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Eastern promises: Old traditions join modern life in this resource-rich country
Bounded by Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is a vast country and sparsely populated – larger than Western Europe, but with a population of under 3m people. The country of wind-swept steppes, plains and deserts is famous for its nomadic tradition, still influential despite rapid development. However, stable and democratically-ruled Mongolia is also emerging as a key centre for mining investment, with important mineral reserves and a number of major projects due to enter production soon.
GEOGRAPHY: Mongolia, covering a surface area of 1.56m sq km, is the 19th largest country in the world. The country is entirely land-locked, with land borders that stretch 8220 km. Its geography is characterised by plains, steppes and deserts – notably the Gobi desert in the south of the country – while parts of the north, far west and south-west are more mountainous. The far west hosts the country’s highest peak, the 4374-metre-high Huyten Orgil (Khüiten Peak), which sits astride part of the western frontier where Mongolia, Russia, China and Kazakhstan come together.
The capital, Ulaanbaatar, has a population of around 1.1m according to the 2010 census and is located slightly north-east of the centre of the country. The mountainous northern province of Khövsgöl, named after a lake with the same name, is known for its dynamic population, as well as for being a stronghold of shamanism and related practices.
In the south of the country, the Gobi desert, despite the images of endless sand conjured by the name, is known for its diverse scenery and landscapes, including glaciers, canyons and oases, as well as for hosting the country’s largest mineral deposits.
HISTORY: Present-day Mongolia has been inhabited by modern humans for approximately 40,000 years, with major political systems developing in the first millennium BC. A succession of nomadic tribal confederations, including the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Rouran, Khitans, and Khamag Mongols, ruled over large parts of the steppe between 200 BC and 1200 AD. The Mongols burst onto the global stage, however, with the Eurasian empire established by Chinggis (Genghis) Khan in the 13th century. At its height, Chinggis’ empire stretched from Poland to Vietnam and held over 100m people. Upon his death, however, Chinggis’ territory was divided into four khanates (a political entity ruled by a khan), which gradually crumbled, although one achieved fame as the Yuan Dynasty of Kublai Khan. The Mongols eventually retrenched to their original homelands, and by the late 17th century submitted to the rule of the Chinese Qing dynasty.
The Bogd Khan, Mongolia’s Buddhist spiritual leader, declared the country’s independence in 1911 upon the fall of the Qing dynasty. The new Chinese government, however, still considered “Outer Mongolia” as part of the republic and used the Russian Revolution in October 1919 as a pretext to occupy the territory. Bolshevik Russia supported the formation of a communist Mongolian government and army, which expelled the Chinese forces. The Mongolian People’s Government was declared in 1921, and after the Bogd Khan’s death in 1924, the full independence of the Mongolia’s People’s Republic was declared.
The new republic was strongly influenced by the Soviet Union. The dictator Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who ruled from 1928 to 1952, collectivised livestock, destroyed Buddhist monasteries, and purged tens of thousands of citizens, mainly monks. Mongolia continued to side with Moscow even after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, with tens of thousands of Soviet troops stationed in Mongolia in the 1980s.
With the advent of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s, however, the first cracks in Mongolian communism began appearing. Protests and hunger strikes orchestrated by the Mongolian Democratic Union toppled the communist government in 1990. The constitution was amended to allow opposition parties, and multi-party elections were held in the same year. The former state party, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, retained power until 1996, when it lost in elections and peacefully relinquished control. Since then, Mongolia’s young democracy has seen sporadic political crises, but is currently characterised by relatively little violence and a healthy consensus for multiparty politics.
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT: Having ended decades of communist rule in 1990, Mongolia is governed by a mixed presidential-parliamentary system. Candidates for the presidency are nominated by the singlechamber, 76-seat parliament, known as the State Great Khural, and elected by popular vote for a maximum of two four-year terms. The president acts as the head of state and chief of the armed forces and is obliged to appoint as prime minister the candidate presented to him by the parliamentary majority.
The prime minister appoints a cabinet that must be approved by the State Great Khural. Parliamentary elections are also held every four years. While Mongolia has a long legal tradition stretching back to the yasa (written code of law) of Chinggis Khan, the contemporary legal system has been strongly influenced by that of the Soviet Union.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Mongolia is administratively divided into 21 regions, known as aimag, with the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, operating as an independent municipality. Each province elects a local khural to parliament and is sub-divided into administrative regions (sums) that have local representative bodies.
POPULATION: The current estimated size of Mongolia’s population is just under 3m (growing at an annual rate of 1.49%), making it the 134th-largest country by population. Its small population, combined with Mongolia’s vast geographical size, makes the country the least densely populated nation in the world.
The country is fairly ethnically homogenous, with approximately 95% of the population being of Mongol origin, around 90% of whom hail from the Khalkha Mongol ethnic group, who speak the Khalkha dialect of Mongol. Other Mongol ethnic groups include the Buriat, Dorvof and Tuvad groups. However, the population has a substantial Turkic ethnic minority of around 5% of the population – most of whom are ethnic Kazakhs – who make up the majority of the population of the western-most province of Bayan-Ulgii.
RELIGION: According to figures from 2004, approximately half of the Mongolian population is Buddhist Lamaist, a sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Most Buddhist temples and monasteries were destroyed under the communist regime, which sought to erase the influence of religion on the population. However, a number of these structures were left standing as examples of traditional Mongolian culture, including the famous Gandantegchinlen monastery in the capital city.
Roughly 40% of Mongolians do not practice any religion, partly of the legacy of the ban on all religious practice that was in place under the former communist regime, which ended in 1990. There is also a Sunni Muslim minority – mostly made up of the Kazakh minority – that comprises around 4% of the population. In addition, small Shamanist and Christian communities exist, with most Christians subscribing to Protestant denominations. The constitution and the government both provide for freedom of worship.
LANGUAGE: Around 90% of Mongolians speak Mongol, most of them using the Khalkha Mongol dialect, which is the official language of Mongolia and which since 1963 has been written in the Cyrillic alphabet due to the strong influence of the Soviet Union. However, the traditional Mongolian alphabet is gradually being reintroduced. Turkic languages – principally Kazakh – are also spoken, mainly in the west of the country. Russian was spoken fairly widely in the past, sustained by the large number of immigrants from the Soviet Union, however, many left following its collapse and the language does not have as wide an influence any longer.
CULTURE & HERITAGE: Nomadism (and in particular nomadic herding of livestock) and Buddhism are two of the most important influences on Mongolian culture. While most Mongolians are now settled into urban areas, a significant number of city-dwellers nonetheless continue to live in gers, traditional round wood and felt tents that were specifically designed for the nomadic lifestyle.
The most popular traditional sport is Mongolian wrestling, known as bukh. Together with horseracing and archery, this is the mainstay of the famous summer festival of Naadam, which is also a major tourist attraction. Epic poetry also remains a significant cultural tradition. Wrestlers at Naadam are honoured by bards, while the nation’s past is famously encapsulated in the epic poem “The Secret History of the Mongols”, which describes the rise of the Mongol Empire under Chinggis Khan in the 13th century.
Mongolian cuisine is influenced by the country’s herding tradition, and thus based largely around meat and milk products. Traditional staple dishes include a variety of mutton dumplings such as buuz (steamed dumplings) as well as khushuur, which are deep fried meat pies. Popular traditional drinks include milk tea and airaig, lightly alcoholic fermented mare’s milk.
CLIMATE: Given the large size of the country, the weather varies significantly. Generally, the climate is an extreme continental one, thanks to its landlocked status and distance from the sea. In Ulaanbaatar – one of the coldest capital cities in the world – the coldest month on average is January, where temperatures fluctuate between a daily average of -32°C and -19°C.
Meanwhile, the temperature peaks in July, alternating between average daily minimums and maximums of 11°C and 22°C. However, temperatures outside of Ulaanbaatar and particularly in the southern desert regions are substantially higher.
In the steppe and desert areas of the country the temperature fluctuates between warm days and cool nights. July is the wettest month, with precipitation averaging roughly 76 mm in the capital.
NATURAL RESOURCES: Agriculture, and particularly herding – around which many of the country’s traditional activities and the semi-nomadic culture is centred – are important contributors to the economy. However, the scale of the activities is primarily focused at the national level. As a result, it is the mining and extracting sector that is emerging as the key driver of both exports and foreign investment.
Mongolia currently has very little to speak of in the way of significant oil or gas reserves. However, the country is an important mining and minerals centre. Many of the country’s deposits are still untapped, and a number of major new projects are due to begin production in the near future. These are expected to significantly increase Mongolia’s status as a producer of minerals. The mining sector currently accounts for 30% of GDP and 32% of government revenue, according to research from Resource Capital.
Much of the output is exported to its rapidly expanding neighbour, China. The country has among the largest copper reserves in the world, with the Oyu Tolgoi reserve thought to be the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold reserve. Oyu Tolgoi also gives Mongolia the second-largest copper reserves in the world (after Chile). Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto are developing the site in partnership with the government, which has a 34% stake in the project. Production at the mine, located in the South Gobi region, is due to begin in 2013.
Tavan Tolgoi, the world’s largest untapped coal reserve, is also a major focus. The government has decided to divide the site in two, keeping 51% to develop on its own and inviting participation from international mining firms for the remainder. Additionally, Mongolia is the world’s third-largest producer of fluorspar, used in iron smelting. Its output accounts for approximately 5.5% of global output.
Mongolian mines produced 25m tonnes of coal in 2010, of which 18m was exported. Mongolia is also believed to have the world’s second-largest reserves of uranium after Australia, with a major prospect set to being production in 2012. The nation also holds significant reserves of tin, molybdenum and tungsten.
A RISING TIDE: Mongolia’s commodities surge is expected to boost the country’s other industries, many of which are small now but should benefit from GDP growth rates as high as 20% annually. The banking sector, for example, is as of yet too small to service the mining sector’s massive capital requirements, but an influx of mining money will provide liquidity through other channels. Anticipated growth areas include mortgages and auto loans.
Mongolia’s industrial base is similarly modest, having seen Soviet-era factories close down in the early years of democracy. Textiles, food and beverages, and basic metals from mining account for more than 80% of industrial output. The former two are primarily agricultural outputs, with cashmere from goats having grown into perhaps the country’s largest industry.
Even as it turns into a mining powerhouse, Mongolia is seeking to preserve its pastoral landscapes, home not only to a distinctive national culture but also to economic potential. The country is seeking to market both its cashmere and its meat products as premium products grown in a sustainable, traditional manner. In terms of more advanced industry, however, Mongolia is banking on a $10bn industrial complex in Sainshand that will take advantage of raw materials from mining sites and still-to-be-built railway links.
Infrastructure development will in fact be key to Mongolia’s attempt at resource-driven growth. As a landlocked country sandwiched between China and Russia, getting commodities and other exports to buyers is time-consuming and expensive. The country’s airport is a holdover from Soviet times, its roads are frequently unpaved, and its railroad network is a mishmash of incompatible Chinese and Russian standards.
Much of the government’s mining-related investment is being funnelled, therefore, into infrastructural improvements. Plans include upgraded roads both within Ulaanbaatar and in the provinces, a new airport, and more than 5000 km of new railways. Such massive investment will not only make the country and its hinterlands more accessible but will also benefit local construction companies and service providers.
The Report: Mongolia 2012
Cover of the The Report: Mongolia 2012
The Report
This article is from the Country Profile chapter of The Report: Mongolia 2012. Explore other chapters from this report. | <urn:uuid:73318405-4081-448a-a26d-cf669caeae4b> | 3 | 3.09375 | 0.032196 | en | 0.961718 | http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/profile/eastern-promises-old-traditions-join-modern-life-resource-rich-country |
What is the origin of the word ‘codswallop’?
The story goes that a man by the name of Hiram Codd patented a bottle for fizzy drinks with a marble in the neck, which kept the bottle shut by pressure of the gas until it was pressed inwards. Wallop was a slang term for beer, and Codd's wallop came to be used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for weak or gassy beer, or for soft drinks.
This theory has appeared in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, but there are problems with it. 'Codswallop' is not recorded until the mid-20th century, rather a long time after Codd's invention, and there are no examples of the spelling Codd's wallop, which might be expected as an early form. These problems do not conclusively disprove the theory - it's conceivable that the term circulated by word of mouth, like many slang terms, and that the connection with Codd's bottle had been forgotten by the time the term was written down - but they do shed doubt on the tale.
See other questions about the origins of phrases and words.
Take a look at: What is the origin of the word 'grockle'?
Or: What is the origin of the word 'quiz'?
Get more from Oxford Dictionaries
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Dismantling the Noah Story
Noah's ArkWe’ve explored “Noah” the movie. Now let’s turn to Genesis to see what the Noah story actually says:
Yahweh saw that mankind had become wicked, and he regretted his creation. “It grieved him to his heart.” He resolved to wipe man from the face of the earth, plus all the animals, “for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Noah was the one righteous exception, so God told him to take his family into an ark. God also commanded that he take seven pairs of all clean animals plus one pair of all other animals. After a week to get everything on board, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Water covered even the highest mountains, drowning everything—animals, birds, and humans.
After 40 days [this is presumably an additional 40 rain-free days, though the text is unclear], Noah sent out a dove to scout for dry land, but it returned. After a week, he tried again, and the dove returned with an olive leaf, showing that some land was dry. He sent out the dove again a week later, and it didn’t return.
Noah stepped out on top of the ark and saw that the land was dry. He left the ark and built an altar and sacrificed one of every clean animal to Yahweh. Yahweh was pleased, and he thought: I will never again destroy life on earth, because man is inherently evil. While the earth exists, I will preserve it.
Another version
Does that sound familiar? See what you think about this version:
Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah was righteous, but the earth was corrupt, and man was violent. Elohim decided to flood the earth and kill everything, and he gave Noah instructions for building an ark. It had to be 300 × 50 cubits in area, and 30 cubits tall. It needed three decks, with a door in the side and a roof on top, and it must be covered in pitch.
Noah, his family, and a pair of every living thing would be safe in the ark. They must bring provisions for them and the animals.
When Noah was 600 years old, on the 17th day of the 2nd month [I’ll abbreviate this as 2/17], “the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened.” Noah, his family, and the chosen animals boarded the ark. Everything else—animals and human—drowned.
The water covered the earth for 150 days, but Elohim hadn’t forgotten Noah. He made a wind blow, and the water receded. The sources of the water closed. On 7/17, the ark rested in the mountains of Ararat. By 10/1, the tops of the mountains were visible.
Noah sent out a raven to see when the land was dry.
By 1/1, the ground was dry [presumably just the nearby land], and by 2/27, the earth was dry. Noah, his family, and the animals left the ark, and Elohim told them to “be fruitful and multiply.”
Contrast the two accounts
Both versions are in Genesis. The first version was from the J source (J because this source refers to God as “Jehovah,” which is another way of saying “Yahweh”). The second version was from the P (“Priestly”) source. They are interleaved to make Genesis chapters 6–8. (I used Richard Friedman’s The Bible with Sources Revealed and Who Wrote the Bible? to identify the two sources.)
Note the differences in our Noah accounts.
• God has different names: Yahweh in J and Elohim in P.
• Yahweh acts like a human—he regrets and grieves—while Elohim doesn’t.
• In the J account, the flood comes from rain. In the P account, water poured in from the two great sources—the fresh water underneath and the salt water in the dome above: “the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened.” This cosmology comes from the Sumerian creation myth, which we see in Genesis 1, which is also from the P source:
• J uses a dove, and P uses a raven.
• J demands seven pairs of clean animals, but P demands only one pair. This is because only J has a sacrifice at the end, and you can’t sacrifice animals if they’re the only ones of their species.
• P gives details of the ark’s construction and detailed dates (Noah was 600 years old, plus the precise dating of milestones), while J has none of this.
• In J, the rain lasts for only 40 days, and the entire ordeal takes less than 100 days. In P, 150 days is mentioned, and Noah’s family is on the ark for over a year.
Note also what is the same. Both stories have an introduction that explains that the world was wicked but Noah was good. In the interleaved story, this appears redundant, but this is an additional clue that they were originally independent stories that needed their introductions.
(I’ve written about the illogic of the Noah flood story here.)
Documentary Hypothesis
The theory explaining many of the duplications and different perspectives jumbled throughout the Pentateuch is called the Documentary Hypothesis. It hypothesizes four different sources, with J and P being two of them. There are other doublets besides the two Noah stories: two creation stories, two Goliath stories, two stories of Abraham lying about his wife Sarah to a king, and so on.
60% of Americans insist that the Noah’s ark story is literally, word-for-word true. What explains the text far better is that it is a composite of several sources of Mesopotamian mythology.
The man who prays is the one who thinks
that god has arranged matters all wrong,
but who also thinks that he can instruct god
how to put them right.
— Christopher Hitchens, Mortality
Photo credit: father tymme
OK, Smart Guy—YOU Tell Us What Happened
The Design Argument (Fiction)
Who Would Die for a Lie? (Another Weak Christian Argument) (2 of 2)
About Bob Seidensticker | <urn:uuid:0c28c163-459a-4233-9fc5-2e20a5617cec> | 3 | 3.21875 | 0.022027 | en | 0.968431 | http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2014/03/dismantling-the-noah-story-documentary-hypothesis/ |
Bloody Roads to Germany
Bloody Roads to Germany
At Huertgen Forest and the Bulge–an American Soldier’s Courageous Story of Worl d War II
Additional Formats
• Ebook
• ISBN 9781101613450
• 208 Pages
• Berkley
• 18 and up
He never planned on becoming a leader—or a hero…
In November 1944—Sergeant William Meller was just twenty years old. Very soon into the fighting in Huertgen Forest, he found himself promoted to squad leader by attrition, since every single officer in the rifle companies had already been killed or wounded. Meller and his men, living in freezing foxholes and armed only with rifles and a few machine guns and grenades, fought against the Wehrmacht’s battle-hardened soldiers and its juggernaut Panzer tanks, all while under withering barrages of artillery fire.
The bravery and determination of Meller and the soldiers of Meller’s 28th Infantry Division allowed them to survive what would become the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought in its history. But they would get little respite from the carnage. Almost immediately, they were sent to fight the Germans in the densely forested and bitter-cold Ardennes. Again, Meller and his GI’s were vastly outnumbered and out-equipped in the fight which would soon become known as the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s final offensive. The vaunted Wehrmacht threw everything they had in their arsenal against the American dogfaces.
This is the true story of a man in combat who continuously adapted to his circumstances with grace and courage, ultimately transforming himself from an ordinary young GI to a leader who helped show his soldiers, by example, how to survive war.
“William Meller’s journey from inexperienced dogface to hardened combat leader is a truly fascinating story that oozes with drama and authenticity. From the Hurtgen to the Bulge to his days in captivity, Meller shares the emotion and trauma of a small unit leader’s experiences as few ever have. This is one of the finest combat memoirs I have ever read and I highly recommend it.”—John C. McManus, author of The Deadly Brotherhood and Grunts
"A gripping and deeply felt account of one infantryman’s experience in WWII. Its lessons, however, trascend time and space to teach us about all wars, and all warriors."—Nathaniel Fick, author of the New York Times bestseller One Bullet Away. | <urn:uuid:5ac3fc4a-9c1b-4818-9d8a-33041b5d33f7> | 2 | 1.96875 | 0.029198 | en | 0.956128 | http://www.penguin.com/book/bloody-roads-to-germany-by-william-f-meller/9781101613450 |
Ask a Physicist Answers
If you coupled a motor to a generator and connected them to the same power source, would the generator be able to recycle wasted power from the motor and thereby reduce costs? — JH, Australia
This is a wonderful question because it brings up one of my favorite relationships between ordinary objects: motors and generators are basically identical! If you supply electric power to a generator, it becomes a motor and if you supply mechanical power to a motor, it becomes a generator. In fact, whether they’re labeled “motor” or “generator,” these devices are always mixtures of both concepts. As I’ll explain shortly, you don’t need a separate generator to recycle the electric power consumed by a motor. The motor itself acts in part as a generator and automatically does the recycling for you!
The detailed electromagnetics of a motor/generator are too complicated to discuss here. Instead, let’s take a look at how a motor/generator responds to the electric and mechanical powers it receives. Suppose that we simply connect a “motor” to a source of electric power and let it start turning. The motor’s rotor (the spinning part) starts from rest—the only time when the device is acting as neither a motor nor a generator. As the rotor begins to spin, it gradually begins to act as both a motor and a generator. At slow rotation rates, it is more motor than generator and it consumes electric power while producing mechanical power. But eventually it reaches a speed at which it is equally motor and generator. At this speed, it is generating as much electric power as it is consuming and it maintains a steady rate of rotation. If it slows down or lags behind this point, it will act more as motor than generator and start consuming electric power. If it speeds up or gets ahead of this point, it will act more as generator than motor and start providing electric power. Actually, there is some power wasted as heat in the wires and via friction, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll ignore that complication.
Now suppose that you connect a mechanical system to the motor/generator and begin to extract mechanical power from the device. The rotor’s rotation will slow down or lag behind and the balance between motor and generator will then be upset. The device will become more motor than generator. It will consume electric power in order to provide mechanical power.
On the other hand, suppose that the mechanical system begins to deliver mechanical power to the device. The rotor’s rotation will speed up or get ahead and the balance will again be upset. The device will become more generator than motor. It will consume mechanical power in order to provide electric power. A great way to demonstrate these effects is to connect a simple hand-powered motor/generator to an electric power storage device—either a battery or a capacitor. Connect the motor/generator to the storage device and start turning it by hand. As you do, it becomes more generator than motor and charges the storage device. It is converting mechanical power into electric power. If you stop turning it by hand or begin to fight its rotation, it becomes more motor than generator and discharges the storage device. It is converting electric power into mechanical power.
Answered by Lou A. Bloomfield of the University of Virginia. | <urn:uuid:fbee4738-f4f1-4ba7-b97b-cc40ac62e9e2> | 4 | 3.890625 | 0.206415 | en | 0.933141 | http://www.physicscentral.com/experiment/askaphysicist/physics-answer.cfm?uid=20080506025000 |
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How to Transition to Clipless Pedals For Road Cycling
Learn to Love: Clipless Pedals
I'd been cycling for years before I learned to love riding with my feet clipped onto my pedals. It seemed beyond scary; I thought I would just fall over at every stoplight. I've turned the corner though and love being "clipped in." But first let's review pedal terminology, since it's a bit confusing. First, there were basic pedals (like many of us had on our bikes when we were kids), then came pedals with toe clips (or toe baskets) to help the foot stay put on the pedal. These evolved into clipless pedals — a cleat on the bottom of the shoe that clicks into the pedal like a puzzle piece. When the shoe is attached to the pedal, you're clipped in.
Cycling with my feet attached to the pedals makes me feel one with my bike, and it's way more efficient. With the foot attached to the pedal, you begin to use all the muscles of your legs to power the bike instead of relying solely on your quads to push the pedal down — pulling up on the pedal works your hamstrings like nobody's business. Pedaling with the entire leg distributes the work so your muscles fatigue much more slowly, which means you can ride longer. Standing on the pedals, like when climbing a hill, is safer when you're clipped in; you're much more secure because your feet won't slip off the pedals.
Like most new skills, overcoming the fear factor simply takes time and practice. Ride around on a quiet street or parking lot, and clip in and out repeatedly so your body becomes used to the action. Practicing in a park on a trail lined with grass to soften possible falls is helpful too. Clipping out should be an easy maneuver — just turn your heel away from the bike. You can practice initially on a trainer, but since this might give you a sense of overconfidence, make sure to experiment with your new shoes and pedals before hitting the road for a long ride.
Who is with me? Do you ride clipless? Are you considering it?
Source: Getty
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Battery technology is increasingly important as engineers try to devise better ones to power our cars, phones, and pretty much everything else. That's why Clare Grey, a professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, teamed up with NYU chemist Alexej Jerschow to develop a way of imaging batteries through MRI.
At first, MRI doesn't seem like an ideal solution for working with batteries. It uses a combination of magnetic fields and radio waves, so it's notoriously unkind to metal implants, hearing aids, and jewelry, literally ripping them from their owners. A battery with a metal casing wouldn't fare much better in an MRI scanner—plus, the radio waves used in MRI don't penetrate metal well. ("If you were to listen to the radio inside a metal box, the reception would be terrible" Grey says.)
So Grey and Jerschow's built a tiny lithium battery, put it in a plastic shell, and stuck it in a carefully calibrated MRI scanner. Up to now, the only way to analyze a battery's insides was to cut it open, which ruins it for future use. But this technique lets them see what happens to a battery's insides at different points in its life.
Dealing With Dendrites
These moss-like crystalline growths, called dendrites, are the bane of battery builders. They form at the barrier between the anode and cathode (- and + sign respectively on any battery). "The lithium dendrites will grow through the separator in the same way that ivy grows through concrete," Grey says. Dendrites tend to form in lithium batteries when the temperature increases dramatically or a charge is introduced too quickly; they can interrupt the charge and can cause batteries to short circuit. "If you charge too fast then you get these dendrites and degradation byproducts, and everything can go horribly wrong," Grey says.
Better Batteries
Ideally, Grey and her colleagues would be able to see inside commercial batteries with typical metal casings, the technology to see through metal isn't quite there yet. By using plastic-encased cells, the scientists can see the same process of dendrite formation at work without the interference.
So far, MRI's offer the best look inside the structure, but there is still a ways to go before the method is perfect. The images produced right now can see the general outline of the dendritic growths but nothing more specific. "The resolution isn't as good as it possibly could be," Grey says.
What Do You Think? | <urn:uuid:5c45c24a-9e1f-4ee7-b286-1ae9892d79af> | 4 | 3.671875 | 0.683171 | en | 0.958184 | http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a7474/mri-lets-scientists-see-inside-batteries-6801505/?src=rss |
Reading questions for Charlotte H. Bruner's African Women Writers anthology
1. Discuss the validity of this statement: In regard to characterization short stories are obviously a medium limited by length. Therefore the story of women in the short stories we have read, and perhaps in the short story genre itself, are much more universal then the story of women in a work such as The Slave Girl. [Brandon Brown]
2. What is the significance of Charlotte H. Bruner's claim, "Any such collection as this can be at best representative, not inclusive" (preface viii). [Kate Cook]
3. In "Mother was a Great Man", Acholonu writes, "A son caters for continuity of the family-name and external image, but a daughter caters for love, understanding and unity within the family circle....Looking back, Oyidiya thought what an irony of fate it was that she who had been a highly desired daughter, should afterwards hang in the balance because she had no male issue." (11) In many of the stories in this collection, there is a sense of irony involved: In "The Pay-packet" Iba is beaten by her husband because her father has extorted money from him; in "Workday", Elizabeth feels the pressures of being responsible for a household and having to work outside of the home, and takes her anger out on the maid Mary, a "stupid village girl"; the epigram by George Eliot that Zoü Wicomb introduces her story with mentions a "light and graceful irony"; in "She was the Weaker" (the title itself ironic), the son destroys the honor of his bride and her family because he is unable to perform the marriage ritual. Why the use of irony in so many of these stories? Does the quotation from Acholonu exemplify the source from which much of this irony stems (and what is it)?
On a related issue, how does a sense of fate work itself into some of these stories as well? [Erica Dillon]
4. Bruner's collection of short stories seeks to give voice to writings by African women-- under- represented perspectives and views of the world. In these stories what role do eyes and vision playin the themes of change, modernity, and women's oppression? Lucia Duncan
5. "In the story of Jesus- according to Mokuba, the beloved tribesman," the narrator recreates the story of Jesus with the foundation of his tribal upbringing. How is his interpretation of the story different than that of the New Testament? How does his imaginative approach to the story affect it? How is this approach similar to that of Wole Soyinka in his autobiography? [Laura Gelfman]
6. From "The Story of Jesus - According to Mokuba, the Beloved Tribesman": How does John Mokuba's interperetation of the story of Jesus illuminate the reasoning behind his desire to become a Christian in Jesus' tradition? Would his conversion be in the Christian sense of faith and salvation a religious issue at all? [Jeremy Finer]
7. Many of the writers featured in this book have travelled and and/or studied abroad. How has this affected their writing? What differences could we expect between their writings and those of African women without such experience? (Phoebe Koch)
8. Awuor Ayoda in "Workday" and Jean Marquand in "Regina's Baby" both discuss the position of poor black women in wealthier households. In what way does the treatment of Mary at the hands of her black employer differ from the treatment of Regina by the white narrator? How do racism and classism play out in the lives of the characters in both stories, and are the two stories even comparable? [Jennifer. G. Lee]
9. To what extent is Emecheta's idea of marriage as a form of slavery evident in many of the short stories? (For example Devi's "Lakshmi's Gift" and Ka's "New Life at Tandia") In what manner do the characters respond to this notion...how do they differ and how are the a like? [Neel Parekh]
10. Although the works collected herein display much variety, they all seem to me to basically concur. For instance, does any one of these writers ever see men and the masculine role in a positive light?? Must male-bashing always be the response to misogny? A juxtaposition with contemporary male writers would be intriguing. Referring back to the everpresent question of representation and representative literature, can these writers be regarded as truly representative? Or are they merely representative of a certain segment or viewpoint, a collection of exceptions to the norm? How influenced are they by Western feminism (and by which particular branches)? Would influence by an outside source or outside sources distort the representative quality of these writers? [Elissa Popoff]
11. Discuss Violet Dias Lannoy's narrative technique in "The Story of Jesus -- according to Mokuba, the beloved tribesman". What is the effect of reading Mokuba's story within the context of the "story at large"? Also, how does Mokuba's "Jesus story" compare with Wole's perception of the "Christian egúngún" in Soyinka's Aké? [Barnali Tahbildar]
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The Rape of Black Women under Slavery: Part II
Jacobs also notes that when she had a baby girl
1. Captainchaos
According to historian Robert Davies more than a million Europeans were enslaved by North African Muslims between 1530 and 1780. Noting the high demand for White women on the market of sexual enslavement even today we can safely presume what those of them that were of the fairer sex were subjected to.
2. very off topic
Did anyone catch CSI tonight? Fishbourne’s character cites a Michigan study stating that a person’s action, not their race, is the determining factor when cops shoot. “That’s not taking into account racial profiling.” I haven’t been able to find that study. Can anyone help?
3. Pual Minei
I know there come a day when whites will say there were the slaves. It’s a big lie white women were never slaves. to North African Muslims or anyone else. We are talking about white american white who enslaved 40 million Africans to build a country they had taken away from the Native American. Rape of women and children by the white slave master was a daily activitiy.
• raggz
Whats interesting is the first black slave in America was owned by a black man. And your wrong, whites were slaves to North African Muslims… just because you refuse to believe doesnt mean its not true
• Joe Author
How about some data and sources for your argument? The first Africans imported into the white-run English-American colony of Jamestown were bought by whites. This was the start of the country that became the US. See the sources in my post.
• shon
I would love to know where you read this, to my knowledge there were no Africans in the Americas before the slave trade. And also the topic here is rape of black women during slavery so while the bid about North African Muslims may be true it has no relevance under this post
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3. Organizing Against Patriarchy » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
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OpenStack Training: A Student’s View
Taking on a new role at Rackspace means there are a lot of new things to learn. In my case, my team lead signed me up for OpenStack Training, given by the Rackspace Cloud Builders training team. As I went through the process, I wanted to document the experience for our customers who may be interested in how our OpenStack training works.
The current training course offered by Rackspace Cloud Builders is a four-day OpenStack Cloud Fundamentals class offered in two sections: Compute and Object Storage. The first two days cover OpenStack Compute, Identity Service, Image Services and Dashboard while the last two days of the course focus on OpenStack Object Storage. The course provides a detailed architectural overview, hands-on experience and troubleshooting from experienced OpenStack engineers.
Day 1: Introduction to Compute
The first day of your training begins with an introduction to OpenStack and why it is important to the future of cloud technology. The instructor explains all of the different components that make up the OpenStack suite. You dive right in once the introduction is over. The first thing you do is set up a Compute installation in a lab environment. The instructor walks you through each command and each part of what you are doing so you know the steps.
After the Compute setup is complete, you set up the Identity, Image and Dashboard Services on your lab environment in the same way – the instructor guides you through the steps and explains each command. You learn how the services are interconnected and how to manage them on an all-in-one environment. You discuss various use cases for different types of configurations. At the end of day one, you should have a firm grasp of what OpenStack is and how to perform initial set up of the various services.
Day 2: OpenStack Compute Deep Dive
Once everything is configured, the real fun begins for us system administrators. The instructor runs through a break/fix where various services that you’ve just learned about are broken – and YOU have to fix them! Once all the services are back online, the instructor walks you through each issue, what was broken and the best fix for each issue. This gives you an idea of working with OpenStack in an operational capacity and how to troubleshoot each service.
Once that is complete, you go even further by changing your single “all-in-one” lab environment to a multi-node Compute cluster. You learn how to administrate each piece independently for scaling, as well as gain a better understanding of how each service relates to others since they are now running on different physical devices.
At this stage, you go through more break/fix exercises that are a bit more challenging. The instructor breaks services on multiple servers that you need to track down and repair. This gives you a really deep understanding of how OpenStack Compute works in a real-world operational environment. At the end of day two, you will be prepared to create your own OpenStack Compute images, launch them in your own cluster and troubleshoot if things go wrong.
Day 3: Introduction to Object Storage
On Day 3 of OpenStack Training you jump into Object Storage, codenamed “Swift.” You learn about early versions of Object Storage and how we evolved to use the current configuration. The instructor describes Ring concepts – basically how Swift scales and how it keeps track of everything in the cluster in a highly available way.
At the end of Day 3, the instructor takes you step-by-step through a multi-node Object Storage Cluster installation.
Day 4: OpenStack Object Storage Deep Dive
If you are like me and enjoy a challenge, Day 4 is your day. The instructor has various exercises for you to perform, allowing you to get familiar with using Swift in an operational capacity. You walk through adding users, using the API and setting up ACLs in your cluster.
You then learn how to audit Swift to check your cluster’s health. The instructor makes you fully aware of the process that the cluster uses to detect and handle failure. You also learn how to monitor your cluster and the best thresholds to set for future monitoring.
Overall, the training was very informative and gets you or your team up and running to start using OpenStack. If you are considering using OpenStack for your private cloud solution (even if you are using Rackspace to manage it for you), I recommend you have your technical team go through this training. Thanks to Tony Campbell for being a great instructor!
About the Author
This is a post written and contributed by Hart Hoover.
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The New Tactics
"He who has the height controls the battle.
He who has the sun achieves surprise.
He who gets in close shoots them down"
The belief that the bomber will always get through pervaded all military thinking at the time. For the attacker the task was to inflict sufficient damage on the enemy to bring about his defeat; while for the defender it was to destroy enough of the attacking force to make it impossible for the campaign to continue.
The key players in this battle were the fighter pilots. The Germans needed to get sufficient bombers to the targets so that they could inflict crippling damage. A side effect of this would be that the RAF had to respond to such attacks and in the resulting 'dog fights' the experienced and seasoned German fighter pilots could decimate the ranks of RAF Fighter Command.
For the British the aim was to deny the Luftwaffe the freedom of action by attacking the incoming raids, get through the protective screen of fighters, and destroy the bombers. They believed that the Hurricanes could do this while the Spitfire could deal with the German fighters. Once combat was joined it rarely remained so clinically divided.
With the adoption of more open formations the RAF denied the Luftwaffe total success.
The RAF prided itself on it quality of its formation flying. These three Gladiator fighters, from No 87 Squadron, are practicing for the Empire Air Day at RAF Debden, 1938.
To show the crowds just how precise their flying was the aircraft are tied together by ribbon strips. Such close formation flying heritage hampered the RAF fighter pilots for much of the Battle.
Sailor Malan South African Fighter Pilot
Adolph Gysbert Malan, better known as Sailor Malan, was a South African fighter pilot who took part in some of the most hectic fighting during the Battle of Britain. He was a superb shot and a great tactician.
The experiences he gained during this period allowed him to produce a set of methods and techniques which were eventually passed round to all RAF Fighter Command Stations.
Air combat tactics - Battle of Britain
Although often more elaborate examples were produced this plain typed sheet, from the Museum Archives, is the more telling.
It was issued by him later in the war when he was with No 61 Operational Training Unit.
Air combat tactics - Battle of Britain
During the early phases of the Battle of Britain German bombers, escorted by fighters, were met by RAF fighters flying tight formations which provided little scope for manoeuvre when battle was joined.
The prime aim of the RAF fighters in 11 Group was to disperse the massed formations of enemy bombers at the same time destroying as many bombers as possible. Luftwaffe fighters, in formation high above the bombers, made the task extremely difficult.
Camera gun stills record the last moments of a Ju 87
These camera gun stills record the last moments of a Ju 87. For the Luftwaffe there were two major aircraft disappointments during the
The twin-engined Bf110 heavy fighter proved unable to hold its own in combat with the more nimble single-engined RAF fighters and the losses inflicted on Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers proved so high that it had to be withdrawn from combat over the British Isles.
Werner Mölders a leading German fighter ace
In 1939 the Luftwaffe, unlike the RAF, had recent combat experience gained during the Spanish Civil War. Werner Mölders was a leading German fighter ace during the Spanish Civil War. On his return from Spain he set about developing new fighter tactics. In combat he replaced the aircraft V formation with a more flexible pair of aircraft known as a "Rotte"; two pairs acting together were a "Schwarm". With these looser formations the German fighters were often at an advantage over their RAF counterparts. They remain, to this day, the basis of air combat formations.
Gladiator fighters, from No 87 Squadron, practice for the Empire Air Day at RAF Debden
Sailor Malan South African Fighter Pilot
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Kinematics is the study of the motion of objects without consideration for the forces responsible for that motion. It is a branch of classical mechanics. As a field of study it is very useful as a means for breaking down the motion of an object into its components, such as translational and rotational motion. As a subject it is directly related to dynamics, but is detailed enough to deserve its own treatment.
In many instances it is only important to know how an object moves, without consideration of the forces causing the motion. For example, in machine components it is common to use kinematics analysis to determine the (unknown) speed of an object, that is connected to another object moving at a known speed. For example, one may wish to determine the linear velocity of a piston connected to a flywheel that is turning at a known speed. Such analysis commonly makes use of geometry, such as trigonometry.
Click on the links below to learn more about the different subject areas of kinematics.
Rectilinear Motion
Rotational Motion
Curvilinear Motion
Instant Center
Vector Derivative
General Motion
Gyro Top
Projectile Motion
Projectile Motion Simulator
Kinematics Problems
Acceleration Problems
Circular Motion Problems
Projectile Motion Problems
Velocity Problems
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Countess Du Barry
Madame du Barry
Marie-Jeanne(tte) Bécu, Comtesse du Barry (April 19, 1743December 8, 1793) was a French courtesan who became the mistress of Louis XV of France and is one of the famous victims of the Reign of Terror.
Early life
Jeanne Bécu was born at Vaucouleurs, Lorraine, the illegitimate daughter of Anne Bécu, who was variously reported as a seamstress or a cook of enticing beauty. Her father was possibly Jean Baptiste Gormand de Vaubernier, a friar known as 'Brother Angel.' During her childhood, her mother's lover, Monsieur Billard-Dumonceaux, father of Jeanne's brother Claude (who died in infancy at just 10 months old) funded her education at the convent of St. Aure.
At the age of 15 Marie-Jeanne moved to Paris, where, using the name Jeanne Rançon, she worked first as an assistant to a young hairdresser named Lametz (with whom she had a brief relationship which may have produced a daughter), then as a companion to a lonely aristocrat, Madame de la Garde, and later as a milliner's assistant in a shop named 'A La Toilette' owned by a certain Monsieur Labille, where she became a very good friend of his daughter, the future famed painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. As reflected in art from the time, Jeanne was a remarkably attractive blonde woman. Her beauty came to the attention of Jean du Barry, a high-class pimp/procurer and owner of a casino, in 1763. He made her his mistress and helped establish her career as a courtesan in the highest circles of Parisian society, enabling her to take several wealthy men as her benefactors.
Life as a courtesan and official Mistress to Louis XV
She first became a courtesan known as Mademoiselle Lange, immediately becoming a sensation in Paris, building up a large aristocratic clientele. The dashing Maréchal de Richelieu became one of her recurring customers. Jean du Barry, however, saw her as a means of influence with Louis XV, who became aware of her in 1768 while she was on an errand at Versailles which involved the Duc de Choiseul, who found her rather ordinary, in contrast to what most other men thought of her. In any case, Marie-Jeanne could not qualify as an official royal mistress unless she had a title; this was solved by her marriage to Du Barry's brother, Comte Guillaume du Barry, in 1769. She was presented to the King's family and the court on April 2, 1769, wearing a queenly and bedazzling silvery white gown brochaded with gold, huge paniers at the sides, which had been ordered especially by Richelieu himself. Jeanne was now attended by her personal Indian page Zamor, given to her by Louis XV, and wore extravagant gowns of great proportions both in size and cost. With diamonds covering her delicate neck and ears, she was now the dauphin's maîtresse déclarée. Due to her new role in Court, she made both friends and enemies, Her most bitter rival was the Comtesse Béatrix de Grammont, Choiseul's sister, who tried her best to acquire the late Madame Pompadour's place in the King's bed.
While Jeanne was part of the faction that brought down Duc de Choiseul, Minister of Foreign Affairs, she was unlike her late predecessor Madame de Pompadour in that she had little political influence upon the king, but rather preferred to pass her time having new gowns made and ordering jewelry of every shape, size and colour.
While Jeanne was known for her good nature and support of artists, she grew increasingly unpopular because of the King's financial extravagance towards her. Her relationship with Marie Antoinette, the Dauphine of France, was contentious. The Dauphine supported Choiseul as the proponent of the alliance with Austria and also defied court protocol by refusing to speak to Madame Du Barry, due not only to her disapproval of the latter's background, but also after hearing of du Barry's amused reaction to a story told by Cardinal de Rohan, in which Marie-Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa, was slandered. What was to many an amusing incident had now become a phenomenon at Versailles, where courtiers anxiously waited to see if the new Dauphine would speak with du Barry when they found themselves under the same roof. She was once humiliated, according to one account, when Madame Adelaide quickly intervened to silence Marie Antoinette as the latter opened her mouth to speak to du Barry. The King's mistress was outraged, heading back in fury to complain to Louis XV. Eventually, during a ball on New Year's Day 1772, Marie Antoinette spoke to the Favorite, saying, "There are a lot of people at Versailles today," but she made it clear to Mercy the very next instant that she would say nothing else to Madame du Barry.
At the king's request before his death in May 1774, du Barry was banished from the court and sent to the convent of Pont-au-Dames, as her continued presence at Versailles would have prevented the king from receiving absolution. Two years later she moved to the Château de Louveciennes, where she continued her career as a courtesan, having liaisons with both Henry Seymour and Louis Hercule Timolon de Cossé, Duke of Brissac.
Imprisonment, trial and execution
In 1792 du Barry made several trips to London on the pretext of recovering stolen jewelry, with the aid of her now-grown page, Zamor, who disliked his mistress for her airy attitude. In addition, she was suspected of financially assisting emigrés from the French Revolution. The following year, she was arrested by the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris on charges of treason. While in prison, her cell-mate was fellow courtesan Grace Elliott. After a trial, du Barry was executed by guillotine on the Place de la Concorde on December 8, 1793. She had tried to save herself by revealing the hiding places of the gems she had hidden around her property.
On the way to the guillotine she continually collapsed in the tumbrel and cried "You are going to hurt me! Why?!" She became quite hysterical during her execution: "She screamed, she begged mercy of the horrible crowd that stood around the scaffold, she aroused them to such a point that the executioner grew anxious and hastened to complete his task." Her last words to the executioner: "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment," ("One moment more, executioner, one little moment") were her most famous. Her remains were briefly placed in the Chapelle Expiatoire in Paris but were later moved to an unknown location.
The jewels she had smuggled out of France to England were sold by auction at Christie's in 1795 for the not inconsequential sum of £8,791 4s 9d. However, since she was dead and had no known heirs, the proceeds went to the Tribunal in Paris.
The necklace involving Jeanne de la Motte-Valois, which was the same one that the dauphine Marie Antoinette was innocently accused of bribing Rohan to purchase for her, was originally destined for Madame du Barry by Louis XV, who died before the purchase could take place, leaving the jewellers Bohmer and Bassenge desperate for a buyer of the overly-expensive trinket. On this subject, see also Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
In music
In film
In popular culture
• She inspired a wax figure at Madame Tussaud's in London, called The Sleeping Beauty which is the oldest existing figure on display.
External links
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Sacred Texts Christianity Early Church Fathers Index Previous Next
Chapter L.—The Absurd Opinion of Epicurus and the Profane Conceits of the Heretic Menander on Death, Even Enoch and Elijah Reserved for Death.
Gen. ii. 17. [Not ex natura, but as penalty.]
Scaturigo dæmonica.
It is difficult to say what Tertullian means by his “comicum credo.” Is it a playful parody on the heretic’s name, the same as the comic poet’s (Menander)?
Gen. 5:24, Heb. 11:5.
2 Kings ii. 11.
Rev. xi. 3.
John xxi. 23.
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Santa Fe Institute
Why sea-faring mammals need to be larger than land lubbers
March 18, 2013 12:23 p.m.
Ever notice you get cold faster when you’re wet? That’s why whales are so much bigger than elephants, according to SFI External Professor Aaron Clauset in a recent paper published in the journal PLoS One that examines what might have caused mammalian species to evolve to the sizes they did.
Clauset, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, set out to understand why a few land-loving mammal species reach elephantine proportions but the most common mammal size is about that of a rat. One popular theory, the reproductive power hypothesis, argues that mammalian species have an ideal size but vary in size because of a complicated mix of competition and other pressures.
Working with former SFI researcher Doug Erwin, Clauset devised another explanation based on simple principles. First, mammals can’t be too small, or they lose heat faster than they produce it. Second, as they evolve, species tend to grow larger over time, but the larger they get, the more susceptible they are to extinction — what Clauset calls “a macroevolutionary conveyor belt of death."
Those principles led to a mathematical model of land mammals’ sizes with just three uncertain parameters, two of which they already knew. Thermodynamics and a little biology determine how small mammals can be, and the fossil record reveals how fast species grow over time. That left the extinction rate for large mammals, which Clauset and Erwin estimated by fitting their model to data on living mammals.
“We got a really good fit” for terrestrial mammals, Clauset says. Still, they couldn’t explain why the smallest sea-faring mammal, the Franciscana dolphin, is 18,000 times larger than the smallest land mammal, the two-gram shrew.
The difference, Clauset explains, is water. Because water transports heat faster than air, sea-faring mammals have to be much larger to survive — at least 80 pounds. Now Clauset could predict sea mammals’ sizes, except this time there was no need to estimate anything from data. Using the 80-pound minimum size with the species growth rate and the extinction rate he’d estimated for land mammals, he could make a prediction without any wiggle room. The model is “either right or it’s not,” he says.
Right-or-wrong predictions like that are rare, but Clauset's prediction is statistically indistinguishable from real-world species size data. That, he says, suggests “a universal process for all mammals.”
He adds that the conveyor-belt aspect of the model may explain something else in the fossil record — cycles of the largest mammal species getting larger and larger, eventually dying off, only to be replaced by another growing species.
Read the paper in PLoS One (January 10, 2013)
Read science writer Michael Eisenstein's blog post about the paper (January 11, 2013)
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February 2006
The Problem with Poop
The Satya Interview with Amy R. Sapkota
Hen in a manure pit. Photo courtesy of Wegmans Cruelty
Industrial animal production has not only consolidated sentient individuals into intensely concentrated areas, but also their waste—about 1.4 billion tons generated annually. With the rise of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs, animal waste has become a big environmental and health problem.
At the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Amy R. Sapkota is researching how different agricultural practices affect the environment and public health. As research director of the Industrial Animal Production Project, she is looking at the impacts of animal waste from CAFOs, particularly hog farms. The project was inspired by animal activist Henry Spira and collaborates with the factory farm project at GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Environment), which helps communities confront CAFOs. The goal of this project is to address the impact of industrial animal production and apply these research findings to the development of good public policy initiatives.
While currently in France doing research on transgenic plants, Dr. Amy Sapkotaspoke with Sangamithra Iyer about her research.
How did you get involved in studying Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs?
There are many different reasons why I’ve pursued this research. There hasn’t been a lot of rigorous research conducted that has looked at the specific environmental and public health effects associated with CAFOs. And part of this is due to the fact that it is hard to gain access to these facilities, as well as the communities around them. Producers don’t want researchers negatively impacting their livelihood if the research findings are not in favor of their production methods, and sometimes communities are also reluctant to get involved with research activities.
I wanted to come from a rigorous scientific approach, studying what we need to understand in terms of air emissions and waste emissions from these facilities, and what specific ways they are affecting the environment and human health. I also wanted to generate hard data that demonstrates what is really going on with these facilities, instead of being clouded by public perceptions and misconceptions. I think we can only move forward with better policies regarding the regulation of CAFOs if we have good science to back them up.
Can you talk about the impact of animal waste from factory farms on the environment in general?
First, animal waste is not a bad thing. In sustainable agriculture it is something that is used for fertilizer for crop production. From my perspective the problem lies in the concentration of these facilities. If they were more strategically located, further away from each other and also smaller in size, we wouldn’t have such a concentration of waste in just one area. For example, we are not really producing that many more hogs than we were in the 1950s, but they are all produced in very concentrated regions in the U.S. versus being scattered over the roughly three million hog farms that existed in the 50s.
With CAFOs, there is just so much waste produced that there really isn’t a sustainable way to manage it. Also, because of some of the production methods used in CAFOs, the waste can contain things that are harmful like heavy metals such as arsenic. Through our research, we are also finding high levels of antibiotic resistant bacteria in this waste as well. We believe this is largely due to the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in these facilities.
What are some of the differences or similarities among pig and poultry CAFOs?
Poultry are a lot smaller than hogs, so in your average poultry house, you can have 30,000 to 40,000 birds, versus a typical swine house that can have 2,500 to 3,000 hogs.
With respect to waste, poultry waste is usually a lot drier. Poultry houses are cleaned out once every one or two years—not too often. The poultry waste is then stored in what is called a windrow, which is essentially a very large pile of waste that is generally stored in some sort of large shed. That waste is then either land applied, incinerated, or pelletized for future use as a fertilizer product.
Pig waste is more of a liquid product and is either stored in lagoons or pits beneath barns. It is usually siphoned off with some sort of truck or piping system and sprayed on fields either onsite or offsite. In the lagoons and pits, solid material settles to the bottom. In theory there is anaerobic decomposition of the solids, but if a large amount is being dumped into these lagoons, the question is, is there enough time for the decomposition to take place?
I was wondering if you could comment on chicken waste and its impact on the Chesapeake Bay?
One of the problems is the physical location of a lot of the poultry operations. Many are in ecologically sensitive areas, such as the Delmarva Peninsula, which is essentially the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay that is shared by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The whole Delmarva Peninsula is not only one of the largest poultry producing areas in the country but also [part of] Chesapeake Bay watershed. Therefore, much of the poultry waste that is produced and land applied in this sensitive ecological watershed can ultimately end up in the Bay.
What do you find to be the biggest human health risks of factory farming?
Based on the research I’ve conducted, the problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria developing in these operations is one of the key issues. The resistant bacteria can end up on food products, as well as in the air and water surrounding these facilities.
I also believe that the use of arsenic, a known human carcinogen, in both poultry and swine production is a significant issue. Producers are using an arsenical compound known as Roxarsone as a feed supplement for our poultry and swine. Arsenic is not only a food safety issue, but also an environmental issue, as it could potentially end up in our surface waters and groundwater. Because it is a heavy metal, you can’t get rid of it. For example, even if you incinerated the waste, you are just going to be releasing the arsenic into the air.
What are the other risks that CAFOs pose in terms of air pollution?
Many different compounds are emitted from CAFOs. For example, in swine air emissions, there are over 160 compounds that have been characterized. Those include particulate matter such as dust, particles of skin, and particles of fecal matter. There are also gases, including methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. Volatile organic compounds that haven’t been fully characterized are emitted as well.
It is generally the odor associated with these plumes and emissions that is causing people to challenge CAFOs in their areas. It is very difficult to live with that sort of odor on a daily basis.
It seems that hog farms in general are more notorious.
You do see more attention to swine farms in terms of community health effects. However, I don’t know whether the reason is that there has been very little research conducted in communities that are located around poultry facilities, or whether the people who live around hog facilities have a more powerful or stronger voice, or are more organized. I am not exactly sure why the hog facilities are receiving more attention. It also might be because of location. Perhaps the hog farms are located in more densely populated areas versus the poultry facilities.
I know the factory farm project at GRACE works with communities affected by CAFOs. Have you been directly involved with communities confronting CAFOs?
I can give you an example of one activity that I was personally involved in. This occurred in the Peach Bottom Township in Pennsylvania where there was a proposal for the construction of a swine CAFO in an area where there were over 3,000 homes. The community sought the advice of a number of different people. We provided testimony regarding the public health and environmental effects associated with such facilities. Fortunately for the time being, Pennsylvania has not approved the construction of this particular swine CAFO.
I understand that your project inspired by Henry Spira hopes to be a “do” tank rather than a “think” tank. What is it you hope to do?
We use our research findings to try to move forward good public policies. A good example of this is that the director of the Center for a Livable Future, Robert Lawrence, recently testified in front of a congressional house subcommittee. There is a current bill in Congress that is proposing to remove animal waste from the regulatory purview of the superfund law, which is the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. In response to this proposal, Dr. Lawrence testified on the public health and environmental health effects associated with CAFOs and his testimony included many of our research findings coming out of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
We are not only doing research and publishing it in peer-reviewed journals, but we are trying to speak about our findings in settings that can actually have an impact on federal policies.
Can you talk a bit more on some of the public policy initiatives?
Currently, the Bush administration is whittling away at some of our strongest environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. In general, we work to prevent these laws from being eroded even more. These laws are very important in terms of controlling both airborne emissions and waste emissions from CAFOs. The CAA covers airborne emissions, including particulate matter and hydrogen sulfide, and the CWA has a program called the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, which covers waste related discharges coming from CAFOs. We are trying to use our research findings to maintain the effectiveness of these types of laws.
How have you found getting access to information about CAFOs?
It is difficult to gain access to these facilities to study them in the first place. However, there are some producers who do want to be good environmental stewards and don’t want their farming practices to be negatively impacting the environment and public health. You have to seek out these like-minded people and work with them.
In terms of data, it is very difficult to gain access to the types and amounts of antibiotics being used in CAFOs. In the U.S., this important data is just not collected. To study antibiotic resistant bacteria coming from these facilities, it is nice to know as a starting point what antibiotics are actually being used. Unfortunately, even some of the producers don’t know precisely what antibiotics are in the feed, because the feed is often delivered by the larger company that they contract with and is siphoned into their silos. Sometimes a producer is willing to collaborate with you to do research, but they still might not have all of the answers about what exactly is in the feed.
In contrast to the situation in the U.S., some of the European countries, like Denmark, have excellent systems where they collect data on how much and what types of antibiotics are being used in the feed.
You’ve mentioned the potential erosion of some of our strongest environmental laws. Can you comment on policy initiatives regarding animal welfare?
Unfortunately, that is also a big difference between the U.S. and Europe. Europeans in general, and European scientists and policy makers, are more aware and interested in animal welfare. They have more regulations on the books than the U.S. does.
In discussing the impact of antibiotic resistant bacteria, are there links being made between the conditions in which the individuals are kept in these facilities and the need for antibiotics?
The reason they are feeding non-therapeutic levels of antibiotics is primarily to promote growth. It is an economic reason—getting the animals to market as efficiently and quickly as possible. There is a question as to whether animals can be raised under confined conditions in the U.S. without the use of any antibiotics. We know that this is being done in Europe where the usage of non-therapeutic levels of antibiotics has been replaced by better management and hygienic practices.
Researching factory farms, you probably have some interesting stories. Is there anything in particular you feel compelled to share?
It’s hard to make overall statements because each of the facilities we’ve visited has had their own quirks. However, the odor of swine is probably one of the most intense odors I’ve ever smelled. As an example of this, the odor truly sticks to our notebooks and our equipment for years after sampling in the facilities. It is a very sticky, intense smell that really stays with you even after your research is finished.
Has working on these issues affected your own personal dietary choices?
Well, I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life almost. I grew up in a family where my mother was vegetarian. So, no.
To learn more about the Center for Livable Future visit www.jhsph.edu/clf. To find out more about factory farms and what to do if a CAFO comes to your town go to www.factoryfarm.org.
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200,000-year-old knives found
Israeli archaeologists believe thousands of ancient shards of flint scattered around a fire pit in a cave near Tel Aviv might be the world's oldest disposable knives.
Archaeologist Ran Barkai believes hunter-gatherers used the rough, round-shaped cutlery for slicing through cooked meat.
Back to the top of the page | <urn:uuid:97d8b8eb-009c-4977-9387-bf0576e113d4> | 3 | 2.53125 | 0.160854 | en | 0.890803 | http://www.scotsman.com/news/200-000-year-old-knives-found-1-807792 |
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One Question
As we've noted previously in On Other Blogs Today, Sightline has done a terrific job keeping a spotlight on an inconvenient truth about the downtown deep-bore tunnel, which proponents argued was necessary to carry ever-growing traffic loads, including both commuters and freight traffic, through downtown Seattle.
Except, that—whoops—traffic on the viaduct has actually declined precipitously since deep-bore tunnel construction began, declining from more than 110,000 trips per day in 2009 to 62,000 in 2012. And that reduction can't be attributed to people simply driving on alternate routes; as Sightline also documents, traffic through downtown Seattle declined overall during the same period, dropping 8 percent, "meaning that between 2010 and 2012, about 1 trip out of 12 vanished."
Image via WSDOT on Flickr.
During the debate over whether to build the tunnel, proponents of the surface/transit option argued that when you eliminate highway lanes that primarily serve cars, people make different choices, opting to take transit, choose alternate routes, combine trips, drive at different times, or avoid unnecessary trips altogether. Now, it looks like that's exactly what they're doing.
So, during a tunnel press call today, I asked what seemed like an obvious question: What was tunnel deputy project manager Matt Preedy his reaction to plummeting traffic volumes on the viaduct? Given that people are using the viaduct less and less, is the tunnel—which, again, was justified in part by the argument that the state must preserve traffic capacity on a critical highway—even necessary anymore?
With the tunnel-boring machine stuck until at least September, and delays and cost overruns looking increasingly likely, this seems like an opportune time for WSDOT to consider that question.
Preedy, however, declined to answer. "I really don't have any comments on that. I wasn't a part of the development team for the tunnel concept," he said.
| <urn:uuid:b759c0fe-8701-48df-ba3d-c3b6bd1f8faa> | 2 | 1.789063 | 0.030763 | en | 0.958103 | http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/one-unanswered-question-for-wsdot-on-the-tunnel-march-2014 |
2007-06-07 13:09:11 PDT -- California cities and counties have broad authority to decide where stores can be located, the state Supreme Court ruled today in a case that boosts local efforts to exclude "big-box" retailers such as Wal-Mart.
The unanimous decision upheld an ordinance in the city of Hanford (Kings County) that actually favored big department stores, including Wal-Mart, Sears and Home Deport, by allowing them to sell furniture in a particular shopping mall while banning smaller furniture stores.
The city's legitimate goals, the court said, were to preserve a thriving group of furniture stores in downtown Hanford by limiting stores in other areas, and to promote economic development elsewhere in the city by attracting major retailers.
But the court also made it clear that elected officials are entitled to decide what kind of commercial development they prefer in particular areas, regardless of whether big-box stores are allowed or excluded and even if the effect is to restrict competition.
As long as the main goal is a "legitimate public purpose," such as preserving a downtown business district, rather than protecting or punishing a particular company, the ordinance "reasonably relates to the general welfare of a municipality," Chief Justice Ronald George said.
The court expressly endorsed the conclusion of an appellate ruling last year that upheld a Turlock law halting Wal-Mart's plans to build a discount supercenter that included a full-sized grocery store. Turlock officials said their goal was to preserve neighborhood shopping centers that would be threatened by the retail giant.
Wal-Mart, which unsuccessfully challenged the Turlock ordinance, has estimated that 20 cities and counties in Northern California have passed measures to limit or block its stores.
San Francisco, Oakland and Martinez have banned big-box stores. Alameda County supervisors repealed a ban in unincorporated areas, but adopted a more limited measure in March 2006 that requires those retailers to describe the effect of new stores on the local economy and disclose employees' pay and benefits.
