of its utility in the mobile space -- "the killer app for speech technology," as he describes it.
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it easily accessible," he said. "Turns out [that] a lot of the world's information is spoken."
More nodes. More data.
Cohen tells me the 411 service was the company's first significant source of data, and that mobile speech input has grown 600 percent in the last year. With each passing day, the company collects enough speech data to fill the space of two years.
As Google builds its speech database and refines its models, Cohen admitted that it's learning a lot. For example, there are many variables: environmental conditions vary, there can be different microphones on different devices and there are even gender differences -- women have a shorter vocal tract, making comprehension of that speech data slightly different from data of male speech.
Sejnoha's company, of course, is the elephant in the speech recognition room. With $1.4 billion in revenue -- 90 percent from voice services -- the company is dominant in the space, supported by three pillars: transcription, call center support and mobile environments.
While the company makes the most money in the first category -- Tenet and Kaiser are among its clients -- it's the third that's the most interesting. The company's technology is in everything from the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G to the in-car telematics systems offered by Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Audi, Mercedes and Volvo. It supplies technology to mobile products made by Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and LG; it's in GPS navigation devices from Garmin, TomTom and Magellan; and its technology is even embedded in set-top boxes from American Scientific and Motorola.
"A user might connect to our system through a number of points: your phone, your tablet, your car, your desk, when you contact enterprise care," Sejnoha said. "Not only do we want to aggregate those learnings and improve your experience everywhere -- remove those silos -- but also provide a coherent experience across those endpoints."
In the age of the Internet, the speech recognition race has quickened -- and the winners are those who assemble the most data.
"With these things -- Watson, Siri, Dragon Go -- people are starting to see that [some interactions are] going to happen in some linguistic fashion," Nahamoo said. "The question is, what aspects of these technologies is going to become a keyboard -- a commodity where it's unclear where the business is -- versus applications that exist that are the underpinning of business?"
The stakes are high. As globalization becomes the economic norm, the capability of technology to manage and manipulate language is paramount. It's not just in consumer electronics: large call center operations continue to employ speech recognition to process requests and time-crunched doctors around the world rely on it to dictate notes over the phone for transcription.
Even better, your next call to customer service may actually detect how peeved you are -- and respond accordingly.
This post was originally published on
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Gmail makes unsubscribing easier
Gmail Email Unsubscribe HeaderGoogle are rolling out a Gmail interface change that puts an unsubscribe link directly next to the Senders details in the head of an email, making it much easier for users to unsubscribe (post updated 28th February with unsubscribe by email information).
Here’s an example of how it looks.
Gmail Header Unsubscribe link
The Unsubscribe link is shown in the header regardless of which Gmail tab the email landed in. (aka Hotmail) have also for some time been including an extra unsubscribe link, but right at the bottom of an opened email as shown in this example email
Outlook email footer unsubscribe option also already adds a link next to the sender. But rather than as Gmail adding unsubscribe link, includes a link for to their clean-up functionality, that moves or deletes multiple emails from the sender.
Hotmail Schedule clean-up header
Why the Gmail change?
Vijay Eranti, head of Google’s anti-abuse team is quoted saying “One of the biggest problems with the Gmail spam filter is identifying unwanted mail or soft spam”. Basically acknowledging that true spam and no longer desired previously opted-in brand emails often get the same treatment from users – the Gmail ‘Report Spam’ button.
The expectation is that providing a method that is easy to use, trusted and consistent across different senders will encourage users to simply unsubscribe from brands they are no longer interested in and keep the spam button for true spam.
This should be good for legitimate senders. As the number of users who report a sender as sending spam is one of the strongest signals the ISPs use to determine inbox placement. Anything that prevents false classification of an email as spam has to be a good thing.
The ability to unsubscribe from emails did previously exist in within the Gmail UI, but was hidden behind a menu. By making it prominent in the user interface it’s likely to get a lot more use.
How does it work?
The Gmail unsubscribe link is based on the information from the senders List-Unsubscribe header (defined in RFC 2369) that many email platforms are able to include in emails. Check with your ESP if you’re not sure if you have them or not.
In our tests the unsubscribe link is not currently showing up for all emails that have a List-Unsubscribe header. We expect it’s just a matter of time for this to happen for all senders that Gmail considers safe.
In our YouTube email example above, clicking the unsubscribe link next to the sender showed a further dialog
Gmail Unsubscribe dialog
There are two types of unsubscribe method that can be included in the List-Unsubscribe header. Unsubscribe via a link (http command) to a landing page or unsubscribe by email (mailto command). When the sender provides an http link Gmail shows the above dialog to let the users decide whether to go further.
Google Analytics emails have just an http link in the List-Unsubscribe. Clicking the new Gmail added Unsubscribe link shows a dialog like that above and then clicking the button ‘Visit Google Analytics’ takes you to a preference type page so you can select which communications to unsubscribe from.
Email unsubscribe preferences opt-down example
The List-Unsubscribe RFC and Gmail suggest that by preference unsubscribe should be by email (mailto command). In the case the sender provides only unsubscribe by email information in the List-Unsubscribe Gmail treats it differently. Zagat only provide a mailto process for unsubscribe. Clicking the new Gmail unsubscribe link shows this dialog:
Click the Unsubscribe button in the above dialog and all that Gmail does is quietly send an unsubscribe email request to the Sender, as specified in the List-Unsubscribe header. In fact check your sent items folder and you’ll see the Gmail auto-generated unsubscribe request email.
GmailZagatSentFor any sender with multiple email streams and interest options the question is whether an unsubscribe request should remove people just from just the one list or from all sender communications. Both are problematic, either way it is unclear to the user whether they are to expect; no more emails from the sender or just no more of that particular type of email.
I recommend it is better to use the approach used by Google Analytics and include an http link in the List-Unsubscribe that takes the user to page with unsubscribe options. This provides the best customer clarity as to what they are unsubscribing from.
If your only option is to use a mailto link in the List-Unsubscribe header then consider sending a unsubscribe confirmation email, with details of exactly what they have been unsubscribed from, how to re-subscribe and other subscription options. CAN-SPAM and other laws normally allow a short period for unsubscribes to be actioned, so as long as the confirmation is sent within this period it should remain legal. Its 10 days for CAN-SPAM.
What else have Gmail planned?
At last, a spam complaint feedback loop (FBL). Unlike AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo and other major ISPs Gmail has never previously provided a feedback loop that let’s Senders get information on how many subscribers are classifying the senders email as spam. When managing deliverability the spam complaint information from feedback loops is incredibly valuable and this has long been on my wish list.
At the recent MAAWG conference Google announced they are starting a limited pilot of providing feedback loops. Initially this will be available to selected ESPs and only those that meet Google’s bulk sender guidelines. Google appears to be providing a good incentive for ESPs and Senders to act as Google believes responsible senders should.
Overall this is all good news, in particular that Google is working with legitimate senders in a joint effort to make life better for the people who really count, our customers.
Acknowledgements: My thanks to Andrew Bonar at Email Expert for confirming he’s seeing the same change in Gmail as me. | <urn:uuid:d22e9c16-0b0a-43c8-ae25-9c16cded8243> | 2 | 1.578125 | 0.029108 | en | 0.907267 | http://www.zettasphere.com/gmail-email-unsubscribe-header/ |
Preserving Biodiversity
Red Fungi
Red Fungi
The National Park Service began because people—explorers, artists, politicians, and everyday citizens—recognized something valuable in the vast wildlands of undeveloped America. Today, we recognize the value of not only our lands, but the biodiversity that thrives upon them, as well.
Biological diversity (or biodiversity) includes all the living organisms on earth, and in our parks we are finding plants and animals that have disappeared in other parts of the world due to development, habitat fragmentation, climate change, invasive species, and other threats. National parks and other protected places are samples of the world's natural variety, often the last bastion of the earth's wild wealth. They are vital to our future well-being.
The values of biodiversity in parks are legion: the value of nature for its own sake, a source of wonder and enjoyment; the value of learning about the workings of nature in places largely free of human influence, for comparison with landscapes dominated by humans; the survival value of multitudes of wild species that flourish as natural systems helping regulate climate, air quality, and cycles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, mineral elements, and water—all fundamental to life on Earth. There is economic value in these same plants and animals. They are potential sources of food, medicine, and industrial products. Parks protect the species and their communities that underlie these values—serving if necessary as reservoirs of seed stock for restoring species lost elsewhere.
To preserve biodiversity in parks for future generations, we must first discover the breadth of life forms that exist. In the past decade, numerous parks have teamed up with professional scientists, university students, school groups, volunteers and park partners for the purpose of biodiversity discovery. These efforts have identified species new to science, located species that have not been seen in parks in hundreds of years, and documented species that are able to survive in extreme conditions.
Working to Preserve Biodiversity
The National Park Service also is working to preserve biodiversity more broadly by restoring ecosystems, controlling invasive species, practicing integrated pest management, and through other conservation measures. Preserving biodiversity—from the dung beetle to the grizzly bear—allows us to ensure genetic diversity, understand how the pieces of an intact ecosystem fit together, and detect long-term changes in our environment. In preserving biodiversity we also ensure that our future citizens, artists, and explorers of science experience our lands as the founders of the parks did long ago.
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Six easy ways to prevent heat stroke
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - 21:45
The Sun is at its majestic peak nowadays and it feels as if the sky is hurling embers of fire upon us. In such soaring temperature conditions, heat related illnesses are on the rise .Heat stroke is the most serious form of heat injury. Heat stroke results from prolonged exposure to high temperatures in combination with dehydration leading to failure of the body`s temperature control system.
As heat wave conditions continue throughout the country, many people have succumbed to heat stroke. So it’s necessary to be a little cautious and fight the heat. To protect yourself from heat stress and strokes try the following tips:
Hydrate yourself: The major cause of heat stroke is dehydration so provide your body with constant water. Even if you are not feeling thirsty make sure you consume considerable amount of water. Drink water regularly throughout the day. You can also drink cool, non-alcoholic and non-caffeinated beverages. Other than that ,for beating heat in summers drink a glass of lemon water with honey in it early in the morning.
Fruits like water lemon, chikku, Kiwi and cherries are perfect for this season. Water melon can be the best option as it contains more than ninety per cent water which is excellent for the body.
Avoid drinking caffeinated beverages or alcohol: Dehydration is a major cause of heat exhaustion and these drinks do the same. These can act as a diuretic, which moves fluids out of the body too quickly.
Choose the right clothing: One should always dress according to the weather. In such hot weather conditions it is advisable to wear loose-fitting, light-coloured cotton clothes which breathes and allows your sweat to evaporate. Avoid wearing dark clothing if you`re in the sun because we all know that they absorb heat and that can be harmful for your body. Light-coloured clothing can help keep you cool by reflecting the sun`s rays.
Stay out of the sun: In summers, try to stay indoors as much as you can. Direct sun exposure can cause heat exhaustion that is why you need to limit your time outdoors, especially in the afternoon when the day is hottest. Step out only when it’s very necessary or else avoid going out between 10 am and 4pm.Also keep your environment cool, open all the windows and let fresh air let in.
Use a sunscreen: When you are out in the sun, even for a little time, don’t forget to apply sunscreen on your skin . It will prevent sunburn, which can limit the skin`s ability to cool itself. Use a sunscreen with a minimum of 15 SPF (sun protection factor) when outside. Wear a wide hat or cover your head and the exposed skin areas with a scarf which will deflect the sun`s harmful rays.
Reduce physical activity: In hot weather don`t engage in vigorous activity in the hottest part of the day from 11am - 5pm.Avoid heavy exertion and vigorous exercise which makes your body work a lot.Before and during exercise hydrate your body and replace the lost electrolytes with fruit juices or a sports drink. If possible schedule all these kind of activities for cooler times of the day.
Compiled by: Ritu Singh
First Published: Monday, June 3, 2013 - 19:18
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Know Your Primate: Weid’s black-tufted-ear marmoset
Order: Primates
Family: Callitrichidae
Genus: Callithrix
Species: Callithrix kuhlii
Common Name: Weid’s black-tufted-ear marmoset
In some ways, marmosets are highly derived. Their incisors are almost as large as their canines and have thin enamel which causes them to wear down into a chisel like shape similar to rodent incisors. They primarily feed on gums, saps and resins. Weid’s black-tufted-ear marmoset lives in southwest Brazil.
Weid’s black-tufted-ear marmoset also has a uniques breeding system. They live in groups and only the dominant female mates, usually with several different males. Consequently, all the males in the group have a vested interest in taking care of the offspring. This has led to some interesting effects on marmoset biology and behavior.
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1. Do the males babysit because they think the babies might be their kids, or because the kids smell like (and/or have pheromones like) the mother?
IOW, do you get the feeling this whole knowing about the role of sex in reproduction is just a bit too facile?
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Apollonius of Tyana also did miracles and rose. What about him?
by Matt Slick
Apollonius of Tyana (a city south of Turkey) is sometimes offered as a challenge to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. It is said that Apollonius, who lived in the first century, also performed miracles, had disciples, died, and appeared after his death the same as Jesus. Therefore, critics conclude, what Jesus did isn't unique. Some even say that this is evidence that the Christian account of Christ's healings, miracles, and post death appearances were merely copied from the accounts of Apollonius. Are these accusations supportable? No, they aren't.
First of all, the accounts of Apollonius were written well after he is supposed to have lived by a man named Philostratus (170 - 245 A.D.). This is long after the New Testament was written. Therefore the written accounts of Apollonius were not written by eyewitnesses as were the gospels. If critics want to maintain that the New Testament is full of myth and must be discredited, then so must the accounts of Apollonius since the writings are written several generations after the fact. By contrast the New Testament was written by the eyewitnesses of Jesus' life. Logically, it is the New Testament accounts that are far more reliable than those of Apollonius. Also, this would mean that if any borrowing was done, it was done by Philostratus, not by the gospel writers.
Second, the eyewitness accounts of the New Testament writers were written before the close of the first century. For example, we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts do not contain the account of the fall of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 A.D. This fall included the destruction of the Jerusalem temple which was prophesied by Jesus in Matt. 24:1, Mark 13:1, and Luke 21:5. Such an incredibly major event in Jewish history would surely have been included in Acts and the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) if they were written after 70 A.D. since they would verify Jesus' predictive abilities. But, it is not included. Therefore, it is safe to say that they were written by the eyewitnesses of Jesus' life, unlike the accounts of Apollonius.
Third, Philostratus is the only source for the accounts of Apollonius where the Bible is multi-sourced. In other words, we have different writers writing about Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, etc., are different writers who's epistles were gathered by the Church and assembled into the Bible. That means that there is no verification for Apollonius other than the single writing of Philostratus.
Fourth, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography of Apollonius in order to dedicate a temple to him. This means that there was a motive for Philostratus to embellish the accounts in order satisfy the requirement of the empress.1
It is not likely in the slightest that the gospels borrowed from Apollonius. It is most probably the other way around, especially since Philostratus had a motive to satisfy the empress who had commissioned him to write a biography of the man for whom a temple had been constructed.
• 1. Strobel, Lee, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998, p. 120.
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Jehovah's Witness doctrine is not from the Bible alone
Many Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you that they derive their doctrines from the Bible and only from the Bible. In reality, they derive their doctrines from what the Watchtower says about the Bible. Following are various quotes that demonstrate this fact.
1. If the Witness says he learns his theology by reading the Bible alone, then he contradicts the Watchtower which says that is not possible:
1. "Let us face the fact that no matter how much Bible reading we have done, we would never have learned the truth on our own. We would not have discovered the truth regarding Jehovah, his purposes and attributes, the meaning and importance of his name, the Kingdom, Jesus' ransom, the difference between God's organization and Satan's, nor why God has permitted wickedness," (Watchtower, Dec. 1, 1990, p. 19).
2. "Thus the Bible is an organizational book and belongs to the Christian congregation as an organization, not to individuals, regardless of how sincerely they may believe that they can interpret the Bible," (Watchtower, Oct. 1, 1967, p. 587).
2. Additionally, the Watchtower says only its organization understands the Bible
1. "Only this organization functions for Jehovah's purpose and to his praise. To it alone God's Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book," (Watchtower, July 1, 1973, p. 402).
3. Therefore, whatever argument the JW offers is not from their understanding of the Bible but from the watchtower's interpretation of it.
1. Can the Watchtower be trusted and especially since it has made false prophecies?
4. The Watchtower says if you read the Bible alone, you'll become a Trinitarian.
2. What are the apostate doctrines of 100 years ago? Why, the Trinity of course.
Obviously, the Watchtower organization tells its members what to believe. From the last quote, we can clearly see that the Bible teaches Trinitarianism since that is what we would conclude if we simply read the Bible without the Watchtower guiding our thoughts.
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Waking Up to America’s ‘Dirty Wars’
By Lisa Pease
In “Dirty Wars,” journalist Jeremy Scahill and director Rick Rowley have crafted an amazing, heartfelt, intimate look at the “war on terror,” and how it grew from seven names after 9/11 to untold thousands. The film makes the point that the “war on terror” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: for each “terrorist” we kill, we make many more.
The documentary moves at a thoughtful pace, following the journey of Jeremy Scahill as he was reporting George W. Bush’s Iraq War. He chose not to be an embedded reporter, to have his stories spoon-fed to him with ready-made clips and sound-bites. Instead, he journeyed out into the darkness, risking being shot at during night Taliban raids, to meet the people we were at war with, to try to figure out what was going on and whether we were doing the right thing.
Jeremy Scahill’s book, “Dirty Wars,” that accompanies the documentary film.
In the course of his journey, Scahill stumbled upon an American attack on a family by a deeply secret group (at the time) called the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Many Americans only learned about JSOC in 2011 because of its role in the killing of Osama bin Laden.
But at the time Scahill was filming his story, he was learning about JSOC’s leadership and unraveling its mission. These secret warriors weren’t just killing terrorists. They were killing pregnant women, children and noncombatants – and creating new terrorists in the process.
The story moves beyond the atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan to the undeclared wars in Yemen and Somalia and many other countries. The film also raises the question of when should the government be allowed to kill an American citizen in this “war on terror.”
Anwar al-Awlaki, a native of New Mexico, had been one of the moderate Muslims the media turned to in the wake of 9/11 to show that many Muslims did not condone the attacks on America. But in the wake of the way Muslims were treated at home and abroad post-9/11, al-Awlaki became more radical in his preaching, and finally left the country to preach the need for jihad against America.
The film does not explain why the U.S. government targeted al-Awlaki with a lethal drone attack on Sept. 30, 2011, leaving the impression that it was because he spoke out against the Iraq War and the treatment of Muslims at home and abroad. And that’s unfortunate, because that point is crucial to the current debate in America regarding whether the government should be allowed, under any circumstances, to kill an American citizen without legal due process.
In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder spelled out some specific allegations against al-Awlaki, maintaining that he had gone beyond online sermons that urged the killing of Americans to aiding would-be suicide bombers and even getting involved in development of the explosives.
Holder’s letter read, in part, that al-Awlaki “was a senior operational leader of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most dangerous regional affiliate of al-Qa’ida and a group that has committed numerous terrorist attacks overseas and attempted multiple times to conduct terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland.
“And al-Aulaqi was not just a senior leader of AQAP – he was the group’s chief of external operations, intimately involved in detailed planning and putting in place plots against U.S. persons. In this role, al-Aulaqi repeatedly made clear his intent to attack U.S. persons and his hope that these attacks would take American lives. For example, in a message to Muslims living in the United States, he noted that he had come ‘to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding upon every other able Muslim.’
“But it was not al-Aulaqi’s words that led the United States to act against him: they only served to demonstrate his intentions and state of mind,” Holder wrote. “Rather, it was al-Aulaqi’s actions and, in particular, his direct personal involvement in the continued planning and execution of terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland – that made him a lawful target and led the United States to take action.
“For example, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the individual who attempted to blow up an airplane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 – went to Yemen in 2009, al-Aulaqi arranged an introduction via text message. Abdulmutallab told U.S. officials that he stayed at al-Aulaqi’s house for three days, and then spent two weeks at an AQAP training camp.
“Al-Aulaqi planned a suicide operation for Abdulmutallab, helped Abdulmutallab draft a statement for a martyrdom video to be shown after the attack, and directed him to take down a U.S. airliner. Al-Aulaqi’s last instructions were to blow up the airplane when it was over American soil.
“Al-Aulaqi also played a key role in the October 2010 plot to detonate explosive devices on two U.S.-bound cargo planes: he not only helped plan and oversee the plot, but was also directly involved in the details of its execution – to the point that he took part in the development and testing of the explosive devices that were placed on the planes.
“Moreover, information that remains classified to protect sensitive sources and methods evidences al-Aulaqi’s involvement in the planning of numerous other plots against U.S. and Western interests and makes clear he was continuing to plot attacks when he was killed. Based on this information, high-level U.S. government officials appropriately concluded that al-Aulaqi posed a continuing and imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.”
Holder added: “Before carrying out the operation that killed al-Aulaqi, senior officials also determined, based on a careful evaluation of the circumstances at the time, that it was not feasible to capture al-Aulaqi. … While a substantial amount of information indicated that Anwar al-Aulaqi was a senior AQAP leader actively plotting to kill Americans, the decision that he was a lawful target was not taken lightly.”
Ideally, such serious government accusations should be brought to trial in a court of law and subjected to challenge and cross-examination. The credibility of a witness such as Abdulmutallab could be tested along with any other evidence that the government would choose to present. If the charges could have been verified, some Americans no doubt would have felt death was the correct penalty for al-Awlaki.
However, by operating in Yemen, al-Awlaki was keeping himself out of easy reach of American law and Yemeni authorities may not have had the capability to arrest him, leading to President Barack Obama’s decision to target Al-Awlaki with a lethal drone.
But that decision – combined with delays in officially acknowledging the strike and the absence of any public proceeding for testing the evidence – has created doubts in some quarters about al-Awlaki’s guilt, a sentiment reflected in “Dirty Wars.” Yet, in brushing past the U.S. government’s arguments, the film misses the opportunity to present the complexity of the issue, including whether al-Awlaki’s capture was feasible.
Sadly, capture does not appear to be the mission of JSOC. The group appears to be a killing machine, moving from the Middle East to the African continent, searching for and killing alleged terrorists. And that’s what scared me about this film.
The United States has been revered by much of the world for many years as a beacon of hope and admired for a certain level of morality. But the reality that America kills anyone who gets in its way or the way of its business interests has now become so shockingly clear that America isn’t just losing fans, it’s making militant enemies.
We are still seeing the results of our actions 60 years ago in Iran, when the CIA covertly overthrew a moderate, secular, popular and democratically elected leader to replace him with a brutal dictator who was then overthrown by brutal Islamic fundamentalists.
Actions done without our knowledge and therefore consent have come back to haunt us, several generations later. What world are we now creating for our grandchildren? Think of the grandchildren of the innocents killed by America. Will they love us? Or are we creating a world filled with people who want to see America fail?
“Dirty Wars” is not a diatribe or a screed. Nor does it have Michael Moore’s humor. What it has, however, is haunting images and personal stories that tug at one’s conscience, challenging us to do more. Do we really, as a country, approve in the targeted assassination of literally thousands of people in other countries, including an American citizen like al-Awlaki?
The film is about bringing that which is secret to light, and could not be more timely, given the current debate between secrecy, privacy and crimes of state. Citizens have less and less privacy every day, while the government is allowed to hide war crimes behind secrecy agreements. Clearly, something is out of whack here.
One of my favorite scenes was Scahill’s interview with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. Scahill wants to ask Wyden about JSOC and other secret operations. And Wyden clearly wants to answer, but cannot. A lawyer stands off camera, telling Wyden which questions he can and cannot answer. It’s a picture of a government held hostage by the national security forces to the extent that our security appears more threatened than protected.
I have not been so affected by a film since the first time I saw “Hearts and Minds,” a sensitive documentary about the Vietnam War, and how the way we tried to win the war guaranteed we wouldn’t. This film has a similar message, and brings together stories I had heard about in passing and focusing my attention on the sheer scale of the killings, the lack of any kind of appropriate oversight, and the degree of hatred toward America that grows with each killing.
I hope President Obama meant it when he said the “war on terror,” like all other wars, must eventually end. The problem was, the “war on terror” should never have been started, because you can’t fight terror with more terror and expect to win anything but a death sentence. I hope that is not the future for our children. But it will be, if we don’t make a radical change in course.
The film opened the same weekend we learned new details that the National Security Agency has been collecting information on our phone calls en masse, indiscriminately. And in the second of the one-two punch, we learned of a secret program called PRISM where the NSA collects digital data from the Internet. The assurances that only foreign citizens are targeted and that no one is listening to individual calls go against history.
The last time a massive spying scandal broke out, with Sy Hersh’s exposé of illegal CIA domestic activities in 1974, we were told the same thing – that only foreigners had been targeted, and that no one was reading Americans’ mail. But those proved to be lies, and the CIA was exposed as having done all kinds of illegal spying on Americans, including intercepting letters of elected officials like Bella Abzug.
Similarly, the CIA denied having any kind of relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, which a later look at the agency’s files proved to be a bald-faced lie. He was not only of operational interest but was important enough for CIA to lie about to other agencies of the government shortly before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
So excuse me if I take National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s assurances that we have not been spied on with a large grain of salt. We’ve been here before, and the first step is always a blanket denial. But that’s never been the full story.
I hope between the film “Dirty Wars” and the NSA revelations that Congress will take back its authority, which it has largely ceded to the Executive Branch over the last decade, and rein in the overgrown intelligence community. But every time we’ve had a serious investigation of the intelligence agencies, it has always ended the same way: their past crimes are excused, laws restraining them are loosened, and the intelligence community gets more money. I don’t want that kind of “investigation” again.
We need a radical change in thought. We need to ask ourselves some tough questions: What do we do that makes “terrorists” so angry that they are ready to strap explosives to their own bodies to kill us? Can’t we stop – or at least dramatically reduce – our actions that generate such hatred?
It surely makes sense for the United States to commit to being a better global citizen – which would mean giving up our kill lists, our weapon toys, our greed, and yes, perhaps even a level of our quality of living. It’s long past time we stopped ripping off the rest of the world to support our way of life.
4 comments for “Waking Up to America’s ‘Dirty Wars’
1. Lynne
June 10, 2013 at 1:11 pm
I used to get sick to my stomach every time I heard Bush say “They hate us for our freedoms” What a ridiculously, simplistic childish statement that was and is. They hate us for what we are doing to them. Plain truth
2. elmerfudzie
June 10, 2013 at 3:32 pm
3. realistic
June 14, 2013 at 2:33 pm
George Bush didn’t create the war on terror the muslims did when they attacked the world trade center in 1993. We should send them all the weapons we can so they can kill each other a little faster. The fact is there’s no such thing as “moderate islam”.
4. Ben Chifley
June 17, 2013 at 5:15 am
Which muslim country does Osama Bin Laden represent?
Have you watched Oliver Stone’s untold history of America? Hmm…
As Hitler says the ability of a true leader is to get the public to focus on one single enemy.
The fact of the matter what is going on the middle east the public do not know how to make a fair assessment. It used to be called English moralising now it is called ayn rand moralising….
As Naomi Klein points the war on everything is to protect the libertarian bankers something more people are becoming interested in.
Everything Charles De Gaulle said has come to true the IMF bankrupts any country that opposes America as seen in episode 7 of Oliver Stone and what happened in Chile.
Instead of having a country the West is forced to hand out American dollars to new citizens without a care in the world of the consequences which goes from a economic based economy world economy to a monterary based world economy.
The real war is the war at home being fought by Wall st not foreign policy.
Ever since Harry Truman was elected through inside information Wall St simply give what ever party is going to do the most for them special information. And now peaceful pacifist countries have gone down with America like Germany, Japan, Italy Canada Australia China etc.
With oil exploration and construction jobs or building houses for new citizens the modern economy. It is one big disgrace.
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Cambridge Dictionaries online Cambridge Dictionaries online
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English definition of “how”
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WAY A2 used to ask about the way something happens or is done: How did he die? How does she manage to keep the house so tidy?Question words and expressions
QUANTITY A1 used to ask about quantity, size, or age: How big is the house? How old are they? How much (= what price) was that dress? How far is the next garage?Question words and expressions
EMPHASIZE B1 used before an adjective or adverb to emphasize it: I was amazed at how quickly she finished.Very and extremeComplete and wholeIntensifying expressions
HEALTH A2 used to ask about someone's health: How are you feeling today?Question words and expressions
SITUATION B1 used to ask about the success or progress of a situation: How's everything going? How was the exam?Question words and expressions
How are you? A1 used to ask someone if they are well and happy: "How are you Jane?" - "Oh, not so bad thanks."Question words and expressions
How about..? A2 used to make a suggestion: How about a drink? [+ doing sth] How about going to the cinema?Question words and expressions
How come? informal used to ask about the reason for something, especially when you feel surprised about it: "Kate's gone to the party on her own." "How come?"Question words and expressions
→ See also know-how , How strange/stupid/weird, etc. is that?
(Definition of how adverb from the Cambridge Learners Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
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4635RE: [steiner] Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
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• Durward Starman
Dec 1, 2007
• 0 Attachment
******* The cast of characters includes the go-lightly Will-o-Wisps. the Ferryman, the Green Snake, the 4 Kings, the Man with the Lamp and his wife, the Young Prince, and the Lily.
If we go through this "legend", then we can see how the first Mystery Play is a transformation of it.
The setting is in some never-named land. But that land's beings are as if under a spell, and have a prophecy about how one day the spell will be lifted, the enchantment broken.
That land is ours. In the state all but exceptional souls are born into, we are under the spell of seeing only the external world and speculating about it with the brain-bound intellect. But there is a way out we hear about. We must find it.
There is a river that runs through this land of ours. We are sometimes on one side of the river, sometimes on the other. On the other side is a beautiful being, but she is cursed in that every living creature she touches must die. A man who sees her loses all desire for anything except to see her again.
Lily is the spirit-world. After each life a Ferryman takes us across to her. It is so beautiful there that life in this world seems a tragedy compared to it. But the only way to be with her is to die. Must it always be so? No, the prophecy says that when the spell is lifted, we shall be able to travel to and fro across the river at will --- the spirit-world will not always be estranged from the earthly one.
Deep in the earth, a temple with Four Kings speaks of the secret. As merely natural beings, we can dimly sense that temple, but only if we take in the light of the most ethereal forces of Nature can we also see that holy place. The Green Snake is our merely natural selves, but when it absorbs nature's secrets it glows with the light of thinking. Then we know the essence of the earth. As it represents our scientific selves, like Goethe himself, there is another way to travel with vision to that temple: the Man with the Lamp. He is the path of inspiration, revelation.
More later.
www.DrStarman. com
The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Translated by: Thomas Carlyle (1832)
In his little hut by the great river, which a heavy rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the ancient Ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil of the day. In the middle of the night, loud voices awoke him; he heard that it was travellers wishing to be carried over.
Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps, hovering to and fro on his boat, which lay moored: they said, they were in violent haste, and should have been already on the other side. The old Ferryman made no loitering; pushed off, and steered with his usual skill obliquely through the stream; while the two strangers whiffled and hissed together, in an unknown very rapid tongue, and every now and then broke out in loud laughter, hopping about, at one time on e gunwale and the seats, at another on the bottom of the boat.
"The boat is heeling!" cried the old man; "if you don't be quiet, it'll overset; be seated, gentlemen of the wisp!"
At this advice they burst into a fit of laughter, mocked the old man, and were more unquiet than ever. He bore their mischief with silence, and soon reached the farther shore.
"Here is for your labour!" cried the travellers; and as they shook themselves, a heap of glittering gold-pieces jingled down into the wet boat. "For Heaven's sake, what are you about?" cried the old man; "you will ruin me forever! Had a single piece of gold got into the water, the stream, which cannot suffer gold, would have risen in horrid waves, and swallowed both my skiff and me; and who knows how it might have fared with you in that case? here, take back your gold."
"We can take nothing back, which we have once shaken from us," said the Lights.
"Then you give me the trouble," said the old man, stooping down, and gathering the pieces into his cap, "of raking them together, and carrying them ashore and burying them."
The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the old man cried: "Stay; where is my fare?"
"If you take no gold, you may work for nothing," cried the Will-o'-wisps. "You must know that I am only to be paid with fruits of the earth." "Fruits of the earth? we despise them, and have never tasted them." "And yet I cannot let you go, till you have promised that you will deliver me three Cabbages, three Artichokes, and three large Onions.
The Lights were making-off with jests; but they felt themselves, in some inexplicable manner, fastened to the ground: it was the unpleasantest feeling they had ever had. They engaged to pay him his demand as soon as possible: he let them go, and pushed away. He was gone a good distance, when they called to him: "Old man! Holla, old man! the main point is forgotten!" He was off, however, and did not hear them. He had fallen quietly down that side of the River, where, in a rocky spot, which the water never reached, he meant to bury the pernicious gold. Here, between two high crags, he found a monstrous chasm; shook the metal into it, and steered back to his cottage.
Now in this chasm lay the fair green Snake, who was roused from her sleep by the gold coming chinking down. No sooner did she fix her eye on the glittering coins, than she ate them all up, with the greatest relish, on the spot; and carefully picked out such pieces as were scattered in the chinks of the rock.
Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, with extreme delight, she began to feel the metal melting in her inwards, and spreading all over her body; and soon, to her lively joy, she observed that she was grown transparent and luminous. Long ago she had been told that this was possible; but now being doubtful whether such a light could last, her curiosity and her desire to be secure against her future, drove her from her cell, that she might see who it was that had shaken in this precious metal. She found no one. The more delightful was it to admire her own appearance, and her graceful brightness, as she crawled along through roots and bushes, and spread out her light among her grass. Every leaf seemed of emerald, every flower was dyed with new glory. It was in vain that she crossed her solitary thickets; but her hopes rose high, when, on reaching her open country, she perceived from afar a brilliancy resembling her own. "Shall I find my like at last, then?" cried she, and hastened to the spot. The toil of crawling through bog and reeds gave her little thought; for though she liked best to live in dry grassy spots of the mountains, among the clefts of rocks, and for most pare fed on spicy herbs, and slaked her thirst with mild dew and fresh spring water, yet for the sake of this dear gold, and in the hope of this glorious light, she would have undertaken anything you could propose to her.
At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wee rushy spot in the swamp, where our two Will-o'-wisps were frisking to and fro. She shoved herself along to them; saluted them, was happy to meet such pleasant gentlemen related to her family. The Lights glided towards her, skipped up over her, and laughed in their fashion. "Lady Cousin," said they, "you are of the horizontal line, yet what of that? It is true we are related only by the look; for, observe you," here both the Flames, compressing their whole breadth, made themselves as high and peaked as possible, "how prettily this taper length beseems us gentlemen of the vertical line! Take it not amiss of us, good Lady; what family can boast of such a thing? Since there ever was a Jack-o'-lantern in the world, no one of them has either sat or lain."
The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable in the company of these relations; for, let her hold her head as high as possible, she found that she must bend it to the earth again, would she stir from the spot; and if in the dark thicket she had been extremely satisfied with her appearance, her splendour in the presence of these cousins seemed to lessen every moment, nay she was afraid that at last it would go out entirely.
In this embarrassment she hastily asked: If the gentlemen could not inform her, whence the glittering gold came, that had fallen a short while ago into the cleft of the rock; her own opinion was, that it had been a golden shower, and had trickled down direct from the sky. The Will-o'-wisps laughed, and shook themselves, and a multitude of gold-pieces came clinking down about them. The Snake pushed nimbly forwards to eat the coin. "Much good may it do you, Mistress," said the dapper gentlemen: "we can help you to a little more." They shook themselves again several times with great quickness, so that the Snake could scarcely gulp the precious victuals fast enough. Her splendour visibly began increasing; she was really shining beautifully, while the Lights had in the meantime grown rather lean and short of stature, without however in the smallest losing their good-humour.
"I am obliged to you forever," said the Snake, having got her wind again after the repast; "ask of me what you will; all that I can I will do."
"Very good!" cried the Lights. "Then tell us where the fair Lily dwells? Lead us to the fair Lily's palace and garden; and do not lose a moment, we are dying of impatience to fall down at her feet."
"This service," said the Snake with a deep sigh, "I can not now do for you. The fair Lily dwells, alas, on the other side of the water." "Other side of the water? And we have come across it, this stormy night! How cruel is the River to divide us! Would it not be possible to call the old man back?"
"It would be useless," said the Snake; "for if you found him ready on the bank, he would not take you in; he can carry anyone to this side, none to yonder."
"Here is a pretty kettle of fish!" cried the Lights: "are there no other means of getting through the water?" "There are other means, but not at this moment. I myself could take you over, gentlemen, but not till noon." "That is an hour we do not like to travel in." "Then you may go across in the evening, on the great Giant's shadow."
"How is that?" "The great Giant lives not far from this; with his body he has no power; his hands cannot lift a straw, his shoulders could not bear a faggot of twigs; but with his shadow he has power over much, nay all. At sunrise and sunset therefore he is strongest; so at evening you merely put yourself upon the back of his shadow, the Giant walks softly to the bank, and the shadow carries you across the water. But if you please, about the hour of noon, to be in waiting at that corner of the wood where the bushes overhang the bank, I myself will take you over and present you to the fair Lily: or on the other hand, if you dislike the noontide, you have just to go at nightfall to that bend of the rocks, and pay a visit to the Giant; he will certainly receive you like a gentleman."
With a slight bow, the Flames went off; and the Snake at bottom was not discontented to get rid of them; partly that she might enjoy the brightness of her own light, partly [to] satisfy a curiosity with which, for a long time, she had been agitated in a singular way.
In the chasm, where she often crawled hither and thither, she had made a strange discovery. For although in creeping up and down this abyss, she had never had a ray of light, she could well enough discriminate the objects in it, by her sense of touch. Generally she met with nothing but irregular productions of Nature; at one time she would wind between the teeth of large crystals, at another she would feel the barbs and hairs of native silver, and now and then carry out with her to the light some straggling jewels. But to her no small wonder, in a rock which was closed on every side, she had come on certain objects which betrayed the shaping hand of man. Smooth walls on which she could not climb, sharp regular corners, well-formed pillars; and what seemed strangest of all; human figures which she had entwined more than once, and which appeared to her to be of brass, or of the finest polished marble. All these experiences she now wished to combine by the sense of sight, thereby to confirm what as yet she only guessed. She believed she could illuminate the whole of that subterranean vault by her own light; and hoped to get acquainted with these curious things at once. She hastened back; and soon found, by the usual way, the cleft by which she used to penetrate the Sanctuary.
On reaching the place, she gazed around with eager curiosity; and though her shining could not enlighten every object in the rotunda, yet those nearest her were plain enough. With astonishment and reverence she looked up into a glancing niche, where the image of an august King stood formed of pure Gold. In size the figure was beyond the stature of man, but by its shape it seemed the likeness of a little rather than a tall person. His handsome body was encircled with an unadorned mantle; and a garland of oak bound his hair together.
During this conversation, she had squinted to a side, and in the nearest niche perceived another glorious image. It was a Silver King in a sitting posture; his shape was long and rather languid; he was covered with a decorated robe; crown, girdle and sceptre were adorned with precious stones: the cheerfulness of pride was in his countenance; he seemed about to speak, when a vein which ran dimly-coloured over the marble wall, on a sudden became bright, and diffused a cheerful light throughout the whole Temple. By this brilliancy the Snake perceived a third King, made of Brass, and sitting mighty in shape, leaning on his club, adorned with a laurel garland, and more like a rock than a man. She was looking for the fourth, which was standing at the greatest distance from her; but the wall opened, while the glittering vein started and split, as lightning does, and disappeared.
A Man of middle stature, entering through the cleft, attracted the attention of the Snake. He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in his hand a little Lamp, on whose still flame you liked to look, and which in a strange manner, without casting any shadow, enlightened the whole dome.
"Why comest thou, since we have light?" said the golden King." You know that I may not enlighten what is dark." "Will my Kingdom end?" said the silver King. "Late or never," said the old Man.
With a stronger voice the brazen King began to ask: "When shall I arise?" "Soon," replied the Man. "With whom shall I combine?" said the King. "With thy elder brothers," said the Man. "What will the youngest do?" inquired the King. "He will sit down," replied the Man.
"I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with a rough faltering voice.
While this speech was going on, the Snake had glided softly round the Temple, viewing everything; she was now looking at the fourth King close by him. He stood leaning on a pillar; his considerable form was heavy rather than beautiful. But what metal it was made of could not be determined. Closely inspected, it seemed a mixture of the three metals which its brothers had been formed of. But in the founding, these materials did not seem to have combined together fully; gold and silver veins ran irregularly through a brazen mass, and gave the figure an unpleasant aspect.
Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the Man, "How many secrets knowest thou?" "Three," replied the Man. "Which is the most important?" said the silver King. "The open one," replied the other. "Wilt thou open it to us also?" said the brass King."When I know the fourth," replied the Man."What care I" grumbled the composite King, in an undertone.
"I know the fourth," said the Snake; approached the old Man, and hissed somewhat in his ear. "The time is at hand!" cried the old Man, with a strong voice. The temple reechoed, the metal statues sounded; and that instant the old Man sank away to the westward, and the Snake to the eastward; and both of them passed through the clefts of the rock, with the greatest speed.
All the passages, through which the old Man travelled, filled themselves, immediately behind him, with gold; for his Lamp had the strange property of changing stone into gold, wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and of annihilating all metals. But to display this power, it must shine alone. If another light were beside it, the Lamp only cast from it a pure clear brightness, and all living things were refreshed by it.
The old Man entered his cottage, which was built on the slope of the hill. He found his Wife in extreme distress. She was sitting at the fire weeping, and refusing to be consoled. "How unhappy am I!" cried she: "Did not I entreat thee not to go away tonight?""What is the matter, then?" inquired the husband, quite composed.
"Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing, "when there came two noisy Travellers to the door: unthinkingly I let them in; they seemed to be a couple of genteel, very honourable people; they were dressed in flames, you would have taken them for Will-o'-wisps. But no sooner were they in the house, than they began, like impudent varlets, to compliment me, and grew so forward that I feel ashamed to think of it."
"No doubt," said the husband with a smile, "the gentlemen were jesting: considering thy age, they might have held by general politeness."
"Age! what age?" cried the Wife: "wilt thou always be talking of my age? How old am I, then?General politeness! But I know what I know. Look around there what a face the walls have; look at the old stones, which I have not seen these hundred years; every film of gold have they licked away, thou couldst not think how fast; and still they kept assuring me that it tasted far beyond common gold. Once they had swept the walls, the fellows seemed to be in high spirits, and truly in that little while they had grown much broader and brighter. They now began to be impertinent again, they patted me, and called me their queen, they shook themselves, and a shower of gold-pieces sprang from them; see how they are shining under the bench! But ah, what misery! Poor Mops ate a coin or two; and look, he is lying in the chimney, dead. Poor Pug. O well-a-day! I did not see it till they were gone; else I had never promised to pay the Ferryman the debt they owe him.""What do they owe him?" said the Man. "Three Cabbages," replied the Wife, "three Artichokes and three Onions: I engaged to go when it was day, and take them to the River."
"Thou mayest do them that civility," said the old Man; "they may chance to be of use to us again."
"Whether they will be of use to us I know not; but they promised and vowed that they would."
Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt low; the old Man covered-up the embers with a heap of ashes, and put the glittering gold-pieces aside; so that his little Lamp now gleamed alone, in the fairest brightness. The walls again coated themselves with gold, and Mops changed into the prettiest onyx that could be imagined. The alternation of the brown and black in this precious stone made it the most curious piece of workmanship.
"Take thy basket," said the old Man, "and put the onyx into it; then take the three Cabbages, the three Artichokes and the three Onions; place them round little Mops, and carry them to the River. At noon the Snake will take thee over; visit the fair Lily, give her the onyx, she will make it alive by her touch, as by her touch she kills whatever is alive already. She will have a true companion in the little dog. Tell her, Not to mourn; her deliverance is near; the greatest misfortune she may look upon as the greatest happiness; for the time is at hand."
The old Woman filled her basket, and set out as soon as it was day. The rising sun shone clear from the other side of the River, which was glittering in the distance; the old Woman walked with slow steps, for the basket pressed upon her head, and it was not the onyx that so burdened her. Whatever lifeless thing she might be carrying, she did not feel the weight of it; on the other hand, in those cases the basket rose aloft, and hovered above her head. But to carry any fresh herbage, or any little living animal, she found exceedingly laborious. She had travelled on for some time, in a sullen humour, when she halted suddenly in fright, for she had almost trod upon the Giant's shadow which was stretching towards her across the plain. And now, lifting up her eyes, she saw the monster of a Giant himself, who had been bathing in the River, and was just come out, and she knew not how she should avoid him. The moment he perceived her, he began saluting her in sport, and the hands of his shadow soon caught hold of the basket. With dexterous ease they picked away from it a Cabbage, an Artichoke and an Onion, and brought them to the Giant's mouth, who then went his way up the River, and let the Woman go in peace.
She considered whether it would not be better to return, and supply from her garden the pieces she had lost; and amid these doubts, she still kept walking on, so that in a little while she was at the bank of the River. She sat long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she perceived at last, steering over with a very singular traveller. A young, noble-looking, handsome man, whom she could not gaze upon enough, stept out of the boat.
"What is it you bring?" cried the old Man. "The greens which those two Will-o'-wisps owe you," said the Woman, pointing to her ware. As the Ferryman found only two of each sort, he grew angry, and declared he would have none of them. The Woman earnestly entreated him to take them; told him that she could not now go home, and that her burden for the way which still remained was very heavy. He stood by his refusal, and assured her that it did not rest with him. "What belongs to me," said he, "I must leave lying nine hours in a heap, touching none of it, till I have given the River its third." After much higgling, the old Man at last replied: "There is still another way. If you like to pledge yourself to the River, and declare yourself its debtor, I will take the six pieces; but there is some risk in it." "If I keep my word, I shall run no risk?" "Not the smallest. Put your hand into the stream," continued he, "and promise that within four-and-twenty hours you will pay the debt."
The old Woman did so; but what was her affright, when on drawing out her hand, she found it black as coal! She loudly scolded the old Ferryman; declared that her hands had always been the fairest part of her; that in spite of her hard work, she had all along contrived to keep these noble members white and dainty. She looked at the hand with indignation, and exclaimed in a despairing tone: "Worse and worse! Look, it is vanishing entirely; it is grown far smaller than the other."
"For the present it but seems so," said the old Man; "if you do not keep your word, however, it may prove so in earnest. The hand will gradually diminish, and at length disappear altogether, though you have the use of it as formerly. Everything as usual you will be able to perform with it, only nobody will see it." "I had rather that I could not use it, and no one could observe the want," cried she: "but what of that, I will keep my word, and rid myself of this black skin, and all anxieties about it." Thereupon she hastily took up her basket, which mounted of itself over her head, and hovered free above her in the air, as she hurried after the Youth, who was walking softly and thoughtfully down the bank. His noble form and strange dress had made a deep impression on her.
His breast was covered with a glittering coat of mail; in whose wavings might be traced every motion of his fair body. From his shoulders hung a purple cloak; around his uncovered head flowed abundant brown hair in beautiful locks: his graceful face, and his well-formed feet were exposed to the scorching of the sun. With bare soles, he walked composedly over the hot sand; and a deep inward sorrow seemed to blunt him against all external things.
The garrulous old Woman tried to lead him into conversation; but with his short answers he gave her small encouragement or information; so that in the end, notwithstanding the beauty of his eyes, she grew tired of speaking with him to no purpose, and took leave of him with these words: "You walk too slow for me, worthy sir; I must not lose a moment, for I have to pass the River on the green Snake, and carry.this fine present from my husband to the fair Lily." So saying she stept faster forward; but the fair Youth pushed on with equal speed, and hastened to keep up with her. "You are going to the fair Lily!" cried he; "then our roads are the same. But what present is this you are bringing her?"
"Sir," said the Woman, "it is hardly fair, after so briefly dismissing the questions I put to you, to inquire with such vivacity about my secrets. But if you like to barter, and tell me your adventures, I will not conceal from you how it stands with me and my presents." They soon made a bargain: the dame disclosed her circumstances to him; told the history of the Pug, and let him see the singular gift.
He lifted this natural curiosity from the basket, and took Mops, who seemed as if sleeping softly, into his arms. "Happy beast!" cried he; "thou wilt be touched by her hands, thou wilt be made alive by her; while the living are obliged to fly from her presence to escape a mournful doom. Yet why say I mournful? Is it not far sadder and more frightful to be injured by her look, than it would be to die by her hand? Behold me," said he to the Woman; "at my years, what a miserable fate have I to undergo! This mail which I have honourably borne in war, this purple which I sought to merit by a wise reign, Destiny has left me; the one as a useless burden, the other as an empty ornament. Crown, and sceptre, and sword are gone; and I am as bare and needy as any other son of earth; for so unblessed are her bright eyes, that they take from every living creature they look on all its force, and those whom the touch of her hand does not kill are changed to the state of shadows wandering alive."
Thus did he continue to bewail, nowise contenting the old Woman's curiosity, who wished for information not so much of his internal as of his external situation. She learned neither the name of his father, nor of his kingdom. He stroked the hard Mops, whom the sunbeams and the bosom of the youth had warmed as if he had been living. He inquired narrowly about the Man with the Lamp, about the influences of the sacred light, appearing to expect much good from it in his melancholy case.
Amid such conversation, they descried from afar the majestic arch of the Bridge, which extended from the one bank to the other, glittering with the strangest colours in the splendours of the sun. Both were astonished; for until now they had never seen this edifice so grand. "How!" cried the Prince, "was it not beautiful enough, as it stood before our eyes, piled out of jasper and agate? Shall we not fear to tread it, now that it appears combined, in graceful complexity of emerald and chrysopras and chrysolite?" Neither of them knew the alteration that had taken place upon the Snake: for it was indeed the Snake, who every day at noon curved herself over the River, and stood forth in the form of a bold-swelling bridge. The travellers stept upon it with a reverential feeling, and passed over it in silence.
No sooner had they reached the other shore, than the bridge began to heave and stir; in a little while, it touched the surface of the water, and the green Snake in her proper form came gliding after the wanderers. They had scarcely thanked her for the privilege of crossing on her back, when they found that, besides them three, there must be other persons in the company, whom their eyes could not discern. They heard a hissing, which the Snake also answered with a hissing; they listened, and at length caught what follows: "We shall first look about us in the fair Lily's Park," said a pair of alternating voices; "and then request you at nightfall, so soon as we are anywise presentable, to introduce us to this paragon of beauty. At the shore of the great Lake you will find us." "Be it so," replied the Snake; and a hissing sound died away in the air.
Our three travellers now consulted in what order they should introduce themselves to the fair Lady; for however many people might be in her company, they were obliged to enter and depart singly, under pain of suffering very hard severities.
The Woman with the metamorphosed Pug in the basket first approached the garden, looking round for her Patroness; who was not difficult to find, being just engaged in singing to her harp. The finest tones proceeded from her, first like circles on the surface of the still lake, then like a light breath they set the grass and the bushes in motion. In a green enclosure, under the shadow of a stately group of many diverse trees, was she seated; and again did she enchant the eyes, the ears and the heart of the Woman, who approached with rapture, and swore within herself that since she saw her last, the fair one had grown fairer than ever. With eager gladness, from a distance, she expressed her reverence and admiration for the lovely maiden. "What a happiness to see you! what a Heaven does your presence spread around you! How charmingly the harp is leaning on your bosom, how softly your arms surround it, how it seems as if longing to be near you, and how it sounds so meekly under the touch of your slim fingers! Thrice-happy youth, to whom it were permitted to be there!"
So speaking she approached; the fair Lily raised her eyes; let her hands drop from the harp, and answered: "Trouble me not with untimely praise; I feel my misery but the more deeply. Look here, at my feet lies the poor Canary-bird, which used so beautifully to accompany my singing; it would sit upon my harp, and was trained not to touch me; but today, while I, refreshed by sleep, was raising a peaceful morning hymn, and my little singer was pouring forth his harmonious tones more gaily than ever, a Hawk darts over my head; the poor little creature, in affright, takes refuge in my bosom, and I feel the last palpitations of its departing life. The plundering Hawk indeed was caught by my look, and fluttered fainting down into the water; but what can his punishment avail me? my darling is dead, and his grave will but increase the mournful bushes of my garden."
"Take courage, fairest Lily!" cried the Woman, wiping off a tear, which the story of the hapless maiden had called into her eyes; "compose yourself; my old man bids me tell you to moderate your lamenting, to look upon the greatest misfortune as a forerunner of the greatest happiness, for the time is at hand; and truly," continued she, "the world is going strangely on of late. Do but look at my hand, how black it is! As I live and breathe, it is grown far smaller: I must hasten, before it vanish altogether! Why did I engage to do the Will-o'-wisps a service, why did I meet the Giant's shadow, and dip my hand in the River? Could you not afford me a single cabbage, an artichoke and an onion? I would give them to the River, and my hand were white as ever, so that I could almost show it with one of yours."
"Cabbages and onions thou mayest still find; but artichokes thou wilt search for in vain. No plant in my garden bears either flowers or fruit; but every twig that I break, and plant upon the grave of a favourite, grows green straightway, and shoots up in fair boughs. All these groups, these bushes, these groves my hard destiny has so raised around me. These pines stretching out like parasols, these obelisks of cypresses, these colossal oaks and beeches, were all little twigs planted by my hand, as mournful memorials in a soil that otherwise is barren."
To this speech the old Woman had paid little heed; she was looking at her hand, which, in presence of the fair Lily, seemed every moment growing blacker and smaller. She was about to snatch her basket and hasten off, when she noticed that the best part of her errand had been forgotten. She lifted out the onyx Pug, and set him down, not far from the fair one, in the grass. "My husband," said she, "sends you this memorial; you know that you can make a jewel live by touching it. This pretty faithful dog will certainly afford you much enjoyment; and my grief at losing him is brightened only by the thought that he will be in your possession."
The fair Lily viewed the dainty creature with a pleased and, as it seemed, with an astonished look. "Many signs combine," said she, "that breathe some hope into me: but ah! is it not a natural deception which makes us fancy, when misfortunes crowd upon us, that a better day is near?
What can these many signs avail me?
My Singer's Death, thy coal black Hand?
This Dog of Onyx, that can never fail me?
And coming at the Lamp's command?
From human joys removed forever,
With sorrows compassed round I sit:
Is there a Temple at the River?
Is there a Bridge? Alas, not yet!
The good old dame had listened with impatience to this singing, which the fair Lily accompanied with her harp, in a way that would have charmed any other. She was on the point of taking leave, when the arrival of the green Snake again detained her. The Snake had caught the last lines of the song, and on this matter forthwith began to speak comfort to the fair Lily.
"The prophecy of the Bridge is fulfilled" cried the Snake: "you may ask this worthy dame how royally the arch looks now. What formerly was untransparent jasper or agate, allowing but a gleam of light to pass about its edges, is now become transparent precious stone. No beryl is so clear, no emerald so beautiful of hue."
"I wish you joy of it," said Lily; "but you will pardon me if I regard the prophecy as yet unaccomplished. The lofty arch of your bridge can still but admit foot passengers; and it is promised us that horses and carriages and travellers of every sort shall, at the same moment, cross this bridge in both directions. Is there not something said, too, about pillars, which are to arise of themselves from the waters of the River?"
The old Woman still kept her eyes fixed on her hand; she here interrupted their dialogue, and was taking leave. "Wait a moment," said the fair Lily, "and carry my little bird with you. Bid the Lamp change it into topaz; I will enliven it by my touch; with your good Mops it shall form my dearest pastime: but hasten, hasten; for, at sunset, intolerable putrefaction will fasten on the hapless bird, and tear asunder the fair combination of its form forever."
The old Woman laid the little corpse, wrapped in soft leaves, into her basket, and hastened away.
"However it may be," said the Snake, recommencing their interrupted dialogue, "the Temple is built."
"But it is not at the River," said the fair one.
"It is yet resting in the depths of the Earth," said the Snake; "I have seen the Kings and conversed with them."
"But when will they arise?" inquired Lily.
The Snake replied: "I heard resounding in the Temple these deep words, The time is at hand. "
A pleasing cheerfulness spread over the fair Lily's face: " 'Tis the second time," said she, "that I have heard these happy words today: when will the day come for me to hear them thrice?"
She arose, and immediately there came a lovely maiden from the grove, and took away her harp. Another followed her, and folded-up the fine carved ivory stool, on which the fair one had been sitting, and put the silvery cushion under her arm. A third then made her appearance, with a large parasol worked with pearls; and looked whether Lily would require her in walking. These three maidens were beyond expression beautiful; and yet their beauty but exalted that of Lily, for it was plain to every one that they could never be compared to her.
Meanwhile the fair one had been looking, with a satisfied aspect, at the strange onyx Mops. She bent down and touched him, and that instant he started up. Gaily he looked around, ran hither and thither, and at last, in his kindest manner, hastened to salute his benefactress. She took him in her arms, and pressed him to her. "Cold as thou art," cried she, "and though but a half-life works in thee, thou art welcome to me; tenderly will I love thee, prettily will I play with thee, softly caress thee, and firmly press thee to my bosom." She then let him go, chased him from her, called him back, and played so daintily with him, and ran about so gaily and so innocently with him on the grass, that with new rapture you viewed and participated in her joy, as a little while ago her sorrow had attuned every heart to sympathy.
This cheerfulness, these graceful sports were interrupted by the entrance of the woeful Youth. He stepped forward, in his former guise and aspect; save that the heat of the day appeared to have fatigued him still more, and in the presence of his mistress he grew paler every moment. He bore upon his hand a Hawk, which was sitting quiet as a dove, with its body shrunk, and its wings drooping.
"It is not kind in thee," cried Lily to him, "to bring that hateful thing before my eyes, the monster, which today has killed my little singer."
"Blame not the unhappy bird!" replied the Youth; "rather blame thyself and thy destiny; and leave me to keep beside me the companion of my woe."
Meanwhile Mops ceased not teasing the fair Lily; and she replied to her transparent favourite, with friendly gestures. She clapped her hands to scare him off; then ran, to entice him after her. She tried to get him when he fled, and she chased him away when he attempted to press near her. The Youth looked on in silence, with increasing anger; but at last, when she took the odious beast, which seemed to him unutterably ugly, on her arm, pressed it to her white bosom, and kissed its black snout with her heavenly lips, his patience altogether failed him, and full of desperation he exclaimed: "Must I, who by a baleful fate exist beside thee, perhaps to the end, in an absent presence; who by thee have lost my all, my very self; must I see before my eyes, that so unnatural a monster can charm thee into gladness, can awaken thy attachment, and enjoy thy embrace? Shall I any longer keep wandering to and fro, measuring my dreary course to that side of the River and to this? No, there is still a spark of the old heroic spirit sleeping in my bosom; let it start this instant into its expiring flame! If stones may rest in thy bosom, let me be changed to stone; if thy touch kills, I will die by thy hands."
So saying he made a violent movement; the Hawk flew from his finger, but he himself rushed towards the fair one; she held out her hands to keep him off, and touched him only the sooner. Consciousness forsook him; and she felt with horror the beloved burden lying on her bosom. With a shriek she started back, and the gentle Youth sank lifeless from her arms upon the ground.
The misery had happened! The sweet Lily stood motionless gazing on the corpse. Her heart seemed to pause in her bosom; and her eyes were without tears. In vain did Mops try to gain from her any kindly gesture; with her friend, the world for her was all dead as the grave. Her silent despair did not look round for help; she knew not of any help.
On the other hand, the Snake bestirred herself the more actively; she seemed to meditate deliverance; and in fact her strange movements served at least to keep away, for a little, the immediate consequences of the mischief. With her limber body, she formed a wide circle round the corpse, and seizing the end of her tail between her teeth, she lay quite still.
Ere long one of Lily's fair waiting-maids appeared; brought the ivory folding-stool, and with friendly beckoning constrained her mistress to sit down on it. Soon afterwards there came a second; she had in her hand a fire-coloured veil, with which she rather decorated than concealed the fair Lily's head. The third handed her the harp, and scarcely had she drawn the gorgeous instrument towards her, and struck some tones from its strings, when the first maid returned with a clear round mirror; took her station opposite the fair one; caught her looks in the glass, and threw back to her the loveliest image that was to be found in Nature. Sorrow heightened her beauty, the veil her charms, the harp her grace; and deeply as you wished to see her mournful situation altered, not less deeply did you wish to keep her image, as she now looked, forever present with you.
With a still look at the mirror, she touched the harp; now melting tones proceeded from the strings, now her pain seemed to mount, and the music in strong notes responded to her woe; sometimes she opened her lips to sing, but her voice failed her; and ere long her sorrow melted into tears, two maidens caught her helpfully in their arms, the harp sank from her bosom, scarcely could the quick servant snatch the instrument and carry it aside.
"Who gets us the Man with the Lamp, before the Sun set?" hissed the Snake, faintly, but audibly: the maids looked at one another, and Lily's tears fell faster. At this moment came the Woman with the Basket, panting and altogether breathless. "I am lost, and maimed for life!" cried she, "see how my hand is almost vanished; neither Ferryman nor Giant would take me over, because I am the River's debtor; in vain did I promise hundreds of cabbages and hundreds of onions; they will take no more than three; and no artichoke is now to be found in all this quarter."
"Forget your own care," said the Snake, "and try to bring help here; perhaps it may come to yourself also. Haste with your utmost speed to seek the Will-o'-wisps; it is too light for you to see them, but perhaps you will hear them laughing and hopping to and fro. If they be speedy, they may cross upon the Giant's shadow, and seek the Man with the Lamp, and send him to us."
The Woman hurried off at her quickest pace, and the Snake seemed expecting as impatiently as Lily the return of the Flames. Alas! the beam of the sinking Sun was already gliding only the highest summits of the trees in the thicket, and long shadows were stretching over lake and meadow; the Snake hitched up and down impatiently, and Lily dissolved in tears.
In this extreme need, the Snake kept looking round on all sides; for she was afraid every moment that the Sun would set, and corruption penetrate the magic circle, and the fair youth immediately moulder away. At last she noticed sailing high in the air, with purple-red feathers, the Prince's Hawk, whose breast was catching the last beams of the Sun. She shook herself for joy at this good omen; nor was she deceived; for shortly afterwards the Man with the Lamp was seen gliding towards them across the Lake, fast and smoothly, as if he had been travelling on skates.
The Snake did not change her posture; but Lily rose and called to him: "What good spirit sends thee, at the moment when we were desiring thee, and needing thee, so much?"
"The spirit of my Lamp," replied the Man, "has impelled me, and the Hawk has conducted me. My Lamp sparkles when I am needed, and I just look about me in the sky for a signal; some bird or meteor points to the quarter towards which I am to turn. Be calm, fairest Maiden! Whether I can help, I know not; an individual helps not, but he who combines himself with many at the proper hour. We will postpone the evil, and keep hoping. Hold thy circle fast," continued he, turning to the Snake; then set himself upon a hillock beside her, and illuminated the dead body. "Bring the little Bird hither too, and lay it in the circle!" The maidens took the little corpse from the basket, which the old Woman had left standing, and did as he directed.
Meanwhile the Sun had set; and as the darkness increased, not only the Snake and the old Man's Lamp began shining in their fashion, but also Lily's veil gave-out a soft light, which gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning red, her pale cheeks and her white robe. The party looked at one another, silently reflecting; care and sorrow were mitigated by a sure hope.
It was no unpleasing entrance, therefore, that the Woman made, attended by the two gay Flames, which in truth appeared to have been very lavish in the interim, for they had again become extremely meagre; yet they only bore themselves the more prettily for that, towards Lily and the other ladies. With great tact and expressiveness, they said a multitude of rather common things to these fair persons; and declared themselves particularly ravished by the charm which the gleaming veil spread over Lily and her attendants. The ladies modestly cast down their eyes, and the praise of their beauty made them really beautiful. All were peaceful and calm, except the old Woman. In spite of the assurance of her husband, that her hand could diminish no farther, while the Lamp shone on it, she asserted more than once, that if things went on thus, before midnight this noble member would have utterly vanished.
The Man with the Lamp had listened attentively to the conversation of the Lights; and was gratified that Lily had been cheered, in some measure, and amused by it. And, in truth, midnight had arrived they knew not how. The old Man looked to the stars, and then began speaking: "We are assembled at the propitious hour; let each perform his task, let each do his duty; and a universal happiness will swallow-up our individual sorrows, as a universal grief consumes individual joys."
At these words arose a wondrous hubbub; for all the persons in the party spoke aloud, each for himself, declaring what they had to do; only the three maids were silent; one of them had fallen asleep beside the harp, another near the parasol, the third by the stool; and you could not blame them much, for it was late. The Fiery Youths, after some passing compliments which they devoted to the waiting-maids, had turned their sole attention to the Princess, as alone worthy of exclusive homage.
"Take the mirror," said the Man to the Hawk; "and with the first sunbeam illuminate the three sleepers, and awake them, with light reflected from above."
The Snake now began to move; she loosened her circle, and rolled slowly, in large rings, forward to the River. The two Will-o'-wisps followed with a solemn air: you would have taken them for the most serious Flames in Nature. The old Woman and her husband seized the Basket, whose mild light they had scarcely observed till now; they lifted it at both sides, and it grew still larger and more luminous; they lifted the body of the Youth into it, laying the Canary-bird upon his breast; the Basket rose into the air and hovered above the old Woman's head, and she followed the Will-o'-wisps on foot. The fair Lily took Mops on her arm, and followed the Woman; the Man with the Lamp concluded the procession; and the scene was curiously illuminated by these many lights.
But it was with no small wonder that the party saw, when they approached the River, a glorious arch mount over it, by which the helpful Snake was affording them a glittering path. If by day they had admired the beautiful transparent precious stones, of which the Bridge seemed formed; by night they were astonished at its gleaming brilliancy. On the upper side the clear circle marked itself sharp against the dark sky, but below, vivid beams were darting to the centre, and exhibiting the airy firmness of the edifice. The procession slowly moved across it; and the Ferryman, who saw it from his hut afar off, considered with astonishment the gleaming circle, and the strange lights which were passing over it
No sooner had they reached the other shore, than the arch began, in its usual way, to swag up and down, and with a wavy motion to approach the water. The Snake then came on land, the Basket placed itself upon the ground, and the Snake again drew her circle round it. The old Man stooped towards her, and said: "What hast thou resolved on?"
"To sacrifice myself rather than be sacrificed," replied the Snake; "promise me that thou wilt leave no stone on shore."
The old Man promised; then addressing Lily: "Touch the Snake," said he, "with thy left hand, and thy lover with thy right." Lily knelt, and touched the Snake and the Prince's body. The latter in the instant seemed to come to life; he moved in the Basket, nay he raised himself into a sitting posture; Lily was about to clasp him; but the old Man held her back, and himself assisted the Youth to rise, and led him forth from the Basket and the circle.
The Prince was standing; the Canary-bird was fluttering on his shoulder; there was life again in both of them, but the spirit had not yet returned; the fair Youth's eyes were open, yet he did not see, at least he seemed to look on all without participation. Scarcely had their admiration of this incident a little calmed, when they observed how strangely it had fared in the meanwhile with the Snake. Her fair taper body had crumbled into thousands and thousands of shining jewels: the old Woman reaching at her Basket had chanced to come against the circle; and of the shape or structure of the Snake there was now nothing to be seen, only a bright ring of luminous jewels was lying in the grass.
The old Man forthwith set himself to gather the stones into the Basket; a task in which his wife assisted him. They next carried the Basket to an elevated point on the bank; and here the man threw its whole lading, not without contradiction from the fair one and his wife, who would gladly have retained some part of it, down into the River. Like gleaming twinkling stars the stones floated down with the waves; and you could not say whether they lost themselves in the distance, or sank to the bottom.
"Gentlemen," said he with the Lamp, in a respectful tone to the Lights, "I will now show you the way, and open you the passage; but you will do us an essential service, if you please to unbolt the door, by which the Sanctuary must be entered at present, and which none but you can unfasten."
The Lights made a stately bow of assent, and kept their place. The old Man of the Lamp went foremost into the rock, which opened at his presence; the Youth followed him, as if mechanically; silent and uncertain, Lily kept at some distance from him; the old Woman would not be left, and stretched-out her hand, that the light of her husband's Lamp might still fall upon it. The rear was closed by the two Will-o'-wisps, who bent the peaks of their flames towards one another, and appeared to be engaged in conversation.
They had not gone far till the procession halted in front of a large brazen door, the leaves of which were bolted with a golden lock. The Man now called upon the Lights to advance; who required small entreaty, and with their pointed flames soon ate both bar and lock.
The brass gave a loud clang, as the doors sprang suddenly asunder; and the stately figures of the Kings appeared within the Sanctuary, illuminated by the entering Lights. All bowed before these dread sovereigns, especially the Flames made a profusion of the daintiest reverences.
After a pause, the gold King asked: "Whence come ye?" "From the world," said the old Man. "Whither go ye?" said the silver King. "Into the world," replied the Man. "What would ye with us?" cried the brazen King. "Accompany you," replied the Man.
The composite King was about to speak, when the gold one addressed the Lights, who had got too near him: "Take yourselves away from me, my metal was not made for you." Thereupon they turned to the silver King, and clasped themselves about him; and his robe glittered beautifully in their yellow brightness. "You are welcome," said he, "but I cannot feed you; satisfy yourselves elsewhere, and bring me your light." They removed; and gliding past the brazen King, who did not seem to notice them, they fixed on the compounded King. "Who will govern the world?" cried he, with a broken voice. "He who stands upon his feet," replied the old Man. "I am he," said the mixed King. "We shall see," replied the Man; "for the time is at hand."
The fair Lily fell upon the old Man's neck, and kissed him cordially. "Holy Sage!" cried she, "a thousand times I thank thee; for I hear that fateful word the third time." She had scarcely spoken, when she clasped the old Man still faster; for the ground began to move beneath them; the Youth and the old Woman also held by one another; the Lights alone did not regard it.
You could feel plainly that the whole temple was in motion; as a ship that softly glides away from the harbour, when her anchors are lifted; the depths of the Earth seemed to open for the Building as it went along. It struck on nothing; no rock came in its way.
For a few instants, a small rain seemed to drizzle from the opening of the dome; the old Man held the fair Lily fast, and said to her: "We are now beneath the River; we shall soon be at the mark." Ere long they thought the Temple made a halt; but they were in an error; it was mounting upwards.
And now a strange uproar rose above their heads. Planks and beams in disordered combination now came pressing and crashing in at the opening of the dome. Lily and the Woman started to a side; the Man with the Lamp laid hold of the Youth, and kept standing still. The little cottage of the Ferryman, for it was this which the Temple in ascending had severed from the ground and carried up with it, sank gradually down, and covered the old Man and the Youth.
The women screamed aloud, and the Temple shook, like a ship running unexpectedly aground. In sorrowful perplexity, the Princess and her old attendant wandered round the cottage in the dawn; the door was bolted, and to their knocking no one answered. They knocked more loudly, and were not a little struck, when at length the wood began to ring. By virtue of the Lamp locked up in it, the hut had been converted from the inside to the outside into solid silver. Ere long too its form changed; for the noble metal shook aside the accidental shape of planks, posts and beams, and stretched itself out into a noble case of beaten ornamented workmanship. Thus a fair little temple stood erected in the middle of the large one; or if you will, an Altar worthy of the Temple.
By a staircase which ascended from within, the noble Youth now mounted aloft, lighted by the old Man with the Lamp, and, as it seemed, supported by another, who advanced in a white short robe, with a silver rudder in his hand; and was soon recognised as the Ferryman, the former possessor of the cottage.
The fair Lily mounted the outer steps, which led from the floor of the Temple to the Altar; but she was still obliged to keep herself apart from her Lover. The old Woman, whose hand in the absence of the Lamp had grown still smaller, cried: "Am I, then, to be unhappy after all? Among so many miracles, can there be nothing done to save my hand?" Her husband pointed to the open door, and said to her: "See, the day is breaking; haste, bathe thyself in the River." "What an advice!" cried she; "it will make me all black; it will make me vanish together; for my debt is not yet paid." "Go," said the man, "and do as I advise thee; all debts are now paid."
The old Woman hastened away; and at that moment appeared the rising Sun, upon the rim of the dome. The old Man stept between Virgin and the Youth, and cried with a loud voice: "There are three which have rule on Earth; Wisdom, Appearance and Strength." the first word, the gold King rose; at the second, the silver one; and at the third, the brass King slowly rose, while the mixed King on a sudden very awkwardly plumped down.
Whoever noticed him could scarcely keep from laughing, solemn as the moment was; for he was not sitting, he was not lying, he was — leaning, but shapelessly sunk together.
The Lights, who till now had been employed upon him, drew to side; they appeared, although pale in the morning radiance, yet the more well-fed, and in good burning condition; with their peaked tongues, they had dexterously licked-out the gold veins of the colossal figure to its very heart. The irregular vacuities which this occasioned had continued empty for a time, and the figure had maintained its standing posture. But when at last the very tenderest filaments were eaten out, the image crashed suddenly together; and then, alas, in the very parts which continue unaltered when one sits down; whereas the limbs, which should have bent, sprawled themselves out unbowed and stiff. Whoever could not laugh was obliged to turn away his eyes; this miserable shape and no-shape was offensive to behold.
The Man with the Lamp now led the handsome Youth, who still kept gazing vacantly before him, down from the Altar, and straight to the brazen King. At the feet of this mighty Potentate lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The young man girt it round him. "The sword on left, the right free!" cried the brazen voice. They next proceeded to the silver King; he bent his sceptre to the Youth; the latter seized it with his left hand, and the King in a pleasing voice said: "Feed the sheep!" On turning to the golden King, he stooped with gestures of paternal blessing, and pressing his oaken garland on the young man's head, said: "Understand what is highest!"
During this progress, the old Man had carefully observed the Prince. After girding-on the sword, his breast swelled, his arms waved, and his feet trod firmer; when he took the sceptre in his hand, his strength appeared to soften, and by an unspeakable charm to become still more subduing; but as the oaken garland came to deck his hair, his features kindled, his eyes gleamed with inexpressible spirit, and the first word of his mouth was "Lily!"
"Dearest Lily!" cried he, hastening up the silver stairs to her, for she had viewed his progress from the pinnacle of the Altar; "Dearest Lily! what more precious can a man, equipt with all, desire for himself than innocence and the still affection which thy bosom brings me? O my friend!" continued he, turning to the old Man, and looking at the three statues; "glorious and secure is the kingdom of our fathers; but thou hast forgotten the fourth power, which rules the world, earlier, more universally, more certainly, the power of Love." With these words, he fell upon the lovely maiden's neck; she had cast away her veil, and her cheeks were tinged with the fairest, most imperishable red.