Today's ruling "will affect all battles in California where Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers are trying to force their way into cities that don't want them," said Steven Mayer, a lawyer for Hanford.
Thomas Brown, a lawyer for associations of city and county governments, said the ruling was a victory for representative government. The court recognized, he said, that elected officials, and not judges, should decide "what uses make most sense in different parts of the city."
But attorney Debra La Fetra of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a property-rights group that filed arguments supporting a small furniture dealer in Hanford, said consumers would be the losers.
"A city council has no business restricting consumer choices in where they want to shop," she said.
The case is Hernandez vs. City of Hanford, S143287.
The ruling is available at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S143287.PDF. | <urn:uuid:58f4542e-fad9-4655-8138-ab1f6340f37b> | 2 | 1.648438 | 0.154047 | en | 0.960633 | http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Local-efforts-to-ban-big-box-stores-get-boost-2557077.php |
2 September 2013
Intervention in Syria and International Law: Inside or Out?
Cross posted on Opinio Juris
States that have decided to potentially engage in military strikes against Syria, or to support such strikes, face a difficult choice between two options: do they operate outside the international legal framework when they act, or do they use the strikes as part of an attempt to reconstruct the law on the use of force?
There is no doubt that in the present situation, military strikes against Syria would be in violation of international law as it has been understood since 1945. In situations as we face now, in the absence of a Security Council mandate, international law allows no unilateral use of force. Building a coalition outside the United Nations does not help. Qualifying strikes as punishment does not help either. International law does not provide a right of states to respond with force to serious violations of international law – even when that law prohibits the use of chemical weapons. Other than what was suggested in the UK legal position, reliance on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention does not change this. The positions of states on humanitarian intervention simply are too diverse. This was made quite clear in the UN debates on R2P, which did not recognize any right to use force outside the existing Charter system.
In this situation, states that move forward with strikes have two options: to act outside the system or to stay inside, but present the strikes as part of a process to change the system.
The first option is simply to ignore the international legal framework – and just bombard, without attempt to justify the bombardment in legal terms. An alternative way to frame this, which boils down to the same approach, would be to deny that international law as it is prohibits unilateral strikes. At the time of writing, this first option appears to be the US approach. The line then would be that in extreme cases, strong military responses are required to protect interests of states or of the international community – no matter what international law has to say on the matter. Politically, and/or morally, stakes are too high to be limited by the law. The law may have to pass in situations as this.
The second option is to present the strikes as part of a process of reconstruction of the law on the use of force, and more in particular as a revival of the right to humanitarian intervention. The argument would be that the Charter (and for that matter the R2P doctrine) gives the Security Council the responsibility to act when states use chemical weapons, and that if they fail to do so, individual states should be able to act to protect civilians. Present international law may prohibit it, but international law is not static and can change by being breached. The unlawful act may contain the seeds of a new rule allowing for humanitarian intervention.
On the assumption that strikes deter and influence future behavior, both options may help to protect civilians. Moreover, both options may put the Security Council and its member states on notice that the next time, they should better take their responsibility more seriously, otherwise they will be left behind again.
It may be said that the difference between the two categories is thin or even artificial, since also an act that ignores the law may later be invoked as a precedent for the process that leads to change. Nonetheless the positions can be distinguished. There is a difference in terms of the opinio juris that is relevant for the formation of customary law. Another difference is that states in the former category can continue to rely on the system as it is, to critique future uses of force that rely on an alleged humanitarian exception if they consider these uses politically undesirable, whereas the second group will have a little more to explain.
For those supporting air strikes, the choice between the options is not easy. The benefit of the first option is that the Charter system stays in place. The states embarking on this route will hope that such incidental transgressions do not affect the system as a whole. Next time a similar situation arises, they can simply rely again on the traditional law. This hope is not entirely baseless. Somehow the many transgressions of article 2(4) of the UN Charter in the past decade have not changed anything in the fact that states and legal scholars generally continue to use article 2(4) as a first baseline for justifying or critiquing action or inaction.
A drawback of the first option is that it does not offer anything to make the international legal system more capable of responding to violations of its most fundamental norms. As long as the Security Council does not take its responsibilities more seriously, the system will have to pass when it really matters. There is no ambition of development towards a system that can protect the persons for whose purpose international law in the final analysis exists.
The second option is from this angle more attractive. It could allow participating states to ride the moral high ground, and to seek protection of civilians from within the international legal order. At the end of the tunnel it projects a body of international law that allows for decisive action when needed to protect fundamental values when the Council once more fails to act.
The difficulty of the second option is that it is rather uncertain where this process will lead. Some states (e.g., the UK, the Netherlands) have articulated conditions for humanitarian intervention, such as the requirement that negotiations have been exhausted, that there is a likelihood that the strikes will achieve the aim of protection of civilians, and that there is support of other states – notably states in the region.
However, it is very uncertain whether these conditions will be acceptable to the majority of other states. It also is likely that opinions on the interpretation and application of such conditions in specific cases will differ. If so, a serious risk exists that engaging in this process will lead us to a situation where the old system is abandoned and no longer provides protection, yet no new agreed new rule will be established. States then may justify the use of force on different criteria. They may use the pretext of humanitarian intervention to justify, for example, a strike on Israel because there too the Security Council fails to effectively respond to the illegal occupation, and there too humanitarian costs are high. Engaging in air strikes as part of an attempt to reconstruct the law on the use of force in a humanitarian direction then may come back like a boomerang. The agony is that article 2(4) then will have lost some of its power to protect us.
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History of the M118 Ammunition
In the late 1950’s the United States military adopted the M14 battle rifle and M60 machine gun as standard combat arms incorporating the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge which was the newly adopted NATO round. At this particular point in time the US Military had fallen back into the cycle of disbanding official snipers among its combat forces as well as sniper training programs. Because of this the few sniper rifles that remained in the various arsenals were old M1C’s and M1D’s as well as a few of the sniper versions of the M1903 rifles. These were all chambered for the old US military standard 30-06 Springfield. When tensions rose in a small country in South East Asia called Vietnam and the US once again found itself in a shooting war, both the US Army and the USMC had to rush their sniper programs back into action, but they soon discovered that not only was their training lacking, but they also did not have any adequate equipment to issue their new sniper units. The USMC literally raided the armories of their bases around the world to get any suitable Winchester M70 with a heavy barrel that they could find. Combined with some of their old M1903’s they got along okay, but again, they were chambered in 30-06. The US Army did not have any better luck and they found their own snipers using old M1C’s and D’s, also chambered in .30-06. It was clear to both branches that something had to change, and change quickly.
The USMC decided they wanted to incorporate a bolt action rifle and performed a quick evaluation of what was immediately available on the commercial market that might work and in 1967 adopted the Remington model 700 combined with a Redfield 3-9x40mm accurange scope. This setup was known as the M40. The US Army was just a little bit later and went the route of the semi-auto rifle and took a modified National Match M-14 and converted it to a sniper rifle. The Army also topped their rifle with a redfield scope but with a unique mounting system (ART). This sniper weapon system was known as the XM21. In both cases the military felt it was prudent to adopt a cartridge that was a NATO standard and after some initial testing with the 5.56x45mm NATO they decided on the more capable 7.62x51mm NATO, in the case of the Army, the decision was made for them by adopting a military issued rifle, the M-14 from which to base their sniper rifle. The USMC adopted an all new rifle in the form of a fairly standard Remington M700 and could have selected a different cartridge if desired, but elected to stick with the NATO standard.
When the different branches were evaluating the various different rifle systems available and trying to determine which to adopt, they were also at the same time evaluating ammunition and trying to determine complimentary ammo to use. It was, and is, widely known that the rifle is only as good as the ammunition it is shooting. Luckily for them, when the 7.62x51mm NATO was adopted in the 1950’s the Office of the Chief or Ordnance had Frankford Arsenal begin work on developing a match grade version of the 7.62, designated the T265, to be used in 300-yard international matches. In 1961 and 1962 systematic testing was conducted at Ft. Benning Georgia using experimental M14 National Match rifles to determine the best load for velocity and accuracy, and by 1963 the load had been designated the XM118, with the X indicating experimental. Finally in 1964 the new National Match M14 was introduced along with the new ‘M118 Match Cartridge’.
The new M118 ammo used the same 173gr FMJBT (Full Metal Jacket Boat Tail) bullet that the .30-06 M72 Match ammo used. This bullet was manufactured by Lake City and was based on the 1956 International Match bullet. The bullet itself had a lead alloy core (90% lead, 10% antimony) with a gilding metal jacket comprised of 90% copper and 10% zinc. The boattail was a 9 degree taper and was .225″ long. The original specification weight was 173gr but as time progressed and the tooling wore out, that weight began to spread from 172 – 175gr. The claimed ballistic coefficient of the bullet is .494 which was very high for that time period.
The case on the M118 ammo was a match grade military case produced by Lake City and it originally utilized the percussion primer No. 43. The initial M118 loads used either 44 grains of WC 846 powder or 42 grains of IMR 4895. By 1970 Lake City had changed to exclusively use the IMR 4895 as it was easier to clean the residue from bores. The overall length of the cartridge was 2.83″ and the average velocity was 2550 fps, about 100 fps slower than the M72 .30-06 match load. The early M118 ammo was noted to be accurate with very few complaints and the ammo made a good compliment to both the M40 and M21 sniper rifles and proved quite effective in combat during the Vietnam conflict.
As time wore on the quality of the M118 Match ammunition began to deteriorate and in as early as 1972 the USMC actually began some performance testing and then prepared a formal report about the need to improve the accuracy and quality of the M118 ammo for combat sniping. As a result of this and other complaints from combat troops, Frankford Arsenal seriously looked into improving product performance by updating manufacturing equipment, but there was no improvement. In 1976 the military tried to also improve the performance by increasing the technical requirements of the round and again, there was no improvement. Unfortunately, it was during the 1970’s that several changes were made to manufacturing that had negative effects on the accuracy of the M118 ammunition. The two biggest changes was the change from match grade brass to standard combat grade brass, the same as used on standard M80 machine gun ammunition. The other change was the switch from the primer No. 43 to the same primer used in other 7.62 ammo, specifically the primer No. 34 and primer No. 36. These two changes had significant negative impacts on the performance of the ammo, and no amount of changes to specification or tooling would be able to help.
After the USA pulled out of Vietnam the USMC had made the commitment to continue their sniper program during peace time and they continued to improve their equipment. The US Army, on the other hand, had once again disbanded their sniper program at the cessation of hostilities and it was the marksmanship units that had to lead up the pursuit of better equipment for the Army. These various military types met at a symposium and agreed that something had to change and it was widely accepted that what was referred to as “Mexican Match” ammunition was a far better ammunition than M118 Match ammo. ‘Mexican Match’ was made by using military 7.62 brass and loading it with the Sierra 168gr Match King bullet. The name ‘Mexican Match’ reportedly came about because the first time this load was used was during the PanAm games in Mexico City. The accuracy improvement over the M118 Match ammo was remarkable, often shooting as much as 50% tighter groups. Because of these results a new load was developed called the M852. The design was simple, put the 168gr Sierra Match King bullet on the same M118 brass and powder. The M852 was adopted in the early 1980’s and was for match use only. Because the Sierra Match King (SMK) bullet had a hollowtip as a byproduct of production, it was not regarded at the time as being acceptable for combat use in terms of abiding by the Laws of Land Warfare. Since the M852 was the new match load for competition use, the M118 was redesignated the M118 ‘Special Ball’, or SB, and was the authorized ammo for combat use by snipers. Unfortunately, the performance of the M118 ammo had not improved as nothing had changed beyond the name. In the early 1990’s the M852 was approved for combat use but the wheels of progress were already turning on something new.
When I went through the US Army Sniper School at Ft. Benning, and during my years as a sniper after that, I only used the M118 SB ammunition and I can attest to the questionable quality. The main problem was the inconsistency of the ammo. There were times where we would shoot a 1.5″ group at 500 yards and then with a different lot shoot a 5″ group at 500 yards. Because of this we tended to try and search at the good lots, if possible, when ammo was issued. The M24’s we used were great rifles and they tended to shoot better than 1 MOA with M118, and that was more of a testament to the quality of the rifle than the ammo. When we would switch to commercial match ammo, sub .5 MOA was no problem with our M24’s. I will admit that by the time I enlisted, the M118 SB seemed to have stabilized compared to some of the earlier lots of SB back in the 80’s that would shoot as bad as 2 or 3 MOA. As mentioned earlier, the tooling being used by Lake City/Frankford Arsenal at this time appeared to have been well worn and tolerances were loose. Bullet weights ranged from 172-175gr, powder charges fluctuated giving wide spreads of muzzle velocity, and then combined with the non match brass and the machine gun ammo primers, and you had ‘Special Ball’ ammo that was not very special.
While the M852 was approved for combat use in the 90’s, the M118 SB still continued to be the standard issue ammo for snipers and while the 168gr SMK bullet was a vast improvement to the 173gr M118 projectile, it still had design defects. Sierra designed the 168gr SMK for 300 meter UIT competition and as such they did not focus on long range ballistics. The design incorporated a sharper 13 degree boat tail instead of the 9 degree taper that is found on the 173gr M118 projectile, as well as some other long range bullets, including the very first Match King bullet that sierra produced, the 180gr. The problem is that when the 168gr SMK drops into the transonic layer (1000-1400 fps) at about 700 yards in the 308, the airflow no longer follows the boat tail and separates, causing instability and accuracy and efficiency loss at those longer ranges. Because of this, the M852 performance suffered at long range and the hunt was on again for a better solution.
As is often the case for the development of snipers and sniping equipment for the US Military, the USMC lead the way and in 1993 they laid out their new design specifications for an improved 7.62x51mm NATO sniping cartridge dubbed the M118 Special Ball Long Range (LR). The USMC worked with Lake City on the design of the cartridge which included a new projectile design that they then sent over to Sierra. Sierra quickly was able to get some prototypes to the USMC of this new bullet, now known as the 175gr Match King, which incorporated a 9 degree boat tail like the M118/M72 bullet design. The design of the new load also designated an increase in velocity by 30 fps, up to 2580 fps.
Sometimes it is funny how bureaucracy works, but one of the hurdles the USMC had to overcome was the actual name of the cartridge. Initially it was proposed to give it an entirely new nomenclature but by doing that it would cause a complete type classification of the new load which would cost money and resources that the USMC did not have at the time. So the idea was proposed to just change the specifications for the M118 to include a new 1000 yard long range requirement with its accompanying name modification, so the M118 Special Ball Long Range ammo name was born.
The M118 Special Ball Long Range, more commonly known as M118LR, also went back to utilizing match cases and a press fit, not staked, primer No. 43. The powder used on the original M118LR was 44 grains of WC 750 and of course the 175gr Sierra Match King bullet is utilized.
The initial test ammo was received in 1996 with test results for long range accuracy being very favorable. While there were some early mix-ups in pressure measurements, in the end, all the pressure tests came back well under SAAMI specifications for the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. The M118LR has been in production now since about 1998 with good success and it has been utilized very effectively through the many conflicts during this century, but with that being said, there is always room for improvement.
The M118LR ammo has seen extensive use in combat and in most all of those cases it was utilized in desert environments where the temperature variations in a 24 hour period can be extreme. One of the faults with the M118LR quickly started to become apparent and that was its sensitivity to temperature change. All gun powders will burn at different rates depending on the temperature, which then affects the velocity of the bullet as it leaves the barrel. But some powders are more, or less, sensitive to the temperature changes. Some of the newer powders are especially resilient to temperature change and show just slight differences between the extremes. Another issue with the M118LR ammo that needed to be addressed was the excessive muzzle flash during low light shooting that was a concern for concealment as well as night vision use.
Not only were the above concerns an issue, but accuracy once again was starting to falter with the ammunition and new standards were desired for long range capability of the M118LR load. This time around it was the Navy Special Warfare Center that headed up the charge to develop a product improved version of the M118LR ammunition to address the temperature sensitively, muzzle flash, and accuracy complaints and it also needed to be able to function in the new crop of semi-auto sniper rifles being employed by the various armed forces. The NSWC tested 20 different powder combinations as well as 15 different projectiles during their testing. The specifications required that the standard deviation for velocity could not exceed 15 fps in order to minimize vertical spread due to velocity differences, and the accuracy of 10 round groups had to fall within a 7″ extreme spread at 600 yards and a 3.5″ extreme spread at 300 yards. It was also desired that the bullet still be supersonic (1000+ fps) at 1000 yards. All of that plus the performance had to be comparable from -25 degrees to +165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once again the 175gr Sierra Match King was selected as the bullet choice as well as new powder. But this time a unique ammunition manufacturer would be selected to load the ammo based on their merits. The Federal Cartridge Company was awarded the contract and the ammunition was designated the M118 Special Ball Long Range Mk316 Mod 0. Like with the M118LR, the name was just modified to keep from having to go through full classification for the new ammunition. Federal designed a new match case based on their Gold Medal Match cases and used a modified extruded propellant. Unfortunately the details of which propellant and the charge weight are not widely known at this time. Federal also uses their Gold Medal Match primer for this load. Essentially it is a specialized commercial load adapted for the military specifications. Part of the requirements also included much higher quality control measures which are probably nothing more than what Federal currently does on their commercial Gold Medal Match manufacturing line. Initial accuracy tests on the early production lots have been excellent with accuracy coming in at about .5 MOA at both 300 and 600 yards.
Additionally, calcium carbonate was added to the powder which drastically reduced the muzzle flash of the new ammo. With the new powder, the velocity difference between 165 degrees and -25 degrees was a very impressive 21 fps, where as the older M118LR varied 227 fps. Needless to say, that was a drastic improvement as well.
The Mk316 ammo is in the process of replacing the original M118LR ammo but it is unknown how long a full replacement will take, not to mention that there is already a Mod 1 (and probably Mod 2) versions of the ammo already being worked on and prepared for production. The special operations forces are getting the latest developed equipment and a lot of the information can be hard to come by without being in the right channels and you can rest assured that continued development will happen with venerable M118.
The M118 ammo, in all its iterations, has served the US military snipers well for half a century and it appears that it will continue to do so. The name has gotten longer but the new life each new version breaths back into this war horse only goes to grow its capability and reputation. Stay tuned as I am sure this is not the last chapter.
To Be Continued… | <urn:uuid:85e3e598-8d82-433a-995c-aa8df89e6d78> | 3 | 3.09375 | 0.100076 | en | 0.980002 | http://www.snipercentral.com/history-m118-ammunition/ |
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Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
Act II, scene i
Act I, scene iii
Act II, scenes ii–iv
Brutus paces back and forth in his garden. He asks his servant to bring him a light and mutters to himself that Caesar will have to die. He knows with certainty that Caesar will be crowned king; what he questions is whether or not Caesar will be corrupted by his power. Although he admits that he has never seen Caesar swayed by power in the past, he believes that it would be impossible for Caesar to reach such heights without eventually coming to scorn those lower in status. Brutus compares Caesar to the egg of a serpent “which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous”; thus, he determines to “kill him in the shell” (II.i.33–34).
Brutus’s servant enters with a letter that he has discovered near the window. Brutus reads the letter, which accuses him of sleeping while Rome is threatened: “Brutus, thou sleep’st. Awake, and see thyself” (II.i.46). Brutus interprets the letter as a protest against Caesar: “Thus must I piece it out: / Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe?” (II.i.51–52). Believing the people of Rome are telling him their desires through this single letter, he resolves to take the letter’s challenge to “speak, strike, redress” (II.i.47). A knock comes at the door. Brutus’s servant announces Cassius and a group of men—the conspirators. They include Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus, and Trebonius.
Cassius introduces the men, then draws Brutus aside. The two speak briefly before rejoining the others. Cassius suggests that they swear an oath, but Brutus demurs. They have no need of oaths, he says, since their cause should be strong enough to bind them together. The group discusses whether it should try to bring the esteemed Cicero into the conspiracy, for he would bring good public opinion to their schemes, but Brutus dissuades them, pointing out that Cicero would never follow anyone else’s ideas. Cassius then suggests that they would do well to kill Antony in addition to Caesar, but Brutus refuses, saying that this would make their plan too bloody. According to Brutus, they only stand against the spirit of Caesar, which he wishes could be destroyed without the necessity of killing the man himself. He says that they should kill him boldly, but not viciously, so that they might be perceived as purging the state rather than as murderers. Cassius replies that he still fears Antony, but Brutus assures him that Antony will be rendered harmless once Caesar is dead.
Cassius states that no one knows whether Caesar will come to the Capitol that day, since the warnings of augurs (seers or soothsayers) after this brutal evening might keep him at home. But Decius assures the others that he will be able to convince Caesar to ignore his superstitions by flattering his bravery. The conspirators depart, Brutus suggesting that they try to behave like actors and hide their true feelings and intentions.
Brutus’s wife, Portia, enters the garden. She wonders what has been worrying Brutus, for his behavior has been strange. He says that he has felt unwell. She asks why he refuses to tell her his concerns, insisting that, as his wife, she should be told about his problems and assuring him that she will keep his secrets. Brutus replies that he wishes he were worthy of such an honorable wife. They hear a knock at the door, and Brutus sends her away with a promise to talk to her later.
Ligarius enters, looking sick. He says he would not be sick if he could be sure that Brutus was involved in a scheme in the name of honor. Brutus says that he is. Ligarius rejoices and accompanies Brutus offstage to hear more of the plan.
Cassius’s words to Brutus in Act I, scene ii have proved powerful in turning him against Caesar: while alone in his garden, Brutus has come to the conclusion that Caesar must be killed. The forged letter has secured this conversion; though it has appeared so mysteriously in his house and tells him exactly what he wants to hear, Brutus never questions its authenticity. He immediately construes the message’s cryptic meaning according to his preconceived inclinations: “Thus must I piece it out,” he concludes hastily, allowing for no other interpretation of the words (II.i.51). He displays a tragic naïveté, trusting unquestioningly that the letter speaks for the entire Roman populace.
We see now that once Brutus arrives at a belief or proposition, he throws himself into it wholeheartedly. Upon joining Cassius’s conspiracy, he takes control of it. He provides his own garden as the conspirators’ meeting place and convinces the gathered men not to take an oath, though Cassius would prefer that they do so. Brutus is the one who sends Decius to speak to Caesar at the end of the scene, and it is he who speaks the final words to the conspirators as they depart. So, too, does Brutus overrule Cassius when he suggests that they assassinate Antony along with Caesar. This position, like all of Brutus’s actions, stems from a concern for public opinion: Brutus wants the death of Caesar to appear an honorable gesture; if the scheme became too violent, the conspirators would sacrifice any semblance of honor. He insists rather excessively on preserving honor in the conspiracy, saying that in a noble cause one has no need to swear an oath to others: “Do not stain / The even virtue of our enterprise, / Nor th’insuppressive mettle of our spirits, / To think that or our cause or our performance / Did need an oath” (II.i.131135). Men swear oaths only when they doubt the strength of each other’s devotion; to take up oaths now would be to insult the current undertaking and the men involved. It is a rather ironic proposition from Brutus, who has declared loyalty and friendship to Caesar and now casts those commitments aside. Notably, Brutus asks the men not to “stain” the virtue of their scheme, a word that evokes blood; ultimately, they will not be able to avoid staining themselves with Caesar’s blood.
Yet, although Brutus appears completely determined in his interactions with the conspirators, his inability to confess his thoughts to Portia signifies that he still harbors traces of doubt regarding the legitimacy of his plan. Portia is a symbol of Brutus’s private life—a representative of correct intuition and morality—just as Calpurnia is for Caesar in the next scene. Her husband’s dismissal of her intuitions, like Caesar’s of Calpurnia’s, leads to folly and points to his largest mistake: his decision to ignore his private feelings, loyalties, and misgivings for the sake of a plan that he believes to be for the public good.
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Shakespeare Blog
by DanMitchell23, March 06, 2013
An idea about Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...
46 out of 64 people found this helpful
It may carry Caesar's name, but it's not about him.
by ReadingShakespeareby450th, September 25, 2013
6 out of 6 people found this helpful
Julius Caesar
by Rosheeda, January 13, 2014
5 out of 6 people found this helpful
See all 4 readers' notes →
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Spell check of opportunity
Spellweb is your one-stop resource for definitions, synonyms and correct spelling for English words, such as opportunity. On this page you can see how to spell opportunity. Also, for some words, you can find their definitions, list of synonyms, as well as list of common misspellings.
Correct spelling:
Fit or convenient time; occasion.
chance (noun)
luck, fate, fluke, fortuity, happenstance, randomness, aimlessness, haphazardness, coin toss, fortune, accident, coincidence, purposelessness, adventure, chance.
expedience (noun)
aptness, suitability, advantageousness, efficiency, effectiveness, expedience, timeliness, well-timedness, convenience, desirability, propriety, fitness.
opportunity (noun)
seasonableness, expedience, appropriateness, felicity, auspiciousness, timeliness, convenience, propitiousness.
Other synonyms:
choice, juncture, window of opportunity, chance, business, moment, career, access, shot, event, contingency, division of labor, the initiative, delegation, appointment, possibilities, call, hap, opening, background, break, scope, hazard, good fortune, collaboration, possibility, probability, occasion, calling, room, prospect, excuse.
Examples of usage:
1. As for Blair, he took the money, as he took everything else that she gave him of opportunity and happiness, and said, " Thank you, mother; you are awfully good"; but he shut his eyes when he kissed her. - "The Iron Woman", Margaret Deland.
2. I mean, you know, an opportunity to do anything good. - "Opportunities", Susan Warner.
3. A sensible man would consider it a promising opportunity. - "Vane of the Timberlands", Harold Bindloss.
Common misspellings:
1. oppertunity (21%)
2. oppurtunity (20%)
3. oportunity (10%)
4. opertunity (7%)
5. opprotunity (5%)
6. oppotunity (4%)
7. opporunity (3%)
8. opportuntiy (2%)
9. oppourtunity (2%)
10. opporutnity (2%)
11. opprtunity (1%)
12. opportuity (1%)
Discover what are words like opportunity. Discover what is a synonym for opportunity. Discover what is another word for opportunity. Discover what is an alternative word for opportunity. Discover what are more words for opportunity. | <urn:uuid:9f5eeef9-7330-469f-a9c8-2e05e6ec6be9> | 2 | 2.328125 | 0.560293 | en | 0.904011 | http://www.spellweb.com/how-do-you-spell/opportunity |
Math education professor accuses colleagues of harassment, persecution
A contentious national debate about the future of mathematics education recently became personal at Stanford, as Jo Boaler, a School of Education professor, took to the Internet to call out “harassment and persecution” by two mathematics scholars, one a Stanford faculty member emeritus.
In her post, Boaler– whose research into reforming mathematics education has won awards and received extensive funding in both the United Kingdom and the United States– wrote that critiques of her work by James Milgram, professor emeritus of math, and Wayne Bishop, professor of mathematics at California State University, Los Angeles, have moved beyond academic disputes and into the realm of personal and unethical attacks.
“Honest academic debate lies at the core of good scholarship,” Boaler wrote, identifying a trail of grievances going back to 1999. “Milgram and Bishop have gone beyond the bounds of reasoned discourse in a campaign to systematically suppress empirical evidence that contradicts their stance.”
Boaler’s principal grievance lies with an essay co-authored by Milgram and Bishop, which claims to disprove findings from Boaler’s research indicating a significant benefit to students who receive math education based on collaborative work and real-world examples.
Boaler’s research suggests her methods are effective both generally and in terms of engaging demographic groups who statistically struggle in math.
“Students who engage more actively with math do better,” Boaler said. “They achieve at higher levels, they were more positive about math, they were able to use it better…We have a decade of research showing that’s what’s best for kids.”
Boaler also expressed concern that attempts to identify the schools used in the study in question runs afoul of federal regulations protecting the anonymity of minor research subjects, and noted that Milgram and Bishop’s paper has yet to be peer-reviewed or published.
According to Milgram, the paper was accepted for publication in an education journal, but Boaler’s 2006 departure from Stanford– she returned in 2010– removed the need to provoke further controversy.
“Many people in the education world pressured me not to actually complete the publishing process,” Milgram said in a statement to The Daily. “They argued that since Boaler had left Stanford, we had de facto ‘won.’”
While a 2006 University investigation into allegations of scientific misconduct against Boaler was terminated after finding no wrongdoing, Milgram and Bishop’s paper, “A Close Examination of Jo Boaler’s Railside Report,” remains available on a Stanford website.
“I’m curious about that,” Boaler said about the paper’s continued availability.
Milgram, meanwhile, has sustained his objections to Boaler’s work and denied any type of academic bullying, acknowledging the unsatisfactory current state of math education but arguing for an increased emphasis on educating teachers rather than the student-focused solution Boaler has advocated.
Boaler framed the decision to publish her grievances online as a means of offering supporters access to it as a resource, considering the extensive use of Milgram and Bishop’s paper in online forums as a means of discrediting her research.
“I took advice to just ignore it, but that was the wrong advice,” Boaler acknowledged, arguing that a more strident advocacy of math education reform is necessary.
“There’s a huge gap between what we know from research and what happens in most math classrooms,” she added.
According to Boaler, the reaction to her post has been extremely positive, generating supportive messages from other advocates of math education reform and drawing renewed attention to the ongoing debate.
“I’ve had hundreds of emails and tweets and Facebook postings,” Boaler said. “I got an email yesterday from a professor on the East Coast saying that this is the most significant thing that’s happened in math education in the last decade.”
Milgram said he has no plans at this time to respond to Boaler’s criticisms.
Despite the increasingly acrimonious tone of the debate, Stanford has yet to intervene in the issue, citing the primacy of academic freedom in a statement from University Spokeswoman Lisa Lapin.
“[In this case] Stanford has carefully respected the fundamental principle of academic freedom: the merits of a position are to be determined by scholarly debate, rather than by having the university arbitrate or interfere in the academic discourse.”
About Marshall Watkins
• pol_incorrect
There is nothing more entertaining than watching faculty members arguing about petty academic matters as if they were matters of life and death :D. Let’s face it, mathematical talent does exist, just as there are other talents people have. You cannot “technique” mathematical talent out of students. I find these research projects about education techniques quite useless to be honest. Without getting into the actual dispute discussed here, I believe that the NSF money she received would have been better spent in actual research in mathematics or other scientific endeavors.
• this is serious
Jo’s full statement is really worth a read. The behaviors and actions she describes certainly go beyond the realm of the professional. Why hasn’t Stanford investigated and/or reprimanded Milgram?
Here are some quotes from Boaler’s site: (http://www.stanford.edu/~joboaler/)
• pol_incorrect
• http://www.facebook.com/marshall.watkins Marshall Watkins
The link in the article should work for that now too
• pol_incorrect
Thank you for bringing this to the Stanford community’s attention. Apparently this issue had been the subject of heated discussions in internet boards. In this one http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2408669 Bishop himself addresses Boaler’s complains. Very entertaining. You know, this might be a consequence of having job security for life :D.
• http://www.facebook.com/haberstr John Haberstroh
Seems like a reasonable request (Milgram & Bishop): “If we are to reverse the woeful performance of our students it seems crucial that K-12 education research be subject to the same high standards as are the norm in medicine and the sciences. As a key step we believe that the analysis here shows the dangers of accepting the legitimacy of articles such as those mentioned above as long as the results cannot be independently studied and verified.”
• lol
lol…how is Dr Jo’s research so controversial? sounds like common sense to me: different students have different learning styles. teaching styles should thus be adapted to help students get to the same educational outcomes. and yes, it’s also true that teachers have to be well versed in the topics that they are teaching.
okay there. why are milgram and bishop going completely bat shit crazy over these basic fundamentals of education? youd expect that their educated minds would display some decency. but i guess not! | <urn:uuid:077e1fee-4f3f-43fd-becd-cd2d45e111b2> | 2 | 1.523438 | 0.028469 | en | 0.964621 | http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/10/28/stanford-scholars-make-academic-debate-personal/ |
"Why they want to do more exploration at this point is beyond me?"
It could have something to do with how the financial reporting works. Before a company is in commercial production, all the capital cost is put under the heading investment and exploration drilling. Once official commercial production is reached, the drilling cost can be moved out of that financial statement line into normal operating cost line. The capital cost incurred pre-production is then charged and spread out over the life of mine. Drilling is needed to reach the production ore. The 8 million spent last quarter can't be all exploration drilling unrelated to production. Some of it must have been drilling to reach the production ore and other capital cost like the underground infrastructures. The 625 meters escapeway would have been under that financial statement line which is a fairly long drill hole that they don't need to do anymore. Before they received the commercial production permit, it wouldn't have been good to have idle workers so they put them to work on exploration drilling. After the permit they should have moved the workers over from exploration to production drilling.
"Lets hear what BTrevor thinks about this financing!!"
You still treat BasherT as the resident expert after all the wrong calls he made? All the fear mongering and wanting everybody to sell at 13 cents. His MO is to give some information that is believable, insert as many negative comments in it as possible, then come to a nonsense conclusion. | <urn:uuid:8fe18044-84c0-43dd-93c8-af26d3f35fbe> | 2 | 1.523438 | 0.142892 | en | 0.970211 | http://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/v.mto/metanor-resources-inc?postid=20776044 |
cd ..
BRUZUAL-CHARLOT ATLAS is a library of galaxy spectra computed by Bruzual and Charlot using their Isochrone Synthesis Spectral Evolutionary Code. The December 1995 version of the Bruzual-Charlot atlas consists of 21 instantaneous bursts characterized by different IMF slope functions, and mass limits. Each instantaneous burst contains 221 spectral energy distributions (SEDs) corresponding to 221 time steps from 0 to 20 Gyr.
To get to the original and complete Bruzual & Charlot library, i.e. set of binary data files and decoding programs, go to BRUZUAL-CHARLOT ATLAS. To learn all details about the content of this library and how to generate specific spectral templates, read first the postcript version of the README file you will find in the directory.
The on-line library of SEDs consists of 84 STSDAS binary files. All SEDs have been obtained using the original binary bc95*.ised files and the program galaxevpl as explained in the readme file of the Bruzual-Charlot library.
The on-line SEDs represent bursts characterized by a Salpeter initial mass function (IMF) with different ranges in lower and upper mass limits, and at several ages (10E5, 25E5, 50E5, 76E5, 10E6, 25E6, 50E6, 10E7, 50E7, 10E8, 50E8, 10E9 years) after the burst. SEDs for instantaneous and composite bursts are available. Each SED has 1187 wavelength points covering the 100 angstroms to 100 microns wavelength range, and the fluxes are given in units of solar luminosity per Angstrom. The nebular contribution to the spectral energy distribution, i.e. emission lines and nebular continuum, is not include in the SEDs.
A list of the on-line SEDs, and corresponding file names, is given in the table below. In the file name, the "XXXX" indicate the age of the burst. For example, the file contains the SED for a five million years old instantaneous burst characterized by a Salpeter IMF with lower and upper mass limits of 2.5 and 125 solar masses. Should ASCII files be preferred, please use the "tdump" task within the ttools package of IRAF to convert the STSDAS binary table format into an ASCII file.
Table: Characteristics of the on-line Bruzual-Charlot SEDs
File name IMF Lower Mass Upper Mass Notes
(solar mass) (solar mass)
bc95_a_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 125 instantaneous
bc95_b_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 65 instantaneous
bc95_c_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 30 instantaneous
bc95_d_XXXX Salpeter 2.5 125 instantaneous
bc95_e_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 125 burst lasting 1Gyr
bc95_f_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 125 exp. decreasing SFR with
e-folding time of 1Gyr
bc95_g_XXXX Salpeter 0.1 125 constant SFR of
1E-10 M_solar/yr
To the CDBS-BC95 Atlas
Back to the Astronomical Catalogs Page
Maintained by Calvin Tullos
STScI Observatory Support Group
Last modified, 23 Oct 1995 | <urn:uuid:d2313bf7-cf54-4695-bc1f-667217bff49f> | 2 | 1.78125 | 0.038422 | en | 0.778772 | http://www.stsci.edu/instruments/observatory/cdbs/cdbs_bc95.html |
Proper meds and positive vibes for the psych patient
-A A +A
Saturday, February 8, 2014
TO STABILIZE the chemical imbalances and to enforce positivity in the brain -- these are the primary goals in treating a mentally ill or psychotic patient and these are achieved with a proper dose of pharmacotherapy and ample time for psychotherapy.
New Day Recovery Center medical director Aneze Maghuyop-Babista, in an interview with Sun.Star Davao, said pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are the general terms that one could come across when you speak of the conventional treatment for psych patients.
Pharmacotherapy therapy refers to the administration of medicine while psychotherapy involves various thorough counseling methods that will mentally and emotionally help a patient.
The Brain Drugs
Babista said the imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain has been one of the major contributors for mental disorders.
The imbalance, however, may be addressed using medicines that alter the flow of neurotransmitters and either activating or deactivating brain receptors which are vital in controlling behavior and cognitive functions.
One general term of which are the antipsychotics or neuroleptics.
Unregulated levels of dopamine flowing through the different receptors in the brain has been attributed to the cause of mental disorders thus, antipsychotics is intended to block these receptors. Some antipsychotics manage norepinephrine levels. Norepinephrine acts as a hormone and a neurotransmitter which is responsible for cognitive functions such as reasoning, attention, memory, problem solving and decision making.
While the common antipsychotics address the flow of dopamine and norepinephrine, Babista said newer versions of antipsychotics normalize the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in the regulation of mood, appetite, sleep and aids in the cognitive functions including memory and learning.
Another general term associated in the treatment of mental disorders is benzodiazepines. This type of drug is administered to treat anxiety, insomnia, agitation, seizures and muscle spasms. Benzodiazepines are psychoactive drugs that elevate the production of gamma-aminobutyric acid, a neurotransmitter that controls sleepiness, anxiety and muscle activity.
Antidepressants, on the other hand, are used for mentally ill patients with mild to moderate symptoms of mental illnesses like anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and from the name itself, depression.
These types of drugs are paired off to treat patients who experience various level of mental disorders ranging from severe psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, hallucinations and delusions to mild symptoms.
But strictly speaking, any drug has corresponding side effects and all the more if it is abused. And with prescriptions that require days of guzzling down combinations of these drugs, patients have an increased chance of more harmful effects. Reported side effects include headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, decreased cognitive and motor function, decrease in libido and sex drive, muscle spasms, hypertension and even addiction.
"The medication could go for three to six weeks depending on the condition of the patient. With this period, a patient can develop a drug dependency especially on benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines like valiums are highly addictive and those who are under this medication may experience withdrawal symptoms after their medication," Babista said.
But she assured that the doses of the patients are meticulously regulated and after the medication, patients won't be able to procure the drugs anymore as pharmacies would be requiring more than the doctor's prescription in releasing the drugs especially the benzodiazepines and antipsychotics.
Into the minds of the patients
After the chemical balance in the brain has been corrected, it is now on to the implanting of a healthy mind set. Babista said the first step to psychotherapy is letting the patient identify his or her own feelings saying that if they can already distinguish what they feel, they already have a grasp of reality. Psychiatrists then identify the sources of these feelings and from there they start incorporating different types of therapies intended to enhance social skills, improve cognitive skills and behavior.
The most common therapy that Babista uses is the cognitive behavioral therapy. This starts by identifying the negative thoughts of patients and teaching them how they could dispel these thoughts.
"The idea is when you plant a thought, you reap a feeling. You plant a feeling, You reap an action. You plant an action, you reap a habit. You plant a habit, you reap a behavior. You plant a behavior, you reap a character and when you plant a character, you reap your destiny. That is why we should start adjusting their thoughts to make them positive," Babista said.
After the perspective of a patient becomes positive, he or she may then be put through rational motive therapy. This is the part where a patient is presented with circumstances wherein one should make a decision.
Babista said the key here is giving the patient options while incorporating methods on how to make the sound choices. She said that she teaches the patients cost analysis wherein one will learn how to know the pros and cons of each option presented.
When there is already positive vibes coupled with logical thinking, a patient will then have either a couple therapy say if a patient is married or the group therapy. Basically the patient is being thought how to socialize until such time that they confidence with the presence of fellow patients. Also incorporated in the couple or group therapies are music therapy, dance therapy and other extracurricular activities possible to enhance the self esteem of the patient.
Finally, if a patient has been cleared from the facility, he or she will be given days or weeks to adjust to the society. The former patient would then come back for a support group therapy where one could share his or her experiences in coping up with mental illness to a still recovering group. This will also become a monitoring opportunity for the psychiatric doctor who cleared that patient.
But just like any other doctor would recommend, prevention is better than cure, thus Babista advised that people should already know the signs and symptoms of mental illnesses before a there is need that arouses to confine one to a mental facility.
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on February 08, 2014.
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Promoting sound sleep
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Tea, coffee and alcoholic drinks keep people awake, but when it's time for bed, try these natural tonics to offset their stimulating effect
Fruits like orange, lemon, apple, pear, grapefruit, watermelon, dragon fruit, papaya, pineapple, and passion fruit contain vitamins, fructose and other substances that neutralize the effects of alcohol, says herbalist Dinh Cong Bay. Photo: Shutterstock
Things to eat and drink before bed
Lots of everyday fruits effectively counteract the effect of alcoholic drinks and other stimulants.
Traditional doctor Dinh Cong Bay, General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Medicinal Materials Association, said, "It doesn't take you long to make delicious drinks which are good for health and help you recover the balance of your mind and fall asleep fast."
According to Dr. Bay, oranges, lemons, apples, pears, grapefruit, watermelon, dragon fruit, ripe papaya, pineapple, passion fruit, green beans, centella and cassava roots all contain vitamins, fructose and other substances that neutralize the effects of alcohol.
Sắn dây (arrowroot) is the most popular remedy. Ground into a powder mixed with boiling water, salt and sugar makes a great drink; juice made from squeezing its roots mixed with salt is another good way to prepare arrowroot.
To make arrowroot gruel, cook 100g of rice before adding 16g of arrowroot powder. Sugar and green beans may be added as well.
Also, it is possible to make arrowroot tea with lotus leaves. Boil 30g of sliced arrowroot root and half a chopped lotus leaf until 750ml of water remains. Drink 2-3 times throughout the day.
Arrowroot flowers also work. Take 10-15g of flowers boiled in 300ml of water (50g of green beans can be added).
Fresh lemons are also very helpful. Lemonade or lemon slices including the peel eaten with sugar can help. Salted lemons mixed with sugar can make a good drink, too.
Drinks made from apricots are also great before bed. Two apricots sliced and boiled with some crushed dry tangerine skin in 500ml of water make a healthy drink.
Fresh sugarcane juice is actually very healthy when mixed with ginger; or try cooking green beans in water with some sugarcane juice for a tasty dish.
Rice gruel, cooked with centella (rau má) and green beans (100g of fresh centella, 50g of green beans and 50g of rice) is best served hot with sugar or salt.
Drinks made from fruits can be very beneficial for sleeping soundly. Blend 500g of fresh ripe bananas, 300g of sliced tomatoes, two spoonfuls of orange juice, one spoonful of lemon juice and half a bowl of crushed ice to make an instant tasty drink.
Passion fruit mixed with orange, apple, grape, pear, pineapple or custard apple to make healthy drinks which help discharge toxic substances, calm the nerves and improve urinary function. Loaded with antioxidants, passion fruit is also a laxative that helps protect the cardiovascular system and promotes sound sleep.
Things to avoid before sleeping
Many favorite late night snacks which are popular, especially after a night of drinking, have a negative impact on sleep.
Noodles contain starch which turns into fat upon digestion. It increases one's blood sugar, which inhibits sleep.
Almost nothing makes the stomach work harder than pizza. The tomato sauce, meat and cheese contain a lot of acid and fat which are hard to digest and make it hard to have a nice sleep.
Meats like pork, beef, goat and lamb contain large quantities of protein and fat which are hard for the digestive system to handle and hence, are not conducive to a good night's rest.
Cereals high in sugar and starch and hinder the body's ability to relax. If you are hungry at night, you should only eat food made from whole grains.
Garlic, known as a "hot herb," is also difficult to digest and should not be ingested before bed.
Celery improves urination, so much so that it may lead to sleep interrupted by frequent trips to the restroom.
Candy may cause nightmares because sugar stimulates unusual brainwaves. A recent study shows that seven out of 10 people eating candy before bedtime have nightmares.
Ice cream, obviously rich in sugar and fat, is not advisable to eat it before bed.
Dark chocolate contains significant levels of caffeine and other stimulants like theobromine that increase the heart rate, making it more difficult to sleep peacefully. If you must have chocolate before bed, you should eat white chocolate, which does not contain theobromine and is low in caffeine.
Alcoholic drinks cause us to fall asleep fast but health experts warn they do not promote deep sleep and negatively impact our overall health.
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How Quebec's 'Maple Spring' Protests Fit With the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (Sort Of)
The demonstrations, first against tuition prices and now against anti-assembly limits, have more in common with other protest movements than you might think.
printemps june12 ph.jpg
A protester kicks a tear gas canister back towards police during a demonstration in Victoriaville, Quebec, on May 4, 2012. (Reuters)
When the Quebec student protests began in February over a proposed tuition hike, it didn't look much like, say, Occupy Wall Street, or especially not like the Arab Spring. It still mostly doesn't -- no one thinks Canadian tanks will be flooding the streets anytime soon -- but it has taken an unusual turn since the Quebec National Assembly passed an emergency law in May to limit public assembly. Bill 78 sparked more and much larger protests, with the issues now bigger than just the price of education. So, put aside for a moment the myriad and important differences between Quebec's protest movement and Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring, and consider these thematic similarities in the events:
• The government oversteps with an abusive action or announcement of an offensive policy.
• Young people begin protesting to decry the injustice and start a larger debate about the legitimacy of the government, and its habit of doing favors for the rich and established at the expense of the young and poor.
• The government cracks down on protestors, spurring criticisms of illegally crushing free speech.
• Instead of quelling the dissent, the attempts to shut down protests helps expand them, contributing to a nationwide conversation about people's shared distrust of failing institutions.
This is Le Printemps Erable, or the Maple Spring as some call it, one of the largest social movements to hit Quebec in decades. But, in the most general terms, this pattern could describe many popular movements of the past three years: the Green Revolution of Iran, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street. (Though on wildly different scales -- Canada, of course, enjoys a stable democracy rather than a military dictatorship or a theocracy, and its relatively modest finance sector has suffered no Lehman-style disasters.) Every time we think a protest movement has dissipated, something like it reappears in another section of the world, spurred by similar themes and resulting in a similar dance between authority figures and masses of people disenchanted with their leadership.
Thankfully, Quebec shares little in common with the desperation of Tunisia, Egypt, or Iran, even if this social movement borrows some rhetorical themes from their struggles. Around 100 days ago, students in Quebec began protesting en masse against a proposal by the Liberal government of Jean Charest, a significant rate hike for higher education that would be paid directly by students. While the actual rate hike measures in the hundreds of dollars per year -- sums that sadly wouldn't impress Americans living under a colossal, tragic trillion dollars of student debt -- Quebec is one of the most heavily taxed places in Canada, extracting funds that are already supposed to go to health care, higher education, and social services. Many of the students are stepping forward against what they see as a fundamental change in the deal they are getting from society, being asked to pay more for credentials to enter an ever-weaker job market.
The Charest government, seeing that protests were continuing longer than with most student protests, and threatening to encroach on Quebec's profitable summer tourist season, tried outlawing protests over 50 people without consulting police first. This not only failed to break up individual protests, but as in so many countries before, only expanded the movement to question the entire economic system, leading Quebecois from a variety of ages and backgrounds to join in. What started as a students-only protest is spilling over into a much broader debate about inequality and, ultimately, the future that peoples' leaders appear to be offering.
But this is also part of a larger trend. It's amazing how quickly these regional and specific discussions -- police brutality in Tunisia, income inequality in the U.S., college tuition in Quebec - spill over into some of the same themes we see globally. A government, possessing economic and military authority, makes a move that finally angers people enough to send them into the streets. In Iran, it was doubts over election returns. In Tunisia, it was a single humiliated street cart vendor committing suicide. At Occupy Wall Street it was a non-event -- the deafening silence from President Obama and Attorney General Holder, finding insufficient evidence in trillions of dollars of crooked mortgages and derivatives flim-flam to put a single Ponzi banker in front of a grand jury. The people leave the confines of their couches to meet each other in the street and make their presence seen, heard, and felt. The authorities react harshly, and then it becomes about something bigger: Governments these days seem readier to punish the poor and powerless, reserving their tolerance for the elements of society that do their protesting through lobbying and campaign finance. Holding the powerful to account for wrongdoing, especially of the economic variety, is not easy -- but when the young, poor, or marginalized are out in numbers, questioning the social contract, then the government finds its authority. That's not to say that Quebec's Bill 78 is analogous to the Arab Spring crackdowns -- the protesters weren't seeking the downfall of the government, after all, nor was the government trying to quell all dissent so much as to clear the streets in time for tourist season. But it's telling that, when the Quebec authorities went to act, they decided that the problem was that protesters had too many rights.
In the broadest terms, these sorts of movements and state reactions appear to be working in similar ways nearly everywhere, whether in the desperate urban poverty of Cairo or the cosmopolitan prosperity of Montreal. As the global economic slowdown squeezes governments and elites and regular non-elite people alike, the world is entering more fully into the politics of less, where deals are rewritten and expectations lowered. It's the young who seem first and loudest, ready to ask whether this is the only future possible. Institutions offer the same old answers in reply. And because of that, Quebec is certainly not the last place we should expect this pattern. If this is really a Quebec Spring, then it may be spring in a lot of places for a long time to come.
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August 1957
• Moscow
"The Soviet leaders and the nation remain preoccupied with two aspects of Stalin's extraordinary career: 1) what is Stalin's role in Soviet history, and 2.) what are the limits of the continuing process of de-Stalinization?"
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More back issues, Sept 1995 to present.
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The Story Behind That 9,000-Word Quora Post on Airplane Cockpits
(Yes, there is a 9,000-word Quora post on airplane cockpits.)
It used to be that a key ingredient in human knowledge was the suppression of human passion. From science's method to journalism's, people claimed authority by proving how little they were able to care about the knowledge they were creating. But that's changing, and quickly. Increasingly, it's passion itself -- messy, quirky, productive passion -- that is guiding what, and how, we know.
This is evidenced, most recently, by a question on Quora.
"What do all the controls in an airplane cockpit do?" asked a wonderer on the crowd-sourced Q&A site. "There appear to be dials, knobs, and switches almost everywhere -- what do they all do and why are there so many of them? Seem to be many more than what I would expect would be needed to fly the aircraft."
Tim Morgan read that question, and sent an answer
"If you're talking about a commercial airliner," he replied, "then there's hundreds and hundreds. There are big, fat manuals describing what they all do. But, since you asked, buckle up."
And: a very extended journey. A long-haul journey, you might say. If you were to ask Quora your own question -- "How did Tim Morgan answer that question about the controls of airplane cockpits?" -- you'd likely get an answer that includes the following stats:
Words: 9,322
Paragraphs: 162
Subcategories: 8
Images: 13
Uses of the word "knob": 74
Comments: 45+
Reposts: 15
Votes: 846
The answer would also include, most likely, the words "epic" and "awesome" and "amazing." And that's not just because of the post's length, or the wealth of information it contains, or the fact that, after reading it, you will probably be unable to look at an airplane or a pilot or a manual outflow valve control quite the same way again. It's also ... the joy. Seriously: the joy. It's the sheer enthusiasm, the I-know-something-you-want-to-know-about-and-I'm-gonna-tell-you-about-it excitement, that pretty much bursts through the answer's 9,322 words and 162 paragraphs. It is epic. It is awesome. It is amazing.
The article, Morgan told me, was the product of eight "post-midnight hours" -- and hours spent not, by the way, in a state of effortless, in-the-zone flow, but spent engaged in hard work. "My first draft was rough and the result of tedious diligence," he says, "but was rewarding in that I was checking my own knowledge and solidifying what I knew." And then Kat Li, Quora's community manager, contacted Morgan to let him know that his answer would be featured on its site. At that point, Morgan says, "I took the time to go over it again and verify that everything was correct. I used an operations manual from a 737 simulator to check my facts." And "in the end it was a very personally rewarding experience, because I had had the operations manual lying around and had been meaning to really study it, and now I finally had my excuse."
This is telling. And it offers hints, in its little (and also, you know, loooooong) way, about how knowledge is changing in a web-ified world. What we know, archived online, is increasingly the product of personal interests and enthusiasms -- the exact kind that Quora so constructively surfaces. Collected, collective information is increasingly symbolized not by Britannica, but by Wikipedia -- written by amateurs who do the writing, literally, for the love of the information they share. Morgan isn't just a regular Quora contributor; he's also the creator of the flight-based image-sharing service Flightseein', and of the hilarious Ultimate Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands. He finds ways to convert his interests -- learning, building, flying -- into shared experiences. And he looks for ways to make his passions for those experiences infectious.
When it comes the cockpit post, Morgan notes,
Aviation isn't something that many people appreciate, and while simply listing off all the functions of every knob, switch, and dial in the cockpit doesn't really convey the depth and breadth of knowledge, skill, and dedication that encompasses aviation, it does bring people a little closer to that world. Really, it comes down to twin passions: a passion for flying, and a passion for enriching the world.
Passion. Passion. Passion. Exactly. And nothing expresses that so well as nearly 10,000 words presented, for your consideration, by a guy who really, really loves to fly.
Image: Hyungwon Kang/Reuters.
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Arthur Rimbaud was one of the wildest, most uncompromising poets of his age. As part of the decadent movement, his influence on modern literature, music and art has been enduring and pervasive. Victor Hugo described him at the time as ‘an infant Shakespeare’. Rimbaud produced his best know works while still in his late teen and gave up poetry before he reached the age of 21 and embarked on a new life as an explorer, traveling extensively and working as a trader in Africa before his death from cancer less than a month after his 37th birthday.
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New Horizons
THE REV. JESSE JACKSON'S successful rescue effort of Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. was a well-calculated political risk that proved to be a most telling comment on Jackson's Democratic candidacy. Jackson's previously voiced dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party should be recognized as only a minor facet of his plans. Jackson wants to become president, not simply bring attention to the inadequacies of President Ronald Reagan or the no-win options on the Democratic slate he opposes.
By pegging his rescue of Goodman as a "Mission of Mercy," and stating his concerns as a citizen, not a Democratic candidate, Jackson downplayed the political significance of his effort, leaving lots of room for others, particularly the media to play it up. Jackson was smart enough to leap into a no-lose political situation. If he had not been successful, he would still have been lauded for the attempt by his supporters and any failure could have been blamed on the State Department and Reagan's limited negotiatory stance with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
The controversy surrounding Jackson's effort, amid State Department warnings, insured nightly news coverage, the cheapest form of campaign publicity. The good reverend also limited his usually heated anti-Reagan rhetoric, even going so far (upon his return) as to thank the State Department for not blocking the mission.
The Jackson campaign workers used an age-old tactic: if the candidate is not getting enough attention at home, send him abroad. With Reagan's foreign policy becoming a growing thorn in his side, Jackson's concern for Goodman was well-timed. But Jackson has a history of such maneuvers. He has become the most recognized Black leader since the Civil Rights Movement, without running or holding any political office. When his Operation PUSH was under investigation for questionable financial shuffling, where was Jackson? Lending his support to Black mayoral candidates Harold Washington. Mel King and Wilson Goode, so that their successes would reflect upon him. Jackson has mastered the politician's genius for being in the right place at the right time.
But the rescue of Goodman is different from past cases, because it was engineered on a higher level of political expertise. Jackson can play up the risk of his mission (though there wasn't any politically for him) and Americans will agree with him when he says it was "the right thing to do." His is the stuff that heroes are made from. So what will Jesse do now? If he can keep the American public asking that question, Jackson has a chance to stay in the limelight.
It can only be assumed then that, like the opportunist he has admitted to being, he will take advantage of his position in the forefront. Although the press has already declared Mondale the candidate for the Democratic nomination, Jackson cannot be ignored.
The question is whether Jackson will end one campaign and begin another. He has been running at a ragged pace to keep the yet-to-be established office known as the Leader of Blacks. He has successfully launced the largest voter registration movement in the country's history. Can he move from those campaigns to a real presidential one? In a field of Democratic candidates that make a lifelong Democratic want to vote for Reagan, it is possible that an alternative may present itself in Jesse Jackson. The rescue of Lt. Goodman points to such an idea, still narrowly conceived amid Jackson supporters, but probably firmly planted in the mind of Jackson himself. | <urn:uuid:f6822b6e-a7b5-4948-aa20-f08850484ae1> | 2 | 1.960938 | 0.028684 | en | 0.980462 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1984/1/6/new-horizons-pbtbhe-rev-jesse-jacksons/ |
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Adding a new twist to your Fantasy story by changing the setting
Newway12 at 2:55PM, March 18, 2011
A written suggestion asking creators to open their minds to unexplored possibilities.
(2 star average out of 1 vote)
In many ways, the Fantasy genre is the concept of fiction in its purest and most unadulterated form. In this genre everything from the characters to the setting is completely fabricated and subject to the creators imagination. Every other genre is grounded somehow to the real world. Historic fiction is grounded by its connection to history. Science fiction is grounded by the laws of science. The only limit Fantasy has is the creativity of the storyteller.
But instead of being a genre that embraces its limitless nature, Fantasy has arguably become one of the most structurally ridged genres. Most Fantasy stories are influenced at least on some level by the Lord of the Rings. That is not necessarily a bad thing, the Lord of the Rings is the story arguably ushered in the modern fantasy story. But the constant clinging to J.R.R Tolkiens story tropes and archetypes has just as often hurt the genre as helped it. But I believe that change is slowly but surely coming. In short Fantasy needs a revolution. And like all revolutions this on begins buy questioning the way things are. And perhaps no element of the Fantasy genre needs to be questioned more then setting.
Quaint rural villages, majestic castles and dark enchanted forests, this is the medieval setting for about ninety percent of the fantasy stories out there, and Id argue that it is the major reason why the genre has become so redundant. Most of the other clichés of the genre stem from this one in some way or another. If you move your story out of medieval Europe (or an alternate world that looks and acts amazingly like medieval Europe) it instantly changes the kind of characters that you need to populate your story. With a different cast come different character interactions and plots that would never come up with a traditional setting and cast. For example moving a story from Europe to say ancient India, might change the story a lot. The nature of magic might be different in an Indian based Fantasy then in a European based one. Instead of elves and goblins, your story might be populated by Apsaras and Nagas (If you dont know what those are google them) and other things that have pretty much gone untouched by the genre. Fantasy doesnt have to be set in the past either. Perhaps the most popular movie of all time just happens to be a fantasy story. Many people mistakenly label Star Wars as a Science Fiction story, but if you look at it closely its actually a fantasy story with the superficial trappings of Science Fiction. The Jedi are knights the Force is magic Darth Vader is an evil overlord, the Death Star is the evil overlords fortress etc.
This isnt an article telling you how or what to write or draw. Its a written suggestion asking you to question the clichés and tropes of a genre and perhaps think outside the box. The Comic world is filled with Fantasy stories and I firmly believe that changing the setting of a story can make your story stand out in a very crowded market. This is what I set out to do with my own work, and its something a wish more creators would do as well.