Here the old Man said with a smile: "Love does not rule; but it trains, and that is more."
Amid this solemnity, this happiness and rapture, no one had observed that it was now broad day; and all at once, on looking through the open portal, a crowd of altogether unexpected objects met the eye. A large space surrounded with pillars formed the forecourt, at the end of which was seen a broad and stately Bridge stretching with many arches across the River. It was furnished, on both sides, with commodious and magnificent colonnades for foot-travellers, many thousands of whom were already there, busily passing this way or that. The broad pavement in the centre was thronged with herds and mules, with horsemen and carriages, flowing like two streams, on their several sides, and neither interrupting the other. All admired the splendour and convenience of the structure; and the new King and his Spouse were delighted with the motion and activity of this great people, as they were already happy in their own mutual love.
"Remember the Snake in honour," said the Man with the Lamp; "thou owest her thy life; thy people owe her the Bridge, by which these neighbouring banks are now animated and combined into one land. Those swimming and shining jewels, the remains of her sacrificed body, are the piers of this royal bridge; upon these she has built and will maintain herself."
The party were about to ask some explanation of this strange mystery, when there entered four lovely maidens at the portal of the Temple. By the Harp, the Parasol, and the Folding-stool, it was not difficult to recognise the waiting-maids of Lily; but the fourth, more beautiful than any of the rest, was an unknown fair one, and in sisterly sportfulness she hastened with them through the Temple, and mounted the steps of the Altar.
"Wilt thou have better trust in me another time, good wife?" said the Man with the Lamp to the fair one: "Well for thee, and every living thing that bathes this morning in the River!"
The renewed and beautified old Woman, of whose former shape no trace remained, embraced with young eager arms the Man with the Lamp, who kindly received her caresses. "If I am too old for thee," said he, smiling, "thou mayest choose another husband today; from this hour no marriage is of force, which is not contracted anew."
"Dost thou not know, then," answered she, "that thou too art grown younger?" "It delights me if to thy young eyes I seem a handsome youth: I take thy hand anew, and am well content to live with thee another thousand years."
The Queen welcomed her new friend, and went down with her into the interior of the Altar, while the King stood between his two men, looking towards the Bridge, and attentively contemplating the busy tumult of the people.
But his satisfaction did not last; for ere long he saw an object which excited his displeasure. The great Giant, who appeared not yet to have awoke completely from his morning sleep, came stumbling along the Bridge, producing great confusion all around him. As usual, he had risen stupefied with sleep, and had meant to bathe in the well-known bay of the River; instead of which he fo
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Indian girl has higher IQ than Einstein
London, Mar 5 (ANI): A 12-year-old Indian girl has stunned everyone after she was revealed to have an IQ higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
Neha Ramu achieved a score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test - the highest score possible, the Telegraph reported.
Despite her young age, the score puts her in the top one percent of brightest people in the UK, which means she is more intelligent than Hawking, Bill Gates and even Einstein, who are all thought to have an IQ of 160.
Ramu's doctor parents, who lived in India before moving to Britain when their daughter was seven, had no idea their daughter was so gifted.
Although she had always performed well at school, it was only when she took an entrance exam for Tiffin Girls', a high-achieving grammar school, and achieved a perfect score of 280/280 that they realised her capabilities.
Two years later, she took the test for Mensa, a society for people with high IQs, and achieved the maximum possible score for someone aged under 18.
The score would be sufficient to get her into any Ivy League university. (ANI)
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“I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids” — Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics
The noun affect entered the English language in the 14th century. Derived from the Latin word affectus, disposition, it is first recorded in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troylus and Cressida (OED). Affect is often, but not exclusively, used as a synonym for passion, sentiment, mood, feeling or emotion. Most discussion of affect in media theory and aesthetics revolves around questions of the production and transmission of affect. How do (and how should) artworks produce and transmit affect? What is the relationship between media and the production of affect? Philosophical and psychological explanations of the nature and function of affect are always intertwined with the answers media theorists offer to these questions. Because the breadth of these explanations makes a complete survey impossible, this article will focus on two especially influential traditions of understanding affect and then trace the media theories that draw from them. The first tradition attempts to understand affect as embodied force that influences the mind. Aristotle’s account of affect in the Rhetoric is characteristic. He argues that affect is “that which leads one’s condition to become so transformed that his judgment is affected, and which is accompanied by pleasure and pain” (Aristotle, “Rhetoric” 6). Aristotle’s affect is a force embodied through pleasure and pain that shifts our condition and our judgment. Rene Descartes offers a richer account of the way affect works as a bodily force. For Descartes, affects (or passions) are “the perceptions, feeling or emotions of the soul which we relate specially to it [the soul], and which are caused, maintained and fortified by some movement of the spirit” (Descartes, 21). The “spirits” mentioned in this passage are “animal spirits,” the material medium that Descartes believed allowed the body and the mind to communicate. The specific motions of this fluid determine the specific nature of the affect. For example, “Love is an emotion of the soul caused by the movement of the spirits which incites it to join itself willingly to objects which appear to it to be agreeable” (Descartes, 23).
Media theories that work from this understanding of affect usually focus on ways affect is produced through mimesis. In the Poetics, Aristotle argues that a perfect tragedy “should…imitate actions which excite pity and fear” (Aristotle, “Rhetoric” 2.13) The argument that affect is produced through mimesis has often been used as an explanation of music’s ability to produce affect. In Plato’s discussion of music in The Republic, he proposes that each mode of music is distinguished by its imitation of human action. For example, “that mode which would appropriately imitate the sounds and accents of a man who is courageous in warlike deeds and every violent works” is designed to “produce the finest imitation of the sounds of unfortunate and fortunate, moderate and courageous men” and thus inspire virtue (Plato, par. 399a-b). The contemporary philosopher Peter Kivy argues that this theory of music was interpreted by many to mean that “melodies have the power to arouse emotions in listeners by imitating or representing the manner in which they express them in speech and exclamations” (Kivy, 16)
Although many have taken issue with these arguments, two criticisms of the mimetic understanding of affect production are especially important. One, made by the 19th century music theorist, Eduard Hanslick, insists that the claim that music produces affect is philosophically incoherent. Hanslick argues that for an affect to be produced, there must be an object of attention. For example, when we are afraid, we are always afraid of something (the bear, the dark, the serial killer in the closet). Music cannot be a significant object for our affects, therefore it cannot produce any affects (Kivy, 26). The second criticism insists that art which exists to produce affect is “kitsch.” In his essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch“, Clement Greenberg compares two paintings, one by Illya Repin, one by Pablo Picasso to demonstrate his conception of Kitsch. He writes “Where Picasso paints cause, Repin paints effect. Repin predigests art for the spectator and spares him the effort, provides him with a shortcut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily difficult in genuine art. Repin, or kitsch, is synthetic art” (Greenberg, 15) Kitsch produces affect without demanding any work by the viewer.
Hanslick and Greenberg’s criticisms point towards another conceptualization of affect which insists on the interrelation of affect and cognition. Baruch Spinoza offers the foundational account of this tradition. In the Ethics, he defines affect as “the modifications of the body whereby the active power of the said body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such modification” (Spinoza, 130). All human activity, including cognition, produces and is produced by affect. In Matter and Memory, Henri Bergson further links cognition and affect. He defines affect as “that part or aspect of the inside of our bodies which mix with the image of external bodies.” This ‘part or aspect’ is necessarily produced by any perception, and therefore, for Bergson, “there is no perception without affection” (Bergson, 60). The German-Italian phenomenologist Franz Brentano argued that each cognitive action is constituted of a ‘presentation”, a judgment, and an emotion. He offers the example of hearing a sound, “obviously accompanied by not only by a presentation and a cognition of this act of hearing, but an emotion as well. It may be either pleasure, as when we hear a soft, pure young voice, or of displeasure, as when we hear the scratching of a violin badly played.” (Bergson, 144) Brentano’s argument that affect, like the rest of cognition, is always intentional shares significant form with Hanslick’s argument against music’s ability to produce affect.
William James’ model of emotion offers an embodied account of affect that remains unified with cognition. In his article “What Is An Emotion,” James offers a good synopsis of his view “Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifestations must be first interposed between, and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble” (James, 13). For James, a perception immediately produces an affect within the body. Only later is the affect transformed into a recognizable emotion.
In What Is Philosophy, Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze use these conceptions of affect to develop their sense of the aesthetic. They argue that art is “a bloc of sensations, that is to say, a compound of percepts and affects” (Deleuze, 163). Here, affect is both embodied and bound up with consciousness. For the two, the artist can and must invent new affects, “A great novelist is above all an artist who invents unknown or unrecognized affects and brings them to light as the becoming of his characters” (174).
The conceptualization of affect as a fundamental part of human cognition is also integral to a series of theorists whose work focuses on the relationship between media and human behavior, most notably Marshall McLuhan. For McLuhan, the emergence of each media is marked by “the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs'” (McLuhan, 8). These human affairs include most intimate affects. His account of the telephone’s emotive impact is telling “Why should the phone create an intense feeling of loneliness? Why should we feel compelled to answer a ringing public phones when we know the call cannot concern us? Why does a phone ringing on the stage create instant tension? Why is that tension so very much less for an unanswered phone in a movie scene? The answer to all of these questions is simply that the phone is a participant form that demands a partner, with all the intensity of electric polarity” (268).
If McLuhan insists on the fundamental and instrumental role of media in changing human behaviors, Fredric Jameson insists that shifts in social arrangements produce changes in both media and affect. For example, he argues that a distinctive characteristic of the postmodern era (or late capitalism) is the ‘waning of affect” (Jameson, 10). Jameson uses two images, Edward Munch’s The Scream and Andy Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes to demonstrate this ‘waning’. Munch’s image is an exemplary demonstration of the way affect functions in modernist images. Affect shapes representation itself — the anguish of the screamer mutates the landscape. In the ‘postmodern’ Diamond Dust Shoes, human affect has waned. What remains is an endless field of cool commodities.
A number of contemporary thinkers have argued against Jameson’s thesis, insisting that that the postmodern age is one of excess affect. In his essay “The Autonomy of the Affect,” Brian Massumi argues that “”Fredric Jameson notwithstanding, belief has waned for many, but not affect. If anything, our condition is characterized by a surfeit of it. The problem is that there is no cultural-theoretical vocabulary specific to affect” (Massumi, 27). Over the course of that essay Massumi develops this vocabulary, combining the work of thinkers inside the ‘second’ tradition of affect (especially Bergson, Deleuze, and Spinoza) to argue that affect is “a suspension of affect-reaction circuits and linear temporality in a sink of what might be called passion” (Massumi, 29). For Massumi, this ‘state of suspension’ is the rule; our world is saturated with affects. In the essay “The Time of The Cinema. On the ‘New World’ and ‘Cultural Exception’,” Bernard Stiegler offers an account of the way cinema produces this ‘surfeit of affect’ through the manipulation and reproduction of temporality. He writes that “because the flux of consciousness is a contraction of time, cinema can trigger this process of adoption in which my time, during the time of the film, becomes the time of an other and another time” (30). While watching the film, the temporal experience of the viewer is mapped onto the time of the film itself. Stiegler’s worry is that this power to produce cinema remains in the hands of the few and powerful, leaving most as mere receptors of affect.
A more optimistic perspective is offered by Mark B.N Hansen in his essay, “Affect as Medium, or the ‘Digital-facial-image’.” Hansen argues that affect can offer “an interface between the domain of information (the digital) and embodied human experience” (5). For Hansen, ‘Digital-facial-images’ are the vessels for the production of this affect-medium. These digitally produced, often interactive images of human faces force the viewer to “recognize our intense desire to engage affectively with the ‘virtual‘ at the same time as we confront the disconcerting possibility of its utter indifference to us”(10). This uncanny combination produces immediate embodied affect that links the human to the digital in a feedback loop.
Ben Shepard
Aristotle. “from Rhetoric.” What Is an Emotion? Ed. Robert C. Solomon. Trans. Jon. D. Solomon. Oxford: University Press, 2003.
Aristotle. The Rhetoric. The Internet Classics Archive. Ed. Daniel C. Stevenson. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt
Brentano, Franz. Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint. Trans. Anto Rancurello and a D.B. Terrell. New York: Humanities Press, 1973.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattariu. What Is Philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Descartes, Rene. “The Passions of The Soul.” What Is an Emotion? Ed. Robert C. Solomon. Trans. G.R.T Ross. Oxford: University Press, 2003.
Epictetus. The Discourses and Manual. Trans. P.E Matheson Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916.
Greenberg, Clement. Art and Culture. Boston: Beacon Press; 1961.
Hansen, Mark B.N. (2003) ‘Affect as Medium, or the “Digital-facial-image”‘, journal of visual culture 2(2): 205-28.
James, William and Carl Georg Lange. The Emotions. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Company, 1922.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism; or the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991.
Kivy, Peter. Introduction To A Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.
Massumi, Brian. Parables For The Virtual. Durham: Duke University Press; 2002.
Plato. The Republic. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1967.
Spinoza, Benedict. Works of Spinoza V. II, Trans. R.H.M Elwes. New York: Dover Publications, 1955.
Stiegler, Bernard. “The Time of Cinema. On the ‘New World’ and ‘Cultural Exception’.” Tekhnema: journal of philosophy and technology. Vol. 4. (1998). | <urn:uuid:5653c07e-053b-4f2c-bc3a-40e36d1ef6c5> | 4 | 3.9375 | 0.042292 | en | 0.921406 | https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/affect/ |
I/O overhead in opening and writing files
J Baptist arc38813 at hotmail.com
Mon Aug 27 22:43:40 CEST 2012
I'm looking into high-performance I/O, particularly on a tmpfs (in-memory) filesystem. This involves creating lots of little files. Unfortunately, it seems that Haskell's performance in this area is not comparable to that of C. I assume that this is because of the overhead involved in opening and closing files. Some cursory profiling confirmed this: most of the runtime of the program is in taken by openFile, hPutStr, and hClose.I thought that it might be faster to call the C library functions exposed as foreign imports in System.Posix.Internals, and thereby cut out some of Haskell's overhead. This indeed improved performance, but the program is still nearly twice as slow as the corresponding C program.I took some benchmarks. I wrote a program to create 500.000 files on a tmpfs filesystem, and write an integer into each of them. I did this in C, using the open; and twice in Haskell, using openFile and c_open. Here are the results:C program, using open and friends (gcc 4.4.3)real 0m4.614suser 0m0.380ssys 0m4.200sHaskell, using System.IO.openFile and friends (ghc 7.4.2)real 0m14.892suser 0m7.700ssys 0m6.890sHaskell, using System.Posix.Internals.c_open and friends (ghc 7.4.2)real 0m7.372suser 0m2.390ssys 0m4.570sWhy question is: why is this so slow? Could the culprit be the marshaling necessary to pass the parameters to the foreign functions? If I'm calling the low-level function c_open anyway, shouldn't performance be closer to C? Does anyone have suggestions for how to improve this?If anyone is interested, I can provide the code I used for these benchmarks.
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Learning Haskell and FP
Doug Ransom [email protected]
Wed, 27 Dec 2000 17:30:19 -0800
I have read "The Craft of Functional Programming" by Simon Thompson and a
few paper on the web. "The Craft" is a good book, but it is an introduction
to FP.
It seems to me it there are a lot of books on OO design I can pick up at the
bookstore, but in the FP world, one must worm their way through all sorts of
papers. I have seen papers on Catamorphisms, Monads, Programming with
Barbed Wire, folds, etc. I think these papers are hard to understand if you
don't have the acadademic/mathematical background -- being papers and not
textbooks these papers assume a fair bit of base knowledge. I know I can
design a fold function to use in place of primitive recursion for most data
structures -- I just don't know if I should. It is pretty easy to get
through "The Craft of Functional Programming" without understanding what
Category Theory , a Catamorphism , or a Kleisli Composition is. I can see
lots of real Software Engineering oppurtunities for these various techniques
if I could just put them together.
Is there a good textbook on Functional Programming which starts from a base
point similar to "The craft of Functional Programming" but more advanced in
terms of introducing necessary topics like Category theory, catamorphisms,
monads, etc? I would find such a book very useful, especially if it
concentrated on lazy functional programming.
Doug Ransom
Systems Engineer
Power Measurement Ltd.
250-652-7100 office
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[Haskell] Haskell Weekly News: January 16, 2006
Donald Bruce Stewart dons at cse.unsw.edu.au
Sun Jan 15 19:37:33 EST 2006
Haskell Weekly News: January 16, 2006
Greetings, and thanks for reading the 20th issue of HWN, a weekly
newsletter for the Haskell community. Each Monday, new editions are
[3]RSS is also available.
2. http://sequence.complete.org/
3. http://sequence.complete.org/node/feed
New Releases
* hdbc-odbc. John Goerzen [4]released the first version of
including such databases as MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server
4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/13007
Resources and Tools
* Haskell Performance Resources. Simon Marlow [5]opened up a [6]wiki
page to collect the community wisdom on writing high performance
Haskell code. This is particularly relevant given the discussions
regarding the language shootout recently, with many interesting
techniques proposed.
5. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/13018
6. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_Performance_Resource
* Arrays. Bulat Ziganshin [7]wrote an interesting RFC on the various
Haskell array interfaces.
7. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/12992
* Functional Java. Graham Klyne [8]alerted us to [9]FunctionalJ, an
open source library for functional programming in Java. This might
be useful to those unfortunates trapped on the JVM. Additionally,
Bjorn Bringert [10]mentioned a similar library, Higher-Order Java
(HOJ), he wrote a few years ago.
8. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/10898
9. http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=38430
10. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/10900
* Data structures. Duncan Coutts was [11]looking for an efficient
data structure to implement a sequence data type with indexed
11. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/13073
* Language Shootout, continued. Many entries have been improved on
the [12]Computer Language Shootout, and after several years of
complaints that micro-benchmarks are meaningless, and that the
tests are biased against purely functional languages, it's great
to see that [13]Haskell is now ranked 2nd overall.
12. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/
13. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=all
Darcs Corner
* darcsweb 0.14. Alberto Bertogli [14]released darcsweb 0.14.
14. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.darcs.user/9207
Quotes of the Week
<palomer> grr, sml can't derive Ord
<palomer> sml is a pain to use sometimes
<palomer> but sometimes it's a joy!
Contributing to HWN
[15]contributing information, send stories to dons -at-
cse.unsw.edu.au. The Darcs repository is available at darcs get
15. http://sequence.complete.org/hwn-contrib
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Do You Know the Benefits of Yoga for Arthritis Patients?
There was a time when doctors told people with arthritis not to exercise. They figured if something hurts, you are better off moving it. However, that belief has change in recent years because new research has shown that inactivity is the worst thing for a person with arthritis. If you are sedentary, you will get more degeneration and if you already have arthritis, joint pain and dysfunction is likely. To keep your joints strong and healthy, you have to use them. When joints are not used, they become unstable and there is a higher chance of injury and more pain. Regular and general movements help the joints to maintain their mobility and reduce pain. This also offers a benefit to the rest of your body’s systems. Regular exercise will help increase blood circulation (that also reduces swelling and pain) and promotes better functioning of the immune system.
Yoga is an excellent way to help you deal with the pain and stiffness associated with arthritis pain. Yoga can provide pain relief for arthritic joints by creating more mobility in the joints and increasing flexibility while stretching and strengthening the muscles around the joints. Yoga techniques also help to prevent and minimize the erosion of cartilage that causing joint pain and swelling.
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One thought on “Do You Know the Benefits of Yoga for Arthritis Patients?
1. I practice Yoga since two year, nearly three now, and it’s helping a lot with my Sjogren syndrome. I have explain to the teacher what I have, so she knows I can’t do some posture. But it still helping me.
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Google's Flaw
A crime against knowledge.
It was recently announced that the Texas attorney general is investigating Google for allegedly altering search results to the detriment of its competitors. Underlying the investigation is the assumption that any human interference in Google's machine generated search results violates the principle of "search neutrality". While it is commendable that attention is finally turning to Google's overwhelming power to distort knowledge, basing the attack on the principle of "search neutrality" is irredeemably flawed. A far deeper, essential critique must be made against Google's commercialization of knowledge.
The idea that search engines can, or should, be neutral can be traced back to a movement of leftist librarians in the 1970s. Led by Sanford Berman, one of the first to bring social rebellion into the library, radical librarians argued that the system used to organize books was inherently biased and racist because it reflected a Western perspective. At that time, and to this day in nearly all public and academic libraries, books were organized in subject hierarchies. Berman believed that this system was deeply problematic. He wrote that, "western chauvinism permeates the [library's organizational] scheme". And called for a "disinterested scheme for the arrangement of books and knowledge". In so doing, he paved the way for search engines.
Berman, and his generation of radical librarians, placed their faith in technology. They assumed that the automation of indexing, what we now call search engines, would provide a "disinterested scheme". And we see today in the actions of the Texas attorney general, the same flawed assumption that search engines can be "neutral" or "disinterested".
But since the beginning, indexes have been biased. The first index, the ancestor of today's search engines, was developed in 1230 AD when a team of 500 monks led by a French Dominican Cardinal, Hugh of St. Cler, completed the world’s first index of the Bible. It was a major intellectual breakthrough. For the first time scholars, without a lifetime of study, could quickly know every reference in the bible to particular words, such as mercy or charity. The index had a profound impact on the way the bible was studied. It was called a concordance because, as one contemporary historian explains, it allowed theology students to "see the concord or agreement of key words in their numerous locations in scripture”. The index was not only a tool for studying the bible, it changed the way the bible was understood. In other words, the index was biased in a way that was considered useful.
However, by the eighteenth century, intellectuals such as Jonathan Swift foresaw that indexes would become a major threat to wisdom. They argued that indexes promoted superficiality and discord. They called this uniquely modern form of stupidity "index learning". And blamed modern ignorance on the practice of jumping in and out of a book based on its index rather than deep reading. Even earlier, in 1661, Joseph Glanvil wrote, "Methinks 'tis a pitiful piece of knowledge that can be learned from an index, and a poor ambition to be rich in the inventory of another’s treasure."
Regardless of what Swift and Glanvil thought of index learning, by the early 20th century there were already dreams of building a "universal index" of all human knowledge. One of the first to propose this idea was Henry Wheately. In 1902 he wrote an apt description of Google: "The object of the general index is just this, that anything, however disconnected, can be placed there, and much that would otherwise be lost will there find a resting-place. Always growing and never pretending to be complete, the index will be useful to all, and its consulters will be sure to find something worth their trouble, if not all they may require". Wheately was ahead of his time. Without computers, his plan was impossible. However, the dream persisted and by the late 1960s, computers had been programmed to build keyword indexes. It would take another forty years for Google to make Wheately's vision of a universal index seem practical.
When we search Google, we do not search the internet directly. Instead, we search Google's index of the internet. When we type in apple, for example, it is as if we are opening an incalculably large book and flipping to a section that lists all the times apple has been mentioned on the internet. Google is an index, a concordance of human knowledge.
There are fundamental, structural problems with the intellectual foundations of search engines. That search indexes fragment knowledge is clear. That they encourage superficial learning is also true. Indeed, as Nicholas Carr has written, Google is making us stupid. These problems will continue to exist even if the index is totally automated.
The essential problem with Google is that it no longer considers itself primarily a search engine. Instead, Google believes it is an advertising company whose search results are mere fodder for commercial messages. This is the crime Google has committed. It is not in violating the principle of neutrality, an ideal that never existed in the history of knowledge organization. Google's crime is against human culture.
Google has stolen our common knowledge and commercialized the library. The long-term cultural consequences of this deplorable criminal act are unclear. But Google's loathsome introduction of advertising into search results is travesty that must be investigated.
Now is the time to begin a substantial inquiry into Google's practices, not because they violate "search neutrality" but because they violate the human need for commercial-free learning.
| <urn:uuid:a297959b-191d-4984-8678-635d7e010d60> | 3 | 2.640625 | 0.054988 | en | 0.961672 | https://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-blog/googles-flaw.html?page=4 |
Greenland Ice Sheet Getting Darker
The bright white surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet reflects well over half of the sunlight that falls on it. In summer, this reflectiveness helps the ice sheet maintain itself: less absorbed sunlight means less heating and melting. In the past decade, however, satellite observations show a drop in Greenland’s reflectiveness. The darker surface absorbs more sunlight, accelerating melting.
map of greenland with albedo color-coded in shades of blue (less reflective than average) and orange (more reflective than average
The map above shows the difference between the percent of sunlight Greenland reflected in the summer of 2011 and the average percent it reflected between 2000-2006. Virtually the entire ice sheet is colored in shades of blue, indicating that the ice sheet reflected as much as 20% less light this summer than it did in the early part of the last decade. The map is based on observations from NASA satellites, and it was produced as part of NOAA’s 2011 Arctic Report Card.
Climate scientists have long expected that Earth’s icy North would become less reflective as global temperatures rose. Rising temperatures melt snow and ice. The uncovered terrain is darker—ocean water, vegetation, bare ground—so the area absorbs more sunlight than it used to, leading to more warming, which causes more melting. In short, the loss of reflectiveness amplifies the initial warming. This feedback is underway on Greenland’s ice, especially since 2006, a year that marks a fundamental shift toward a warmer, greener Arctic, according to the Arctic Report Card.
Given the connection between warming and loss of reflectiveness, the patterns on the map fit expectations. The warmer, lower-elevation areas of the ice sheet have darkened more than the colder, higher-altitude interior. Each summer, winter snow retreats from the edge of the ice sheet. Not only do dark pools of melt water form on the surface of the ice, but also, the bare ice is often dirty from windblown dust and other particles that collect near the surface, which makes it even less reflective.
Photo of dirty ice on ice sheet
Side-by-side microscope photos of snow crystals
A freshly fallen snow crystal has numerous facets to reflect sunlight (left). Warming causes the grains to round at the edges and clump together (right). Scanning electron microscope photos courtesy of the Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Dr. Box estimates that darkening of the ice sheet in the 12 summers between 2000 and 2011 would have allowed the ice sheet to absorb an extra 172 quintillion joules of energy, nearly 2 times the annual energy consumption of the United States (about 94 quintillion joules in 2009.) In areas where the ice sheet is melting, this additional energy has doubled melt rates, which contributes ice loss to the ocean and sea level rise. In non-melting areas, this extra energy would be enough to raise the temperature of a 5.5-inch-deep layer of snow from 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 Celsius) to the melting point.
Highlights of the 2011 Arctic Report Card
Greenland Albedo Page at Byrd Polar Research Center
The Birth and Death of a Meltwater Lake on the Greenland Ice Sheet
Reviewer: Dr. Jason Box, The Ohio State University
• Greenland's bright surface reflects well over half the summer sunlight that falls on it, which reduces heating and melting.
• In the past decade, Greenland’s reflectiveness has been decreasing.
• The darker surface absorbs more sunlight, accelerating melting.
Average: 5 (1 vote)
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Why do birds dislike the taste of fireflies?
In this lecture, Thomas Eisner, Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology, discusses the medicinal treasury of nature, and how revenue engendered from that treasury can be invested in the protection of biodiversity.
BioNB 221 is a general introduction to the field of animal behavior. Topics include evolution and behavior, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, chemical ecology, communication, orientation and navigation, and hormonal mechanisms of behavior. | <urn:uuid:dc8ec954-f0b3-42bb-a653-a911a48c9d11> | 2 | 2.015625 | 0.999448 | en | 0.817688 | https://www.cornell.edu/video/bionb-221-introduction-to-behavior |
A is for Anarchy
By: Manna
This Is the Fault of: Qieru
Anarchy (ān'ər-kē): absence of any form of political authority.
Government keeps them apart.
He's dissected the situation a million different ways, and he always comes up with this one, simple answer.
It isn't her choice to be a lady of Caelin; it had just happened that way, as he knows all too well. If things had turned out differently, if he hadn't found her in Bulgar…he wonders where she might have ended up. He likes to tell himself that she would be fine, just fine, because the mere thought of her not being fine—even in a nonexistent timeline—makes his chest ache almost as much as it does when he dwells on the fact that she cares about him, and he for her, but neither of them are allowed to say anything.
But he and Sain found her there in Bulgar, they caught up to both Lyndis and Mark. They fought and won against a bunch of two-bit men hoping to earn some money by spilling royal blood, and now, Lyn is Lady Lyndis; she is a noble, a swordfighter, and most importantly, a woman.
He can see her sleeping from where he stands on night watch, ensuring the army's safety. Her back is curved, her legs pulled up, and her features relaxed. It makes him happy to look upon her in such a state, free from the burdens that she has no choice but to bear.
Sain knows how he feels about Lyndis, knows it and both disapproves and encourages him at the same time. His friend means well, but he can't possibly understand. Oftentimes, he asks why Kent hasn't yet approached her, hasn't confessed to loving her for over a year. How can a man possibly be happy merely watching the woman he loves, never saying anything?
No, Sain won't understand, so Kent doesn't try to explain. Words come to the other man so easily, and they flow faster and with more power than a river after a spring rainstorm. But words are just that—words. Words can mean nothing, but they can also mean everything. People are condemned to death by a word, are pardoned by a word.
Words can save and build worlds, but they can also bring them crashing down.
It isn't the right time to say anything.
Sain always sighs and says that it will never be the right time if he keeps waiting.
But he has to wait. As long as their benevolent Lady Lyndis is just that—a lady—he will have to wait to say anything to her. It isn't his place, his right.
At one time, he would have quietly backed down, blindly following orders and not his heart. But things are different. He is different. Every time she smiles at him, it's that much harder for him to keep from speaking those all-powerful words that he knows he needs to say.
Before his brown eyes had chanced to meet her green, he had been the perfect knight—dutiful, loyal, and oh-so blind. But now he can see, and he doesn't dare close his eyes for fear that when he opens them again, she will be gone.
He enjoys being a knight, serving a royal house, barking orders and also following them, but at the same time, he curses his station, his canton, his government, because they keep him away from the woman he loves.
There is a wall between them, constructed by Caelin. It tells him that what he feels is wrong, that his fate is that of a knight, always a knight, living and dying in the name of Lord Hausen and Lady Lyndis. He'll gladly serve, but Hausen will die, and Lyn will return to the plains, eventually; then where will he be? What will he do?
Serve, that damnable wall tells him. Serve. Serve. Serve.
Command Caelin's troops, give orders to lower-ranked men, and follow those from higher-ranked officers. Serve.
Patrol the hallways and sit at a desk, filling out paperwork. Serve.
Serve until you're old and grey. Serve until your life drains from your body. It's the duty of a knight, isn't it? To live and die by the sword and in the name of Caelin! To serve!
Serve until your damn heart gives out.
He's half-tempted to, but, no! He doesn't want to, not anymore. Not if he isn't serving Lyndis. He'll die for her sake, and gladly. He'll defend her name, her life, her honor… until his very last breath.
She's still sleeping, and the steady rise and fall of her chest brings him some semblance of peace. She's alive, well, unharmed, happy, and still so very beautiful. He turns away from her, eyes skimming over the horizon to check for signs of anything unusual. He sees nothing, but he doesn't turn back to her.
The wall won't let him.
He sighs, not angrily, but with determination.
Some day soon, he swears, he will break that wall down. He'll destroy it, and then—only then—will it be the right time for him to kneel before her and say everything he's never had the right to say.
In that moment, when the structure that keeps them apart crumbles, his loyalty, his fealty…will belong to more than Caelin, more than Lord Hausen and Lady Lyndis. It will belong to, above all else, Lyn.
Author Notes:
This is the Alphabet Meme. These prompts were all given to me by people over on LiveJournal. So forgive the lameness where you find it (some of these were hard to write!), and enjoy what you can! These will vary in length from just over 100 words to over 1,000. I should update this once a day for 26 days since I have all 26 prompts written. (I also have a second set of 26 'fics to write.) Thank you for reading; feedback is very much appreciated! | <urn:uuid:8a43450f-1fa5-4c6f-b317-b5a6c381d59f> | 2 | 1.632813 | 0.542119 | en | 0.98486 | https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5032662/1/Arpeggio |
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1950 Horatio Alger Award Winner
Alexander M. Lewyt*
Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner
Alexander Lewyt was born in 1908 in the Washington Heights section of New York City's Manhattan. He was the son of an Austrian immigrant who ran a shop that made metal gadgets, such as coat hangers. While in high school, Lewyt worked in his father's shop. Upon his father's death, Lewyt took over the shop and named it the Lewyt Corporation. During World War II, the company did well manufacturing radar antennas and popcorn poppers. He is best known for the Lewyt vacuum cleaner, which he invented after going door to door asking housewives what they were looking for in a vacuum. His machine was compact and used no dust bag. It was popular because it operated without distorting television or radio reception. In the late 1950s, Lewyt was instrumental in establishing the North Shore Animal League, which handles thousands of animal adoptions. A director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lewyt's art collection included works by Cezanne, Degas, Gauguin, and Renoir.
* Deceased | <urn:uuid:cc7b8b52-398b-4830-8ca6-bca3f0d2513c> | 2 | 2 | 0.362095 | en | 0.974745 | https://www.horatioalger.org/members_info.cfm?memberid=LEW50 |
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Palestinian militants of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, parade in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on May 29, 2014. (SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)
After Hamas-Fatah Deal, American Taxpayers Now Paying the Salaries of Palestinian Terrorists
Lee Smith
Some major turning points in the lives of nations announce their importance in plain sight, in front of TV cameras, while the whole world is watching: Sept. 11, the repressive violence of the Chinese Communist Party in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt all come to mind. Others happen in secret. And still others try to slink away from the lights while clothed in the drab, everyday disguise of bureaucratic double-speak, as happened at a State Department press conference in Washington on Monday, at which a reporter wondered how America, once the leader of a global war on terrorism, would respond to the announcement of a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas, which the State Department has clearly and repeatedly designated as a global terrorist organization.
“Based on what we know now,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told the press, “we intend to work with this government,” adding that “if needed” the United States might “recalibrate our approach.” Hidden beneath this deliberately boring verbiage was a shocking change in American foreign policy: Instead of making war on terrorists, America would henceforth be directly funding one of the largest and most deadly terrorist armies in the world.
Israel denounced the United States for accepting Abbas’ government, but many of the reporters in the room found nothing all that shocking in Psaki’s announcement. That’s not entirely their fault. Generations of American diplomats working on the Arab-Israeli conflict have been motivated by the conviction that there’s nothing to be lost—and plenty to be gained—by trying to make peace between the two sides. Sure, the Israelis and Palestinians might seem far apart, the leadership of one side or another might not have the ability to sign a deal, but what harm could there be in getting the two sides in the same room to feel each other out, to explore possibilities and find common ground? Certainly that was the idea that inspired Secretary of State John Kerry, compelling him to make dozens of trips to Jerusalem and Ramallah over the past two years.
Yet Psaki’s announcement is, in fact, shocking. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ move on Monday to bring Hamas into a unity government with his own Fatah party means that U.S. taxpayers will be paying the salaries of men and women who belong to an organization sworn to the destruction of an American ally—and who repeatedly endorse and employ the murder of innocent civilians through the grim arsenal of terror as a means of achieving their goals. Trading five Taliban honchos from Guantanamo for one lost American soldier in Afghanistan may be denounced by some Americans as a bad deal and applauded by others as proof of how highly we value the lives of our servicemen. But it is hard to imagine any significant number of Americans who would endorse blowing up women and children on buses, or sending shrapnel-laden suicide bombers into pizza parlors and discos, or sending volleys of rockets against kindergartens—let alone would want their tax money to wind up in the pockets of people who dream up and carry out such atrocities.
How did this happen? After all, it was Washington that invented the Palestinian Authority, in the heady moment after the Soviet collapse had brought the Cold War—and even history itself, some said—to an end, leaving the United States as the world’s sole remaining superpower. The purpose of the PA was to placate America’s Arab partners, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while ensuring that the remaining regional troublemakers—from Saddam Hussein to the Islamic Republic of Iran—would be unable to use the Palestinian cause to their advantage. Moreover, it was believed that the easiest way to neutralize Yasser Arafat and the PLO was to suffocate him in a warm American embrace that would reward the scruffy old terrorist for good behavior, and hold out the promise of a late-life transformation into the Palestinian Nelson Mandela. It came as a shock to American policymakers that Arafat didn’t want to be Mandela; he wanted to be Saladdin, and if he couldn’t free Jerusalem with fire and blood he would rather die trying than go down in history as the traitor who relinquished the dream of a Palestinian homeland, the way that the Palestinians—not the Americans—imagined it.
Arafat was a hard case. But now the United States has been outfoxed by Mahmoud Abbas, a dull 79-year-old bureaucrat who is also regularly proclaimed to be “a man of peace” but who displays little interest in any aspect of governance besides collecting tribute from Western powers and daring them to call his bluff. In Abbas’ view, the Americans and the Israelis are not in control; he is. Without him, the White House loses control of the peace process, which is a key part of the American diplomatic patrimony in the region—an asset that the Obama Administration can ill afford to lose, especially now.
Abbas is therefore gambling that the Obama Administration will continue to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to whatever he proclaims to be the new Palestinian government. The White House is desperate, and so it doesn’t matter that including Hamas in a government is against the letter of U.S. law—indeed, a number of U.S. laws. The 2006 Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, for instance, prohibits any U.S. funds from going to Hamas, Hamas-controlled entities, or a power-sharing PA government that includes Hamas as a member, or results from an agreement with Hamas. Most recently, the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act prohibits “assistance to Hamas or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence.”
That last clause regarding “undue influence,” say some analysts, represents a loophole the administration may try to crawl through. “The White House may argue that since Abbas is still president of the PA, and since there aren’t really that many new Hamas members in the cabinet, Hamas does not have ‘undue influence,’ ” says a senior official at a Washington-based pro-Israel organization. “But if that’s true, then why won’t the new PA cabinet disarm Hamas?”
That’s not going to happen, of course. One purpose of the deal is for Fatah to protect Hamas’ arsenal, which, so long as it’s pointed at Israel, will enhance the prestige of a PA president whose term in office was over five years ago, and who has failed at both the small-bore work of ending corruption, fixing roads, and providing real jobs for his people, as well as big-picture tasks like winning his people a state. Protecting the weapons of his rival, in other words, is all that Abbas has left to offer the Palestinians and that suits Hamas fine.
“If anyone expects Hamas to hand over its missile network to the PA, he’s making a big mistake,” said one Hamas official. The reality is that Fatah has embraced Hamas.
To be sure, neither side has forgotten about the Palestinian civil war of 2006-2007, which culminated with Hamas fighters throwing Fatah members off of roofs in Gaza. Presumably there are Fatah loyalists unhappy with the deal, most notably Abbas’ key rival Mohamed Dahlan, who led the Fatah side in the conflict with Hamas almost exactly seven years ago. As it happens, hatred for Dahlan and his faction in Fatah is one more thing that Abbas and Hamas have in common. Dahlan was poised to make a comeback earlier this spring with backing from then Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the man assured to be next president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. But by striking a deal with Hamas, Abbas has outflanked Dahlan, who had made an earlier play for reconciliation with Hamas and is now out in the cold.
Hamas has plenty to gain from the deal, too. Without the Iranian assistance that Hamas once enjoyed, what Gaza’s Islamic resistance needs most is some relief on the Egyptian side of the border. The Egyptians have been closing tunnels and effectively starving Gaza’s economy, and Hamas believes that the deal with Abbas will bring better days. Even if Hamas backed Sisi’s predecessor as president, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, Cairo’s new ruler can afford to be magnanimous with Hamas, especially if it means he will inherit the Palestinian file in toto. Indeed, some Palestinians hope that Sisi will choose to confront Israel. In short, Palestinian reconciliation is good for everyone—except the United States and Israel.
The results for Israel are likely to be particularly unpleasant. Both Bush and Obama White Houses boasted that the security cooperation between Israel and the PA was excellent. But that seems over now since there is reportedly a clause in the Palestinian unity agreement that “criminalizes” security coordination with Israel. Perhaps, as many have feared over the last decade, those U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces will now turn their American weapons on an American ally, as they did during the second intifada. Indeed, just hours after the formal announcement of the unity government, and the State Department’s press conference, a Palestinian gunman was killed after opening fire on Israeli troops in the West Bank.
More such attacks will certainly follow, and some of them will be more successful—whether perpetrated directly by Hamas, or by Fatah, or some new terror entity in which both parties cooperate together.
Meanwhile, as crazy as it sounds, U.S. diplomats will continue searching for loopholes that allow us to fund officially designated terrorist organizations with taxpayer dollars. As Jonathan Schanzer, director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explains “there are waivers embedded in the legislation, with which the president can override stipulations for reasons of national security or national interest. The assumption,” says Schanzer, “is that Obama is going to override everything.”
The administration will also be able to cite a regional precedent for its likely next step of embracing the new Palestinian “unity government” as a “partner for peace” while claiming that America is not funding terrorism. Hamas officials boast that they are now employing the “Hezbollah model”—i.e., becoming a political party that avoids responsibility for governance, while also maintaining an independent military organization that engages in terrorism. In other words, the PA will serve as legitimate cover while the Islamic resistance continues to wage its war of liberation against Israel. After all, Washington continues to fund the Lebanese Armed Forces, even as it is common knowledge that the LAF is under Hezbollah control. So, why wouldn’t the White House fund the PA?
It is depressingly easy to imagine the State Department spokesperson making the same argument about “the Lebanese model” at her next press conference. But the difference is this: Lebanon is a sovereign state that would exist regardless of American support. The Palestinian Authority is an entity created by the United States, and it cannot exist without massive U.S. financial, political, military, and diplomatic support. Rather than finding ways around American law, the Obama Administration should be looking for ways to snap Abbas’ spine. If Kerry’s assiduous and careless peace processing was evidence of the administration’s incompetence, the decision to work with Hamas is evidence of the White House’s cravenness. The bill for this moral rot will be paid by Israelis—and by American taxpayers who will now be directly covering the salaries of thousands of card-carrying members of a terrorist organization. It’s not just Obama who will be crossing a red line by funding Hamas—he’s dragging the rest of us along with him into a political and moral swamp, in which America will combat terrorism with one hand, while paying for terror with the other.
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Title:Different Experiences of Anglo vs. Latina/o Students in Latina/o Studies
Author(s):Hurtado, Denise
Subject(s):Latina/o Studies
Latino students
Anglo students
white students
Latino Latina Studies
Abstract:My research aimed to answer one main question: Is the experience of Latina/o classes different for Anglo students as opposed to Latina/o students? Furthermore, it seeked to answer the following questions: Do the instructors of Latina/o classes perceive there is a difference between Anglo students and Latina/o students’ experience? Why do students from different backgrounds take this course? How much does a Latina/o class contribute to the students’ knowledge of Latina/o culture? As a Latina/o Studies major I have often wondered why there were Anglo students in LLS courses. I would ask myself if they were there because of a genuine interest towards Latinos or because they had to be there due to a requirement they had to fulfill. I decided to give many the benefit of the doubt and believe that they wanted to learn more about my culture. However, as the years passed and the classes got smaller, I realized that many were there because it fulfilled a general education requirement or a requirement for their major. To be fair, not all white students were ‘forced’ to be there. Many do register for the classes due to a genuine interest in wanting to learn about Latinos. I found that the experience for Anglo and Latino students in Latina/o classes are very different. Most of my Latina interviewees expressed genuine interest in learning about their culture while the Anglo students did not express much interest in the courses. The professor of the class did perceive a difference between Anglo and Latino students’ experiences. She believes that from her experience, Anglo students tend to take the class because it is a required course while Latino students take the course due to interest in learning about their culture. Furthermore, the professor has noticed that Anglo students tend to be more anxious and hesitant when approaching the material. My interviews also revealed this notion but at the same time my observations in the class proved that many Anglo students were not that hesitant or anxious about the material. Furthermore, my observations and interviews revealed some hidden prejudices among the Anglo students. However, I do not blame the students but rather their background. Both Anglo students are from a predominantly white background and had never had much interaction with any minorities or any race other than their own. The promising note from this study is that although I may have found some hidden prejudices, the Anglo students I interviewed seemed to have learned at least one thing about Latina/o culture they did not know before. Thus, my hoping that students leave with a better knowledge of Latina/o culture was fulfilled.
Issue Date:2008-12
Series/Report:EPS 500, Race and Ethnography: A Study of the University, Prof. Priscilla Fortier: This seminar is not only a course, but part of a cross-campus initiative titled Ethnography of the University Initiative. As a member of this course students joined a campus-wide learning community in which the University of Illinois was explored ethnographically. Students began the course by thinking about what the university is, as well as about race and ethnicity as phenomena within the university’s narratives. Students learned about universities and higher education in general and the University of Illinois in particular. A third area of concentration was “ethnography,” and students learned and practiced the basic skills of observation, interviewing, and writing as an ethnographer. Students completed several short assignments that were intended to help them develop these skills, as well as one larger ethnographic project on the University. The latter allowed them to explore an aspect of the university that has to do with an issue of race or ethnicity. In addition to the readings that students did as a class, they were expected to explore other research related to their project. The course syllabus is available at:
Date Available in IDEALS:2009-07-27
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The Jury's Rise as Lie Detector
Publication Date:
January 01, 1997
Journal Article
Bibliography: George Fisher, The Jury's Rise as Lie Detector, 107 Yale Law Journal 575-713 (1997).
Full Text of Publication
The jury's rise as lie detector. by George Fisher CONTENTS I. THE OR-DEAL AND THE JURY TRIAL: THEORETICAL PRELUDE A. Seeking Divine Sanction for Criminal Verdicts B. The Special Case of Capital Convictions C. The Reality Beneath the Illusion II. THE RISE OF DEFENSE WITNESSES A. Curtains Open: The Seventeenth Century B. The Act To Abolish Hostilities with Scotland C. The Treason Trials and the Treason Act of 1696 III. COPING WITH CREDIBILITY CONFLICTS A. Witness Competency Rules and the Rule of Bethel's Case B. Empirical Interlude: Criminal Trials in an Eighteenth-Century Court C. Alibis and the Problem of Unavoidable Conflicts IV. THE RISE OF DEFENDANT TESTIMONY A. The Downfall of Witness Competency Rules in Civil Cases B. The Downfall of the Prohibition Against Defendant Testimony in Criminal Cases We say that lie detecting is what our juries do best. In the liturgy of the trial, we name the jurors our sole judges of credibility and call on them to declare each witness truthteller or liar.(1) All hierarchies of rank, learning, and technical prowess give way in the face of this asserted power of common jurors to spot a lie: In most jurisdictions today, no trial judge may advise the jury that a witness has lied.(2) No psychiatric expert may comment on a witness's credibility(3) Rarely may a polygraph technician lecture to jurors about a witness's pulse and pressure, tension or temperature.(4) The job of lie detecting belongs to the jurors alone. Nor may we later, once the jurors have done their job of sifting truth from falsehood, review how they did it. In a trial process in which we hide so much of the law and evidence from the jurors, this they hide entirely from us. We do not leave our jurors wholly unequipped for this task of lie detecting. They come to court, as we so often tell them, with their common sense and may reject any evidence that defies it. Inside court, we give them three more lie-detecting tools: the oath, demeanor evidence, and cross-examination. Every witness must promise to tell the truth, face the jurors for their scrutiny, and endure the challenge of opposing counsel. If these tools are lacking, we do not put the jury to the task of detecting lies. Hence we usually do not ask jurors to judge the truthfulness of an out-of-court witness. But this general bar against hearsay is our only broad exception to the otherwise unqualified rule that leaves questions of credibility to the jury. Of course, many cases impose no particular burden on the jury's powers to ferret out lies. In many cases there is no conflict in testimony. In many others there is a conflict, but the jury is able to attribute it to mistake or misperception or memory loss. In many cases, however, two witnesses tell two stories that cannot innocently be reconciled. Here the jurors must call someone a liar--indeed they must call someone a perjurer. Still, at least in civil cases, in which the jurors must merely say which witness was more truthful, their task remains relatively simple. Criminal cases mount a starker challenge. If the defendant has taken the stand to refute the testimony of a prosecution witness, then the jury may not convict unless it is prepared to credit the accuser's testimony over the defendant's and to do so beyond a reasonable doubt. To be sure, it is not wildly uncommon for defendants to proclaim their innocence in the face of a freight train of evidence--and when they do, jurors may readily brand them perjurers as well as thieves. But there are many criminal cases in which we give the jurors no substantial evidence other than the oath of the accuser and the oath of the accused. In such cases, we put jurors to the intractable task of searching the faces and gestures of strangers for the signs of deceit. Our unguarded confidence that jurors are up to this task is the more remarkable for being so probably wrong. There is little evidence that regular people do much better than chance at separating truth from lies. We tend to rely on worthless clues and to misread others.(5) But although the jury does not guarantee accurate lie detecting, it does detect lies in a way that appears accurate, or at least in a way that hides the source of any inaccuracy from the public's gaze. By permitting the jury to resolve credibility conflicts in the black box of the jury room, the criminal justice system can present to the public an "answer"--a single verdict of guilty or not guilty--that resolves all questions of credibility in a way that is largely immune from challenge or review. By making the jury its lie detector, the system protects its own legitimacy. This error-erasing function of jury lie detecting disables other mechanisms that are supposed to guard against wrongful verdicts. It relieves both judge and prosecutor of their usual charge to evaluate the evidence before passing the case to the jury. At the motion for directed verdict, which is usually a chance for the trial judge to rid the system of a flimsy prosecution, the judge simply assumes the truthfulness of the government's witnesses and leaves the problem of lie detecting altogether to the jury.(6) Appellate courts refuse to revisit the jury's judgments of credibility. And prosecutors, who normally must assure themselves that they have probable cause to bring charges, are able to avoid any meaningful duty to screen out weak cases when guilt turns on a question of credibility. The sworn testimony of a named witness who is not obviously delusional is all the prosecutor needs to satisfy probable cause.(7) In the pages ahead I want to search out the source of this quiet confidence that the jury can answer all credibility questions. When and why did the system declare that jurors had the wisdom to arbitrate unvarnished credibility conflicts at criminal trials? To the question "when," the surprising answer is very recently. If we walk back a mere 140 years through the nearly 800-year history of the criminal trial jury, we find ourselves at a time when no jury had to choose between the sworn testimony of accuser and accused at a criminal trial. Not until the second half of the nineteenth century could accused criminals anywhere in the common law world testify under oath at their own trials. Defendants could tell their stories, but they could not swear to them, and a jury tom between two conflicting stories could choose simply to credit sworn accusation over unsworn denial. If we walk back another 160 years, we arrive at a time when no jury had to choose between the sworn testimony of prosecution and defense witnesses at a serious criminal trial. Not until the turn of the eighteenth century could accused felons call sworn witnesses. They could call unsworn witnesses, but a jury in doubt could simply prefer the sworn evidence. Walking back 150 more years, to the middle of the sixteenth century and before, we come to a time when only the prosecution could present any sort of witness at a criminal trial. Although defendants could speak, they were not sworn, and they could call no witness to speak for them. The juries that presided over the rump trials of these early years faced nothing like our modern conflicts of oaths. This thumbnail history suggests that the "why" question is somewhat more complicated than we might have anticipated. Before we can inquire why the system gave the jury the unbounded discretion to resolve credibility conflicts between sworn witnesses, we must first examine why the system in its early days sought to avoid such credibility conflicts altogether. The answer to both questions, I will argue, turns on the system's need for legitimacy--for public confidence in the accuracy of its outcomes.(8) In the early years of the criminal trial jury, the system sought to stake its claim to legitimacy primarily in the oath and in the perceived divine power of the oath to compel truthful testimony. The oath's central role demanded that the system avoid sworn credibility conflicts, because any such conflict would reveal in a visible and obvious way the oath's inadequacy to assure truthful testimony. Hence when the system first permitted conflicts in testimony to emerge, it did not permit sworn conflicts. This and other contrivances to avoid conflicts in oaths permitted the system to embrace an evidentiary presumption that all sworn evidence was truthful--a presumption that sounds distinctly alien to us, yet persisted in stronger or weaker form throughout much of the jury's history. In time, however, for masons I will discuss later, the system gradually had to release its grip on the oath as a source of legitimacy. As it did, it turned to the jury as an alternative. During the last several centuries of the jury's history, the system has committed ever more--and more intractable--credibility conflicts to the jury's black box. And the jury, in loyal support of the system's legitimacy, has issued crisp and impregnable verdicts. This Article tells the long story of the jury's slow coming of age as the system's lie detector at criminal trials. It chronicles the deaths of the old evidence rules that effectively withheld from the jury the task of settling credibility conflicts between sworn witnesses. Like the characters of many good stories, these rules led uneventful lives but suffered noteworthy deaths, touched by the intrigue of treachery and factional strife. I will emphasize two features of the evolutionary process. First, it was astoundingly slow. Despite the jury's attractiveness as a means of resolving credibility conflicts, the system displayed a remarkable resistance to change, an inertia of planetary proportions disturbed only by explosive events. Second, the most important of these explosions were external to the system. As a result, the evolutionary process was not principled, driven by a conviction that the jury can and should resolve credibility conflicts. Instead, the rule changes that most greatly expanded the potential for sworn credibility conflicts at criminal trials were products of political firestorms. In this sense, faith in the jury's powers of lie detection only followed the force of events.(9) Before I begin, it would be wise to say more clearly what I mean by the task of lie detecting. Although I hope to prove that the jury's formal and complete role as the system's lie detector is relatively new, I do not aim to persuade the reader that the thought processes of modern jurors are new. For as long as witnesses have made claims to juries about past events, jurors have had the power--and perhaps the inclination--to disbelieve those witnesses and to disregard what they said. In fact, the lie-detecting role of juries in past generations may have been much like the lawmaking role of juries today. Today we officially declare that juries play no role in making law. Yet not only do juries manifestly make law--witness the repeated refusals of Michigan juries to convict Jack Kevorkian of assisting suicide(10)--but many observers regard their power to do so as a fundamental part of our trial system.(11) In a similar way, I will argue that the ideology of the jury trial system at one time required the system to claim that the jury did not act as lie detector, even when the jury's power to make credibility determinations was fundamental to the system's just operation. Nor do I hope to prove that the task of lie detecting, as a larger, epistemological matter, has changed over time. At least one historian has sought to explain some of the developments I describe here as a function of the evolving way in which people in general--not merely jurors--have resolved conflicts among sources of information.(12) Although such an evolving epistemology may have played a role in the historical transformation of the jury's lie-detecting function, there are many reasons, which I will review in time, to think it did not. In any event, one can explain the jury's changing role without assuming complex changes in the way most of us think. Instead, I will argue that the jury's role as lie detector has grown in this somewhat formalized sense: The system has become more and more willing over time to declare that the jury--and not the oath--has the job of screening untrustworthy evidence from the decisionmaking process. We see the system's changing declaration of the jury's role in the gradual erosion of those evidence rules that had spared juries the task of deciding which of two competing witnesses lied under oath. As the system gave the jury ever greater authority to resolve conflicts between sworn witnesses, it thereby declared the jury to be the system's lie detector. It did so, I will argue, because it perceived the jury to be an ever more reliable guarantor of the legitimacy of the system's verdicts--and because it perceived the oath to be an ever less reliable guarantor. Whether juries in practice actually did anything different is largely beside the point, except to the extent that what jurors did might have reflected what the system declared they should do. In telling the story of the jury's rise as lie detector, I focus on criminal trials for both a principled and an accidental reason. The principled reason is that the task of lie detecting, at least in the modern setting, poses a far greater challenge in criminal than in civil cases. As I noted earlier, although a civil jury may resolve a credibility conflict by a mere preponderance of the evidence, a criminal jury (at least one that chooses to believe the government's witnesses over the defendant's) must settle the dispute beyond a reasonable doubt.(13) The accidental reason is that contemporary chroniclers, like legal historians, tended to find criminal cases more interesting--so, for better or worse, we simply know more about them. That is not to say that what we do know about the evolution of civil trials cannot shed light on this study of the criminal jury trial, and in the historical journey that lies ahead, I will from time to time incorporate insights from the civil side. That journey begins in England in the second decade of the thirteenth century. We start in England because the criminal trial jury emerged there. Later, as the jury moved with the English to America, I will broaden our focus to gather in events from both sides of the Atlantic. We start in the early thirteenth century because the sudden end of trial by ordeal in 1215 gave rise to the first jury trials. When the Church abruptly forbade priests to take part in the ordeal, European justice systems lost a trial mechanism that had served to reveal God's judgment on the guilt of the accused. In Part I, I will explore how the English sought to replace the divine legitimacy of the lost ordeal. I will argue that by staking its verdicts on the oaths of witnesses, the justice system found it could claim that the threat of divine vengeance assured truthful outcomes. Rules that permitted only the prosecution to call witnesses helped, in turn, to protect the legitimacy of the oath by guarding against the embarrassment of conflicting oaths. As this framework slowly broke down, the system began to tolerate certain kinds of credibility conflicts and to complicate the jury's lie-detecting task. Part H traces the first stages of this dissolution. The appearance of unsworn defense witnesses sometime in the sixteenth century gradually accustomed juries to conflicting stories, if not conflicting oaths. Then, at the very end of the seventeenth century, came a great lurch forward, the first sudden transformation of the jury's lie-detecting role. By two acts of 1696 and 1702, Parliament gave accused traitors and felons the right to call sworn witnesses. Suddenly, for the first time in the criminal jury trial's 500-year history, juries in serious criminal cases routinely risked having to resolve sworn credibility conflicts. Telling the story of this minor legal revolution will draw us into the vortex of the most violent political and legal storm of the age, which blew about the Stuart treason trials of the 1670s and 1680s and ultimately impelled Parliament to act. Even after criminal defendants began to call sworn witnesses, the system struggled to maintain the old order and to protect juries as far as possible from having to choose between competing oaths. Part III will examine how it did so. For at least a century and a half following the acts of 1696 and 1702, several wide-ranging rules of evidence helped to prevent sworn credibility conflicts at trial and to protect the old presumption that all sworn evidence was true. Among these was a broad series of witness competency rules that barred whole categories of witnesses--those thought most likely to lie--from testifying. An evidence rule of narrower application advised juries to reconcile conflicting testimony in a way that would avoid branding any witness a perjurer. Little known today, this rule of Bethel's Case(14) amounted in practice to an admonition that juries should call one witness mistaken before calling either witness a liar. These rules worked side by side with others to protect juries from the task of separating truthteller from liar. Taken together, they betrayed the system's continuing anxiety over the jury's emerging role as lie detector. Part IV recounts the nineteenth-century demise of many of these rules and the resulting rise of the jury as the full-fledged arbiter of credibility disputes. The last and by far most important step in this progress was the end of the rule that barred criminal defendants from testifying under oath. Defendants are, after all, the most prolific witnesses on their own behalf,(15) and they are for obvious reasons the most likely to lie. Once they won the right to testify under oath, the average jury in the average criminal case could expect to confront a credibility conflict that would require it to declare one of two sworn witnesses a liar. In 1864, the unlikely state of Maine became the world's first common law jurisdiction to take this transformative step, and a host of mainly Northern states followed. The search for the triggering force behind this North-first burst of modernizing activity will lead us into a far greater historical firestorm--the clash between North and South over the legal status of African Americans. The North's decision to grant criminal defendants the right to speak under oath proves to have been, in part at least, one tactic in a very separate battle about the right of freed slaves to testify in Southern courts. Without such massive external jolts as the Stuart treason trials and the American Civil War, the force of legal inertia might have delayed for decades the jury's progress toward its distinctly modern role as lie detector. Yet there is no question about the direction in which legal evolution was carrying the jury: By some sort of a historical one-way ratchet, the lie-detecting power of the jury has grown consistently and has never, for any sustained period, diminished. In Part V, I will try to explain the forces that dictated the forward direction of the jury's evolution as lie detector. I will suggest that the answer has much to do with the problem of legitimacy and the reduce hard questions to clear answers that the public will accept. For this task, the jury's black box has an undeniable allure. Now, however, we must begin at the beginning. Part I therefore returns to the jury's earliest years, where we may hope to find the roots of the criminal jury trial's later devotion to the sanctity of a witness's oath. I. THE ORDEAL AND THE JURY TRIAL: THEORETICAL PRELUDE Although the jury's origins lie hidden in Dark Ages rituals, we can trace the origins of the sort of jury that concerns us here--the criminal trial jury--with something like pinpoint accuracy: The first true criminal jury trial seems to have taken place at Westminster in 1220.(16) Juries had long acted to resolve various civil disputes, especially claims about land, and they had for decades served as accusing bodies in criminal cases in the manner of modem grand juries. But not before 1220 did a jury sit in judgment of a criminal accused with the discretion either to acquit or to condemn. The occasion of this sudden birth of trial by jury was the sudden death of trial by ordeal.(17) Before 1215, criminal trials had proceeded by ordeal or by battle. In the ordeal of cold water, the accused was tossed in a pool with a rope tied around his hips. If he sank, he was hauled out an innocent person, for the purity of the water had accepted him;(18) but if the water repelled him and he floated, he was condemned. In the ordeal of hot iron, the accused walked barehanded with a hot iron bar. Three days later, when her bandages were removed, her healing hands revealed her fate: if the wounds were healing cleanly, she was absolved; if corruptly, condemned.(19) In all events, the judgment was God's. But in 1215 the Church forbade priests to officiate at ordeals and suddenly stripped these rituals of their divine imprimatur.(20) English and other European justice systems soon abandoned the ordeal in criminal cases.(21) Though the Church took no action against trial by battle, that form of trial lacked the popular support needed to fill the role of the lost ordeals; too often, combat between accuser and accused ended badly for a worthy but weak litigant.(22) Moreover, it was not always obvious who should do battle for the prosecution.(23) Criminal justice systems throughout Europe, therefore, suddenly sought a new form of trial.(24) In the familiar history of these events, the English turned to trial by jury, elevating an institution that once had served in lesser roles to be final arbiter of guilt or innocence. At the same time, the countries of the European Continent adopted the "rational" Roman-canon forms of proof, which exalted the probative power of sworn eyewitness testimony and of the accused's confession, often coerced through torture.(25) Those commentators and historians who feel the English took the wrong road at this juncture sometimes argue that with trial by jury the English simply substituted one ordeal for another. They say that in trial by jury, as in the old ordeals, inscrutable decisionmaking produced irrational results.(26) I agree that the criminal trial jury took on certain characteristics of the ordeals, but not those (or at least not exclusively those) complained of by the jury's critics. And I think there is more to be learned by looking at the useful attributes that these systems shared than by dwelling on the historical irony that one flawed system of adjudication succeeded another. By identifying the common features that enabled the ordeal and trial by jury to command people's respect, we may discover the essential attributes of a successful system of proof in the premodern world. In fact it may be impossible to understand even the later history of the criminal trial jury without a theory about why the ordeal worked so well and about what its demise left lacking. This theory focuses on three common features of the ordeal and jury trial. The first shared trait--and the most fundamental--is the inclination to wrap the system's judgments in the word of God. The second trait, an elaboration on the first, is the tendency to rely most heavily on the divine sanction when the system's judgment would take the defendant's life or limb. The third is the need, in a world in which God rarely speaks clearly through either blistered hands or witnesses' words, to ensure discreet human control under the cover of divine judgment. A. Seeking Divine Sanction for Criminal Verdicts That the ordeal drew its legitimacy from the apparent intervention of God is a historical cliche,(27) but probably true. Hence when the Church decertified the ordeal, it wrecked it, for the system no longer could claim that God--and not some mere human authority--had decreed the accused's guilt and authorized punishment. With the ordeal gone, the system must have sought out a substitute that would reassure the public of God's continuing role in meting out human justice. The old system of trial by ordeal bespoke a social humility, an unwillingness to take life or limb without divine sanction. The authorities could not have thought that the public would grow quickly vain about the adequacy of human judgment and transfer its faith from God's word to the word of mortals.(28) The clearest evidence of the system's sense of illegitimacy in the early years after the ordeal's death was its failure to force trial by jury upon those accused of crime. One had to consent to jury trial.(29) The prisone forte et dure--literally "harsh and long imprisonment"--was the system's way of compelling "consent." This institution was established by statute in 1275,(30) but may have existed since the jury trial's very earliest days.(31) An early observer... | <urn:uuid:7d1b34b6-88e4-45ea-8b6f-082c1157c63c> | 2 | 2.3125 | 0.105054 | en | 0.956233 | https://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/the-jurys-rise-as-lie-detector |
Cancer comes in different shapes and sizes. Depending on the type of cancer, they behave differently and respond differently treatments. How cancer affects the body varies significantly from person to person.