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Water Detox: Too Much Of A Good Thing Can Be Bad
By: Simcha / July 24, 2008
The Amazing Hydration Diet sounds like an elixir an old timey quack doctor would sell out the back of his wagon at a carnival. However silly sounding, it’s really a trendy diet that was recently popular with folks in Britain. Licensed nutritionist Barbara Nash suggested her chubby client, Dawn Page, take a little bit off by drinking excessive amounts of water — nearly 10 glasses a day. Sure, it seems refreshingly healthy for a diet when compared to the all-you-can-eat-meat Atkins diet, the cabbage soup only diet, and prepackaged low fat foods, but in actuality life-giving water can also kill. Apparently, there is such a thing as water intoxication. Not as fun as plain intoxication and sadly, a Californian woman died last year from a water drinking contest to win a Nintendo Wii. Luckily, Dawn Page survived her hydration detox, including all of the vomiting and the epileptic fit it induced. Unfortunately, Mrs. Page, a mother of two, had to quit her job because the detox left her permanently brain damaged and she now has trouble with her memory, concentration, and speech. Mrs. Page and her husband are now leading a crusade to stop these detoxes, which have been used for thousands of years, but have never been proven to work and are not endorsed by medical science. The Page’s have even put their pocketbooks where their mouths are, and sued and then settled out of court for roughly $1.6 million. Why would anyone give up that much dough? Because the Page’s refused to sign off on a liability waiver since the nutritionist claimed the puking and headaches were all part of how the diet worked. Now, knowing what those warning signs really meant, they want to raise awareness about the expert-endorsed dieting fad and expose the dangers of water detoxing. So, let this be a lesson to us all — being rich and skinny isn’t worth it, if it costs you your mind. [BBC] | <urn:uuid:6d8c0eef-1ef1-4e4e-9375-87eb0254fa88> | 2 | 1.765625 | 0.037471 | en | 0.972141 | http://www.thefrisky.com/2008-07-24/water-detox-too-much-of-a-good-thing-can-be-bad/ |
The hunting of Herman Melville
Jay Parini hails the first proper life of the elusive author of Moby-Dick, Andrew Delbanco's Melville: His World and Work
Melville by Andrew Delbanco
Melville: His World and Work
by Andrew Delbanco
415pp, Picador, £25
Andrew Delbanco's life of Herman Melville is beautifully shaped, lucid and shrewd as a psychological portrait of a tormented writer whose work and world were often at terrible odds. Up to now, Melville (1819-91) has had no satisfactory biographer, although a fair number have tried their hand at this puzzling story of the man who wrote Moby-Dick and Billy Budd as well a number of unforgettable stories, such as "Bartleby, the Scrivener".
It's a puzzle because Melville left few traces of himself: his letters have largely disappeared, and his contemporaries said little about him. Rather mysteriously, he withdrew from the public sphere during the second half of his adult life, during which time he worked as a lowly agent at a customs house in New York, toiling in self-imposed obscurity for decades. His astonishing late masterpiece, Billy Budd, lay in manuscript form, unpublished, until decades after his death, by which time his name had disappeared from view. Even the New York Times could not spell his name correctly in its obituary.
Like biographers of Shakespeare, those who approach Melville must draw important conclusions about the life from the work. This is unstable ground for any biographer, who may in frustration choose to write around his subject (as did Hershel Parker, author of two exhaustive and exhausting volumes on Melville) or attempt to tease the author's "real" opinions and feelings from the fiction, risking misrepresentation. Andrew Delbanco, a professor at Columbia and a well-known critic, has chosen a middle ground, artfully reading the fiction (and even Melville's late, ungainly poems) for evidence of the author's attitudes toward such things as his strained marriage to Lizzie Shaw, the daughter of a prominent Boston judge, or his own reputation.
Unlike Parker, Delbanco knows when to shut up. He never gives the reader an excess of historical detail, but he understands that Melville's books were hardly written in a vacuum. Even though Melville was reticent on the major issues of the day, such as slavery or the politics of Tammany Hall, his work often reflects his genuine interest in such topics. Sometimes the political undercurrents of the work actually drive its reputation. Indeed, Benito Cereno - his brilliantly compact novel about rebellion on a slave ship - has "in our own time of terror and torture" says Delbanco, "emerged as the most salient of Melville's works".
The Melville story is compelling on any number of fronts. The son of a well-known family in decline, Melville struggled throughout his life to keep up appearances. In the usual search for adventure, he went to sea as a young man, and most of his fiction - certainly his best work - takes place aboard ships, often in exotic locations. Indeed, "Melville's four years at sea were the seedtime for his imagination," Delbanco says. Working aboard various commercial and naval vessels, he visited England, the Galapagos and the South Seas, acquainting himself with the world in all its tumult and variety. His earliest novels, the sensationalist Typee and Oomo, were essentially memoirs, and Delbanco treats them as such. They made a name for the young writer, and confirmed him in his career as author.
Home from sea and newly married, Melville lived for several years (1847-50) in New York City before retreating to the lovely Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts, where he bought a farm that spread out over 160 acres below Mount Greylock. The house itself, still a target for pilgrims, was called Arrowhead. A summer neighbour from nearby Lenox was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the two met at a picnic one afternoon in 1850. This friendship peaked early, however. Melville proved a difficult friend, moody and unforthcoming. Yet the two remained in contact until Hawthorne's death. One would have to call this friendship the highpoint of Melville's public life as a writer.
Melville appears to have grown jealous of Hawthorne, whose reputation soared as his own - in the wake of several disappointing and dull novels, such as Mardi and Redburn - began to sink. The great irony here, of course, is that Melville was writing Moby-Dick at this time. "With his obligations mounting," Delbanco notes, "the gap between his artistic achievement and his public standing was more and more galling."
Moby-Dick, as it should, lies at the gravitational centre of this book. That novel impressed countless modern readers as a prophetic work. "What all these readers recognised," Delbanco explains, "is that though Melville had been born and had died in the 19th century, Moby-Dick was the work of a 20th-century imagination. As we begin our transition into the 21st century, this book has lost none of its salience. In Captain Ahab, Melville had invented a suicidal charismatic who denounces as a blasphemer anyone who would deflect him from his purpose - an invention that shows no sign of become obsolete any time soon."
With dramatic skill and genuinely synthetic powers, Delbanco portrays the making of this massive narrative. It was a monumental achievement for Melville, whose visionary powers blazed during this period, resulting in a work of such poetic expansiveness and spiritual frenzy that anyone who reads it seriously must bow before its terrifying depths. It's a tale of "the reciprocal love between a demagogue and his adoring followers", a novel with such allegorical resonance that it seems endlessly adaptable to local political or social circumstances, hence meaningful for new generations of readers.
The story itself, about a whale who refused to take no for an answer, was based on at least one well-known account. Yet Melville transmogrified this material, turning a tall fishing tale into a sublime spiritual quest, while adding a number of indelible characters - Ahab, Queequeg, Ishmael, Starbuck - to the pantheon of major fictional presences. In prose nicely called "ejaculatory" by FO Matthiessen, one of Melville's best early critics, the novel seems to have exhausted its creator.
He followed Moby-Dick with a peculiar novel, Pierre, about a writer with strange erotic obsessions. Melville may, as Delbanco explains, have experienced a good deal of sexual confusion, suffering a degree of frustration that is difficult to understand in our age of polymorphous perversity (Freud's term). In any case, the harshly negative response to Pierre drove Melville deeply into hiding, although he continued to write for some time, publishing Benito Cereno and a number of decent stories in subsequent years.
For the most part, he subsided into obscurity, moving back to New York, where he spent his days inspecting cargo. He suffered the loss of one son from suicide, of another from poor health brought on by a sense of failure. The marriage to Lizzie did not end in separation, although the few shreds of evidence we have suggest that nobody in the Melville household was very happy. Melville wrote a fair number of poems in his later years, most of them quite bad, but he wrote no fiction until taking up Billy Budd, a novel that Thomas Mann once called "the most beautiful story in the world".
Although not published in the author's lifetime, Billy Budd redeems the final years. Delbanco offers a rich analysis here of what must considered a pivotal work of American literature, the story of a likeable innocent condemned to death for murdering his snide and unreliable accuser aboard a naval ship during the Napoleonic wars. "By the time Melville wrote Billy Budd," says Delbanco, "he had seen his country go from being the vanguard nation of what he had once called 'divine equality' to a nation deeply divided between poverty and wealth." Although set in the distant past, Melville's novel commented shrewdly on the lure of anarchy, the ambiguities of the rule of law, and the nature of innocence.
One can hardly imagine a more artful or succinct biography of Herman Melville, one that makes his fiction seem not only relevant but urgent, presenting the familiar facts in a fashion that makes the life and work luminously comprehensible.
· Jay Parini has written biographies of Steinbeck, Frost, and Faulkner and published several volumes of fiction
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It would be wrong to assume that everybody in the City of London thinks Lord Turner has lost his marbles. Many, undoubtedly, agree with the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, that introducing taxes on certain financial transactions is "crackers". But, dig a little deeper and you will find people who think the chairman of the Financial Services Authority is on to something.
Turner did not say that modern investment banking is a racket, but others in the City do. The idea is not heresy. You will find the view expressed frequently (although usually in private) by senior fund managers, folk who used to be considered the core of the City club.
Many of these people are tired of seeing companies in which they invest pay exorbitant advisory and underwriting fees to investment banks. They think many derivative products have been invented solely as means to extract fees from unsuspecting clients. They conclude that the primary purpose of investment banks has become the advancement of the financial interests of the people who work in them.
So they know what Turner is talking about when he says the financial services industry has become swollen and that some of its activities are socially useless. They would probably share the view of Benjamin Friedman, the Harvard economics professor, who highlighted in yesterday's Financial Times the perverse waste of human capital in showering immense financial rewards on "those whose job is to ensure that microscopically small deviations from observable regularities in asset price relationships persist for only one millisecond instead of three".
Why are the sympathetic constituencies in the City, assuming they exist, silent? Many reasons. They haven't done badly themselves by the current set-up; they fear change; they don't want the UK to act in isolation; and they don't have easy solutions themselves.
Call that feeble-minded if you wish. But is it any more feeble than the response from government, which seems to want to close down discussion on Turner's thoughts before a debate has even begun?
Compare and contrast the contributions of the heads of the tripartite authorities. You might expect the politicians, the ones who have to fight an election next year, to be the free-thinkers. It's the other way around.
Turner, chairman of the chief City regulator, says that there has been "a very fundamental shock to the 'efficient market hypothesis' which has been in the DNA of the FSA and securities and banking regulators throughout the world". He says the adjustment cannot be minor. The governor of the Bank of England, with a sharper sense of style, was on a similar tack a few months ago when he said: "'My word is my CDO-squared' will never catch on."
Yet the Treasury, in response to Turner's thoughts, asserts in leaden fashion that governments, not regulators, impose taxes. Yes, that is true. But the debate is broader than that. It's about the future of the financial services industry. What do we want it to do?
These waters aren't as dangerous as the government seems to think. Of course it is true that the City doesn't want to lose its competitiveness, but there is acceptance in many quarters that change is necessary. Maybe the Treasury listened too hard to all those investment bankers it hired during the banking crisis. The truth is there is more to the City than one tribe – and there's a broader range of views out there.
Rail reversal
What a turnaround. A couple of months ago, it was odds-on that National Express would fall to the first decent bid that turned up. And, if the bidder was backed by the Cosmen family, owner of 18% of National Express, then the chances of survival looked very slim indeed. The company had walked away from its east coast mainline franchise, infuriating the transport secretary, Lord Adonis. The discredited chief executive, Richard Bowker, had run off to build a train set in the United Arab Emirates. Chairman John Devaney seemed to have been dealt a weak hand.
Now the bid has arrived and things look different. The Cosmens, plus their private equity friends from CVC, want to pay 450p. This is a big improvement on 350p, which appears to have been the opening gambit, but the effect on the share price yesterday was hardly electric. At 408p, the market is saying it doubts this deal will happen.
What's changed? Well investors have realised that, while warfare with the transport secretary is not helpful, National Express has some virtues. It makes profits and it generates cash. So re-capitalising the company via a rights issue, and finding a decent chief executive, is not a ridiculous strategy. The Cosmens may have to go somewhat higher if they really want to get their buses back. | <urn:uuid:eb5121e6-208f-4351-aad8-afd0a9313c94> | 2 | 1.664063 | 0.045456 | en | 0.977114 | http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/aug/27/viewpoint-fsa-city-tax-national-express |
I'm an atheist, OK?
The question: What is agnosticism?
Disagreement over the definition of atheist and agnostic has cluttered up various threads here, scattering confusion in its wake like a muckspreader in autumn.
The cause of the confusion is that atheists and theists have different definitions of the words agnostic and atheist, and adamantly refuse to accept the validity of each other's definitions.
Atheist version: An atheist believes there is no God, an agnostic doesn't know.
Let's look at the two definitions of atheist first, because this is where the cause of the confusion really resides. It is the distinction between "believes" and "is certain". In choosing the two different forms of words, I am trying to convey that the theists' definition of atheism suggests that atheists know beyond any possibility of doubt that they have proof of God's nonexistence. The self-described atheists tend to use the word "believe" as meaning a very high degree of confidence, sufficient to live their lives on this basis, but falling short of 100% proven certainty.
When atheists try to explain this, a common riposte from theists is "You're not 100% certain, so you're not an atheist, you're just an agnostic, because you don't really know!"
If you accept that some degree of confidence short of 100% proved certainty of God's nonexistence is sufficient to allow somebody to qualify for the description of atheist, then how short of 100% certainty do you have to be before agnostic is a more accurate description? It's a fuzzy boundary and there is no objective answer. I take the practical view that if people are sufficiently certain they call themselves atheists and in practice live their lives on the assumption of God's nonexistence, then it is not very useful to insist on describing them as agnostic.
As for the boundary between believers in any faith and agnostics, I'm quite happy to apply the same principle. A Christian is somebody who says he is a Christian, and an agnostic is somebody who says he doesn't know.
If we all accept each other's self-applied labels, we can all get along much better.
So I'm an atheist. OK? | <urn:uuid:99ede3b4-4532-4557-8ffa-2fa680ffa9c9> | 2 | 1.734375 | 0.760289 | en | 0.966594 | http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/18/atheism-agnosticism-religion |
Flying over Kenya's Rift Valley at 19,000ft it's hard not to feel a pang of guilt. I am en route to Kibale, a fertile, mountainous region in western Uganda, but here, below the wings of the 737, the land is slowly dying. Starved of moisture, the Rift Valley's fertile savannah - like much of Africa these days - seems to be burning up, a victim of global warming and changing weather patterns.
That is by no means the end of my sinning. Before boarding the 737 at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta airport, I flew long haul from London on a 747 - a nine-hour flight that added nearly two tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Three days before that I was on another 747 - this time returning from Cape Verde to Gatwick, a six-hour flight that came at the end of a two-week island hopping spree that saw me taking a total of eight planes and spewing a further five tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Leafing through Kenyan Airways's in-flight magazine I read that Africa's rainforests are vanishing faster than any others on earth. During the Eighties the continent lost 10 per cent of its green canopy. Since the Nineties, this process has accelerated, with 5m hectares of forest - an area equivalent to Togo - being destroyed every year.
The causes are many and varied: logging for hardwood, planting for sugar cane, illegal land seizures by farmers and cattle ranchers, or simply encroachment by ordinary Africans desperate for firewood for their stoves.
Whatever the cause, it is a vicious cycle. The more trees are cut down, the quicker soils erode and the faster streams and rivers dry up. The result is drought or, when the rains come, catastrophic floods, prompting refugees to flee to more fertile, food-secure areas where they pile further pressure on the land. But what if there were a way of interrupting this cycle, of guaranteeing not only the survival of Africa's remaining rainforests but of regenerating those areas which have already been stripped of timber?
Moreover, what if instead of the burden for this replanting falling on Africans the costs could be borne by corporations or international travel addicts - people like you and me - through a system of carbon offsetting? Wouldn't that be a win-win solution for everyone?
That is what I have come to Uganda to find out. Together with Frederic Courbet, a Belgian photographer based in Nairobi, I will be travelling with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and representatives of Climate Care, an Oxford-based company that part-funds a carbon-offsetting scheme that is helping to reforest Kibale National Park. Set up in 1998 by green entrepreneur Mike Mason, Climate Care was one of the first companies to begin marketing offsets from the voluntary market to British consumers and corporate clients, such as the Co-operative Bank. In 2005, the Co-op paid Climate Care £250,000 to offset one-fifth of the carbon emissions arising from UK mortgage customers' homes - effectively 'neutralising', as the Co-op puts it, 50,000 tonnes of CO2. ('Our mortgages could not only save you money,' it boasts, 'they can help save the planet, too.')
Although technically a limited company, Climate Care does not have shareholders and, thanks to a complicated trust arrangement, claims to be able to avoid potential conflicts between its environmental and commercial aims. Sounds great. But is carbon offsetting really the answer to global warming? Is Climate Care really a company that is 'doing good' - as it claims on its website - or is it, as some environmentalists argue, actually making the situation worse?
To its critics, offsetting is no more than a clever accounting trick, a seductive and possibly counter-productive ruse to convince consumers they can get something for nothing. Far from deciding to insulate their lofts, invest in low-energy light bulbs and switch to bio-fuels, most consumers will simply continue their same old polluting ways, thinking they've done their bit for the environment. In other words, as Kevin Smith argues in his book The Carbon Myth, offsetting is capitalism's version of medieval 'indulgences' - a convenient way of assuaging the north's guilt while Rome, or in this case Africa, continues to burn.
Then there is the issue of how you calculate the carbon sequestered in a particular area of forest and put a value on the resulting 'credit'. Before I began researching this article I had no idea, as I am sure most British consumers don't, that when you click on a carbon calculator looking to offset the emissions of your recent shopping trip to New York, what you're actually buying is a guarantee that those trees will not only be planted but will survive for 100 years - the period required to absorb your emissions and thus render your flight 'carbon neutral'.
Not only that, but the voluntary market in carbon offsets is self-regulating, meaning it's potentially open to abuse. Little wonder then that radical ecologists dismiss carbon offsetting as 'Enron environmentalism' and label many of the companies who market offset and renewable-energy products as 'carbon spivs'.
As Jutta Kill of Fern, a group which campaigns for sustainable forest use and the rights of forest peoples, told me before I left for Uganda: 'Who can guarantee a tree planted in Uganda or Kenya will still be standing in 100 years? How many of the countries that host these projects have even existed for 100 years?'
I'm fond of trees - I once spent two weeks trekking through the Bolivian cloud forest in search of the Cinchona tree, a valuable anti-malarial. Shortly before leaving for Cape Verde I planted an olive tree in my garden in west London and was elated to find it flourishing on my return. Trees are good for the soul. More importantly, from the point of view of the voluntary offset industry, they capture people's imaginations.
Anti-offset campaigners recently challenged Climate Care's ethical credentials, claiming that workers in Kibale are being paid below subsistence wages and that together with Face (Forests Absorbing Carbon-dioxide Emissions), the Dutch foundation behind the Kibale project and another controversial reforestation scheme at Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda, they are ignoring the rights of local people who have traditionally accessed the forest for firewood, building materials and medicinal plants.
The criticism reached a crescendo in January when the BBC's Inside Out broadcast a report claiming the wages being paid to workers at Kibale were 'abysmal' and that viewers would do better to reduce their own carbon emissions than to buy offsets. Climate Care disputes these allegations and maintains their wages are fair.
Tom Morton, Climate Care's managing director, clearly finds such criticisms exasperating. He acknowledges that some people in Kibale may have complaints, but says that when he travelled there recently with the Co-op's head of ethics, the community was happy with the way the park was being managed and content with their access to its resources.
'If your aim is to pick holes in a project you'll always find a few people who are disgruntled, but my belief is Kibale is one of the best reforestation projects there is,' Morton says. 'The Ugandan government has taken the decision to restore a portion of its natural habitat and I'm happy to be part of that process.'
Morton certainly doesn't look like a spiv. Dressed casually in beige trousers and a light-blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck, he talks a green storm, telling me how he has installed solar panels at his home in Nairobi and taken other measures to reduce his carbon footprint.
We are sitting on the terrace of the Speke Hotel in downtown Kampala after an exhausting morning inspecting Climate Care's latest initiative - an urban stove project. In partnership with clean-air entrepreneurs, Climate Care is exploring a pilot energy-efficiency scheme to supply charcoal- and wood-burning 'rocket' stoves to householders in the greater Kampala area. The steel-clad stoves painted in the Ugandan national colours have a narrow ceramic fuel chamber linked to a wider cylindrical steel-clad pot container. Manufactured by the Urban Community Development Association (Ucodea) they can reduce a household's charcoal consumption by up to half.
Since 2000, Ucodea has sold 30,000 stoves in Kibuye and other Kampala neighbourhoods and is now scaling up production, with the aim of manufacturing 4,000 stoves a month. According to Ucodea's managing director, Kawere Muhammed, the stoves, which retail for 17,000 Ugandan shillings (£5) are extremely popular. In a country where most people still rely on the three-stone fire or wasteful braziers, the rocket design has been a revelation. 'It's amazing no one has thought to cook this way before,' Muhammed tells me. 'At first people are cautious, but when they see how much charcoal they can save they are very enthusiastic. In theory, we could supply the whole of Uganda.'
But for that to happen, Ucodea will need to find new sources of financing, hence Climate Care's involvement. According to Tom Morton, forestry-offset projects now account for less than 20 per cent of Climate Care's portfolio. 'When people say we're assuaging people's guilt in the north by planting trees in the south I just groan,' he says. 'As far as I'm concerned the debate has moved on.'
Morton points out that through the wasteful burning of wood and charcoal, the average Kampalan household consumes a tonne of charcoal a year and emits five tonnes of CO2 - the same as the typical British household. With the Kyoto process dragging its feet on the issue of wood and charcoal for cooking, Climate Care is hoping that stove projects will soon qualify for carbon credits under a new voluntary gold standard.
En route to Kibale the next day in a Toyota Landcruiser, courtesy of UWA, I cannot help but think Morton is tinkering at the edge of an insoluble problem. Weaving in and out of the Kampala traffic, matatus, their windows black with carbon, belch oily clouds of exhaust fumes into our path. Stalled momentarily in traffic, two children carrying small bundles of kindling approach and offer the firewood to the UWA driver. Even after we have left the city it is hard to escape the scent of charcoal or the ubiquitous stacks of firewood beside the road.
One of Fern's main objections to forestation projects is that the carbon credits simply increase the ecological debt of the north. The more fossil fuel a northern country uses, it argues, the more land it needs to offset its emissions. But in a country as hungry for firewood as Uganda, where the forests are already under intense pressure from encroachers, this is unfair and undermines global efforts towards sustainable development.
At Mount Elgon, where Face began planting trees in 1994, marketing the offsets to consumers via another Dutch company, Greenseat, this competition for scarce forest resources has sparked a bitter, on-going dispute. In 1993 the Ugandan government declared Mount Elgon a national park and forcibly evicted the indigenous people living within its boundaries. According to an investigation by a Kampala-based NGO, Climate and Development Initiatives (CDI), UWA rangers did not hesitate to use force. In 2002, UWA evicted a further 300 families. One indigenous group, the Benet people, is now suing UWA for the return of their land.
Jutta Kill claims that Kibale has a similar history of evictions, albeit (as at Mount Elgon) predating Face and Climate Care's involvement. She also claims that the salaries Face/UWA pay forestry workers are about half those of workers on nearby tea plantations. More- over, she said that when she visited Kibale and quizzed people, few seemed to understand the concept of carbon credits or that Face and Climate Care were businesses, not charities.
Located 320km west of Kampala, near the border with Congo, Kibale is part of the Albertine Rift region and an area of high species diversity and endemism. The 800km² park is home to 13 species of primate, including chimpanzees and the rare L'Hoesti monkey. It is also something of a haven for 'twitchers' boasting over 300 species of birds. More importantly, from the point of view of environmentalists, it contains 325 species of trees.
During Idi Amin's rule 15,000 hectares of Kibale's forest were destroyed by Bakiga settlers from southwest Uganda, apparently with the dictator's approval. But in 1992, when the park was formally gazetted, UWA evicted the pastoralists - some 30,000 in all - resettling them in a less fertile region in northern Uganda.
Depending on who you talk to, these evictions were either violent or largely peaceful. Whatever the truth, the years of encroachment certainly wrought havoc with the park's fragile ecology, encouraging the rampant growth of elephant grass and exposing the remaining hardwoods to forest fires.
It was against this background that in 1994, Face, which was originally set up to offset emissions from a coal-fired power station in the Netherlands, negotiated with the Ugandan authorities to replant 10,000 hectares inside Kibale as well as 25,000 hectares at Mount Elgon.
Face began by restoring Kibale's access road, establishing a tree nursery and building new offices and staff headquarters. Next, it hired local villagers to tame the elephant grass - a gruelling, labour-intensive job that entails repetitive cutting every month with hand-held pangas (machetes). Finally, after a year of this regime, it began planting the first pioneer species - bridelia, broad-leaved croton and Sapium ellipticum (the jumping seed tree) - followed a year or two later by intermediates like the East African cordia, Ugandan green wood and the African plum tree.
In 2000, having planted 3,000 hectares, Face handed over the day-to-day management to UWA, leaving it free to concentrate on selling carbon credits. One of its biggest customers is Climate Care. Between 2000 and 2006 the company acquired 274 hectares. This year, it is planning to plant a further 74 hectares, bringing its total holding in Kibale to 348 hectares.
Every five years, Face and Climate Care ask SGS-Qualifor, the world's leading verification and certification company, to inspect the forest and assess the carbon-sequestration levels. If SGS is happy with the quality of the plantings and the forest's management it issues Face/UWA with a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate. Alternatively, if it finds fault it can issue what are known as 'corrective action requests' (Cars). In theory, these Cars apply not only to the stewardship of the forest but to social issues, such as its impact on local communities and whether or not villagers are allowed access to the forest's resources. Similarly, depending on the quality of the plantings and tending, it can give the project a high carbon sequestration score or mark it down.
It takes us five hours to reach UWA's headquarters at Kibale. The final 50km is particularly gruelling, as at Fort Portal the tarmac runs out and we have to bump and grind along a dirt track. It is only when I spot a group of baboons sunning themselves on the verge that I realise we've entered the park proper. A few moments later, we swing into a drive beside a huge sign bearing UWA's logo - the Ugandan cob with a pair of crossed rifles - and the legend, 'Let the World Remain Green', which could be read either as a request or a fierce injunction.
UWA's headquarters are located on a hillside overlooking a glittering crater lake with stunning views across the park. Unlike Kenya's Rift valley, the land here is lush and verdant. Were it not for the avocado and papaya trees and adjacent tea plantations you could almost imagine yourself in Switzerland.
Charles Tumwesigye, UWA's chief warden, is a busy man. His responsibilities include not only Kibale but Queen Elizabeth National Park to the south, which the Queen is due to visit in November when she arrives in Kampala to open the Commonwealth heads of government meeting.
Distributing tea and biscuits, he introduces us to his forestry project manager, Richard Kigenyi, and his team of assistants. Although Tumwesigye has been in his post for just a year, he clearly takes the BBC's report personally, claiming it 'misrepresented' UWA's work. It is not true that local people have been denied access to the forest, he says; on the contrary, UWA has been working closely with parish councils and local community leaders to permit access to the park on a sustainable basis. In the past, he explains, 'encroachers' failed to respect the park's boundaries, sneaking into the forest to gather firewood and fell trees for timber. Now, if they wish to gather firewood, medicinal plants or building materials they must approach their parish council for a permit and pay a small fee - anywhere from 200 to 500UGS (60p-£1.50). That money is then used to fund community projects, such as schools, wells and the digging of elephant trenches.
We move on to the main point of contention: the claim that workers are underpaid. Tumwesigye says that depending on the time of year, UWA employs between 400-500 casual labourers to plant saplings, tend to existing plots and construct fire lanes, but that the budget is set by Face.
I press him further and he admits that pay has been an issue, and that he's recently asked Face if it could bring salaries more into line with those of tea workers.
Over the next day and a half we get a whistle-stop tour of the forest, inspecting the plantings and speaking to workers, villagers and community representatives. We travel in a convoy, with Kigenyi in the lead car with us, and a five-strong team of UWA forestry officials bringing up the rear. We are burning a lot of carbon.
The Ugandans are solicitous hosts, constantly checking that we are having a 'wonderful' time. But it is they who have determined the itinerary and whom we should speak to, and their presence makes it difficult to judge whether the opinions expressed by interviewees are independent or representative.
We are introduced to Silver Kashaija, whose village supplies workers for UWA/Face and who, as a member of Busiriba parish council, gets to decide how income from the park is disbursed (by law, UWA must set aside 20 per cent of gate receipts, currently pegged at $25, for the benefit of the local community).
Kashaija has nothing but good things to say about Face. They helped repair the access road to the park and brought much-needed jobs to the village he says. When I press him on the wage issue, he replies: 'The pay is good - many people can now afford bicycles.'
What about the project itself - what does he understand by the term 'carbon offsetting'? 'There are emissions in industrial countries,' he says. 'When we plant trees we balance the carbon that is being produced by these countries.'
He pauses, glancing at the UWA officials seated in his living room, before adding: 'For me Face is great.'
The following day, Kigenyi collects us early and we set off to inspect the carbon plots - or 'compartments' as he prefers to call them. There are 43 in all. Varying from three to 368 hectares they are located deep inside the park and stretch for 15km from north to south.
Kigenyi explains how encroachers planted fast-growing eucalyptus for firewood. The tree is not native and one of UWA's first tasks was to eradicate it, along with other 'exotics'.
Parking the car, we ascend a thickly forested trail. We are now in the oldest part of the forest, standing in the shade of an immense 700-year-old mahogany tree. The tree is an example of one of the 'climax' species that Kigenyi hopes will one day populate the whole park. He shows us a mark near the base of the trunk. 'In colonial times the British tried to cut it down but their chainsaw broke,' he informs us.
We climb to the top of a viewing platform. To the north and east there is no sign of humanity, just an undulating green canopy and, to the south, Lake George. Only when we turn to the west does the canopy give way to bare hillsides and, on the horizon, near the border with Congo, a belching cement factory.
The equatorial sun is already burning and we are eager to get on, to visit the Climate Care plot and taste guilt-free air. But first Kigenyi wants us to inspect the fire lanes and the damage caused by marauding wildlife. He shows us a tree that an elephant has felled to eat its leaves. Next, he leads us to a field where a team of eight men dressed in UWA blue overalls are cutting a swathe through the elephant grass. It is punishing work. I ask one of the men to put down his panga for a moment while I attempt to interview him. But I do not speak Roturo and with one of the UWA officials translating I get the same response as before - 'Great' and 'Yes, I'm happy with the pay.'
Finally, we reach the Climate Care plot. To my untutored eye it looks like any other part of the forest. There is no fence or other visible boundary, just a mixture of trees in various stages of development. We follow Kigenyi up a gentle incline, past a Combretum molle, a tree famed for its anti-bacterial properties. Its trunk is charred - the result of damage from an earlier bush fire - but somehow it has repaired itself with a new growth of coarse bark.
Soita James, one of Kigenyi's assistants, stoops down to show us where a new shoot has spontaneously seeded in the shade of its arbour.
'When we came here, this and another tree were the only two standing - the rest was elephant grass,' says James. 'Now, thanks to Face, one day this will all be forest.'
But where are the more recent trees, the ones UWA has planted for Climate Care, I ask? Kigenyi shows me a small tree in the combretum's shadow. It is a 10 metre-high Bridelia micrantha. Once again there is no marker, nothing to identify it.
I run my hands along its trunk while Frederic takes my picture. The bark is smooth and grey, the leaves glossy green. Could this tree and the others planted by Climate Care one day help to save the planet?
I ask Kigenyi when UWA planted it and he replies, 'Six years ago.' Just another 94 years to go then.
Kigenyi is clearly passionate about his work. He tells me that villagers are beginning to appreciate the forest and now report encroachers to UWA. 'Thanks to the forest, the streams are coming back and they have fresh water,' he explains. 'They understand that the forest is not only for them but for future generations.'
Kigenyi paints a bucolic picture and certainly during our short visit to Kibale and surrounding villages such as Nyabweya, Mabono and Bigoni we saw little evidence of obvious disgruntlement or need. But it was impossible for me to judge whether it was the whole picture, and while I was impressed with UWA's conservation work I couldn't help wondering whether, given time and the absence of Face, the forest would have regenerated anyway. And what of the 30,000 settlers who were evicted in 1992? Have they also become conservationists, or are they at this very moment plundering carbon stores in another part of Uganda?
Before returning to Kampala, we stop at UWA headquarters to say goodbye. Tumwesigye looks harassed and tired. The day before, we discover, he ordered UWA rangers to arrest encroachers who'd been grazing their cattle illegally inside Queen Elizabeth National Park. The encroachers are now in jail, but their arrest has become a major political issue, prompting the personal intervention of Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni.
I press Tumwesigye on park conservation and the concept of carbon offsetting. 'Many Ugandans still do not understand it well,' he admits. 'We embraced the Face project because it is helping us replant trees in areas where they were cut down and because it brings benefits to people living around the forested area.'
But isn't he worried about the commitment to maintain the plots for 100 years?
'Our contract is for 99 years,' he corrects me. 'If we renege on it we can be sued. But in any case it is already our mandate.'
So UWA would have done it anyway? Tumwesigye hesitates, sensing a trap - Fern's argument is that African governments have a duty to protect gazetted forests and if they did the forests would regenerate naturally.
'I can say we are doing our best to ensure the forest will never be destroyed,' he says eventually, 'but of course in a country like Uganda we can never say that we will never have another president like Idi Amin.'
Later that afternoon at Entebbe airport, waiting to board the return flight to Nairobi from where I will take an overnight flight to Heathrow, I buy a copy of New Vision and read that a huge row is brewing over a forested reserve in Busoga, in eastern Uganda. Pastoralists have been illegally felling trees for firewood. As a result, a stream that serves a community on the edge of the reserve is drying up. According to the report, 70 per cent of the original 16,000-hectare reserve has already been deforested. I do a quick calculation: 11,200 hectares - more than the area UWA/Face are planting at Kibale.
To be fair, Climate Care acknowledges that 'planting trees' is not in itself a solution to climate change and that we also need to reduce our fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. But it insists that, even in countries as inconsistent as Uganda, replanting deforested lands can help redress the imbalance.
Having flown more than 4,000 miles and wasted God knows how much petrol motoring through the rainforest I'm not so sure. I love trees, but the case for forest offsets still strikes me as insubstantial and, ultimately, as ungraspable as air.
How carbon offsetting works
The basic idea C02 released through fossil-fuel emissions can be 'neutralised' or 'offset' by planting trees that absorb the C02 gases, locking the carbon away in forests where it is safely sequestered, thus reducing global warming.
Sounds too good to be true... Groups like the WWF argue that carbon offsetting is based on a false premise and that carbon stored in trees or biological carbon is not equivalent to fossil carbon, as it will be released back into the atmosphere through fire, natural decay or harvesting.
I've heard of other kinds of offsetting... There are energy-efficiency projects, such as the stoves described in this article, as well as renewable-energy projects.
Forests regenerate, individuals put up wind farms - wouldn't some carbon-saving activities happen without intervention? Good point. Carbon-offset projects must demonstrate additionalilty, ie that no other schemes were already in place or that they wouldn't have happened anyway or as the result of natural processes.
If I offset, can I fly, drive and leave my telly on standby with a clear conscious? Sadly not. Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth director, says that offsetting should be part of a 'hierarchy' of actions, at the top of which are lifestyle changes aimed at reducing domestic emissions (low-energy light bulbs, fewer car journeys, etc) and switching to bio fuels and so on.
So how much forest would we have to plant? Offsetting the UK's annual greenhouse-gas emissions would require planting an area of forest the size of Devon and Cornwall every single year - and maintaining those forests forever. | <urn:uuid:ffd0bced-187e-43fb-a599-5f5207773de0> | 2 | 2.375 | 0.032606 | en | 0.957016 | http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jun/10/ethicalliving.carbonemissions?view=mobile |
Television chefs stir appetite for culinary change
They are seldom off Britain's television screens and now celebrity chefs are making their presence felt in our kitchens.
It is thanks to the pan-rattling of Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay and a host of other TV chefs that Britons are turning away from meat-and-two-veg or ready meals and becoming culinary adventurers.
Almost six in 10 consumers feel their cooking habits have been influenced by the legion of celebrity chefs, while only 20% say they have not changed what meals they cook in the last five years, according to a new report by Mintel.
More than a quarter of adults say they have tried a new recipe, and one in five claims that watching cookery programmes on TV has encouraged them to try different food. Almost three in 10 (31%) say they used a wider variety of ingredients than they used to, and just under one in four (24%) say they buy and use better quality ingredients than they used to.
The phenomenon began with the "Delia Smith effect", when her 1998 How to Cook programme resulted in an extra 1.3 million eggs sold in Britain each day during the BBC series. Our addiction to the genre increased through more sexy programmes as Nigella Lawson's sultry series to the laddish but accessible Jamie Oliver run.
The competence of chefs on TV has not intimidated people, but has made them more assured of their own ability. While 38% of people admit to aspiring to be a better cook, more than one in four (27%) adults say they are much more confident about their cooking than they used to be. One in five of those surveyed say they would like to learn about different foods and cuisine, while 17% want to cook more complicated recipes.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the chef whose River Cottage series endeavoured to educate viewers about the quality of the produce they cook and eat, said he was glad to hear that television cookery was having an influence, because people had been saying otherwise up until now.
He said: "There's been a slight cynicism about TV cookery - that people are watching it as a substitute for cooking, that they are sitting down in front of the TV with a convenience meal and saying, 'I'll make that soon'. My personal aim is to try and get people to change their attitude radically and get them out of the supermarkets and think where their food is coming from. That definitely is happening now."
A Sainsbury's director, Jean-Paul Barat, said there had been a massive boom in sales of fresh herbs because people had seen chefs on television using them. Sales of exotic produce had increased as a result of TV, but also because the British are more adventurous in their appetites and have travelled widely and are more willing to experiment. In the first week that the supermarket sold Jamie Oliver-endorsed 21-day mature beef, 5,000 packets left the shelves.
And the sales of their cookbooks continues to rise. Duncan Thomson, books editor, said : "Delia Smith is a perennial favourite. The advent of Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson heralded a more experimental, exciting period where food became sexy, and younger people (of both sexes), became more interested in cooking and in experimenting with new ideas. The latest trend seems to be towards a more gritty, down-to-earth style of cookery programme."
The Delia effect
Ingredients we buy because of TV chefs
Sainsbury's (all endorsed by Jamie Oliver)
21-day extra-matured beef
Truffle butter
Fresh herbs
Olive oil
The Loyd Grossman range of pasta sauces
Olivado avocado oil (since being mentioned by Jamie Oliver)
Maldon sea salt (since being mentioned by Delia Smith) | <urn:uuid:08113e3c-267e-46d9-8763-96eb5b03a3d2> | 2 | 1.570313 | 0.127964 | en | 0.973835 | http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jun/23/britishidentity.foodanddrink?view=mobile |
Bin Laden appears on video to threaten US
He was sitting outside the mouth of a cave hewn into the mountainside, his head swathed in a flowing turban, his body clothed in fatigues, his beard predominantly grey. Beside him, a carefully placed AK47 was on prominent display.
A film of Osama bin Laden, broadcast after yesterday's strikes on Afghanistan, had been recorded in daylight sometime before the attacks by US and British forces and was clearly aimed at striking fear in the West.
It was the first time the world has heard from the leader of the al-Qaida network since the September 11 attacks. Bin Laden said these attacks were "giving them back what they deserve" and warned American citizens that they will never feel safe again. He does not, however, claim responsibility for them.
Clutching a microphone and belligerently pointing his finger at what is clearly a very professional camera, he said: "America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that." He added that America was tasting now "what we have tasted for decades."
On the film, secured by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite TV station, Bin Laden repeated many of the themes that have been central to his militant philosophy and have fuelled his hatred of the West.
Israeli military incursions into Palestinian-run areas in the West Bank and the bombing of Iraq remain at the core of his hatred. He complains that no-one had objected to bombs on Iraq or Israeli tanks going to Jenin, Ramallah and Beit Jallah and "other lands of Islam" and now the "swords come after eight years to America".
Knowing that his video would be seen across the globe, he warned that "these events have split the whole world into two camps - the camps of belief and the camps of disbelief ... Every Muslim should support his religion".
Bin Laden warned that the "wind of change has blown up to the Arabian peninsula".
He said: "I say ... by God the great, America will never dream... Those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our lands and in Palestine."
Before speaking, Bin Laden allowed his spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheit to read a statement. Bin Laden was flanked on his left by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who is Bin Laden's deputy.
As he finished his chilling message, the camera panned out to show all three men seated together, calmly sipping glasses of tea. | <urn:uuid:07071841-15e2-4223-92ed-b446d83f1282> | 2 | 1.539063 | 0.034781 | en | 0.986468 | http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/08/afghanistan.terrorism?view=mobile |
Friday, 24 April 2009
Obama's Counterproductive Economic Plan
Written by
So, we ask: what more should a president do to deal with this serious economic downturn? Obama didn’t provide a specific answer but, speaking in generalities, he offered, “We’ve still got a lot of work to do.” So, without doubt, the nation can expect more of what he has already done — more federal spending, more regulation, more inflation, and, in short, more of precisely what history confirms government should not do to deal with recession’s scourge. History tells us over and over again that government action of the kind already taken and being planned will make matters worse.
Economist and historian Dr. Thomas Woods points out — and he isn’t alone — that getting out of a recession/depression can be accomplished if government gets out of the way. In other words, what President Obama and his team should do is nothing except abolish some government agencies. In Meltdown, his current bestseller, Woods recounts how our nation dug itself out of a very severe downturn immediately after World War I. “By the middle of 1920,” he reports, “conditions were worse than they would be in 1930 after the first year of the Great Depression.” Instead of dealing with the crisis with public works projects, Federal Reserve-created inflation, deficit spending for stimulus schemes, etc., the government and the Federal Reserve essentially did nothing during that period, and the nation recovered in less than two years.
The way our nation dealt with the 1920-1921 depression isn’t discussed by today’s economists, at least the vast majority who are captives to Keynesian socialist economics. There are two reasons why they ignore what happened close to 100 years ago: a) the problem was so short-lived, and b) it was solved, not by government, but by government standing aside and allowing the people to dig the nation out of the hole. The lesson is clear, even if most economists fail to mention it.
In his book, Woods shows that President Hoover initiated the completely opposite response at the outset of the Great Depression, an array of government actions that were then doubled or even tripled by President Roosevelt. Hoover raised taxes, provided government loans to failing businesses, supplied states with federal funds, presided over inflationary monetary policy, and forced prices upward. The problem that started with the 1929 crash worsened. In 1932, while he was running for election, FDR labeled Hoover as the “greatest peacetime spender in the nation’s history.” Having won the presidency, he promptly outdid the defeated Hoover by doubling or tripling every wrong-headed tactic. The Great Depression grew even greater and lasted all through the 1930s. Roosevelt had violated the first law of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging. He dug hard all through the 1930s.
Meltdown supplies a more recent example of how a nation should not attempt to cure a depression. Approximately 20 years ago, Japan had earned the envy of the world as mankind’s newest economic marvel, even purchasing New York’s Rockefeller Center. The Japanese success had stemmed from massive inflation and the inflation led to an inevitable bust that arrived in 1992 when housing prices sank by 80 percent and the Nikkei stock exchange declined by almost two-thirds. So what did Japan’s government do? Exactly what it shouldn’t have done. Japan’s leaders launched huge public works projects, lowered interest rates to zero, provided loans to businesses, arranged for bailouts for banks and even nationalized some, increased the money supply, piled up enormous deficits, and dispensed a series of stimulus packages for the people.
It is now 17 years since the recession hit Japan. And the problem that surfaced in 1992 is still plaguing the nation.
There is a lesson in all of this for the United States, and one would have to be completely daft to ignore it. The Obama administration’s treatment of our nation’s economic ills — duplicating and exacerbating actions taken by its predecessor — will make matters worse. Everything initiated by the Hoover-Roosevelt tandem is being repeated or planned. Each of the so-called cures administered by Japan is being copied.
We are forced to wonder whether what our leaders are doing results from stupidity or from a calculated desire to deepen the morass so that world currency and global governance — the twin recommendations being mentioned so frequently — will be ushered in. What is certain is that America’s current economic recession, already being felt worldwide, isn’t about to disappear. | <urn:uuid:9e3adda3-8366-45d3-a450-b10011413f77> | 2 | 1.851563 | 0.032275 | en | 0.96966 | http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary/item/3781-obamas-counterproductive-economic-plan |
EU and US agree on high-end sat nav standard
Pay-to-play compatibility
The US and EU have reached agreement on a compatibility plan for location signals to be transmitted by new American and European navigation satellites.
In a joint press release today, US and EU authorities announced a signal plan to be implemented on the future European Galileo Open Service and the American GPS IIIA new civil signal.
In a widely-anticipated move, the forthcoming sat-nav transmissions will use a waveform known as Multiplexed Binary Offset Carrier, or MBOC.
The European and American negotiators said: "Future receivers using the MBOC signal should be able to track the GPS and/or Galileo signals with higher accuracy in challenging environments that include multipath, noise, and interference... Future civilian users will enjoy the benefits of multiple constellations providing greater signal availability and coverage around the world."
During the past couple of years, there has been some debate as to the way ahead in sat-nav technology, with different groups seeing different priorities. In essence, one lobby has wanted to see a sat-nav signal optimised for use by cheaper user receiving equipment; another group has advocated greater performance and precision.
MBOC is generally seen as favoured by the latter group, providing potentially greater performance at the cost of more complex user equipment.
According to this abstract of a paper delivered at a sat nav conference in Switzerland two months ago:
"The final touch to the Galileo signal plan was achieved when the Working group on GPS and Galileo compatibility... finally concluded on the great interest of a new modulation... namely MBOC. This was pursuant to efforts mainly driven by the European side but fully recognised by the US representatives... After many years of intensive work on the European side, the final Galileo Signal Plan is presented and analysed."
Both American and European members of the governmental working group have reportedly been highly enthusiastic about MBOC and its advantages.
Nonetheless, MBOC has its detractors. There are those who would have preferred simpler, non-multiplexed binary offset carrier (BOC) tech to be used.
For instance, Qualcomm manufactures chipsets which are used to integrate sat nav functions into mobile phones. The company last year told the magazine GPS World:
"[MBOC] modulation will penalise all devices that do not employ a wideband receiver, that is, most consumer devices and GPS-enabled wireless phones... reducing the devices' ability to operate in highly blocked environments. Granted this performance is better than using the legacy signal, but it is worse than what would be achievable using the originally proposed BOC modulation.
"This will result in performance degradation to the vast majority of GPS-enabled consumer devices... relative to what would otherwise be achievable."
Nothing will get worse for ordinary sat nav users, then, but if Qualcomm is right they won't see much of an improvement either as American GPS Block III and European Galileo spacecraft come online.
That might be a little unfair, as GPS has always been paid for by the ordinary US taxpayer, and it now seems certain that Galileo will be paid for by the ordinary European taxpayer. Both systems will now have their open signals optimised towards professional, specialist users - if you accept the Qualcomm assessment, anyway.
According to the joint US-EU announcement, the agreement will bring in "interoperable optimised civil signals that will also protect common security interests". ®
Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats | <urn:uuid:82c1e02c-3290-4e92-ad85-fff094e87c3b> | 2 | 1.601563 | 0.063459 | en | 0.944831 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/27/eu_us_sat_nav_not_for_the_gadgeteer/ |
Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/28/review_engenius_si-680h_wi-fi_phone/
EnGenius SI-680H Wi-Fi VoIP phone
Have Wi-Fi, can call via VoIP
By Will Head
Posted in Phones, 28th August 2007 11:02 GMT
Review VoIP may be revolutionising the telecoms industry by allowing us to make free calls with little more than a broadband connection and computer, but it's also tying us to our PCs. If you'd rather spend more time talking than being tied to a machine, a Wi-Fi phone like the EnGenius SI-680H will help you cut the cord.
EnGenius SI-680H Wi-Fi phone
EnGenius' SI-680H: PC not required
The SI-680H houses all the necessary gubbins to make VoIP calls without requiring a PC to be on while it's doing it. It can log onto a Wi-Fi network, pick up an IP address, and then place calls via an SIP provider all without the help or assistance of a computer.
The advantage of this approach is that it not only means you can make VoIP calls at home using your own wireless network, but you can also use it while you're out and about and in range of a suitable Wi-Fi hotspot.
However, although it supports protected Wi-Fi connections, which require a password or key to access, you won't be able to use it on a network that requires you to purchase access via a web browser as there isn't one built into the handset. Fine if you're visiting an office and you know the network key, but not suitable for chatting away in Starbucks.
The handset design is pretty basic - think mobile phone from about five years ago. Compared to the pretty interfaces of today's mobile phones it's fairly ugly by comparison, but it's still reasonably easy to navigate and does the job. Likewise, it's not exactly big on styling, but it's not too large or bulky and it's not too unpleasant to look at.
Getting it set up - which like most SIP-based VoIP devices is not exactly thrill-a-minute - is a relatively painless process. It will search for available wireless networks and once you've entered any necessary security details it will log on and acquire an IP address.
EnGenius SI-680H Wi-Fi phone pack
Spartan package
From here, you can enter the seemingly bizarre and arcane SIP settings via the phone's menu and keypad - but it would be a fairly time consuming and convoluted process. Luckily, you can also log onto the phone using a web browser and change the settings there, which is a much more simple way of getting it up and running. The phone initially was set up to try and automatically acquire its SIP settings - with no mention of how to turn this off in the manual. However, once the hidden menu setting had been deactivated, it was happy to accept manual configuration.
Getting it up and running with VoIP provider Sipgate took about a further five minutes and then it proceeded to register with the server and was ready to make and receive calls a couple of minutes later.
When making calls from a landline phone to the SI-680H the quality was very impressive on the fixed line side with the conversation almost imperceptible from a normal call. Call quality on the SI-680H side was also good, but was marred by a slight buzzing from the handset that seemed to occur constantly throughout the call.
The handset features an internal address book, so you don't need to remember everyone's number, and caller ID is passed through to the handset. Unfortunately, the two don't seem to be linked in any way, so even if a contact is in the phone book, the number rather than the name appears on the display for incoming calls. Perhaps even more bizarrely, the call history links up with the phonebook, listing entries by name rather than number... so it seems a little odd.
The phone book can also be accessed via the web interface, making adding or updating a large amount of numbers a much less daunting process. It's also possible to backup and restore the phone book, so you don't need to worry about losing all your contacts if you become separated from the phone.
If you're the sort of person that delights in customising their ringtone, you'll be sorely disappointed with the sparse selection on offer from the SI-608H. There are 11 to choose from and only likely to appeal to those that delight in listening to monophonic renditions of out-of-copyright concert tracks. More annoyingly, there isn't one that's just a ringing sound, making it a ticking time bomb of embarrassment if someone rings you in while you're out in public.
EnGenius SI-680H Wi-Fi phone
Address book challenged?
The SI-680H is not a particularly hardy device. You wouldn't expect it to be able to take the same amount of abuse as a mobile phone, but you'd still expect it to be resilient enough to take the odd knock here and there. However, it would appear that the battery connection is especially prone to bangs as if you drop it from just one centimetre onto to a desk on its back it will shut off, which isn't exactly extreme testing.
The handset uses a mobile phone-style charger that clips into a socket on the bottom of the phone, which does the job, but a cradle would be more convenient, especially as its battery life isn't particularly long. Despite a claimed 100+ hours claimed standby time we found we were hard pushed to get more than a day or so out of it.
If you can see past its lacklustre looks and basic interface, the SI-608H is a pretty nifty little device. It combines the affordability of VoIP calls with the ease of use of a normal cordless phone by hopping on your own Wi-Fi network. What's more, you can even take it out and about with you and make calls if you can find suitable Wi-Fi coverage.
However, it's also not the most hardy of handsets and its battery life is a little on the short side, which doesn't make it particularly reliable. It's almost there, but requires a bit of polishing to make it a truly must-have handset. | <urn:uuid:5909e2c3-fdd1-45a0-8b78-f1d4f91d09b7> | 2 | 1.609375 | 0.077306 | en | 0.965471 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2007/08/28/review_engenius_si-680h_wi-fi_phone/ |
Really, I'm debating a Christian (probably an evangelist) through email who just emailed me back after reading my response to his religious websites online article against the "atheist" agenda. He took long enough to reply so I don't remember what all I even said to However, he asked me to provide him with one single shred of irrefutable evidence for evolution. I gave him some examples that he will surely denounce. But I'm wondering, on what grounds can the evidence for evolution even be contested? I'd really like to know. Am I wrong to think the evidence for evolution is irrefutable? What say you?
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Hi Jason,
Jerry A Coyne, in his book Why Evolution is True, says that the theory of evolution is as accepted as any scientific fact. In scientific circles, it is as accepted as the germ theory of disease and the existence of atoms.
Creationists point to "gaps" in the fossil record as "evidence" that evolution is not true, but they conveniently ignore the considerable weight of evidence outside paleontology, from botany and anatomy to genetics and molecular biology.
All of this evidence has logical consistency, which the bible does not. Or, where the scientific evidence in favor of evolution DOESN'T have logical consistency, science at least has the mechanisms in place to improve our understanding.
So, yes, I think it's irrefutable to someone who doesn't feel threatened by the truth.
This might help:
and click on the link in line 3 for a pdf.
Excellent material :-) well put togather.
There are NO missing links. The word “link” refers to a chainlike structure. Creationists visualise Evolution like a ladder with humans at the top and one or more of the missing ladder rungs equating to Missing links.
However Evolution does not follow a progressive path in the sense that it is linear like a ladder.
We need to keep the “Tree of Life” image in our mind. Each species is an offshoot of a major branch. So there may be a “missing leaf” instead of a missing link. However we can still see the overall picture even if some of the leaves are missing. It is still a complete tree. I suppose extinct species could be likened to missing offshoots – the major biological branch is still there and will grow another one.
I often use this imagery before I start explaining Evolution to a theist. In a academic sense it may not be strictly correct but it is good enough for debating because it is an easy visual to understand. Feel free anyone to improve or correct the imagery if you like.
In the tree of life analogy, wouldn't a "missing link" be more like a missing branch than a missing leaf?
Not that it doesn't exist, just that we havn't found it. I think a missing branch(or segment of a branch anyway) more accurately follows the analogy. A missing leaf would describe a species that has not yet been discovered which is at the end of its path through the tree (which is pretty difficult to determine).
To anyone who does not have ideological opposition to the concept, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. The only debate currently going on with science over evolution is on the fine details of how it happened, not if it happened.
It is a fact. If you you get it's just a theory bullshit you can give him the short list and see how his life would be going along without some of these "just theories"
There is no "single shred" of evidence for evolution. There's a whole ton of evidence, and it requires some bit of knowledge and intelligence to put it together. It's easy enough for anyone to play dumb and claim any part of evidence of evolution doesn't prove the theory.
Scientists from all over the world think that life came to earth in form of bacterias included in meteorites.
Have a look:
Their fossilised remains have been found in the rock, which was blasted out of Mars 16 million years ago as the solar system was forming.
The meteorite, called Allen Hills 84001, made headlines in 1996 after fossils were found in it. Scientists believed they were bacteria from Earth that
contaminated the rock while it lay in the frozen wastes.
But a Nasa report now says there is strong evidence they originated on Mars, according to The Sun.
Dr Emily Baldwin, deputy editor of the UK's Astronomy Now magazine, said: "Many scientists argued that what looked like fossils in the meteorite were really
caused by the explosive event, such as an asteroid impact, that blasted the
rock out of Mars in the first place.
"But the Nasa team is now saying they have proved that they could not have been produced by the blast itself.
"If the features turn out to have an extraterrestrial, biological origin and were not formed during the 13,000 years the meteorite spent lying on
Earth, this will have profound implications for our understanding of how
life evolved in the solar system."
Prof Colin Pillinger, of the Open University, who was behind Britain's ill-fated Beagle 2 probe to the planet that was lost on Christmas Day 2003,
said: "This is good quality work and more compelling evidence to add to
the mix. These guys have been plugging away at this for years. It is a very
careful study by very reputable people."
The Nasa study, led by Kathie Thomas-Keprta, found carbonate discs and tiny magnetite crystals inside the space rock. Scientists were able to use high
resolution electron microscopes that were not available 13 years ago.
They concluded "unusual chemical and physical properties" in the meteorite were "intimately associated within and throughout these
carbonate disks". That, they said, was evidence of interaction with
water on Mars more than 3.5 billion years ago.
Nasa is expected to announce the findings, from its Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, later this week.
I have read about this and agree it is a possibility.....this still doesnt explain how life came to be.... just how life came to be on planet Earth.
Edit: it is also possible that life began on both Earth and Mars and was transported between the two via meteorites. We would essentially then have two trees of life from which evolution occurred.
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Home > Calculators > Anthony – Leap Year Capital of the World
Anthony – Leap Year Capital of the World
Anthony, Texas, in the United States, is known as the “Leap Capital of the World”. Every leap year, this tiny town hosts the Worldwide Leap Year Festival.
Calendar page
Leap Year Festival February 29.
©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Stokes
When is the next leap year?
February 30 was a real date
Famous leap day birthdays & events
Leap Day – history & traditions
Leap year birthday festivals
Since 1988, Anthony throws birthday festivals every leap year fo r people born on February 29. People throughout the USA and overseas travel to this tiny town to take part in parades, birthday dinners, and hot air balloon lifts.
Participants range from babies celebrating their first birthday to people in their 90s celebrating another leap day birthday. In 1992 a man registered his 104-year-old mother, born on a leap day, for the festival.
In 1988 local resident Mary Ann Brown and her neighbor Birdie Lewis, both born on a leap day, approached the Chamber of Commerce with the idea of a leap year festival and a leap year birthday club for those born on a leap day.
They wanted to give the town local recognition and to help raise funds for the community. In February 1988 the town’s Chamber of Commerce voted to sponsor the festival and did so until 2011. The governors of both New Mexico and Texas later declared Anthony the “Leap Year Capital of the World”.
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The Bahá'í leap year occurs when 1 extra day in the last month of the Bahá'í calendar, usually every 4 years. more
Leap Day Birthdays and Events
A number of famous people were born on Leap Day. But how do leaplings celebrate their birthdays? And what is the world record for the number of children born on February 29? more | <urn:uuid:9cb4195a-278d-4182-9000-32aa1b69a15b> | 3 | 2.515625 | 0.023914 | en | 0.939267 | http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leap-year-capital.html |
A website about things to do in London
22 January 2011
Seek out the grave of Giro the dog
In the shadow of the Duke of York Column, at the top of the steps by the Royal Society and Carlton House Terrace is the grave of Giro the dog, whose owner Dr Leopold von Hoesch, whilst he was a well-respected diplomat under both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Government, famously received a full Nazi funeral in London in 1936.
Giro was an Alsatian, who actually died two years earlier in 1934, and probably had no idea what was going on in his home country, being a dog and all. However, often judged guilty by association to the newly-elected Nazi Government, whose British base was at the German Embassy at 8 & 9 Carlton House Terrace, nowadays Giro is almost as famous as his late owner.
Killed by accidental electrocution, having apparently chewed through a live wire during extension work, Giro was laid to rest in what was then the grounds of the Embassy, but is now basically just a patch of bare earth.
Your author is sure he has heard a tour guide tell unsuspecting tourists that Giro's ghost haunts the Carlton House Terrace and Waterloo Place to this day, but that's probably just for effect, and ghosts don't even actually exist. For more, click here.
1. Von Hoesch was in fact the last ambassador of the Weimar Republic in London, He was opposed to Hitler and a well respected politician. To call his dog a 'Nazi Dog' is, sorry, wrong.
2. Indeed, you are correct Konstantin, and I have made a minor adjustment. I never actually said Von Hoesch was a Nazi, however, and I know he was a respected diplomat.
3. I have gone hunting for this thing so many times and never found it, I was beginning to think that it didn't exist!
4. It has always annoyed me poor Giro being labeled a 'Nazi Dog' particularly as his owner was finding himself in conflict with the fascist regime.
lets hope your post goes some way to correcting this misconception.
5. Tom, this strange grave of a dog right in central London is indeed worth a post. Many bloggers have written about, so have I. It's just the headline that's giving me a headache. The dog's owner wasn't a Nazi. Why keep people calling the creature a 'Nazi dog'? Well without it the story is only half a story. It's still factually incorrect. | <urn:uuid:08b66a6a-ce5d-4712-8a77-4106327c0fdb> | 2 | 2 | 0.636375 | en | 0.985191 | http://www.tiredoflondontiredoflife.com/2011/01/seek-out-grave-of-giro-nazi-dog.html |
Free Computer Trivia - Questions for Trivia Games - Answers Included
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Free computer trivia questions and answers for trivia games
Fun computer trivia questions and answers.
Computer trivia questions from the 1990's are the subject of this page. Use them for your trivia games.
What must -read magazine for computer fans bit the dust in 1999?
A: Byte.
What nationwide movie guide and ticket business became part of the AOL family in 1999?
What Amazon founder was the first-dot-com exec to be named Time's Person of the Year?
A: Jeff Bezos.
What Apple portable debuted in a choice of two fruity color schemes, Blueberry or Tangerine?
A: The iBook.
What Outlook macro virus, with a dainty female name, was the first to infect a million computers?
A: Melissa.
What rural state provided WiFi for all residents, earning it a Yahoo "Most Wired City in America" award?
A: Nevada.