Cancer is a term used to describe a group of illnesses with common characteristics. These characteristics include an overgrowth of cells that form a tumour. Cancers lack normal cell growth, which can result in serious health problems. | <urn:uuid:83791f51-e25b-4a4c-8b01-78cbcc701d09> | 3 | 3.390625 | 0.991544 | en | 0.942939 | https://www.materprivate.ie/cancer-centre/patient-advice/cancer-types/ |
Inorganics Latest open access articles published in Inorganics at <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 3, Pages 40-54: Disulfide Competition for Phosphine Gold(I) Thiolates: Phosphine Oxide Formation vs. Thiolate Disulfide Exchange]]> Phosphine gold(I) thiolate complexes react with aromatic disulfides via two pathways: either thiolate–disulfide exchange or a pathway that leads to formation of phosphine oxide. We have been investigating the mechanism of gold(I) thiolate–disulfide exchange. Since the formation of phosphine oxide is a competing reaction, it is important for our kinetic analysis to understand the conditions under which phosphine oxide forms. 1H and 31P{1H} NMR, and GC-MS techniques were employed to study the mechanism of formation of phosphine oxide in reactions of R3PAu(SRʹ) (R = Ph, Et; SRʹ = SC6H4CH3, SC6H4Cl, SC6H4NO2, or tetraacetylthioglucose (TATG)) and R*SSR* (SR* = SC6H4CH3, SC6H4Cl, SC6H4NO2, or 2-nitrobenzoic acid). The phosphine oxide pathway is most significant for disulfides with strongly electron withdrawing groups and in high dielectric solvents, such as DMSO. Data suggest that phosphine does not dissociate from gold(I) prior to reaction with disulfide. 2D (1H-1H) NMR ROESY experiments are consistent with an intermediate in which the disulfide and phosphine gold(I) thiolate are in close proximity. Water is necessary but not sufficient for formation of phosphine oxide since no phosphine oxide forms in acetonitrile, a solvent, which frequently contains water. Inorganics 2015-02-27 3 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics3010040 40 54 2304-6740 2015-02-27 doi: 10.3390/inorganics3010040 Gamage Garusinghe S. Bessey Mostapha Aghamoosa Meaghan McKinnon Alice Bruce Mitchell Bruce <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 3, Pages 27-39: [AuHg(o-C6H4PPh2)2I]: A Dinuclear Heterometallic Blue Emitter]]> The heteronuclear AuI/HgII complex [AuHg(o-C6H4PPh2)2I] (1) was prepared by reacting of [Hg(2-C6H4PPh2)2] with [Au(tht)2]ClO4 (1:1) and NaI in excess. The heterometallic compound 1 has been structurally characterized and shows an unusual blue luminescent emission in the solid state. Theoretical calculations suggest that that the origin of the emission arises from the iodide ligand arriving at metal-based orbitals in a Ligand to Metal-Metal Charge Transfer transition. Inorganics 2015-02-11 3 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics3010027 27 39 2304-6740 2015-02-11 doi: 10.3390/inorganics3010027 José López-de-Luzuriaga Miguel Monge M. Olmos David Pascual <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 3, Pages 21-26: A New Nanometer-Sized Ga(III)-Oxyhydroxide Cation]]> A new 30-center Ga(III)-oxy-hydroxide cation cluster was synthesized by hydrolysis of an aqueous GaCl3 solution near pH = 2.5 and crystallized using 2,6-napthalene disulfonate (NDS). The cluster has 30 metal centers and a nominal stoichiometry: [Ga30(μ4-O)12(μ3-O)4(μ3-OH)4(μ2-OH)42(H2O)16](2,6-NDS)6, where 2,6-NDS = 2,6-napthalene disulfonate This cluster augments the very small library of Group 13 clusters that have been isolated from aqueous solution and closely resembles one other Ga(III) cluster with 32 metal centers that had been isolated using curcurbit ligands. These clusters have uncommon linked Ga(O)4 centers and sets of both protonated and unprotonated μ3-oxo. Inorganics 2015-02-03 3 1 Communication 10.3390/inorganics3010021 21 26 2304-6740 2015-02-03 doi: 10.3390/inorganics3010021 William Casey Marilyn Olmstead Caitlyn Hazlett Chelsey Lamar Tori Forbes <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 3, Pages 19-20: Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Inorganics in 2014]]> The editors of Inorganics would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2014:[...] Inorganics 2015-01-08 3 1 Editorial 10.3390/inorganics3010019 19 20 2304-6740 2015-01-08 doi: 10.3390/inorganics3010019 Inorganics Editorial Office <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 3, Pages 1-18: Supramolecular Gold Metallogelators: The Key Role of Metallophilic Interactions]]> Gold metallogelators is an emerging area of research. The number of results published in the literature is still scarce. The majority of these gels is observed in organic solvents, and the potential applications are still to be explored. In this work, we present an overview about gold metallogelators divided in two different groups depending on the type of solvent used in the gelation process (organogelators and hydrogelators). A careful analysis of the data shows that aurophilic interactions are a common motif directly involved in gelation involving Au(I) complexes. There are also some Au(III) derivatives able to produce gels but in this case the organic ligands determine the aggregation process. A last section is included about the potential applications that have been reported until now with this new and amazing class of supramolecular assemblies. Inorganics 2014-12-31 3 1 Review 10.3390/inorganics3010001 1 18 2304-6740 2014-12-31 doi: 10.3390/inorganics3010001 João Lima Laura Rodríguez <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 674-682: Preparation and Cycling Performance of Iron or Iron Oxide Containing Amorphous Al-Li Alloys as Electrodes]]> Crystalline phase transitions cause volume changes, which entails a fast destroying of the electrode. Non-crystalline states may avoid this circumstance. Herein we present structural and electrochemical investigations of pre-lithiated, amorphous Al39Li43Fe13Si5-powders, to be used as electrode material for Li-ion batteries. Powders of master alloys with the compositions Al39Li43Fe13Si5 and Al39Li43Fe13Si5 + 5 mass-% FeO were prepared via ball milling and achieved amorphous/nanocrystalline states after 56 and 21.6 h, respectively. In contrast to their Li-free amorphous pendant Al78Fe13Si9, both powders showed specific capacities of about 400 and 700 Ah/kgAl, respectively, after the third cycle. Inorganics 2014-12-12 2 4 Communication 10.3390/inorganics2040674 674 682 2304-6740 2014-12-12 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040674 Franziska Thoss Lars Giebeler Karsten Weißer Jörg Feller Jürgen Eckert <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 660-673: Various Oxygen-Centered Phosphanegold(I) Cluster Cations Formed by Polyoxometalate (POM)-Mediated Clusterization: Effects of POMs and Phosphanes]]> Novel phosphanegold(I) cluster cations combined with polyoxometalate (POM) anions, i.e., intercluster compounds, [(Au{P(m-FPh)3})4(μ4-O)]2[{(Au{P(m-FPh)3})2 (μ-OH)}2][α-PMo12O40]2·EtOH (1), [(Au{P(m-FPh)3})4(μ4-O)]2[α-SiMo12O40]·4H2O (2), [(Au{P(m-MePh)3})4(μ4-O)]2[α-SiM12O40] (M = W (3), Mo (4)) and [{(Au {P(p-MePh)3})4(μ4-O)}{(Au{P(p-MePh)3})3(μ3-O)}][α-PW12O40] (5) were synthesized by POM-mediated clusterization, and unequivocally characterized by elemental analysis, TG/DTA, FT-IR, X-ray crystallography, solid-state CPMAS 31P NMR and solution (1H, 31P{1H}) NMR. Formation of the these gold(I) cluster cations was strongly dependent upon the charge density and acidity of the POMs, and the substituents and substituted positions on the aryl group of triarylphosphane ligands. These gold(I) cluster cations contained various bridged-oxygen atoms such as μ4-O, μ3-O and μ-OH groups. Inorganics 2014-12-10 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040660 660 673 2304-6740 2014-12-10 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040660 Takuya Yoshida Yuta Yasuda Eri Nagashima Hidekazu Arai Satoshi Matsunaga Kenji Nomiya <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 652-659: Coordination Nature of 4-Mercaptoaniline to Sn(II) Ion: Formation of a One Dimensional Coordination Polymer and Its Decomposition to a Mono Nuclear Sn(IV) Complex]]> The coordination of the bifunctional ligand 4-mercaptoaniline with aqueo us tin(II) metal ion was studied. A coordination polymer was synthesized when an aqueous solution of SnCl2 was treated with 4-MA. The crystalline material is stable under atmospheric conditions retaining its oxidation state. However, when submerged in a solution saturated with oxygen, the compound oxidizes to a mononuclear tin(IV) complex. Both the compounds were characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. Although the structure of the tin(IV) complex was previously reported, crystal structure of this compound was redetermined. Inorganics 2014-12-08 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040652 652 659 2304-6740 2014-12-08 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040652 Eon Burkett Tasneem Siddiquee <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 649-651: Inorganic Fullerene-Like Nanoparticles and Inorganic Nanotubes]]> Fullerene-like nanoparticles (inorganic fullerenes; IF) and nanotubes of inorganic layered compounds (inorganic nanotubes; INT) combine low dimensionality and nanosize, enhancing the performance of corresponding bulk counterparts in their already known applications, as well as opening new fields of their own [1]. This issue gathers articles from the diverse area of materials science and is devoted to fullerene-like nanoparticles and nanotubes of layered sulfides and boron nitride and collects the most current results obtained at the interface between fundamental research and engineering.[...] Inorganics 2014-11-28 2 4 Editorial 10.3390/inorganics2040649 649 651 2304-6740 2014-11-28 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040649 Reshef Tenne Andrey Enyashin <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 620-648: Experimental and Theoretical Studies of the Factors Affecting the Cycloplatination of the Chiral Ferrocenylaldimine (SC)-[(η5-C5H5)Fe{(η5-C5H4)–C(H)=N–CH(Me)(C6H5)}]]]> The study of the reactivity of the enantiopure ferrocenyl Schiff base (SC)-[FcCH=N–CH(Me)(C6H5)] (1) (Fc = (η5-C5H5)Fe(η5-C5H4)) with cis-[PtCl2(dmso)2] under different experimental conditions is reported. Four different types of chiral Pt(II) have been isolated and characterized. One of them is the enantiomerically pure trans-(SC)-[Pt{κ1-N[FcCH=N–CH(Me)(C6H5)]}Cl2(dmso)] (2a) in which the imine acts as a neutral N-donor ligand; while the other three are the cycloplatinated complexes: [Pt{κ2-C,N [(C6H4)–N=CHFc]}Cl(dmso)] (7a) and the two diastereomers {(Sp,SC) and (Rp,SC)} of [Pt{κ2-C,N[(η5-C5H3)–CH=N–{CH(Me)(C6H5)}]Fe(η5-C5H5)}Cl(dmso)] (8a and 9a, respectively). Isomers 7a-9a, differ in the nature of the metallated carbon atom [CPh (in 7a) or CFc (in 8a and 9a)] or the planar chirality of the 1,2-disubstituted ferrocenyl unit (8a and 9a). Reactions of 7a–9a with PPh3 gave [Pt{κ2-C,N[(C6H4)–N=CHFc]}Cl(PPh3)] (in 7b) and the diastereomers (Sp,SC) and (Rp,SC) of [Pt{κ2-C,N[(η5-C5H3)–CH=N–{CH(Me)(C6H5)}] Fe(η5-C5H5)}Cl(PPh3)] (8b and 9b, respectively). Comparative studies of the electrochemical properties and cytotoxic activities on MCF7 and MDA-MB231 breast cancer cell lines of 2a and cycloplatinated complexes 7b-9b are also reported. Theoretical studies based on DFT calculations have also been carried out in order to rationalize the results obtained from the cycloplatination of 1, the stability of the Pt(II) complexes and their electrochemical properties. Inorganics 2014-11-06 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040620 620 648 2304-6740 2014-11-06 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040620 Concepción López Ramón Bosque Marta Pujol Jonathan Simó Eila Sevilla Mercè Font-Bardía Ramon Messeguer Carme Calvis <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 606-619: High-Energy-Low-Temperature Technologies for the Synthesis of Nanoparticles: Microwaves and High Pressure]]> Microwave Solvothermal Synthesis (MSS) is a chemical technology, where apart from possible effects of microwaves on the chemical reaction paths, microwave heating allows the precise planning of a time-temperature schedule, as well as to achieve high super-saturation of the reagents uniformly in the reactor vessel. Thus, MSS is suitable for production of nanoparticles with small grain size distribution and a high degree of crystallinity. A further advantage of the technology is a much lower synthesis temperature than for gas phase, plasma or sol-gel technologies. New reactors have been developed to exploit these advantages of the MSS technology of nanoparticles synthesis and to scale up the production rate. Reactor design and realization has been shown to be decisive and critical for the control of the MSS technology. Examples of oxidic and phosphatic nanoparticles synthesis have been reported. Inorganics 2014-11-06 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040606 606 619 2304-6740 2014-11-06 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040606 Witold Lojkowski Cristina Leonelli Tadeusz Chudoba Jacek Wojnarowicz Andrzej Majcher Adam Mazurkiewicz <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 591-605: A Hydrido η1-Alkynyl Diplatinum Complex Obtained from a Phosphinito Phosphanido Complex and Trimethylsilylacetylene]]> The reaction of (trimethylsilyl)acetylene with the phosphinito phosphanido Pt(I) complex [(PHCy2)Pt(μ-PCy2){κ2P,O-μ-P(O)Cy2}Pt(PHCy2)](Pt-Pt) (1) results in the protonation of the Pt-Pt bond with the formation of the bridging hydride complex [(PHCy2)(Me3SiC≡C)Pt(μ-PCy2)(μ-H) Pt(PHCy2){κP-P(O)Cy2}](Pt-Pt) (2), which was characterized by spectroscopic, spectrometric and XRD analyses. Complex 2 exhibits in the solid state at 77 K a long-lived, weak, orange emission assigned as metal-metal to ligand charge transfer (MMLCT) (L = alkynyl) due to the presence of a very short Pt···Pt distance [2.8209(2) Å]. Reaction of 2 with etherate HBF4 results in the selective protonation of the phosphinito ligand to afford the species [(PHCy2)(Me3SiC≡C)Pt(μ-PCy2)(μ-H) Pt(PHCy2){κP-P(OH)Cy2}](Pt-Pt)[BF4] ([3]BF4). Inorganics 2014-10-31 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040591 591 605 2304-6740 2014-10-31 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040591 Mario Latronico Vito Gallo Elena Lalinde Santiago Ruiz Stefano Todisco Piero Mastrorilli <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 565-590: Attachment of Luminescent Neutral “Pt(pq)(C≡CtBu)” Units to Di and Tri N-Donor Connecting Ligands: Solution Behavior and Photophysical Properties]]> Binuclear derivatives [{Pt(pq)(C≡CtBu)}2(μ-L)] (1a–5a), containing a series of dinitrogen linker ligands and the trinuclear [{Pt(pq)(C≡CtBu)}3(μ-L)] (6a) [L = μ-1,3,5-tris(pyridine-4-ylethynyl)benzene], formed by bridge-splitting reactions with [Pt(pq)(μ-κCα:η2-C≡CtBu)]2 (Pt-1), are reported. The complexes are characterized by a combination of 1H NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography (2a and 4a). 1H NMR proves the existence of a dynamic equilibrium in solution between the diplatinum complexes (species a), the corresponding mononuclear complex with terminal N-donor ligands (species b), the starting material (Pt-1) and the free ligand (L). The effects of concentration, temperature and solvent properties on the equilibrium have been studied. The optical properties of these systems have been investigated by UV-visible absorption and emission spectroscopies in solid state and in solution, and the nature of the transitions and the excited state analyzed by theoretical calculations on 2a. Inorganics 2014-10-31 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040565 565 590 2304-6740 2014-10-31 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040565 Elena Lalinde M. Moreno Santiago Ruiz Sergio Sánchez <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 556-564: Noble-Metal Chalcogenide Nanotubes]]> We explore the stability and the electronic properties of hypothetical noble-metal chalcogenide nanotubes PtS2, PtSe2, PdS2 and PdSe2 by means of density functional theory calculations. Our findings show that the strain energy decreases inverse quadratically with the tube diameter, as is typical for other nanotubes. Moreover, the strain energy is independent of the tube chirality and converges towards the same value for large diameters. The band-structure calculations show that all noble-metal chalcogenide nanotubes are indirect band gap semiconductors. The corresponding band gaps increase with the nanotube diameter rapidly approaching the respective pristine 2D monolayer limit. Inorganics 2014-10-24 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040556 556 564 2304-6740 2014-10-24 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040556 Nourdine Zibouche Agnieszka Kuc Pere Miró Thomas Heine <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 552-555: Innovative Inorganic Synthesis]]> I am delighted to introduce this Special Issue of Inorganics; the first themed issue of the journal and one dedicated to Innovative Inorganic Synthesis. [...] Inorganics 2014-10-17 2 4 Editorial 10.3390/inorganics2040552 552 555 2304-6740 2014-10-17 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040552 Duncan Gregory <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 540-551: Reactivity of Mononuclear and Dinuclear Gold(I) Amidinate Complexes with CS2 and CsBr3]]> To probe the reactivity of gold-nitrogen bonds, we have examined the insertion chemistry with carbon disulfide (CS2) as well as oxidation with cesium tribromide (CsBr3) with Au(I) amidinate complexes. The reaction of Ph3PAuCl with Na[(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C(H)] yields the mononuclear, two-coordinate gold(I) complex, Ph3PAu[κ1-(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C(H)], 1. The reactivity of 1 with CS2 produced the mononuclear Au(I) compound, Ph3PAu{κ1-S2C[(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C(H)]}, 2. In the case of CsBr3 the previously reported dinuclear Au(I) complex, Au[(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C(H)]2, 3, was isolated with formation of Ph3PBr2. We also compared the reactivity of CS2 and CsBr3 with 3. Carbon disulfide insertion with 3 produces a dimeric product, Aun[CS2(2,6-Me2C6H3NC(H)=NC6H3Me2)]n, 4, featuring a dinuclear core with linking aurophilic interactions, making it appear polymeric in the solid state. When CsBr3 is reacted with 3 the Au(II,II) product is obtained, Au2[(2,6-Me2C6H3N)2C(H)]2(Br)2, 5. Inorganics 2014-10-08 2 4 Article 10.3390/inorganics2040540 540 551 2304-6740 2014-10-08 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2040540 Andrew Lane Charles Barnes Matthew Vollmer Justin Walensky <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 537-539: Frontiers of Energy Storage and Conversion]]> This special issue of Inorganics features a Forum for novel materials and approaches for electrochemical energy storage and conversion. Diminishing non-renewable fossil fuels and the resulting unattainability of environment have made us search new sustainable energy resources and develop technology for efficient utilization of such resources. Green energy sources, such as solar, hydroelectric, thermal and wind energy are partially replacing fossil fuels as means to generate power. Inorganic (solid state) materials are key in the development of advanced devices for the efficient storage and conversion of energy. The grand challenge facing the inorganic chemist is to discover, design rationally and utilize advanced technological materials made from earth-abound elements for these energy storage and conversion processes. Recent spectacular progress in inorganic materials synthesis, characterization, and computational screening has greatly advanced this field, which drove us to edit this issue to provide a window to view the development of this field for the community. This special issue comprises research articles, which highlights some of the most recent advances in new materials for energy storage and conversion. [...] Inorganics 2014-09-25 2 3 Editorial 10.3390/inorganics2030537 537 539 2304-6740 2014-09-25 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030537 Jiajun Chen Venkataraman Thangadurai <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 524-536: Synthesis of Ru2Br(μ-O2CC6H4–R)4 (R = o-Me, m-Me, p-Me) Using Microwave Activation: Structural and Magnetic Properties]]> New bromidotetracarboxylatodiruthenium(II,III) compounds of the type [Ru2Br(μ-O2CC6H4–R)4]n [R = o-Me (1), m-Me (2), p-Me (3)] have been prepared using microwave-assisted methods. Syntheses by means of solvothermal and conventional activations have also been carried out to compare different preparation methods. The crystal structure determination of complexes 1–3 is also described. All compounds display a typical carboxylate-bridged paddlewheel-type structure with the metal atoms connected by four bridging carboxylate ligands. The axial bromide ligands connect the dimetallic units giving one-dimensional zigzag chains. The magnetic properties of all compounds have also been analyzed. Weak antiferromagnetic intermolecular interactions mediated by the bromide ligands and an appreciable zero field splitting are calculated in the fits of the magnetic data of these complexes. Inorganics 2014-09-03 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030524 524 536 2304-6740 2014-09-03 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030524 Patricia Delgado-Martínez Alejandra Elvira-Bravo Rodrigo González-Prieto José Priego Reyes Jimenez-Aparicio M. Torres <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 508-523: Half-Lantern Pt(II) and Pt(III) Complexes. New Cyclometalated Platinum Derivatives]]> The divalent complex [{Pt(bzq)(μ-L)}2] (1) [Hbzq = benzo[h]quinolone, HL = CF3C4H2N2SH: 4-(trifluoromethyl)pyrimidine-2-thiol] was obtained from equimolar amounts of [Pt(bzq)(NCMe)2]ClO4 and 4-(trifluoromethyl)pyrimidine-2-thiol with an excess of NEt3. The presence of a low intensity absorption band at 486 nm (CH2Cl2), assignable to a metal-metal-to-ligand charge transfer transition (1MMLCT) [dσ*(Pt)2→π*(bzq)], is indicative of the existence of two platinum centers located in close proximity because the rigidity of the half-lantern structure allows the preservation of these interactions in solution. Compound 1 undergoes two-electron oxidation upon treatment with halogens X2 (X2: Cl2, Br2 or I2) to give the corresponding dihalodiplatinum (III) complexes [{Pt(bzq)(μ-L)X}2] (L = CF3C4H2N2S-κN,S; X: Cl 2, Br 3, I 4). Complexes 2–4 were also obtained by reaction of 1 with HX (molar ratio 1:2, 10% excess of HX) in THF with yields of about 80% and compound 2 was also obtained by reaction of [{Pt(bzq)(μ-Cl)}2] with HL (4-(trifluoromethyl)pyrimidine-2-thiol) in molar ratio 1:2 in THF, although in small yield. The X-ray structures of 2 and 3 confirmed the half-lantern structure and the anti configuration of the molecules. Both of them show Pt–Pt distances (2.61188(15) Å 2, 2.61767(16) Å 3) in the low range of those observed in Pt2(III,III)X2 half-lantern complexes. Inorganics 2014-08-26 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030508 508 523 2304-6740 2014-08-26 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030508 Violeta Sicilia Pilar Borja Antonio Martín <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 468-507: Microwave Plasma Synthesis of Materials—From Physics and Chemistry to Nanoparticles: A Materials Scientist’s Viewpoint]]> In this review, microwave plasma gas-phase synthesis of inorganic materials and material groups is discussed from the application-oriented perspective of a materials scientist: why and how microwave plasmas are applied for the synthesis of materials? First, key players in this research field will be identified, and a brief overview on publication history on this topic is given. The fundamental basics, necessary to understand the processes ongoing in particle synthesis—one of the main applications of microwave plasma processes—and the influence of the relevant experimental parameters on the resulting particles and their properties will be addressed. The benefit of using microwave plasma instead of conventional gas phase processes with respect to chemical reactivity and crystallite nucleation will be reviewed. The criteria, how to choose an appropriate precursor to synthesize a specific material with an intended application is discussed. A tabular overview on all type of materials synthesized in microwave plasmas and other plasma methods will be given, including relevant citations. Finally, property examples of three groups of nanomaterials synthesized with microwave plasma methods, bare Fe2O3 nanoparticles, different core/shell ceramic/organic shell nanoparticles, and Sn-based nanocomposites, will be described exemplarily, comprising perspectives of applications. Inorganics 2014-08-18 2 3 Review 10.3390/inorganics2030468 468 507 2304-6740 2014-08-18 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030468 Dorothée Szabó Sabine Schlabach <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 455-467: Design of Experiments: Optimizing the Polycarboxylation/Functionalization of Tungsten Disulfide Nanotubes]]> Design of experiments (DOE) methodology was used to identify and optimize factors that influence the degree of functionalization (polycarboxylation) of WS2 INTs via a modified acidic Vilsmeier–Haack reagent. The six factors investigated were reaction time, temperature and the concentrations of 2-bromoacetic acid, WS2 INTs, silver acetate and DMF. The significance of each factor and the associated interactive effects were evaluated using a two-level factorial statistical design in conjunction with statistical software (MiniTab® 16) based on quadratic programming. Although statistical analysis indicated that no factors were statistically significant, time, temperature and concentration of silver acetate were found to be the most important contributors to obtaining maximum functionalization/carboxylation. By examining contour plots and interaction plots, it was determined that optimal functionalization is obtained in a temperature range of 115–120 °C with a reaction time of 54 h using a mixture of 6 mL DMF, 200 mg INTs, 800 mg 2-bromoacetic acid and 60 mg silver acetate. Inorganics 2014-08-11 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030455 455 467 2304-6740 2014-08-11 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030455 Daniel Raichman David Strawser Jean-Paul Lellouche <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 433-454: Gold Liquid Crystals in the XXI Century]]> Since the first gold liquid crystal was described in 1986, much effort has been done to prepare new compounds bearing this property. The review deals with the last results obtained in this new century. Gold(I) has a strong affinity to give linear co-ordination and metal-metal interactions, which produce a rich supramolecular chemistry, and can promote the behavior as liquid crystal. Therefore, most liquid crystals are based on rod-like gold(I) compounds, while gold(III) liquid crystals are scarce. Calamitic and discotic mesogens have been reported, as well as chiral liquid crystals. Weak interactions such as H-bonds have also been used to obtain gold mesogens. Some of them exhibit additional properties, such as color, luminescence, and chirality. Luminescence has been reported, not only in the solid state or in solution, but also in the mesophase. This is relevant for applications in LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), information storage, and sensors. Inorganics 2014-08-06 2 3 Review 10.3390/inorganics2030433 433 454 2304-6740 2014-08-06 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030433 Manuel Bardají <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 424-432: Gold Thione Complexes]]> The reaction of the ligand Et4todit (4,5,6,7-Tetrathiocino-[1,2-b:3,4-b']-diimidazolyl-1,3,8,10-tetraethyl-2,9-dithione) with gold complexes leads to the dinuclear gold(I) complexes [{Au(C6F5)}2(Et4todit)] and [Au(Et4todit)]2(OTf)2, which do not contain any gold-gold interactions, or to the gold(III) derivative [{Au(C6F5)3}2(Et4todit)]. The crystal structures have been established by X-ray diffraction studies and show that the gold centers coordinate to the sulfur atoms of the imidazoline-2-thione groups. Inorganics 2014-08-04 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030424 424 432 2304-6740 2014-08-04 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030424 Francesco Caddeo Vanesa Fernández-Moreira Massimiliano Arca Antonio Laguna Vito Lippolis M. Gimeno <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 410-423: Long Alkyl Chain Organophosphorus Coupling Agents for in Situ Surface Functionalization by Reactive Milling]]> Innovative synthetic approaches should be simple and environmentally friendly. Here, we present the surface modification of inorganic submicrometer particles with long alkyl chain organophosphorus coupling agents without the need of a solvent, which makes the technique environmentally friendly. In addition, it is of great benefit to realize two goals in one step: size reduction and, simultaneously, surface functionalization. A top-down approach for the synthesis of metal oxide particles with in situ surface functionalization is used to modify titania with long alkyl chain organophosphorus coupling agents. A high energy planetary ball mill was used to perform reactive milling using titania as inorganic pigment and long alkyl chain organophosphorus coupling agents like dodecyl and octadecyl phosphonic acid. The final products were characterized by IR, NMR and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, thermal and elemental analysis as well as by X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The process entailed a tribochemical phase transformation from the starting material anatase to a high-pressure modification of titania and the thermodynamically more stable rutile depending on the process parameters. Furthermore, the particles show sizes between 100 nm and 300 nm and a degree of surface coverage up to 0.8 mmol phosphonate per gram. Inorganics 2014-08-04 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030410 410 423 2304-6740 2014-08-04 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030410 Annika Betke Guido Kickelbick <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 396-409: Nanostructured Boron Nitride: From Molecular Design to Hydrogen Storage Application]]> The spray-pyrolysis of borazine at 1400 °C under nitrogen generates boron nitride (BN) nanoparticles (NPs). The as-prepared samples form elementary blocks containing slightly agglomerated NPs with sizes ranging from 55 to 120 nm, a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET)-specific surface area of 34.6 m2 g−1 and a helium density of 1.95 g cm−3. They are relatively stable in air below 850 °C in which only oxidation of the NP surface proceeds, whereas under nitrogen, their lower size affects their high temperature thermal behavior in the temperature range of 1450–2000 °C. Nitrogen heat-treated nanostructures have been carefully analyzed using X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The high temperature treatment (2000 °C) gives hollow-cored BN-NPs that are strongly facetted, and after ball-milling, hollow core-mesoporous shell NPs displaying a BET-specific surface area of 200.5 m2·g−1 and a total pore volume of 0.287 cm3·g−1 were produced. They have been used as host material to confine, then destabilize ammonia borane (AB), thus improving its dehydrogenation properties. The as-formed AB@BN nanocomposites liberated H2 at 40 °C, and H2 is pure in the temperature range 40–80 °C, leading to a safe and practical hydrogen storage composite material. Inorganics 2014-07-31 2 3 Review 10.3390/inorganics2030396 396 409 2304-6740 2014-07-31 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030396 Georges Moussa Chrystelle Salameh Alina Bruma Sylvie Malo Umit Demirci Samuel Bernard Philippe Miele <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 377-395: Microstructural Study of IF-WS2 Failure Modes]]> This manuscript summarizes the failure mechanisms found in inorganic fullerene-type tungsten disulfide (IF-WS2) nanoparticles treated with diverse pressure loading methods. The approaches utilized to induce failure included: the use of an ultrasonic horn, the buildup of high pressures inside a shock tube which created a shock wave that propagated and impinged in the sample, and impact with military rounds. After treatment, samples were characterized using electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and surface area analysis. The microstructural changes observed in the IF-WS2 particulates as a consequence of the treatments could be categorized in two distinct fracture modes. The most commonly observed was the formation of a crack at the particles surface followed by a phase transformation from the 3D cage-like structures into the 2D layered polymorphs, with subsequent agglomeration of the plate-like sheets to produce larger particle sizes. The secondary mechanism identified was the incipient delamination of IF-WS2. We encountered evidence that the IF-WS2 structure collapse initiated in all cases at the edges and vertices of the polyhedral particles, which acted as stress concentrators, independent of the load application mode or its duration. Inorganics 2014-07-04 2 3 Article 10.3390/inorganics2030377 377 395 2304-6740 2014-07-04 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2030377 Jamie Cook Steven Rhyans Lou Roncase Garth Hobson Claudia Luhrs <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 363-376: The Role of Lead (Pb) in the High Temperature Formation of MoS2 Nanotubes]]> Recent studies have clearly indicated the favorable effect of lead as a growth promoter for MX2 (M = Mo, W; X = S, Se) nanotubes using MX2 powder as a precursor material. The experimental work indicated that the lead atoms are not stable in the molybdenum oxide lattice ion high concentration. The initial lead concentration in the oxide nanowhiskers (Pb:Mo ratio = 0.28) is reduced by one order of magnitude after one year in the drawer. The initial Pb concentration in the MoS2 nanotubes lattice (produced by solar ablation) is appreciably smaller (Pb:Mo ratio for the primary samples is 0.12) and is further reduced with time and annealing at 810 °C, without consuming the nanotubes. In order to elucidate the composition of these nanotubes in greater detail; the Pb-“modified” MX2 compounds were studied by means of DFT calculations and additional experimental work. The calculations indicate that Pb doping as well as Pb intercalation of MoS2 lead to the destabilization of the system; and therefore a high Pb content within the MoS2 lattice cannot be expected in the final products. Furthermore; substitutional doping (PbMo) leads to p-type semiconducting character; while intercalation of MoS2 by Pb atoms (Pby/MoS2) should cause n-type semiconducting behavior. This study not only sheds light on the role of added lead to the growth of the nanotubes and their role as electron donors; but furthermore could pave the way to a large scale synthesis of the MoS2 nanotubes. Inorganics 2014-06-23 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020363 363 376 2304-6740 2014-06-23 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020363 Olga Brontvein Reshef Tenne Andrey Enyashin <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 351-362: Thermoelectric Properties of Mg2Si Produced by New Chemical Route and SPS]]> This paper reports about a new synthesis method for preparing Mg2Si in an efficient way. The intermetallic Mg2Si-phase forms gradually from a mixture of Mg and Si fine powder during exposure to hydrogen atmosphere, which reacts in a vacuum vessel at 350 °C. The resulting powder has the same particle size (100 µm) compared with commercial Mg2Si powder, but higher reactivity due to large surface area from particulate morphology. Both types of powders were compacted by spark plasma sintering (SPS) experiments at 627, 602, 597, and 400 °C for 600 s with a compaction pressure of 80 MPa. The thermoelectric characterization was performed with low and high temperature gradients of ΔT = 10 K up to 600 K. The results confirmed a Seebeck coefficient of −0.14 mV/K for specimens sintered from both powders. The small difference in total performance between purchased and produced power is considered to be due to the effect of impurities. The best values were obtained for n-type Mg2Si doped with 3% Bi yielding a Seebeck coefficient of −0.2 mV/K, ZT = 0.45) and electric output power of more than 6 µW. Inorganics 2014-06-20 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020351 351 362 2304-6740 2014-06-20 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020351 Wilfried Wunderlich Yoshihito Suzuki Naoto Gibo Takahiro Ohkuma Muayyad Al-Abandi Masashi Sato Atta Khan Takao Mori <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 334-350: Gas-Phase and Microsolvated Glycine Interacting with Boron Nitride Nanotubes. A B3LYP-D2* Periodic Study]]> The adsorption of glycine (Gly) both in gas-phase conditions and in a microsolvated state on a series of zig-zag (n,0) single-walled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs, n = 4, 6, 9 and 15) has been studied by means of B3LYP-D2* periodic calculations. Gas-phase Gly is found to be chemisorbed on the (4,0), (6,0) and (9,0) BNNTs by means of a dative interaction between the NH2 group of Gly and a B atom of the BNNTs, whose computed adsorption energies are gradually decreased by increasing the tube radius. On the (15,0) BNNT, Gly is found to be physisorbed with an adsorption driving force mainly dictated by p-stacking dispersion interactions. Gly adsorption in a microsolvated environment has been studied in the presence of seven water molecules by progressively microsolvating the dry Gly/BNNT interface. The most stable structures on the (6,0), (9,0) and (15,0) BNNTs present the Gly/BNNT interface fully bridged by the water solvent molecules; i.e., no direct contact between Gly and the BNNTs takes place, whereas on the (4,0) BNNT the most stable structure presents a unique direct interaction between the COO− Gly group and a B atom of the nanotube. Further energetic analyses indicate that the (6,0), (9,0) and (15,0) BNNTs exhibit a low water affinity, which favors the Gly/water interactions upon BNNT coadsorption. In contrast, the (4,0) BNNT has been found to show a large water affinity, bringing the replacement of adsorbed water by a microsolvated glycine molecule as an unfavorable process. Inorganics 2014-06-18 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020334 334 350 2304-6740 2014-06-18 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020334 Albert Rimola Mariona Sodupe <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 313-333: Continuous Production of IF-WS2 Nanoparticles by a Rotary Process]]> This manuscript demonstrates the design, modification and initial investigation of a rotary furnace for the manufacturing of inorganic fullerene WS2 nanoparticles. Different preparation methods starting with various precursors have been investigated, of which the gas-solid reaction starting with WO3 nanoparticles was the most efficient technique. Furthermore, the influence of temperature, reaction time, and reaction gases etc. on the synthesis of inorganic fullerene WS2 nanomaterials was investigated, and these parameters were optimised based on combined characterisations using XRD, SEM and TEM. In addition, the furnace was further modified to include a baffled tube, a continuous gas-blow feeding system, and a collection system, in order to improve the batch yield and realise continuous production. This technique has improved the production from less than 1 g/batch in a traditional tube furnace to a few tens of g/batch, and could be easily scaled up to industry level production. Inorganics 2014-06-13 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020313 313 333 2304-6740 2014-06-13 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020313 Fang Xu Nannan Wang Hong Chang Yongde Xia Yanqiu Zhu <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 291-312: Thermoplastic Polymer Nanocomposites Based on Inorganic Fullerene-like Nanoparticles and Inorganic Nanotubes]]> Using inorganic fullerene-like (IF) nanoparticles and inorganic nanotubes (INT) in organic-inorganic hybrid composite, materials provide the potential for improving thermal, mechanical, and tribological properties of conventional composites. The processing of such high-performance hybrid thermoplastic polymer nanocomposites is achieved via melt-blending without the aid of any modifier or compatibilizing agent. The incorporation of small quantities (0.1–4 wt.%) of IF/INTs (tungsten disulfide, IF-WS2 or molybdenum disulfide, MoS2) generates notable performance enhancements through reinforcement effects and excellent lubricating ability in comparison with promising carbon nanotubes or other inorganic nanoscale fillers. It was shown that these IF/INT nanocomposites can provide an effective balance between performance, cost effectiveness, and processability, which is of significant importance for extending the practical applications of diverse hierarchical thermoplastic-based composites. Inorganics 2014-06-12 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020291 291 312 2304-6740 2014-06-12 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020291 Mohammed Naffakh Ana Díez-Pascual <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 278-290: Microwave Plasma Production of Metal Nanopowders]]> Metal and metal alloy nanopowders were prepared by using the microwave plasma synthesis method. The microwave plasma was operated in atmospheric pressure at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The precursor decomposed thermally in the plasma reaction region and the products were then condensed in the heat exchanger, were separated from the gas by the powder filter, and then finally collected in the powder collector. The effect of various processing parameters such as plasma gas, carrier gas, cooling gas, precursor raw materials and feeding rate were studied in this work. Cu, Mo, W, Mo-Ni and Fe-Co nanopowders were successfully prepared by using the microwave plasma synthesis method. The processing conditions can be tuned to manipulate the particle size of the nanopowders. Inorganics 2014-06-12 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020278 278 290 2304-6740 2014-06-12 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020278 Joseph Chau Chih-Chao Yang Hsi-Hsin Shih <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 264-277: Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Boron-Modified TiO2 Nanocrystals]]> An efficient microwave-assisted synthesis of TiO2:(B) nanorods, using titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP), benzyl alcohol as the solvent, together with boric acid and oleic acid as the additive reagents, has been developed. Chemical modification of TTIP by oleic acid was demonstrated as a rational strategy to tune the shape of TiO2 nanocrystals toward nanorod formation. The differently-shaped TiO2:(B) nanocrystals were characterized in detail by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy and nitrogen absorption-desorption. Oleic acid coordinated on the nanocrystal surface was removed by the reduction of its carboxyl group, and the photocatalytic activity of bare TiO2 nanocrystals, under visible light irradiation, was also evaluated. The synthesized TiO2 anatase nanorods exhibited a good photoactivity and completely degraded Rhodamine B solution within three hours. Inorganics 2014-06-06 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020264 264 277 2304-6740 2014-06-06 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020264 Claudia Carlucci Barbara Scremin Teresa Sibillano Cinzia Giannini Emanuela Filippo Patrizia Perulli Agostina Capodilupo Giuseppina Corrente Giuseppe Ciccarella <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 248-263: From Stable ZnO and GaN Clusters to Novel Double Bubbles and Frameworks]]> A bottom up approach is employed in the design of novel materials: first, gas-phase “double bubble” clusters are constructed from high symmetry, Th, 24 and 96 atom, single bubbles of ZnO and GaN. These are used to construct bulk frameworks. Upon geometry optimization—minimisation of energies and forces computed using density functional theory—the symmetry of the double bubble clusters is reduced to either C1 or C2, and the average bond lengths for the outer bubbles are 1.9 Å, whereas the average bonds for the inner bubble are larger for ZnO than for GaN; 2.0 Å and 1.9 Å, respectively. A careful analysis of the bond distributions reveals that the inter-bubble bonds are bi-modal, and that there is a greater distortion for ZnO. Similar bond distributions are found for the corresponding frameworks. The distortion of the ZnO double bubble is found to be related to the increased flexibility of the outer bubble when composed of ZnO rather than GaN, which is reflected in their bulk moduli. The energetics suggest that (ZnO)12@(GaN)48 is more stable both in gas phase and bulk frameworks than (ZnO)12@(ZnO)48 and (GaN)12@(GaN)48. Formation enthalpies are similar to those found for carbon fullerenes. Inorganics 2014-05-28 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020248 248 263 2304-6740 2014-05-28 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020248 Matthew Farrow John Buckeridge C. Catlow Andrew Logsdail David Scanlon Alexey Sokol Scott Woodley <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 233-247: Supercritical Fluid Synthesis of LiCoPO4 Nanoparticles and Their Application to Lithium Ion Battery]]> In this work, LiCoPO4 nanoparticles were synthesized by supercritical fluid method using cobalt nitrate hexahydrate (Co(NO3)2 6H2O) and cobalt acetate tetrahydrate (C4H6CoO4 4H2O) as starting materials. The effect of starting materials on particle morphology, size, and the crystalline phase were investigated. The as-synthesized samples were systematically characterized by XRD, TEM, STEM, EDS, BET, and TG and charge-discharge measurements. In addition, Rietveld refinement analysis was performed. The electrochemical measurements of LiCoPO4 nanoparticles have shown differences in capacities depending on the starting materials used in the synthesis and the results have been discussed in this paper. Inorganics 2014-05-28 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020233 233 247 2304-6740 2014-05-28 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020233 Murukanahally Devaraju Quang Truong Hiroshi Hyodo Takaaki Tomai Itaru Honma <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 211-232: IF-WS2/Nanostructured Carbon Hybrids Generation and Their Characterization]]> With the aim to develop a new generation of materials that combine either the known energy absorbing properties of carbon nanofibers (CNF), or the carbon-carbon bond strength of graphene sheets (G), with the shock resistance properties reported for Inorganic Fullerene type WS2 structures (IF-WS2), hybrid CNF/IF-WS2 and G/IF-WS2 were generated, characterized and tested. Experimentation revealed that in situ growth of carbon nanostructures with inorganic fullerene tungsten disulfide particulates had to be performed from particular precursors and fabrication conditions to avoid undesirable byproducts that hinder fiber growth or deter graphene generation. The novel protocols that allowed us to integrate the IF-WS2 with the carbon nanostructures, producing dispersions at the nanoscale, are reported. Resulting hybrid CNF/IF-WS2 and G/IF-WS2 products were analyzed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy). The thermal stability of samples in air was evaluated by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). CNF/IF-WS2 and G/IF-WS2 hybrids were introduced into epoxy matrices, and the mechanical properties of the resulting composites were analyzed using nanoindentation. Epoxy composite samples showed drastic improvements in the Young’s modulus and hardness values by the use of only 1% hybrid weight loadings. The carbon nanofiber inclusions seem to have a much greater impact on the mechanical properties of the composite than the graphene based counterparts. Inorganics 2014-05-09 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020211 211 232 2304-6740 2014-05-09 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020211 Claudia Luhrs Michael Moberg Ashley Maxson Luke Brewer Sarath Menon <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 191-210: Direct Energy Supply to the Reaction Mixture during Microwave-Assisted Hydrothermal and Combustion Synthesis of Inorganic