What Windows virus damaged 500,000 hard drives on the 13th anniversary of Russia's deadliest nuclear disaster?
A: Chernobyl.
What movie did Apple use to hype its new QuickTime4 format, sparking a net-clogging 25 million downloads of the trailer?
A: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
What nasty 1999 computer worm, named after a lap dancer, first appeared inside a list of passwords to pornographic websites?
A: Melissa.
What communications giant owned Palm Computing when it produced the first handheld with integrated wireless Internet connectivity?
A: 3com.
What online service got slapped with a lawsuit by volunteer "Community Leaders" who said they were really employees and deserved back wages?
A: America Online.
90s computer trivia
More 90s computer trivia questions and answers.
What game system, the first to come equipped with a modern, clogged up phone lines in Europe as many purchasers got online for the first time?
A: Dreamcast.
What computer outfit's ad 1984, run only once during Super Bowl XVIII, did TV Guide declare to be the best commercial of all time, in 1999?
A: Apple's.
What Apple media file format became the basis for MPGE-4 files?
A: QuickTime.
What did critics dub the glitchy USB "plug and play" feature of Windows 98?
A: "Plug and pray".
What file-sharing software was named for creator Shawn Fanning's frizzy hair?
A: Napster.
What high-tech upgrade did the New York Times dub "$90 Worth of Duct Tape" in 1998?
A: Windows 98.
What was the first fast-food restaurant to offer patrons 20 free minutes of Internet time?
A: Burger King.
What Pixar release was the first feature film to be entirely computer-animated?
A: Toy Story.
What high-tech mogul appeared on a 1995 cover of Time headlined "Master of the Universe"?
A: Bill Gates.
What website did the founder of the Echo Bay Technology Group register, when he found that was already taken?
What U.S. state capital's space-age new airport was plagued by software problems that kept dumping baggage all over the basement?
A: Denver's.
What company, while still called AuctionWeb, registered its first sale when bidding for a busted laser pointer topped out at $14?
What search engine did Digital Equipment Corporation develop to manage its old e-mail?
A: Alta Vista.
What does the "W" stand for on a WAP phone?
A: Wireless.
What type of computer programs did the Dark Avenger Mutation Engine promise to make more powerful?
A: Viruses.
What computer accessory did Apple try splitting in two in 1993, in an attempt to reduce injuries?
A: The Keyboard. | <urn:uuid:b673ad7c-f987-4a3d-9208-f10978df969c> | 2 | 1.554688 | 0.974922 | en | 0.876808 | http://www.trivia90s.com/001_Computer_trivia.htm |
Suppressing Research
8 Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture: #7
Good policy is impossible without good information. Smart choices about the role of biotechnology in agriculture will depend on how much we know about its costs, benefits, and risks.
The GE Research "Battlefield"—and the Need to Keep It Open
Research about biotechnology arouses passions on both sides of the issue. A September 2009 Nature article, aptly titled "Battlefield," tells the story of a Loyola University (Chicago) stream ecologist and her colleagues. Their 2007 study suggested that beneficial insects suffered negative effects from feeding on leaves and stalks of Monsanto’s insecticidal Bt corn. While many scientists voiced their support for the quality of the research in the study, others attacked it fiercely—in one case even leveling a charge of possible scientific misconduct.
While the Nature article is careful to note that there is no reason to assume that the criticisms were connected to Monsanto, the controversy points up the importance of further research on these crops, which will only happen if the company's seeds are freely available to independent researchers. With so much at stake, and axes to grind, it is vital to ensure that the makers of GE products are not the sole arbiters of what questions can be asked about those products, or who gets to answer them.
But multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto, have fought independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they've set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.
In 2009, 26 academic entomologists wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that because patents on engineered genes do not provide for independent non-commercial research, they could not perform adequate research on these crops. "No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions involving these crops," they wrote.
A Purdue University entomologist who signed the letter put it more succinctly to a reporter for a scientific journal: "Industry is completely driving the bus."
Keeping Decision Makers in the Dark
Independent research is needed to determine how well these crops work, how best to use them, their possible risks, and how they compare with alternatives such as classical breeding or ecologically based farming methods.
Without that research, farmers, policy makers, and research granting agencies are not able to make the most well-informed decisions possible. To the extent that those decisions would work toward improving sustainability, these research restrictions reduce our ability to move agriculture in a more sustainable direction.
Moving in the Right Direction—But Not Far Enough
Monsanto has attempted to take cover in a voluntary agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that gives the agency's agricultural scientists access to the company’s genetically engineered seeds for a wide range of research; Monsanto has also had agreements with some universities.
Several other seed companies are said to be negotiating voluntary deals with universities in the wake of the entomologists' letter to the EPA. And the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), a trade group of which Monsanto is a member, is also developing guidelines to improve access to new seeds.
These are positive steps, but they don't go far enough.
More Transparency Needed
Moreover, few if any of the agreements guarantee opportunities for every kind of independent research. The Monsanto agreement with the USDA covers research into crop production practices, for example, but not research into issues such as the health risks of genetically engineered crops.
Ultimately, patent law needs to change to allow independent science to function as it needs to. Monsanto should back such a change in the law. Until then, it and other large seed companies should post a list of the agreements that have been made so far with research institutions and individual scientists, and the conditions of those agreements. Monsanto’s behavior to date suggests that it is not really serious about addressing this problem.
We Need Your Support
to Make Change Happen
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Researcher and Author Robert Hastings' book UFOs and Nukes
Noted UFO researcher Robert Hastings' long-awaited book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, is now available at The author may be contacted for an interview at
UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites
Hastings recently appeared on CNN's Larry King Live (7/18/08) to discuss his 35-year investigation of UFO sightings at U.S. nuclear weapons installations, including Minuteman missile sites at five different U.S. Air Force bases. Utilizing declassified USAF, FBI and CIA documents, as well as the testimony of Air Force veterans who worked with nukes, Hastings has uncovered a six-decade-long pattern of UFO activity at nuclear weapons laboratories, bomb test sites, weapons storage areas, and ICBM launch facilities.
According to dozens of former or retired Air Force missile launch officers, targeting officers, missile maintenance personnel, and missile security guards, UFOs have repeatedly buzzed and hovered over our ICBM sites. These sources state that, on a few occasions, the UFOs disrupted the missiles' operational readiness, apparently by inducing various hardware and software failures in them. Upon request, Hastings will provide interested journalists with contact information for several of these veteran "missileers."
One former launch officer interviewed by Hastings, David H. Schuur-who was stationed at Minot AFB, North Dakota in the mid-1960s-states that several of his Minuteman ICBMs were actually activated and temporarily placed in launch mode, just as his security guards reported a UFO moving from missile to missile. Schuur states that he and his missile commander had to manually override the launch command in each missile. A nearly identical incident occurred in Soviet Ukraine, in October 1982, according to retired Soviet Army officers interviewed in 1994 by ABC-TV (later CNN) reporter David Ensor.
Many of the declassified USAF and FBI documents utilized by Hastings refer to UFOs repeatedly violating highly sensitive airspace at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons are designed, and at Sandia Base (now Sandia National Laboratories) which has engineered nukes since the 1940s. Other documents confirm reports of UFO activity at Oak Ridge, the Hanford Plant, and the Savannah River Plant, all of which produced fissile materials for U.S. nuclear bombs and missile warheads during the Cold War era.
Hastings contends that there exists a credible link between the appearance of nuclear weapons in the mid-1940s, and the overall increase in UFO sightings worldwide since that time. Moreover, he believes it is probable that one of the reasons the U.S. government has attempted to conceal its extensive knowledge of the UFO phenomenon from the public relates to its apprehension about having to acknowledge that unknown observers, piloting enormously superior aerial craft, have been systematically monitoring-and occasionally tampering with-our nuclear weapons.
Since 1981, Hastings has lectured on the UFO-Nukes Connection at over 500 colleges and universities nationwide, including Stanford University, in 1987. His program, "UFOs: The Hidden History" has been popularly and critically acclaimed for its documented, objective approach. "I am not condemning any government agency for its policy of secrecy regarding UFOs," says Hastings, "but I believe that the American public, and the rest of the world, should be given the facts."
Book Excerpt
The following excerpt comes from Robert Hastings' new book, UFOs and Nukes, which is available ONLY at
© Copyright 2008 Robert L. Hastings. All Rights Reserved.
Launch in Progress!
In August 2007, Schuur told me, "I saw your request for information in the [June 2007] Association of Air Force Missileers Newsletter. I was involved in a UFO incident at Minot AFB in the mid-1960s. I had read your earlier article [in the September 2002 AAFM Newsletter] but was hesitant to respond." I asked Schuur why he had been hesitant. He replied, "Well, we were basically told, way back when, that it was classified information and, you know, it didn't happen and don't discuss it. I guess I was still operating on that idea when I saw your first article."
I asked Schuur if he could narrow the time-frame during which the incident occurred, by associating it with another event. He replied, "Not really, but my sense is that the incident occurred toward the end of my duty in the [missile] field, so it was probably during 1966, or '67. I was pulling alert in the Echo [Launch Control] Capsule and was at the console at the time, probably early in the morning when the commander was sleeping. I know I was at Echo because that's where I pulled almost all of my alert duty. My crew commander at the time has died. He was a Lieutenant Colonel at Minot, in his 50s-he was in the reserves, an old Korea veteran, who was recalled to duty in the early 1960s."
"As far as the incident, here's my best recollection of it: Alpha capsule, which was east of us, reported on PAS-the Primary Alerting System-that their security personnel were observing a large, bright object hovering over some of their missile sites. It was moving from missile to missile. I think the Alpha missile crew also reported that they were receiving 'spurious indicators' on their missile control console, but I'm not certain about that. I know that a few minutes later our capsule had spurious indicators-anomalous readings-from some of our missiles."
Schuur continued, "But it wasn't just Alpha and Echo. Over the next hour or so-I don't recall exactly how long it was-all of the flights reported that their [Security Alert Teams] were observing a UFO near their facilities. The path of the object could be followed as it passed over each flight area by the reports on the PAS. The object moved over the entire wing from the southeast to the northwest, following the layout of the wing."
Schuur elaborated, "All of them-Bravo Flight, Charlie, Delta, right on down the line to Oscar-were reporting sightings of this object. Minot's missile field is laid out like the letter 'C'. Alpha is located southeast of the base, and the other flights-Bravo, Charlie and so forth-were south, southwest, west, northwest, then north of Minot. Oscar, the last flight, is at the top of the 'C', north of the base. The object-as far as I know, it was only one object-came across Alpha Flight, then moved all the way around the flights and ended up at Oscar. We could hear that on PAS. At Echo, it didn't come close to the Launch Control Facility, it just visited the LFs (silos), then passed onto the next flight."
"As far as our flight, Echo, a few minutes after hearing the report from Alpha, I received a call from topside security that a large bright light-actually, a large, bright object would be more accurate-was in the sky, to the east of the launch control facility. When the guard called down, he may have used the term 'UFO' but I don't recall. He didn't describe it's shape or altitude because it was too far away. It never got close enough to the LCF to see any detail. At its closest, it was two, three, maybe four miles away from us, near one of the missile sites."
I wanted to be certain about what I had just been told. I asked Schuur, "So, if you get a Launch in Progress indicator, does that mean the launch sequence has been triggered-that the missile is preparing to launch?" Schuur replied, "That means the missile has received a launch signal. When that happens, we get an indication in the capsule that a launch command has been received by that missile. If that happens, without proper authority, you flip what's called an "Inhibit" switch, to delay the launch for a given period of time. If an Inhibit command comes in from another launch capsule, that shuts down the launch totally. But if that second command doesn't come in, the missile will wait for a specified period of time and then launch automatically at the end of that expired period-theoretically. Of course, that night, we had all kinds of other indicators coming on from each missile so, in that situation, the launch probably would have aborted itself. I honestly don't know."
I asked Schuur if the Launch in Progress indicator had ever been triggered on any other occasion, either before or after the UFO incident, while he was on alert duty. He replied, "No, never."
I asked Schuur if he had heard about missile maintenance teams having to replace components or whole systems in the affected missiles-the ones that generated the spurious readings. He replied, "No, if that happened, I never heard about it."
I asked Schuur, "I know that you were given no feedback from your superiors, but what is your personal assessment of the event?" He replied, "Oh, I think something was up there, uh, scanning the missiles, seeing what was going on. Some kind of a scanning process." I asked Schuur whether he thought the launch activation had been incidental or deliberate. He seemed surprised by my question and said, "I think that the scanning just set it off. It set all kinds of things off, we were getting all sorts of indicators. There were some kind of signals being sent [from the UFO] to the missile that inadvertently triggered the launch activation, but I don't think it was deliberate. I hope not! That would have been-." Schuur didn't finish this sentence. His voice broke and he heaved a deep sigh. Apparently, the thought that those aboard the UFO might have deliberately attempted to launch his nuclear missiles that night had caused him to pause-and probably shudder-over 40 years later.
Importantly, to my knowledge, Schuur's testimony represents the only credible report on record of a UFO temporarily activating a U.S. nuclear missile. However, there is one other reliable report of such an activation-in the Soviet Union. That incident will be discussed at length in a later chapter.
From the book UFOs and Nukes by Robert Hastings.
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Summary Box: Pfizer warns about fake drugs
COUNTERFEITS CAMPAIGN: Drugmaker Pfizer and a national pharmacy standards group are warning about counterfeit prescription drugs and explaining how to find legitimate online pharmacies. They're posting on a website, .
DANGEROUS DRUGS: Counterfeit drugs often contain rat poison or other toxic substances, or have too much or too little of the active ingredient, so they can harm patients.
PERVASIVE PROBLEM: Pfizer says counterfeit versions of at least 40 of its drugs have been found in more than 100 countries, from Alzheimer's treatment Aricept to impotence pill Viagra.
The Associated Press
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Why did Michael Jackson change his skin colour?
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Why Michael Jackson changed his skin colour? It has always been a mystery to me why Michael Jackson, King of Pop, changed his skin from black to white. Some people say it may have been due to a disease called vitilgo which cause white splotches on skin. But a lot of people suspect that it is due to one cause which exists even today: RACISM. Michael Jackson, an American actor, businessman, dancer, producer, singer and philanthropist, was said to have surpassed even Elvis Presl...
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Health Beat with Dr. Alicia Arnold: Breast cancer & preventative mastectomy
Angelina Jolie made headlines last week with her announcement that she had undergone a preventative double mastectomy to lower her risk for breast cancer. On Monday morning, we learned more about breast cancer in our Health Beat with Dr. Alicia Arnold.
Meghan Kulig: Can you tell us more about the breast cancer genes that we've been hearing so much about?
Dr. Arnold: BRCA1 and BRCA2 stand for breast cancer susceptibility gene 1 and 2 respectively. These are genes that we all have in our DNA. When there is a mutation, or abnormality, the patient has a higher risk for certain types of cancer, including breast and ovarian.
Meghan Kulig: What percentage of breast cancers are due to these mutations?
Dr. Arnold: A minority of them. About 5% of breast cancers and 10-15% of ovarian cancers are thought to be due to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. Most women who get breast cancer and ovarian cancer do not have these two mutations.
Meghan Kulig: Are there other mutations that increase an individual's risk for cancer?
Dr. Arnold: Yes, there are multiple other known gene mutations associated with higher risk of cancer, but inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for the majority of hereditary breast cancers. There are other genetic mutations that increase the risk for different forms of cancer. For example, there are multiple known gene mutations that increase the risk for colon cancer.
Meghan Kulig: Who should be tested for the breast cancer mutations?
Dr. Arnold: Your healthcare provider can help you examine your family history and personal history of cancer and decide if the test is a good idea for you. Some ethnic groups also have higher frequencies of the mutations. Your healthcare provider can also refer you to a genetic counselor, who can give you more information about genetic testing and what the results may mean. It's important to note that men can also have these mutations.
Meghan Kulig: A positive result would bring some difficult decisions.
Dr. Arnold: Yes, because even though the risk is much higher, not all women who test positive for the mutation will get cancer. Some women after careful consideration opt for surgery, as in Angelina Jolie's case, but prophylactic surgery has risks too. The choice is different for everyone. Hopefully this story raises some awareness to a very important health issue.
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Three Methods:Sample Problem StatementsWriting Your Own Problem StatementPolishing Your Problem Statement
A problem statement is a brief piece of writing that usually comes at the beginning of a report or proposal to explain the problem or issue the document is addressing to the reader. In general, a problem statement will outline the basic facts of the problem, explain why the problem matters, and pinpoint a solution as quickly and directly as possible. Problem statements are often used in the world of business for planning purposes but can also be required in academic situations as part of a proposal-style report or writing project. See Step 1 below to get started writing your own Problem Statement!
Sample Problem Statements
Method 1 of 2: Writing Your Own Problem Statement
1. 1
Describe the "ideal" state of affairs. There are lots of different ways to write a problem statement — some sources will recommend jumping right to the problem itself, while others recommend providing background context first so that problem (and its solution) are easier to understand for the reader. If you're ever unsure of how to begin, opt for the latter option. While conciseness is something every piece of practical writing should aim for, it's even more important to be well-understood. Start by describing how things should work. Before you even mention your problem, explain in a few sentences how things would be if the problem didn't exist.
• For instance, let's say that we work at a major airline and that we've noticed that the way passengers board our planes is an inefficient use of time and resources. In this case, we might begin our problem statement by describing an ideal situation where the boarding system isn't inefficient that the company should shoot for, like this: "The boarding protocols used by ABC Airlines should aim to get each flight's passengers aboard the plane quickly and efficiently so that the plane can take off as soon as possible . The process of boarding should be optimized for time-efficiency but also should be straightforward enough that it can be easily understood by all passengers."
2. Write a Problem Statement Step 2 Version 2.jpg
Explain your problem. In the words of the inventor Charles Kettering, "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved."[1] One of the most important goals (if not the most important goal) of any problem statement is to articulate the problem being addressed to the reader in a way that's clear, straightforward, and easy to understand. Succinctly summarize the problem you intend to solve — this cuts to the heart of the issue immediately and positions the most important information in the problem statement near the top, where it's most visible. If you've just stated an "ideal" state of affairs as suggested above, you may want to start your sentence with phrasing like "However, ..." or "Unfortunately, ..." to show that the problem you've identified is what is preventing the ideal vision from being a reality.
• Let's say that we think we've developed a quicker, more efficient system for getting passengers aboard our planes than the typical "back to front" seating system. In this case, we might continue with a few sentences like, "However, ABC Airline's current passenger boarding system is an inefficient use of the company's time and resources. By wasting employee man hours, the current boarding protocols make the company less competitive, and by contributing to a slow boarding process, they create an unfavorable brand image."
3. Write a Problem Statement Step 3 Version 2.jpg
Explain your problem's financial costs. Soon after you state your problem, you'll want to explain why it's a big deal — after all, no one has the time or resources to try to solve every single minor problem. In the business world, money is almost always the bottom line, so you'll want to try to highlight the financial impact of your problem on the company or organization you're writing for. For instance, is the problem you're discussing keeping your business from making more money? Is it actively costing your business money? Is it damaging your brand image and thus indirectly costing your business money? Be as exact and specific about the financial burden of your problem — try to specify an exact dollar amount (or a well-supported estimate) for your problem's cost.
• For our airline example, we might proceed to explain the problem's financial cost like this: "The inefficiency of the current boarding system represents a significant financial burden for the company. On average, the current boarding system wastes roughly four minutes per boarding session, resulting in a total of 20 wasted man-hours per day across all ABC flights. This represents a waste of roughly $400 per day, or $146,000 per year."
4. Write a Problem Statement Step 4 Version 2.jpg
Back up your assertions. No matter how much money you claim your problem is costing your company, if you can't back up your claims with reasonable evidence, you may not be taken seriously. As soon as you start making specific claims about how serious your problem is, you'll need to start supporting your statements with evidence. In some cases, this may be from your own research, from data from a related study or project, or even from reputable third-party sources.
• In some corporate and academic situations, you may need to explicitly reference your evidence in the text of your problem statement, while in other situations, it may be enough to simply use a footnote or another form of shorthand for your citations. If you're unsure, ask your boss or teacher for advice.
• Let's reexamine the sentences we used in the previous step. They describe the cost of the problem, but don't explain how this cost was found. A more thorough explanation might include this: "...Based on internal performance tracking data,[1] on average, the current boarding system wastes roughly four minutes per boarding session, resulting in a total of 20 wasted man-hours per day across all ABC flights. Terminal personal are paid an average of $20 per hour, so this represents a waste of roughly $400 per day, or $146,000 per year." Note the footnote — in an actual problem statement, this would correspond to a reference or appendix containing the data mentioned.
5. Write a Problem Statement Step 5 Version 2.jpg
Propose a solution. When you've explained what the problem is and why it's so important, proceed to explain how you propose to deal with it. As with the initial statement of your problem, your explanation of your solution should be written to be as clear and concise as possible. Stick to big, important, concrete concepts and leave any minor details for later — you'll have plenty of opportunities to get into every minor aspect of your proposed solution in the body of your proposal.
• In our airline example, our solution to the problem of inefficient boarding practices is this new system we've discovered, so we should briefly explain the broad strokes of this new system without getting into the minor details. We might say something like, "Using a modified boarding system proposed by Dr. Edward Right of the Kowlard Business Efficiency Institute which has passengers board the plane from the sides in rather than from the back to the front, ABC Airlines can eliminate these four minutes of waste." We might then go on to explain the basic gist of the new system, but we wouldn't use more than a sentence or two to do this, as the "meat" of our analysis will be in the body of the proposal.
6. Write a Problem Statement Step 6 Version 2.jpg
Explain the benefits of the solution. Again, now that you've told your readers what should be done about the problem, it's a very good idea to explain why this solution is a good idea. Since businesses are always trying to increase their efficiency and earn more money, you'll want to focus primarily on the financial impact of your solution — which expenses it will reduce, which new forms of revenue it will generate, and so on. You can also explain non-tangible benefits, like improved customer satisfaction, but your total explanation shouldn't be too much longer than a few sentences to a paragraph.
• In our example, we might briefly describe how our company could conceivably benefit from the money saved with our solution. A few sentences along these lines might work: "ABC Airlines stands to benefit substantially from the adoption of this new boarding program. For instance, the $146,000 in estimated yearly savings can be re-directed to new sources of revenue, such as expanding its selection of flights to high-demand markets. In addition, by being the first American airline to adopt this solution, ABC stands to gain considerable recognition as an industry trend-setter in the areas of value and convenience."
7. Write a Problem Statement Step 7.jpg
Conclude by summarizing the problem and solution. After you've presented the ideal vision for your company, identified the problem keeping your from achieving this ideal, and suggested a solution, you're almost done. All that's left to do is to conclude with a summary of your main arguments that allows you transition easily into the main body of your proposal. There's no need to make this conclusion any longer than it needs to be — try to state, in just a few sentences, the basic gist of what you've described in your problem statement and the approach you intend to take in the body of the article.
• In our airline example, we might conclude like this: "Optimization of current boarding protocols or adoption of new, more-effective protocols is crucial for the continued competitiveness of the company. In this proposal, the alternative boarding protocols developed by Dr. Right are analyzed for their feasibility and steps for effective implementation are suggested." This sums up the main point of the problem statement — that the current boarding procedure isn't very good and that this new one is better — and tells the audience what to expect if they continue reading.
8. Write a Problem Statement Step 8.jpg
For academic work, don't forget a thesis statement. When you have to write a problem statement for school, rather than for work, the process will be largely the same, but there may be extra items you'll need to take into account to assure a good grade. For instance, many composition classes will require you to include a thesis statement in your problem statement. The thesis statement (sometimes just called the "thesis") is a single sentence that summarizes your entire argument, boiling it down to its bare essentials. A good thesis statement identifies both the problem and the solution as succinctly and clearly as possible.
• For instance, let's say we're writing a paper on the problem of academic essay mills — companies that sell pre-written and/or custom works for students to purchase and turn in as their own work. As our thesis statement, we might use this sentence, which acknowledges the problem and the solution we're about to propose: "The practice of buying academic essays, which undermines the learning process and gives an advantage to rich students, can be combated buy providing professors with stronger digital analysis tools."
• Some classes explicitly require you to put your thesis sentence at a certain place in your problem statement (for instance, as the very first or very last sentence). Other times, you'll have more freedom — check with your teacher if you're not sure.
9. Write a Problem Statement Step 9.jpg
Follow the same process for conceptual problems. Not all problem statements are going to be for documents dealing with practical, tangible problems. Some, especially in academics (and especially in the humanities), are going to deal with conceptual problems — problems that have to do with the way we think about abstract ideas. In these cases, you can still use the same basic problem statement framework to present the problem at hand (while obviously shifting away from a business focus). In other words, you'll want to identify the problem (often, for conceptual problems, this will be that some idea is not well-understood), explain why the problem matters, explain how you plan to solve it, and sum up all of this in a conclusion.
• For instance, let's say that we're asked to write a problem statement for a report on the importance of religious symbolism in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this case, our problem statement should identify some poorly-understood aspect of the religious symbolism in the novel, explain why this matters (for instance, we might say that by better understanding the religious symbolism in the novel, it's possible to draw new insights from the book), and lay out how we plan to support our argument.
Method 2 of 2: Polishing Your Problem Statement
1. Write a Problem Statement Step 10.jpg
Be concise. If there's one thing to keep in mind when writing problem statements, it's this. Problem statements shouldn't be any longer than they need to be to accomplish their task of laying out the problem and its solution for the reader. No sentence should be wasted. Any sentence that doesn't directly contribute to the problem statement's goals should be removed. Use clear, direct language. Don't get bogged down in minor details — problem statements should deal only with the essentials of your problem and solution. In general, keep your problem statement as short as possible without sacrificing its informativeness.
• A problem statement is no place to add your own personal commentary or "flavor", as this makes the problem statement longer for no practical purpose. You may or may not have the opportunity to be more long-winded in the body of your document, depending on the seriousness of your topic and audience.
2. Write a Problem Statement Step 11.jpg
Write for your audience. When making a problem statement, it's important to remember that you're writing for someone else, not for yourself. Different audiences will have different sets of knowledge, different reasons for reading, and different attitudes toward your problem, so try to keep your intended audience in mind as you write. You want your problem statement to be as clear and easy for your audience to understand as possible, which means you may need to change your tone, style, and diction from one audience to another. As you write, try to ask yourself questions like:
• "Who, specifically, am I writing for?"
• "Why am I addressing this audience?"
• "Does this audience know all of the same terms and concepts as I do?"
• "Does this audience share the same attitude as I do towards this problem?"
• "Why should my audience care about this problem?"
3. Write a Problem Statement Step 12.jpg
Don't use jargon without defining it. As noted above, your problem statement should be written so that it's as easy for your audience to understand as possible. This means that, unless you're writing for a technical audience that is likely to be knowledgeable in the terminology of the field you're writing about, you'll want to avoid using technical jargon too heavily and to make sure that you define any pieces of jargon that you do use. Never make the assumption that your audience automatically has all of the technical knowledge that you do or you risk alienating them and losing readers as soon as they encounter terms and information they're not familiar with.
• For instance, if we're writing for a board of highly-educated physicians, it may be OK to assume that they'll know what the term "metacarpal" means. However, if we're writing to an audience made up of both physicians and wealthy hospital investors who may or may not be medically trained, it's a good idea to introduce the word "metacarpal" with its definition — the bone between the first two joints of the finger.
4. Write a Problem Statement Step 13.jpg
Stick to a narrow, defined problem. The best problem statements aren't sprawling, rambling pieces of writing. Instead, they're focused on a single, easily-identified problem and its solution. Generally, narrow, defined topics are easier to write convincingly about than large, vague ones, so whenever possible, you'll want to keep the scope of your problem statement (and thus the body of your document) well-focused. If this makes your problem statement (or the body of your document) short, this is usually a good thing (except in academic situations where you have minimum page limits for your assignment).
• A good rule of thumb is to only address problems that you can definitively solve beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you're not sure of a definitive solution that can solve your entire problem, you may want to narrow the scope of your project and change your problem statement to reflect this new focus.
• To keep the scope of a problem statement under control, it can be helpful to wait until after completing the body of the document or proposal to write the problem statement. In this case, when we write our problem statement, we can use our actual document as a guideline so that we don't have to guess about the ground we may cover when we write it.
5. Write a Problem Statement Step 14.jpg
Remember the "five Ws". Problem statements should be as informative as possible in as few words as possible, but shouldn't delve into minute details. If you're ever in doubt of what to include in your problem statement, a smart idea is to try to answer the five Ws (who, what, where, when, and why), plus how. Addressing the five Ws gives your reader a good baseline level of knowledge to understand the problem and solution without treading into unnecessary levels of detail.
• For instance, if you're writing a problem statement to propose a new building development to your local city council, you might address the five Ws by explaining who the development would benefit, what the development would require, where the development should be, when construction should begin, and why the development is ultimately a smart idea for the city.
6. Write a Problem Statement Step 15.jpg
Use a formal voice. Problem statements are almost always used for serious proposals and projects. Because of this, you'll want to use a formal, dignified writing style (the same as the style hopefully used for the body of the document) in the problem statement. Keep your writing clear, plain, and direct. Don't attempt to win your reader over by taking a friendly or casual tone in your problem statement. Don't use humor or jokes. Don't include pointless asides or anecdotes. Don't use slang or colloquialisms. Good problem statements know that they have a job to accomplish and don't waste any time or ink on unnecessary content.
• The closest you can usually get to including purely "entertaining" content in academic writing in the humanities. Here, occasionally, it's possible to encounter problem statements that begin with a quote or epigraph. Even in these cases, however, the quote has some bearing on the problem being discussed and the rest of the problem statement is written in a formal voice.
7. Write a Problem Statement Step 16.jpg
Always proofread for errors. This is a must for all forms of serious writing — no first draft has ever existed that couldn't have benefited from the careful eye of a good proofreader. When you finish your problem statement, give it a quick read. Does it seem to "flow" properly? Does it present its ideas coherently? Does it seem to be logically organized? If not, make these changes now. When you're finally satisfied with the structure of your problem statement, double-check it for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors.
• You'll never regret re-reading your problem statement before you turn it in. Since, by its very nature, the problem statement is usually the first part of a proposal or report that someone will read, any errors here will be especially embarrassing for you and can even reflect negatively on your entire document.
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Wireless Waffle - A whole spectrum of radio related rubbish
Roof Raiderssignal strength
Thursday 1 December, 2005, 09:38 - Pirate/Clandestine
Towards the beginning of November this year, Ofcom conducted a massive series of raids on pirate radio stations in London, and event considered news-worthy even by the BBC.
The operation closed 53 pirate FM stations in London and whilst some of the bigger stations are now back on-air, for some stations, losing a transmitter may mark the end of their broadcasts for some time. One station (On Top FM) also had a studio raid which can be devastating, and is certainly much more difficult to recover from.
What is interesting about this surge of activity by Ofcom is not that it was long overdue, or that it was so widespread, but was some of the 'anti-pirate' propaganda that Ofcom, a supposedly respectable body, spouted in their press release.
"Illegal broadcasting causes interference to the radios used by critical safety of life services such as the London Fire Brigade and National Air Traffic Services (NATS)."
firemanLet's examine this statement. The London Fire Brigade uses frequencies of 70.5 - 71.5 MHz paired with 80.0 - 82.5 MHz, 148.825 MHz (for pagers), various frequencies between 450 and 453 MHz paired with 464.9 - 467.9 and 457 - 457.5 paired with 462.5 - 463 MHz. Now unless I am mistaken, none of these frequencies are directly affected by transmissions in the FM band (87.5 - 108 MHz) otherwise they would receive interference every day from the legal stations. Indeed other than for the fourth harmonics of transmitters on 90-90.6, 93-93.5 (actually BBC Radio 4 in London), 91.4-91.5 and 92.5-92.6 MHz, it's difficult to see where their problem arises. So if the Fire Service are suffering interference from pirate transmissions it is probably from one of two sources:
(1) The FM transmitters used by the pirates are of such low quality that they emit spurious signals on lots of frequencies. This is certainly possible, especially given the low-cost nature of the transmitters that pirates use, however the chances are that any transmitters prone to spurious emissions will be tracked down immediately as they will be causing interference to potentially hundreds of users.
(2) It is not the FM transmitters that cause the problem but is, instead, the link transmitters which are used to connect the pirates' studios to the transmitter site. Such links normally operate either in Band I (47 - 68 MHz) or at microwave frequencies. Microwave links are hardly likely to cause interference but it is feasible that the Band I links might if their frequencies co-incided with those used by the Fire Service. However, I doubt that any pirate would use a frequency knowing that it might interfere with the emergency services, even though they are operating illegally, they are not stupid enough to intentionally cause interference and risk the wrath of Ofcom.
radiomoldovalogoThere is one other possibility. The frequencies used by the Fire Service in the UK are used in some Eastern European countries for FM broadcasting! The 'OIRT' band covers 66 - 74 MHz and high-power transmitters still provide service in countries such as Russia, Moldova and Hungary. During certain propagation conditions, such stations are often heard in the UK (they do use high powers after all) and whilst I suspect that most firemen would know the difference between Russian and English, if they just hear music over their radio system they are going to assume it's a pirate.
So do the pirates cause interference to the Fire Service or not? Well I have no reason to doubt John Anthony, London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner who claims that, "... radio transmissions interfere with, and sometimes entirely disable, the communications systems the London Fire Brigade relies on." But is it really pirates or could it be the Russians instead?
vorNext onto the Air Traffic Service. They use many frequencies but in particular use 108 - 137 MHz which is directly adjacent to the FM band. A report from 1997, 'Investigation of Interference Sources and Mechanisms...' showed that illegal transmitters were a constant source of interference to both navigation and communication. This is easier to understand as spurious emissions from a transmitter are usually close in frequency to the main transmission thus spurii in the band 108 - 137 MHz are not unlikely. Thus I don't necessarily doubt 'A spokesman for NATS' who said, "Unauthorised broadcasts on or close to frequencies used by air traffic controllers can interfere with the passing of vital information between air traffic controllers and pilots. They can also affect the navigation aids used as landmarks." Point to Ofcom!
"Illegal broadcasting also causes interference to legitimate radio stations, denying hundreds of thousands of listeners the opportunity to hear their favourite programmes."
Does it now? Well in some cases yes. Drive past a pirate transmitter and if you are tuned to a nearby frequency there is every likelihood that you will hear the pirate 'splattering' over the top of the station you were trying to listen to (though the same thing would also happen if you drove past a legal transmitter). However, some pirates operate 200 kHz or less away from legal stations which is insufficient to prevent such interference (legal stations typically leave a gap of 400 kHz to prevent these problems occuring). However legal stations typically use much more power than pirate stations and the effect is very localised (and anyway whose to say that your favourite programme isn't on a pirate station...)
londonIt is only in desperation, however, that pirates would choose a frequency likely to interfere with a legal station. In London such desparation stems from the lack of available frequencies (as most are already used by legal and other pirate stations). Given the option, most pirates choose a frequency as unlikely as possible to interfere with legal stations as it's much more likely that a complaint will be received against them if they do cause interference as if they don't.
Overall I suspect that pirate radio does cause interference in one or two cases, however in many cases it operates quite happily without causing problems to anyone else. Kudos to Ofcom for having a go at the problem, but only time will tell whether they will make any dent on the runaway train of stations that inhabit every nook and cranny of the FM band in London (and in some other major cities).
Of course there are other solutions, one being to actually licence the stations concerned and bring them into a controlled environment. Ofcom has already licensed about 30 community radio stations, however it claims that such services can only be licensed in remote areas where spare frequencies exist. A change in planning rules to recognise the low potential for interference that properly organised low-power FM stations cause might open up the band to more users and solve the pirate problem in a much more effective way.
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Skip to definition.
Noun: gloaming glow-ming
1. The time of day immediately following sunset
"he loved the gloaming";
- twilight, dusk, gloam [archaic], nightfall, evenfall, fall, crepuscule, crepuscle
Derived forms: gloamings
Type of: hour, time of day
Part of: eve, even, evening, eventide
Encyclopedia: Gloaming | <urn:uuid:f4d1f6f3-82d2-491c-8ecc-7cd7014d5a01> | 2 | 1.765625 | 0.028566 | en | 0.719467 | http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/GLOAMING |
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Noun: heaving hee-ving
1. An upward movement (especially a rhythmical rising and falling)
"the heaving of waves on a rough sea";
- heave
2. Breathing heavily (as after exertion)
- panting
3. The act of lifting something with great effort
- heave
4. Throwing something heavy (with great effort)
"he was not good at heaving passes";
- heave
Verb: heave (heaved, also hove) heev
1. Utter a sound, as with obvious effort
2. Throw with great effort
3. Rise and move, as in waves or billows
"The army heaved forward";
- billow, surge
4. Lift or elevate
- heave up, heft, heft up
5. Move or cause to move in a specified way, direction, or position
6. Breathe noisily, as when one is exhausted
- pant, puff, gasp
7. Bend out of shape, as under pressure or from heat
- buckle, warp
8. Make an unsuccessful effort to vomit; strain to vomit
- gag, retch
Derived forms: heavings
Type of: ascending, ascension, ascent, blow, blow up, breathing, change surface, emit, external respiration, inflate, let loose, let out, lift, move, respiration, rise, rising, throw, utter, ventilation, wing
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Adjective: soiled soyld
1. Not clean, or likely to soil with dirt or grime
"soiled unswept pavements";
- dirty, unclean
Verb: soil soyl
1. Make soiled, filthy, or dirty
"don't soil your clothes when you play outside!";
- dirty, begrime, grime, colly [archaic], bemire [archaic]
See also: Augean, bedraggled, befouled, begrimed, black, buggy, cleanness, cobwebbed, cobwebby, cruddy, dingy, dirty-faced, draggled, feculent, filthy, flyblown, foul, fouled, greasy, grimy, grubby, grungy, lousy, maculate, mucky, muddy, nasty, oily, ratty, raunchy [US], scroungy [US], scummy, smudgy, smutty, snot-nosed, snotty, sooty, sordid, squalid, travel-soiled, travel-stained, uncleanly [archaic], unswept, untidy, unwashed
Type of: alter, change, modify
Encyclopedia: Soil | <urn:uuid:99afb144-daac-4907-b747-5b2fa9a28a69> | 2 | 2.3125 | 0.144558 | en | 0.708177 | http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/SOILED |
Bridge Highlighted in National Register
An area landmark has its national recognition. The New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The bridge opened in 1977, and was the longest steel arch bridge in the world when it opened. It's still the longest single-span steel arch bridge in the United States, and it's the third highest bridge in the nation at almost 900 feet. | <urn:uuid:577901bf-e288-49d2-a7c0-0bc9b2e35f32> | 2 | 2.09375 | 0.272966 | en | 0.968454 | http://www.wqbe.com/node/18697 |
Google accelerates end of SHA-1 support; certificate authorities nervous
Over time, security standards usually become less effective for two reasons. Research finds weaknesses in them, and the plummeting cost of compute power makes computationally difficult attacks more practical. SHA-1's predecessor, MD5, was in use well beyond the point that attacks on it were cheap and easy.
There are no practical attacks on SHA-1 yet, but it's just a matter of several years before they appear. This means that we have time to move on beyond SHA-1 before problems hit the real world. The next standard up, SHA-2, is a series of hash functions with several hash sizes: SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-512/224 and SHA-512/256. There is also a SHA-3, but it is a very young standard with no commercial implementations.
The move to deprecate SHA-1 began in earnest with an announcement by Microsoft last November that they would begin to withdraw support for SHA-1 in their root certificate program starting January 1, 2016, and would end support for SHA-1 SSL certificates by January 1, 2017. Code signing certificates with SHA-1 hashes will no longer be accepted by Windows on January 1, 2016.
The CAs, at least as represented by the CA Security Council (CASC), have been publicly supportive of Microsoft's policy. Google has decided that quicker action is necessary.
Google's proposal is to make the following changes to Chromium's handling of SHA-1 (this is a quote):
• All SHA-1-using certificates that are valid AFTER 2017/1/1 are treated as insecure, but without an interstitial. That is, they will receive a degraded UI indicator, but users will NOT be directed to click through an error page.
• Additionally, the mixed content blocker will be taught to treat these as mixed content, which WILL require a user action to interact with.
• All SHA-1-using certificates that are valid AFTER 2016/1/1 are treated as insecure, but without an interstitial. They will receive a degraded UI indicator, but will NOT be treated as mixed content.
So when this is implemented in Chrome and a user browses using https to a site with a SHA-1 certificate that is valid after January 1, 2016, the Chrome UI will show the lock with a red "x" and the https with a red slash through it, as shown nearby.
Updated on September 2: Google has clarified the schedule for the deprecation. They note that it is an announcement of "intent," not a "promise" to implement these features on this schedule. They are seeking input. The clarified plan for the changes has them beginning in Chrome 39 (released to the stable channel roughly 9-12 weeks from now) and spread out through Chrome 41 (21-24 weeks from now). Click the link just above for all the details.
Remember, from 1/1/2017, Microsoft will stop supporting SHA-1 certificates and there seems to be general agreement that this will be the effective end of the line for them. Nevertheless, under the CA/Browser forum guidelines, it is acceptable for CAs to sell SHA-1 certificates with lifetimes past that date. Consider the experience of Google's Mike West who just bought a five year SHA-1 certificate from a Comodo reseller.
When will Google implement this change? I would argue that this is unclear, but the CASC is claiming that the schedule is for Chrome 39. The current stable version is Chrome 37. I'm told by a Symantec employee that Google gave Chrome 39 as a target in a recent conference call of members of the CA/Browser Forum. And in a mailing list discussion on August 12, Ryan Sleevi, a Senior Software Engineer at Google who works on the cryptography in the Chromium platform, certainly seems to say that he's planning to implement the change in Chrome 39.
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In fact, the first dev and canary builds of Chrome 39 came out over the weekend and they do not implement the proposed behavior. Sleevi says that it is not implemented and that "... it is still under active review and discussion." There is a defined process for feature deprecation in Chromium. It looks long and complicated and getting it done by Chrome 39 looks tough to me.
The CASC says, based on the assumption of an implementation in Chrome 39, that Google is being too aggressive. The schedule for Chrome 39 would see it released to the stable channel in or about late November, at the height of the holiday shopping season. If consumers start seeing what looks like an HTTPS error, which they have been told to take as a warning of potentially fraudulent activity, the result could be lost sales for commerce sites.
My personal opinion on this is mixed; implementing this policy before the holiday season is safely over would be a mistake and unfair for two main reasons: the CASC is right that it would cause a lot of user confusion at a bad time, and it's just unfair to implement such a change with so little formal notice.
But beyond that, I'm completely on Google's side. The CAs have generally had to be forced into implementing security advances by the major software companies, virtually at gunpoint. The CAs, in this context, are just a proxy for users. CAs have no reason to object to advancing standards unless it loses them business. Their objection now is that there are still customers who "need" SHA-1 certificates, so if they stop selling SHA-1 the customers will just take their business elsewhere. (Incidentally, this episode is, if you ask me, proof of strong competition in the digital certificate market.)
Who, in this day and age, needs SHA-1? To a small degree there's a problem of old security appliances and point of sale terminals that haven't been, or maybe even can't be updated, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is Windows XP SP2. Yes, SP2.
An employee of Cloudflare, a CA (although that's not their main business), responded to the Google announcement with this: "... a large percentage of the web visitors of our customers are using Windows XP SP2 which does not support SHA-256." This is also what the CASC told me.
It's hard to tell someone using Windows XP SP2, which reached end of support over four years ago, that they are insecure because of limitations in their cryptographic hash support. At least it's difficult to tell them that with a straight face. Clearly such users have bigger security problems than a lack of SHA-2 support.
No, this is purely a business problem. Those users are determined not to upgrade their OS. And as long as that's the case, the CAs will give the people what they want.
The CAs are very happy to sell SHA-2 certificates, and they report that those sales are growing rapidly. But they still sell a lot of SHA-1 and they sell those certificates with long lives. Google's Sleevi did some counts based on company telemetry and found that all the large CAs have issued large numbers of SHA-1 certificates with lifetimes into 2016 (almost 670,000) and even into 2017 (almost 300,000).
So if Google really is thinking of rolling out this change before the new year, they're making a mistake. It's unfair and unnecessary. But going more aggressive than Microsoft's schedule? Nothing wrong with that. The more time you give users the more they'll take and then complain that you're not giving them even more. It's always this way. So an aggressive Google is doing the CAs a favor. CAs can't make their customers use better security, but Google can.
Updated on September 2: Since Google has clarified their schedule to confirm that the changes are planned to be well in place by the holiday season, I'll repeat my objections. They would be well-advised to slip these changes ahead two releases. It's worth noting that the point of the changes right now is not to help the user directly, but to put pressure on site owners and certificate authorities by threatening them with user confusion. A SHA-1 certificate that expires next week is no more secure today than one which expires in 2017. It's only fair for Google to give more time than they are now giving. itself uses SHA1 in its certificate although Google's certificates have only a three month life. Google can do the three month life span because they are their own certificate authority. Smaller companies must pay for certificates, which are cheaper with longer life spans.
Topics: Security, Browser, Google
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World Governments Agree To Automatic Information Sharing
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
The 34 members states of the OECD are enthusiastically supporting this measure. And it constitutes the end of whatever remains of financial privacy.
The premise behind the OECD’s destructive pipedream is, as usual, to stamp out ‘tax evasion’. But this is a misnomer to being with.
Just about every multinational company out there employs strategies to reduce their current tax liabilities that are perfectly legitimate based on existing tax laws.
This is why companies like Google and Apple famously earn billions in profits but pay almost no tax. They’re vilified. But it’s legal.
These companies have shareholders from all over the world. And their solemn responsibility is to maximize shareholder value… not maximize the amount of funds that politicians in a single jurisdiction get to blow on wars and welfare.
There are also isolated individuals who are sitting on undeclared income stashed away in an overseas bank somewhere. But the aggregate amount is tiny compared to the $60+ billion that Microsoft alone has stashed away overseas, untaxed.
You’d think they’d get at the root cause of the problem and try becoming more competitive… lowering tax rates and streamlining government operations (shocker!)
But no. Instead they resort to even more Draconian tactics to lord over private citizens’ financial records and unilaterally set aside long-standing international treaties.
So what we have now are a bunch of bankrupt member states who think that they are helping the other bankrupt member states raise revenue by terrorizing citizens (rather than actually fixing the problem).
It’s genius. But what else can one expect from the OECD?
This is the same organization which said, in the same meeting over the weekend, that Germany should accept higher inflation so that the rest of Europe wouldn’t suffer from deflation.
The arrogance is astounding.
This is the same logic as borrowing your way out of debt and spending your way out of recession… brought to you by the same guys who completely missed all the warning signs of the Global Financial Crisis. Along with the IMF. The Federal Reserve (and every other central bank in the world). And every government out there.
Yet these are the rocket scientists who pull the levers that control the system.
It behooves anyone who can see the big picture to distance yourself as much as possible from this system.
This means, for example, keeping a portion of your savings in real assets that they cannot control, as opposed to paper assets that they conjure and manipulate.
Most importantly, it means not having all of your eggs in one basket. Bankrupt governments will resort to any measure they feel is necessary to maintain the status quo.
And if you live, work, invest, bank, run a business, own real estate, etc. all in one of these bankrupt countries, you are really taking on tremendous risk.
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Comment viewing options
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:36 | 4472366 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture
Cue NWO outrage....
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:37 | 4472372 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
I am seriously worried about you, man.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:42 | 4472389 fonestar
fonestar's picture
It's okay if they agree to global information sharing. Citizens of the world have global P2P and Bitcoin.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:49 | 4472416 ForTheWorld
ForTheWorld's picture
Holy shit.
To make sure of an oft-repeated phrase - "NEVER go Full Retard!". Either someone else is using the fonestar account, you've suffered some severe mental or physical trauma, or you've just decided to go absolutely crazy and start ranting like a lunatic.
No, this ISN'T a slight against BitCoin, Satoshi, P2P or whatever - this is an observation of the content of your posts.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:57 | 4472458 fonestar
fonestar's picture
In an act of supreme faith fonestar sold everything he owned over a year ago (minus one IBM laptop) and went full retard into Bitcoin. So far it has been working great for him. Everything fonestar does, he only does in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:59 | 4472467 ForTheWorld
ForTheWorld's picture
Lunatic. Check. ;)
At least you're good for a laugh.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:07 | 4472501 bonderøven-farm ass
bonderøven-farm ass's picture
"Everything fonestar does, he only does in the name of Satoshi Nakamoto."
Slaves are made in such ways.....
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:11 | 4472515 fonestar
fonestar's picture
We are slaves of freedom. We are slaves of passion. We are shackled to the blockchain gang.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:14 | 4472529 bonderøven-farm ass
bonderøven-farm ass's picture
You can't eat code, foney....
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:26 | 4472573 fonestar
fonestar's picture
No, but you can always fone for takeout and delivery.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:30 | 4472588 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture
But if your code is good, you can be well paid for it.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:37 | 4472606 fonestar
fonestar's picture
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 22:19 | 4473499 unrulian
unrulian's picture
If your Bitcoin is worth 500 bucks, if i finish my sudoku can i get enough for a pizza?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:43 | 4472643 bonderøven-farm ass
bonderøven-farm ass's picture
Honestly, it's just a little humor at foney's expense. I sincerely wish the BitCoiners all of the luck in the's another middle-finger to the cartel and I hope it succeeds.
Personally, it's not for me.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 22:15 | 4473479 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture
Dear world governments:
My name is General Keith Alexander, current director of the NSA.
As you know, my administration (and the government of the United States, Incorporated) has come under fire recently for our ability and implementation of OUR ability to compile all types of information from all sectors of everyone's personal, medical, communication, and financial data around the world. I know you think we were 'invading your privacy' here, but let me explain. I'm sure you'll understand, and, in fact, thank us for taking these first bold new steps in to a better tomorrow.
As I see, you are now seeing the benefits of inclusion of every human on the earth in this new paradigm of command and control (we only did what we did to demonstrate our power to do so). Our new facility in Utah, USA, is being equipped with the finest state-of-the-art computers, in order that you may avail yourselves of this ability to track those pesky humans (oops, I mean, so-called 'scofflaws') in your individual countries' borders, and render whatever it is that you render. Im MY nation, we like to call this 'rendition' and 'waterboarding' (of course, again, these are simply examples).
As to the pesky insect called 'BitCoin' (which seeks to replace the fedscrips worldwide), well, we already have a plan in order to deal with this threat, as well. You see, these fools actually think that we will LET THEM USE OUR INTERNET AND POWER GRIDS, but it is a given that WE also control access to these things, as well.
AGAIN, thank you for listening. If you need further information, please avail yourselves of the ability to contact one of many of our public/private corporate sponsors.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:22 | 4472557 tickhound
tickhound's picture
Geezus and all you people out there used to bitch and moan about Trav hijacking every thread. Instead now we get this shit all the time...
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:24 | 4472564 fonestar
fonestar's picture
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:38 | 4472613 tickhound
tickhound's picture
If this is the communication style that works best for u then fine... Just try to throw in some freaking CONTENT once in a while, a stale joke.. There's no reward for being the Donald trump of space around here... You can begin this exercise by occasionally using DIFFERENT words.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:40 | 4472623 fonestar
fonestar's picture
The media is the massage.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:43 | 4472645 CPL
CPL's picture
Happy ending.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:44 | 4472651 tickhound
tickhound's picture
I like it. And efficient to boot. + 1 trillion.
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 07:36 | 4474535 samcontrol
samcontrol's picture
phone shit, stop ruining the articles I want to use .. you,re done ,, just to stupid to know ..
I had something to say about offshore accounts, but you fucking ruined it, you almost make me puke every morning you tard.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:17 | 4472544 outamyeffinway
outamyeffinway's picture
Take anything out of context lately?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:23 | 4472560 bonderøven-farm ass
bonderøven-farm ass's picture
"It's difficult to free fools from the (block)chains they revere" ~ Voltaire
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:38 | 4472617 fonestar
fonestar's picture
We will see who the lunatics are when Bitcoin goes into five, six and seven figures! Satoshi is invincible! Bitcoin is the deflationary tiger who stalks the Earth!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:56 | 4472695 lordylord
lordylord's picture
For that to happen, bitcoin would actually have to be adopted and used by a significant number of the world population. I don't see a reality where that happens. I think it's silly for you to tell people to buy and hold bitcoin becuase it is going to 7 figures. It's better to tell people to buy bitcoin and actually buy goods/services with it. However, it really doesn't matter because people who accept bitcoin transfer it right back to fiat. Bitcoin is a service to be used with extreme caution.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:58 | 4472706 fonestar
fonestar's picture
fonestar will tell all the people that he sees!
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 05:06 | 4474421 silvermail
silvermail's picture
Dear fonestar,
Yes, of course, we all know about it.
But tell us please, what room number in the hospital, where undergoing treatment your boss and also who is his doctor?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:02 | 4472465 Indian_Goldsmith
Indian_Goldsmith's picture
So, the only way to be safe is to be a roadside bum without any family or money. LoL. The great western civilization... I hereby renounce all my plans to be of value. Because if there is something valuable here, the thugs will come for me. But if I am bum, I will be safe.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:08 | 4472503 mvsjcl
mvsjcl's picture
Not even then because after all those measures of disinvestment, you appear as a "black hole" on the screen of existance, identified not by what you have, but what you don't have. Indeed, this is alarming to those whose job it is to look at the screen.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:09 | 4472507 logicalman
logicalman's picture
The man who has everything has everything to lose!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:28 | 4472578 fonestar
fonestar's picture
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 07:38 | 4474539 samcontrol
samcontrol's picture
la concha de tu Hermana , puto de mierda.
Me tenes la bolas llenas con tu shitcoin.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:41 | 4472518 0b1knob
0b1knob's picture
So, the only way to be safe is to be a roadside bum without any family or money who reliably votes democrat.
There fixed it for you.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:26 | 4472569 Whalley World
Whalley World's picture
that approach is not working out that well for the homeless in Japan who are now temporarily skimming Plutonium for slave wages in the Fuk
Wed, 02/26/2014 - 09:46 | 4479635 StandardDeviant
StandardDeviant's picture
Just be careful with that shirt.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:51 | 4472430 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
well, at least until the grid goes down.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:56 | 4472452 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture
We can only hope...
that the grid goes down.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:01 | 4472472 fonestar
fonestar's picture
....all around the world. All at once.
Oh, and hope that everyone doesn't see a point in fixing that.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:44 | 4472650 ForTheWorld
ForTheWorld's picture
The entire electrical or telecommunications grid doesn't need to go down. Localised outages work just as well. Consider a list of the typical pieces of hardware that your request passes through just to present you with the ZeroHedge page:
1. You -> PC Device -> Network Interface -> [Router/Firewall] -> Modem -> Cell Tower/Telephony Exchange -> Telephony Exchange -> ISP
2. ISP -> DNS Servers -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Network Interface -> Destination
2.1. [Network Interface -> Router/Firewall -> ISP -> DNS Server -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Network Interface -> Destination
3. Network Interface -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Router -> Router -> DNS Server -> ISP
4. ISP -> Telephony Exchange -> Cell Tower/Telephony Exchange -> Modem -> [Router/Firewall] -> Network Interface -> PC Device -> You
(Step 2 could have hundreds of sub steps thanks to one site connecting to multiple distributed services)
Thanks to the proliferation of Software as a Service products running within a virtual machine as one of perhaps one hundred virtual machines on a single server, the number of points of failure increases exponentially as people become more dependant on being connected to the Internet and demand more services become available via the Internet.
Than, factor in traffic disruptions caused by 400Gbps DDoS attacks that are starting to occur, and will increase in regularity, and you're going to find that there's going to be more outages in the future. One DDoS attack could, in theory, bring down entire data centres (and thousands of sites affecting millions of users) if they are directed well enough.
To understand the physical links, go here: - these are only the major international links, and there's a lot of points of failure just there. It's just like a fractal image - the more you zoom in, the more and more links that are available for tampering with.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:02 | 4472719 fiftybagger
fiftybagger's picture
Hmmmm. I wonder who is behind those DDOS attacks?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:12 | 4472752 ForTheWorld
ForTheWorld's picture
Kids. No, seriously - kids. Brian Krebs at has a detailed article about it, and he gave a presentation about it recently which is available via Youtube.
If there's someone else telling the kids to do it, that's another matter.
Here's the specific article with links to other articles within it:
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:22 | 4472554 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture
We can only hope...
that the grid goes down.
Seriously, it's a literal miracle that the US grid hasn't gone down already. Something as small as a five-year-old's bedtime prayer that the grid go down might be all it takes to tip the balance.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:29 | 4472581 quasimodo
quasimodo's picture
Message to self......make this part of 6 yr old's bedtime prayer. Oh, and that I have the sense to keep a cool head if it happens.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:32 | 4472592 fonestar
fonestar's picture
Tell your six year old Satoshi has come!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:31 | 4472836 Kirk2NCC1701
Kirk2NCC1701's picture
LoP, note that Nazi Germany, the GDR's Statis and Stalin's KGB did just fine w/o the Grid.
We may "have guns", but their populace did not buy into the Propaganda of their Media -- the way ours does. And so a "freedom fighter" or "libertarian" can simply be relabeled as a DT (Domestic 'Terrarist'). Our populace would not bat an eye with reports of "another DT captured".
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:07 | 4472499 q99x2
q99x2's picture
MaxCoin if you like to eat crypto try some of that sucker.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:44 | 4472398 nmewn
nmewn's picture
Well then, how much do you make Flak? ;-)
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:57 | 4472441 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture
If I close my eyes, put my hands over my ears, and say " there is no NWO agenda" three times it makes all this NWO stuff go away..
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:17 | 4472545 ziggy59
ziggy59's picture
NWO ..backwards... OWN
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:44 | 4472642 fonestar
fonestar's picture
What we are talking about is a Bit World Order. Good and evil. Right and wrong.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:21 | 4472551 ILLILLILLI
ILLILLILLI's picture
Don't forget to click your heels...
There's certain established procedures, you know.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:09 | 4472506 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture
Probably not much. Such a poor statist shill can't cost a lot.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:37 | 4472607 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture
In addition to the physical....
CENTRAL FUND OF CANADA CLASS A NPV NON-VTG ISIN #CA153501101 10,000.000 $15.070 $0.20 $150,700.00 $2,000.00
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:35 | 4472586 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture
Think of me as a director of some kind of surreal real-time play. I was merely providing an entrance for the posts that are sure to follow...
As for my income, alas, not enough to attract any untoward attention... I think there is still a couple of Swiss accounts but they probably already confiscated whatever was there via "service fees"....
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:41 | 4472626 nmewn
nmewn's picture
lol...fair enough.
I only got one left hangin out there but they know all about that one and agreed on the low profile.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 21:28 | 4473335 Jumbotron
Jumbotron's picture
"And they could neither buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast."
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 03:14 | 4474351 infotechsailor
infotechsailor's picture
What about the drunken sailor outrage! ?
Oh wait, you might be right
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:36 | 4472368 HedgeAccordingly
HedgeAccordingly's picture
Snowden.. Effect - meanwhile the Spooz reclaimed the old all time high after a half-life of 2 hours -
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:37 | 4472369 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture
Ugh. Coming to even Peru soon enough I imagine.
- 1 to ya world governments!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:34 | 4472854 CPL
CPL's picture
Oh no, this is going to be hilarious. It'll be beyond anything any one has ever seen in terms of diplomatic fuck ups in the galactic history of diplomatic fuckups but from this side it'll be pretty funny.
The one thing that governments really suck at is information classification as it relates to cultural bias and financial classification. Cultural bias being the obvious one. Financial classification, the accounting industry loves acronyms and standards as much as engineering. "Lots of standards" to pick from, sprinkle in another culture, various acronyms from the local professional guilds that define the cultural process of accounting to a local professional dialect and tax code.
So watch the news in those countries as FOIA's are launched all over the place. Then something slips, because these guys still operate under a beggar thy neighbour but some good comes from it...
What they will understand real quick though is they are all beyond broke and it was only a lie that kept the cheques from bouncing for the past 13 years. What they won't understand is how they've been harpooning each other with materials pricing, manipulation and how the banks have been fucking them all in the ass for a long time.
Either they'll cry or laugh their asses off once they review everything and learn the important lesson of the role of what a government is supposed to be by it's people. You know, that crazy idea that governance happens and the role of a government is to manage common elements everyone wants in a society to make it run well by examining the noted requests.
In IT we use ITIL to manage this stuff, it's ugly doing it the first time, gets easier the second time. 500 ft view, Service desk obtains the request from their users then it goes in the sausage maker and at the other end a delivered widget/process/service.
After a while of doing that, the IT delivery people understand what common elements need more attention than other things. It takes a bit of time to do, but once it's done no one should have much to complain about on how well things run. Right now though that won't happen until they wake up by seeing how hosed they are and that they've all been taken for a ride. Then hopefully...for the first time in 100 years they'll listen with their ears and not their mouths.
And just maybe...they'll see the Truman show they've created for themselves and break out by turning the tables with their own processes. If they needs to hedge and create buffer time while sorting things out there is one thing government does excel at.
And that would be waiting. While it appears to be a major annoyance externally, it serves as an amazing defensive position to re-prioritize direction without having anyone to blame. Throw in a reorg on top of that and nothing is going to get done.
"I'm so sorry. It's in the system, department is going through a reorg and half of everyone is off on stress leave/sick/pregnant/sex change/whatever/at pub/tree planting."
See how well that works at buying time? Otherwise keep an eye on the news papers it's going to get so weird.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:49 | 4472924 trader1
trader1's picture
best post of the day, week, year?
you even said shit was going to get weird last summer, and you were quite right i'd have to admit...
are we getting close to the liminal experience?
capitalism and schizophrenia - worth a revisit
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 20:18 | 4473051 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture
trader1 - - - - the short version - - -
'We're screwed'
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:38 | 4472373 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture
no links he stinks
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:39 | 4472380 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
Is it such a crime to be sublime?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:53 | 4472444 pods
pods's picture
I thought it was two in the pink, one in the stink?
Or do I have that backwards?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:12 | 4472521 superflex
superflex's picture
shockingly correct
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:41 | 4472622 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture
And don't forget the "windshield wiper" - the thumb back and forth across the clit.
I apologize.
(you know you're doing it right now)
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 21:38 | 4473357 usednabused
usednabused's picture
Ha, that was a goodun man!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:05 | 4472493 trader1
trader1's picture
i broke the story first on ZH if anyone happenned to notice earlier today:
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:39 | 4472378 Real Estate Geek
Real Estate Geek's picture
Given the information sharing, it seems as if Simon's diversification recommendations are mooted. Same logic that the only reason for gun registration is to facilitate confiscation.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:41 | 4472387 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
I recommend buying unsalted crackers. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of unsalted crackers.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:40 | 4472381 kito
kito's picture
oh wow, im so glad i have followed simon blacks advice and have become a global vagabond.............except for my home in the chilean paramo that i bought from simon. he did i tell you that my casita in chile came with free chilean inflation protection bonds. wow, am i lucky!!!!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:43 | 4472393 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
Nice! But how did you get all the dried blood out of those carpets?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:41 | 4472385 101 years and c...
101 years and counting's picture
moral of the story: burying your cash in the back yard is safer than in the bank.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:49 | 4472417 pods
pods's picture
Easy, take small amount of junk silver, put in metal box (fancy one with a lock). Bury that a foot or two above your stash about 4 inches deep. Put a couple of rusty nails below the throw away box as well.
There are a thousand ways one can think about hiding valuables in plain sight.
You don't have to fly halfway across the world to do so.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:43 | 4472392 world_debt_slave
world_debt_slave's picture
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:45 | 4472404 pods
pods's picture
So my gold bars held in trust by a blind third party fiduciary in Sinapore might be at risk?
Well hell, now I have to get anal probed, fly over there, exchange them using some blind BTC custodian, then get it transferred to my secret proxy wallet and make it back. Then cash in my BTC and go to my LCS, buy back my gold, and then just store it in my house among my kids legos and dog's chew toys?
Or I could have just avoided the 007 route and bought the PMs from my LCS with cash and skipped the anal probe and spy stuff?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:47 | 4472410 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
What's your address again, pods?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:51 | 4472431 pods
pods's picture
I actually have a vial of gold (that I myself mined) on my window sill above my kitchen sink. Fun to look at and good memories.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:01 | 4472473 CitizenPete
CitizenPete's picture
Prices are back down and supply is good... Acquire MOAR ammo Pods.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:46 | 4472405 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
If this is the type of info in Simon Black's subscription service, then I'd rather spend the money taking a lady to dinner
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:48 | 4472414 somecallmetimmah
somecallmetimmah's picture
That's no lady. It's a man, man.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:52 | 4472435 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
Simon! You down arrowed me. I didn't believe you'd be so cruel!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:46 | 4472407 smacker
smacker's picture
And exactly WHO gave MY government permission to agree to this policy without consultation??
World governments are OUT OF CONTROL.
They need to be brought to heel.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:56 | 4472451 ejmoosa
ejmoosa's picture
Well, if you have been determined to have no expectation of privacy, what's to stop your government from sharing you with the world?
Absolutely nothing.
Yes, we need to stop this now...
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:16 | 4472541 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture
Tax evasion to be redefined as a crime against humanity.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:17 | 4472543 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture
...for the cheeeldren.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:50 | 4472420 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
Fuck off Simon.
Somewhat off topic, but if I remember correctly, only Russia, China, and Iran don't have a Central bank that is part of the larger western cartel. Is this still the case?
In addition, you don't hear much about Brazil anymore. What happened to the "BRIC" countries leading the world out of recession. Will it simply be the "RIC" countries now?
Yes, a tad bit of sarcasm, still wondering what happened to Brazil? If they go the way of Argentina, it would seem like the dollar might have more problems keeping the hedgemony going.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:52 | 4472436 negative rates
negative rates's picture
You forgot North Korea, other than that you have it right.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:04 | 4472469 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
Libya used to be on the list, but they got nobbled.
Bank Melli (Iran) used to have good relations with the Fed, until the FRBNY stole Iran's gold in a freezing manoeuvre (after the Shah), and had to do a gold swap with the Brits in early 1981 during the hostage crisis to give the Iranian gold back, since the US gold by then was inferior coin bar shit that had been confiscated in the 1930s and melted down. Kit McMahon of the Bank of England flew out to Algeria to make sure the Iranians were not too pissed..
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:57 | 4472456 resurger
resurger's picture
Headshot or cash!! Lol
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:58 | 4472462 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture
What is happening in Brazil LoP ?
Can't seem to find out much.Any sites you might suggest ?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:07 | 4472500 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
Nothing much is happening in Brazil except same old same old...corruption.... but fun as usual...always fun in Brazil
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:15 | 4472535 Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture
Please keep it that way (since you're never going to get rid of the corruption), and don't sign any agreements with devil up north.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:25 | 4472567 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
Well, for one thing, they do keep dollars pretty safe. Reals, not so much.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:51 | 4472432 ugmug
ugmug's picture
Let's all play Pin The Debt On The Turkey, Greece, Frank, Yank, Brit, Kraut, Jap, etc.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:54 | 4472445 negative rates
negative rates's picture
Lets play "in debt we trust".
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:55 | 4472449 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture
So basically what you're saying Simon is that this is world wide and all your advice about escaping to Chile, Switzerland, Peru,________ (insert country of choice here) is bullshit.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:57 | 4472454 g speed
g speed's picture
again i say--gov'ts are obsolete---
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:00 | 4472470 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture
Not going quietly into the long goodnight without trying the Pol Pot solution first.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:57 | 4472457 CitizenPete
CitizenPete's picture
Bullish paper and brain wallets (its a BTC thing), PM, geocaches, MOAR ammo, and Asian / South American banks.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:59 | 4472464 trader1
trader1's picture
simon black is a damn fear monger.
he's beginning to remind me of the cheney-rumsfeld-bush trio.
how did anyone with an IQ over 100 not see this coming?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:04 | 4472484 CaptainSpaulding
CaptainSpaulding's picture
Who is Simon Black?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:16 | 4472539 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
I can't tell you or they'd kill me. All I can say is that Simon Black is an anagram for Scam Bilk On, and also Snack Limbo.
Got the message? God's speed!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:17 | 4472542 trader1
trader1's picture
well, the say a few things about the chap, such as:
"Despite his success, Simon’s ethos is not about the money; it’s about freedom."
and, so why is he charging people for information for which can be googled at will?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:33 | 4472596 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:10 | 4472750 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
Looks like Simon is down arrowing everybody. Like a cornered rat
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 17:59 | 4472466 q99x2
q99x2's picture
What's the best Non-OECD country to live in?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:35 | 4472603 I Drink Your Mi...
I Drink Your Milkshake's picture
I'd say Croatia, untill they adopt the Euro.
Beautiful coastline, insanely good truffles, improving wine industry and great rock climbing.
And the summer yachet scene rivals Cote Azur.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:01 | 4472474 Remnant_Army
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:02 | 4472478 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture
Most ZH-ers scream constantly for government protection from labour competition, for strong government borders, for worship of a big military, for more cops, against free trade.
No wonder they like other people to pay their taxes to support a big government...
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:14 | 4472531 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture
Most ZH'ers believe in the U.S. Constitution as written, the enfrocment of the rule-of-law, and sound money.
Since those three have been shredded and forgotten by TPTB there are a lot of diverget paths about "what should be done"; however, most would lead you back to those three.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:24 | 4472562 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture
Nothing wrong with sound money.. But I have difficulty with the many commenters lately on ZH demanding protectionism. They want tough border control to keep cheaper, more efficient labour out. They want neither true free trade nor today's "managed trade" agreements. They want foreign goods kept out. They support government-enforced "minimum wages". They want consumers to pay more. They want to prohibit outsourcing. They hate "tax evaders" and "evil corporations".
But they love their governments!
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:31 | 4472585 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
"They want tough border control to keep cheaper, more efficient labour out. "-
Hey dipshit, you get what you pay for. Germany has some of the toughest borders and the most efficient skilled labor around.
Good luck building an advanced economy cooking burritos moron.
There already is a legal path to citizenship and paying taxes.
The fucking wetbacks should try it.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:43 | 4472583 agent default
agent default's picture
The reason labour is not competitive IS government. You cannot have the government impose regulations on you and the open the border and tell you to compete with countries with a completely different set of regulations. Also note the inconsistency: They tell you to compete on the open market but playing by their rules, but when it comes to them THEM competing based on tax rules NOOOOO. Then we have to "level the playing field", then we start talking about "social justice".
They make you uncompetitive. They are the reason you lose your job, they are the ones who have created the debt, they are the reason you cannot even plant a fucking carrot in your garden without risking arrest. They have gone this far. You tell them to stop debasing the currency and they ignore you. You tell them to stop bailing out useless entities with YOUR money and they ignore you. You tell them that you cannot take it anymore and they ignore you. And when they cannot ignore the consequences of you running away from them as best as you can they aggressively attack you as if you owed them something.
And a strong military is one thing, a fucking expeditionary force out there fighting colonial war in Iraq and Afganistan, with bases in places I cannot find on the map let alone whose names I cannot even pronounce, is not something I want to do.
I demand a fucking itemized tax bill God damit, I want to know and choose what I pay for. Otherwise.. I have decided to limit my economic activity to the bare minimum standard of living I want. Anything more I make will one way or another be taken away from me. So fuck you. I hope more people start acting like that. Atlas must shrug. It is his only way out of this. Otherwise he will be chained on a rock like Prometheus. \rant
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:03 | 4472481 PaperBear
PaperBear's picture
When will these governments do anything for the people ? Oh silly me, never.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:03 | 4472482 percolator
percolator's picture
One word describes what this is all about: FASCISM
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:53 | 4472670 agent default
agent default's picture
I suggest you look up the tax rates under Hitler and Mussolini before you call this Fascism. This is Marxism. Fascism is when the Globalists of the OECD and other organizations that actualy undermine national sovereignty get a jackboot in the teeth.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:04 | 4472488 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture
OECD = Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developemnt.
In other words, bankster front men. Truly pitiful.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:11 | 4472512 agent default
agent default's picture
I wonder what the reaction will be when Google, Apple and the rest move their bases of operations in Russia, pay 12% flat and tell everyone to fuck off. I mean can you imagine the self righteous outrage and endless waffle for our politicians?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:13 | 4472523 q99x2
q99x2's picture
The OECD nations have shared budgets. The FED will send bailout money to member nations and member nations will buy US Bonds and so on. The citizens taxes of each member country are thus shared among OECD nations.
It is taxation without representation and represents treason by the bankers within each of their respective nations. Unfortunately the banksters have so far been able to control the armies of the nations so there is no way to bring the bankstes to justice at that time.
But things change and not because of fantasy or hope.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:41 | 4472625 agent default
agent default's picture
"The citizens taxes of each member country are thus shared among OECD nations."
I was not aware of that. Do you have any documentation on how the system works? Because whoever put his signature under that agreement is certainly guilty of high treason.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:13 | 4472524 cherry picker
cherry picker's picture
If my government give my info to a another nation I consider it treason-
We need more Ed Snowdens to let the people know what their governments are hiding.
Time to end the NWO. This is not the way I want to live.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:14 | 4472533 NAP
NAP's picture
Has anyone else seen this about Italian capital controls?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:15 | 4472537 Johnny Cocknballs
Johnny Cocknballs's picture
RIP Harold Ramis
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:22 | 4472555 I Drink Your Mi...
I Drink Your Milkshake's picture
Seems Mr. Black doesn't heed his own advice.
Doesn't he claim to own a farm in Chile? They became an OECD member in 2010.
You packing your bags Simon?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:21 | 4472796 Cacete de Ouro
Cacete de Ouro's picture
They say that Simon's farm rears Vicuñas to make soft scarves and hats for Christine Lagarde and the Chilean and Argentine elites.. But I can't bring myself to believe it! That would be so shocking
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 21:48 | 4473386 ParkAveFlasher
ParkAveFlasher's picture
i nominate CDO for anti-Simon champion of the day. Or, +1
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:22 | 4472556 Zymurguy
Zymurguy's picture
All your money are belong to us.
You have no chance to survive make your time.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:34 | 4472599 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
Are you suggesting that bankers earn their interest (for loans created out of thin air- not derived from savings/capital).
What do these paper-pushers actually risk (with Uncle Sam BAILING them out)?
What item of real fucking value do they actually create again (other than financial "products" of mass destruction)?
Get long rope, beat the rush.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:28 | 4472822 trader1
trader1's picture
i applaud the rhetoric, but seriously. you aren't going to catch me part of some delusional mob of bloodthirsty fanatics. i'm sorry, but i try to live by the words of jesus, even though i don't consider myself religious or christian...
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:13 | 4472761 samsara
samsara's picture
I love Pre emptive back burning in the morning, It smells like, desperation.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:37 | 4472609 kellycriterion
kellycriterion's picture
Where are all the comments blaming the banksters, the jews, lobbyists, corps, the wealthy? Everyone knows that politicians and bureaucrats are either corrupt lackeys or well meaning manipulated boobs who have no power.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 18:52 | 4472675 fiftybagger
fiftybagger's picture
Neat new list of countries for Expats with money to boycott:
Silver For The People
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:47 | 4472925 smacker
smacker's picture
Thailand and Brazil = good to go.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 22:25 | 4473531 laomei
laomei's picture
Thailand has a bit of a civil war festering and waiting. Standard situation really. Government makes policy good for the rural areas, not as good for the cities, city folk (despite being the minority) scream bitch and moan and get all bloody with their protests. If you do it the opposite way, you start getting "terrorism" wherein the rural areas start getting getting very sympathetic to anti-government causes. No real easy fix to this and it's eventually going to boil over much worse than it has previously given an excuse.
Brazil: Massive drought, shit's fucked, I sure as fuck wouldn't pull the trigger on that, also far too close for comfort as it's traditional stomping grounds of the US for when the public needs a distraction.
I'd vote Laos if you just want to escape. Because no matter what happens in the rest of the world, no matter how things develop, Laos will always be Laos.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:42 | 4472902 Kirk2NCC1701
Kirk2NCC1701's picture
2 Observations, upon looking at the List of 34 OECD Members:
1. Simon's CHILE is on that list. Simon, count the days that you'll have "privacy" in Chile. Look, having visited Chile (nice country!), if I were as "freedom & privacy" conscious as is Simon, I'd avoid the OECD countries entirely. Especially I had a Plan B, where push came to shove and I wanted to have a stash of cash and a place to live outside the "Uncle Sam hot zone".
2. We know what and how much information is going into Israel, but exactly what type and amount of "information" will come out? Besides a list of "Palestinians abroad" that we are to observe on their behalf and on our dime?
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 19:56 | 4472971 22winmag
22winmag's picture
Maybe Simon isn't that bad after all.
This is like when the states started exchanging criminal records and DMV records ~20 years ago, only 100 times worse.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 22:05 | 4473448 Spungo
Spungo's picture
"I thought it was two in the pink, one in the stink?
Or do I have that backwards?"
It's 5 in the pink, 5 in the stink. This move is called "the IRS"
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 22:24 | 4473528 JLee2027
JLee2027's picture
Sharing data would fall under a treaty, and need to be approved by Congress.
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 23:33 | 4473840 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture
Call me when they decide to do a Switzerland on the Caymans.
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 01:25 | 4474214 Peter Pan
Peter Pan's picture
Forget the exchange of information. Just go for the tax havens. That is where the real money is.
If tax havens are not part of the tax sharing deal then the whole exercise is just a farce.
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 04:49 | 4474413 Counterfiat
Counterfiat's picture
Ah globilism, gobbleism, gobble-you-up-foolism, go gault, yo gaulty, you're guilty, you won't be needing this in jail, jail in bail-in.
| <urn:uuid:412e1c21-b107-411e-a922-2c8e0996fcf6> | 2 | 1.929688 | 0.053896 | en | 0.901531 | http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-24/world-governments-agree-automatic-information-sharing |
This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Interactive Infographic Of The Doomed European Financial System
Tyler Durden's picture
With Europe set to open in a little over 12 hours, and with rumors of Greek default once again flying around in their private taxpayer funded jets (only to turn back to their point of origin shortly after take off), we wish to remind readers that a chart is worth a thousand words. In this case several charts, courtesy of Reuters, which has created the ultimate in interactive data presentations on the Euro crisis. The data aggregates exposure across public debt, bank and non-bank private sectors, debt maturity, default risk. Note that the charts (based on BIS data) only include external-looking debt held on the books, and not debt subsequently repoed back to the ECB, for which the intermediary exposure is back to domestic banks, and the final is to Europe's taxpayers themselves.
First, the doomed periphery...
and on to the core:
and France:
And Germany:
Whose debt matures when, on an absolute basis:
And proportional:
Bank default risk is close to all time highs across the board:
And last, and certainly most important, is the chart Zero Hedge created back in February 2010 explaining why Europe is doomed.
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Comment viewing options
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:08 | 1681954 oogs66
oogs66's picture
Great to get some details. Something big seems to be up this weekend One last gasp to save it all?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:24 | 1682012 Earl of Chiswick
Earl of Chiswick's picture
here's the interactive version standalone
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:26 | 1682016 markmotive
markmotive's picture
Although most think I'm crazy, I believe the hyperinflation case is stronger than ever.
In fact, there is a meaningful risk that the entire Western World hyperinflates at the same time.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:36 | 1682051 maxmad
maxmad's picture
It is called Hyperstagbiflation, bitchez!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:19 | 1682145 espirit
espirit's picture
Time to be handed a hot potato or an empty bag.
Timmah tried to convince everyone else the hot potato was the best choice, as long as he didn't become the recipient.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:01 | 1682606 eisley79
eisley79's picture
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:20 | 1682653 goldm3mb3r
goldm3mb3r's picture
All those countries, borrowing so much money, to spend on total bollocks.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:36 | 1682722 falak pema
falak pema's picture
Oligarchical golden bollocks...that grow like water mellons.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:44 | 1682203 Vampyroteuthis ...
Vampyroteuthis infernalis's picture
No, no it is called debt-deflation bichez!!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:47 | 1682212 Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper's picture
<======== NOT going to feel sorry for France.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:09 | 1682277 Spitzer
Spitzer's picture
debt deflation is a myth you fool. Show me a debtor country who's currency rose in value as their economy imploded...
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:32 | 1682501 Vampyroteuthis ...
Vampyroteuthis infernalis's picture
@Spitzer, 1990's to present Japan. 1930-1933 USA. Deflation is what happens before the currency collapse takes hold.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:06 | 1682621 nasdaq99
nasdaq99's picture
look at the US. bernanke has been printing like a madman trying to stave off debt deflation here and is barely getting 1%. this could be the big one, now that all developed markets are broke. it won't be inflationary.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:03 | 1682411 Troy Ounce
Troy Ounce's picture
Krugflation, I would say.....
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:36 | 1682042 Snidley Whipsnae
Snidley Whipsnae's picture
oogs66... "Something big seems to be up this weekend "
I got that feeling Friday. About 3am Fri, prior to LBMA opening, gold moved up sharply from $1770 range to about $1820 range...on little news that I could find. Of course there is the ongoing banking/soverign crisis around the world so extracting signal from noise is not so easy.
Next week could certainly see fireworks. Benny is having a 2 day meeting with fraudster pals so who knows what new schemes the thieves might dream up.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:54 | 1682095 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
I got the same feeling as well. Moved back to cash and put another 50K in a 1 year CD at 3.5% figured what the fuck, another chunk that I don't have to worry about and that will generate some income without thinking about it. Does anyone think that a world default might be an option? I mean, even China will default when there are no paying customers left. I say America should invite them access to resources at a mega premium and pay off our debt with gold (if it exists). They will build some new infrastructure for us in the process and employment will shoot up. We did a similar thing with the railroad expansion in the 1800's. Funny how that was also a chaotic period.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:21 | 1682146 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture
LOP, are you suggesting the JooBilly? Unlikely. Verrrrry unlikely.
Till there is a public that can be squeezed, public will be squeezed. All this HUGE< BIG< SCREAMING HEADLINE< END OF THE BANKING WORLD noose is only because they will suggest a system that will replace these horrible, irresponsible banks with a transnational Bank (and that is no BiS).
I have another thought though, one that me makes me a leedle more nervous, sitting where I am. And that is, that Asia will take the brunt one more time in a can-kick a la 1997.
Asia (minus China) is so far in the hock or on the carry trade funded, credit fueled hig that they can be played one more time with no significant blow-back.
Then, maybe by year-end, the Faust (I mean First) world will really get it in the nuts.
But that is just a conjecture. I'll say this though, things on the ground are not good. In any dimension except what is magically being reported in the MSM.
Just a crappy situation all around.
Where do we fit?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:23 | 1682152 Snidley Whipsnae
Snidley Whipsnae's picture
I would characterize the railroad expansion era as more than 'chaotic'. It was rife with cronyism, crooked pols, monopolists and thieves, much as we see today.
It's really too bad because the era and it's thieves doomed railroads in the US to a bleak future once the public had the alternative of autos/trucks and highways. Outrageous freight rates, imposed on farmers, oil producers and other manufacturers caused a great hatred of railroads to arise. Many producers would pay more to move their product by truck ... For instance if you were a small time oil producer and moved your oil by rail, you were subsidizing Standard Oil, your competitor in the oil biz...who happened to own the rail road.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:38 | 1682186 bid the soldier...
bid the soldiers shoot's picture
Where does one get a CD at 3.5%? The Bank of Athens?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:13 | 1682291 Corn1945
Corn1945's picture
You don't. He's lying. I've seen three year CDs that are much lower than that.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:39 | 1682481 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
No dipshit, you do. most people do not ask or even manage their company's 401K. As it turns out some financial company's, Valic is one, offer special fixed interest rate accounts to members (basically CDs - caution they also have some of the same stupid rules) that allows you to park funds while you are waiting for conditions to improve. So yes, while this was done through a retirement plan it is basically a CD. In my case the only funds that can be removed from the account are those that were not put in via my retirement contribution and can not exceed 80% of my total holdings in that fund. Most people don't even realize that there are ways to take advantage of your retirement plan providers. Another perfect example is free trading accounts (look, they WANT you to gamble).
In regard to any fixed rate investment, there are the problems; 1) most sheeple don't even manage their own 401ks, so they completely miss stuff like this. 2) These "fixed interest" accounts are disappearing as banks now want to be the only entity "entitled" to collect compound interest.
How do the sheep expect to get ahead when they don't even use tools that may be at their disposal already? Stupid is as stupid does I guess.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:27 | 1682326 11b40
11b40's picture
Wondering the same thing. I just let some roll over.....1%.
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 03:42 | 1687832 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
Do you mean the Chinese workers, the best railroad builders in the world, who built the Transcontinental Railroad (and the Canadian Pacific Railway as well) under the very harsh conditions in 1800s, linking America's east and west coasts?
These "coolie" labor trade in the mid 1800s were made possible as China lost the opium wars for the second time, one concession was the right of foreign powers to recruit Chinese for overseas work. Britain was the first to use coolies. With the prohibition of the slave trade, it needed to replace freed Black slaves on colonial plantations. As it turned out, the depraved conditions aboard coolie ships and of their work were not unlike slavery. More:
However, China today and China in 1800s are totally different! So you just dream on and live continuously under your daylight dreaming illusion!! Some opium may help indeed :D
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:27 | 1682164 Pegasus Muse
Pegasus Muse's picture
Time For Europe’s Bond-Burning Party
Jeff Nielson
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:38 | 1682525 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture
Yep, it is the excessive usury that needs to be ended.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 19:39 | 1683161 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture
One Bond to rule them all, One Bond to find them,
One Bond to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
With Apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 04:26 | 1687859 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
A very clear description, pinpoint to the darkest realities! This message needs to be transmitted to the masses of European and the rest of world (though the facts that they also grip most if not all of the mainstream media, TV stations, publications etc...they've strong & big trumpets using the MSM) to open the people's eyes of the devilish acts of the banksters and their accomplices: those corrupt politicians at the helm of govts, representatives and central banks. People need to wipe out all the devilish plots and punish them severely!!!
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 05:21 | 1687869 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
I do hope that some one (or several) will put this Jeff Nielson's writing in better highlighted places than this commentary section only to reach more and wider readers, have stronger impacts! It's too good to go unnoticed! Thanks for sharing here.
Addition, indeed it's placed in a highlighted place :-) just try to search for it
Meanwhile, here's the original article:
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:08 | 1681956 Long-John-Silver
Long-John-Silver's picture
Bank Apocalypse Bitchez!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:53 | 1682089 Manthong
Manthong's picture
What they don't want to recognize is that their chutes have very large holes..
they are just keeping the show going as long as they can.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:08 | 1681957 rambler6421
rambler6421's picture
Default Bitchez!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:11 | 1681965 Buckaroo Banzai
Buckaroo Banzai's picture
All these charts and graphs are so confusing. I think I'll just buy some more gold.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:12 | 1681966 wombats
wombats's picture
Jeez. How incestuous can it get?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:16 | 1681980 Long-John-Silver
Long-John-Silver's picture
Like going to a family reunion to pick up women.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:18 | 1681988 wombats
wombats's picture
Just like in West Virginia...Incest is best!...Keep it all in the family.
Forget about the gene pool.
Don't worry about anything.
Gubmint will take care of me.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:29 | 1682691 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture
the Rockefellers of West by God Virginia are in bred.
other than that there are Great People in those hills!
where are you from dumb fuck?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:12 | 1681970 spiral_eyes
spiral_eyes's picture
UBS, bitchez?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:14 | 1681975 IMA5U
IMA5U's picture
note the healthy US Capital Ratios vs The Euro Trash
U S A! U S A ! U S A !!
wait, aren't there those massive mortgage law suits? BAC? Yoikes! Those aren't our banks' real capital ratios.....
way to go Obama.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:42 | 1682196 GeneMarchbanks
GeneMarchbanks's picture
Three magic words: OFF BALANCE SHEET
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:33 | 1682707 falak pema
falak pema's picture
Derivatives stash...when netted out...
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:15 | 1681976 daxtonbrown
daxtonbrown's picture
To me this looks really, really, really bad, but I'm an engineer and only do the economics thingy of necessity. How many "reallys" should I be putting before "bad"?? And it looks like the US has 800 billion in total exposure, but not counting off the books stuff. How hosed are we when the avalanche begins?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:18 | 1681986 Long-John-Silver
Long-John-Silver's picture
It matters not where in the rope line your tied when everyone starts getting dragged over the cliff.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:48 | 1682075 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture
Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing. All roped together, all going down together.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 21:25 | 1683386 Cliff Claven Cheers
Cliff Claven Cheers's picture
Isn't that why Tim is in Europe? Trying to get them to print Euros out of thin air because it works so well here in the US.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:25 | 1682013 Snidley Whipsnae
Snidley Whipsnae's picture
"How hosed are we when the avalanche begins?"
Think Niagra Falls
"How many "reallys" should I be putting before "bad"??"
Three isn't enough.
Not to worry... Benny has a printing press and can print up another $trillion or so to paper over this little problem.
Problem is, the problems continue to arise... Anyone with a proven success record in crisis management sould report immediately to the Fed for possible employment...
Your country needs you! (insert poster of Unkle Sam pointing finger)
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:16 | 1681983 Nate H
Nate H's picture
That last chart is pretty misleading.
Fist -you need a measure of the total money supply inclusive of all debt in relation to GDP or some metric of production - this goes beyond Govt or banking sector and includes private, household etc debt. The reality is that just about ALL OECD countries, when viewed by such a metric are between 300-600% of GDP -so debt deflation across the board MUST occur - it just depends on what form.
Also -he China numbers are in big need of update (they are much higher).
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:19 | 1681989 Earl of Chiswick
Earl of Chiswick's picture
you should read the background of the last chart found here
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:53 | 1682029 Nate H
Nate H's picture
read it.
I don't doubt there is huge systemic risk and that its the domino nature of banks at heart of it - just that the ranking of countries risk due only to banks exposure is misleading. My opinion is all OECD nations (including China) are joined at hip financially. Whatever happens is likely to impact us all (or almost all) due to complex interdependent supply chains and lack of import substitution over past 30 years.
And no - I don't think Euro can survive, but hope it does for a few more years so institutions/govt (not the public cheerleaders) can get some things changed/prepared on physical side of economy
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:17 | 1681984 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture
Looking at the situation through financial instruments is doomed to fail.
The euro is a political issue.
The US political philosophy has it that power is exerted institutionally and that the legitimacy of the institutions is renewed each x years.
Once the legitimacy of the institutional power is renewed in key european countries, political decisions will be taken.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:18 | 1681987 LeonardoFibonacci
LeonardoFibonacci's picture
Canadian Maple Leaf gold 1 ounce coins .9999 purity. Good for the soul & tranquility.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:20 | 1681992 ranrun
ranrun's picture
Where is the US version?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:19 | 1682307 IAmNotMark
IAmNotMark's picture
The eagle isn't the American version.
.9999 fine is the buffalo.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:42 | 1682358 Kali
Kali's picture
I like the buffaloes better too, they are much prettier than the eagles.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:21 | 1681996 LeonardoFibonacci
LeonardoFibonacci's picture
A wheelbarrel full of euros, say 1 million euros. Well next week the wheelbarrel will be worth more than the euros it is carrying. So lock up your wheelbarrels folks!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:26 | 1682017 ISEEIT
ISEEIT's picture
Seems that way dude but Ben is likely to teach those uppity Eurocrats a serious lesson. Did you see how ungrateful and disrespectful they were toward our Secretary of the treasury? Poor Timmay was humiliated and paybacks will be a bitch. Europeans will not stand a chance in out spamming the Fed. Political independence be damned I say! PRINT!!!!!!!!!!!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:42 | 1682194 bid the soldier...
bid the soldiers shoot's picture
long wheelbarrows
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:21 | 1681997 ISEEIT
ISEEIT's picture
Call it a pickle, call it pig, call it whatever...But just don't call it a Ponzi. Oh no, just don't call it that.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:22 | 1682003 Baboomba
Baboomba's picture
700+ Billion maturing in less then one year = problems for these five.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:56 | 1682101 shutdown
shutdown's picture
No problem. Simply refinance it.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:29 | 1682026 LeBreizhou
LeBreizhou's picture
That showes that Europe's debt is own by Europeans... If Europe makes Euro Bonds, they would get debt from China or Brasil. Right now Europe as a whole is in the same situation than Japan, they own their own debt.
Is it the case for US? Because if not, Isn't US in bigger trouble than Europe?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:48 | 1682216 bid the soldier...
bid the soldiers shoot's picture
They are joined at the hip. You figure it out.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:29 | 1682027 LeBreizhou
LeBreizhou's picture
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:43 | 1682067 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:29 | 1682028 navy62802
navy62802's picture
Good work by Reuters putting all of that information together.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:30 | 1682030 bugs_
bugs_'s picture
Excellent set of graphics!
Its hard to believe how messy it is and how easy it is to clean up. Let it burn.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:35 | 1682046 LeBreizhou
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:38 | 1682055 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture
So the Japs have 20 billion + exposure to Ireland - Holy Fuck !!!!!!!1
What can the Irish state do ???????? - well whales are a protected species in Irish territorial waters....................................
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:50 | 1682082 richard in norway
richard in norway's picture
are you guys members of the whaling commison if you could sell your vote for say 20 big ones
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:46 | 1682208 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture
Expensive blubber I suppose - but we sold our soul many moons ago , whats a few Cetaceans in the grand scheme of things.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:59 | 1682109 LeBalance
LeBalance's picture
Seems the Japanese are in need of an new island nation home (one that does not glow in the dark) and the Irish are the debtor. Easy fix, eh?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:32 | 1682503 bugs_
bugs_'s picture
good suggestion
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:06 | 1682622 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture
Well we have a few spare Paddy fields we can give them.
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 06:34 | 1687961 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
Then Japs can turn into European for real :D painting their skins to white and doing some cosmetic eye surgery to get wider... hair color is easy to tackle nowadays ... and will get easier to hunt the whales! ckckkkkkk LOL
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:30 | 1682174 Waffen
Waffen's picture
I would gladly give ireland 1 shiny troy oz of Silver a month in exchange for a young promiscous Irish Nanny.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:45 | 1682072 Little John
Little John's picture
Good, clear, informative - Thanks
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 12:58 | 1682104 GeneMarchbanks
GeneMarchbanks's picture
In the last chart every bank over 100% is blowing up as we speak. Dexia leads the way but a close race it is!
Great charts of an even greater circle-jerk!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:05 | 1682118 Nate H
Nate H's picture
just to be clear, with possible exceptions of Amish, off-the-gridders, Buddhist monks, etc. everyone of us residing in those countries and living in the social system of last ~30 years is also part of that 'circle-jerk'....
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:18 | 1682144 GeneMarchbanks
GeneMarchbanks's picture
As an 'off-the-gridder' who isn't in any of those countries, I must say you are correct indeed. Proceed accordingly.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 23:00 | 1683583 PonziBeaver
PonziBeaver's picture
The early ones to the circle-jerk get out with their bonuses and indexed pensions ... everyone else gets a gooey mess!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:25 | 1682157 SwingForce
SwingForce's picture
Turn my green shoots back to brown....
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:38 | 1682184 exiledbear
exiledbear's picture
Ahem. Since when did the U.S. become part of Europe?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:06 | 1682416 lesterbegood
lesterbegood's picture
In 1871 the USG incorporates becoming a for-profit municipal corporation (26 USC 3002)
In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act is passed, handing over the creation and control of the peoples money to private banks (Crown bankers).
In 1921 the Independent Treasury Act is passed, handing over control of the peoples treasury to the IMF. Timmay gets his paycheck from the IMF, not the US Treasury.
In 1933, US, Inc. covertly declares bankruptcy, FDR declares a bank holiday, pulls all gold coin from circulation, and declares personal possesion of gold illegal and orders confiscation of the peoples gold, since it was'nt theirs anymore, in return for made-up money substitute (FRNs). Amended the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 to classify all US citizens as enemy combatants with respect to US, Inc. All public and private lands, people, and everything else the people once owned deeded to the Federal Reserve/IMF as collateral for the national debt.
In 1944, the Breton-Woods Agreement was signed, confirmed by CONgress, whereas US, Inc. quit-claimed the District of Columbia to the IMF.
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 06:25 | 1687951 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
what happened to the site: ??? Server not found!!! RIP already !?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 13:42 | 1682190 Little John
Little John's picture
Sir Edward Grey, British Foriegn Secretary, August 3 1914
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:06 | 1682265 I am Jobe
I am Jobe's picture
Collective failure. Interesting. Time for China to take over and call it China Europe and put the mofo's to work. F this shitz.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:09 | 1682274 Silverhog
Silverhog's picture
When you take one cluster out of the clusterfuck, what happens?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:10 | 1682280 Peter K
Peter K's picture
The fall of Socialism's Western empire is at hand :) Merkel will have her Gorbachev moment in 3......2.......1......:)
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:32 | 1682704 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture
you mean that Wall Street wont get 10 times more Tax Dollars than the U.S. Military next year?
i dont believe you!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:14 | 1682293 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture
for the uk, which, though they didn't join the eurozone, drank the eurotard koolaide anyway:
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:37 | 1682347 lesterbegood
lesterbegood's picture
In my humble opinion, we are on the cusp of a momentous event in human history... the end of an era of illicit corporate governance (corporations pretending to be government), and their fiat monetary systems, both which entirely fraudulent. I believe that a global debt jubilee will be proclaimed and honest, real money will be introduced.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:37 | 1682352 falga
falga's picture
The politicians failed and clearly setting the world up for a catastrophic financial failure in the Eurozone on Sep 20... Lehman moment for Europe!
Not only is Greece bankrupt but the system that caused it to fail is bankrupt! Of course Fed will come to rescue of French banks with open $ swap lines this week but politically this will cause a huge problem for Fed in the US and cause a freeze of any further move and possibly the resignation of Geitner or even Bernanke. fasten your seat belts!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:41 | 1682356 Rastamann
Rastamann's picture
how does that BARNEY SONG go again?
i owe you, you owe me, we are all one big debt laden family
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:45 | 1682364 virgilcaine
virgilcaine's picture
G Pap wants his money..He is running this circus after all.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 14:54 | 1682386 gwar5
gwar5's picture
Bukakke is when they get something else besides eggs on their faces for circle jerking all that bad debt this long. There is much 1 year debt due pronto.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 15:13 | 1682429 steveo
steveo's picture
Xray of Market Internals
Certainly supports theory of a big market move down
Clearly, volatility has formed a bull flag, that means volatility likely to continue going up. However, I wouldn't be the farm on this Xray alone.
At the bottom is Hawaii Trading's custom Vix, we call it VOS (Volatility on Steroids). It is a volatility ratio, which we think is harder to "game", in other words, more likely to nail the truth.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:23 | 1682666 hognutz
hognutz's picture
It's staggering when it is laid out like that..........
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:30 | 1682693 jmcadg
jmcadg's picture
Interesting how France, Germany, UK and US are all on the hook for between 1.3 trillion and 900 billion.
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 16:33 | 1682705 jmcadg
jmcadg's picture
So if you add on UBS 1.5 trillion loss this quarter, how much more fucked are they?
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 17:01 | 1682808 jmcadg
jmcadg's picture
Ooops UBS 1.5 trillion loss, freudian slip!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 17:09 | 1682832 Pacifico
Pacifico's picture
Makes me wonder who goes down first. Well, after Greece that is.
Portugal could be the coup de grace for Spain, Italy appears to be more fragile every day whereas France will be fucked either way.
Anyway...gonna stock up more silver on Monday!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 21:34 | 1683412 Chuck Walla
Chuck Walla's picture
BK in the UK!
Sun, 09/18/2011 - 22:33 | 1683543 FreedomGuy
FreedomGuy's picture
The problem is so big and interconnected that it is depressing. It!s a row of dominoes waiting to be tipped. As I look at the insanity it makes me think that all thes banks and central bankers believe their own BS and act on it. The also believe and act on the BS ratings that Moody's et al put out.
Circling the drain as I see it.
Mon, 09/19/2011 - 00:35 | 1683694 TBTF
TBTF's picture
Oh so many creditors out there. Where are the debtors?
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 01:12 | 1687678 matrix2012
matrix2012's picture
And here's the standalone interactive version of Euro Zone - Bank Exposure by Country,
breakdown by debt type for selected countries:
| <urn:uuid:b7c296e8-dc83-45de-8c9b-409ac5b7ba70> | 2 | 1.578125 | 0.039201 | en | 0.911454 | http://www.zerohedge.com/news/interactive-infographic-doomed-european-financial-system |
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“Those words recall the last time the Enemy declared himself openly leading to the downfall of Eregion, the conquest of Middle Earth outside of Lindon, and a Darkness that was only beaten back by the intervention of Numenor—and that people paid a heavy price for involving themselves with him. He was only defeated by the Last Alliance, and that battle consumed many of the heroes of old. Their like no longer walk this Middle Earth.
“And now… he has declared himself once again, sitting openly in his Dark Tower.
“What drives Sauron to act? For hundreds of years, he lurked in hiding as the Necromancer. One of the missing Istari, we thought him; or perhaps one of the Nine. It was only recently that we discovered his true nature, and our attack cast him out of his fortress. Yes, he retreated from us, but it was no rout. His plans had already been laid.
“I have the unsettled feeling that his pieces are moving on the board, and we have not yet seen the shape of the game. Sauron of old was ever a master of deception and subterfuge. What is he planning? What has changed?
“Rings were the trigger for the last war, but the rings are all accounted for. He has the Nine, and what remain of the Seven are also his. The Three are hidden. The One, says Saruman, lies in the depths of the great Sea. The rings can not be the reason. Does he think that the Seven and Nine are sufficient?
“No, he is wiser than that. There is still strength in Rivendell and Lorien to oppose him, and some in Lindon and in Thranduil’s halls. Durin’s folk are strong once again, as are their allies. Gondor yet stands, and with Rohan and Saruman at their back, Sauron can press them hard, but has no assurance of victory. Isildur’s Heir still walks free, and that is a threat he will not forget.
“And yet he moves.”
“We must begin again to build the old alliances. A good start has been made with Erebor—it will stand Durin’s folk well against what is coming. But what of Eriador? Here is where Isildur’s Heir has his home, but here is where Men are weakest. What if the Enemy raises the banner of Angmar once more? No, a start must be made here as well. And yet, the folk of this land dwell in isolated towns and petty lands. The Free People are mostly estranged.”
Gandalf pulled his booted feet off the hearth where he had propped them to warm, for it was a bitter spring, and a wet one too. Having resolved himself to action, the Grey Pilgrim knew he had to forsake comfort once again, and early to bed would help the early start he must make. But there was one thing he had to do before leaving Bree.
Time to light some sparks.
“Barliman,” he said, signaling the innkeeper’s son. “I have a task for you…”
From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring…
Smaug died in TA 2941, the majority of the Orcs of the North were slain, the King Under the Mountain was restored to Erebor, and the Necromancer was driven from Dol Guldor. These events promised to give the North of Middle Earth a period of peace and prosperity. Since that time, the Dwarves of Durin’s line have made good on that promise, and have greatly prospered in Erebor. Their holdings in the Blue Mountains are reduced, as much of the population left for Erebor, but the mines and halls there remain. In addition, they have founded colonies throughout the Misty Mountains, seeking to reopen mines and secure trade routes and passes. They have even sought to reclaim Moria.
Bard has rebuilt both Dale and Esgaroth, and his kingdom has expanded to encompass the surrounding area. Relations with the Dwarves of Erebor are cordial, as are relations with Thranduil’s people. The menace of Rhun in the East, however, is a constant worry.
The Northmen, distant kin of the Rohirrim, have likewise prospered, and a large group has decamped to settle, once more, in the Dimril Dale outside the east gate of Moria.
The Beorings have spread from the small holding of their founder, and have gathered much of the Woodsmen of the Anduin Vale under their rule. They maintain the road through Mirkwood, and help maintain passes through the mountains. Some of the Beorings are said to have inherited their founder’s ability to change shape.
Peace and prosperity reigned… for a while.
It wasn’t long after the Fall of Smaug, that darkness returned to Middle Earth. Sauron, who had long resided at Dol Guldor in his guise of the Necromancer, returned to Mordor, declared himself openly, and began the rebuilding of Barad-dur. While this was far away from Eriador, it nevertheless cast a pall over the hope that had shortly reigned. In time, dark things crept back into the woods and hills; the Orcs began to multiply once again in the mountains, and the East stirred beyond the borders of Erebor.
It is TA 2989, 48 years after the death of Smaug. It is a time of great opportunity, and yet a time of great danger as the Enemy begins to move.
A Fire Shall Be Woken
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Last modified on 3 June 2014, at 15:01
Guitar/Scale Theory
The Codex Las Huelgas is a music manuscript or codex from c. 1300 which originated in and has remained in the Cistercian convent of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos, in Spain.
The Invention Of NotationEdit
By the 9th century Western music had become standardized into a notational form called nuemes which were shapes that represented notes. One line was used to indicate the middle pitch with nuemes above the line being higher in pitch and the nuemes below the line being lower in pitch. This primitive notational system was more of a memory aid rather than a complete notational system showing exact pitch and duration. To read nuemes you needed to be familiar with the piece of music beforehand. In the 10th century Guido d'Arezzo, a Benedictine monk and Choir Master, extended the one line to four lines and set the exact pitch of each note. This new invention of the stave allowed music to be notated more precisely. Guido d'Arezzo also devised the solfeggio system where a different syllable is sung to each note of an ascending scale:
Today a scholarly approach has been applied to the music of the past in relation to ensuring that the notation is interpreted correctly. An example is baroque music where modern research into the instruments, techniques and approach of this period has led today's musicians to revise their interpretation and performance of Baroque notation.
During the Renaissance Italian composers tried to recreate the plays of Ancient Greece and their experiments led to the invention of Opera. Musicians have always mined the music of the past for ideas and maybe some clue as to the roots of contemporary musical practices. From a musicologist point of view we are living in a Golden Age simply from the fact that mankind for the first time has the ability to record sound. Though we take recorded sound for granted today; it must be said that the future musicologist will find a rich legacy of sound recordings from which to base their research. We can never hear the music of Ancient Greece or the Medieval period; we can only attempt to recreate it. The importance of notation as the only mechanism we had for preserving the music of the past becomes self-evident.
The Church ModesEdit
The music up to the baroque period was created from a form of scales known as the Church Modes which took their names from the tribes of Ancient Greece.
• Ionian - the Greeks who settled on the coast of modern day Turkey.
• Dorian - the Greeks who settled on Crete, Sparta and Corinth.
• Phrygian - the Greeks who moved further inland in Turkey to settle Anatolia.
• Lydian - a Greek tribe also from the Anatolia region of Turkey.
• Mixolydian - the Mixolydian mode was invented by Sappho, the 7th century B.C. poet and musician.
• Aeolian - originally Greeks from Thessaly who spread to the Greek islands and Asia-minor.
• Locrian - inhabitants of the ancient region of Locris in Central Greece.
The Ancient Greeks laid the foundation for the study of music and intervals in a way that has defined Western music ever since. They investigated intervals using mathematics and used ratios to describe these intervals. The Church Modes are not scales from Ancient Greece. The Greeks themselves used a scale system based on the idea of tetrachords. However the debt that the Medieval period owes to the Ancient Greeks is reflected in the naming of the Church Modes. The Ancient Greeks also described their modes as Dorian, Lydian, etc. However this shows a continuity of musical theory rather than practice and the Ancient Greeks used their modes in an entirely different manner to the Medieval method. Here is Aristotle's view of the modes:
"The musical modes differ essentially from one another, and those who hear them are differently affected by each. Some of them make men sad and grave, like the so-called Mixolydian; others enfeeble the mind, like the relaxed modes; another again, produces a moderate and settled temper, which appears to be the peculiar effect of the Dorian; the Phrygian inspires enthusiasm"
The above quote is from a work by Aristotle called Politics; a work about government, society and the individual's role in both. As you can imagine this analysis of music must have appealed greatly to the early Church fathers who sought to find the "right" music with which to worship God.
The Church Modes derive from Gregorian Chant which is a body of liturgical vocal music named in honor of Pope Gregory (590CE to 604CE) who set others to collect all the earlier Christian plainsong for codification. Pope Gregory instigated the revision of the existing liturgical music into a coherent whole and in doing so defined the musical practices of the early Christian faith. With regards to secular (non-religious) music there is not much contemporary information available for the modern reader. The church filling the vacuum left by the demise of the Roman empire became the main conduit of information and therefore the earliest substantial musical literature we have available to study is primarily to do with the musical practices of the Christian church.
As instruments and forms evolved, some of the Church Modes became redundant as musicians found that those modes did not suffice for their musical needs. A few of the Church Modes went on to form the basis of our "major-minor" system and it is from these modes that baroque musicians created the harmonic theory that has dominated music right up to the twentieth century. The earlier Ionian mode is now called the Major scale.
The Piano KeyboardEdit
The keyboard layout of the harpsichord and organ became standardized in the 15th century and the invention of the keyboard played a large part in laying down the foundation of modern tuning practices and theory. Tempered-tuning was adopted as a direct result of these inventions. The earlier system of mean-tuning meant that the errors introduced by the problem of the Pythagorean Comma allowed only a few keys to be played. If a piano was mean-tuned to C major then the player would find that keys further away from this C major center would be unusable. The guitarist can hear this by tuning the guitar in the first postion (first four frets) so that a C major chord is in tune with iself. You will find that the chords in the first postiion are usable but as you further progress up the neck the chords start to sound out of tune. Tempered-tuning spreads the errors introduced by the Pythagorean Comma evenly across the entire range of an instrument. By the time the piano was invented in the 17th century, the tempered C major scale had become the foundation for teaching music theory.
Since the keyboard has been such a dominating force in music, a complete study of scale theory must make some reference to it. Thus, it is best to first look at the piano keyboard and then compare it to the guitar fretboard.
Before you begin it is good idea to familiarise yourself with the notes of the C major scale. Note that it is the convention to use Roman Numerals to label scale degrees
Note C D E F G A B
A piano keyboard showing the C major scale. Note that all the notes of the C major scale are on the white keys.
If you play each key on a keyboard ascending from the middle C (diagram on the right), you will have played the 12 tone chromatic scale. These are all the notes available in Western music. The keyboard of a piano is laid out so that when you play the C major scale, you use only the white keys. The C major scale has no sharps (#'s) or flats (b's) which means that no black keys are used. Only the C major and its relative minor have no sharps or flats; all other scales will have a sharp or flat in their notation.
It is important to recognize that the distance between two adjacent keys is always a semitone. On the guitar the same applies to adjacent frets. Looking at the keyboard diagram you will see that between the C and D is a black key which is a semitone above the C and a semitone below the D. Between E and F there is no black key but it is still notated as a semitone interval. There is also no black key between B and C so they are also semitone neighbours. The 12 tone chromatic scale consists of 12 sounds which are all a semitone apart. The C major scale has seven notes which are represented by all the white keys. At this point it is best to remember that adjacents keys are a semitone apart and that a tone describes keys two semitones apart. Therefore C to D is a tone because there are two semitones - C to C# and C# to D. E to F# is also a tone. All instrumentalists start with learning the C major scale.
As an exercise find the semitones E-F and B-C on the first three frets of the guitar. You'll need the open strings to do this. How many times do these two intervals appear?
In general the pianist will depress notes to form chords that are derived from the scale of the key. Since we know that the scale of C major uses only white keys it follows that the chords to be played are formed using only the white keys. The most basic chord you can play is a triad which cosists of three notes. The simplicity of the keyboard layout means that a piano student will be asked by their tutor to play the seven triads in the key of C major almost immediately. Once they form the shape of the basic C major triad (C-E-G) on the piano it is only a case of moving the shape up through the scale keeping the same fingering and naming the chords appropiately. This is why guitarists sometimes lag behind pianists in understanding harmony because there is no easy visualization of triads. Another area is the quick location of the E-F and B-C intervals. These intervals are easily located on the keyboard by the absence of a black key. The guitar offers no easy visualization. The best approach would be to learn where all the E-F and B-C intervals are in the first position (first four frets) and then do the same for the fifth position (frets 5 to 8). A beginner on the piano will learn where these intervals are within minutes but a guitarist will have to put in a little more time.
Below are the triads for the key of C major. Note that for the Dm and Bdim it is recommended that you use your little finger for the lowest note and for the last triad (C major octave) you use your third finger.
Triads derived from the key of C major for guitar
Structure of the Major ScaleEdit
The major scale (derived from the medieval Ionian church mode) is the main scale currently used in music. It is made up of seven notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. The Italian music system "solfeggio" (a system that has been used for centuries in Italy and is still in use today) where each note is sung using a syllable - "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, (Do)" may help in illustating this concept.
The interval pattern for any major scale is:
It can also be represented as:
with "t" meaning "tone" and "s" meaning "semitone". The choice is yours as to which of the three descriptors you choose to use.
The scale below uses the "tone-semitone" method:
C major scale
Please note that there is a distinction in terminology between American English and UK English. It is common to find the word "tone" used in American English to describe notes whereas in UK English the word "tone" is never used.
For example:
American English: "The leading-tone is always a semitone below the octave in a major scale"
UK English: "The leading-note is always a semitone below the octave in a major scale"
Major scale in the key of C
Two Octaves Of C Major:
C major two octaves ascending at the seventh position
This shape is moveable, and the fingering is shown below
Structure of the Minor scaleEdit
Natural minorEdit
The natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode) is one of the diatonic scales along with the major scale. The word "diatonic" in a modern sense refers only to the major and natural minor scales. In the key of A minor, the harmonic form would be called "non-diatonic" because the seventh note is sharpened.
TIP: Any natural minor scale can be changed into a harmonic minor scale by sharpening the seventh note.
The natural minor scales are all "diatonic" because they consist of the notes from the key they are derived from without any changes. The harmonic and melodic form both contain changes to the original natural minor scale and are therefore "non-diatonic".
Natural minor scales can be created for any key using the formula:
Below is the Am natural (or relative) scale with tones and semitones shown:
Am (natural) scale
Minor scale (diatonic) in the key of C:
Two Octaves Of C Minor:
C natural minor two octaves ascending at the seventh position
This shape is moveable, and the fingering is shown below
Change the C natural minor scale above into a C harmonic minor scale.
Appendices: Dictionary | Alternate Tunings | Chord Reference | Blanks | <urn:uuid:455da7d1-d06f-4fb9-8ab5-b0868f9526fa> | 4 | 4.40625 | 0.128152 | en | 0.938245 | https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar/Scale_Theory |
Melbourne Shuffle
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Melbourne Shuffle
Dance Type Rave dance
Innovator N/A - B-Boys, Cybergoths and Ravers of Melbourne
Year 1980s
Country Australia Australia
Competitions Various globally
Related topics Rave
Trance music
Vernacular dance
The Melbourne Shuffle (also known as Rocking or simply The Shuffle) is a rave and club dance that originated in the late 1980s in the underground rave music scene in Melbourne, Australia.[1] The basic movements in the dance are a fast heel-and-toe action with a style suitable for various types of electronic music. Some variants incorporate arm movements.[2] People who dance the shuffle are often referred to as rockers, due in part to the popularity of shuffling to rock music in the early 1990s.
The origins of the name "Melbourne Shuffle" are unknown. The term was first brought to the public attention by Sonic Animation's Rupert Keiller during a TV interview in Sydney. The Age referred to it as looking like "a cross between the chicken dance and a foot stomping robot" to the untrained eye, and also used the term in their paper,[2] but locals simply called it "stomping".
Early 1990s[edit]
In the early '90s, the Melbourne Shuffle began to emerge as a distinct dance, incorporating more hand movement than its predecessor, Stomping. The music genres originally danced to were House music and Acid house. As Trance music developed, so did the dance, with more accent laid on glide movements.[1]
Where the Melbourne Shuffle was originally danced, the places were not considered to be named 'raves', but rather 'dance parties'.
Mid–late 1990s[edit]
A number of videos about the dance from this era exist as it increased in popularity.[3] Many variations of this dance developed, but the main heel-to-toe movement remained the key motion, giving it the name "the Melbourne Shuffle". Notably arm-movements are much more prevalent than in later renditions of the dance.
In 2004 a documentary titled Melbourne Shuffler began filming in Melbourne clubs, raves,[4] festivals and outdoor events, before being released on DVD in 2005. By 2005, the Melbourne Shuffle had helped to change the sound of hardstyle and hard trance music, with DJs and producers aiming at a constant 140-160bpm speed. By 2006, early hardstyle was largely replaced by nustyle and epic trance -influenced hard trance music at popular shuffling clubs and raves. Nustyle and the newer form of hard trance focused on swung euphoric orchestral-like trance melodies that would suddenly drop (such as by a house exciter) into a constant kick drum that was of preferable speed for shuffling to by the rockers. In 2006 with the rising popularity of YouTube, dancers internationally now contribute to the Shuffle online, posting their own variations and learning from others.[5] As more people have practiced the dance, the dance itself has changed from the majority of hand movements over feet movements, to present day, where it is mostly based on keeping in time with bass beats.
In early to mid-2009 the infectious popularity of the Melbourne Shuffle on YouTube began to calm, but not die, bringing on a new age of shufflers. The dance began to revert to what some people call "Oldschool". This reversion of shuffling consisted mostly of wide variations of the "T-Step" and minimal running man, and is accented by glides and spins. Although this may be referred to as "Oldschool" this new age of style is still very different from the way rockers in the '90s danced. Many of the new wave of rockers perform in cypher. Some of the younger people of this new wave are referred to as teeny boppers (or 'TB(s)' for short). TBs are also generally described as being young people that are not old enough to attend raves, so they dance at school, in a street or in a park instead. Individuals who participate in those aspects of the dance argue that enough of the current Shuffle scene is influenced by Hip Hop (such as the now widespread inclusion of the 'Running Man') that these activities are justified.
Running Man
Originally consisting of the "T-Step" combined with arm movements, during the 1990s the "Running Man" has been adopted into the dance, accentuating the new focus of keeping time with the beat. The "Running man" involves a 2-step motion in which the front foot is brought backwards with two hops while the back foot is brought forwards in a walking motion, creating a "running on the spot" motion, hence the name. The "T-Step" is a fast sideways heel-toe motion on one foot twisting at the ankle. The dance is embellished by spins, arm pumps, slides, and kicks. Modern implementations of the dance include motions from other dances such as Crip Walk, Toprock and Jumpstyle, which have brought the less-adaptive t-step to the background. Some dancers even omit the t-step completely.
Some dancers sprinkle talcum powder or apply liquid to the floor beneath their feet to help them glide more easily, some including 360 degree spins or jumps into their moves.[2] Others apply smooth plastic tape or duct tape to the soles of their shoes.
Although Hardstyle and Hard Trance has been a dominant genre to dance on within the Melbourne Shuffle for many years, referring to the dance with "hardstyle" is incorrect. "Hardstyle" is an umbrella term for many different rave dances globally, as well as a genre of electronic music. Hardstyle is a rave dance, while most other styles were typically performed in clubs and dance parties.
With the spread of the Melbourne Shuffle through YouTube, dancing styles have evolved from each other to a point in which people refer to styles with an abbreviation coming from the area in which the style came from, such as "AUS"/"Melb" (Australia/Melbourne), "MAS"/"Malay" (Malaysia) or "Cali" (California). These distinctions cause a lot of confusion for newcomers and those who are unfamiliar with the dance.
The Melbourne Shuffle dance style has remained relatively underground since its birth in the late '80s and early '90s. The term "Melbourne Shuffle" was recorded in the media when Sonic Animation's Rupert Keiller was interviewed by Rage, an all-night Australian music TV show.[6] The interviewer asked Rupert what his unique style of dance was and the reply was "the Melbourne Shuffle". In December 2002 The Age, an Australian newspaper, made mention of the term in a front page article,[2] attempting to illustrate what the popular Melbourne Shuffle was for the first time to the mainstream public.
Shufflers have taken their art form and self-expressive dance style overseas and are a regular sight to be seen at rave parties in the UK, Germany, Malaysia and also Thailand, where shufflers can be seen shuffling on the beaches of Koh Phangan during the Full Moon Beach Party. The internet has also been a factor in spreading knowledge and interest in the shuffle.
In 2004, Six Flags launched an ad campaign featuring Mr. Six: an old man who performed the Melbourne Shuffle as well as Jumpstyle and Techtonik.[7]
A documentary on the topic entitled Melbourne Shuffler[4] was in production during 2004–2005 and was released in late 2005 on DVD. Another huge contributor to the fame and popularity of the Melbourne Shuffle is YouTube. Every shuffler and shuffle crew found themselves able to support the Melbourne Shuffle and show off their own style and moves; these videos captured everyone's attention.