Materials]]> The use of microwaves to perform inorganic synthesis allows the direct transfer of electromagnetic energy inside the reaction mixture, independently of the temperature manifested therein. The conversion of microwave (MW) radiation into heat is useful in overcoming the activation energy barriers associated with chemical transformations, but the use of microwaves can be further extended to higher temperatures, thus creating unusual high-energy environments. In devising synthetic methodologies to engineered nanomaterials, hydrothermal synthesis and solution combustion synthesis can be used as reference systems to illustrate effects related to microwave irradiation. In the first case, energy is transferred to the entire reaction volume, causing a homogeneous temperature rise within a closed vessel in a few minutes, hence assuring uniform crystal growth at the nanometer scale. In the second case, strong exothermic combustion syntheses can benefit from the application of microwaves to convey energy to the reaction not only during the ignition step, but also while it is occurring and even after its completion. In both approaches, however, the direct interaction of microwaves with the reaction mixture can lead to practically gradient-less heating profiles, on the basis of which the main observed characteristics and properties of the aforementioned reactions and products can be explained. Inorganics 2014-05-05 2 2 Review 10.3390/inorganics2020191 191 210 2304-6740 2014-05-05 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020191 Roberto Rosa Chiara Ponzoni Cristina Leonelli <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 177-190: Single- to Triple-Wall WS2 Nanotubes Obtained by High-Power Plasma Ablation of WS2 Multiwall Nanotubes]]> The synthesis of inorganic nanotubes (INT) from layered compounds of a small size (&lt;10 nm in diameter) and number of layers (&lt;4) is not a trivial task. Calculations based on density functional tight-binding theory (DFTB) predict that under highly exergonic conditions, the reaction could be driven into a “window” of (meta-) stability, where 1–3-layer nanotubes will be formed. Indeed, in this study, single- to triple-wall WS2 nanotubes with a diameter of 3–7 nm and a length of 20–100 nm were produced by high-power plasma irradiation of multiwall WS2 nanotubes. As target materials, plane crystals (2H), quasi spherical nanoparticles (IF) and multiwall, 20–30 layers, WS2 nanotubes were assessed. Surprisingly, only INT-WS2 treated by plasma resulted in very small, and of a few layers, “daughter” nanotubules. The daughter nanotubes occur mostly attached to the outer surface of the predecessor, i.e., the multiwall “mother” nanotubes. They appear having either a common growth axis with the multiwall nanotube or tilted by approximately 30° or 60° with respect to its axis. This suggests that the daughter nanotubes are generated by exfoliation along specific crystallographic directions. A growth mechanism for the daughter nanotubes is proposed. High resolution transmission and scanning electron microscopy (HRTEM/HRSEM) analyses revealed the distinctive nanoscale structures and helped elucidating their growth mechanism. Inorganics 2014-04-29 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020177 177 190 2304-6740 2014-04-29 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020177 Volker Brüser Ronit Popovitz-Biro Ana Albu-Yaron Tommy Lorenz Gotthard Seifert Reshef Tenne Alla Zak <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 168-176: Qualifying the Role of Indium in the Multiple-Filled Ce0.1InxYb0.2Co4Sb12 Skutterudite]]> Literature confirms an improvement in the overall TE properties due to the in situ InSb nano-dispersed phases located along the grain boundaries in several double-filled InxYzCo4Sb12 skutterudites. However, the single-filled InxCo4Sb12 reports contribute enhancement in TE properties solely on the nature of In as a void filler. To qualify the effect of In on the TE properties on multiple-filled skutterudites several multiple-filled Ce0.1InxYb0.2Co4Sb12 skutterudite samples, with nominal composition Ce0.1InyYb0.2Co4Sb12 (0 ≤ y ≤ 0.2), were synthesized. A double-filled base-line sample Ce0.1Yb0.2Co4Sb12 was also synthesized and characterized to create a much fuller depiction of the nature of In and its impact on the TE properties of the filled Co4Sb12-based skutterudite materials. Our results confirm that small amounts of In can be effective at increasing electrical conductivity in the multiple-filled Ce0.1InyYb0.2Co4Sb12 skutterudite. An increased mobility and thus electrical conductivity result in a 15% increase in the dimensionless Figure of Merit, ZT, in the nominal sample composition, Ce0.1In0.05Yb0.2Co4Sb12, which exhibits a state of the art ZT &gt; 1.4 at T = 820 K. Inorganics 2014-04-29 2 2 Communication 10.3390/inorganics2020168 168 176 2304-6740 2014-04-29 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020168 Jennifer Graff Jian He Terry Tritt <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 155-167: Electromechanical Properties of Small Transition-Metal Dichalcogenide Nanotubes]]> Transition-metal dichalcogenide nanotubes (TMC-NTs) are investigated for their electromechanical properties under applied tensile strain using density functional-based methods. For small elongations, linear strain-stress relations according to Hooke’s law have been obtained, while for larger strains, plastic behavior is observed. Similar to their 2D counterparts, TMC-NTs show nearly a linear change of band gaps with applied strain. This change is, however, nearly diameter-independent in case of armchair forms. The semiconductor-metal transition occurs for much larger deformations compared to the layered tube equivalents. This transition is faster for heavier chalcogen elements, due to their smaller intrinsic band gaps. Unlike in the 2D forms, the top of valence and the bottom of conduction bands stay unchanged with strain, and the zigzag NTs are direct band gap materials until the semiconductor-metal transition. Meanwhile, the applied strain causes modification in band curvature, affecting the effective masses of electrons and holes. The quantum conductance of TMC-NTs starts to occur close to the Fermi level when tensile strain is applied. Inorganics 2014-04-23 2 2 Article 10.3390/inorganics2020155 155 167 2304-6740 2014-04-23 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2020155 Nourdine Zibouche Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl Thomas Heine Agnieszka Kuc <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 132-154: Comparative Issues of Cathode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries]]> After an introduction to lithium insertion compounds and the principles of Li-ion cells, we present a comparative study of the physical and electrochemical properties of positive electrodes used in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Electrode materials include three different classes of lattices according to the dimensionality of the Li+ ion motion in them: olivine, layered transition-metal oxides and spinel frameworks. Their advantages and disadvantages are compared with emphasis on synthesis difficulties, electrochemical stability, faradaic performance and security issues. Inorganics 2014-03-25 2 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics2010132 132 154 2304-6740 2014-03-25 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010132 Christian Julien Alain Mauger Karim Zaghib Henri Groult <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 115-131: Diarylplatinum(II) Compounds as Versatile Metallating Agents in the Synthesis of Cyclometallated Platinum Compounds with N-Donor Ligands]]> This review deals with the reactions of diarylplatinum(II) complexes with N-donor ligands to produce a variety of cycloplatinated compounds including endo-five-, endo-seven-, endo-six- or exo-five-membered platinacycles. The observed reactions result from a series of oxidative addition/reductive elimination processes taking place at platinum(II)/platinum(IV) species and involving C–X (X = H, Cl, Br) bond activation, arene elimination, and, in some cases, Caryl–Caryl bond formation. Inorganics 2014-03-21 2 1 Review 10.3390/inorganics2010115 115 131 2304-6740 2014-03-21 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010115 Margarita Crespo <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 96-114: Syntheses of Macromolecular Ruthenium Compounds: A New Approach for the Search of Anticancer Drugs]]> The continuous rising of the cancer patient death rate undoubtedly shows the pressure to find more potent and efficient drugs than those in clinical use. These agents only treat a narrow range of cancer conditions with limited success and are associated with serious side effects caused by the lack of selectivity. In this frame, innovative syntheses approaches can decisively contribute to the success of “smart compounds” that might be only selective and/or active towards the cancer cells, sparing the healthy ones. In this scope, ruthenium chemistry is a rising field for the search of proficient metallodrugs by the use of macromolecular ruthenium complexes (dendrimers and dendronized polymers, coordination-cage and protein conjugates, nanoparticles and polymer-“ruthenium-cyclopentadienyl” conjugates) that can take advantage of the singularities of tumor cells (vs. healthy cells). Inorganics 2014-03-21 2 1 Review 10.3390/inorganics2010096 96 114 2304-6740 2014-03-21 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010096 Andreia Valente M. Garcia <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 79-95: New Type-I and Type-II Clathrates in the Systems Cs–Na–Ga–Si, Rb–Na–Ga–Si, and Rb–Na–Zn–Si]]> Systematic studies in the systems Cs–Na–Ga–Si, Rb–Na–Ga–Si, and Rb–Na–Zn–Si yielded the novel type-I clathrates with refined compositions Cs6Na2Ga8.25Si37.75(3), Rb6.34Na1.66(2)Ga8.02Si37.98(3), and Rb5.20Na2.80(4)Zn3.85Si42.15(2) (cubic, ), as well as the type-II clathrates with formulae Cs8Na16Ga22.7Si113.3(1), Rb8.4Na15.6(1)Ga19.6Si116.4(1), and Rb8Na16Zn8.4Si127.6(1) (cubic, ). In each system, the type-I and -II compounds are always co-crystallizing, irrespective of the reaction conditions. The structures derived from single-crystal X-ray diffraction confirm complete ordering of Cs and Na atoms, and nearly complete ordering of the Rb and Na guest atoms. The framework-building Si atoms are randomly substituted by Ga or Zn atoms on all framework sites with notable difference in the substitution patterns between the type-I and type-II structure. This, and other details of the crystal chemistry are discussed in this paper. Inorganics 2014-03-18 2 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics2010079 79 95 2304-6740 2014-03-18 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010079 Marion Schäfer Svilen Bobev <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 29-78: Chemistry of Ammonothermal Synthesis]]> Ammonothermal synthesis is a method for synthesis and crystal growth suitable for a large range of chemically different materials, such as nitrides (e.g., GaN, AlN), amides (e.g., LiNH2, Zn(NH2)2), imides (e.g., Th(NH)2), ammoniates (e.g., Ga(NH3)3F3, [Al(NH3)6]I3 · NH3) and non-nitrogen compounds like hydroxides, hydrogen sulfides and polychalcogenides (e.g., NaOH, LiHS, CaS, Cs2Te5). In particular, large scale production of high quality crystals is possible, due to comparatively simple scalability of the experimental set-up. The ammonothermal method is defined as employing a heterogeneous reaction in ammonia as one homogenous fluid close to or in supercritical state. Three types of milieus may be applied during ammonothermal synthesis: ammonobasic, ammononeutral or ammonoacidic, evoked by the used starting materials and mineralizers, strongly influencing the obtained products. There is little known about the dissolution and materials transport processes or the deposition mechanisms during ammonothermal crystal growth. However, the initial results indicate the possible nature of different intermediate species present in the respective milieus. Inorganics 2014-02-28 2 1 Review 10.3390/inorganics2010029 29 78 2304-6740 2014-02-28 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010029 Theresia Richter Rainer Niewa <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 16-28: Investigation into the Incorporation of Phosphate into BaCe1−yAyO3−y/2 (A = Y, Yb, In)]]> In this paper we examine the effect of doping phosphate into BaCe1−yAyO3−y/2 (A = Y, Yb, In). The samples were analysed through a combination of X-ray diffraction, TGA, Raman spectroscopy and conductivity measurements. The results showed that phosphate could be incorporated into this system up to the 10% doping level, although this required an increased Y/Yb/In content, e.g., BaCe0.6(Y/In/Yb)0.3P0.1O2.9. The phosphate doping was, however, shown to lead to a decrease in conductivity; although at low phosphate levels high conductivities were still observed, e.g., for BaCe0.65Y0.3P0.05O2.875, σ = 4.3 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 600 °C in wet N2. In terms of the effect of phosphate incorporation on the CO2 stability, it was shown to lead to a small improvement for the In containing samples, whereas the yttrium doped compositions showed no change in CO2 stability. Inorganics 2014-01-29 2 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics2010016 16 28 2304-6740 2014-01-29 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010016 Alaric Smith Peter Slater <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 2, Pages 1-15: Bottom-Up, Wet Chemical Technique for the Continuous Synthesis of Inorganic Nanoparticles]]> Continuous wet chemical approaches for the production of inorganic nanoparticles are important for large scale production of nanoparticles. Here we describe a bottom-up, wet chemical method applying a microjet reactor. This technique allows the separation between nucleation and growth in a continuous reactor environment. Zinc oxide (ZnO), magnetite (Fe3O4), as well as brushite (CaHPO4·2H2O), particles with a small particle size distribution can be obtained continuously by using the rapid mixing of two precursor solutions and the fast removal of the nuclei from the reaction environment. The final particles were characterized by FT-IR, TGA, DLS, XRD and SEM techniques. Systematic studies on the influence of the different process parameters, such as flow rate and process temperature, show that the particle size can be influenced. Zinc oxide was obtained with particle sizes between 44 nm and 102 nm. The obtained magnetite particles have particle sizes in the range of 46 nm to 132 nm. Brushite behaves differently; the obtained particles were shaped like small plates with edge lengths between 100 nm and 500 nm. Inorganics 2014-01-27 2 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics2010001 1 15 2304-6740 2014-01-27 doi: 10.3390/inorganics2010001 Annika Betke Guido Kickelbick <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 70-84: Synthesis of Diazonium Tetrachloroaurate(III) Precursors for Surface Grafting]]> The synthesis of diazonium tetrachloroaurate(III) complexes [R-4-C6H4N≡N]AuCl4 involves protonation of anilines CN-4-C6H4NH2, C8F17-4-C6H4NH2, and C6H13-4-C6H4NH2 with tetrachloroauric acid H[AuCl4] 3H2O in acetonitrile followed by one-electron oxidation using [NO]PF6. FT-IR shows the diazonium stretching frequency at 2277 cm−1 (CN), 2305 cm−1 (C8F17), and 2253 cm−1 (C6H13). Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) shows the high stabilities of the electron-withdrawing substituents C8F17 and CN compared with the electron-donating substituent C6H13. Residual Gas Analysis (RGA) shows the release of molecular nitrogen as the main gas residue among other small molecular weight chlorinated hydrocarbons and chlorobenzene. Temperature-Dependent X-Ray Powder Diffraction (TD-XRD) shows the thermal decomposition in C6H13 diffraction patterns at low temperature of 80 °C which supports the TGA and RGA (TGA-MS) conclusions. X-ray structure shows N≡N bond distance of approximately 1.10 Å and N≡N-C bond angle of 178°. Inorganics 2013-12-17 1 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics1010070 70 84 2304-6740 2013-12-17 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010070 Sabine Neal Samuel Orefuwa Atiya Overton Richard Staples Ahmed Mohamed <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 46-69: Synthesis and Characterisation of Lanthanide N-Trimethylsilyl and -Mesityl Functionalised Bis(iminophosphorano)methanides and -Methanediides]]> We report the extension of the series of {BIPMTMSH}− (BIPMR = C{PPh2NR}2, TMS = trimethylsilyl) derived rare earth methanides by the preparation of [Ln(BIPMTMSH)(I)2(THF)] (Ln = Nd, Gd, Tb), 1a–c, in 34–50% crystalline yields via the reaction of [Ln(I)3(THF)3.5] with [Cs(BIPMTMSH)]. Similarly, we have extended the range of {BIPMMesH}− (Mes = 2,4,6-trimethylphenyl) derived rare earth methanides with the preparation of [Gd(BIPMMesH)(I)2(THF)2], 3, (49%) and [Yb(BIPMMesH)(I)2(THF)], 4, (26%), via the reaction of [Ln(I)3(THF)3.5] with [{K(BIPMMesH)}2]. Attempts to prepare dysprosium and erbium analogues of 3 or 4 were not successful, with the ion pair species [Ln(BIPMMesH)2][BIPMMesH] (Ln = Dy, Er), 5a–b, isolated in 31–39% yield. The TMEDA (N',N',N",N"-tetramethylethylenediamine) adducts [Ln(BIPMMesH)(I)2(TMEDA)] (Ln = La, Gd), 6a–b, were prepared in quantitative yield via the dissolution of [La(BIPMMesH)(I)2(THF)] or 3 in a TMEDA/THF solution. The reactions of [Ln(BIPMMesH)(I)2(THF)] [Ln = La, Ce, Pr, and Gd (3)] or 6a–b with a selection of bases did not afford [La(BIPMMes)(I)(S)n] (S = solvent) as predicted, but instead led to the isolation of the heteroleptic complexes [Ln(BIPMMes)(BIPMMesH)] (Ln = La, Ce, Pr and Gd), 7a–d, in low yields due to ligand scrambling. Inorganics 2013-12-12 1 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics1010046 46 69 2304-6740 2013-12-12 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010046 George Marshall Ashley Wooles David Mills William Lewis Alexander Blake Stephen Liddle <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 32-45: Facile and Selective Synthetic Approach for Ruthenium Complexes Utilizing a Molecular Sieve Effect in the Supporting Ligand]]> It is extremely important for synthetic chemists to control the structure of new compounds. We have constructed ruthenium-based mononuclear complexes with the tridentate 2,6-di(1,8-naphthyridin-2-yl)pyridine (dnp) ligand to investigate a new synthetic approach using a specific coordination space. The synthesis of a family of new ruthenium complexes containing both the dnp and triphenylphosphine (PPh3) ligands, [Ru(dnp)(PPh3)(X)(L)]n+ (X = PPh3, NO2−, Cl−, Br−; L = OH2, CH3CN, C6H5CN, SCN−), has been described. All complexes have been spectroscopically characterized in solution, and the nitrile complexes have also been characterized in the solid state through single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Dnp in the present complex system behaves like a “molecular sieve” in ligand replacement reactions. Both experimental data and density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that dnp plays a crucial role in the selectivity observed in this study. The results provide useful information toward elucidating this facile and selective synthetic approach to new transition metal complexes. Inorganics 2013-12-09 1 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics1010032 32 45 2304-6740 2013-12-09 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010032 Dai Oyama Ayumi Fukuda Takashi Yamanaka Tsugiko Takase <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 14-31: Amorphous Li-Al-Based Compounds: A Novel Approach for Designing High Performance Electrode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries]]> A new amorphous compound with the initial atomic composition Al43Li43Y6Ni8 applied as electrode material for Li-ion batteries is investigated. Unlike other amorphous compounds so-far investigated as anode materials, it already contains Li as a base element in the uncycled state. The amorphous compound powder is prepared by high energy ball milling of a master alloy. It shows a strongly enhanced specific capacity in contrast to amorphous alloys without Li in the initial state. Therewith, by enabling a reversible (de)lithiation of metallic electrodes without the phase transition caused volume changes it offers the possibility of much increased specific capacities than conventional graphite anodes. According to the charge rate (C-rate), the specific capacity is reversible over 20 cycles at minimum in contrast to conventional crystalline intermetallic phases failing by volume changes. The delithiation process occurs quasi-continuously over a voltage range of nearly 4 V, while the lithiation is mainly observed between 0.1 V and 1.5 V. That way, the electrode is applicable for different potential needs. The electrode stays amorphous during cycling, thus avoiding volume changes. The cycling performance is further enhanced by a significant amount of Fe introduced as wear debris from the milling tools, which acts as a promoting element. Inorganics 2013-11-18 1 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics1010014 14 31 2304-6740 2013-11-18 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010014 Franziska Thoss Lars Giebeler Jürgen Thomas Steffen Oswald Kay Potzger Helfried Reuther Helmut Ehrenberg Jürgen Eckert <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 3-13: I62− Anion Composed of Two Asymmetric Triiodide Moieties: A Competition between Halogen and Hydrogen Bond]]> The reaction of 1,8-diaminooctane with hydroiodic acid in the presence of iodine gave a new polyiodide-containing salt: 1,8-diaminiumoctane bis(triiodide), (H3N-(CH2)8-NH3)[I3]2. The title compound has been characterized by crystallographic and spectroscopic methods. The polyiodide ion is the first example of a hydrogen bonded I62− dianion consisting of two very asymmetric triiodide components with I−I distances of 2.7739(4) and 3.1778(4) Å interacting by a weak halogen bond (I···I: 3.5017(2) Å). The structural parameters of the triiodide anions, derived from X-ray crystallographic data, are in good agreement with the Raman and Far-IR spectroscopic results. Inorganics 2013-10-31 1 1 Article 10.3390/inorganics1010003 3 13 2304-6740 2013-10-31 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010003 Martin van Megen Guido Reiss <![CDATA[Inorganics, Vol. 1, Pages 1-2: Welcome to Inorganics: A New Open Access, Inclusive Forum for Inorganic Chemistry]]> One of the beauties of inorganic chemistry is its sheer diversity. Just as chemistry sits at the centre of the sciences, inorganic chemistry sits at the centre of chemistry itself. Inorganic chemists are fortunate in having the entire periodic table at their disposal, providing a palette for the creation of a multitude of rich and diverse compounds and materials from the simplest salts to the most complex of molecular species. It follows that the language of inorganic chemistry can thus be a demanding one, accommodating sub-disciplines with very different perspectives and frames of reference. One could argue that it is the unequivocal breadth of inorganic chemistry that empowers inorganic chemists to work at the interfaces, not just between the traditional Inorganic-Organic-Physical boundaries of the discipline, but in the regions where chemistry borders the other physical and life sciences, engineering and socio-economics. [...] Inorganics 2013-06-17 1 1 Editorial 10.3390/inorganics1010001 1 2 2304-6740 2013-06-17 doi: 10.3390/inorganics1010001 Duncan Gregory | <urn:uuid:0339e258-2df7-43ca-8f83-e8ed5a62af02> | 2 | 1.820313 | 0.020438 | en | 0.859474 | https://www.mdpi.com/rss/journal/inorganics |
Rolling Resistance - proportional to speed?
1. Hi all you physics people.... we are building a high-speed robotic camera dolly here in LA for a film, and are trying to make sure we calculate our torque requirements correctly.
The maximum torque required to propel a wheeled vehicle up an incline at a given acceleration is fairly easy to understand. But how in the heck do you figure the rolling resistance of the wheels into that basic equation?
I do know the basic equations to calculate the rolling resistance force, based on a coefficient at 3 mph... but does this stay the same no matter what the speed?
I've read conflicting accounts that the rolling resistance force is linearly proportional to speed... but then have also heard and seen in numerous bicycle charts, that it is a relative constant???
It makes a HUGE difference if is linearly proportional, and we will need huge motors.
Really need to figure this out as we have a lot of wheels on the dolly that are guide wheels and drive wheels that do not support the load, but are spring loaded with lots of force.
We are using this formula for our basic torque calculation :
T = ( a + g (sinθ) ) × m × R
T= torque at the drivewheel
a=desired acceleration
g=acceleration of gravity
θ= incline of ramp
m=mass of vehicle
R=radius of drive wheel
Many thanks to you all!
Last edited: Feb 3, 2013
2. jcsd
3. rcgldr
rcgldr 7,398
Homework Helper
It's possible that what you've read about rolling resistance is related to power. If rolling resistance remains about the same regardless of speed, then the required force or torque remains about the same, but the required power will increase linearly with speed.
What type of wheels are being used? Rubber tires will have more rolling resistance than metal wheels. To avoid issues at very slow speeds (you mentioned 3 mph), metal wheels may be a better choice, but you'll need a very smooth track and very smooth wheels.
4. The top wheels are polyurethane Rollerblade style wheels 52mm in diameter. There are 16 of them riding on an aluminum beam. Soft wheels like this are industry standard for us as the provide smooth, vibration free, and above all, quiet, dolly travel.
The drive wheels are 4.5" diameter also with polyurethane treads of around 78 durometer. They do not take the load of the dolly, but are mounted perpendicularly and are spring loaded into the web of the I-beam.
There are also side and bottom mounted guide wheels.
I found a source that listed the coefficient of rolling friction for this durometer of poly wheels on a steel surface at .030 (inches at 3mph.) Along with the equation:
F = (f*w/r)
F=the force required to overcome the rolling friction
f=the coefficient of rolling friction (units must match same units as r
w=load on the wheels
r=radius of the wheels with friction
I then saw another source that said rolling resistance is proportional to speed so I modified the equation to be:
T= (f*w/r) * (s/3) * R
T= torque at the drivewheel (just from the rr of course)
s=speed of vehicle in mph
R=radius of the drivewheel
I sincerely hope this last equation is incorrect, because it seems astronomically high, and like I said, I also saw other sources that show the rolling resistance force as constant.
5. rcgldr
rcgldr 7,398
Homework Helper
I looked at that source. Those equations are for power:
equation 6.2:
Pdrag = ρ A cd v3 / 2
equation 6.3:
Prolling = cr m g v
6. I'm not too clear on what solving for Power is, or if I even need to, but its seems then this would be a good thing then... meaning my last equation was incorrect for figuring torque? I should leave it as a constant force?
So I would just use this:
T= (f*w/r) * R
Instead of this:
And simply add this torque to the torque number I already got from calculating the mass going up the incline?
Last edited: Feb 3, 2013
7. rcgldr
rcgldr 7,398
Homework Helper
From this wiki article:
equation for force, Crr is coefficient of rolling resistance, which has no units.
F = Crr m g
equation for torque (R is radius of wheel)
T = F R = Crr m g R
Crr could be defined as a function of radius. Your first source includes a table that defines Crf to represent the table values and an equation where Crf is defined in unit of inches (so radius would need to be defined in inches), to end up with the wiki style equations:
F = (Crf / R) m g
T = F R = (Crf/R) m g R = Crf m g
or you could define Crr as a function of radius, using units of inches for radius from that table:
Crr = Crf / R
F = Crr m g
T = F R = Crr m g R
8. Thanks for your replies,
I have two radii to be concerned with. One is the radius of the drivewheel (R) that i am trying to determine the overall torque on. The other is the radius of any additional wheel (r) that I am trying to determine the rolling resistance of.
So I can be very clear... should your equation
T = F R = (Crf/R) m g R
actually read...
T = F R = (Crf/r) m g R
R=radius of the drive wheel
r=radius of extra wheel that is contributing to the rolling resistance force
That way I can play with the diameter of these extra wheels till the overall torque is within acceptable limits.
I didn't see anything in the wiki article about speed, so I guess I just leave it constant force no matter what the speed.
Lastly, I am confused why, if the coefficient is a dimensionless number... the first article I referenced expresses it in "inches@3mph"?
9. rcgldr
rcgldr 7,398
Homework Helper
The wiki article uses a dimensionless coefficient for rolling resistance, where the effect of the radius of a wheel is already taken into account. The first article you referenced has a table of coefficients based on the materials, but where the radius is not already taken into account. The coefficients in that table are stated in units of inches, and need to be divided by the radius of a wheel, also in units of inches, to end up with the dimensionless coefficient that the wiki article uses.
10. Man... you guys are awesome.... Huge thanks RC Glider for all your help. I will try to post a pic here at some point for you to see... its a pretty cool looking rig. | <urn:uuid:e339857a-f696-4736-bd66-7ec45c8a1e12> | 3 | 3.234375 | 0.08913 | en | 0.938625 | https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/rolling-resistance-proportional-to-speed.668984/ |
What's in a Name: National Non-Fiction Day
Article excerpt
Over the years there have been many famous siblings: Cain & Abel, Anne & Emily, Alec & Stephen and more recently 'Jedward'.
The one thing all these siblings have had in common is that there is always one that is more famous than the other. Poor Abel forever remembered as Cain's murder victim, lowly Anne forever in Emily's Wuthering shadow and Stephen, never quite managing to head the Baldwin acting clan. As for 'Jedward', well I'm not too sure which is which but I'm sure one's hair isn't quite as tall as the others.
In the long history of sibling rivalries and poor relations one features more unjustly than the other. Two brothers of literature, one forever in the other's shadow, always fighting for attention and recognition. For one the slice of cake has always been bigger, the Christmas presents more expensive and the birthday party better attended.
Some of you may at this moment be caught in painful childhood memories. Many of you may have paid fortunes in counselling trying to get over this fact but spare a thought for the eternal struggle that Non Fiction faces over its better known sibling Fiction. Non Fiction is not only unable to seek counselling for the way it is treated but in a world where names are so important it has to put up with being something that is not something else. Having lived with no real identity we only know it by the fact that it is not fiction. That it is not made up.
Hang on a minute...You mean Non Fiction, which is all about reality, truth and knowledge, is known because it is not made up. Surely this has to be the wrong way round. Surely we should be saying anything that is made up is not real. That fiction books really should be called 'non non-fiction', but then I suppose that really is quite silly.
It does though raise the question about our feelings on Fiction and Non Fiction books. By giving them those titles, by naming them in those ways we are immediately putting one above the other. We are giving our preferences to fiction and saying 'well there is that other type of book, but it's not quite fiction though is it?' By giving something a negative to start off with it's no wonder Non Fiction books have felt hard done by over the years.
Remembering back to when I was at school I must admit Non Fiction books weren't the inspiring, creative books that we see today. In fact they were downright dowdy. A quick trip down the photo library for some American kids in bent over poses to illustrate the indigestion system and some truncated explanation cut and pasted from a 1950's medical journal by Prof Heinmann Scherlicker was about all publishers seemed to stretch to. Maybe it was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that Non Fiction was suffering so much from a lack of identity that it also suffered a lack of funding, drive and understanding.
In recent times though there seems to have been a revolution. A factual revolution. A revolution to finally give Non Fiction its true identity. The peasants are revolting, so says history, and as Jefferson remarked 'every generation needs a revolution. even The Beatles were fond of a revolution, or Nine. In my opinion it's been a long overdue revolution, but nevertheless things are changing. When you walk into a book shop or library the Non Fiction shelves are no longer filled with dust coloured door stops. Instead they are inviting, colourful, and fun. The booksellers are now proud to display them. To enter them into their top 10's. To promote them. There are some amazing authors and illustrators of Non Fiction. Authors and illustrators that write and create books and pieces of artwork just as awe-inspiring as those we crow over in fiction book awards.
Non Fiction is beginning to be understood a little more. Its importance is being seen as not just a tool for learning but as a vehicle for enjoyment. When we talk about reading for pleasure we immediately seek the fiction books on the shelves, the authors that delight many a child and adult alike, and quite rightly do we do this. … | <urn:uuid:b7bbcdcf-d5c2-426c-9462-843603478246> | 2 | 1.976563 | 0.03071 | en | 0.979845 | https://www.questia.com/article/1G1-242961917/what-s-in-a-name-national-non-fiction-day |
The Scary Truth About Influenza
Flu has been one of the most devastating infections in human history. In 1918 and 1919, the flu killed 50 million people worldwide in just a few months.
Fortunately, flu seasons this dangerous are rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 to 20 percent of Americans get the flu each year. That is 15 to 60 million people in the United States alone.
Approximately 200,000 are hospitalized because of flu complications, and 36,000 die. Many of these deaths could be prevented if people got their flu vaccine in the fall each year.
There are hundreds of possible strains of flu virus, and getting the flu once does not protect you from getting it again.
Each year scientists determine which strains of flu are the most likely for the next flu season. Then they make a vaccine to protect against those strains.
Even if you get infected with a different strain, the flu vaccine will help your body fight off the infection more quickly, and you will not get as sick.
What Is Flu?
The flu is caused by the influenza virus, a potentially life-threatening respiratory tract infection that can be prevented by getting vaccinated and avoiding exposure. Preventing the spread of influenza is everyone's responsibility.
Flu symptoms include sudden onset of high fever, dry cough, sore throat, stuffy nose and severe muscle pains in the legs and low back. People with the flu usually do not experience a runny nose, vomiting or diarrhea.
Most people with flu will feel terrible for five to seven days and then recover completely. However, the very young, elderly or those with chronic illnesses are at greater risk of developing complications that may lead to hospitalization or even death. These patients develop life-threatening complications such as pneumonia, respiratory failure or heart failure.
What Do I Do If I Get the Flu?
The most important thing any flu victim can do is to stay at home. This will help prevent spread of flu to others.
A quick call to your doctor is also important because there are medicines that will shorten the course and decrease the severity of flu symptoms, but they must be started within 48 hours of the first symptoms.
Rest, drink plenty of fluids and take acetaminophen, ibuprofen or aspirin to help with the fever and muscle aches. But never give aspirin to children with the flu because serious and deadly complications can develop.
Tylenol is a very safe medication for treating fever and pain, but high doses or even normal doses taken with alcohol can cause liver failure. Check over-the-counter medication labels to be sure that you do not take more than 4000 mg of acetaminophen in 24 hours. Ibuprofen should be taken with plenty of liquids and some food to prevent stomach upset.
How Can I Prevent Flu?
Vaccination is safe and effective. There are two kinds of vaccine: an injection and a new nasal vaccine.
The injection is made with killed flu virus and is safe for people 6 months old and older. The nasal vaccine is administered directly into the nose and is for healthy people between the ages of 5 and 49 years.
You cannot get flu from the injected vaccine. There is a small risk that people with weakened immune systems could become sick from the nasal vaccine, which is made with a weakened form of the flu virus.
Some people still get flu after vaccination, but they are much less likely to become seriously ill than those who have not been vaccinated.
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Your mother was right. You should eat your vegetables. But she may not have told you why. She may not have told you the consequences of maintaining a diet based on animal products would lead to widespread environmental destruction, resource depletion, and a global health crisis unparalleled in human history. That kind of reasoning you would have been sure to remember.
To her credit, dietary advice on the subject of global warming and environmental health was never as definitive as it is today. But with the recent release of several international reports on global warming, the most pressing issue of our time has become impossible to ignore. The United Nations has called on governments and individuals to open their eyes to climate change, calling it “the most serious challenge facing the human race.” More than any other factor, how we meet that challenge will depend on what we eat.
Wasting away
According to a 2006 report sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization called Livestock’s Long Shadow, factory farming plays a major role in every aspect of environmental collapse, from ozone depletion to ocean dead zones. Though the report has been reinforced by further studies over the past two years, it gained greater momentum in 2007 with the push to track the “carbon footprints” of corporations and individuals.
Factory farms, which hold tens of thousands of animals per facility in windowless warehouses throughout the country, are responsible for more than 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This vastly outstrips the carbon footprint of the transportation industry. Thirty-seven percent of those gases are derived from methane (which has 23 times the global warming impact of CO2).
Emissions from industrial farming aren’t just caused by cow burps. They are also caused by the one billion tons of waste (including 64 percent of ammonia emissions, the primary producer of acid rain) produced by suffering animals held in extreme confinement.
Containing high levels of hormones and pesticides, this untreated toxic waste is converted into concentrated liquid sewage, known as “slurry.” Stored in vast 25-million-gallon lagoons, this endlessly increasing waste releases gases into the atmosphere before it is used to fertilize feed crops. The leading cause of soil and groundwater contamination, lagoon breaches and fertilizer spills are incredibly common.
Because these industrial operations are considered “farms,” or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), they are not subject to industrial emissions standards required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Industrial farms produce more emissions than transportation, and they are also responsible for a majority of emissions produced by all transportation functions. Most food animals travel hundreds of thousands of miles in their lifetimes as they are transported between various operations such as stockyards and slaughterhouses. Maintaining the support industries of factory farming also takes a toll on local environments. Planting, fertilizing, irrigating and harvesting feed crops, continually pumping water and sewage, running packing plants and slaughterhouses (which kill 250 cows an hour), all rely on heavy machinery and fossil fuel consumption.
Because of the deforestation, soil erosion, and desertification these support industries cause, they are fundamentally unsustainable and have an extremely negative impact on the environment. Thirty percent of the earth’s land is now occupied by livestock, with another 33 percent devoted to GMO feed crops, and this number is expanding every year. Seventy percent of previously forested land in the Amazon has been converted into cropland and pastures, destroying biodiversity, introducing carcinogenic pesticides, and playing a primary role in pushing species toward extinction at a rate 500 times of that we ought to be experiencing according to models based on fossil records.
Protecting the source
In the context of the global water supply, the impact of animal agriculture threatens utter catastrophe. Factory farming is responsible for 37 percent of pesticide contamination, 50 percent of antibiotic contamination and one-third of the nitrogen and phosphorus loads found in freshwater.
Poisoning water is bad enough, but depleting the supply of it borders on the suicidal. The majority of the earth’s water is now used to support animal agriculture, and much of it cannot be reclaimed. It takes thousands of gallons of water to produce one pound of factory farmed beef. This means a single person can save more water by simply not eating a pound of beef than they could by not showering for an entire year.
But it’s not only freshwater sources that are at risk; ocean waters are also imperiled. Dead zones, vast stretches of costal waters in which nothing can live, are created by untreated hormone-, nitrate- and antibiotic-laden agricultural waste seeping into the soil, groundwater and rivers before contaminating the ocean, the source of all life on earth. According to the EPA, 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and groundwater in 17 states has been permanently contaminated by industrial farm waste.
Despite these horrifying statistics, global production of meat and milk is projected to double in the next 10 years.
With the average American already consuming more than 200 pounds of meat per year, the choice to support industrial farming is devastating from an environmental perspective, exacerbating global warming and jeopardizing a plentiful food supply for future generations that today we take for granted.
The compassionate revolution
According to Farm Sanctuary President Gene Baur, farm policy concerns not only animal rights advocates, but also those invested in issues of economic justice, human health and the environment.
“The price we’re paying for denying the links we share to all living things is obviously an economy and a culture based on ecological collapse,” Baur says. “The lack of laws to protect farm animals has lead to a rise in practices that are not only unconscionably cruel, but completely unsustainable from a global perspective.”
Adds Brighter Green partner Mia Macdonald, a senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute, “The problems and issues we are facing today all have multiple entry points. Globalization, public health, sustainability, poverty, gender issues, are all key elements in putting together policies that will truly be effective. Factory farming is not just a concern because it produces toxic waste. The environmental impact of factory farming is a direct result of animal cruelty. The concerns of animal rights activists have an equal place at the table when discussing environmental policy and strategy.”
“Viewing any animals as commodities has had a profoundly negative impact on understanding the world we live in,” Baur says. “There is no more important task at hand than combating the false notion that the entire natural world is economically quantifiable or exists simply for our purposes alone. An animal, an ocean, a forest, a species, are not separate, but intimately connected in every way.” He adds,
No one wants to see gratuitous suffering of any kind prevail. Factory farming represents a race to the bottom for all species. But fortunately there is another choice, a simple one that everyone has the power to make: don’t eat meat.
—Farm Sanctuary
Images: Countless acres of rainforest have been destroyed to create land for cattle grazing; feces runoff from factory farms often pollutes local groundwater; growing grain for animal feed is extremely resource-intensive and wasteful—all courtesy
To Learn More
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If a cat could talk
by 2400 2,400 words
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If a cat could talk
2400 2,400 words
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‘When I play with my cat,’ Montaigne mused, ‘how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her?’
Jacques Derrida and his cat ‘Logos’. Photo by Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Corbis Jacques Derrida and his cat, Logos. Photo by Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Corbis
To quote Eliot again:
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover —
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
Read more essays on love & friendship and stories & literature
• Aplmustdie
Actually, cats are the only animal that has not been domesticated. The chose to cohabitate with humans. The Egyptions had graineries. Cats started hanging out because the rats were a ready food source. Gradually, the became acustomed to people and started accepting their company . . .. and food. I think that is why cats are so different, each an individual. There are signs this is changing though. Where at once, cats were strictly solitary hunters, multiple cat households are forcing them to learn to cooperate. There are many observed instances where they are starting to hunt as pack animals. One cat will flush out game while the others wait.
• alanborky
"acustomed to people...accepting their company...that is why cats are so different, each an individual."
As a Liverpool kid in the Sixties early Seventies I lived in a neighbourhood filled with an enormous number of derelict houses and got to observe a number of feral cats living in lion like prides and those cats truly were strange with nothing remotely like a personality and to find yourself surrounded by a tribe of 'em coldly standing their ground without so much as the slightest hint of fear as if to say "No...YOU piss off!" was a truly disturbing experience.
• Peter Trachtenberg
Actually, the self-domestication is supposed to have begun in Mesopotamia, about 12,000 years ago. Its mutual benefits were immediately obvious. The mystery is when the relationship between cats and humans evolved from convenience to affection, or the wily appearance of it. I write about it in my book Another Insane Devotion. http://www.amazon.com/Another-Insane-Devotion-Love-Persons/dp/0738215260/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374723695&sr=8-1&keywords=Another+Insane+Devotion
• David Wood
Thanks Peter. Your book looks fascinating. I must read it.
• Beverly Seaton
Yes, thanks. The book is speeding to my Kindle right now.
• Caroline
What a wonderful study of the most special of species. You've really captured the enigma that is the cat - the reason some of us prefer them to dogs... I don't spend much time reading "for fun" on the internet but I saw this on my work Twitter feed (must have been retweeted by someone) and it just sucked me in and kept me reading until the end. Bravo/Meow!
• alanborky
David the truly peculiar power of cats I suggest's underlined by the fact like goats they're associated with the dark arts and like goats they have decidedly non human like slitted eyes yet in spite of the fact those eyes look evil and calculating to a degree a goat could only dream of matching it's the eyes of the goat we're actually spooked by!
• David Wood
Goats (I have eight) don't curl up in my lap quite so compliantly. But you're right about the eyes.