On 6 September 2008, Network 10 had started filming footage at the Hard Style Dance (HSD).[8] Nightclub for an upcoming Documentary on the Melbourne Shuffle, although no other news has surfaced after the filming of the footage.
In November 2008, "So You Think You Can Shuffle",[9] an Australian YouTube-based video voting competition website was launched, where Shufflers from around the country can showcase their dance skills, comment, and vote on other videos. Starting in 2009 "So You Think You Can Shuffle" also started hosting official shuffle meet-ups and competitions around Australia and Germany.
In December 2008, The Daily Mercury, a Queensland publication, reported on a story about the Melbourne Shuffle's presence in Mackay. It cited the city's high YouTube exposure when compared to other major cities in Queensland. [1]
In August 2009, the German band Scooter featured the shuffle performed by We Dance Hard veterans Missaghi "Pae" Peyman & Sarah Miatt in the video for the single J'adore Hardcore, which was partly filmed in Melbourne.
In 2009, MSO, a Melbourne-based company that produces robotics, rave clothing, music, and art began production on a documentary titled "GLOBAL SHUFFLE 1990:2010". Scheduled for release in 2011, the film contains rare footage from Melbourne's underground dance scene in the '90s and documents the invention and evolution of the Melbourne Shuffle. It will feature involvement from the likes of Dr3kar, Shifter Hardstyle Prodigy, Euphemism, Matthew Moyle, Television Unlimited and Global Village[disambiguation needed].
The official music video for The Black Eyed Peas single The Time briefly features dancers (including himself) in a night club performing the Melbourne Shuffle.
The Electro Hop group LMFAO featured several electro house dancers performing the shuffle in their "Party Rock Anthem" music video. LMFAO also organized an online shuffle contest for their video, the winner appeared in their Party Rock Anthem video. LMFAO are seen doing the Shuffle in the music videos for their singles Champagne Showers, Sexy and I Know It, Sorry for Party Rocking.
In 2011 League of Legends released a character named Viktor who can perform the Melbourne Shuffle by typing /dance into the chat.[10]
In Arenanet's 2012 mmorpg Guild Wars 2 a human character can perform the Melbourne Shuffle by typing /dance into the chat.[11]
External links[edit] | <urn:uuid:e4b30a87-c647-4ac4-a8ba-15f20592e9df> | 2 | 1.679688 | 0.148233 | en | 0.956619 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Shuffle |
How Can We Kill The MegaPixel War?
How Can We Kill The MegaPixel War?
Since the dawn of digital cameras, the megapixel has been the one stat that camera manufacturers and uneducated consumers identified with quality. Sure, back in 2003, the difference between 1.3MP and 3MP was astounding, but in recent years, its became much more arbitrary. With phones like the Nokia Lumia 1020 sporting a 40+MP sensor, is the war back upon us? If so, how can we kill it?
The Nokia Lumia 1020 has gotten a lot of attention since its announcement. People from both sides have came out of the woodwork to express their opinions on this phone/camera combo. As a result, Sony recently teased the public with their latest phone, the i1 Honami, which is harnessing a 20 MegaPixel camera. All accounts seem to show that a mobile version of the freshly dead megapixel war is upon us, so what can we do to swiftly end it?
First, we must talk about far more important features. Magic Lantern recently enabled 14 stops of dynamic range to the Canon 5d Mark III and Canon 7d, a statistic that is going to improve image quality far more than a pixel density count on the sensor will. Essentially, dynamic range is just a figure to determine how much detail is able to be captured in the shadows and highlights in your images (It’s far more complicated than that, but lets not give a science lesson here). By in large, dynamic range stops is a statistic far more useful than mega pixels ever will be.
Secondly, memory is going to be a far bigger issue than ever. With phone companies slowly ditching expandable memory, consumers are going to run into a very real problem with these large image producing cameras. The test photo released by Nokia last week, is 13 MBs in size. That is less than 700 images on an EMPTY 16gb card before being completely full. Like most people, I have images on my phone from a year and a half ago. Changes like this will force us to change the entire dynamic we have with our smart phone cameras.
Third, is the pixel density of such a camera. While the sensor is still larger than most any other sensor we've seen for a cell phone, it still lacks the size it needs to accommodate that much pixel density. Canon for example, didn't produce a large mega pixel camera with their release of the Canon 5d Mark III because the tech didn't feel ready for them. If a camera with a three times the sensor size of the Nokia Lumia 1020 doesn't feel ready for the 40+ MP range, what makes you think a camera phone will be able to do it with any success whatsoever? The sample photos for the 1020 had a decidedly "finger-painted" quality to them when zoomed at 100%. This was a direct result of over shooting the capable pixel density for a sensor that size.
Finally, we must address the practicality of it. In 2011, HTC released the first 3d phone. It contained a 3d enabled screen, and 5MP dual lens 3D camera on the back. Everyone was buzzing, claiming this was the future, and the concept inevitably flopped because it simply wasn't practical. So far in fact, that even ESPN has recently ended their 3D enabled networks, claiming that the market simply wasn't there. A 41MP sensor on a phone falls under that same discussion. Instagram is going to take that photo, and shrink it to 500px by 500px. Facebook will surely reduce it to around 1300px long edge. So where is the practical purposes of such a camera?
Phones aren't designed to be your best camera. If I want to take a quality photo to use for my portfolio or otherwise, I will always use my DSLR. If I want to take a photo to show friends and family what I'm doing at this very moment, I'll use my cell phone. This is the common separation that companies such as Nokia haven't seemed to figure out. A cell phone camera needs to have personality, not over compressed image sensor highlighting its latest gimmick. By their very nature, they need to be designed to best show a glimpse into our daily lives, and megapixels don't mean a thing in my day to day life, especially when they end up hindering you. By creating phones with features of this nature, you're creating a comparison to much higher end DSLRs and I think we can all agree that we don't want to travel down that road.
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Jaron Schneider's picture
I think I speak for everyone when I say I don't want to wait 5 minutes for my phone to download a sext message.
Jaron for the win!
Roman France's picture
Boobs in 41 megapixels or 5 minutes? What is the more important?
The 5 minutes.
41MP boobs on a 4-inch screen: pointless.
Pinch-to-zoom, and:
Nokia 1020 has a 4.5" display, with 1280x768 resolution (332 PPI)
An avarage 24" desktop display has 1920x1080 resolution and 92 PPI... that is a joke!
The Lumia 1020's screen resolution nearly equal to the quality photo print.
BTW sexting is a stupid thing as the alcohol-free beer.
Nah, I'll stick with real life where my "pinch-zoom" feature gets those sexy giggles. And the resolution of the human eye is 576MP.
Higher resolution and true touch-technology. Real life wins.
Well... a couple of points
but an inflation in megapixels is the only thing that can make your member appear ... largish
I can do that with a Fresnel Magnifying Sheet for $0.53.
Roman France's picture
I don't understand the issue here. It's not like the Lumia 1020 is going to make any kind of dent in the market anyway. Neither is the SONY device. They don't set the standards for the mobile phone industry, Apple, Samsung, and to a smaller extent HTC do and neither of those companies are chasing megapixels. With that being said, based on what I've been told from friends that have used the 1020, it has the best image quality of any smartphone so whatever they are doing is working. There are tangible improvements over the competition. This post and a few of the other posts on this topic here at FStoppers reek of insecurity.
Jaron Schneider's picture
Part of what you say makes sense, but don't you think they really want to make a dent in the market? That they want to set standards? They can't possibly be content with existing on the fringe. So they're pushing something that is rooted in a lie (that megapixels matter) in an attempt to wow people into buying product and therefore making themselves relevant. Sure, the camera is really nice, but the concept here is what I think Zach is trying to speak about, not necessarily the quality of this one camera phone:
Megapixels don't matter, and no one is benefitting from the continual moves companies are making that argue otherwise. Let's have a dynamic range war. That sounds more fruitful.
Roman France's picture
They can want all they want, but this is a Windows Phone 8 device and it's a distant third in the mobile OS world and will stay that way. Nokia has been doing these crazy camera phones for a while now. No one has flocked because ultimately people don't care that much, because they know their images will either live on the phone, facebook or instagram. I like the idea of having a super dope, manual control camera/app in my phone. Puts me off of buying smaller point and shoot or Coolpix A style bodies for trips when I don't want to lug my D800 around.
The idea that megapixels don't matter is a bit bizarre. Have you seen daylight shots from the HTC One in comparison to higher megapixel phone cameras? It's a no contest. The images lack sharpness and clarity. It's a trade off. If you want to talk about the road of diminishing returns in terms of megapixel count okay. But disregarding them as a whole is silly. This camera is also actually a 38MP camera not a 41, but that's a minor point.
EDIT: I only brought up the HTC One because of its 4MP camera that HTC pitched as ultrapixel. They tried the whole "hey it's better in low light, you don't need all them megapixels!" and it didn't quite work out that well for them. Again, doesn't mean that people want 38MP either.
Jaron Schneider's picture
Right. Law of diminishing returns is a great way to describe it. I'm saying that in the "Reasons to buy our phone" category, Nokia is flaunting one thing above all: 41 megapixels. As you say, it's just one part of a larger puzzle. And I agree. And I'm saying it's perpetuating misinformation.
Well. With all the respect but I would first wait for the production samples, make a test myself and compare the results with other phone cameras.
Without trying the camera myself I wouldn't make any conclusions or even write posts about that. It's to early and we are talking about something that we don't know exactly what we are talking about.
I agree that the quality of their camera photos may be better if they would improve the dynamic range instead of increasing the megapixels. But we don't know the technology behind. Maybe they did something with this camera that blows away anything else on the market.
I currently have a Nokia Lumia 920 phone and comparing its night shots with Apple iPhone 5 it simply blows away the iPhone even when iPhone uses HDR. So why not increasing the pixel count when still maintaining the better quality comparing to the competition?
But regarding Windows Phone 8 being a distant third. Well. I would take a look from the other side.
Apple Mac computers only have about 14% of the world market. Does that mean Macs are bad and useless devices because they only have 14%?
And iOS which currently only have 16-17% of the world market share and this share is still falling. It is expected the market share will fall under 10% in 2014. This is not that far away from the market share that Windows Phone 8 currently have.
Jaron Schneider's picture
We have plenty of samples. In fact, we have several that Nokia has provided, which means you know they are the best images they could produce in certain circumstances. So I feel like we can cast at least a little judgement since we know what it can do at its best. At its worst is yet to be seen.
Also, this was never about Android vs iOS.
Look up comparisons made with the Nokia pureview 808. There are in depth reviews around of it's camera. That's the same tech used in the 1020, except the 1020 is slightly more advanced now and has Optical image stabilization like the 920 which means darker lit images will be better now compared to the 808.
Roman France's picture
I don't know what you're talking about. iOS has 39.2 percent market share behind Android's 52%. Windows Phone has 3%. Facts are right here. I would also prefer for you to not assume things. I never said it was useless or a bad device because it ran Windows Phone 8... I just implied no one would buy it.
Your link is just about the US market share and the US market is just a fraction of the worlds market.
In Russia for example, which is a huge market, all the major three mobile providers dropped support for iPhone and the iOS market share is already at 8.3% while Windows Phone market share is at 8.2%.
Roman France's picture
I stand corrected! Thanks for educating me Peter!
Thats something rare to see. Congrats on giving the reason to the other side of the argument! :)
It's also worth noting here that in Russia last week all the major carriers announced they will be dropping Apple iPhones citing something along the lines of "Apple is too hard to do business with and the Nokia devices have a deep rooted love with the Russian people".
I know that this has nothing to do with the above story but within context of the thread regarding market share it will in the next quarter statistics.
I ditched my longtime using/upgrading iPhone over the Lumia 920 for those very same reasons Peter. And I won't be coming back anytime soon.
Andrew Griswold's picture
Strongly agree, I want a camera with a killer dynamic range!!
Spy Black's picture
You delude yourself into believing that only Apple, Samsung, and HTC are the only ones that can be trendsetters. You also delude yourself that these companies won't chase megapixels.
I think the article is unnecessarily pessimistic. Sure, megapixels are not important (not alone) but the improvements in technology in cell phones are pushing the improvements in compact cameras (lenses of 1.4, sensors bigger to one inch, raw support, etcetera), and the improvements in compact cameras are pushing improvements in bigger players so now there are mirrorless cameras, zoom cameras with better optics, more full frame options.
I could say to the writer to "DSLRs aren't designed to be ur best camera. If I want to take a quality photo to use for my portfolio or otherwise, I will always use my MEDIUM FORMAT digital camera" lol.
Said that I am not a pro, so if I going to have a cell phone I expect it has the better quality possibly. A DSLR is a machine to the study, not to the pockets, imho.
Andrew Griswold's picture
Let me get this straight Zach, you are saying megapixels are EVERYTHING in photography and thats all that matters to get a good picture?
Zach Sutton's picture're absolutely right :-p
Oh good grief. Not another...-_- megapixels are just a nice an image...
Jason Vinson's picture
yup! time to stop the megapixel war and start the cheap sensor size was! lets get the cost of medium format down some!! | <urn:uuid:824f6d38-ca37-4871-9593-18c8c97ff737> | 2 | 1.664063 | 0.181828 | en | 0.963334 | https://fstoppers.com/originals/how-can-we-kill-megapixel-war-2752 |
Marc Lehmann
PApp::Prefs - manage user-specific data.
use PApp::Prefs;
# see also PApp::Session and PApp::Env
This module manages user-specific preferences, which are simply values that get associated with a particular user.
lockprefs { BLOCK }
Execute the given block while the user preferences table is locked against changes from other processes. Needless to say, the block should execute as fast as possible. Returns the return value of BLOCK (which is called in scalar context).
$prefs = new PApp::Prefs [$pathref]
Creates a new PApp::Prefs object for the given application path. A reference to the path variable must be apssed in, so that changes in the path can be tracked by the module.
$prefs->set($key, $value)
$ref = $prefs->ref($key)
Return a reference to the preferences value (i.e. a PApp::DataRef object). Updates to the referee will be seen by all processes.
$prefs->user_get($uid, $key)
$prefs->user_set($uid, $key, $value)
$prefs->user_ref($uid, $key)
These functions work like their counterparts without the user_-prefix, but allow you to specify the userid you want to query.
@uids = $prefs->find_value($key, $value)
Return all user ids for which the named key has the given value.
Useful for login-type functions where you look for all users with a specific value for the "username" key or similar.
PApp, PApp::User.
Marc Lehmann <> | <urn:uuid:2320f9d0-bdbd-4c20-8b3b-761c96de3188> | 2 | 1.640625 | 0.971569 | en | 0.754156 | https://metacpan.org/pod/release/MLEHMANN/PApp-1.45/PApp/Prefs.pm |
DateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator Property
Gets or sets the string that separates the components of a date, that is, the year, month, and day.
Namespace: System.Globalization
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
public string DateSeparator { get; set; }
Property Value
Type: System.String
The string that separates the components of a date, that is, the year, month, and day. The default for InvariantInfo is "/".
The property is being set to null.
If the custom pattern includes the format pattern "/", DateTime.ToString displays the value of DateSeparator in place of the "/" in the format pattern.
The date separator is derived from the ShortDatePattern property. Your applications are recommended to set the short date pattern to the exact value of interest, instead of attempting to have the date separator replaced. For example, to obtain the pattern MM-DD-yyyy, the application should set "MM-DD-yyyy" specifically. This also permits the setting of patterns such as "MM/DD, yyyy" that don't contain a traditional separator between all parts of the format.
.NET Framework
.NET Framework Client Profile
Supported in: 4, 3.5 SP1
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The Moral Argument
A few weeks back Utah state senator Stuart Reid defended his vote against the anti-discrimination act protecting employment and housing rights of people of gender and sexual diversities. He stated he did so because he believes homosexuality to be immoral. In summary his argument was as follows and I quote: “When society, through its government, identifies something to be immoral, it is by definition discriminating against that thing, act or behavior by setting it apart as harmful to society. Under Utah law, something identified as moral receives preferential treatment and something identified as immoral receives discriminatory treatment. … In short, if homosexual activity is not immoral, then end discrimination in all its forms against it. If it is immoral, then government should protect against its harm to society and does not provide special rights in support of it[i].”
Now, as a gay man, I have to protest his claim that I am immoral based on the inherent state of who I am. But I have to say there is coherence in his argument that I have not seen in recent history of conservative politics. Frankly, he is making a solid point in how we as a society have operated.
He is correct in stating as a society we have legislated / discriminated against that which was deemed *immoral*. And as he stated in his response, we either did nothing about the immoral behavior or we sanctioned it without enforcement, or we punished it. We promoted what society thought was moral and discriminated against that which we considered immoral. Slavery and polygamy were accepted as moral behaviors until the majority deemed it immoral. The reverse is also true in this country. Integration and interracial marriages were considered unacceptable and immoral until the majority deemed them moral.
And we as a country are still undecided regarding the morality of marriage between first cousins. It is allowed in sixteen states, banned in 25 states, and carries a criminal offense in the remaining states. Is it moral? Sixteen states say yes and for the record the majority of New England states and southern states are in agreement in this regard.
The reason given for its being immoral is the possibility of deformed children being born to these unions. Some states require sterilization before such marriages can be allowed. However, these 16 states recognize that the threat of birth defects is only marginally higher between first cousins than between second or third cousins or in non-related spouses.
However, Texas, which instituted their ban against marriage between first cousins in 2005, makes it a felony charge with possible prison up to 20 years. Conviction of having sex with your first cousin, regardless of marital status, results in registration of being a sex offender. Being designated a sex offender carries with it an emotionally charged reaction from the society at large as this designation is often used to warn against pedophiles. Marrying your first cousin is not the same as violating a child, yet the stigma is applied making marrying your first cousin as severe a crime as pedophilia. Is it therefore immoral behavior? For us living in a country where the rule of law is held as a moral compass, we have conflated law-abiding with morality.
Conflating the two, however, is troublesome. What is legal does not automatically equate with what is moral. It was perfectly legal to have whites’ only entrances and toilets in the early half of the 20th century. It was perfectly legal to have children under the age of 15 work in dangerous factories in the 19th century. It was perfectly legal to outlaw Jews in Nazi Germany and send them to their deaths. And it is currently perfectly legal to define marriage as one man one woman. Are any of these legalities moral?
Just because something is legal or illegal does not make that thing also moral or immoral. The stronger reason why slavery, polygamy, pedophilia, racist segregation, child labor is considered immoral not because it is illegal but because of the imbalance of power and potentiality of emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual abuse in the relationships. Not only for the one who has no power in these relationships but also for the one in the dominant role. Consensual marriage with your first cousin does not automatically mean an unequal power dynamic.
And the moral argument is also raised when it comes to a woman’s right to choose. Society has said, albeit with exceptions, that killing another human is immoral. The exceptions seem to be acts of war, self defense, and the death penalty. Even these exceptions have been questioned. So we now have the dilemma of the unwanted pregnancy. When does life begin? When is the fetus a human baby and therefore immoral to terminate?
It is an issue that will probably never ever be fully settled because even within the same dominant religious tradition within this country there are two definitions of when life begins. The first is the belief that life begins at first breath. This is referenced several times in the Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis and elsewhere. The second is the belief that life began before birth with the Hebrew Psalms declaring that one’s destiny was written even while within the womb.
The first supports a theology that humans have agency, free will, the ability to choose and that agency/ that choice began with the infant drawing its first breath. The second develops a theology that humans do not have agency, that their lives are pre-determined, pre-destined by a god who has already decided who is to destined for salvation and who is destined for eternal damnation.
The first supports that the woman also has agency, free will, the ability to choose and create her destiny. The second supports that the woman does not have agency. She is only a vessel for her offspring, the continuation of the species and any greatness she may achieve is through the fruit of her womb. There are sacred and poetic texts extolling the womb of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her value is only in the fact that she gave birth to a long awaited heir to the throne of David, a messiah, a king.
The followers of the theology that people have agency would say that the woman needs to enter pregnancy willingly and knowingly of the consequences of nurturing a child. Therefore if she becomes pregnant against her will or does not for her own reasons believe she can accept or support the consequences of pregnancy she has several options to choose. She may opt to support the pregnancy and raise the child or offer the child into adoption, or to terminate the pregnancy. The fetus inside her is not a human being until it can draw its first breath or other wise be viable outside of the womb. And should she choose to have an abortion; the theology declares no shame in that decision.
The followers of the second theology would declare the rights of the fetus supersede the rights of the vessel that carries it. To end the pregnancy they argue would be in violation of one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill. Murder we have already stated has an exceptions clause but this apparently is not one of them. Those advocating Personhood rights at conception state that terminating a fertilized ovum would be murder punishable, at the very least, by a long prison sentence and depending on how the laws are written possibly by capital punishment-the death penalty. Those who protest against abortion tend to add the stigma of shame into the equation for those women who made a choice to do what nature does over 75% of the time[ii] with all conceptions. I would argue that personhood bills create an unfair power dynamic over the woman, restricting her ability to have agency in her life just as slavery, polygamy, pedophilia, racist segregation, and child labor restrict the ability of agency for those trapped in such situations.
There is one more piece of the puzzle regarding determining what is moral. Does morality come from within or is it imposed by some outside force, say a deity or a government?
Those who argue for an end for a woman’s right to choose also tend to argue that morality is imposed by an outside force, namely a deity. The belief again is that humanity has no agency to determine its path. Therefore, without the presence of an all judging god, humanity will of its own chaos reduce itself to immoral behavior as normative. The argument therefore states that Humanity / society must therefore be constrained by outside forces be it governmental or be it a deity.
Unitarian Universalists have long argued that within each person is the agency to choose the best path. Given the options, the pros and the cons, the parameters in which they find themselves a person will be able to make the best decision specific to their circumstances. Making decisions that are morally sound are not easy tasks.
Is morality universal or is it relational? Or is it a combination of the two? I suggest that morality is indeed both universal and relational. All of our world religions have some form of the Golden Rule, which implies some universality to what may define moral behavior. I would love for people to treat me with shrimp and caviar so in my desire to be so treated I decide to treat others with shrimp and caviar; yet there are people that if I offer them shrimp and caviar it is as if I am offering them death because they are allergic. So the universal does not always work in the specific. It would be better if I who love shrimp and caviar offer an assortment of foods that can be chosen freely by others. There are no absolutes in the specifics of living day to day.
I would question my friends who had to have their god observe absolutes. My friends would state that abortion was always the wrong choice, no matter what. I would ask them a question. Is god a loving, compassionate, god? Yes, they would answer. What if in god’s loving compassion towards a young woman who was so wounded from living in a sexually abusive home that to have a child at this time would only ensure that the child would be equally wounded. Would that god allow an abortion as being more merciful to the young woman than to have her endure a pregnancy and have a child that she in her wounded state does not have the skills to raise? They were never able to see god being merciful in such a manner. They were never able to see god being gentle with this young woman and grace her with a chance to heal the scars of spiritual and physical violence before becoming a mother. In short, they could not accept that even god might show mercy when they could not.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even criminals love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even criminals do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even criminals lend to criminals to receive as much back. (Luke 6 Fred’s paraphrase)
Blessed Be.
The Moral Argument by Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered on 14 April 2013 © to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa
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Three-phase electric power
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Three phase current flow
Thee-phase electric power is a method to generate, transmit and distribute AC electricity. It is the most common method in power systems to transfer power from generation to load. Three-phase system is usually more economical to be used than the equivalent single-phase or double-phase system. | <urn:uuid:c286b3c2-6755-412e-8df6-1428256420d2> | 3 | 3.296875 | 0.076547 | en | 0.906662 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power |
Journal Writing Topics for September
Journal Writing Topics for September
(Prompts for developing Personal Narratives)
Directions: Select and write at least one paragraph on one topic in your journal notebook. Paragraphs should be a minimum of 5 sentences and include a topic sentence, body and closing sentence. Remember to provide supporting details, sounds, tastes, smells, dialogue, thoughts and feelings to help develop your personal narratives.
· Describe a dream that you had recently.
· The best lesson my grandparent (or parent or any relative) ever taught me was …
· Tell about an event in your life that has caused a change in you.
· I was most angry when …
· Describe your perfect vacation.
· My worst mistake was …
· Describe one time when you were brave.
· Describe the worst day you ever had.
· Describe the best day you ever had.
· Describe the time you laughed the hardest.
· Describe your most embarrassing moment. What made it so embarrassing?
· Describe a situation when you felt left out. How did you handle the situation?
· What is the most difficult problem you’ve ever had? How did you solve it?
· Describe a situation in which you buckled under peer pressure. Are you proud of what you did?
· Describe a situation that made you very angry. How was the situation resolved?
· Describe a special time or adventure that you have had.
· Describe a childhood memory.
· Tell the story of an event in your life that seemed bad but turned out to be good.
· Describe a time when you achieved a personal goal and how it felt. Tell how you met your goal and why the goal is important to you.
· Describe a snow day off from school that your remember. Tell what you did and how wonderful or bad the day was.
· Describe your experiences on the first day of school for any grade and what impressed you most about your experience. | <urn:uuid:a53184d8-ba66-43f5-a956-f3dcb2355850> | 3 | 3.4375 | 0.999956 | en | 0.880262 | https://sites.google.com/a/stclaresi.com/mrs-twohig/home/7th-grade-religion-homework/journal-writing-topics-for-september |
Cancel one meeting in a recurring series
Cancel one meeting in a recurring series
It’s possible to delete one meeting within a recurring series without deleting the entire series. Attendees will be notified the particular meeting is cancelled and the meeting will be removed from everyone’s calendar.
1. On the Navigation Bar, click Calendar.
2. Click the meeting you want to cancel, but don’t open it.
3. Click Meeting Series > Cancel Meeting > Cancel Occurrence.
Cancel Occurence command on the ribbon
1. Type a message to let the attendees know why the meeting is cancelled. It’s not necessary, but it helps to avoid confusion.
2. Click Send Cancellation.
Send Cancellation button in a meeting window
The meeting, including any meeting agendas, notes, and attachments, is deleted.
To cancel all meetings in a recurring series before the first meeting, see Cancel all meetings in a recurring series. If the meeting series has already begun, see Cancel all future meetings in a series.
Applies To: Outlook 2013
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Bioengineering Magnets
For a number of animals, including birds, fish and mammals, there is evidence that magnets are used for orientation. However, little is known about how these organisms build these magnets. For magnetotactic bacteria we have isolated a protein that will drive the formation of magnetic particles. We using this protein to discover how these bacteria produce magnets by the process called biomineralization.
This project involves working with proteins and mutant proteins with altered activity and making a variety of biochemical and biophysical measurements of the proteins and their magnetic products. It may also involve working with the bacteria to create mutant bacteria that might produce different types of magnetic crystals. We expect that this project will lead to understanding how the bacteria produce the magnets that orient to the earth's poles. With this knowledge we can devise materials in which magnets are grown in predefined locations and to specifications of size and magnetic character.
Mentor: Marit Nilsen-Hamilton, professor, Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Iowa State University | <urn:uuid:fcf6b044-e268-41cc-af6d-ecce7736c755> | 4 | 3.5625 | 0.252852 | en | 0.922585 | https://www.ameslab.gov/education/suli/2014-bioengineering-magnets |
Peter, where are you?
Peter, where have you been?
Peter, where were you?
Peter, what have you seen?
A Glow, a light that shines
A Joy, a radiant joy!
A Knowing, between to minds
A Fear, to be fates toy
Peter, where's this land we near?
Peter, how come Neverland?
Peter, Is that bells I hear?
Peter, how can you bear to land?
A Flight, beyond compare
A Joy, a radiant joy!
A feeling, brief but rare
Ignorance = eternal boy
Peter, do you e're regret
Choices make that you beget?
Die is cast now – Life, or Death
Love will provide heigth, width and depth
A Glow, a Joy, a Knowing, a Fear,
A Flight, a Feeling, an Ignorance
Telling what will happen when
Telling what has happened since
Where are you?
Where do you fly? | <urn:uuid:5e27da2b-70c4-483f-a5bc-e678b8643b87> | 2 | 1.757813 | 0.376226 | en | 0.866989 | https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7293444/1/Peter-s-Flight |
Documenting our Application in Apache Struts 2 (part 1)
A beginner’s guide for Java developers
Documenting Java
Everybody knows the basics of documenting Java, so we won't go into much detail. We'll talk a bit about ways of writing code whose intention is clear, mention some Javadoc tricks we can use, and highlight some tools that can help keep our code clean. Clean code is one of the most important ways we can document our application. Anything we can do to increase readability will reduce confusion later (including our own).
Self-documenting code
We've all heard the myth of self-documenting code. In theory, code is always clear enough to be easily understood. In reality, this isn't always the case. However, we should try to write code that is as self-documenting as possible.
Document why, not what
Ever seen this?
a += 1; // increment a
This is the most useless comment in the world.
Firstly, it's really obvious we're incrementing something, regardless of what that something is. If the person reading our code doesn't know what += is, then we have more serious problems than them not knowing that we're incrementing, say, an array index.
Secondly, if a is an array index, we should probably use either a more common array index or make it obvious that it's an array index. Using i and j is common for array indices, while idx or index is less common. It may make sense to be very explicit in variable naming under some circumstances. Generally, it's nice to avoid names such as indexOfOuterArrayOfFoobars. However, with a large loop body it might make sense to use something such as num or currentIndex, depending on the circumstances.
With Java 1.5 and its support for collection iteration, it's often possible to do away with the index altogether, but not always.
Make your code read like the problem
Buzzphrases like Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and Fluent Interfaces are often heard when discussing how to make our code look like our problem. We don't necessarily hear about them as much in the Java world because other languages support their creation in more "literate" ways. The recent interest in Ruby, Groovy, Scala, and other dynamic languages have brought the concept back into the mainstream.
Fluent interfaces are slightly more difficult to define, but can be thought of as an internal DSL that "flows" when read aloud. This is a very informal definition, but will work for our purposes
Java can actually be downright hostile to some common DSL and fluent techniques for various reasons, including the expectations of the JavaBean specification. However, it's still possible to use some of the techniques to good effect. One typical practice of fluent API techniques is simply returning the object instance in object methods. For example, following the JavaBean specification, an object will have a setter for the object's properties. For example, a User class might include the following:
public class User {
private String fname;
private String lname;
Using the class is as simple as we'd expect it to be:
User u = new User();
Naturally, we might also supply a constructor that accepts the same parameters. However, it's easy to think of a class that has many properties making a full constructor impractical. It also seems like the code is a bit wordy, but we're used to this in Java. Another way of creating the same functionality is to include setter methods that return the current instance. If we want to maintain JavaBean compatibility, and there are reasons to do so, we would still need to include normal setters, but can still include "fluent" setters as shown here:
public User fname(String fname) {
this.fname = fname;
return this;
public User lname(String lname) {
this.lname = lname;
return this;
This creates (what some people believe is) more readable code. It's certainly shorter:
There is one potential "gotcha" with this technique. Moving initialization into methods has the potential to create an object in an invalid state. Depending on the object this may not always be a usable solution for object initialization.
Users of Hibernate will recognize the "fluent" style, where method chaining is used to create criteria. Joshua Flanagan wrote a fluent regular expression interface, turning regular expressions (already a domain-specific language) into a series of chained method calls:
Regex socialSecurityNumberCheck =
new Regex(Pattern.With.AtBeginning
Whether or not this particular usage is an improvement is debatable, but it's certainly easier to read for the non-regex folks.
Contract-oriented programming
Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a way of encapsulating cross-cutting functionality outside of the mainline code. That's a mouthful, but essentially it means is that we can remove common code that is found across our application and consolidate it in one place. The canonical examples are logging and transactions, but AOP can be used in other ways as well.
"Design by Contract" is a registered trademark of Interactive Software Engineering Inc. Other terms include Programming by Contract (PbC) or Contract Oriented Programming (COP).
public void push(final Object o) {
What happens if we attempt to push a null? Let's assume that for this implementation, we don't want to allow pushing a null onto the stack.
* Pushes non-null objects on to stack.
public void push(final Object o) {
if (o == null) return;
Once again, this is simple enough. We'll add the comment to the Javadocs stating that null objects will not be pushed (and that the call will fail/return silently). This will become the "contract" of the push method—captured in code and documented in Javadocs.
The contract is specified twice—once in the code (the ultimate arbiter) and again in the documentation. However, the user of the class does not have proof that the underlying implementation actually honors that contract. There's no guarantee that if we pass in a null, it will return silently without pushing anything.
The implied contract can change. We might decide to allow pushing nulls. We might throw an IllegalArgumentException or a NullPointerException on a null argument. We're not required to add a throwsclause to the method declaration when throwing runtime exceptions. This means further information may be lost in both the code and the documentation.
Eiffel has language-level support for COP with the require/do/ensure/end construct. It goes beyond the simple null check in the above code. It actively encourages detailed pre- and post-condition contracts. An implementation's push() method might check the remaining stack capacity before pushing. It might throw exceptions for specific conditions. In pseudo-Eiffel, we'd represent the push() method in the following way:
push (o: Object)
o /= null
-- push
Java, of course, doesn't have built-in contracts. However, it does contain a mechanism that can be used to get some of the benefits for a conceptually-simple price. The mechanism is not as complete, or as integrated, as Eiffel's version. However, it removes contract enforcement from the mainline code, and provides a way for both sides of the software to specify, accept, and document the contracts themselves.
SpringContracts is a beta-level Java COP implementation based on Spring's AOP facilities, using annotations to state pre- and post-contract conditions. It formalizes the nature of a contract, which can ease development.
Let's consider our VowelDecider that was developed through TDD. We can also use COP to express its contract (particularly the entry condition). This is a method that doesn't alter state, so post conditions don't apply here.
public boolean decide(final Object o) throws Exception {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
String s = (String) o;
@Precondition(condition="arg1 != null && == 'java.
public boolean decide(Object o) throws Exception {
String s = (String) o;
The pre-condition is that the argument must not be null and must be (precisely) a string. (Because of SpringContracts' Expression Language, we can't just say instanceof String in case we want to allow string subclasses.)
We can unit-test this class in the same way we tested the TDD version. In fact, we can copy the tests directly. Running them should trigger test failures on the null and non-string argument tests, as we originally expected an IllegalArgumentException. We'll now get a contract violation exception from SpringContracts.
One difference here is that we need to initialize the Spring context in our test. One way to do this is with JUnit's @BeforeClass annotation, along with a method that loads the Spring configuration file from the classpath and instantiates the decider as a Spring bean. Our class setup now looks like this:
@BeforeClass public static void setup() {
appContext = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(
decider = (VowelDecider)
We also need to configure SpringContracts in our Spring configuration file. Those unfamiliar with Spring's (or AspectJ's) AOP will be a bit confused. However, in the end, it's reasonably straightforward, with a potential "gotcha" regarding how Spring does proxying.
<aop:aspect ref="contractValidationAspect">
<aop:pointcut id="contractValidatingMethods"
<aop:around pointcut-ref="contractValidatingMethods"
<bean id="contractValidationAspect"
<bean id="vowelDecider"
class="com.packt.s2wad.example.CopVowelDecider" />
The only other modification is to change the exception we're expecting to SpringContract's ContractViolationCollectionException, and our test starts passing. These pre- and post-condition annotations use the @Documented meta-annotation, so the SpringContracts COP annotations will appear in the Javadocs. It would also be possible to use various other means to extract and document contract information.
Getting into details
This mechanism, or its implementation, may not be a good fit for every situation. Runtime performance is a potential issue. As it's just some Spring magic, it can be turned off by a simple configuration change. However, if we do, we'll lose the value of the on-all-the-time contract management.
We'll cover only a few things regarding Javadocs. We're all very familiar with them, but there are a few tips that might be helpful occasionally.
Always write Javadocs!
The first bit of advice is to always write Javadocs, except when they're not really needed. Getters and setters that have no additional functionality really don't need them. However, as soon as a getter or setter does more than just get or set its value, it may deserve documentation. Even minor functionality that's trivial to understand when looking at the code may deserve Javadocs. We may not have access to the source or we may only want to look at the API documentation.
The first sentence
The first sentence of a Javadoc comment is used as the summary documentation. It isn't necessary to encapsulate every nuance of the member being documented in the first sentence, but it's important to give a very clear and concise overview of the member. By default, the first sentence is everything up to the first "." (period). Some tools will complain if the first sentence is not properly terminated.
The proper way to describe the grammar of the first sentence is something along the lines of: "use a verb phrase in the third person declarative form." What does that mean in real life?
* Builds and returns the current list of ingredients.
* @return List of ingredients.
public List<Ingredient> buildIngredientList() { ... }
In the case of methods, the Javadoc summary should answer the question: "What does this member do?" One answer could be: "buildIngredientList() builds and returns the list of ingredients." This is opposed to saying something such as "Build and return list of ingredients", which doesn't work as an answer to the question. This is the "verb phrase" part.
The "third person declarative" part (informally) means that we answer the question as directly as possible. Sentence fragments are okay here. Additional exposition harms clarity. For example, we probably would not want to write the following:
* This method builds and returns the current list
* of ingredients.
That's not a direct answer to the question "What does buildIngredientList() do?". Therefore, this probably is not the best style of documentation.
This method is simple enough. Therefore, we may not need the @return Javadoc tag. What it returns is already specified in the first sentence. However, some tools may complain about missing Javadoc tags.
For variables, a simple descriptive sentence such as the following is usually fine:
/** Pre-built recipe summary. */
private String summary;
Is it okay to have member variables without Javadocs? The answer is yes, if the purpose is self-evident from the name. However, if our build process includes a tool that enforces Javadoc requirements, we'll either get irritating warnings or we'll need to specify what to exclude from checking.
If there aren't any Javadoc requirements, then all bets are off. However, bear in mind that Javadocs are also used by the IDE to provide information in various forms such as roll-over Javadoc pop-ups. It often boils down to whether or not we are able to come up with a good variable or method name. If we can, then the benefits of essentially repeating the same information in a Javadoc comment are very low and are probably not worth it.
Add information beyond the API name
In our buildIngredientList() example seen earlier, our first sentence really doesn't tell us much more than the name of the method does. This is good because it means that our method name (the API name) is probably correct and sufficient. However, let's assume that the method actually does something interesting during the construction of the ingredient list. That information should then be added to the Javadocs.
The information does not (necessarily) belong in the summary. Therefore, we can simply continue with another sentence (this is a bit contrived, since it could be merged into the first sentence quite easily).
* Builds and returns the current list of ingredients.
* Initializes ingredient information if necessary.
The summary information will consist of only the first sentence, but both sentences will be in the complete Javadocs. Note that in this case, it might make more sense to use a single sentence similar to the following:
* Builds and returns the current list of ingredients,
* initializing ingredient info when necessary.
The trick is to consistently make good decisions regarding what the most essential information is, and communicating it cleanly and concisely.
Write for multiple formats
Javadocs should be written with the thought that they might be read in several formats. Some common ways of viewing Javadocs include embedded in source code, using an IDE or an IDE popup/hover, the results of a grep, and so on. They may also be viewed as HTML, such as after they've been processed with the Javadoc tool. Javadoc comments may even be included in a wiki, through some sort of snippet mechanism or by including it in various forms of documentation.
In our example above, we have two sentences in a row. Let's say that we need to highlight the fact that the ingredient information will be initialized if necessary. Our first attempt just adds a bold Note to the second sentence.
* Builds and returns the current list of ingredients.
* <b>Note:</b> Initializes ingredient information if
* necessary.
The word Note: will stand out in the HTML output, but will appear connected to the opening sentence. Javadoc doesn't honor text-based line breaks. We must use HTML to format our Javadocs. Creating separate paragraphs requires the use of paragraph tags.
By formatting our Javadoc as indented HTML, we can create documentation that reads reasonably well in both text and HTML formats. Additionally, with judicious use of HTML tags, we can use doclets that create printable PDF documentation (or other printable formats).
* Builds and returns the current list of ingredients.
* <p>
* if necessary.
* </p>
Generating targeted Javadocs
One reason people give for not writing Javadocs for a particular method is that the method isn't necessarily designed to be used by others, or that exposing even the documentation isn't a good idea. The Javadoc tool gives us a few ways to restrict what documentation is generated.
The most obvious way to restrict what documentation is generated is based on visibility. By default, Javadoc will generate documentation for all of the public and protected classes. By using the -public, -protected, -package, and -private flags, we can control the level of visibility for which documentation will be generated. Note that we need to specify only one flag—any member with equal or greater visibility will have documentation generated for it.
For example, running Javadoc with the -public flag will generate documentation for only public members, creating Javadocs suitable for the users of an API. Running with the -private flag will generate documentation for all of the members, making the documentation suitable for the developers of the same API.
The -exclude argument
The -exclude argument allows us to supply package names that will be excluded from Javadoc generation. For example, if we want to create documentation that specifically excludes an "internal-use only" package (security through obscurity?), we can use the -exclude argument to provide a ":" (colon) separated list of packages for which no Javadocs will be generated.
javadoc -exclude com.packt.s2wad.internal {...}
No classes in the com.packt.s2wad.internal package will be documented.
The -use argument
The -use argument will generate a "Use" page for each class C being documented. The "Use" page will contain an entry for each package, class, method, and fields "using" class C. Uses include subclasses, methods that use the class as a parameter, and methods that return an instance of the class.
This page may not be as useful as a graphical representation of the class interdependencies, but it's an option that's available out of the box. Creating various diagrams is possible with add-on Javadoc doclets such as yDoc or UmlGraph, as well as with non-Javadoc-oriented tools.
Creating new Javadoc tags with the -tag argument
One Javadoc capability that's trivial to take advantage of is creating our own Javadoc tags. These tags are similar to the @param and @return tags that Javadoc recognizes by default. This capability may or may not fit into your organization or coding style, but it's simple enough to use that it's worth an introduction. Another potential issue is that our IDE or build process probably won't be capable of validating the information contained in the tag, unlike the default tags. For example, Eclipse can flag a warning if a method's parameters don't have corresponding @param tags.
We could document an action that puts a variable into session by creating a @session Javadoc tag. By telling the Javadoc tool to pay attention to that tag, we can create output for it just like the built-in @param tag. An action's Javadocs might look like this:
* Retrieves recipe, creating session parameters as needed.
* @session CONSTANTS.LAST_RECIPE The last recipe accessed.
* @returns SUCCESS or ERROR if retrieval fails.
We instruct the javadoc tool to pay attention to our new tag by giving it -tag arguments. The easiest method is to just add -tag session to the javadoc command. How this is done depends on your build environment. It can be done using an Ant script, via an IDE javadoc frontend, and so on.
Adding the -tag session argument instructs javadoc to create output for @session tags similar to @param and @returns tags. The generated output will appear after the standard tags. If we want to change the order in the HTML we must supply a complete list of -tag arguments including the built-in tags as well. Each tag's output is generated in the order specified on the command line. If we wanted to see the @session documentation before the @return tag's documentation, then we'd specify both documentations on the command line as follows:
-tag session -tag return
We can also specify the header for a custom Javadoc tag. To set a header for the session tag we use colon-separated values (ignoring the a for now):
-tag session:a:"Session attributes accessed:"
The "a" we snuck in there determines where in the source code we can use the tag, with "a" meaning anywhere we want. A complete list of determinants is found in the javadoc tool documentation, but includes "t" for types (classes and interfaces), "m" for methods, "f" for fields, and so on. These may be combined, so a tag to identify injected entities for both types and fields could be specified as follows:
-tag injected:tf:"Injected entities:"
If we now try to use our new @injected tag in a method declaration, the Javadoc tool will signal an error, as it's been specified as being valid only for types and fields.
Note that this functionality of javadoc may overlap some use of annotations. For example, assume we're using an interceptor that loads and saves an annotated variable from and to the JEE session. It would make more sense to use a doclet that included this information from the annotation, rather than writing (and worse, maintaining) the Javadoc manually—the more we can do automatically, the better.
Never write Javadocs!
There are many cases where it makes sense to write detailed Javadocs, describing a complicated or non-obvious algorithm being chief among them. However, it's arguable whether such documentation belongs in the application's non-code documentation or in a wiki.
Never write inline Java comments!
If we find ourselves writing chunks of comments inside methods to explain each section of a method, we might be better off refactoring the chunk into its own method. Of course, some code lends itself to this more readily than others, which might be impractical for a variety of reasons. There's always a trade-off. However, there is always a cost associated with non-code documentation, as it is ultimately maintained separately from the code itself.
Using UML
UML (Unified Markup Language) can handle a wide range of documentation duties, much more than will be covered here. Even UML-like diagrams can be of great assistance in many aspects of documentation. It's not necessary to follow all of the UML notation or diagrams completely, purchase an expensive enterprise UML tool, and so on. However, a basic understanding of UML is very handy when documenting our own application, or reading the documentation of other projects that use UML.
There are many ways to integrate UML into the development and documentation process. It might be used to generate source code, it can be included in both developer and end-user documentation (where appropriate), and so on. Two of the more common UML diagrams related directly to Java code are the package and class diagrams, which most of us are already familiar with.
Package diagrams
Package diagrams are similar to class diagrams, but provide a very high-level overview of an application's package and package dependencies.
Class diagrams
One of the most useful and commonplace UML diagrams is probably the class diagram. The class diagram is used to show the relationship between different classes in a system. Class diagrams can be created at various levels of detail to provide very high-level overviews or extremely detailed information, including all of a class's properties.
For example, a portion of our com.packt.s2wad.recipe package's class diagram can be represented by the following UML class diagram. Note that this is an incomplete diagram and doesn't show our implementation of RecipeService. It's also fairly high-level, and doesn't show any class properties or methods.
However, it's still useful because it's obvious that we have two classes that use a RecipeService, and two classes that have a relationship to the Recipe class. This type of high-level overview is particularly important when first learning an application, identifying high-level class-coupling issues, and so on.
Apache Struts 2 Web Application Development
A class diagram for an entire application can be a bit overwhelming, and isn't always useful due to the sheer amount of information. Restricting what is visible at both the class and package level can be very useful allowing usable documentation to be generated.
The previous image was generated with ArgoUML, an open source UML tool from application source. It was then edited by hand to improve the layout, to remove class members and operations, and so on.
Java source can also be generated from UML models. Several IDEs and modeling tools supply this functionality. The direction of generation, whether generating UML from source or source from UML, is largely a matter of preference, culture, and how well the available tools work for our style (or the style of our client).
Sequence diagrams
Another popular and useful UML diagram, which is relatively lightweight, is the sequence diagram. These diagrams are used to document interactions between entities. These entities are normally classes. However, it's not unreasonable to extend the sequence diagram metaphor beyond the official definition when necessary, such as adding user interactions, browser functionality, and so on.
As a quick example, we can take a look at the typical Struts 2 form validation processing sequence, compressing the non-related interceptors into a single entity:
Apache Struts 2 Web Application Development
Here, we're representing the user action of submitting a form in the sequence diagram. This (in simplified form) causes the Struts 2 filter to instantiate the appropriate action class, indicated by the new() message. The rest is largely self-explanatory.
Sequence diagrams are often easier to comprehend than plain text and can be more convenient than the code itself, as they aggregate as many classes as needed. As usual, they can suffer from decay, as the code continues to be modified and the diagrams aren't being generated automatically or being actively maintained.
This diagram was created using the Quick Sequence Diagram Editor, which creates an exportable diagram using simple text-based input. The input for this diagram is relatively short.
#![Struts 2 Validation Processing]
user:Actor "User"
s2f: "Struts 2 Filter"
etc: "Interceptors..."
val: "Validation Interceptor"
workflow: "Workflow Interceptor"
/action: "An Action"
user:s2f.Submit form
[c:cond Validation errors]
val:INPUT result=workflow.Invoke
--[No validation errors]
val:Action result=workflow.Invoke
workflow:Action result=action.Invoke
s2f:user.Rendered Result
It's pretty easy to create our own DSL (for example, in Ruby) that corrects this error. It's also relatively straightforward to create a log format that could be parsed to create diagrams from actual code. Therefore, running unit tests could also be a part of the documentation process.
This part of the article started with the basics of how to document Java applications. It then moved on to self-documenting code, the use of Contract-oriented programming in documenting applications, and ways of generating targeted Javadocs. The next part of the article will focus on documenting web applications.
Books to Consider
Apache Struts 2 Web Application Development
$ 15.75
Learning Jakarta Struts 1.2: a concise and practical tutorial
$ 10.50
Quickstart Apache Axis2
$ 15.60
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An Introduction to 3D Printing
| <urn:uuid:66355dac-e655-41c4-b393-c4427d8b53ca> | 3 | 2.796875 | 0.758417 | en | 0.900615 | https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/documenting-our-application-apache-struts-2-part-1 |
The Liberty Doctrine: Reclaiming the Purpose of American Power
Article excerpt
THE IMMEDIATE RESPONSE of President Bush and his administration to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States was superb, both purposeful and principled -- a military, political, and diplomatic success. But what comes next? In his State of the Union address, Bush suggested specific targets of future phases of the war -- the "axis of evil" of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But what has been missing in the discussion of the second stage (and perhaps the third, fourth, and fifth stages) of the war on terrorism is an articulation of the general principles that will guide policy in difficult times ahead. The new threat to American national security and the American way of life is no less threatening than such earlier challenges as the defeat of fascism in Europe and imperialism in Japan during World War II, or the containment and ultimate destruction of world communism during the Cold War. A grand vision of the purposes of American power is needed not only to shape strategy, but also to susta in support from the American people and America's allies.
During the twentieth century, the central purpose of American power was to defend against and when possible to destroy tyranny. American presidents have been at their best when they have embraced the mission of defending liberty at home and spreading liberty abroad. This was the task during World War II, and it was again our objective (or should have been the mission) during the Cold War. It must be our mission again. In fact, the war on terrorism is a new variation of the old war against the anti-democratic "isms" of the previous century.
Adherence to a liberty doctrine as a guide to American foreign policy means pushing to the top of the agenda the promotion of individual freedoms abroad. The expansion of individual liberty in economic and political affairs in turn stimulates the development and consolidation of democratic regimes. To promote liberty requires first the containment and then the elimination, of those forces opposed to liberty, be they individuals, movements, or regimes. Next comes the construction of pro-liberty forces, be they democrats, democratic movements, or democratic institutions. Finally comes the establishment of governments that value and protect the liberty of their own people as the United States does. Obviously, the United States does not have the means to deliver liberty to all subjugated people around the world at the same time. And the spread of liberty and democracy will not always be simultaneous. In some places, the promotion of the individual freedoms must come first, democratization second. Nonetheless, the spread of liberty should be the lofty and broad goal that organizes American foreign policy for the coming decades.
By defining the purposes of American power in these terms, American foreign policymakers achieve several objectives not attainable by narrower or less normative doctrines. First, the liberty doctrine, like containment during the Cold War, is useful in clarifying the relationship between often very different policies. Toppling Saddam Hussein does in fact have something in common with providing education to Afghan women, and a liberty doctrine allows us to see it clearly. Second, the liberty doctrine properly defines our new struggle in terms of ideas, individuals, and regimes -- not in terms of states. Allies of liberty exist everywhere, most certainly in Iran and even in Iraq. Likewise, not all the enemies of liberty are states; they also include non-governmental organizations like al Qaeda. Third, the liberty doctrine provides a cause that others -- allies of the United States as well as states, movements, and individuals not necessarily supportive of all U.S. strategic interests -- can support. For example, the Iraqi regime constitutes an immediate threat to American national security but does not pose the same threat to France or Russia. … | <urn:uuid:f4109228-7702-439b-8ea4-d56898e74db4> | 2 | 1.945313 | 0.028919 | en | 0.953313 | https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-85011217/the-liberty-doctrine-reclaiming-the-purpose-of-american |
Purple Bar
Both strategic optimists and defensive pessimists typically do quite well, but both groups are also vulnerable to situations that don't accommodate their strategies. My experimental research shows that if defensive pessimists try to raise their expectations, or avoid playing through a worst-case analysis, their anxiety increases and their performance suffers. If strategic optimists set lower expectations or play through possible outcomes, their anxiety increases and their performance decreases.
Defensive Pessimism Questionnaire
Think of a situation where you want to do your best. It may be related to work, to your social life, or to any of your goals. When you answer the following questions, please think about how you prepare for that kind of situation. Rate how true each statement is for you.
Not at all true of me 1---2---3---4---5---6---7 Very true of me
1. I often start out expecting the worst, even though I will probably do OK.
2. I worry about how things will turn out.
3. I carefully consider all possible outcomes.
4. I often worry that I won't be able to carry through my intentions.
5. I spend lots of time imagining what could go wrong.
6. I imagine how I would feel if things went badly.
7. I try to picture how I could fix things if something went wrong.
8. I'm careful not to become overconfident in these situations.
9. I spend a lot of time planning when one of these situations is coming up.
10. I imagine how I would feel if things went well.
11. In these situations, sometimes I worry more about looking like a fool than doing really well.
12. Considering what can go wrong helps me to prepare. | <urn:uuid:2738ca87-8827-49b8-a5bf-4205f8b953cd> | 3 | 2.515625 | 0.635241 | en | 0.957725 | http://academics.wellesley.edu/Psychology/Norem/Quiz/quiz.html |
February 01, 2011
Innovation or Implementation
Chrystia Freeland recently published an article on the changing face of the super-rich that should be required reading for anyone interested in politics. It's a sympathetic but not entirely uncritical portrait. I particularly like that it reflects its subjects' global view of a changing world economy rather than being entirely U.S.-focused.
In short, fund those things it takes to produce small classes of students undistracted by other problems, taught by experienced teachers who aren't constantly overworked. Is it a sexy solution? Does it put somebody's name in lights? No, but it works.
Putting your name on some education initiative somewhere is grand. Nifty, even. The problem is that it really isn't all that innovative when it comes right down to it. There is plenty of history of experimentation in education. Much of it even produced promising results.
Then it fell by the wayside because the implementation cost money. All the promise in the world can't produce results if no one is willing to pay the cost. No, if someone really wants to do something new and different in the field of education, they need to implement those solutions that have already been proven.
While the U.S. educational system already pays a high amount per student relative to the educational spending of other Western industrialized countries, not everything that needs to be funded is counted in comparisons across countries, and not everything is directly comparable. Social services and safety nets make a difference in student preparedness, but they aren't considered educational expenses unless directly provided by schools, as free and reduced-cost school lunches are in the U.S. Teacher salaries, like most salaries, don't have to be as high in countries where health care is provided out of a general pool.
One way or another, however, whether we pay these costs affects our educational outcomes. It makes more of a difference than a pilot here or there will ever make. It makes more difference than any single person's large check can ever make. And that's true for many of the world's problems.
These aren't problems that have single, magical causes or cures. They aren't problems we haven't made huge strides in understanding. This is even something that Freeland approaches in the article.
It's close. It's very close. But it still misses, or won't quite come out to say, what these rich people are doing by focusing on personal innovation over implementation of the basic solutions is making a poor monetary decision. They're being bad stewards of the money they insist they should keep. They insist on keeping it because, they say, they've shown how to make money work. But that's not what business does. Business makes money move.
If you want to make money work, that's a job for government. It's a job that's too big for any individual, no matter how innovative, no matter how rich.
1 comment:
Richard said...
Love it. Excellent article. | <urn:uuid:67f07267-3f28-4d26-8774-00a765aa2db7> | 2 | 1.984375 | 0.88086 | en | 0.970108 | http://almostdiamonds.blogspot.com/2011/02/innovation-or-implementation.html |
Palestinian boys sit on rubble near their homes in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood on Aug. 11. / Hatem Moussa, AP
What Abusahliah didn't anticipate was the outpouring of support from Israeli Jews, who he said constituted about half of the 600-700 donors to the campaign. "I admit that I am somewhat surprised," the Palestinian Catholic priest said. "Many Jews have also sent us messages of solidarity and offers of everything from baby clothes to blood donations."
As a new cease-fire was holding Monday while Israel and Hamas seek a longer-term truce, the casualties of the war have confronted many Israelis with a dilemma: how to help Gaza's civilians without boosting Hamas.
The Israeli government said it lost 64 soldiers and three civilians. The United Nations has tallied more than 1,900 Gazan deaths, including 448 children and nearly 1,000 other civilians. An additional 250,000 Gazans have been left homeless, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. (Israel claims nearly half the Palestinian deaths were Hamas fighters.)
While polls in Israel show that a vast majority of Jews believe the Israel Defense Forces had no choice but to shell Gaza to stop nearly 3,500 Hamas rocket attacks over the past five weeks, "that doesn't mean we believe the civilians in Gaza are the enemy," said Angy Shavit, one of the Jews who promoted Cariatas' campaign through social media.
Shavit, who is politically left wing, said many of her Palestinian friends in Gaza relayed their need for toilet paper, diapers, baby formula and eye drops.
After spending time at St. Anthony's Church in Jaffa, where cartons full of sugar, flour, bottled water, diapers, baby wipes and other essentials with Hebrew lettering were piled high, Shavit surmised that most of the Jewish Israelis donating "don't feel guilty" about Israel's military operation against Hamas, which the United States, European Union and Israel classify as a terror organization. "It's just that when a baby needs diapers you donate diapers."
This and other initiatives, such as an effort by peace activist Gershon Baskin to buy surplus potatoes in Israel to donate to the people of Gaza, however, have their critics in Israel.
"I've received many phone calls from people who didn't understand why we would be funding 'terror' or people who are afraid these donations will end up in Hamas' hands," Shavit said. "But Hamas's tunnels won't be built with diapers."
Shavit said some callers insist there can be no shortages in Gaza because of all the humanitarian aid Israel and Egypt have been allowing into the impoverished Gaza Strip.
Aid organizations such as Caritas Jerusalem say the deliveries fall far short of meeting the needs in Gaza, where the main power station and most bakeries and factories were destroyed during the war.
"The situation is terrible everywhere in Gaza," Abusahliah said.
The distrust about aiding Gazans is not just in Israel. An Israeli women's organization that is donating large amounts of items for new mothers and their babies did not want its name mentioned for fear Hamas officials who govern Gaza will reject the contributions if they know they were donated almost entirely by Jewish Israelis. So they are being delivered by a third party.
Abusahliah said every donation is vital regardless of its source. Caritas, which also launched an international campaign to raise nearly $2 million, is providing medical supplies to the hospital run by the Anglican church, operating a medical clinic and providing food and other assistance to the 3,000 people who have taken refuge in Gaza's Christian institutions.
Only 1,311 Christians live in Gaza, so the vast majority of the organization's aid is going to needy Muslims, he said. "All Palestinians are suffering. We make no distinctions based on religion."
Kathleen Saba, a Palestinian Israeli who donated to Caritas, said it is "heart-warming" to see Christians, Muslims and Jews pull together for the people of Gaza. "This is what giving is supposed to be," she said.
Copyright 2015USAToday
Read the original story: Israelis' quandary: How to aid Gazans but not Hamas | <urn:uuid:cb7f6051-0089-40ea-b6f0-6e690b98f806> | 2 | 1.5 | 0.023471 | en | 0.964278 | http://archive.livingstondaily.com/usatoday/article/13887853?from=global |
Beetle Bites Into Corn Crop
February 05, 1996|By Ronald E. Yates, Tribune Staff Writer.
URBANA — It's only about the size of the nail on your little finger, but entomologists at the University of Illinois and farmers in 12 east-central Illinois counties say a tiny insect called the Western corn rootworm beetle is causing Godzilla-like damage.
Last year the shiny, black and yellow beetle attacked thousands of cornfields from DuPage to Douglas Counties and left millions of corn plants dead or dying in its wake. Crop damage, combined with the expense of applying insecticides, cost Illinois farmers an estimated $100 million in 1995, say industry analysts.
This year, says University of Illinois extension entomologist Mike Gray, the damage could be even more substantial. In a worst-case scenario--something no
one is predicting--the potential exists for the beetle to inflict as much as $1 billion in losses on the Illinois corn crop, Gray said.
In a good year, that crop is valued at about $4 billion. So such a loss would be devastating to farmers and have disastrous economic consequences far beyond the farm.
Hundreds of Illinois companies process corn into hundreds of industrial products including ethanol, corn oil, livestock feed, corn sugar, corn syrup and alcohol. A major crop loss could drive up the cost of corn and have a domino effect on other products.
That's why the best brains in entomology at the University of Illinois are working overtime on a strategy to control the Western corn rootworm beetle.
So far, the beetle has been confined to east-central Illinois and western Indiana, but neighboring states such as Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri are watching apprehensively, Gray says.
"The epicenter of the problem is Illinois," Gray said.