Here is an image (that Aeon did not use) of my cat Steel Dan Thoreau starring in the very Indie film "Flow" (in production). I made white stepping stones over a stream, inviting an alien to use them. Steely turned up and walked across
• Gerlof de Roos
It's all ANTROPOMORPHISM.
• dearth_vader
Can we ever really know a cat? No, and why would we want to?. The rest of this is a waste of space.
• Levitating Cat
Hi David,
Just wondering who wrote the following:
T.S. Eliot?
Terrific article, thank you.
• http://thewayitis.info/ Derek Roche
You do realise that both your cats and yourself may well be being manipulated by the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, don't you? After reading this article in The Atlantic last year, I've never been able to look at a cat in quite the same way again.
• David Wood
Could Toxoplasma gondii be a benign symbiotic mediator, bonding cat and human?
• Dr Prometheus
Nine million cats in the UK. Each one kills say 2 birds a week. So 18 million birds die each week. That is 936 million birds a year. And nearly all cats also carry the Toxocarin parasite. 500 children in the UK go blind every year because cats shat in their sandpits.
One third of car accidents are caused by adults infected with Toxoplasma cysts in the brain, caught from cats. Thats 400 kids killed or seriously injured each year.
Cats should be banned.
• AandO
Banning cats is idiotic - have you heard of the Black Death? It was made worse by the killing of cats - not only that, but your numbers are WAY off...here is merely once recent study that shows that cats do not kill that many birds (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567526).
Also, they keep vermin and the infections they carry to a minimum. For example, in NYC, there are estimates that for every human living in the city, there are seven rats. I don't know about you, but as a NYC resident, I'd prefer to have cats around than allow that number to increase.
Additionally, there are studies (here is one... http://www.livescience.com/2102-birds-glad-cats-eat-rats.html) that speculate that cats kill some bird predators and help bird populations.
How many dogs maul or serious hurt (or kill) people? Do you propose a ban on dogs? What about how many birds are killed and eaten by other birds? Should we try to eliminate birds?
Not only is banning cats a foolish idea, if you think it is in any way enforceable, you are living in a fantasy world.
• Dr Prometheus
I think you are the one living in a fantasy world. Who else would try and argue that its OK to keep cats even though they send 500 kids blind every year, and kill or injure 400 kids in car accidents? You are clearly infected with Toxoplasma and its caused your brain to think that cats are more important than kids.
That woman who threw the cat in the bin did the right thing. Except she should have poured petrol in, stood back, and the flicked in a lighted match!
• http://www.livinginthehereandnow.co.za/ beachcomber
If you're so concerned with child welfare you should begin with parents who drink, smoke and feed their offspring food which contributes to diabetes and heart disease ...
• Guille Ramos
Talking about threats to the world, any more harmful creature than humans?
• Buckley
I don't know about banned, but they need to be indoor pets and not to be allowed to raom free. They need to be fixed. The feral population needs to be controlled. However if you allow your intact cats to roam free and procreate humans are contributing to the problem.
• jef
they roam spaied,so not making kittens. What should really be strictly controlled is breeding the dangerous dogs!
• jef
There are dogs that remain wild, and they can form a pack and attack people. Dogs bark and they love to roll in poo and eat cat poo. Cats are instinctively clean animals
• H. Blanchard
1/3 of car accidents? Oh please. Only 9% of the US population tests seropositive for toxoplasmosis, so even if all of them jump into their cars at once, it seems unlikely.
• jef
that's what I say,it is his sick imagination statistics.
• Granite Sentry
One would think someone named Prometheus wouldn't be so protective of birds.
• bobgrumman
Let's say you're right. Dr. P. Why not try to find a cure for this toxoplasma instead of banning cats? Meanwhile, have the government find a nice island without cats people like you could go live on. As for the birds, it seems to me sad that cats do seem to kill more of them than I'd like, but so do other birds. And human beings are doing far more to reduce the bird-population by converting ever-increasing amounts of wilderness to highways and parking lots than cats are.
In any event, it seems to me that what cats add to the value of human life is vastly more than they add that diminishes it.
Incidentally, I can't believe the UK has only 9,000,000 cats.
• olmo
Does anyone know cats? Do you, for example, think that you do? I must admit I have always considered that their existence was never anything but shakily hypothetical.
For, if they are to share our world animals have somehow to participate in it. They must, to however small an extent, fall in with our way of life, tolerate it; else by their hostility or their fear they will merely measure the distance that separates them from us, and relations between us will consist solely in that.
Take dogs: the admiration and trust evidenced in their approach to us often make some of them seem to have abandoned their most primal canine traditions and turned to worship of our ways, and even of our faults. That is precisely what makes them tragic and sublime. Their determination to acknowledge us forces them to live at the very limits of their nature, constantly -- through the humanness of their gaze, their nostalgic nuzzlings -- on the verge of passing beyond them.
But what attitudes do cats adopt? Cats are just that: cats. And their world is utterly, through and through, a cat's world. You think they look at us? Has anyone ever truly known whether or not they deign to register for one instant on the sunken surface of their retina our trifling forms? As they stare at us they might merely be eliminating us magically from their gaze, eternally replete. True, some of us indulge our susceptibility to their wheedling and electric caresses. But, let such persons remember the strange, brusque, and offhand way in which their favorite animal frequently cuts short the effusions they had fondly imagined to be reciprocal. They too, even the privileged elected to enjoy their proximity of cats, have been rejected and denied time and time again, and even as they cherish some mysteriously apathetic creature in their arms they too have felt themselves brought up short at the threshold of a world that is a cat's world, a world inhabited exclusively by cats and in which they live in ways that no one of us can ever fathom.
Has man ever been their coeval? I doubt it. And I can assure you that sometimes, in the twilight, the cat next door pounces across and through my body, either unaware of me or as demonstrated to some eerie spectator that I really don't exist.
Rainer Maria Rilke, preface to 'Mitsou'.
• Oren
I don't think cats do not need us. Mine does need me. He follows me, talks to me and is always no more than 3m aways from me. I have another cat, which doesn't seem to need me, but if I give it to other people, it gets very upset. So I don't agree with what's being said about cats in the article.
• Granite Sentry
Cats are a mystery all right. But most of us are at least better off than Dr. Schrodinger, who can't even tell if they're alive or dead.
• dmfant/dirk
• http://napomartin.wordpress.com Napo Martin
I have a cat and recognize many of the facets exposed here on their behavior.
However, the article prompted me to review 1. Baudelaire's dates of birth and death and consequently 2. the etymology of the word electric - because somehow I thought Baudelaire died too early to know what an electric feeling can be.
Baudelaire died in 1867, and was then probably aware of the attraction electric elements have. Wrongly, I had thought electricity was still a mystery in the mid 19th century.
I still looked up the French original poem and there it is: "De palper ton corps électrique" (source: http://fleursdumal.org/poem/132 ). If I may add, the accepted English translation does no do justice to the French verb "palper", the original being more erotic than the austere "feeling".
Further, electricity was somehow discovered by Ancient Greeks, at least they came up with the word "ἤλεκτρον" which translates into "yellow amber", a material they knew for its electrostatic properties.
One never stops learning.
• Charles
Electricity is still generated today by the simple process of induction which Michael Faraday discovered in the 1830s, which was well-known during Baudelaire's lifetime.
In my opinion, most articles on cats including this one make too much of the otherness of the cat. Every cat I've had has been extremely affectionate above all. That's why I have them, their mouse-catching prowess notwithstanding.
Looking into their eyes I see a loving, devoted companion returning my look, with little hint of strangeness. They are attuned to attracting human affection, and they show this plainly by sidling around us and rubbing up against things, practically begging us to stroke and scratch them. When we do they start purring, which seals the deal as far as I'm concerned.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had started this kind of affectionate behavior soon after taking up residence in the Mideast granaries thousands of years ago.
Sure, they are independent and stand-offish at times. But they don't debase themselves into slaves like dogs. A more balanced, self-respecting attitude, I think.
• Hamish
'...It is something of an accident that a cat’s lethal instincts align with our interests. They seem recklessly unwilling to manage their own boundaries. Driven as they are by an unbridled spirit of adventure (and killing)...'
Yeah. Enough reason to contain your cats, or put them to sleep. Every year millions of birds and other creatures are killed by domestic cats because their owners are too stupid, uncaring, or both, to control them. You should be ashamed of yourself.
• Snoop
Cats are consummate flirts when they want something. But dogs are pretty good at it too. Perhaps the real difference is that cats are quite stand-offish, which gives us an illusory sense of achievement when they pay us attention.
• davidhollenshead
• Denise
A beautiful essay to say the least. My personal experience with cats will add to their many mysteries: if I am ill, they will be by my side constantly, comforting, warming, helping me unwind. I truly believe it is voluntary and intentional. They have reflected the sublime qualities of empathy and understanding, better than some of the most sophisticated humans.
I choose not to look into the mystery. I choose to embrace it and be thankful. We have much to learn for this Earth and its unlikely inhabitants. Domestication or not, this is a friendship of equally interested parties. I see a transparency in these creatures that is a good lesson to us, the humans.
Dogs are not needy, they look up to us. More child-like than cats, but noble souls as well. Wish we could work up to those standards. | <urn:uuid:2cd517dc-e573-421c-81c8-4e0606d3a0ad> | 2 | 1.867188 | 0.059721 | en | 0.966881 | http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/can-we-ever-really-know-a-cat/ |
And thanks to everyone who has donated so far!
26 May 2010
Through the end of 1993, it would be possible to make a certain generalisation about the films produced by Studio Ghibli, that would go something like this: Miyazaki Hayao directs fantasies, everybody else directs realistic stories. That neat dichotomy came screeching to a halt in 1994, when Ghibli's second-most prolific director, Takahata Isao, gave the world Pom Poko, although its non-realism takes a very distinctive form. Nor, admittedly, is the film altogether out of keeping with Takahata's previous output: another way of describing the non-Miyazaki Ghibli features is "serious stories taking place in the real world", and incredibly enough, this describes Pom Poko to a T, talking animals be damned.
The English title of the film is wildly undescriptive; a bit better is the customary alternate title The Raccoon War, though this introduces its own problems. At any rate, neither of them has a patch on the Japanese original, which Wikipedia helpfully translates as "Heisei-Era Tanuki War Ponpoko", which tells us plenty: for a start, the "X-Era" suggests a story taking place in the land of legends and myth, recalling so many of the splendidly overwrought Japanese movie titles of the '30s and '40s, stories about samurai and geisha and the like in the days before Western powers forcibly took some of the tradition out of Japanese life. And, too, the title reveals the first joke, if a joke it is: for the legendary Heisei Era happens to be our era, and it began in 1989.
As for the confusion between "raccoon" and "tanuki", that's sadly more a matter of playing to the audience's ignorance; a tanuki is a canid found on the islands of Japan, and the most sensible translation of its name (since using the Japanese word for a Japanese animal is plainly an unreasonable demand on native speakers of English) would be "raccoon dog". The people responsible for translating Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko into English - those delightful folk at Disney - concluded that it was best to assume that children wouldn't care if the animals were simply called "raccoons", to make things easier and more familiar. This despite the fact that the tanuki prominently appears as the second-best power-up in the iconic Super Mario Bros. 3, the second-highest selling video game of its generation.
But we were talking about Pom Poko, allegedly ("pom poko", by the way, is the sound a tanuki makes when it uses its large belly as a drum). The film, which Takahata allegedly wrote when Miyazaki informed him that Ghibli needed to make a film about tanuki, concerns a population of those animals living in the Tama Hills just outside of Tokyo, whose common way of live is interrupted, violently, by the arrival in the 1960s of suburban development. By the dawn of the 1990s, the Tama tanuki have fallen into internal warfare, scrabbling over the few remaining resources; but then the wisest and oldest among them suggest that their energies would be better spent fighting the human menace, and retaking Tama for nature. So begins a years-long guerrilla war against the land developers, with the tanuki using every single trick they know.
And they know a considerable number of tricks. Tanuki, it seems, are omnipresent in Japanese folklore, and the short version of the many things said about them is that they are held to be shape-shifting tricksters, able to take any form, and who can use their large scrotums in all sorts of applications; yet they are too good-natured and easily-distracted to use this ability to do harm. It would thus seem that the general arc of Pom Poko is that a pocket of untouched ancient Japan, threatened by the encroaching crush of Westernised culture, is forced to alter its primary characteristics (traditionally, tanuki would never attempt to war with humans) in order to remain alive in the face of modernism. This comes close to being spelled out on multiple occasions; a wise old tanuki visiting from the island of Shikoku is aghast at the fact that near Tokyo, people no longer venerate the animals or the local gods.
The tendency of "progress" to wreak havoc with tradition and nature was already old hat for Ghibli: nearly all of Miyazaki's films have a similar pro-conservation theme. But Miyazaki could never have directed Pom Poko: it is harsher and grimmer than his films tend towards. When Miyazaki depicts the grandeur and unexplored vistas of folklore, it's generally to express wonder, amazement, and delight (as in My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away), while as Takahata depicts the same kind of grandeur, it's to impress upon us the weight of centuries, and the gravity of the story. No film about shape-shifting canids with huge gonads can manage to be humorless, of course, and Pom Poko is all-round a much more fun movie than either Grave of the Fireflies or Only Yesterday, Takahata's earlier films with Ghibli. But there is a stark undertone to what happens that sets the film apart from Miyazaki's generally more playful approach to animation.
Ah yes, the animation. Following upon Only Yesterday, with its conflicting color palettes referring to different time periods, Takahata continued to experiment with form and representation in animation in Pom Poko, primarily but not only in the depiction of the tanuki themselves. There are three ways the animals are depicted, depending upon the context of the moment, and Takahata simply throws them at us without explanation (though it is explained early on that tanuki are bipedal when humans aren't around), and this unexplained crush of competing represenation serves to make the beginning of the film a fairly ecstatic experience of borderline-surrealism.
First, there is the realistic depiction of the tanuki in their animal form.
Then, there is the depiction - far and away the most common in the movie - of anthropomorphic tanuki; this is the predominate version of them because it is the most appealing and relatable, a cartoon spiked with realistic movement and shape, the version of the tanuki we humans are likeliest to respond to.
Finally, there is the soft, supremely cartoonish version of the animals whenever they are in a state of absent-mindedness or befuddlement; caused either by their reveries of eating, or by moments of bliss, or by getting a good thwack. This design was specifically inspired by the work of manga artist Sugiura Shigeru, whose work Takahata admired.
In the hands of a lesser filmmaker this mish-mash of styles could be terribly confused and wandering, but Takahata uses it to guide our emotions through what turns out to be a rigorous, demanding narrative, deeply rooted in folkloric traditions that most Westerners probably know little about - certainly, I had to do no small amount of research to make heads or tails of the movie. Pom Poko does not stop to explain itself, and in this it's not unlike Miyazaki's later Shinto-heavy films Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away; but the sheer wealth of allusion in Takahata's film makes it that much more daunting, although it's intensely rewarding if you do the homework - or, presumably, if you were raised with Japanese folkloric traditions.
Again, this it most heavily the case in the opening sequence of the film, where Takahata seems almost gleefully eager to make sure that we can't keep up. It's exhilarating to make the attempt, though, for some of the best parts of Pom Poko are those in which the real world and folklore collide in messy, dizzying ways. There's an extended scene in the second half that exemplifies this: the tanuki have all combined their energies to create a goblin parade in the streets of the city pressing hard upon their forest, and for several minutes the plot essentially shuts down to present the spectacle of traditional monsters walking the streets of a blandly contemporary city.
It's the moment that best encapsulates what seems to me the central message of Pom Poko: the conflict between the values of the past and the present, and the resultant destruction of things that matter in the name of human expansion. But it is certainly not the only moment, and it's arguably not the most memorable, visually, if only because some of the other shots are so intensely unusual. This shot from early in the film, of a leaf being devoured by tiny aphid-like earth movers, isn't even the most surreal image in the sequence it comes from, but it gets at what I'm talking about: Takahata's visual dramatisation of his pro-environment, pro-tradition themes with bold, unexpected imagery.
In the end, if Pom Poko is a tremendously moving film - and it is, though perhaps not as moving as Takahata's earlier Ghibli features (what could be as moving as Grave of the Fireflies, after all?) - it's not ultimately because of the intelligence of the message, but its sincerity, and the characters used to present the story. Humanism was then, as ever, the watchword of the studio, and this depiction of rampant progress destroying beautiful things wouldn't mean half as much if we weren't made to feel the love the tanuki have for their land and each other; but I'll leave the specifics as a discovery for the viewer. Save to say that, even if the heroes are magic raccoon dogs, they are still wonderfully-etched people, whose tribulations form the backbone of an excellent contribution to Ghibli's legacy of pro-environment fables about the magic of the natural world and the emptiness of crowded cities. Pom Poko is not quite a masterpiece, but it's grand and rich and epic, a heady movie whose talking animal trappings do not even begin to suggest its potency.
Densua said...
Oh I love, love, love your features on the Studio Ghibli movies (although, I wonder if you might ever brave the repertoires of other studios) - pretty much the most insightful and enthusing anime reviews I've read yet. I too believed calling something Ghibli was the same as calling it a Miyazaki work... until someone pointed out to me years ago that the masterpiece, Grave of the Fireflies, was not his at all. It's been a long time since, but I'm now trying to rediscover Ghibli-as-Takahata and Ghibli-as-the-other-directors. Pom Poko is on my list of DVDs to buy as soon as financially possible and I cannot wait to see all the cultural and artistic details you mentioned.
Just as a side note, I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks Takahata's works, though fewer in number, are nonetheless superior to Miyazaki's. I lost my horn for Miyazaki with the bombastic and somewhat narcissistic Spirited Away. Along came Only Yesterday and I suddenly remembered why human stories, or humanised stories, always win over shiny, shiny fantasy sequences.
Faster, Harder, More Challenging GeoX said...
So--to completely ignore the main point--what would you say is the BEST power-up in SMB3? Hammer Suit? I'd say P-Wing, but I feel like that's really more of a cheat than a legitimate power-up.
Tim said...
Densua: I am coming around the opinion that, while my favorite Ghibli films are Miyazaki's, on balance I like Takahata's whole body of work (including his pre-Ghibli film Hols: Prince of the Sun) more than Miyazaki's whole body of work
GeoX: don't think I didn't phrase it that way to force somebody to ask that question. Anyway, what I had in mind is perhaps not a "power-up" but an "item", and it is the great and legendary Kuribo's Shoe, which to this day makes level 5-3 my favorite stage in the whole of the Mario franchise.
Faster, Harder, More Challenging GeoX said...
Yeah--Power-up or not, I would never argue against the greatness of The Shoe. | <urn:uuid:014eb04b-3c35-44ed-bde3-2e4985601450> | 2 | 2.046875 | 0.300592 | en | 0.960509 | http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2010/05/studio-ghibli-pom-poko-takahata-1994.html?showComment=1274890317547 |
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Can anyone explain the "wake for wifi network access" setting in energy preferences for me? I do not understand it.
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1 Answer 1
up vote 9 down vote accepted
Wake for wifi network access (aka Wake on Demand but with Wifi) allows your computer to be brought out of sleep mode when someone else on the network requests access to a service on your computer eg. File sharing.
From this Apple KB article
Wake on Demand helps you save energy and reduce costs while still ensuring full access to all your shared files and devices, even remotely across the Internet. Wake on Demand works by partnering with a service running on your AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule called Bonjour Sleep Proxy. When Wake on Demand is enabled, any Mac on your network running OS X will automatically register itself and its shared items with the Bonjour Sleep Proxy. When a request is made to access a shared item on a Mac running OS X, the Bonjour Sleep Proxy asks that Mac to wake and handle the request. Once that request is complete, the Mac will go back to sleep at its regularly-scheduled interval as set in the Computer Sleep section of the Energy Saver preferences pane.
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iPad Mini: Weaknesses Compared to Other Apple Gadgets
@ibtimesau on November 09 2012 11:04 AM
Since the launch of Apple's iPad Mini in 34 countries, combined sales of the device and the iPad fourth generation averaged 1 million units daily in the past three days.
The impressive sales does not surprise industry observers because Apple is known for high-range technology used on its devices like iPhone, iPod, iPad and Mac computers. Its iOS is a distinct version of operating system compared to Windows and Android OS.
The iPhone has evolved to ease up mobile needs from basic phone functions to special AI like Siri. iPod is a multimedia device more or less similar to iPhones except its lack of mobile network. It can play audio or videos and access games available in the AppStore. Mac computers have their own way of describing computing and is used widely in graphic arts.
iPad is a generate of tablet computers from Apple Inc. A larger device that iPhone or iPod, the 10-inch gadget can show more with its Retina display, has fast responses to touch, long life battery, and a lot of application for user's fun and needs.
The iPad mini does have many advantage compared to other Apple devices. These advantages includes long battery life just like its larger version, the latest iOS 6 which means latest application and features available, powerful dual core processor for fast gaming and application loading, LED-backlit IPS TFT which has good contrast, excellent viewing angles, excellent sunlight legibility, and good colour rendition. Additionally, iPad mini has 5MP autofocus primary camera and 1.2MP with Facetime secondary camera.
But iPad mini has noticeable disadvantages compared to other similar devices over all these features offered upon its debut.
The Display
The iPad and iPhone have remarkable screen display with their latest versions, Full High Definition display, which means higher pixel resolution and quality. Images aren't ruined during zooming and panning. But the iPad Mini does have a weakness in this one, it didn't match with the latest iPad and iPhone. Another one is the Retina display which iPad mini isn't featured for, unlike the iPhone 4/4s/5, iPod Touch 4th/5th generation, iPad 3rd/4th generation, Macbook Pro 13" and 15" are all with Retina display.
Since it is new in the market, applications that are optimised for iPad and iPhone are not yet available in the iPad mini, at least most of the applications. Soon these applications will be available but for now it is limited.
Virtual Memory
RAM or Random Access Memory is needed for applications. The higher the RAM, the more applications it can handle without suspending just some to make up for the rest. Low RAM can cause the device to lag or slow down not only in applications but also in loading simple programs or display of browser contents. iPad mini has 512MB of RAM while other Apple gadgets such as the iPhone 5 has 1GB and iPad 4 has 2GB, iPad mini looks underpowered.
The CPU or Central Processing Unit literally does all the job to process applications and programs, mobile functions, and basically everything around the device. The RAM throws the request and the CPU does the execution. The iPad mini has dual core 1GHz processor but the iPhone has dual core 1.2GHz processor. Though a small difference and not noticeable in performance, why didn't Apple made it at least iPhone CPU rate?
The latest Apple devices have Oleophobic coating which repels fingerprint oil, leaving the screen free of the user's fingerprint smudges. The iPad mini has the same feature but iPad has more. Aside from the fingerprint proofing, the iPad has scratch-resistant screens which makes iPad mini more vulnerable to screen damage.
Apple devices are expensive because of the exclusive technology and premium materials used in every single unit. But iPad mini doesn't equalise the price to benefits issue. The iPad mini can cost up to $659 with 64GB storage, Wi-Fi, and cellular functions. iPhone 5 can cost $399 minimum with 64GB and network open. The iPad 4 can cost up to $829 with 64GB, Wi-Fi, and cellular functions.
However, despite these shortcomings, Apple loyal followers continue to snap up the iPad mini. Due to the higher demand compared to existing supply, Apple limits to two units per customer sales of the iPad mini for orders placed on the company's online stores and in Apple outlets.
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Previously frozen— thawed in refrigerator but not warmed
4 hours or less (ie the next feeding)
Store in refrigerator
24 hours
Do not refreeze
But in freezer the temperature is still below normal, still is there a probability of bacteria growth?
I wish to understand the reasons behind the warning. Answers with references will be appreciated.
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You may want to try asking this same question on skeptics.SE – Remi.b Apr 23 '14 at 14:02
Something to note is that the thaw and refreeze cycle is not just about texture, but there is real damage happening to the proteins that are present in the milk. All the good things that make breast milk useful for infants (growth factors, hormones, antibodies, etc) will be destroyed by freeze-thaws. – leonardo May 24 '14 at 1:08
2 Answers 2
This is just a guess, but I don't think this is a food safety issues, its more a case of 'this food is gross now' issue.
When I was a teenager I worked in a frozen food processing plant. The freezers were giant boxes where freon was condensed on gigantic coils into a liquid and then the liquid freon would rain down on to the food passing under on a conveyer belt. The vegetables were frozen instantly and it was quite tasty - frozen just a few minutes after being cleaned.
As industrial freezing is very quick and such flash freezing, the quality of the food is preserved in a pretty fresh state. [its horrible for the ozone in the atmosphere but this was in the 80s and I hope they changed the process].
Milk is a mixture of water based nutrients and globs of fat, which give the milk is homogeneous white color and its smooth texture. Freezing milk in a typical refrigerator would take hours and ice crystals would form and separate out the two phases - the fatty portions would separate. Try it with a glass of milk and see. This is the same reason that you don't re-freeze ice cream, which has even heavier creme proportions (even fattier). The texture is completely gone.
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so how would fat separation effect health? Is harmful? – TheIndependentAquarius Nov 23 '13 at 15:52
I don't think it would- it might be a bit more like skim milk. The nutrients are still there and if its been frozen after only a short period there shouldn't be too much bacterial growth, but if you think food should be appetizing to be healthy you might not completely feel its as good as if it hadn't been refrozen. On a molecular scale there could be some differences; if I was having lactovegans over for dinner I'd throw it out. If I was starving and waiting for a check to come in I wouldn't think twice about drinking it. – shigeta Nov 23 '13 at 23:28
I think this recommendation is simply to be on the save side in terms of degradation. You don't want to feed babies with milk which is not ok anymore - so you take measures that exclude this for sure. Breast milk is a raw product, so if its not handled with care, it can be contaminated. – Chris Jan 23 '14 at 8:45
i agree @Chris . if you refreeze how long can you keep the milk between freezings? what temperature is the bottle? how clean is it? too complicated for a public guideline. – shigeta Jan 23 '14 at 11:55
When I lived in the UK, most supermarket frozen foods came with a "Do not refreeze after opening pack" warning. This is only anecdotal, but I've never heard of anyone getting sick after ignoring this advice. I myself used to ignore that advice quite regularly. – Chinmay Kanchi Jan 23 '14 at 12:34
I don't know why I can't comment, but this seems simple enough that you could do an experiment and freeze it and see what happens. One possibility that comes to mind is that fat globules formed during freezing will clog the nipple on the bottle and make it harder for the baby to drink. Breast milk isn't homogenized, so the fats are more likely to separate than normal cow milk from the store. It also isn't pasteurized, so it will spoil faster than store bought milk too, but if you keep it cold and don't let the experiment run for more than a couple days it should be ok. To be safe, don't feed the experimental sample to the baby.
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Pickled cucumber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
Pickled cucumber
A deli pickle
Alternative namesPickle, gherkin
CourseHors d'oeuvre
Main ingredientsCucumber, brine or vinegar or other solution
VariationsCornichon, gherkin
Cookbook:Pickled cucumber Pickled cucumber
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Pickled cucumber
A deli pickle
Alternative namesPickle, gherkin
CourseHors d'oeuvre
Main ingredientsCucumber, brine or vinegar or other solution
VariationsCornichon, gherkin
Cookbook:Pickled cucumber Pickled cucumber
Pickling cucumbers (not yet brined) for sale in Kraków
Cornichons are tart French pickles made from small gherkins pickled in vinegar and tarragon. They traditionally accompany pâtés.[2]
Brined pickles
10th Annual New York City International Pickle Day festival in 2010.
Kosher dill (US)
Polish "ogórek kiszony"
Another kind of pickled cucumber, popular in Poland, is ogórek konserwowy ('preserved cucumber') which is rather sweet and vinegary in taste, due to different composition of the preserving solution. It is kept in jars instead of barrels or cans.
Lime pickles are soaked in lime rather than in a salt brine.[9] This is done more to enhance texture (by making them crisper) rather than as a preservative. The lime is then rinsed off the pickles. Vinegar and sugar are often added after the 24-hour soak in lime, along with pickling spices.
Bread and butter
A jar of bread-and-butter pickles
Swedish and Danish
Kool-Aid pickles
Kool-Aid pickles or "koolickles", enjoyed by children in parts of the Southern United States,[10] are created by soaking dill pickles in a mixture of Kool-Aid and pickle brine.
Like pickled vegetables such as sauerkraut, sour pickled cucumbers (technically a fruit) are low in calories. They also contain a moderate amount of vitamin K, specifically in the form of K1. One 30-gram sour pickled cucumber "spear" offers 12–16 µg, or approximately 15–20%, of the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin K. It also offers three kilocalories, most of which come from carbohydrate.[11] However, most sour pickled cucumbers are also high in sodium; one spear can contain 350–500 mg, or 15–20% of the American recommended daily limit of 2400 mg.[12]
Sweet pickled cucumbers, including bread-and-butter pickles, are higher in calories due to their sugar content; a similar 30-gram portion may contain 20–30 kilocalories. Sweet pickled cucumbers also tend to contain significantly less sodium than sour pickles.[13]
A breaded pickle
Fried pickles
Soured cucumbers are commonly used in a variety of dishes—for example, pickle-stuffed meatloaf,[14] potato salad or chicken salad—or consumed alone as an appetizer.
Pickles are sometimes served alone as festival foods, often on a stick. This is also done in Japan, where it is referred to as "stick pickle" (一本漬 ippon-tsuke?).
Pickle etymology
The term pickle is derived from the Dutch word pekel, meaning brine.[16] In the U.S. and Canada, the word pickle alone almost always refers to a pickled cucumber (other types of pickles will be described as "pickled onion," "pickled beets," etc.). In the UK pickle generally refers to ploughman's pickle, such as Branston pickle, traditionally served with a ploughman's lunch.
See also
1. ^ Aggie Horticulture Dr. Jerry Parsons, of Texas Cooperative Extension (Texas A&M)
2. ^ Cornichons. CooksInfo.com. Published 06/08/2007. Updated 06/08/2007. Web. Retrieved 10/26/2012 from http://www.cooksinfo.com/cornichons
3. ^ Brief note on kosher pickles in "The Pickle Wing" of nyfoodmuseum.org
4. ^ Zeldes, Leah A. (2010-07-20). "Origins of neon relish and other Chicago hot dog conundrums". Dining Chicago. Chicago's Restaurant & Entertainment Guide, Inc. Retrieved 2010-08-02. 'Kosher-style' means the pickles are naturally fermented in a salt brine....
5. ^ Kashrut: Jewish Dietary Laws "Judaism 101"
6. ^ "Dill Pickles". CooksInfo.com. 03/05/2010. Retrieved 2012-10-26. Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. ^ Haan's Ladies' and Gentlemen's club, Park Row Building, New York, menu dated December 22, 1899: "Side Dishes ... Dill pickles 10"
8. ^ Kovászos Uborka: Fermented Cucumbers at Chew.hu
9. ^ Recipe Source
10. ^ Edge, John T. (May 9, 2007). "A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills". The New York Times.
11. ^ USDA SR22 (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/) -- "Pickles, cucumber, sour", spear (30 g): 0.10 g protein; 0.68 g carbohydrates; 0.06 g fat
12. ^ Nutritional information for pickles, cucumber, sour: NutritionData.com
13. ^ Nutritional information for pickles, cucumber, sweet: NutritionData.com
14. ^ Pickled Stuffed Meatloaf at ilovepickles.org
• Battcock, Mike; Azam-Ali, Sue (1998). Fermented Fruits and Vegetables: A Global Perspective. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN 92-5-104226-8. OCLC 41178885.
External links | <urn:uuid:cc20112c-ac72-47ce-91fc-818a3d149304> | 2 | 1.976563 | 0.031302 | en | 0.922314 | http://blekko.com/wiki/Pickled_cucumber?source=672620ff |
The Arc Challenge in Ruby
There’s been a bit of buzz again in the last couple days about the Arc Challenge in our corner of the interwebs, since a Haskell entry was thrown into the ring. Since we’re big Sinatra users (TweetRex, another internal demo and our just-about-to-come-out new account manager are all Sinatra), I thought I’d give it a whirl to see how it stacks up.
I did this first in the comments on news.yc, but then kept playing with it a bit, so I thought I’d give an expanded version here.
First let’s start with a version that works, without any extra massaging (line broken to avoid scrollbar):
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
enable :sessions
get '/' do
session[:said] || '<form method="post"><input name="said" type="text" /><input type="submit" />
post '/' do
session[:said] = params[:said]
'<a href="/">click here</a>'
The ugliness, relative to the Arc version is in the long HTML strings, but it’s certainly fairly concise, and also fairly readable.
The thing is, when doing web coding, most modern frameworks separate the presentation code from the application logic — and rightly so. This allows for the two to be refactored relatively independently. So, for the most part, I don’t see this missing logic in the Ruby core as much of an issue. However, in things like Rails’ ActionView, there are helpers that add in some some of the Arc-like constructs. I thought I’d write a few of my own, with concision in mind, to get an idea of what this sort of application could look like, and to give a better idea of how Ruby as a language stacks up to Lispy-concision.
Here I define a few convenience functions that we’ll pretend is our library.
require 'rubygems'
require 'sinatra'
enable :sessions
# "Library"
def element(name, params = {})
children = block_given? ? ( << yield).flatten : nil
"<#{name} " + params.keys.inject('') { |v, k| v += "#{k}=\"#{params[k]}\" " } +
(children ? ('>' + children.join('') + "</#{name}>") : '/>')
def input(type, name = '', params = {})
element(:input, params.merge(:type => type, :name => name))
def form(params = {})
params[:method] = :post if params[:method].nil?
element(:form, params) { yield }
def link(target, params = {})
element(:a, params.merge(:href => target)) { yield }
# Implementation
get '/' do
session[:said] || form {[ input(:text, :said), input(:submit) ]}
post '/' do
session[:said] = params[:said]
link('/') { 'click me' }
(Before the Rubyists come out of the wood-work, I’ll note that I’m only so-so with Ruby, really we’re a C++ shop, and I wouldn’t really write an “element” function like that if I weren’t going OCD on concision.)
I tried to skimp on symbols by using blocks rather than a hash parameter to element, and could have saved another one by folding input(:submit) into its own function, but meh. So then the question comes, how does this stack up parse tree-wise? To do a comparison, I translated the “implementation” block there into pseudo-lisp:
(get '/'
(or (hash 'said' session) (form (input 'text' 'said') (input 'submit'))))
(post '/'
(setq (hash 'said' session) (params 'said'))
(link '/' 'click me')))
I count 34 items, per Paul’s metric. The irony is that the version with the long HTML strings naturally has less, weighing in at 23 entries, on par with the original Arc implementation.
Why I don’t buy into the comparison
At the end of the day though, while fun, I still find the comparison rather contrived. As stated, I don’t want presentation code in my application logic. If I turn to a real Sinatra application that we’ve done, notably soon-to-go-live account manager, here’s the line count:
Erik: /Users/scott/Projects/DirectedEdge/AccountManager> wc -l account.rb directed_edge_admin.rb
account_manager.rb views/index.haml views/created.haml
121 account.rb
52 directed_edge_admin.rb
136 account_manager.rb
4 views/index.haml
16 views/created.haml
329 total
The problem is that the Arc Challenge is set up to what Paul calls the “Hello, world.” of web applications, but effectively it becomes a standard library comparison more than a language comparison. In practice, even for our trivial little account manager, we connect to three different web services APIs (our billing provider, our in-house Rails CRM and the administrative API of our recommendations web service), parse our modify our HTML templates using Nakagiri’s CSS selectors and then merge that with some Haml code. Were we to consider things like XML / JSON parsing / generation “core” features of a modern web programming framework, the scales would be tipped in the favor of more established web languages.
I think this is why I personally tend to drift from language to language based on the the problem and constraints currently under consideration. We literally have C++, Java, Ruby, Perl, Javascript, PHP, Python, C# and a wee bit of Scala in our repository, roughly in that order (the last four only for our language bindings), all being thrown at problems they’re well suited to. I believe an unintended moral of Paul’s example is that a language is only as good as how simple it makes tasks at hand, and in practice, things like available libraries weigh heavily into that.
One Comment
1. markus:
“language is only as good as how simple it makes tasks at hand”
Well said.
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There is No Time for Partisan Bickering
Sibling rivalryEven though many of us are hearing about it for the first time, the debt ceiling is nearly 100 years old. It was created to make sure our government could borrow money without the need for a time-consuming congressional vote. The debt ceiling limits how much the United States can borrow to cover expenses, and it’s set at $14.3 trillion dollars.
Raising the debt ceiling is a routine occurrence in Washington; each time Congress votes on a spending increase or a tax decrease they also agree to raise the debt ceiling. Since its creation, the debt ceiling has been raised nearly 100 times; more than 70 times since March of 1962, ten times since 2001 and it was last raised in February of 2010.
If we don’t get our financial house in order by August 2, the results will be catastrophic. The country’s credit rating would be lowered, costing the US more to borrow money. This means interest rates on Americans’ mortgages, car loans and credit cards will increase. If the country fails to pay investors that have bought securities from the US Treasury (and defaults on its debt), this would cause an economic crisis that would be “Lehman (Brothers) times ten.” So why isn’t Congress moving quickly?
A plan from the Senate championed by Democratic Senator Harry Reid would raise the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion and cut government spending. Official government estimates say Reid’s would cut the deficit by $2.2 trillion over the next ten years.
The House Speaker John Boehner’s competing plan would raise the debt ceiling by a smaller amount than Reid’s plan and cut government spending. Official government estimates say Boehner’s plan would cut the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next ten years. Despite the bigger savings realized by Reid’s plan, House Republicans aren’t budging.