With more than 10 million acres planted in corn every year, Illinois competes with Iowa to be the nation's No. 1 producer. So far, Iowa has been spared by the beetle, however.
So have a majority of Illinois counties in the western, northern and southern parts of the state. But that could change dramatically if the insect moves or is inadvertently introduced to uninfested areas.
Ironically, the beetle's success in east-central Illinois may be due to its seeming adaptation to that region's sound agricultural practices, which include consistent crop rotation--usually between corn and soybeans.
Crop rotation has been the main management strategy for controlling Western corn rootworm beetles since they were discovered in 1987 in a 1-square-mile area near Piper City, about 60 miles south of Urbana, Gray says. How they got to Piper City is anybody's guess, but entomologists say the insects were first identified on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in the 19th Century.
Crop rotation not only helps replenish nutrients in the soil, it has for years confounded the Western corn rootworm beetle, which likes to lay its eggs in cornfields one year so its larvae can feast on the roots of young corn plants the next year.
But rotating crops between corn and soybeans plays a dirty trick on the beetles. The female beetle lays its eggs in the cornfield in the fall, expecting its progeny to feast heartily on new corn in the spring only to find them in the middle of a soybean field instead. Corn rootworm larvae cannot survive on the roots of broadleaf crops such as soybean plants.
Unable to find corn roots to feed on and unwilling to chew on soybean roots, the rootworm larvae die. The next fall, there are only a handful of rootworm beetles left to lay eggs in the corn, so the corn crop planted that spring, while not 100 percent free of beetles, is strong enough to produce a good yield.
It has been an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to control the insects. Insecticides can cost farmers between $15 and $16 per acre, can contaminate water and are often toxic to birds and animals. And sometimes they don't work--especially when insects become resistant to them.
Now, says Gray, it looks like some of the Western corn rootworm beetles are playing a little trick of their own on the farmers and entomologists.
"It's possible the beetles have managed to adapt genetically," Gray said. "If that's true, then the implications could be sweeping. Corn production throughout the Corn Belt could be affected significantly."
The question Gray and other entomologists at the University of Illinois' Cooperative Extension Service would like to answer is whether some beetles have solved the corn-soybean-corn crop rotation strategy and are passing that information on to their progeny.
That would explain why a small percentage of females are laying eggs in soybean fields even though their larvae don't eat soybeans, says Gray. The females may know that corn will be the next crop, not soybeans.
"It's as if the Western rootworm has figured all of this out," said Denny Rich, who estimates damage inflicted on some 240 acres of his 600-acre corn crop by the insect at about $33,000 in 1995. | <urn:uuid:374468fd-28bd-417a-a9e8-1daee0ccc7ce> | 3 | 2.78125 | 0.047753 | en | 0.958938 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-05/business/9602050073_1_corn-crop-western-corn-rootworm-beetle |
Big birding competition will forgo the gadgetry
Posted: May 14, 2010
Scott Fraser is prepping for the birding big time.
So he doesn't just have his binoculars and his scope.
He's got his iPhone with its super birding app. He's got his navigational GPS. On a day in the field, he'll be calling and texting, ever in search of feathered updates.
And, yes, har har, he'll be tweeting.
In the normal birding world, new technologies and social networking have transformed the way people find birds, identify them, and learn to recognize their songs.
In Fraser's world - as a contestant in Saturday's World Series of Birding, which pits some of the superstars of the hobby against one another, each trying to find as many species as he or she can in one 24-hour period within the confines of New Jersey - it's all but a prerequisite.
Except for one thing: Some of the gizmos and sites are so good that they've been banned from the big day.
They're OK for advance scouting, but come 12:01 a.m. Saturday, everyone has to power down.
This suits the few remaining Luddites in the bird world just fine.
"What I like about it is that by the time midnight rolls around, all this stuff turns into a pumpkin," said Pete Dunne, director of the Cape May Bird Observatory who started the World Series of Birding 27 years ago. "It's bare-knuckles birding."
The rest of the time, it seems, it's high-tech birding.
Today's birders do Facebook. They blog. They post minute-by-minute updates on the whereabouts of a find. They check weather radar.
Add on the photo gear, even sound-recording equipment, and "I've seen people so heavily laden they can barely move," said Ted Floyd, editor of the American Bird Association's magazine, Birding.
Gadgetry has become such a pervasive part of birding that Floyd recently decided to offer a new workshop - "bare-naked birding." And he doesn't mean streaking.
Saturday's main event involves teams of birders who are competing not just for the acclaim, such as it is, but also for conservation.
They get pledges for each species they see and then donate the proceeds to the Nature Conservancy, in the case of Fraser's team, or other groups and projects.
Most of them have spent all week, day and night, dashing about New Jersey, searching for the best spots to see - or hear - various species. They plot elaborate routes and to-the-minute timetables.
"On Saturday, there are 1,440 minutes. We can't change that," said Meadowbrook's Bert Filemyr of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club's team, last year's winners, with 229 species spotted. "But we can change our skills."
He swears by his Droid.
Bill Reaume, a member of Fraser's team, spent untold hours in the field, but he also scouted from his computer at his Germantown home, checking listserves, hotlines, and blogs.
Fraser, of Collegeville, has been tweeting all week as Paloons, short for the team's state and name, Four Loons. Their Twitter bio: Birders gone horribly awry.
Thursday, he'd sung out more than a dozen times by midafternoon. "Followed the call of a VA Rail at the top of 560(!!!)" "Broadwing calling like crazy" from Grau and Skellinger Roads.
For all birders, the new phone apps are big.
David Sibley's consummate field guide took its 6,600 images and 2,200 audio recordings to iPhones and iPod touches in February.
That was preceded in the i-o-sphere by BirdsEye, which brings together content from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, text by author Kenn Kaufman and images from the Academy of Natural Sciences' exhaustive photo collection.
BirdsEye also provides a real-time connection to Cornell's eBird database, which birders say has revolutionized the way they report and access information about sightings.
It's gulping down about 1.5 million to two million observations a month, then spitting them back out in almost whatever form a birder asks for.
Someone stepping off a plane in Dallas - or walking into a field in New Jersey - can turn on an iPhone and learn what he's likely to see within a 30-mile radius. Or he can ask how close a particular species might be, based on recent sightings. Link in the GPS and it will take him there.
Besides helping Saturday's contestants prep for the big bird fest, proponents say the plethora of information has helped democratize birding.
In days gone by, sightings of special birds were kept among an elite few. It wasn't so much snobbery as limited connectivity.
Compare that with last Thanksgiving when an ivory gull, an Arctic species, showed up in Cape May.
"From the time of the first report that it was seen until the time it was available, with pictures and specific information, worldwide on the Web was less than an hour," Filemyr recalled.
The glut of information is also advancing science.
Tom Bancroft, the National Audubon Society's chief scientist, said that although there were two long-standing bird surveys, they were limited - one to winter, the other to the spring breeding season.
eBird, he said, is amassing data constantly, everywhere. "It allows us to get information relevant to conservation that we never had before."
Earlier this month, eBird put out an alert to Gulf Coast residents, asking them to be extra diligent in recording bird observations there.
Officials said that pinpointing the location and abundance of birds would help identify high-priority areas for protection or restoration.
But as usual, the gadgetry isn't all good.
Some use recorded bird calls to lure a particular species. The bird hears it, thinks there's an interloper, and flies over to challenge it.
The Academy's Doug Wechsler said that if this happened too often - say, to a bird unlucky enough to be nesting near a popular birding trail - the bird would spend too much time defending its territory instead of feeding its young.
Then there are the old-school birders like Dunne, who wasn't joking when he said: "I'd rather light myself on fire. The reason I go birding is to get away from all this junk."
He often wonders why all the people he sees with their noses stuck in iPods don't just stay indoors. "The temperature's more controlled."
For this year's competition, as in years past, the Four Loons plan to start in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in northern New Jersey - about 26 miles west of Times Square.
Other groups often start there, too. It's partly a tradition, partly a way to knock off a few hard-to-find birds in one particular marsh.
They'll chat for a while, renewing annual friendships.
But they'll also be monitoring text messages and tweets. Chkd pond; Duck stl on it.
Then, at 12:01, they go dark. They can still use their GPS devices, just as they would written field notes. But they can't text, take phone calls, use eBird, or do anything else to get new information.
If things go as usual, they'll walk down a road toward some woods, and one of the birders will whistle an imitation of the screech owl they know is there.
When the owl replies, they'll check it off, and the race will be on.
Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147 or
comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:f2c4c22d-c013-4155-89bb-ce1c7aadef5e> | 2 | 1.867188 | 0.032434 | en | 0.964773 | http://articles.philly.com/2010-05-14/news/24961120_1_birding-ted-floyd-pete-dunne |
46.4614 Simulating legal process.
Cite as [A.S.C.A. § 46.4614]
(a) A person commits the crime of simulating legal process if, with purpose to mislead the recipient and cause him to take action in reliance on it, he delivers or causes to be delivered:
(1) a request for the payment of money on behalf of any creditor that in form and substance simulates any legal process issued by any Court of this Territory or
(2) any purported summons, subpoena, or other legal process knowing that the process was not issued or authorized by any court.
(b) This section does not apply to a subpoena properly issued by a notary public.
(c) Simulating legal process is a class B misdemeanor.
History: 1979, PL 16-43 § 2.
Research Guide: MCC 575.130, 15 ASC 501. | <urn:uuid:0fc8c06d-3f99-47ec-acae-d35565e5f8a1> | 2 | 1.515625 | 0.019952 | en | 0.919089 | http://asbar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7465:46.4614-Simulating-legal-process.&catid=760&Itemid=172 |
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have to install Sphinx on my Ubuntu 11.10 for it to work on a ruby app.
I managed to install it through synaptics, however when I run my sphinx (rake ts:rebuild) I get an error message saying:
Sphinx cannot be found on your system. You may need to configure the following
settings in your config/sphinx.yml file:
* bin_path
* searchd_binary_name
* indexer_binary_name
I guess I just need to edit the sphinx.yml file with the right info but hey, I can't seem to find out where sphinx is. Any help?
share|improve this question
1 Answer 1
In bash:
which searchd
which indexer
share|improve this answer
Your Answer
| <urn:uuid:5bb54e4e-f0cb-4984-a6b0-8fbc53a34d2e> | 2 | 1.804688 | 0.033102 | en | 0.887513 | http://askubuntu.com/questions/80125/where-is-sphinx-located-after-i-install-it/123082 |
Study says faith, science not at odds
A new study attributes the so-called “belief” gap between evolution and young-earth creationism to a small fundamentalist minority of faith groups who are openly opposed to science.
By Bob Allen
An MIT study published Feb. 12 in honor of naturalist Charles Darwin’s 204th birthday suggests the gap between faith and scientific beliefs is not as large as most people think, and that part of the controversy might be defused by people learning more about their own religious doctrine and the science it endorses.
While Gallup has reported that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago, the MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins found that just 11 percent belong to religions that openly reject evolution or the Big Bang theory.
Max TegmarkMIT physicist Max Tegmark said in a Huffington Post blog that the main divide over human origins isn’t between science and religion but rather between “a small fundamentalist minority and mainstream religious communities who embrace science.”
The study divided U.S. faith communities into 101 categories ranked by membership size and any officially stated position on the science of human origins. It contrasted Catholics, who comprise about 24 percent of the U.S. population -- whose dogma finds “no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of faith” -- with evangelical Protestants like the Southern Baptist Convention, representing just over 6 percent of the population -- which is on record in a 1982 resolution favoring the teaching of scientific creationism in public schools and stating that students are being “indoctrinated in evolution-science.”
Summarizing publicly available material, the MIT study found that 62 percent of Americans are aligned with a faith group that sees no conflict between faith and science. Just 11 percent belong to faith communities that openly reject origins science, and 30 percent belong to faith communities that haven’t released enough public information to fit into one of the categories.
The study identified four dividing lines in arguments used by faith communities on both sides of the debate. Groups finding conflict tend to believe Scripture should be interpreted literally and that Scripture must take ultimate authority over scientific inquiry. They believe Christians have a duty to oppose the teaching of evolution as scientific fact, and find the idea that humans evolved from lower animals as incompatible with the Bible’s teaching.
Faith groups finding no conflict tend to view the Bible’s creation stories as poetic or metaphorical rather than scientific explanations. They discover scientific knowledge about God’s creation in nature and say the Bible isn’t intended as a book of science. They regard science and religion as complementary instead of mutually exclusive, and see evolution as symbolic of human advance and redemption from the Edenic fall.
Tegmark said the study suggests the so-called belief gap “may have less to do with intellectual disputes and more to do with an epic failure of science education.”
Tegmark said the problem with that develops when watching a video on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website of a supernova explosion in the Centaurus A Galaxy about 10 million light-years away. If you believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old, he said, that means you are watching something that never happened, because light from the explosion needs 10 million years to reach Earth.
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., acknowledges that the universe “looks old,” but he cites a “theological necessity” for a young earth in order to establish a historical Adam and Eve.
Mohler says it’s hard to take literally the Bible’s claim that sin and death entered the human race through Adam’s fall if Adam and Eve were just two Neolithic farmers who evolved from already-existing hominids over millions of years. | <urn:uuid:6a23e029-bcea-461a-8003-e7427efdff83> | 3 | 2.75 | 0.07983 | en | 0.936124 | http://baptistnews.com/faith/theology/item/8211-study-says-faith-science-not-at-odds |
Should Society Be Able to Tell You How To Augment Your Reality?
Over at Atlantic Wire, Evan Selinger is wondering about a potential downside to augmented reality technology: What if people want to tune augmented-reality tech to their prejudices? Specifically, he imagines a little old lady (OK, his grandmother) tuning her personal Head's Up Display to filter out African-Americans—maybe by turning brown faces into copies of Larry David or Rhea Perlman. Or, he continues, imagine reality-supplementing eyewear that keeps track of whom you look away from and who triggers a stress response—so it can edit out any people you'd rather not see. (Let's just stipulate that it's good enough not to also eliminate the person you're madly in love with, who provokes pretty similar signals—this is a thought experiment, after all.)
Would that kind of editing be bad thing? Imagine that Selinger's granny was avoiding the Post Office or a nice restaurant because she was afraid of black people. If her eyewear algorithm eliminated the sight of those people, she'd get her mail and dine out without stress. Of course, the people she was mis-seeing would be offended if they knew what was going on (social erasure being a problem that long predates 21st century technology). But how would they know?
The trouble arises at the societal and political levels (how things play out for a community full of people wearing these see-what-I-want-to-see glasses). It does seem bad for society to let people wander about in cognitive and emotional cocoons. Maybe we want the law to insist that they see their community as it is, not as their prejudices would have it be.
The problem with that claim, of course, is that people already walk around in cocoons. We already have devices that filter our perceptions so that we see facts and events and people as we want to see them. These devices are called human brains, and they are good at the work. What augmented-reality devices would do is move our preferences and prejudices outside our heads. Instead of being expressed outside our awareness, they would have to be made explicit, so they could be programmed into our devices. And this explicitness would give society a way to engage in thoughts and emotions that are now hidden from other people (and, often, from ourselves). So moving our reality-filters from mind to device could make them more subject to regulation.
But what sort of regulations would a future society want? On this point, America's political and business cultures are ambivalent. Polite and proper Americans know they're supposed to value diversity, which requires seeing differences and appreciating how they help an organization or a society. Yet we also know that we're supposed to act as if we don't see those differences: a pretense of "color blindness" is now the norm in American corporations and institutions. Small children in experiments take care to hide the fact that they have noticed race differences and in other experiments adults go to some trouble to appear unprejudiced. (Such research is part of a wave of work on social meta-cognition—your management not only of your own racial feelings but of others' perceptions of your racial feelings.)
So maybe some the (Chelsea) Clinton Administration of 2032 will mandate that people's augmented reality smooth out differences and make every citizen look like every other. Or maybe it will instead ban any form of augmentation that distorts people's real appearance. (But what if they want to appear different than they look? That's another wrinkle.) Seems to me it could go either way. Maybe we're more pro-social and unbiased when we have more information about each other; but maybe we're more tolerant when we know less.
Of course, there are other regulatory options. Gary Marcus, for instance, suggested that perhaps those Google Glasses of the future could be required to give you empathy-inducing information about people you see—reminding you that the person in front of you was a fellow grandparent, Red Sox fan, Lutheran, gardener or whatever, and thus pushing back against any racist or sexist or other isty thoughts. Your device would end up gently nudging you to be a better citizen, inclined to see others as in the same boat, rather than as scary members of Them. This would, again, be a technological extension of what people do now. Example: Years ago a friend of mine, who was about to be visited by a tax auditor with an Irish name, reached into his ash tray and daubed his forehead with some cinders. It was Ash Wednesday, and he figured it couldn't hurt to send a (false) message to the IRS man that they were both pious churchgoers.
The root question, in any event, is well worth pondering, especially as most technophiles are knee-jerk libertarians. Once augmented-reality technologies become truly ubiquitous and truly powerful, will government have a say in how we can and can't use it?
Follow me on Twitter: @davidberreby
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This article is about Japanese theater. For American political pretense, see Kabuki dance. For other uses, see Kabuki (disambiguation).
The July 1858 production of Shibaraku at the Ichimura-za theater in Edo. Triptych woodblock print by Utagawa Toyokuni III.
Kabuki (歌舞伎?) is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.
History of kabuki[edit]
1603–1629: Female kabuki[edit]
The earliest portrait of Izumo no Okuni, the founder of kabuki (1600s)
The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Izumo no Okuni, possibly a miko of Izumo Taisha, began performing a new style of dance drama in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto. It originated in the 17th century.[2] Japan was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate, enforced by Tokugawa Ieyasu.[3] The name of the Edo period derives from the relocation of the Tokugawa regime from its former home in Kyoto to the city of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life. The style was immediately popular, and Okuni was asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes quickly formed, and kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama performed by women—a form very different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the ribald, suggestive themes featured by many troupes; this appeal was further augmented by the fact that the performers were often also available for prostitution.[1] For this reason, kabuki was also called "遊女歌舞妓" (prostitute-singing and dancing performer) during this period.
Kabuki became a common form of entertainment in the ukiyo, or Yoshiwara, the registered red-light district in Edo. A diverse crowd gathered under one roof, something that happened nowhere else in the city. Kabuki theaters were a place to see and be seen as they featured the latest fashion trends and current events. The stage provided good entertainment with exciting new music, patterns, clothing, and famous actors. Performances went from morning until sunset. The teahouses surrounding or connected to the theater provided meals, refreshments, and good company. The area around the theatres was lush with shops selling kabuki souvenirs. Kabuki, in a sense, initiated pop culture in Japan.
The shogunate was never partial to kabuki and all the mischief it brought, particularly the variety of the social classes which mixed at kabuki performances. Women’s kabuki, called onna-kabuki, was banned in 1629 for being too erotic. Following onna-kabuki, young boys performed in wakashū-kabuki, but since they too were eligible for prostitution, the shogun government soon banned wakashū-kabuki as well. Kabuki switched to adult male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s.[4] Male actors played both female and male characters. The theatre remained popular, and remained a focus of urban lifestyle until modern times. Although kabuki was performed all over ukiyo and other portions for the country, the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za and Kawarazaki-za theatres became the top theatres in ukiyo, where some of the most successful kabuki performances were and still are held.[3]
1629–1673: Transition to yarō-kabuki[edit]
The modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki (young man kabuki), was established during these decades. After women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata ("female-role") or oyama, took over. Young (adolescent) men were preferred for women's roles due to their less masculine appearance and the higher pitch of their voices compared to adult men. In addition, wakashū (adolescent male) roles, played by young men often selected for attractiveness, became common, and were often presented in an erotic context.[5] Along with the change in the performer's gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Performances were equally ribald, and the male actors too were available for prostitution (to both female and male customers). Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban first onnagata and then wakashū roles. Both bans were rescinded by 1652.[6]
1673–1841: The golden age[edit]
Oniji Ōtani III (Nakazō Nakamura II) as Edobee in the May 1794 production of Koi Nyōbo Somewake Tazuna
The two Kabuki actors Bando Zenji and Sawamura Yodogoro; 1794, fifth month by Sharaku
During the Genroku era, kabuki thrived. The structure of a kabuki play was formalized during this period, as were many elements of style. Conventional character types were established. Kabuki theater and ningyō jōruri, the elaborate form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, became closely associated with each other, and each has since influenced the other's development. The famous playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon, one of the first professional kabuki playwrights, produced several influential works, though the piece usually acknowledged as his most significant, Sonezaki Shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki), was originally written for bunraku. Like many bunraku plays, it was adapted for kabuki, and it spawned many imitators—in fact, it and similar plays reportedly caused so many real-life "copycat" suicides that the government banned shinju mono (plays about lovers' double suicides) in 1723. Ichikawa Danjūrō I also lived during this time; he is credited with the development of mie[7] poses and mask-like kumadori make-up.[8]
1842–1868: The Saruwaka-chō kabuki[edit]
Male actors played both female and male characters.[3]
Brooklyn Museum - Kabuki Scene (Diptych) - Hokushu
In the 1840s, fires started terrorizing Edo due to repeated drought. Kabuki theatres, traditionally made of wood, were constantly burning down, forcing their relocation within the ukiyo. When the area that housed the Nakamura-za was completely destroyed in 1841, the shogun refused to allow the theatre to rebuild, saying that it was against fire code.[4] The shogunate did not welcome the mixing and trading that occurred between town merchants and actors, artists, and prostitutes. The shogunate took advantage of the fire crisis in 1842 to force the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za, and Kawarazaki-za out of the city limits and into Asakusa, a northern suburb of Edo. Actors, stagehands, and others associated with the performances were forced out as well. Those in areas and lifestyles centered around the theatres also migrated, but the inconvenience of the new location reduced attendance.[3] These factors, along with strict regulations, pushed much of kabuki "underground" in Edo, with performances changing locations to avoid the authorities.
The theatres' new location was called Saruwaka-chō, or Saruwaka-machi. The last thirty years of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule is often referred to as the Saruwaka-machi period. This period produced some of the gaudiest kabuki in Japanese history.[3] The Saruwaka-machi became the new theatre district for the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za and Kawarazaki-za theatres. The district was located on the main street of Asakusa, which ran through the middle of the small city. The street was renamed after Saruwaka Kanzaburo, who initiated Edo kabuki in the Nakamura Theatre in 1624.[3]
European artists began noticing Japanese theatrical performances and artwork, and many artists (for example, Claude Monet) were inspired by Japanese wood block prints. This Western interest prompted Japanese artists to increase their depictions of daily life including theatres, brothels, main streets and so on. One artist in particular, Utagawa Hiroshige, did a series of prints based on Saruwaka from the Saruwaka-machi period in Asakusa.[3]
The relocation diminished the tradition's most abundant inspiration for costuming, make-up, and story line. Ichikawa Kodanji IV was one of the most active and successful actors during the Saruwaka-machi period. Deemed unattractive, he mainly performed buyō, or dancing, in dramas written by Kawatake Mokuami, who also wrote during the Meiji period to follow.[3] Kawatake Mokuami commonly wrote plays that depicted the common lives of the people of Edo. He introduced shichigo-cho (seven-and-five syllable meter) dialogue and music such as kiyomoto.[3] His kabuki performances became quite popular once the Saruwaka-machi period ended and theatre returned to Edo; many of his works are still performed.
In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate fell apart. Emperor Meiji was restored to power and moved from Kyoto to the new capital of Edo, or Tokyo, beginning the Meiji period.[4] Kabuki returned to the ukiyo of Edo. Kabuki became more radical in the Meiji period, and modern styles emerged. New playwrights created new genres and twists on traditional stories.
Kabuki after the Meiji period[edit]
The November 1895 production of Shibaraku at Tokyo Kabukiza theater
Beginning in 1868 enormous cultural changes, such as the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, the elimination of the samurai class, and the opening of Japan to the West, helped to spark kabuki's re-emergence. As the culture struggled to adapt to the influx of foreign ideas and influence, actors strove to increase the reputation of kabuki among the upper classes and to adapt the traditional styles to modern tastes. They ultimately proved successful in this regard—on 21 April 1887, the Meiji Emperor sponsored a performance.[9]
After World War II, the occupying forces briefly banned kabuki, which had strongly supported Japan's war since 1931;[10] however, by 1947 the ban had been rescinded.[11]
Kabuki today[edit]
The immediate post–World War II era was a difficult time for kabuki. Besides the war's physical devastation, many rejected the styles and thoughts of the past, kabuki among them.[12] Director Tetsuji Takechi's popular and innovative productions of kabuki classics at this time are credited with bringing about a rebirth of interest in kabuki in the Kansai region.[13] Of the many popular young stars who performed with the Takechi Kabuki, Nakamura Ganjiro III (b. 1931) was the leading figure. He was first known as Nakamura Senjaku, and this period in Osaka kabuki became known as the "Age of Senjaku" in his honor.[13]
Today, kabuki is the most popular of the traditional styles of Japanese drama—and its star actors often appear in television or film roles.[14] For example, the well-known onnagata Bandō Tamasaburō V has appeared in several (non-kabuki) plays and movies, often in a female role. Kabuki appears in works of Japanese popular culture such as anime. In addition to the handful of major theatres in Tokyo and Kyoto, there are many smaller theatres in Osaka and throughout the countryside.[15] The Ōshika Kabuki troupe,[16] based in Ōshika, Nagano Prefecture, is one example.[17]
Some local kabuki troupes today use female actors in onnagata roles. The Ichikawa Shōjo Kabuki Gekidan, an all-female troupe, debuted in 1953 to significant acclaim but failed to start a new trend.[18]
The introduction of earphone guides in 1975,[19] including an English version in 1982,[19] helped broaden the art's appeal. As a result, in 1991 the Kabuki-za, one of Tokyo's most well-known kabuki theaters, began year-round performances [19] and, in 2005, began marketing kabuki cinema films.[20] Kabuki troupes regularly tour Asia,[21] Europe [22] and America,[23] and there have been several kabuki-themed productions of canonical Western plays such as those of Shakespeare. Western playwrights and novelists have experimented with kabuki themes, an example of which is Gerald Vizenor's Hiroshima Bugi (2004). Writer Yukio Mishima pioneered and popularized the use of kabuki in modern settings and revived other traditional arts, such as Noh, adapting them to modern contexts. There have even been kabuki troops established in countries outside of Japan. For instance, in Australia, the Za Kabuki troupe at the Australian National University has performed a kabuki drama each year since 1976,[24] the longest regular kabuki performance outside of Japan.[25]
In November 2002 a statue was erected in honor of kabuki's founder Okuni and to commemorate 400 years of kabuki's existence.[26] Diagonally across from the Minami-za,[27] the last remaining kabuki theater in Kyoto,[27] it stands at the east end of a bridge (Shijō Ōhashi)[27] crossing the Kamo River in Kyoto.
Kabuki was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in 2005.[28][29]
Elements of kabuki[edit]
Stage design[edit]
Shibai Ukie ("A Scene from A Play") by Masanobu Okumura (1686–1764), depicting Edo Ichimura-za theater in the early 1740s
The kabuki stage features a projection called a hanamichi (花道; literally, flower path), a walkway which extends into the audience and via which dramatic entrances and exits are made. Okuni also performed on a hanamichi stage with her entourage. The stage is used not only as a walkway or path to get to and from the main stage, but important scenes are also played on the stage. Kabuki stages and theaters have steadily become more technologically sophisticated, and innovations including revolving stages and trap doors were introduced during the 18th century. A driving force has been the desire to manifest one frequent theme of kabuki theater, that of the sudden, dramatic revelation or transformation.[30] A number of stage tricks, including actors' rapid appearance and disappearance, employ these innovations. The term keren (外連), often translated playing to the gallery, is sometimes used as a catch-all for these tricks. Hanamichi and several innovations including revolving stage, seri and chunori have all contributed to kabuki play. Hanamichi creates depth and both seri and chunori provide a vertical dimension.
Mawari-butai (revolving stage) developed in the Kyōhō era (1716–1735). The trick was originally accomplished by the on-stage pushing of a round, wheeled platform. Later a circular platform was embedded in the stage with wheels beneath it facilitating movement. The kuraten (“darkened revolve”) technique involves lowering the stage lights during this transition. More commonly the lights are left on for akaten (“lighted revolve”), sometimes simultaneously performing the transitioning scenes for dramatic effect. This stage was first built in Japan in the early eighteenth century.
Seri refers to the stage "traps" that have been commonly employed in kabuki since the middle of the 18th century. These traps raise and lower actors or sets to the stage. Seridashi or seriage refers to trap(s) moving upward and serisage or serioroshi to traps descending. This technique is often used to lift an entire scene at once.
Chūnori: Kunitarō Sawamura II as Kitsune Tadanobu (left) flying over the stage, in the August 1825 production of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura
Chūnori (riding in mid-air) is a technique, which appeared toward the middle of the 19th century, by which an actor’s costume is attached to wires and he is made to “fly” over the stage and/or certain parts of the auditorium. This is similar to the wire trick in the stage musical Peter Pan, in which Peter launches himself into the air. It is still one of the most popular keren (visual tricks) in kabuki today; major kabuki theaters, such as the National Theatre, Kabuki-za and Minami-za, are all equipped with chūnori installations.[31]
Scenery changes are sometimes made mid-scene, while the actors remain on stage and the curtain stays open. This is sometimes accomplished by using a Hiki Dōgu, or small wagon stage. This technique originated at the beginning of the 18th century, where scenery or actors move on or off stage on a wheeled platform. Also common are stagehands rushing onto the stage adding and removing props, backdrops and other scenery; these kuroko (黒子) are always dressed entirely in black and are traditionally considered invisible. Stagehands also assist in a variety of quick costume changes known as hayagawari (quick change technique). When a character's true nature is suddenly revealed, the devices of hikinuki and bukkaeri are often used. This involves layering one costume over another and having a stagehand pull the outer one off in front of the audience.
The three main categories of kabuki play are jidai-mono (時代物, historical, or pre-Sengoku period stories), sewa-mono (世話物, domestic, or post-Sengoku stories) and shosagoto (所作事, dance pieces).
Jidaimono, or history plays, were set within the context of major events in Japanese history. Strict censorship laws during the Edo period prohibited the representation of contemporary events and particularly prohibited criticising the shogunate or casting it in a bad light, although enforcement varied greatly over the years. Many shows were set in the context of the Genpei War of the 1180s, the Nanboku-chō Wars of the 1330s, or other historical events. Frustrating the censors, many shows used these historical settings as metaphors for contemporary events. Kanadehon Chūshingura, one of the most famous plays in the kabuki repertoire, serves as an excellent example; it is ostensibly set in the 1330s, though it actually depicts the contemporary (18th century) affair of the revenge of the 47 Ronin.
The March 1849 production of Chūshingura at Edo Nakamura-za theater
Unlike jidaimono which generally focused upon the samurai class, sewamono focused primarily upon commoners, namely townspeople and peasants. Often referred to as "domestic plays" in English, sewamono generally related to themes of family drama and romance. Some of the most famous sewamono are the love suicide plays, adapted from works by the bunraku playwright Chikamatsu; these center on romantic couples who cannot be together in life due to various circumstances and who therefore decide to be together in death instead. Many if not most sewamono contain significant elements of this theme of societal pressures and limitations.
Important elements of kabuki include the mie (見得), in which the actor holds a picturesque pose to establish his character.[30] At this point his house name (yagō, 屋号) is sometimes heard in loud shout (kakegoe, 掛け声) from an expert audience member, serving both to express and enhance the audience's appreciation of the actor's achievement. An even greater compliment can be paid by shouting the name of the actor's father. Keshō, kabuki makeup, provides an element of style easily recognizable even by those unfamiliar with the art form. Rice powder is used to create the white oshiroi base for the characteristic stage makeup, and kumadori enhances or exaggerates facial lines to produce dramatic animal or supernatural masks. The color of the kumadori is an expression of the character's nature: red lines are used to indicate passion, heroism, righteousness, and other positive traits; blue or black, villainy, jealousy, and other negative traits; green, the supernatural; and purple, nobility.[8]
Play structure[edit]
Kabuki, like other traditional forms of drama in Japan and other cultures, was (and sometimes still is) performed in full-day programs. Rather than attending for 2–5 hours, as one might do in a modern Western-style theater, audiences "escape" from the day-to-day world, devoting a full day to entertainment. Though some individual plays, particularly the historical jidaimono, might last an entire day, most were shorter and sequenced with other plays in order to produce a full-day program.
The structure of the full-day program, like the structure of the plays themselves, was derived largely from the conventions of bunraku and Noh, conventions which also appear in other traditional Japanese arts. Chief among these is the concept of jo-ha-kyū (序破急), which states that dramatic pacing should start slow, speed up, and end quickly. The concept, elaborated on at length by master Noh playwright Zeami, governs not only the actions of the actors, but also the structure of the play as well as the structure of scenes and plays within a day-long program.
Nearly every full-length play occupies five acts. The first corresponds to jo, an auspicious and slow opening which introduces the audience to the characters and the plot. The next three acts correspond to ha, speeding events up, culminating almost always in a great moment of drama or tragedy in the third act and possibly a battle in the second and/or fourth acts. The final act, corresponding to kyu, is almost always short, providing a quick and satisfying conclusion.[32]
The September 1824 production of Heike Nyōgo-ga-shima at Osaka Sumi-za theater
While many plays were originally written for kabuki, many others were taken from jōruri plays, Noh plays, folklore, or other performing traditions such as the oral tradition of the Tale of the Heike. While jōruri plays tend to have serious, emotionally dramatic, and organized plots, plays written specifically for kabuki generally have looser, sillier plots.[33] One of the crucial differences in the philosophy of the two forms is that jōruri focuses primarily on the story and on the chanter who recites it, while kabuki focuses more on the actors. A jōruri play may sacrifice the details of sets, puppets, or action in favor of the chanter, while kabuki is known to sacrifice drama and even the plot to highlight an actor's talents. It was not uncommon in kabuki to insert or remove individual scenes from a day's schedule in order to cater to the talents or desires of an individual actor—scenes he was famed for, or that featured him, would be inserted into a program without regard to plot continuity.[33]
Kabuki traditions in Edo and in Kamigata (the Kyoto-Osaka region) were quite different. Through most of the Edo period, kabuki in Edo was defined by extravagance and bombast, as exemplified by stark makeup patterns, flashy costumes, fancy keren (stage tricks), and bold mie (poses). Kamigata kabuki, meanwhile, was much calmer and focused on naturalism and realism in acting. Only towards the end of the Edo period in the 19th century did the two regions adopt one another's styles to any significant degree.[34] For a long time, actors from one region often failed to adjust to the styles of the other region and were unsuccessful in their performance tours of that region.
Famous plays[edit]
Major theatres in operation[edit]
Tokyo Kabuki-za (before rebuilding)
Kyoto Minami-za
See also[edit]
1. ^ a b "Kabuki" in Frederic, Louis (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
2. ^ Haar 1971, p. 83
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Masato 2007
4. ^ a b c Ernst 1956, pp. 10–12
5. ^ Leupp 1997, pp. 91–92
6. ^ Leupp 1997, p. 92
7. ^ "Mie". Kabuki Jiten. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
8. ^ a b Kincaid, Zoe (1925). Kabuki: The Popular Stage of Japan. London: MacMillan and Co. pp21–22.
9. ^ Shōriya, Asagoro. Kabuki Chronology of the 19th century at Kabuki21.com (Retrieved 18 December 2006.)
10. ^ Brandon 2009
11. ^ Takemae, Eiji; Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann (translators and adapters) (2002) [1983]. The Allied Occupation of Japan. New York & London: Continuum. pp. 390–391. ISBN 0-8264-6247-2.
12. ^ Kominz, Laurence (1997). The Stars Who Created Kabuki; Their Lives, Loves and Legacy. Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International. p. 232. ISBN 4-7700-1868-1.
13. ^ a b Toita, Yasuji; Don Kenny (translator) (1970). "Zenshin-za Innovations". Kabuki: The Popular Theater. Performing Arts of Japan: II. New York & Tokyo: Walker/Weatherhill. p. 213. ISBN 0-8027-2424-8.
14. ^ Shōriya, Asagoro. Contemporary Actors at Kabuki21.com. (Retrieved 18 December 2006.)
15. ^ "Kabuki Theaters". Kabuki21.com. 2013-12-31. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
16. ^ Japanese: 大鹿歌舞伎
17. ^ "Ōshika Kabuki". Retrieved 22 February 2007.
18. ^ Edelson, Loren. Playing for the Majors and the Minors: Ichikawa Girls’ Kabuki on the Postwar Stage. In: Leiter, Samuel (ed). Rising from the Flames: The Rebirth of Theater in Occupied Japan, 1945-1952. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Pages 75–85.
19. ^ a b c Martin, Alex, "Kabuki going strong, 400 years on", Japan Times, 28 December 2010, p. 3,
20. ^ Martin, Alex, "Kabuki going strong, 400 years on", Japan Times, 28 December 2010, p. 3, retrieved on 29 December 2010.
21. ^ "Kabuki Tours In Asia". Kabuki21.com. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
22. ^ "Kabuki Tours In Europe". Kabuki21.com. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
23. ^ "Kabuki Tours In North And South America". Kabuki21.com. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
24. ^ Za Kabuki Troupe, "Za Kabuki 2012: Who We Are." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 28, 2013. https://sites.google.com/site/zakabuki2010/who-we-are
25. ^ Negishi, K, and M Tomoeda. "ANU Za Kabuki." Monsoon, 2010, 26.
26. ^ Sign (in English) for Izumo no Okuni's statue in Kyoto
27. ^ a b c Lonely Planet Kyoto, 2012, page 169
28. ^ "2001~2100". Kabuki21.com. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
29. ^ "UNESCO Culture Sector - Intangible Heritage - 2003 Convention :". Unesco.org. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
30. ^ a b Scott 1955, pp. 55–56
31. ^ Ukon Ichikawa as Genkurō Kitsune flying over audience in the July 2005 National Theatre production of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura.
32. ^ Quinn, Shelley Fenno. "How to write a Noh play—Zeami's Sandō. Monumenta Nipponica, vol 48, issue 1 (Spring 1993). pp53–88.
33. ^ a b Toita, Yasuji (1970). Kabuki: The Popular Theater. New York: Weatherhill. pp 6–8.
34. ^ Thornbury, Barbara E. "Sukeroku's Double Identity: The Dramatic Structure of Edo Kabuki". Japanese Studies 6 (1982). Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. 13
35. ^ a b Miyake, Shutarō (1971). "Kabuki Drama". Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau. This story is one of the most popular traditional tales in Japan, and is based on a famous episode in 18th-century Japanese history.
36. ^ Jones, Stanleigh H. Jr. (trans.)(1993). "Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees." New York: Columbia University Press.
External links[edit] | <urn:uuid:d85fe0ca-596e-494d-9152-a3d73d58f3bd> | 3 | 3 | 0.037373 | en | 0.94779 | http://blekko.com/wiki/Kabuki?source=672620ff |
Are Your Snacks Playing Tricks on You?
Potato Chip
I recently read an interesting Wall Street Journal article on the psychology of food packaging. It shouldn’t surprise you that food companies will try their hardest to trick you into eating as much of their snack as possible. The more you eat, the more you buy, and the more weight you gain.
However, you can fight this. The first step is understanding the psychology of how we eat and how we perceive our portion sizes.
By giving college students stacks of potato chips, researchers demonstrated the importance of food packaging. One group of students got a canister of potato chips with a red chip placed at various intervals. After eating a certain number of regular chips, they encountered a red chip that served as an “artificial barrier” that reminded snackers of the number of chips they consumed. The students who had this barrier ate less than half the amount of chips than those who didn’t have the red chips.
It shows that little reminders of how much we’re eating can help us eat less and lose weight faster. As a result, food companies are doing what they can to eliminate any artificial barriers for their snacks to compel you to eat more. For example, individual wrappers on candy got in the way of how much consumers ate. Hence, Hershey Co. came up with Reese’s Minis, a small, unwrapped version of their classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. It makes it easier to pop candy into your mouth on the go and load up on calories before you realize it.
Size Does Matter
It’s not just wrappers or packages, serving size also dictates how much you eat. In a study on cafeteria serving sizes, those who were served larger plates of pasta for the same price consumed 43% more calories than those who were served smaller portions. Both groups felt just as satisfied with their meals. People tended to eat more if more food was placed in front of them. Researchers have demonstrated this concept with foods like popcorn, macaroni and cheese, and soda.
This is why New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a restriction on the available sizes of soda last year, which was eventually blocked by a judge right before implementation. One of the arguments included the fact that liquids don’t fill us up as much as solid food, which makes it much easier for us to drink hundreds of calories of soda or juice without realizing it.
Despite our tendency to eat more when more food is available, you can learn how to fight it and cut the calories!
Practical Tips for Portion Control
Now that you know a little more about the power of food packaging and portions, follow these tips to prevent yourself from falling prey to over-consumption:
• Buy single-serve snacks: Big box stores may be a great place to save money by buying food in bulk, but that family-sized bag of potato chips may compel you to eat more than what you’ve bargained for. Try buying single servings of snacks instead, if possible.
• Contain your snacks: If you can’t buy single servings, break out the Tupperware. Instead of feeling compelled to eat whatever snack companies tell you to eat, measure it out for yourself. Use small, 6 t0 8 ounce containers to store your snacks.
• Break out the small plates: 54% of Americans eat until their plates are clean. If you place a portion of pasta on a smaller, 8-inch plate, it looks like a meal; however, if you place the same amount on a 12-inch dinner plate, it looks like a meager side. To avoid this trap, stick to smaller plates.
• Watch what you drink: Portion control does not only apply to food. Over-consumption of sugary drinks also fill you up with unnecessary calories. Use smaller glasses or, better yet, just drink water.
• When in doubt, order a small: Not sure what will fill you up at a restaurant? A recent study found that restaurant meals contain 60% more calories than meals served at home. Order small.
• Sharing is caring: Instead of forcing yourself to eat a massive piece of cake or pasta dish, share it with a friend! You can order one main dish and add a side veggie dish to satisfy both you and your friend. You might even have room to share(!) dessert! | <urn:uuid:a71a01c4-e0c7-4646-afa0-aba53adfe4a6> | 3 | 2.625 | 0.03773 | en | 0.953752 | http://blog.doctoroz.com/dr-oz-blog/is-your-snack-the-total-package |
Ann Arbor tech companies pursuing advancements for wind energy technology
Nathan Bomey By Nathan Bomey The Ann Arbor Business Review
on February 26, 2009 at 10:33 AM, updated April 07, 2009 at 10:28 AM
At the risk of committing the journalistic sin of oversimplification, let's call it a wind version of a solar panel.
That's a dumbed-down way to describe a device Ann Arbor-based startup Accio Energy is developing. They've coined the term "aerovoltaic" to describe their device. It would be installed on rooftops, harvest wind and turn it into electricity - without the moving parts associated with wind turbines.
The company's founders, including President Dawn White, who also founded successful Ann Arbor startup Solidica, are being purposely secret about the details of their technology. But their aim is to create a device that can generate double the electricity per square meter of solar panels.
They agreed to talk with me about the broad aspects of their technology for a story published today. The good news for Michigan's economy: They aren't satisfied with just conducting research. In our interview, they emphasized that they want to produce a product as soon as possible.
My piece also discusses another unrelated Ann Arbor startup called WindSight, a spinoff of established Ann Arbor engineering firm Michigan Aerospace. WindSight's Peter Tchoryk said his firm is close to commercializing technology to improve wind-farm site assessment technology and wind turbine efficiency.
Together, Accio and WindSight are challenging the assumption that wind technology is a largely mature field.
A word of caution: Both companies are still infants compared to the major players in the alternative energy sector. In fact, the Web sites for Accio and WindSight are quite sparse.
But it's worth noting that Michigan's push for economic development in the wind energy sector shouldn't be confined to wind turbine production. There is room to contribute meaningful advancements to wind energy technology, too.
| <urn:uuid:c78defc8-6b33-4ad6-88d4-5ac009c5a22e> | 2 | 1.953125 | 0.094044 | en | 0.94023 | http://blog.mlive.com/businessinnovation/2009/02/ann_arbor_tech_companies_chall.html |
On Pop Music and Violence Against Women
Categories: WTF
Jaime Lees
My R. Kelly necklace
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I've thought about this a lot and, honestly, I'm no closer to an answer than I was when I started. Let me ramble about this a bit, in hopes it helps.
There's a school of thought that says that any work of art, every work of art, exists independent of the artist and the artist's intent. There's another school of thought that says that when you endorse the art, you endorse the artist. I am capable of respecting people who believe either one of those things. Sometimes I'm even capable of believing both of those things at once.
I think, for me, one thing that factors into where I personally end up drawing the line has to do with thresholds: how many people have they hurt, have they allegedly hurt? Someone's been in one or two bad relationships, committed one or two crimes, and at least tried to repent, maybe I'm capable of judging the art independent of the artist. On the other hand, I can think of at least one artist, a popular writer, who spent the 80s campaigning, in public, to have gay people rounded up for involuntary human experiments to find a cure for homosexuality; fortunately, nobody listened to him, but had he succeeded, he would have exceeded Hitler or Stalin or maybe even Pol Pot in death toll; I can't look past that to see the art, I can't interpret the art without looking for evidence of that kind of sick thinking showing up in the work.
But I wonder about something else. Have you seen the medical news stories, lately, about the early results of the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey? They followed the lives of thousands of children up through early adulthood and found that the amount of trauma someone grew up with correlates with every kind of medical, physical, psychological, economic, and social dysfunction there is: everything from asthma and allergies to crime and illiteracy to teen pregnancy and unemployment. Quite possibly the single biggest health and safety hazard we have in this country may well turn out to be childhood PTSD. And I think, on some level, I may have already known that ... and that may be why I cut artists more slack if they grew up in the ghetto, or in rural poverty, than I do if they grew up middle class or above. Maybe, anyway. I don't really know.
Anyway, I hope this helps, I hope it at least gives you something to argue with or think about. Because you've asked a really good question.
dalediversity topcommenter
I stopped reading at the trigger warning. I hope there's nothing in the article of value.
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What Is Software Testing?
By Hans Hartmann
Software glitches have always caused major damage. And recently, the biggest failures haven’t been in aerospace or defense, but have increasingly affected the average consumer. Often, we hear that the software testing wasn’t done properly. But what does this mean exactly?
software testing is required with today's complex programs
Photo: iStockphoto
Every now and then, really spectacular software breakdowns occur. The opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 became a public embarrassment because the baggage system failed to function. More than 17 million customer accounts at RBS and its subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Bank could be accessed for some or all of the day because the installation of customer management software corrupted the entire system. One of the biggest Austrian banks paid out €21 million to appease its customers with vouchers because the new online banking software didn’t work for days on end.
Errors like these are not only damaging to a company’s brand, but can also be very costly. The goal of software testing is to avoid such incidents and the consequences. On the following pages, we explore the topic of software testing and address these main questions:
Hans Hartmann, test director at Objentis since 2007. (Photo: Private)
We can assume that in the cases previously mentioned, the software in question was definitely tested: Banks and insurance companies know the risks of using software that has not been tested. So how can such malfunctions continue to occur? Some, but certainly not all, software glitches can be caused by storms and natural disasters. Still, this provides no explanation for the increase in software errors of late. Testing has always been done and it used to work well. And natural disasters are a known, if unpredictable, factor. So why should the tried-and-true formulas suddenly fail?
The reason is simple: Programs have become more complex. And to address this complexity, more testing is required. How much more? Take the years 2000 and 2010. In this time, the volume of data being moved around increased by a factor of 50,000. If a program was tested for two weeks in 2000, it would have to be tested for 100,000 weeks in 2010 – in other words, around two thousand years.
More interactions, not more data, increases complexity
Working and calculating this way is clearly not an option. After all, software is now more efficient, development tools allow many errors to be detected before the program is first created, and modern object-oriented software design enables developers to code neatly and in a less error-prone way. But even if testing is only increased by a factor of 50, it would still have to be tested for 100 weeks – or two years. That simply isn’t feasible.
Comparing the difference in size and quantity alone doesn’t necessarily mean that the software has become more complex. In fact, one of the main arguments for using a computer is that it doesn’t matter whether it has to perform a calculation five times or 5,000 times. It should simply be reliable. It is not the increase in the quantity of data that causes complexity, but rather the increase in possible connections and systems.
Look at the development of mobile telephony: In Germany, Radio Telephone Network C came along first in cumbersome cases, followed by the much more manageable digital cellular network D-Netz. In comparison, today’s smartphones have the processing power of mainframe computers from 20 years ago. Apart from the pure advancement of technical data, think about all the things that can now be done with a smartphone. Above all, think about the number of other systems that can be tapped into – at the same time, even. It is the number of possible connections that causes the corresponding increase in complexity.
The main difference between today and yesterday is not the advancement in programming languages – even though developers may no longer code in Assembler or COBOL, these languages can still be used to write good programs today – but rather the number of possible solutions there are for a certain problem.
Take this analogy of trying to cross a river that is 30 feet wide without using a boat and without getting wet. In the past, there was one solution: system analysts would look for places where big rocks could be used jump across the river to the other side. Today, there are 10 different bridges crossing the river, that is, 10 different ways to solve the problem.
The software architect, then, has to choose a particular solution based on whether it meets various quality requirements. Let’s say there is a highway bridge crossing the river as well as a wooden walkway. To use the highway, you need to build feeder roads. Even if the simple wooden walkway is sufficient and building feeder roads requires more effort, the software architect may still choose to use the highway with the reasoning that other people want to cross the river, too.
It’s impossible to test every combination
Here is another example: Forty years ago, when passengers would buy a train ticket from a ticket machine, they would have to answer a series of questions, one after the other. From where do you wish to depart? To where do you wish to travel? How old are you? Are you entitled to a reduced fare? In which class do you wish to travel? And so on. If they discovered while answering the questions that they didn’t have enough money, they would have to cancel the transaction and start again from the beginning.
At today’s ticket machines, passengers will find the questions slightly more hidden in different fields. Instead of entering their age, they select standard fare, half price, or other offers. Rather than typing the destination in full, they type the first few letters, and only the possible destinations are then displayed. While the layout of the input fields suggests that the information can be entered in any order, that is still not possible. For example, if users have entered a discount ticket, they cannot subsequently upgrade to first class. However, instead of getting an error message that says, “First class must be entered before you select a discount,” users will see a message like, “You must purchase your first class ticket on the train.”
In this case, it is clear that developers made some small mistakes in the process of transferring an originally linear, simple input sequence to a graphical input system. Let’s say the machine needs to process five different inputs and they can be in any order. This means there are 120 different combinations of how entries can be made. So, it is understandable that not all input options were tested before the software was implemented.
In the past, it was possible to test each individual function and then test the complete process. Now it is necessary to test the interactions between individual functions. The number of these interactions depends directly on the number of possible sequence combinations, which can easily be a seven-digit sum. If you take a smartphone, for example, the number of possible combinations surpasses the example of the ticket machines by several orders of magnitude. | <urn:uuid:3bf57a82-f0cc-47f9-8701-2770a49b8e6d> | 3 | 2.875 | 0.045592 | en | 0.943036 | http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/industries/what-is-software-testing-025386 |
Frankenfoods vs Thomas Malthus: if it's genetically modified food or global famine, I know which I'd choose – Telegraph Blogs
Wednesday 4 March 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds
Tom Chivers
Anti-GM protesters: it's easy to be all pro-organic when you live within easy reach of a branch of Waitrose. (Photo: Ian Jones)
It’s nice to see two classic scientific scare stories facing off. We’ve read a lot about both over the years, and both have been the subject of a lot of media-led panic, and now they’re being set against each other in a battle to the death. It’s a bit like Alien vs Predator, except it’s real life. Frankenfoods vs Thomas Malthus.
Yes, Professor Sir John Beddington, the chief science adviser to the government, has suggested that genetically modified (GM) crops are our best hope to keep the growing population of the world fed. “In 20 years' time, the world population is going to be sky high, demand for food, demand for water, demand for energy, is going to be way up there,” he told the BBC.
"The population of Africa is scheduled to double over the next 20 years. We need to be thinking about making agriculture more effective, dealing with the problems of water, dealing with the problem of energy.
"There's no one simple solution. GM may be the answer for certain problems.”
People have been predicting the world’s population outrunning our ability to feed it since 1798, when the aforementioned Reverend Thomas Malthus pointed out that population increases exponentially, while food production ability increases linearly. To put it another way, population generally increases by a steady percentage each year, while resources generally increase by a steady sum. Eventually, if left unchecked, an exponential increase will always outrace a linear one: so population must, eventually, outgrow our ability to feed that population.
The idea took off most spectacularly in the late 1960s and 1970s, with the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. Professor Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, thought that within 20 years of the book’s publication the world would see widespread famine: “"the battle to feed all of humanity is over … In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now”, he told New Scientist in 1967, shortly before his book was published. He also said that "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
Now, Prof Ehrlich was clearly wrong, but he was wrong in a very instructive way. When he was writing, in the few years either side of 1970, the world population was about 3.5 billion. Now, 40 years later, it is more like 6.9 billion (or, if you’d like a spuriously precise figure, 6,895,537,788 at the time of writing – 1:48pm on 24/01/2011 – according to the US Census Bureau). But, in that time, instead of everyone having less food, food production per capita has actually gone up by more than 25 per cent. In real terms, that means, our food production capability has doubled, and more.
How has that happened? Simply put: technology. The “green revolution” of agriculture saw the creation, through selective breeding, of high-yield strains of grains like maize and rice; the vastly increased use of fertilisers and pesticides; industrial-scale farms and irrigation systems; and, of course, the use of genetic engineering to produce more efficiently harvestable crops. All that allowed us to feed the world; there is now more than enough food to go around, although it is still extremely unequally distributed.
So GM has already played a role in averting one global food catastrophe, albeit a relatively small one compared to the other aspects of the green revolution. Can it do it again? Prof Beddington thinks so, although he acknowledges that it will be no “silver bullet”. Africa did not benefit much from the previous green revolution, but GM crops that are ready to grow in salt-spoiled earth or hotter temperatures, or to resist diseases and parasites, could change that. And Malthus’s simple mathematics suggest that, without qualitative changes in food production, population will one day outstrip supply.
GM, of course, has had a bad press. Partly that’s a reasonable response to the idea that multinational corporations will be able to copyright the genomes of food crops, and charge a premium for the right to grow them, but mainly – as far as I can see – it’s part of the general fear of The Unnatural; hence pejorative terms like Frankenfoods and so on. We don’t like the idea of Messing with Nature, of Playing God. But since every advance mankind has made since the taming of fire is interfering with the natural order in some sense, it’s not a helpful argument.
As Prof Beddington points out, it’s going to be the poorest of the world’s population who are going to be hardest hit if the predictions of overpopulation-caused famine bear out. GM represents an important tool in preventing that happening. It’s easy for us in the pampered West to demand organic all-natural produce, but other parts of the world do not have that luxury. Malthusian collapse is a genuine possibility, even if it has been wrongly predicted before. And there is little actual reason to fear GM foods, and much to be gained from them. So Prof Beddington is right: Frankenfoods should be unleashed to do battle with the hordes of Thomas Malthus, and there’s really only one side we should be rooting for.
(Note for regular readers: my old posts haven't disappeared, I've just moved from the Culture section to the News one. The old stuff is still here in case you haven't finished calling me a numpty under one of the previous articles.)
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#5: The UN E-Government Survey: Towards a More Citizen-Centric Approach
Tanya Gupta's picture
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2011
Originally published on January 10, 2011
• Are rankings preferred to “best practice cases”?
The Survey tracks progress of the 192 Member States in implementing e-government programs and measures and compares their state of e-government development via the Global e-Government Development Index as the barometer. See below for an illustrative graphic of the components of this Index:
This methodology is based on the assumption that there are specific stages of e-government evolution along the following lines:
The final stages assumes that horizontal connections (between government agencies) as well as vertical connections (among central and local government agencies) are in place, that a supporting infrastructure is in place, with full interoperability, that there are G2C (Government to citizen connections) as well as G2G and G2B elements, with connections among various stakeholders (including government, private sector, academia, NGOs and civil society).
What was different about this particular expert session was that it took into account several important factors:
1. The latest trends and technologies (open data, cloud computing, social media)
2. The importance of a citizen-centric government
3. Inclusion and accessibility
4. User take-up and training
5. Accessibility of Internet or mobile connectivity to all
6. Multi-channel service provision
7. Whole-of-government (WOG) and one-stop service provision
8. The environment
I co-chaired the session on multichannel delivery with Mr. Patrick Spearing, who is the Senior Governance and Public Administration Officer at DPADM (UN). Our team made the following points:
1) Citizen-centric: for services, it is absolutely essential to place the citizen at the center of the government service delivery. At present, governments agree that this should be done, however this is not always implemented in practice. If the government services are citizen-centric, then by default, you will interact with the government based on who you are and what your needs are and not based on how the government is organized:
a. As an example, let’s take the example of a citizen who needs to pay taxes. Let’s say you are a senior bureaucrat in the Government who uses his assistant even to type emails. Maybe you want to just pick up the phone and pay your taxes over the phone. Take another example, you complicated your taxes this year and you want to be sure it is done exactly right. So you want to mail the forms in or drop them off personally. Or you are a connected citizen and would like to pay your taxes using the Internet or SMS. Finally if you have special needs, those should be taken into account as well.
b. Therefore, multichannel delivery of services would mean that the needs of each of the different kinds of citizens mentioned above would be served. Rather than moving all services online, the philosophy of e-government is to provide services in a meaningful way to the citizens, using the channels most preferred by them.
2) New trends and effect of multichannel delivery should be taken into account:
a. This will mean, for example, that where mobile penetration and device based internet usage is high, service delivery should be also be organized around device based as opposed to PC-based access to information and services (e.g. mobile web), and also take the role of social media into account.
b. With San Francisco 311, for example, residents can report a non functional traffic light, road maintenance needs, as well as receive information on city government via Twitter.
I will end with a comment made by the Chief, e-Government Branch (eGB) DPADM at United Nations. Mr. Vincenzo Aquaro commented on the need to make e-government measurement flexible and agile enough to respond to the ever-changing environment. Once this is done, we can get a much better sense of how governments are responding to the technology challenges discussed above.
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People talk. There's no getting around it. People talk about each other and about themselves because we are social animals who love to communicate. This month we look at talk from three different points of view: talk as a marketing tool, as a sales technique and as an organizational development device.
Talk is at the heart of The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Advertising by Emanuel Rosen. Why does a sleeper become a hit movie? Because people raved about it to their friends. Why did 65 percent of Palm Pilot users buy a Palm? Because someone told someone who told someone else the Palm Pilot was a great product. That's buzz, the largely immeasurable word-of-mouth network that spreads product information from one user to another potential user. This column is buzz, since I'm telling you about books I like.
Buzz is also the impression a product leaves with consumers. To create buzz, Rosen says, a product must have clearly identifiable traits. In addition to being innovative or solving a practical problem, the product becomes more useful as more people use it. If it also practically advertises itself (How many of your neighbors have blue New York Times bags on their lawn?) you've got buzz. How did you hear about the best-selling novel Cold Mountain? You probably read a review or someone told you about the book. That's buzz at work.
The Anatomy of Buzz follows the footsteps of Paul Lazarsfeld, a communications researcher who, in the 1940s, studied the influence of the mass media on election politics. He concluded that many factors played into voters' decisions, including the beliefs of "opinion leaders," people who influenced their decisions. The Anatomy of Buzz deftly links such communications theory with buying theory. This is not a stuffy research volume or a textbook, however. It's a layman's approach to a marketing strategy, one that many marketers have overlooked. They rely heavily on expensive ad campaigns that may not reap results. These days that's a huge and costly mistake. The Anatomy of Buzz should be required reading for anyone who works with new product development, advertising or public relations. Don't spend your money where it won't work, Rosen advises. As an alternative, talk is cheap and very effective.
Several years ago, the buzz word in sales and marketing circles was the "guerilla" approach to sales. Almost everyone knows a guerilla salesman at work. He's the guy with the take-no-prisoners attitude, who has perfected the hard sell and always seems to know what to say. In Three Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Wayauthor Gene Bedell offers a primer for those of us who are flummoxed by guerilla tactics, but still need help in becoming effective communicators. Whether you're a salesperson, a PTA member or a job applicant, Three Steps to Yes shows you how to sell your ideas or yourself without subscribing to guerilla tactics.