Why won’t House Republicans vote for Reid’s plan if it saves more in the long run? The sticking point is government revenue. Boehner’s plan is a cuts-only approach, while Reid’s plan would increase revenue by closing tax loopholes for the 2 percent of Americans that earn more than $250,000 a year.
Furthermore, it won’t be possible to achieve the spending cuts under Boehner’s plan without “massive cuts in education, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs that meet crucial national needs,” said Kim Anderson, Director of NEA Government Relations.
That means funding for programs that our students depend on like TANF, food stamps, WIC, federal lunch and breakfast programs, public housing and rental assistance, unemployment, and special education funding could be immediately cut by $47 billion.
Contact your member of Congress and urge them to compromise on a balanced approach that protects the most vulnerable and requires those that can to pay their fair share. Call them at (202) 224-3121 or visit NEA’s Legislative Action Center now to email your member of Congress.
By Phil Hayes, Columbus Education Association
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Boxing Glossary
10-point-must system - Professional scoring system in which the winner of a round receives 10 points. The loser of the round receives 6-9 points. A close round: 10-9. One knockdown or a round that one fighter dominated: 10-8. Two Knockdowns: 10-7. Three Knockdowns: 10-6. Tied Round: 10-10.
Alphabet soup - A reference to the abbreviations of various sanctioning bodies that name a “world champion.” The 1980s gave birth to a number of these bodies.
Amateur - A boxer who competes for pure competition, without monetary compensation.
Association of Boxing Commissions - A boxing organization composed of different members within the US and Canada. This body formed as a result of the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 and Muhammad Ali Reform Act enacted by the US Senate and House of Representatives. The organization sets the minimum safety requirements that members need to follow.
Bag Gloves - Gloves used when hitting the speed bag or heavy bag. These gloves usually are smaller than gloves used for sparring or competing
Bantamweight - One of the traditional weight divisions used in professional boxing. The maximum weight for this division is 118 pounds (53.5 kg).
Bare-knuckle boxing - Boxing without gloves protecting the hands. This form of boxing was practiced before the first set of rules was set in place by Jack Broughton in the 18th century. Bare-knuckle boxing dates back before ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.
Beat the count - After getting knocked down a boxer returns to his/her feet before the referee reaches ten while counting.
Belt - Can refer to one of two things: 1) The area between the belly button and hips where a punch landed would be deemed illegal. 2) A decorated accessory worn around the waist of the champion of a weight class.
Bleeder - A boxer who often bleeds from the nose or is susceptible to cuts on the face.
Blocking - One of the basic defensive strategies practiced by keeping the hands up in front of the face with the chin tucked behind the gloves. The hands and forearms are used to deflect incoming punches.
Bob and weave - The legs bend and the head moves laterally in order to go underneath of an incoming punch (usually a hook). The feet move in the same direction as the head movement.
Body Punch - Punches landed above the belt but below the neck of an opponent.
Bolo Punch - A punch thrown by circling the arm and finishing with an upward movement similar to that of an uppercut. Often this punch is thrown to distract the opposing boxer. The attacker will throw the punch in order to have the opponent take his/her eye off of the other hand that will be coming from another direction.
Bout - A boxing match.Bout – A boxing match.
Boxers’ Handshake - Touching of gloves before the opening bell.
Boxing Commission - Organization authorized under law to regulate professional boxing matches.
Boxing Shoe - Light-weight rubber-soled shoe designed for easy movement in the boxing ring.
Brawler - A boxer who depends less on head/foot movement and more on sheer power and an uncanny ability to take punches from an opponent.
Breadbasket - The abdomen area.
Break - An order from the referee in order to break up two clinching boxers.
Card - The list of boxers and matchups for the event at hand.
Catch weight - Refers to a weight between two weight classes that boxers agree upon prior to an upcoming bout. Catch weights usually come into play when boxers for a bout primarily fight in two different weight classes.
Check hook - A hook used to prevent aggressive boxers from lunging in. The attacked boxer waits for the aggressor to lunge in at which point the attacked throws a hook and pivots at a 180 degree angle.
Chin - Refers to a boxer’s ability to absorb punches to the head. To “have a chin” is to be able to absorb punches to the head without much affect. To “have a glass chin” is to be susceptible to knockouts.
Clinching - Occurs when boxers get too close to one another or when one boxer feels cornered or under too much pressure. A boxer holds onto the opponent’s arms or body to prevent high powered punches from landing at close range.
Combination - A series of punches thrown one after the other.
Compubox - A computerized program that counts and categorizes punches thrown in a bout. TV networks use the system to give viewers a clear view of how many punches were thrown and where punches landed on the body and head of participants.
Contender - A highly-ranked boxer who is not the champion but is of top quality.
Corner - Refers to the four corners of the ring. Also can refer to a boxer’s team that gives advice, water, and medical treatment to the boxer between rounds.
Count - The count to ten that a referee makes after a boxer has been knocked down. If the boxer does not recover by the end of the count then he/she will be deemed unable to continue.
Counterpunch - A punch thrown immediately after an opponent throws a punch. The counterpunch exploits openings on the opponent.
Cross - A straight power-punch thrown by the dominant hand of the fighter (the rear hand).
Cruiserweight - Also known as Junior Heavyweight. The maximum weight for the weight class is 200 pounds (90.9 kg).
Cut man - Member of boxer’s team who takes care of cuts, nose bleeds, and contusions in between rounds.
Dancing - Term to describe a boxer’s footwork.
Decision - The result of the match. When no knockout, technical knockout, or disqualification occurs and the bout is determined by the scorecards then it is said to have been determined by decision. A unanimous decision occurs when all judges’ scores agree for the same winner. A split decision occurs when some of the judges are in favor of one boxer while others are in favor of the other.
Defense - Tactics used in order to prevent an opponent from landing a clean punch on the body or head.
Deflection - Also known as parrying. Use of the hands to prevent incoming punches from landing on the head or body.
Disqualification - Order given by the referee when a boxer breaks rules. The boxer who broke the rules would be declared the loser.
Division - A boxing weight category.
Double-end bag - Circular bag attacked to one hook on the floor and one hook above. The bag is used by boxers to improve speed and accuracy.
Draw - A tie. A decision rendered by the judges. Boxers tie due to an equal amount of points.
Ducking - A defensive tactic in which a boxer bends his/her knees in order to allow an incoming punch to soar over the head.
Endwell - An object used to reduce swelling in the face of the boxer. It is a flat metal surface that needs to be kept cold to be effective.
Evasion - Defensive method whereby a boxer makes his opponent miss with little or no physical contact.
Fall through the ropes - To fall or be punched through the ropes of a boxing ring.
Featherweight - One of the traditional eight weight classes. The maximum weight for this weight class is 126 pounds (57.2 kg).
Feint - A faked punch or faked offensive movement used to get the opponent to react.
Fight Record - The accumulation of wins, losses, and draws a boxer acquires throughout his/her career.
Flash knockdown - When a boxer gets knocked down but immediately gets back up.
Flyweight - Weight division that has a maximum weight of 112 pounds (50.8 kg).
Footwork - The way a boxer moves, pivots, and feints using his/her feet. A boxer who uses footwork appropriately will be able to switch easily between offensive and defensive boxing.
Foul - An infringement of boxing rules. Common fouls include head butts, elbows, and punches below the belt. Boxers usually receive a warning from the referee after committing a foul, but if the boxer continues to foul then points are often deducted from that boxer’s score. Disqualification could also result.
Getting off first - When a boxer throws a punch or combination before his/her opponent.
Go the distance - The bout lasted every round of its scheduled duration and goes to the judges who will make a decision. The term can also be used to describe a fighter who was outmatched or took punishment early on. When the fighter goes the distance he/she lasted the entire fight without being knocked out.
Go to the scorecards - The fight will be decided by the scorecards of the judges.
Handwraps - Cotton wraps worn under the gloves of boxers for knuckle and wrist protection. During competition most boxers replace the cotton wraps with gauze and medical tape.
Haymaker - A wild swinging punch thrown mostly in movies or street fights in order to knock out an opponent. This type of punch is an undisciplined and is used in boxing solely in an act of desperation.
Heavy bag - A long cylindrical bag suspended by a chain. The bag gets its name due to its weight. Boxers hit the bag and move around it as if it were an opponent.
Heavyweight - A traditional weight division that consists of boxers weighing over 200 pounds (90.9+ kg).
Hitting on the break - Occurs when the referee breaks up two clinching boxers and one of the boxers hits his opponent immediately instead of taking the mandatory full step back. This would be considered a foul.
Holding - See clinching.
Hook - A power punch in which the boxer swings with a bent elbow from the side toward the center.
Infighting - Fighting at close-range.
Inside fighter - A fighter who prefers to be close to his opponent in order to throw short, powerful punches.
Jab - A straight punch thrown with the lead hand. The punch should be thrown in a direct line from a boxer’s chin toward his/her opponent.
Journeyman - A boxer who holds respectable skill and toughness, but has limitations and little expectations when it comes to winning. He is said to be “along for the journey.”
Judge - Official who sits at ringside to score a bout. There are several judges at ringside scoring each bout.
Junior bantamweight - Also known as super flyweight. The maximum weight for this division is 115 pounds (52.2 kg).
Junior featherweight - Also known as super bantamweight. The maximum weight for this division is 122 pounds (55.3 kg).
Junior flyweight - Also known as light flyweight. The maximum weight for this division is 108 pounds (49 kg).
Junior heavyweight - Also known as cruiserweight. The maximum weight for this division is 200 pounds (90.9 kg)
Junior light heavyweight - Also known as super middleweight. The maximum weight for this division is 168 pounds (76.2 kg).
Junior lightweight - Also known as super featherweight. The maximum weight for this division is 130 pounds (59 kg).
Junior middleweight - Also known as light middleweight and super welterweight. The maximum weight for this division is 154 pounds (69.9 kg).
Junior welterweight - Also known as light welterweight and super lightweight. The maximum weight for this division is 140 pounds (63.5 kg).
Kidney punch - A punch to the lower back of an opponent. This punch has been deemed illegal due to the internal damage it inflicts.
Kissing the Canvas - Laying face first in the ring due to a knockdown.
Knockdown - Occurs when a boxer gets hit and touches the floor with any part of the body other than the feet, is being held up not by the legs but by the ropes, or is hanging on, through, or over the ropes with little support from the rest of the body. If any of these instances is caused by a slip or fall and not from the force of a punch then it is not a knockdown.
Knockout (KO) - Occurs when a boxer experiences a knockdown and is unable to get back up unassisted within ten seconds. A knockout results in a loss for the knocked out boxer.
Lead with the chin - Refers to a boxer leaving his/her chin open and vulnerable.
Light bantamweight - Also known as super flyweight and junior bantamweight. The maximum weight for this division is 115 pounds (52.2 kg).
Light flyweight - Also known as junior flyweight. The maximum weight for this division is 108 pounds (49 kg).
Light heavyweight - One of the traditional eight divisions. The maximum weight for this division is 175 pounds (79.4 kg).
Light middleweight - Also known as junior middleweight and super welterweight. The maximum weight for this division is 154 pounds (69.9 kg).
Light welterweight - Also known as junior welterweight and super lightweight. The maximum weight fort this division is 140 pounds (63.5 kg).
Lightweight - One of the traditional eight divisions. The maximum weight for this division is 135 pounds (61.2 kg).
Liver Punch - When two orthodox boxers are fighting it is a left hook to the body. If landed correctly the punch can cause a knockdown or knockout.
Loss - A boxer can lose by way of decision (loss on points), knockout or technical knockout, or by disqualification.
Loss on points - A loss by decision in which the judges have more points accumulated for the boxer’s opponent.
Main Event - The bout at a boxing event with the most highly profiled fighters. The main event is usually the last bout.
Majority Decision - In professional boxing a decision in which two of the three judges decide in favor for one boxer and the third judge declares a draw. The boxer who received two winning point accumulations wins the bout.
Majority Draw - In professional boxing a decision in which two of the three judges decide a draw and the third judge declares a winner. The fight will be considered a draw.
Manager - The person given the responsibility of a boxer’s business affairs such as negotiating matches.
Mandatory eight-count - An eight-second count made by the referee after a knocked down boxer returns to his/her feet. This eight-seconds gives the referee time to decide if the boxer can continue or whether he/she needs medical attention.
Match - A bout; a fight.
Matchmaker - The person who acts as the intermediary between boxing managers of different fighters. The matchmaker sets up upcoming fights and works with promoters to gain publicity for the bout.
Medicine Ball - Weighted ball used in training.
Memorial ten-count - Tolling of the bell ten times before a bout to honor a recently deceased person.
Middleweight - One of the traditional eight weight classes. The maximum weight for this division is 160 pounds (72.6 kg).
Minimumweight - Also known as strawweight and mini flyweight. The maximum weight for this division is 105 pounds (47.6 kg).
Mouse - Swelling that forms a bump on the face or head.
Mouthpiece - A piece of rubber worn in the mouth of a boxer to protect the teeth and absorb shock to the head.
Neutral Corner - One of the two corners of a boxing ring that have not been assigned to either boxer for a fight. Sometimes also called the “white corner.” After a boxer knocks down his opponent he is told to go to a neutral corner while the referee starts the ten-count on his opponent.
No Contest - Describes the result of a fight that ends before the scheduled duration and in professional boxing usually before fourth round has ended. The result excludes knockouts and technical knockouts. In most cases an unintentional foul has occurred and has caused a severe injury on one of the boxers. In other circumstances an instance has occurred out of the fighters hands that will prevent further boxing. The fight will be stopped and considered no contest, meaning the fight does not go on either boxers’ record.
Novice - Amateur boxer with less than 10 fights.
Official - Refers to a referee or judge.
One-two - The simplest combination made up of a jab followed by a cross.
Open Class - The class within which an amateur boxer with more than ten fights competes.
Open Scoring - A system whereby the judges’ scores are revealed after each round or at various points throughout the match.
Opening - Refers to a vulnerability in an opponent’s defense.
Orthodox - A right-handed boxer or right-handed boxing style.
Out for the count - Unable to get up within the ten seconds after being knocked down.
Outclassed - A ruling that occurs when a boxer has taken too much punishment. The referee stops the fight and the other boxer wins.
Outside fighter - A boxer who likes to keep some distance between himself/herself and the opponent. Outsider fighters throw long, straight punches and move well on their feet.
Point deduction - A deduction of a point from a boxer’s score. This occurs when the referee feels the boxer has broken a rule too excessively or too often.
Parrying - Using the hands to deflect incoming punches.
Passbook - A book containing the record of the boxer. Acts as a form of identification and is taken to the medical check-up prior to a bout.
Peek-a-boo - A style in which a boxer holds his/her hands high in front of the face.
Pitty-pat punches - Punches that lack power but count as points in amateur boxing.
Points - A boxer earns points from judges for cleaning landing punches on the opponent. Points can be deducted for committing a foul. If the match goes to a decision, the boxer with more points wins the match.
Pound-for-pound - Means regardless of weight class. The boxer considered the best in the world is often referred to as the “pound-for pound champion.”
Power punches - Punches other than the jab: hook, cross, uppercut.
Prizefight - A fight in which the winner receives a monetary reward.
Professional - A boxer paid to fight.
Promoter - The person who helps to organize and advertise for a fight.
Protective cup - Padding used to protect the groin area.
Punch - The way to gain points in boxing is by throwing punches. The four main punches are the jab, cross, hook, and uppercut.
Purse - The money paid to boxers competing in a match. From the purse boxers pay their manager, trainers, and cutman.
Queer street - Expression used to describe the mindset of a boxer who is dazed from recent blows.
Range - The distance between a boxer and the opponent.
Reach - The distance between the fingertips of a boxer’s outstretched arms.
Referee - The official who appears in the ring with the boxers. Referees have a number of responsibilities such as the ability to break up clinching fighters and the power to deduct points if a fighter is breaking rules. Referees also ensure that boxers are fit to continue in the match.
Reflex bag - A circular bag on a post that moves as the bag gets struck. Boxers use this type of bag to improve speed and accuracy.
Rest period - One minute periods between rounds in both professional and amateur bouts.
Ring doctor - Doctor that sits ringside and tends to the medical needs of boxers. The ring doctor can instruct the referee to stop a fight if a fighter is in danger of further injury.
Ring generalship - The boxer who is able to lead the pace and style of the fight at hand.
Ringside - The area immediately surrounding the ring.
Roadwork - Term used to refer to a boxer’s running routine.
Rolling - A defensive maneuver that requires a boxer to move under an incoming punch and respond with a punch.
Rope a dope - When a boxer lays on the ropes in a shell position while his/her opponent throws constant punches and tires.
Round - One of a series of periods in a match. Each round is separated by a one minute rest period. In most situations professional bouts have rounds lasting three minutes while amateur bouts have rounds that last two minutes.
RSC - Referee stops the contest. Used to protect a hurt boxer.
RSCH - Referee stops the contest due to head blows. Used to protect a boxer who has received numerous forceful shots to the head.
RSCOC - Referee Stopped Contest Outclassed. This stoppage is the most common type of RSC. It occurs when one boxer simply appears to be taking excessive punishment.
RTD - Retired. A referee retires a fight in between rounds when he thinks a boxer cannot continue or when the boxer has indicated he/she cannot continue.
Rubber match - A fight to decide who the better fighter is between two fighters who have previously fought and have each won.
Rules of boxing - The rules of boxing differ among states, countries, and governing body, but boxers who break the rules while in the ring can be deducted a point from their score or get disqualified.
Sanctioning body - Boxing organizations that sponsor championship fights and provide champions with belts. The four main sanctioning bodies of professional boxing are: WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO.
Saved by the bell - The bell sounds before the referee can reach the count of ten for a knocked down boxer. Rules may vary for this situation.
Scoring hit - A hit landing on an opponent using the knuckle area of the glove. Also known as a “clean hit.”
Shadow Boxing - An exercise that involves throwing punches into the air without a designated target. Boxers use this drill to improve technique.
Shoulder guard - Tucking the chin to the front shoulder in order to prevent vulnerability of the chin.
Skinning the gloves - Professional boxers are required to have tape around the wrist of the gloves in order to prevent laces from coming undone. When the tape goes up too high on the gloves the pads in the gloves become tighter. Skinning the gloves is considered illegal under most rules.
Slipping - A main defensive strategy of boxing. The boxer moves his/her head from side to side forcing the opponent to miss by a slight margin.
Solar Plexus - The area of the abdomen at the peak of the ribcage. Taking a shot to this area can be devastating.
Southpaw - Opposite of the orthodox fighter. A left-handed fighter who leads with the right foot in his/her stance.
Sparring - Boxing against a training partner in order to improve form and technique.
Speed bag - A small, hanging, circular bag hit in sequence to improve a boxer’s rhythm and speed.
Split decision - Occurs when the majority of judges find one boxer the winner while the minority find the other boxers the winner. The boxer who receives majority rule will be the winner.
Split Draw - One judge favors one boxer, another favors the other boxer, and the third calls a draw. A draw ensues.
Spoiler - A boxer with an unusual style that provides an advantage.
Stable - Refers to boxers under the same management.
Stance - The position in which a boxer stands to box.
Standing eight-count - Quite common in amateur fights. The referee stops the fight and counts to eight to ensure that a boxer who has undergone harmful pressure is not too dazed to continue.
Stick and move - Usage of quick footwork and long punches.
Straight Punches - The jab and the cross. These punches can be thrown from a further distance.
Strawweight - Also known as Minimumweight. The maximum weight of this division is 105 pounds (47.6 kg).
Super bantamweight - Also known as junior featherweight and light featherweight. The maximum weight for this division is 122 pounds (55.3 kg).
Super featherweight - Also known as junior lightweight. The maximum weight for this division is 130 pounds (59 kg).
Super flyweight - Also known as junior bantamweight and light bantamweight. The maximum weight for this division is 115 pounds (52.2 kg).
Super middleweight - Also known as junior light heavyweight. The maximum weight for this division is 168 pounds (76.2 kg).
Sweet Science - Another term for the sport of boxing coined by Pierce Egan, author of Boxiana.
Take a dive - To throw a fight by intentionally pretending to get knocked out.
Technical Decision - If a professional fight is scheduled for more than four rounds and an accidental foul occurs after four rounds causing an injury severe enough for the referee to stop the fight then the boxer who leads on the scorecards will win by technical decision.
Technical Draw - If a professional fight is scheduled for more than four rounds and an accidental foul occurs after four rounds causing an injury severe enough for the referee to stop the fight then the decision goes to the scorecards and if the fight is even then a draw will be concluded.
Technical Knockout (TKO) - Occurs when the referee stops the bout to protect a wounded fighter who has experienced great punishment. The opponent of the damaged boxer wins by TKO.
Third man in the ring - Refers to the referee.
Three knockdown rule - A rule requiring that a boxer who is knocked down three times in the same round be declared knocked out.
Throw in the towel - A member of a boxer’s corner throws in a white towel in order to signal that the boxer has had enough. The fight is stopped and the boxer loses by technical knockout.
Time keeper - Official in charge of keeping the time of rounds, stoppages, and resting periods.
Title bout - Refers to a championship match.
Tomato can - A boxer with little skill that often gets beat up.
Trainer - Member of a boxer’s team responsible for preparing the boxer for the fight and giving the boxer advice during rest periods.
Unanimous decision - A decision made by the judges in which all judges agree on the same winner.
Undercard - Boxing matches preceding the main event.
Uppercut - A power punch thrown at close range. The punch come in an upward motion and is intended to land on the stomach or chin of the opposition.
USA Boxing - The official governing body of amateur boxing in the United States.
Venue - The event or place where the matches occur.
Verdict - The decision made by the judges.
Warning - A notice a referee gives to a boxer after he/she commits a foul. Generally a boxer gets a warning and if the foul is committed again a point is taken away from that boxer’s score. If the infraction occurs a third time then the boxer is disqualified.
Weigh-in - A pre-bout ritual in which boxers are weighed to ensure they are at or under the maximum weight. For professional matches this ceremony usually occurs the day before the match. For amateur fights this ceremony usually occurs the day of the match.
Weight classes - Also known as weight divisions. The weight divisions set a maximum weight for fighters who intend to fight in each class.
Welterweight - One of the traditional eight divisions. The maximum weight for this class is 147 pounds (66.7 kg).
White corner - One of the neutral corners of the boxing ring. Both boxers and his/her team are assigned corners and the remaining two corners known as the white corners. When a boxer knocks down his/her opponent he/she is told to go to a white corner while the referee begins the count.
Win on points - When a boxer wins by decision after the points have been added up on each of the judges’ scorecards.
Wind - Used to refer to a boxer’s stamina.
Check out this Boxing glossary to find the sport-specific definitions for which you have been looking. From A to Z, we've got all the words covered.
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History of Boxing
Boxing was one of the first competitive sports known to man...
Boxing Rules & Regulations
Read this guide to learn about the rules and regulations...
Boxing Dimensions
This guide covers the requirements for competitive boxing...
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Clinical Conditions / Male breast cancer and gynecomastia
1. Overview :
Male breast cancer is much less common than breast cancer in females. The literature suggests that for every male who are diagnosed with breast cancer, there will be approximately 100 females diagnosed with breast cancer. Because of the rarity of male breast cancer, routine screening mammograms are not recommended for males at any age. Diagnosis of breast cancer in males is almost exclusively centered on the evaluation of lumps in the breast. Since there are multiple causes of male breast lumps (most of which are benign), it is important that both physicians and patients have a clear understanding of the significance of lumps or new symptoms, such as nipple discharge or pain in the male breast.
2. Male breast lumps :
Teens :
The significance of a male breast lump is in large part related to a patient's age. Breast lumps are common in teenage / adolescent males. The lumps are almost always due to hormonal changes, and for the most part they go away on their own. These breast lumps are referred to as gynecomastia. Most of these lumps are followed by a pediatrician. If the lump has unusual physical characteristics, if it becomes a cosmetic problem, or there are concerns from the parents or patient, these patients are often referred to a breast surgeon. In select cases, surgical removal of the lump is appropriate. In most cases, however, the lump will slowly resolve on its own. Although testicular tumors are unusual in this age group, we always perform a testicular examination for these patients (see next section).
20-40 age group :Breast lumps in the 20-40 year-old age group of males are also usually benign in our experience, but testicular cancer is a major issue of concern, since the peak incidence of testicular cancer is in the 20-40 year-old age group. Of note, testicular cancers can produce chemicals that cause breast enlargement. Thus, in situations in which males in this age group present with lumps in one or both breasts, we pay particular attention to the possibility of a testicular cancer.
A testicular examination is performed by the physician. If any abnormalities are found, we do an ultrasound of the testicles. If the testicular examination is unremarkable, then we order blood tests to evaluate the possibility of a hidden or occult testicular cancer (we currently order a beta-HCG and an alpha-feto protein test). If these tests are all negative, the patient is advised to do a regular testicular and breast examination and to report any changes.
If the testicular examination is normal, we next evaluate the breast lump. Most cases of breast lumps in this age group are due to either medication (see list below) or the actual cause is unknown. We have not seen or heard of a single case of male breast cancer in this age group. However, we recognize that a breast cancer is still a possibility. Fortunately, most cases of gynecomastia in this age group present as a flat, rubbery, smooth, central breast mass. Male breast cancers are typically hard and irregular in shape and sometimes tender. If we have any doubts about the diagnosis, we do a mammogram and a core needle biopsy (see link to how the diagnosis is made).
Even in the case of a benign biopsy, we continue to follow these patients for at least one year. In situations where a medication associated with gynecomastia is identified, we work with the referring doctor in an attempt to identify alternative medications. Young males taking body building products who develop gynecomastia are being seen with increased frequency. In most cases, the breast enlargement resolves when the medications are stopped.
In cases of benign gynecomastia, we simply follow the patient and reassure him that in most cases the tenderness will go away, and in many cases the lump will become less obvious. In cases where there are either cosmetic concerns or the lump is bothersome, we remove the enlarged breast tissue. In a vast majority of cases, the patient can anticipate an excellent cosmetic result.
Over-40 years of age : Since breast cancer is most commonly detected in men between 60 and 70 years of age, we are concerned about any unexplained male lumps that occur after the age of 40. In general, the evaluation of patients in this age group is similar to the 20-40 age group. However, in the over-40 age group, medications (see list below) are more often the cause of breast enlargement. Also, cancer is much more common in the over 40 age group. For this reason, in addition to the standard evaluation, these patients almost always receive a diagnostic mammogram and some form of biopsy. If a benign diagnosis can be established, the patient is followed conservatively. If the diagnosis is cancer, a standard mastectomy is usually performed.
Pictures of male breast cancer :
1. Male Breast Cancer :
2 Digital mammogram....(Click here for the picture )
Medications that can cause gynecomastia :
* Steroids, such as prednisone or hexadrol; also body-building anabolic steroids and food supplements containing steroid compounds.
* Anti-ulcer medications (such as cimetidine).
* Medications used to treat epilepsy (such as phenytoin [Dilantin]).
* Digitalis and other cardiac medications.
* Anticancer medications (alkylating agents).
* Anti-androgen drugs (such as flutamide, finasteride, cyproterone, spironolactone).
* Anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications (such as diazepam, (Valium) and tricyclic antidepressants).
* Marijuana
Helpful Links :
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The Disguised Musical Voice
Recently I blogged about Auto Tune and its magical pitch-correcting abilities. While the post was ostensibly about a musical technology, its subtext was of course all about the human voice, specifically the delight we take in altering how our voices can sound. Auto Tune is one way to do it, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we can electronically process our voices. Of course, musicians can also take fragments of recorded voices and render them into amorphous wisps of sound–effectively turning them into just another instrumental source (albeit one heavy with signification and all manner of associations that only the voice seems to conjure). Mutating the voice in this way is the topic of a recent article by David Bevan at that describes how
“…there seems to be a new musical vocabulary emerging, one centered around the way vocals are being manipulated to create moods and atmospheres defined by their amorphous, often spectral nature. Ghost voices. It’s something like what happened in the film Inception, the way music could be heard through layers of dreams. That effect– as though sound were floating through several walls of consciousness, its outlines blurred to be almost unidentifiable– has something to do with the fact that we’ve heard a lot of these vocals before in their original form; they’re often samples that have been resurrected and re-articulated to express a sort of new slang. You can hear it in dance music and hypnagogic pop, in which house, drone, and art rock, the various presentations just as disparate as they are interconnected.”
The article presents a stimulating array of artists–including Burial, James Blake, Balam Acab, Four Tet, and others–to make its points.
You read the article here.
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Software Process
The Software Process is the means by which prioritized requirements and committed budget are transformed, by a software development team, into useful production code. Market studies, more detailed individual or team usability studies, and testing may be considered inside, or outside, the software process, depending on the project's context. In some projects, the process may include only 'coding', while in others, the entire loop of setting priorities and budgets may reasonably considered part of a SoftwareProcess.
This author ( believes that software is a service, cannot usually be considered to be a 'product', and its 'usefulness' should be measured in terms of service rendered to its end user. Bugs, or quality defects, are in general far more tolerable in software than in engineering products, and their presence does not generally render the software useless from the point of view of end user service.
For details see [1].
If the software process is "the means" of producing code from the available inputs, does it include: all hinted at by Craig; but also how about: These are all means of producing code from available inputs.
Why is it not: "LifeTheWorldAndEverything?"? :-)
Most of the process community takes only the last element, following the work of Humphrey. I find that to be a trivial component of the organizations where you can find it, and it's often absent in high-quality production organizations.
Software is a product that provides a service. I agree that the emphasis should be on the service, though: as a product, software is becoming a commodity. (This is obvious in the PC world, but it's starting to be true even for large-scale embedded systems.)
-- JimCoplien
If PartiallyOrderedTaskList? is absent from high-quality production organizations, does that mean that they have "left the gate behind"? Maybe CMM needs a new level, Level 6 - Egoless.
-- KentSchnaith
The last reminds me of ThePsychologyOfComputerProgramming by GeraldWeinberg published by VanNostrandReinhold? in 1971
-- JohnFletcher 19970212
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There Is No Spoon
Original quote from TheMatrix:
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Croc. Dundee: This is a spoon.
Magritte: This is not a spoon.
Whether or not there is a spoon is irrelevant. What matters is the belief.
Working on the assumption that there is not:
You'll note that in TheMatrix, "ThereIsNoSpoon" applied only inside a certain giant neuro-interactive simulation...
The question is: how do you know if you are inside or outside?
You do not know. You believe. And so beliefs create your reality.
And so, one day, Neo, thinking he is inside the Jump Program when he's not, jumps to his death...
Even if matrices can be nested, there has to be a top level somewhere, where a spoon is a spoon. Have you ever had that feeling where you're not sure whether you're awake or still dreaming? In the absence of such evidence to the contrary, I'd say this is the top level. Welcome... to the RealWorld.
Unless you work on TheThirteenthFloor.
Or you realize we have evidence to the contrary: SimulationArgument
humorous version from []
Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, try and realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: The spoon effect will be added later, using some sort of SGI workstation.
[Actually, it was added using some sort of cluster of Dell servers, running FreeBsd: -- AnonymousDonor]
Granted this spoon even existed in any world, the spork is a much more efficient tool.
Boy: Do not try to think outside of the box. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no box.
Neo: No box? Then what am I sitting on?
Boy: You are missing the point of the lesson.
Neo: There's a lesson in all this gibberish?
Boy: Just shut up and focus on the truth, willya?!? <aside, to self> Sheesh! Some people's kids.
If, in truth there is no spoon, then any attempt to bend the spoon validates the truth of the spoon. That is why you bend yourself instead of the spoon.
Spoons make excellent murder weapons because the victim looks like they died of smileys.
"Well, at least I didn't use a spoon!" -- AlanRickman? as Sheriff of Nottingham (in RobinHoodMovie?)
A preceding dialogue to the mentioned citation contained in the movie is:
Guy of Gisbourne: Why a spoon cousin? Why not an axe?
Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's dull, you twit, it'll hurt more!
Professor: "There, is no spoon" Student: "Okay, Where, is a spoon?"
Less humorous parts factored to SimulationArgument
See: TheMatrix, TasteTheSoup, BeliefCreatesReality
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Daddy Dearest
Daddy Dearest
Op-Ed The New Republic
Kim Jong Un, the youngest son of Kim Jong Il, looks to be the next ruler of North Korea. Will he usher in a period of perestroika? Or are we to expect more of the same provocation we've witnessed in the past two months?
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For years, a prime method for decoding the impenetrable North Korean regime has been the Dear Leader's sushi chef, a defector named Kenji Fujimoto. When I met him in Tokyo several years ago, he looked as if he had just stepped off a construction site. His body was squat, his face rough. From his vantage in the kitchen, Fujimoto had been an astute observer of Kim Jong Il's court--and the struggle within that court to win favor.
Years ago, Fujimoto began noticing the growing prominence of Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un. He had grown close to his father; a special bond had formed. On the surface, Kim Jong Un seemed like a nice boy, dutiful and respectful. Fujimoto, however, sensed these were mere exterior traits. He sensed that Kim Jong Un was "ruthless" and "tough inside." In his memoir about his time in the household, Fujimoto captured the youngest son in a chilling passage: "When Jong Un shook hands with me, he stared at me with a vicious look. I cannot forget the look in the Prince's eyes."
It is said that Kim Jong Il, who has ruled North Korea since his father died in 1994, has suffered at least one stroke, a health record that focused his mind on his successor. And, apparently, his choice for the job is Kim Jong Un, now reportedly 26 years old. No formal announcement has been made, but there are all the telltale signs: schoolchildren invoking Kim Jong Un in their songs, instructions that diplomats pay homage to him.
Perhaps all this tumult within the regime can explain its particularly belligerent behavior in recent months. Will the new leader put an end to this chapter? There are only a mere handful of other clues about the young man who will take over the Hermit Kingdom. And it is essential to examine them closely to determine whether Kim Jong Un is as ruthless as the chef describes.
When I first heard the name Kim Jong Un from the chef, it meant little to me. The only public photo of him is a grainy shot, taken when he was about eleven; it shows a sweet-looking child with the same broad face and thick lips as his infamous dad. Unlike his eldest brother, the beefy Kim Jong Nam, who the Japanese once deported for traveling under a false passport, Kim Jong Un had never made news of any kind--not through scandals, not through speeches. His upbringing was shrouded; he supposedly attended the International School of Berne in Switzerland under a pseudonym, though no one knows for sure. For years, many North Korea-watchers didn't even know he existed.
Kim Jung Un is the son of the Dear Leader's third and most beloved wife, Koh Young Hee, a dancer from a state-run troupe. He could be spoiled. And, like his father, he's a big-time drinker. The father's taste for imported liquor consumed at wild parties is something that Fujimoto knows well. At one late-night party, the Dear Leader had the chef's pubic hair shaved, a humiliating gag.
The parallels between father and son extend beyond their extracurricular pursuits. In North Korea's elite circles, Kim Jong Un was known for his cruel, icy, and often domineering personality, a mentality that could be perfect for running a gulag state or playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken. According to Fujimoto, these parallels between father and son were precisely the reason that the Dear Leader gravitated toward Kim Jong Un.
Yet even if Kim Jong Un proves as tough as his father, the power of the Kim family brand might be diluted. The Dear Leader's father and the state's founder, Kim Il Sung, boasted revolutionary credentials and dominated North Korea, creating an exhaustive personality cult and keeping tight control of the armed forces. Despite his Dear Leader moniker, Kim Jong Il has never generated the same levels of devotion or complete control of his country. Concessions to competing power bastions, namely the military, have been necessary. (That's why the army has been showered with food and resources, even as the rest of the nation has starved.) Andrei Lankov, probably the foremost North Korea-watcher in Seoul, told me that Kim Jong Il rules less by fiat than is commonly believed; he has to reach some degree of consensus with top generals before making decisions. "Kim Jong Il cannot do whatever he wants," Lankov said.
Kim Jong Un will have to cede even more power than his dad. Most likely, he will rule in tandem with the Dear Leader's brother-in-law, Chang Song-Taek, who controls the North Korean secret police. Many analysts believe that Chang has been running the country in recent months, while Kim Jong Il recovers. (When I have asked former North Korean defectors about Chang, they have responded as if I'd mentioned Keyser Soze; most have clammed up entirely, while others have detailed the horrors of his agents.) The young Kim may also hand over more power to senior military leaders. Unlike his father, who spent more than a decade building ties to top generals before assuming power, Kim Jong Un hasn't had nearly as long to cultivate relationships.
Is there any chance that Kim could usher in a period of perestroika? American analysts of North Korea have long insisted that there is a moderate group within Pyongyang's military that wants Chinese-style economic reforms. And, even if this weren't the case, a larger governing role for the army might help constrain the craziness that inherently flows from an erratic monomaniacal autocrat. That might be wishful thinking. More likely is the possibility that the accession of the country's new leader might end Pyongyang's nuclear provocations--which may be a tactic to rally domestic opinion around the new leadership.
Then again, maybe the world is underestimating the younger Kim. More than a decade ago, when his father took control, most North Korea analysts believed the pudgy playboy wouldn't last long before a military junta sidelined him. Since then, Kim Jong Il has developed a nuclear weapon, despite international sanctions, and kept the military at bay. If his son, with a nuclear arsenal at his command, has inherited his old man's disposition, imagine what he can accomplish.
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