Bedell refers to all of us who aren't comfortable with guerilla tactics as "poets." He prefaces Three Steps to Yes with the assurance that poets can learn to sell their ideas in ways that make sense to sensitive hearts. The author outlines a clear guide for instilling trust and respect in buyers, helping poets to say what they need to say. He teaches a method of understanding buyers' needs, all the while assuring poets that they need not compromise their values to make a sale Three Steps to Yes is peppered with stories from Bedell's home and work life. He makes it look as easy to talk with a 13-year-old as it is to win a new job. Illus- trated with cogent examples, interesting narrative and simple outlines, Three Steps to Yes helps poets slide quietly past guerillas in the war of words at work.
As the author of another new book sees it, all of us are "gorillas," and evolution can help us make sense of the workplace. In Executive Instinct, Nigel Nicholson uses evolutionary psychology to explain how organizations function.
This snappy, smart book convincingly draws parallels between the work environment and sociological models of human behavior. Executive Instinct gives common sense explanations of a range of human relations topics. Why do men and women have different work styles? Why do people need to share office gossip? Do you want to understand why your office atmosphere is stagnant and starched? Nicholson can tell you.
People enjoy gossip and networking because "evolution designed us to talk," Nicholson says. At the same time, we are not innately equipped to read and write. These attributes play out at the office and are reflected in workplace statistics. Nicholson notes that most managers show a strong preference for oral over written communications and hate to write. Employees also prefer talk, citing face-to-face channels as the top form of boss-employee communication.
Yet e-mail proliferates. Nicholson uses his evolutionary approach to argue that e-mail is causing a rash of communications disorders in organizations as people rely on it as a substitute for face-to-face meetings. Before you implement that new communications technology designed to put the whole company in touch, read Nicholson's book. What you may need instead is a new water cooler for employees to gather around. Our evolutionary instincts are clashing with our technological capabilities.
Executive Instinct is full of fresh, brash theories. Has evolution designed us to work in groups of no more than 150 employees? Nicholson says yes. He criticizes conglomerates that fail to make distinct small groupings within their organizations. Small groups feel more rational to humans, he says, because we have evolved in them. Companies like Dell Computer and Toyota, which have created rational groups, are the future, he says. Each has a modular structure and a decentralized supply chain. The best companies will manage with evolutionary insight, adapting organizations to nurture human nature. Briefly noted The Board Bookby Susan F. Shultz is a valuable tool for any business or nonprofit organization. Most CEOs underutilize or largely ignore their corporate boards in the day-to-day rush through business, but the collective wisdom, big-picture perspective and advice board members can provide is an invaluable resource. Best of all, it's free.
Shultz gives practical advice on how to choose, train and utilize a corporate board, and offers insights on managing board conflict and setting the stage for board leadership. Informative for CEOs and directors alike, this is a no-nonsense book that focuses on practical issues for board participation in the success of a company.
Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.
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What is the difference in types of curry?
• 3
Im only familiar with Thai green curry, which I like very much.
What is the difference in heat, ingredients and taste between panang, massamun, yellow and red curry?
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1. I asked my aunt that question once. She said that the green curry uses fresh herbs and spices whereas the red curry uses dried. She taught me how to make green curry paste from scratch once, but I should've written it down. That's the best of my curry knowledge, don't know much about the other types.
1. It has been a while since I squinted to look at the labels on the small cans of Thai curries that I prefer. The label listing is helpful in answering your question but probably not sufficient to derive the recipe. Massamun is going to have more cardamom and cinnamon - maybe clove(?). It is closer to an India/So Asian curry.
In 20 years of dabbling, I have not figured out how to make the perfect Vietnamese yellow curry. Maybe it is because I start with the cans of curry paste. There are Thai cookbooks that spell out the details curry paste recipe in the kind of detail your aunt shared with you - it might refresh your memory. I'm sorry I don't have specific references, I work from my own tattered notes.
1. The first thing you should do is get a Thai cookbook. Or at least look at one. They usually contain a section of recipes for the various curry pastes. You can see from the ingredient lists what they contain.
Differences in heat and taste really depend on the individual curry and on the ingredients used. Green Thai curry tends to be quite hot, but the comparison really depends on the heat and amount of the green chilies, the heat and amount of the red chilies in a red curry (if you're comparing), the amount of coconut milk used in the final dish, etc.
The best thing I'd suggest is to try them all. Either buy the decent ones in the cans, or make them yourself if you're ambitious. Then you'll soon be able to answer your own question! | <urn:uuid:1f04a4b8-cf34-432b-8fcb-fd4172c6e596> | 2 | 2.046875 | 0.26159 | en | 0.958058 | http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/490588 |
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1 Corinthians 5:5 (NIV)
Here we have Paul referring to a man that was sleeping with 'his father's wife'. It seems from the way the phrase reads that Paul would see this man's flesh destroyed, if not directly by the members of the Corinthian church then indirectly, through the agency of Satan.
What is the meaning of the phrase 'destruction of the flesh'? If Paul is advocating killing him then what are the ramifications?
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As an OT note; leveticus speaks to both the general (20:10) and specific (20:11) here – Marc Gravell Sep 28 '11 at 5:35
1 Answer 1
up vote 15 down vote accepted
No. Paul was advocating kicking him out of the Church, not killing him.
The fact that it means to kick the person out of the Church is clarified in verse 12: (Emphasis added.)
The way I understand it is this: The idea is to not turn a blind eye to sin, but to confront it and deal with it, particularly within the body of the Church. To turn a blind eye to sin does nothing but encourage it. To confront it and make it clear that it is not to be tolerated within the Church is better, because it forces the sinner to either acknowledge the sin and repent, or leave the Church, where they will not pollute it further.
A person cannot repent if they are put to death, so this clearly cannot be stating that we are to put the sinner to death.
There is a nice version of this verse here that clarifies the meaning of the original Greek word that is translated as "the flesh". Due to language difference and cultural differences, the original meaning often gets lost in translation.
Footnote below:
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+1 That exactly it! – aceinthehole Sep 28 '11 at 0:22
Your Answer
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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE Washington # Founded 1836 U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service A S E T OF ANATOMICAL TABLES, WITH EXPLANATIONS, And an Abridgment of the PRACTICE OF MIDWIFERY; WITH A VIEW TO ILLUSTRATE A TREATISE ON THAT SUBJECT, AND COLLECTION OF CASES. I By WILLIAM SMELLIE, m. d. PHILADELPHIA ; PRINTED BY T. DOESON, AT THE STONE-HOUSE, N° £\3 SOUTH SECOND-STREET. 1797. PREFACE. jTxS, in a long courfe of teaching and practice in Midwifery, I hope I may without vanity fay, that I have done fornething to- wards reducing that Art into a more fimple and mechanical method than has hitherto been done, I have attempted to explain the fame in my Treatife of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery and Collection of Cafes; and fmd-« ing that moft of the reprefentations hitherto given of the parts fubfervient to uterine gefta* tion and parturition were in many refpects de- ficient, I have been induced to undertake the following 'Tables^ with a view to fupply iri fome meafure the defects of others, and at the fame time to illuftrate what I have taught and written on the fubject. How far I have ob- tained thofe ends, it belongs to others to judge. I fhall only beg leave to obferve here by way of Preface, that the greateft part of the figures were taken from Subjects prepared on purpofe, to fhew every thing that might A 2 conduce C iv PREFACE. • conduce to the improvement of the young • Practitioner: Avoiding, however, the ex- treme minutia, and what elfe feemed foreign to the prefent defign ; the fituation of parts, and their refpectiVe dimenfions, being more particularly attended to, than a minute anato- mical invefHgai-.nn of rhpir ftru£ture. As thefe Tables may pofllbly fall into the hands of fome who have not feen my former work, I have added an Abridgment of the Practice; which, though far from being com- plete, may ferve to illuftrate feveral things which otherwife, by a bare reprefentation, would be hardly intelligible. References are made to Vol. I. II. and I IT. By Vol. I. I mean that which I firft publifh- ed in the year 1752, and contains a view of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery ; Vol. II. and ///. containing the Collection of Cafes mentioned above. My firft plan for thefe Tables confined them to the number of Twenty-two, which Mr. Rymfdyke had finidi- ed above two years ago; but I foon faw that a further illuftration, and confequently an ad- dition to that number, was necefTary. In eleven of thefe, Dr. Ca?nper, formerly Profef- for PREFACE. v for of Medicine at Franequer in FriefJand, now Profeffor of Anatomy and Botany at Amfler- dam, greatly afiifted me, viz. Table XII. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XXIV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXXIV. and XXXVI. The reft were drawn by Mr. Rymfdyke; ex- cept the thirty-feventh and thirty-ninth, which were done by another hand. The whole of the drawings are faithfully engraved; in which, however, delicacy and elegance have not been fo much confulted as to have them done in a ftrong and diftinct manner; with this view chiefly, that from the cheap- nefs of the work it may be rendered of more general ufe. r > PI. I- I Engraved, l>y J.Iorman ^^J 17 %6- EXPLANATIONS OP A SET OB ANATOMICAL TABLES, With an Abridgment of the PRACTICE OF MIDWIFERY. THE FIRST TABLE, REPRESENTS, in a front view, the Bones of a well-formed Pelvis. A The five vertebra of the loins. B The osfacrum. C The os coccygis. DD The offa ilium. EE The offa ifchium, F The offa pubis. G The foramina magna, HH The acetabula. IIII1I The brim of the pelvis, or that cir- cumference of its cavity, which is defcribed at the fides of the inferior parts of the offa ilium7 8 ANATOMICAL TABLES, ilium, and at the back and fore parts by the fuperior parts of the offa pubis and fic/am. In this Table, befides the general ftructure and figure of the feveral bones, the dimenfions of the brim of the pelvis, and the diftance be- tween the under parts of the offa ifchium, are particularly to be attended to ; from which it will appear, that the cavity of the brim is com- monly wider from fide to fide than from the back to the fore part, but that the fides below are in the contrary proportion. The reader, however, ought not to conclude, that every pelvis is fimilar in figure and dimenfions, fince even well-formed ones differ in fome degree from each other. In general, the brim of the pelvis meafures about five inches and a quarter from fide to fide, and four inches and a quarter from the back to the fore part ; there being likewife the fame diftance between the inferior parts of the offa ifchium. All thefe meafures, however, muft be underftood as taken from the fkeleton; for, in the fubject, the cavity of the pelvis is confiderably diminifhed by its tegu- ments and contents. Correfpondent alfo to this diminution, the ufual dimenfions of the head of the full-grown fcetus are but three inches and a half from ear to ear, and four inches and a quarter from the fore to the hind head. Vide Tab. XVI. XVII. XVIII. Alfo Vol. I. Chap. I. Sect. i. 2. 3. where the form and 4 dimenfions 7 WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 9 dimenfions of the pelvis, as well as of the head of the foetus, and the manner in which the fame is protruded in labour through the bafin, are fully treated of. Confult likewife Vol. II. Coll. 1. No. i, 2. where cafes are given of complaints of the pelvis arifing from difficult labours. B THE IO ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE SECOND TABLE Gives a lateral and internal view of the Pelvis divided longitudinally. A The three lower vertebra of the loins. B The osfacrum. C The os coccygis. D The left os ilium. E The left os ifchium. F The os pubis of the fame fide. G The acute procefs of the os ifchium. H The foramen magnum. Ill The brim of the pelvis. This Plate fhews the diftance from the fu- perior part of the osfacrum to the offa pubis, as well as from the laft-mentioned bones to the coccyx, which in each amounts to about four inches and a quarter. The depth like wife of the pofterior, lateral, and anterior parts of the pelvis, is fhewn, not in the line of the body, but in that of the pelvis from its brim down- ward, which is generally three times deeper on the pofterior than anterior part, and twice the depth of the laft at the fides. From this view appears alfo the angle which is formed by the laft vertebra of the loins and the fuperior part of the os facrum, as likewife the concavity or hollow fpace in the pofterior internal part of the pelvis, arifing from the cur- vature 'iryrf J> f WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. n vature of the laft-mentioned bone and coccyx ; finally, the diftance from which to the pofte- rior parts of the offa ifchium is here exprefTed. VideTzh. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. Alfo Vol. I. and II. as referred to in the former Table. B 2 THE \ 12 ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE THIRD TABLE Exhibits a front view of a diftorted Pelvis. A The five vertebra of the loins. B The osfacrum. C The os coccygis. DD The offa ilium. EE The offa ifchium. F The offa pubis. GG The foramina magna. HH The ace tabula. J From this Plate may appear the great dan- \ ger incident to both mother and child when the pelvis is diftorted in this manner ; it being only ; two inches and an half at the brim from the pof- terior to the anterior part, and the fame dif- tance between the inferior parts of each os ifcbi- . .' urn. Vide Tab. XXVII. where the pelvis is one quarter of an inch narrower at the brim than ., ■ this, but fufficiently wide below. Various are the forms of diftorted bafins, but the laft men- tioned is the moft common. It is a great hap- pinefs, however, in practice, that they are fel- dom fo narrow, though there are inftances i' where they have been much more fo. The dan- ger in all fuch cafes muft increafe or diminifh, according to the degree of diftortion of the ' pelvis, and fize of the child's head. Vide Vol. I. Book I. Chap. i. Sect. 4, 5. and Vol. II. Col. 1. No. 3, 4, 5. Alfo Coll. j 31. 27. and 29, THE > WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. *3 THE FOURTH TABLE Shews the External Female Parts of Gene- ration. A The lower part of the abdomen. B B The labia pudendi feparated. G The clitoris and prteputium. DD The nympha. E The foff a magna or os externum. F The meatus urinarius. G The franum labiorum. H The perinceum. I The anus. K The part that covers the extremity of the coccyx. LL The parts that cover the tuberofities of the offa ifchium: As it is of great confequence to every practi- tioner in midwifery, to know exactly the fitua- tion of the parts concerned in parturition, and which have not been accurately defcribed by former anatomifts with a view to this particu- lar branch, I have given this draught from one of the preferved fubjects which I keep by me, in order to demonftrate thefe parts in the ordi- nary courfe of my lectures. From a view, then, of the fituation of the parts, it appears, that the os externum is not placed in the middle of the 14 ANATOMICAL TABLES, the inferior part of the pelvis, but at the ante- rior and inferior part of the pubes; and that the labia cover likcwiie the anterior part of \ thefe bones. ^ Secondly, It may be obferved, that as the fra- i num labiorum, which is nearly adjoining to the inferior part of the off a pubis, is only about an inch from the anus, between which and the coccyx there is about three inches diftance ; it follows, that the anus is nearer to the firft men- tioned bones than to the latter. Thirdly, The view of this and the following Table will furnifh proper hints with refpect to the method of touching or examining the os ule- m ri, without hurting or inflaming the parts ; as 1 it appears, that the os externum is placed for- wards towards the pubes, and the os uteri back- \ wards towards the retlum and coccyx. By this vsife mechanifm of nature many inconveni- ences are often prevented, which muft happen if thefe parts were oppofite to each other, and fituated in the middle of the inferior part of the pelvis ; particularly a prolapfus of the vagina and uterus, either in the unimpregnated ftate, or in any of the firft four months of pregnan- cy ; as alfo too fudden deliveries in any of the laft months. Fourthly, From a view of the fituation of the parts>it will appear, that in labour, when the os uteri is fuffieiently opened to allow a pana^e for the head of thefcefus, the fame is protruded to the lower part of the vagina, by which the ex- s terna! WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. i- ternal parts are pufhed out in form of a large tumour, as in Table XV. Laflly, It may be obferved, that when it is jieceffary to dilate the os externum, the principal force ought to be applied downwards and to- wards the reclum, to prevent the urethra and neck of the bladder from being hurt or in- flamed. Vide Vol. I. Book I. Chap. 2. Sect. 1. Vol. II. Coll. 2. THE l6 ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE FIFTH TABLE. Figure I. Gives a front view of the Uterus in fitu fufpended in the vagina ; the anterior parts of the offa ifchium, with the offa pubis, pudenda, perinaum, and anus, being removed, in order to fhew the internal parts. A The laft vertebra of the loins. BB The offa ilium. CC The ace tabula. DD The inferior and pofterior parts of the offa ifchifim. Vide Table XXIX. where the offa \ ',. pubis anji the anterior parts of the offa ifchium \ i are reprefented by dotted lines. E The part covering the extremity of the ■ coccyx. F The inferior part of the rectum, GG The vagina cut ©pen longitudinally, and ftretched on each fide of the collum uteri to fhew in what manner the uterus is fufpended 1 in the fame. 4, J HH Part of the vefica urinaria ftretched on I each fide of the vagina and inferior part of the . I fundus uteri. I The collum uteri. K The fundus uteri. LL The tuba Fallopiana and fimbria. MM The ovaria. NN The ligament a lata and rotunda. GO The fuperior part of the rectum. 4 Figure ! l& ANATOMICAL TABLES, Figure III. Gives a front view of the Uterus in the beginning of the firft month of pregnancy; the anteiior part being remo- ved, that the Embryo might appear through the amnios, the chorion being diffected off. A The fundus uteri. B The collum uteri, with a view of the ru- gous canal that leads to the cavity ofthefundus. C The os uteri. Vide Vol. I. Book I. Chap. 2, Sect. 3, 1. Vol. II. Coll. 3. J THE WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. THE SIXTH TABLE. Figure I. In the fame view and fection of the parts as in the firft figure of the former table, fhews the Uterus as it appears in the fecond or third month of pregnancy, its an* terior part being here likewife removed. F The anus. G The vagina, with its plica. HH The pofterior and inferior part of the urinary bladder extended on each fioe, the an- terior and fuperior part being removed. 11 The mouth and neck of the womb, as rai- fed up when examining the fame by the touch, with one of the fingers in the vagina. KK The uterus as ftretched in the fecond or third month, containing the embryo, with the placenta adhering to the fundus. It appears from this and the former Table, that at this time nothing can be known, with refpect to pregnancy, from the touch in the vagina, as the refinance of the uterus is fo incon- fiderable that it cannot prevent its being raifed up before the finger; and even were it kept down, the length of the neck would prevent the ftretching being perceptible. The uterus likewife not being ftretched above the pelvis^ little change is made as to the figure of the ab- domen, further than that the inteflines are raifed C % a little 20 ANATOMICAL TABLES, a little higher; whence poffibly the old obfer- vation of the abdomen being a little flatter at this period than ufual, from the inteflines being prelTed more to each fide. Women at this pe- riod mifcarry oftener than at any other. It is a great happinefs, however, in practice, that although they are frequently much weakened by large difcharges, yet they rarely fink under the fame, but are fooner or later relieved by labour coming on, which gradually ftretches the neck and mouth of the womb, by the mem- branes being forced down with the waters ; and if the placenta is feparated from the internal of the uterus, all its contents are difcharged. But if the placenta ftill adheres, the membranes break, the waters and fatus are expelled, and the flooding diminifhes, from the uterus, contracting clofe to the fecundines, which alfo are ufually difcharged fooner or later. From the ftructure, finally, of the parts, as reprefented in this and the former table, it may appear, that it is much fafer to reftrain the flooding, and fupport the patient, waiting with patience the efforts of nature, than to endea^ j vour to ftretch the os uteri, and deliver either with the hand or inftruments, which might en- danger a laceration and inflammation of the parts. Vide C in Table XXXVII. Alfo Vol. I. Book IK Chap. %, Sect. 2, 3, 4. Vol. II. Coll. 12. No. 2. 4 Figure WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 2I Figure If. Reprefents the Uterus in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, in the fame view and fection of the parts with the former figure, excepting that in this the an- terior part of the collum uteri is not removed. In the natural fituation, the mouth and lips of the womb are covered with the vagina, and thefe parts are contiguous to each other; but here the vagina G is a little ftretched from the neck and lips of the former, in order to fhew the parts more diftinctly. I, The neck of the womb, which appears in this figure thicker, fhorter, and fofter, than in the former. K, The inferior part of the fundus uteri; the ftretching of which can fometimes be felt through the va- gina, by puihing up a finger on the anterior or lateral part of the fame. The uterus now is fo largely ftretched a* to fill all the upper part of the pelvis, and begins alfo to increafe fo much as to reft on the brim, and to be fupported by the fame, the fundus at the fame time being raifed confiderably above the pubes. From the abdomen being now more ftretched the woman is more fenfible ©f her growing bigger; and the uterus alfo, from the counter-preiTure of the contents and parietes of the abdomen, is kept down, and the os uteri pre- vented from riling before the finger as former- ly. In lean women, the ftretching of the uterus can fometimes be perceived in the vagina at this period as well as above the pubes: But nothing 22 ANATOMICAL TABLES, nothing certain can be difcovered from the re- finance or feel of the mouth of the womb or lips, which are commonly the fame in the firft months of pregnancy as before it. The fize or bulk of the fatus is finally here to be obferved, with the placenta adhering to the pofterior part of the uterus. Vide the references to Vol. I. and II. in the former Table. THE 7 WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 23 THE SEVENTH TABLE Reprefents the Abdomen of a woman opened in the fixth or feventh month of pregnancy. AAAA The parietes of the abdomen open- ed, and turned back to fhew B The uterus. CCC The intefiines raifed upwards. The labia pudendi are fometimes affected in pregnancy with adematous fwellings, occa- fioned by the preflure of the uterus upon the returning veins and lymphatics. If the labia are fo tumefied as to obftruct the patient's walking, the complaint is removed by puncturing the parts affected. By which means the ferous fluid is difcharged for the prefent, but commonly re- curs ; and the fame operation muft be repeated feveral times perhaps before delivery; after which, however, the tumefaction entirely fub- fides. Here it may be obferved, that this com- plaint can feldom or never obftruct delivery ; as the labia are fituated at the anterior part of the offa pubis, and can rarely affect the ftretching of the franum, perinaum, vagina, and rectum. From this figure it appears, that the ftretching of the uterus can eafily be felt at this period in lean fubjects, through the parietes of the abdo- men ; especially if the intefiines do not lie be- fore it. In general indeed, as the uterus ftretches, it rifes higher ; by which means the _._ j WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. THE EIGHTH TABLE. in the fame view and fection of the parts as in Table VI. is reprefented the Uterus of the former Table, in order to fhew its contents, and the internal parts as they appear in the fixth or feventh month of pregnancy. A The uterus ftretched up to the umbilical region. BB The fuperior part of the offa ilium. CC The ace tabula. DD The remaining pofterior parts of the offa ifchium. E The anus, F The vagina, G The bladder of urine. H The neck of the womb fhorter than in Table VI. and raifed higher by the ftretching of the uterus above the brim of the pelvis. I The veffels of the uterus larger than in the Unimpregnated ftate. KK The placenta adhering to the inferior and pofterior part of the uterus. LL The membranes that furround the fatus, the head of which is here reprefented (as well as of thofe in Table VI.) fituated downwards at the inferior part of the uterus, and which I am apt to believe is the ufual fituation of the fatus when at reft and furrounded with a great quan- tity of waters, as the head is heavier than any D ether ^ l6 ANATOMICAL TABLES, other part. With refpect to the iituation of the body of the fatus, though the fore-parts are often turned towards the fides and pofterior parts of the uterus, they are here, as well as in the foregoing Table, reprefented at the anterior part or fore wards, in order to fhew them in a more diftinct and picturefque manner. Vide Vol. I. Book I. Chap. 3. Sett. 3,4. Vol. II. Coll. 13. No. 1. From this Table may appear the difficulty of ftretching the os uteri in flooding cafes, even at this period, from the length and thicknefs of the neck of the womb, efpecially in a firft preg- nancy : Much the fame method, however, is to be followed here as was directed in Table VI. till labour comes on to dilate the os uteri. If the flooding is then confiderable, the membranes fhould be broken, that the uterus may contract, and thereby leiTcn the difcharge. The labour likewife, if it is neceflary, may be affifted by di- lating the os uteri in time of the pains; which alfo, if wanting, may be provoked by the fame method, when the patient is in danger. If this danger is imminent, and the woman feems ready to expire, the uterus, as appears from this Ta- ble, is at this time fufficiently ftretched to re- ceive the operator's hand to extract the fatus, if the os internum can be fafely dilated. Laflly, It may be obferved that women are in greater danger at this period and afterwards, than in the former months. Vide WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 2f Vide Vol. I. Book ill. Chap. 4. Sect. 3. No. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. Coll. 33. No. 2. See alfo in the Edinburgh Phyfical and Literary Obferva- tions, Art. xvii. the difiection of a woman with child, by Dr. Donald Monro, Phyfician at Lon- don. D 2 THE 2$ ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE NINTH TABLE In the fame view and fection of the parts with the former, reprefents the Uterus in the eighth or ninth month of pregnancy. A The uterus as ftretched to near its full ex- tent, with the waters, and containing the fatus entangled in the funis, the head prefenting at the upper part of the pelvis. BB The fuperior part of the offa ilium. CC The ace tabula, DD The remaining pofterior parts of the offa ifchium. E The coccyx. F The inferior part of the rectum. GGG The vagina ftretched on each fide. H The os uteri, the lips of which appear larger and fofter than in the foregoing Table, the neck of the womb being likewife ftretched to its full extent, or entirely obliterated. II Part of the vefica urinaria. KK The placenta at the fuperior and pofte- rior part of the uterus. LL The membranes. M The funis umbilicalis. This and the foregoing Table fhew in what manner the uterus ftretches, and how its neck grows fhorter, in the different periods of preg- nancy ; as alfo the magnitude of the fat us, in order 1 ^ag. 16^ ?/.5H ^ J WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. , 2g order more fully to explain Vol. I. Book i. Chap. 3. Sect. 4, 5. alfo Lib. 3. Chap. 1. Sect. 1, 2. likewife Vol. II. Coll. 13. No. 1. Notwithftanding it has been handed down as an invariable truth, from the earlieft accounts of the art, to the prefent times, that, when the head of the fatus prefented, the face was turn- ed to the pofterior part of the pelvis ; yet, from Mr. Oulfs obfervation, as well as from fome late diffections of the gravid uterus, and what I myfelf have obferved in practice, I am led to believe, that the head prefents for the moft part, as is here delineated, with one ear to the pubis, and the other to the osfacrum ; though fome- times this may vary, according to the form of the head, as well as that of the pelvis. Confult Dr. Hunter s elegant plates of the gravid uterus. THIS 3* ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE TENTH TABLE Gives a front view of Twins in Utero in the beginning of labour ; the anterior parts be- ing removed, as in the preceding Tables. A The uterus as ftretched with the mem- branes and waters. BB The fuperior parts of the offa ilium. CC The acetabula. DD The offa ifchium. E The coccyx. F The lower part of the rectum, GG The vagina. H The os internum ftretched open about a finger's breadth with the membranes and waters in time of labour-pains. II The inferior part of the uterus ftretched with the waters which are below the head of the child that prefents. KK The two placentas adhering to the pof- terior part of the uterus, the two fatufes lying before them ; one with its head in a proper po- fition, at the inferior part of the uterus; and. the other .fituated preternaturally, with the head to the fundus: The bodies of each are here entangled in their proper funis, which frequently happens in the natural as well as preternatural pofitions. LLL The membranes belonging to ezchpla- eenta. This r 5 ^ i, WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 31 This reprefentation of Twins, according to the order obferved in my Treatife of xMidwife- ry, ought to have been placed among the laft Tables ; but, as that was of no confequence, I have placed it here in order to fhew the os uteri grown much thinner than in the former figure, a little open and ftretched by the waters and membranes which are pufhed down before the head of one of the fatufes in time of a labour- pain. With refpect to the pofition of twins, it is often different in different cafes; but was thus, in a late diffection of a gravid uterus by Dr. Mackenzie, Vide Vol. 1. Book 3. Chap. 1. Sed. 4. and Chap. j. Sect. 1. and Vol. II. Coll. 14. and Vol. III. Coll. 3y. THE 32 ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE ELEVENTH TABLE Exhibits another front view of the Grwtid Ute» rus in the beginning of labour ; the anterior parts being removed, as in the former Ta- ble ; but in this the Membranes, not being broken, form a large bag containing the Waters and Fatus. A The fubftance of the uterus. BBCCDD The bones of the pelvis. E The coccyx. F The inferior part of the rectum. GGGG The vagina. HH The mouth of the womb largely ftretch- ed in time of a pain; with I, the membranes and waters. This circumftance makes it ufu- ally certain that labour is begun ; whereas from the degree of dilatation reprefented in the former" Table there is little to be afcertained, unlefs the pains are regular and ftrong, the os uteri being often found more open feveral days, arid even weeks, before labour commences. K The chorion. L The fame diftected off at the inferior part ofthe uterus, in order to fhew the head of the fatus through the amnios. N. B. This hint is taken from one of Dr. Albinuss Tables of the gravid uterus. M The placenta; the external convex fur- face of which, divided into a number of lobes, 4 I* J ! WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 33 is here reprefented, its concave internal parts being covered by the chorion. The placenta has been found adhering to all the different parts of the internal furface of the uterus, and fometimes even over the infide of the os uteri; this laft manner of adhefion how- ever always occafions floodings as foon as the fame begins to dilate. Table VI. VIII. IX. X. fhew the internal furface of the placenta towards the foetus, with the veffels compofing its fub'ftance proceeding from the funis, which is inferted, in different placentas, into all the different parts of the fame, as well as in the middle. The Thirtieth and Thirty-third Tables fhew the infertion of the funis into the abdomen of the fatus. With refpect to the expulfion of the placenta, when the membranes break, the uterus contracts as the waters are evacuated till it comes in con- tact with the body of the fatus: The fame being delivered, the uterus grows much thicker, and contracts clofely to the placenta and mem- branes, by which means they are gradually fe- parated, and forced into the vagina. This mews that we ought to follow the method which na- ture teaches, waiting with patience, and allow- ing it to feparate in a flow manner: Which is much fafer practice, efpecially when the pa- tient is weak; as the difcharge is neither fo great or fudden as when the placenta is hurried down in the tbo common methcd. But then E vrs 34 ANATOMICAL TABLES, we muft not run into the other extreme, but affift when nature is not fuflicient to expel the fame. Vide Vol. I. Book 3. Chap. 1. Sect. 4. Chap. 2. Sect. 2, 5. VoL II. Coll. 14, 23. THE f I A WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C THE TWELFTH TABLE Shews (in a lateral view and longitudinal divi- fion of the parts) the Gravid Uterus, when labour is fomewhat advanced. A The loweft vertebra of the back. B The fcrobiculus cordis; the diftance from which to the laft mentioned vertebra is here fhewn by dotted lines ; as alfo part of the re- gion below the diaphragm. CC The ufual thicknefs and figure of the uterus when extended with the waters at the latter end of pregnancy. D The fame contracted and grown thicker after the waters are evacuated. EE The figure of the uterus wThen pendulous. In this cafe, if the membranes break when the patient is in an erect pofition, the, head of the foetus runs a rifk of Aiding over and above the offa pubis, whence the ftioulders will be pufhed into the pelvis. FF The figure of the uterus when ftretched higher than ufual, which generally* occafions vomitings and difficulty of breathing. Con- fult on this fubject Mr. Levret/w le Mecha- nifme de differentes Groffeffes. 'G The os pubis of the left fide. HH The os internum. I The vagina. K. The left nympha. F. 2 L Ths ;f> ANATOMICAL TABLES, L The labium pudendi of the fame fide. M The remaining portion of the bladder. N The anus. OP The left hip and thigh. In this period of labour the os uteri being more and more ftretched by the membranes pufh- ing down, and beginning to extend the vagina, a great quantity of water is forced down at the fame time, and (if the membranes break) is dif- charged ; whence the uterus contracts itfelf nearer to the body of the fatus, which is here reprefented in a natural pofition, with the ver- s tex refting at the fuperior part of the offa pubis, and the forehead towards the right os ilium. As foon as the uterus is in contact with the body of the fatus, the head of the fame is forced backward towards the os facrum from the line of the abdomen BG into that of the pelvis, viz. from the uppermoft F to near the end of the coccyx, and is gradually pufhed lower as in the following Table. If the membranes do not break immediately upon their being pufhed into the vagina, they fhould be allowed to protrude ftill further in or- i der to dilate the os externum. Vide Vol. I. Book i. Chap. 2. Sect. 2. Chap. 3. bed. 3. Book 3. Chap. 1. Sect. 1, 2,4. j Chap. 2. Sect. 3. Chap 3. Sect. 4. No. 5. Vol. II. Coll. 10. No. 4. Cafe 3, 4. Coll. 14. Vol. Hi. Col. 34. No. 2. Cafe 4. THE 1 WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 37 THE THIRTEENTH TABLE, In the fame view and fection of the parts as in Table VI. fhews the natural pofition of the head of the Fatus when funk down into the middle of the Pelvis after the Os Internum is fully opened, a large quantity of the wa- ters being protruded with the Membranes through the Os Externum, but prevented from being all difcharged, from the head's filling up the Vagina. • A The uterus a little contracted, and thicker, from fome of the waters being funk down before the child, or difcharged. BB The fuperior parts of the offa ilium. C The inferior part of the rettum. DD The vagina largely ftretched with the head of the fatus. EE The os internum fully opened. F A portion of the placenta. GG The membranes. HH The ligament a lata. II The ligament a rotunda. Both thefe laft ftretched upwards with the uterus. The vertex of the fatus being now down at the inferior part of the right os ifchium, and the wide part of the head at the narrow and inferior part of the pelvis, the forehead by the force of the pains is gradually moved backwards; and 3^ ANATOMICAL TABLES, as it advances lower, the vertex and occiput turn out below the pubes, as in the next Table. Hence may be learnt of what confequence it is to know, that it is wider from fide to fide at the brim of the pelvis, than from the back to the fore part; and that it is wider from the fore to the hind head of the child, than from ear to ear. Vide Vol. I. Book 1. Chap. 1. Sett. 3, 5. Alfo Book 3. Chap. 3. Sect. 3, 4. No. 3. Vol. II. Coll. 14. THE T • r WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 39 THE FOURTEENTH TABLE, In a fimilar view and fection of the parts with Table XII. ihews the forehead of the fe- tus turned (in its progreifion downwards, from its pofition in the former Table) backwards to the os facrum and the occiput below the pubes ; by which means the narrow part of the head is to the narrow part of the pelvis, that is, be- tween the inferior parts of the offa ifchium. Hence it may be obferved, that though the dif- tance between the inferior parts of the laft-men- tioned bones is much the fame as between the c&ccyx and pubes ; yet as the cavity of the pelvis is much fhallower at the anterior than lateral part, the occiput of the fatus, when come down to the inferior part of either os ifchium, turns out below the pubes: this anfwers the fame end as if the pelvis itfelf had been wider from the pofterior part than from fide to fide; the head likewife enlarging the cavity by forcing back the coccyx, and pufhing out the external parts in form of a large tumour, as is more fully de- fcribed in the following Table. Vide Vol. I. II. as referred to in the preced- ing Table. A The uterus contracted clofelyto the fatus after the waters are evacuated. BCD The vertebra of the loins, osfacrum. and coccyx. E The anus. 2 F The • 4° ANATOMICAL TABLES, F The left hip. G The perinaum. H The os externum beginning to dilate. I The os pubis of the left fide. K The remaining portion of the bladder. L The pofterior part of the os uteri. N. B. Although for the moft part, at or be- fore this period, the waters are evacuated, yet it often happens that more or lefs will be re- tained, and not all difcharged, till after the de- livery of the child ; occafioned from the pre- fenting part of the fatus coming into clofe con- tact with the lower or under part of the uterus, vagina, or os externum, immediately, or foon after the membranes break. THE • \ WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 4* THE FIFTEENTH TABLE Is intended principally to fhew in what man- ner the Perinaum and external parts ar« ftretched by the head of the Fatus, in a firft pregnancy, towards the end of labour. A The abdomen. B The labia pudendi. C The clitoris and its praputiym, D The hairy fcalp of the fatus fwelled at the vertex in a laborious cafe, and protruded to the os externum, EF The perinaum and anus pufhed out by the head of the fatus in form of a large tumour. GG The parts that cover the tuberofities of the offa ifchium. H The part that covers the os coccygis. The perinaum in this figure is ftretched two inches, or double its length in the natural ftate ; but when the os externum is fo much dilated by the head of the fatus as to allow the delivery of the fame, the perinaum is generally ftretched to the length of three, and fometimes four inches. The anus is likewife lengthened an inch, the parts alfo between it and the coccyx being much diftended. All this ought to cau- tion the young practitioner never to precipitate the delivery at this time ; but to wait, and allow the parts to dilate in a flow manner; as, F from j 42 ANATOMICAL TABLES, from the violence of the labour-pains, the fud- I den delivery of the head of the foetus might en- danger the laceration of the parts. The palm i of the operator's hand ought therefore to be i preffed againft the perinaum, that the head may be prevented from paffing till the os ex- ternum is fufficiently dilated, to allow its deli- very without tearing the franum, and parts betwixt that and the anus, which are at this time very thin. Vide Vol. I. Book 3. Chap. 2. Sect. 2. Chap. 3. Sect. 4. No. 1. and Book 4. Chap. 1. Sect. I. Alfo Vol. II. Coll. 14, 24. Vol. III. Coll. 40. THE 1 •4 > nxn. WITH EXPLANATIONS, &c. 43 THE SIXTEENTH TABLE And the three following fhew in what man- ner the Head of the Fatus is helped along with the Forceps, as artificial hands, when it is neceffary to affift with the fame for the fafety of either Mother or Child. In this Table the head is reprefented as forced down into the Pelvis by the labour-pains, from its former pofition in Table XII. AABC The vertebra of the loins, osfacrum, and coccyx. D The os pubis of the left fide. E The remaining part of the bladder. FF The inteflinum rectum. GGG The uterus. H The mons veneris. I The clitoris, with the left nympha. X The corpus convernofum clitoridis. V The meatus ur'marius. K The left labium pudendi. L The anus. . N The perinaum. QP The left hip and thigh. R The fkin and mufcular part of the loins. The patient in this cafe may be, as in this Table> on her fide, with her breech a little over the fide or foot of the bed, her knees being likewife pulled up to her belly, and a pillcw F % , placed 44 ANATOMICAL TABLES, placed between them, care being taken at the fame time that the parts are by a proper cover- ing defended from the external air. If the hairy fcalp of the fatus is fo fwelled that the fituation of the head cannot be diftinguiined by the futures as in Table XXI. or if by introdu- cing a ringer between the head of the child and the pubes, or' groins, the ear or back part of the neck cannot be felt, the os externum muft be gradually dilated in the time of the pains with the operator's fingers (previoufly lubri- cated with hog's-lard) till the whole hand can be introduced into the vagina, and flipped up in a flattifh form between the pofterior part of the pelvis and child's head. This laft is then to be raifed up as high as is poffible, to allow room for the fingers to reach the ear and pof- terior part of the neck. When the pofition of the head is known, the operator muft with- draw his hand, and wait to fee if the ftretching of the parts will renew or increafe the labour- pains, and allow more fpace for the advance- ment of the head in the pelvis. If this, how- ever, proves of no effect, the »fingers are again to be introduced as before, and one of the blades of the forceps (lubricated with lard) is then to be applied along the infide i*f the hand or fingers, and left ear of the child, as repre- fented in the Table. But if the pelvis is dif- torted, and projects forward at the fuperior part of the osfaemm, and the forehead therefore cannot be moved a little backwards, in order to turn WITH EXPLANATIONS, &c. 45 turn the ear from that part of the pelvis which prevents the end of the forceps to pafs the fame ; in that cafe, I fay, the blade muft be in- troduced along the pofterior part of the ear at the fide of the diftorted bone. The hand that was introduced is then to be withdrawn, and the handle of the introduced blade held with it as far back as the perinaum will allow, whilft the fingers of the other hand are introduced to the os uteri, at the pubes, or right groin, and the other blade placed exactly oppofite to the former. This done, the handles being taken hold of and joined together, the head is to be pulled lower and lower every pain, till the vertex, as in this Table, is brought down to the inferior part of the left ifchium, or below the fame. The wide part of the head being now advanced to the narrow part of the pel- vis betwixt the tuberofities of the offa ifchium, it is to be turned from the left ifchium out be- low the pubes, and the forehead backwards to the concave part of the os facrum and coccyx, as in Table XVII. and afterwards the head brought along and delivered as in Table XVIII. and XIX. But if it is found that the delivery will require a confiderable degree of force from the head's being large, or the pelvis narrow, the handles of the forceps are to be tied together with a fillet, as reprefented in this Table, to prevent their pofition being changed, whilft the woman is turned on her back, as in Table XXIV. 46 ANATOMICAL TABLES, XXIV. which is then more convenient for de- livering the head than when lying on the fide. This Table fhews that the handles of the for- ceps ought to be held as far back as the os ex- ternum will allow, that the blades may be in an imaginary line between that, and the middle fpace between the umbilicus and the fcrobiculus cordis. When the forceps are applied along the ears and fides of the head, they are nearer to one another, have a better hold, and mark lefs than when over the occipital and frontal bones. Vide Vol. I. Book 3. Chap. 3. from Sect. i. to 6. and Vol. II. Coll. 25, 26, 27, and 29. THE T WITH EXPLANATIONS^ 8cC. ,THE SEVENTEENTH TABLE, In the fame view with the former, reprefents in outlines the Head of the Fatus brought lower with the Forceps, and turned from the pofition in the former Table, in imitation of the natural progreffion by the labour-pains, which may likewife be fuppofed to have made this turn, before it was neceffary to affift with the Forceps, this neceflity at laft arifing from many of the caufes mentioned in Vol. I. In this view the pofition of the forceps, along the ears and narrow part of the head, is more particularly exprefTed. It appears alfo, that when the vertex is turned from the left os ifchi- um, where it was clofely confined, it is difen- gaged by coming out below the pubes, and the forehead that was preffed againft the middle of the right os ifchium is turned into the concavity of the osfacrum and coccyx. By this means the narrow part of the head is now between the offa ifchium or narrow part of the pelvis ; and as the occiput comes out below the pubes, the head palles ftill eafier along. When the head is ad- vanced fo low in the pelvis, if the pofition can- not be diftinguitned by the futures, it may for the moft part be known by feeling for the back pa t of the neck of the fatus, with a finger in- troduced betwixt the occiput and pubes, or to- wards 4$ ANATOMICAL TABLES, wards one of the groins. If the head is fqueezed into a forsgifh form, as in Table XXI. and has been detained many hours in this pofition the pains not being fufficient to complete the deli- very, the affiftance of the forceps muft be taken to fave the child, though the woman may be in no danger. But if the head is high up in the pelvis, as in the former Table, the forceps ought not to be ufed except in the moft urgent necef- fity. This Table alfo fhews that the handles of the forceps are ftill to be kept back to the perinaum, and when in this pofition are in a line with the upper part of the focrum, and if held more backwards, when the head is a little higher, would be in a line with thefcrobiculus cordis. If the forceps are applied when the head is in this pofition, they are more eafily introduced when the patient is in a fupine pofition, as in Table XXIV. Neither is it neceffary to tie the han- dles, which is only done to prevent their alte- ration when turning the woman from her fide to her back. As I have had feveral cafes where a longer fort of forceps that are curved upwards are of great ufe to help along the head, when the body is delivered firft, as in Table XXXV. the fame are reprefented here by dotted lines. They may be ufed in laborious cafes as well as the others, but are not managed with the fame ea^e. 4 Moft WITH EXPLANATIONS, '&C. 49 Moft of the parts of this Table being marked with the fame letters as the former, the defcrip- tions there given will anfwer in this, except the following. LM The anus. .MN The perinaum. O The common integuments of the abdomen. R The fhort forceps. S The long curved forceps. The firft of thefe is eleven inches long, and the laft twelve inches and a half, which I have after feveral alterations found fufficient; but this need not confine others who may choofe to alter them from th'.;, ftandard. Vide Table XXXVJI. & TH£ S> THE WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 8j THE THIRTY-SIXTH TABLE m Reprefents, in a lateral view of the Pelvis, the method of extrading, with the affiftance of a curved Crotchet, the head of the Fatus, when left in the Uterus, after the Body is delivered and feparated from it, either by its being too large, or the Pelvis too narrow. ABC The osfacrum and coccyx. D The os pubis of the left fide. EE The uterus. F The locking part of the crotchet. ghi The point of the crotchet on the infide of the cranium. If this cafe happens from the forehead's be- ing towards the pubes, or the child long dead, and fo mqrtified that both the body and under- jaw are feparated unexpededly, the long for- ceps that are curved upwards will be fufficient to extrad the head; but if the fame is large, and the pelvis narrow, and the delivery cannot be effeded by the above method, then the head muft be opened, that its bulk may diminifh, as it is extraded. The patient being placed either on her back, or fide, as in the explanation of Table XVI. and XXIV. the left hand of the operator is to be introduced into the uterus, and the forehead of the fatus turned to the right fide of the brim of the pelvis, and a little back- wards, 86 ANATOMICAL TABLES, wards, the chin being downwards; after which the palm of the hand and finders are to be ad- vanced as high as the fontanelle, and the head grafped with the thumb and little finger on each fide, as firm as is poffible, whilft an affift- ant preffes on each fide of the abdomen with both hands, to keep the uterus firm in the mid- dle and lower part of the fame. This done, the operator having with his right hand intro- duced and applied the crotchet to the head (the point being turned towards the forehead, and the convex part towards the facrum J, he muft go up along the infide of the left hand as high as the fontanelle, and there, or near it, fix the point of the crotchet, keeping ftill the left hand in the former pofition, till with the other he pierces the cranium with the point of the in- ftrument, and tears a large opening in it from k to /; after this, keeping the crotchet fteady, he may Aide down his left hand in a cautious manner, left the former pofition fhould be alter- ed, and the head will fink lower down by the affiftant's preffing on the abdomen. The two fore-fingers of the left hand are then to be in- troduced into the mouth, and the thumb below the under-jaw, the hand being above the blade of the crotchet. When this firm hold is taken, the operator may begin and pull flowly with both hands; and as the brain difcharges through the perforation, the head will diminifh, and come along. If this method fhould fail from the flipperinefs of the head, or its being fo much WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. Sj much offified that a fufficient opening cannot be made, the vertex muft be turned down to the brim of the pelvis, the fontanelle backwards and each blade of the long forceps introduced along the fides of the head, with the curved fide towards the pubes. After they are joined and locked, the handles are to be tied together with a fillet, to keep them firm on the head; an affiftant is to keep the handles backwards till the cranium is largely opened with the long fciffars fhewn in Table XX XIX. This done, the head is to be extraded in a flow manner, firft turning the forehead to.the fide of the brim; and as the brain evacuates, and the head comes lower down, again turning the forehead into the concavity of the facrum, and completing the delivery, as in Table XVI. This Table may alfo ferve for an example, to fhew the method of fixing the crotchet on the head, when although the body is not feparated from it, yet it cannot be delivered with the operator's hands, or the long forceps, as in Ta- ble XXIX. and XXXV. Vide Vol. 1. Book 3. Chap. 3. Sed. 7. Chap. 4. Sed. 5. Alfo Vol. III. Coll. 31, 36. THE 88 ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE THIRTY-SEVENTH' TABLE, And the two following, reprefent feveral kinds of Inftruments ufeful in laborious and diffi- cult Cafes. a The ftraight fhort forceps, in the exad proportion as to the width between the blades, and length from the points to the locking part: The firft being two and the /econd fix inches, which with five inches and a half ^the length of the handles), makes in all eleven inches and a half. 1 he length of the handles may be altered at j)leafur£. 1 find, however, in pradiee, that this ftandard is the moft convenient, and with lefs diiiiculty introduced, than when longer, having alfo fufficient force to deliver in moft cafes where their affiftance is neceffary. The handles and loweft part of the blades may as here be covered with any durable leather; but the blades ought to be wrapped round with fomething of a -thinner kind, which may be eafily renewed .when there is the leaft fufpicion of venerealinfeciion in a former cafe : By be- ing thus covered, the forceps can have a better hold, and mark lefs the head of the child. For their eafier introdudion, the blades ought like- wife to be greafed with hog's lard. b Reprefehts the pofterior part of a fingle blade, in order to fhew the open part of the fame, and the form and proportion of the 4 whole. ■**. -JT •"-«£■: WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C 89 whole. The handles, however, as here repre- fented, are rather too large. Vide Table XXI. for the figure and propor- tions of the long forceps, that are curved up- wards, and covered in the fame manner as the former. The forceps were at firft contrived to fave the fatus, and prevent, as much as poffible, the ufe of fharp inftruments; but even to this fa- lutary method, recourfe ought not to be had but in cafes where the degree of force requifite to extrad will not endanger, by its confe- quences, the life of the mother: For, by the imprudent ufe of the forceps, much more harm may be done than good. See the explanation of Table XVI. Alfo the preface to Vol. II. with the cafes in the Colledion on that fubjed. c The blunt hook which is ufed for three purpofes. Firfi, To affift the extradion of the head after the cranium is opened with the fciffars, by intro- ducing the fmall end along the ear on the out- fide of the head to above the under jaw, where the point is to be fixed; the other extremity of the hook being held with one hand, whilft two fingers of the other are to be introduced into the aforefaid opening, by which holds the head is to be gradually extraded. Secondly, The fmall ends is ufeful in abor- tions in any of the firft four or five months, to hook down the fecundines, when lying locfe in M the £0 ANATOMICAL TABLES, the uterus, when the patient is much weakened by floodings from the too long retention of the fame, the pains alfo being unable to expel them, and when they cannot be extraded with the fin- gers. But if the placenta ftill adheres, it is dan- gerous to ufe this or any other inftrument to ex- tract the fame, as it ought to be left till it fepa- rates naturally. If a fmall part of the fecundines is protruded through the os uteri, and pulled away from what ftill adheres in the uterus, the mouth of the womb contrads, and that irritation is thereby removed which would have continu- ed the pains, and have feparated and difcharged the whole. Thirdly, The large hook at the other end is ufeful to affift the extradion of the body, when the breech prefents; but fhould be ufed with great caution, to avoid the diflocation or frac- ture of the thigh. Vide Table X XIX. Alfo Vol. I. Book 2. Chap. 3. Book 3, Chap. ;,. Sed- 7. and Chap. 4. Sed, 2. Vol. II, Coil. 12. Vol. 111. Coll. 11 tii*-: WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C Of THE THIRTY-EIGHTH TABLE. A, represents the whale-bone fillet, which may be fometimes ufeful in laborious cafes, when the operator is not provided with the forceps in fudden and unexpeded exigen- cies. When the vertex of the fatus prefents, and the head is forced down into the lower part of the pelvis, the woman weak, and the pains not fufficient to deliver k, the double of the fillet is to be introduced along the fore-part of the pa- rietal bones to the face, and if poffible above the under-jaw ; which done, the whale-bone may be either left in or pulled down out of the fheath, and every weak pain affifted by pulling gently at the fillet. If the head can be raifed to the upper part of the pelvis, the fillet will be more eafily got over the chin, which is a fafer and better hold than on the face. If the face or forehead prefents, the fillet is to be intro- duced over the occiput. Vide Vol. I. Book 3. Chap. 3. Sed. 2. Vol. II. Coll. 24. In fuch cafes, likewife the whale-bone may be fupplied by a twig of any tough wood, mounted with a limber garter or fillet fewed in form of a long fheath. BB Gives two views of a new kind of pef- fary for the prolapfus uteri, being taken from the French and Dutch kind. After the uterus M 2 is O2 ANATOMICAL TABLES, is reduced, the large end of the peffary is to be introduced into the vagina, and the os uteri re- tained in the concave part, where there are three holes to prevent the ftagnation of any moifture. The fmall end without the os externum has two tapes drawn through the two holes, which are tied to four other tapes, that hang down from a belt that furrounds the woman's body, and by this means keep up the peffary. This fort may be taken out by the patient when fhe goes to bed, and introduced again in the morning; but as this fometimes rubs the os externum, fo as to make its ufe uneafy, the round kind marked C are of more general ufe. They are made of wood, ivory, or cork, (the laft covered with cloth and dipt in wax) : The peffary is to be lubricated with pomatum, the edge forced through the paffage into the vagina, and a fin- ger introduced into the hole in the middle lays it acrofs within the os externum. They ought to be larger or fmaller, according to the widenefs or narrownefs of the paffage, to prevent their being forced out by any extraordinary (train- ing. Vide Vol. 1. Book 4. Chap. 1. Sed. 7. Vol. III. Coll. 24. DD Gives two views of a female catheter, to fnew its degree of curvature and different parts. Thofe for common ufe may be made much fhorter for conveniency of carrying in the pocket: But fometimes, when the head or body of the child preffes on the bladder above the WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 93 the pubes, it requires one of this length ; and in fome extraordinary cafes, I have been obliged to ufe a male catheter. Vide Vol. I. Book 2. Chap. 1. Sed. 1, 2, Vol. II. Coll. 1 a No. 2. 94 ANATOMICAL TABLES, THE THIRTY-NINTH TABLE. a Represents a pair of curved crotchets locked together in the fame manner as the for- ceps. It is very rare that the ufe of both is ne- ceffary, excepting when the face prefents with the chin turned to the facrum, and when it is impoffible to move the head to bring the child footling, or deliver with the forceps. In that cafe, if one crotchet is not fufficient, the other is to be introduced, and when joined together will ad both as crotchets, in opening the cra- nium, and, as the head advances, will likewife ad as forceps in moving and turning the head more conveniently for the delivery of the fame. They may alfo be ufeful to affift when the head is left in the uterus, and one blade is not fufficient. There is feldom occafion, however, for the fliarp crotchet, when the head prefents ; the blunt hook in Table XXVII. being com- monly fufficient, or even the forceps to extract the fame, after it is opened with the fciffars. Great care ought to be taken, when the fharp crotchet is introduced, to keep the point to- wards the fatus, efpecially in cafes where the fingers cannot be got up to guide the fame. The dotted lines along the infide of one of the blades, reprefent a fheath that is contrived to guard the point till it is introduced high enough; the ligature at the handles marked with the two dotted lines is then to be un- tied, WITH EXPLANATIONS, &C. 95 tied, the fheath withdrawn, and the point be- ing uncovered, is fixed as direded in Table XXXVI. The point, guarded with this fheath, may alfo be ufed inftead of the blunt hook. b Gives a view of the back-part of one of the crotchets, which is twelve inches long. c Gives a front-view of the point, to (hew its length and breadth, which ought to be ra- ther longer and narrower than here reprefented. d Reprefents the fciffars proper f&r perfora- ting the cranium in very narrow and diftorted pelvifes. They ought to be made very ftrong, and nine inches at leaft in length, with ftops cr refts in the middle of the blades, by which a large dilatation is more eafily made. The above inftruments ought only to be ufed in the moft extraordinary cafes, where it is not poffible to fave the woman without their affift- ance. Vide Vol. I. Book 3. Chap. 3. Sed. 5. Chap. 5. No. 1. Vol. 111. Coll. 31, 2>5- AjyDh ^6 ANATOMICAL TABLES, ADDITIONAL TABLE. Numb. XL. Among the few improvements which have been made in the obftetrical apparatus fince the days of Dr. Smellie, the moft important are the alterations in the forceps, by which the incon- veniencies formerly attending the ufe of that in- ftrument are obviated, and the operation is ren- dered mcge fafe and eafy. In contriving thefe alterations, the inten- tions were, i. That the large curves fhould cor- refpond as nearly as poffible with that of the pelvis. 2. That their points fhould be thrown forwards, and made round, to prevent their hitching, or even preffing uneafily againft any part of the pelvis; and likewife to maintain their hold of the head, whilft it is to be brought forwards in that curved line of diredion which nature obferves. 3. That an inverted curve fhould be made towards the joints, whereby the perinaeum may be faved from injury, the ex- trading force rightly conduded, and the han- dles at the fame time kept from preffing unea- fily on the inferior and anterior parts of the pubes. 4. That their fubftance fhould-^re- duced as much as poffible, fo that they are not made flexible, or fo thin at the edges as to hurt the part. 5. That their clams be made to prefs equally on the child's head, and fpread gradually from the joint, fo as not to dilate the 2 os Plate XT,. >. i r- /-. V* i i . 1 'f \ :.$ ,y 4: * TH EXPLANATIONS, &C gf os vagina .oO fuddenly. 6. That the clams be of a due breadth, with the outer furface a little convex, and extremely fmooth, that they may not prefs uneafily or hurt the wo- man. 7. That their length be fuch as can be applied fafely and commodioufly within the pelvis, and at the fame time fuit the different fizes of the heads as much as poffible. The inftrument, executed according to thefe intentions, is called the Short Curved Forceps. It confifts of two blades, or parts ; each of which is diftinguifhed into the handle A, the joint BB, and the clams DD. See fig. 1 which reprefents the inftrument finifhed and locked, in which ftate it meafures about 11 inches, and when properly made, weighs about 11 ounces troy. The clams muft be covered with the beft morocco leather fhaved thin, moiftened with water, and fewed on with waxed filk. N. B. 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All That Glitters: Investing in Precious Metals
Precious metals historically have not moved in tandem with either equities or fixed income. This tendency enhances their appeal as a portfolio diversifier.
As global financial markets exhibit considerable volatility, many investors are searching for assets that typically do not move in tandem with either equities or fixed income.1 Historically, precious metals have been influenced by a different set of value drivers, creating the potential for effective diversification.2 There are opportunities for suitable investors in gold, silver, platinum and palladium that may complement investments in equities, fixed income or other assets.
Supply and Demand
Despite short-term volatility, precious metals have multiple valuation drivers that may provide price support over the long term. These drivers include investment demand, growing industrial use and robust consumer purchases of jewelry, especially in China and India.
• Gold prices have surged in value over the last five years. In 2011 alone, prices climbed from a low of $1,367 per ounce in January to a peak of $1,895 per ounce on September, 6, 2011.3 Low short-term interest rates have prompted investors to search for returns that exceed those of short-term government bonds and savings products. Concerns about the potential for higher inflation contribute to gold’s appeal as an inflation hedge, and interest in gold jewelry remains strong.
• Silver also reached a record high in 2011, climbing from a January low of $26.68 per ounce, peaking at $48.70 per ounce in April, then falling back to $28.11 per ounce by year end.4 Investment has accounted for a much smaller portion of the silver market when compared with gold, so valuations depend more on the industrial economic cycle. Silver is used extensively in superconductors, vehicles, photovoltaics and other industrial applications.
• Platinum and palladium are used to make catalytic converters for automobiles, jewelry and liquid crystal displays in consumer electronics. These uses create a situation where, like silver, prices depend heavily on the state of the industrial economy. Prior to recent escalation of gold valuations, platinum prices frequently exceeded those of gold, partly because the supply of platinum is smaller.5
Correlation: Key to Effective Diversification
Precious metals present value as portfolio diversifiers because their long-term returns historically have not moved in tandem with equities or fixed income. This tendency is measured by a statistic known as correlation. A correlation close to 1 indicates that two assets historically have moved in tandem in response to economic or market developments. A correlation close to zero indicates there has been no relationship between returns, and a correlation close to -1 indicates that returns have moved in opposite directions.
Correlations of 36-Month Returns Beginning January 2, 1991, and Ending June 30, 20126
U.S. Equities
U.S. Bonds
U.S. Equities
U.S. Bonds
Ways to Invest
When using precious metals as a portfolio diversifier, there are a number of ways to invest.
• Specifically identified metals (bars). Specifically identified metals are bars that are distinguished by a serial number or other unique marker that identifies them as belonging to you. Once purchased, you can either take direct possession or decide where your metals investment is stored, insured and managed. Storage costs are generally higher for specifically identified metals than for allocated and unallocated metals.
• Allocated account. In an allocated account, your precious metals (bars and coins) are stored with those owned by other investors, but no specific asset is identified as belonging to you. Storage costs are generally higher than those for unallocated metals.
• Unallocated account. Unallocated metals cannot be physically delivered. Your investment is held in book-entry form and represents a share of interest in a pool of precious metals. When you redeem your interest, you receive the corresponding market value of the investment, less any fees and costs.
Help in Managing Risk
It is important to understand that precious metals historically have generated considerable short-term volatility. Which investments best complement your portfolio will depend on a number of factors, including your existing holdings and appetite for risk. Let me work with you to identify the precious metals investments that best suit your specific needs.
2Investing in the precious metals sector involves special risks, including those related to fluctuations in the price of precious metals and increased susceptibility to adverse economic and regulatory developments affecting the sector. It may also be subject to the risks of currency fluctuation and political uncertainty associated with foreign investing. There is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will enhance overall returns or outperform a nondiversified portfolio. Diversification does not ensure against market risk.
3Source: World Gold Council.
4Source: London Bullion Market Association.
5Source: The Wall Street Journal, “Palladium Could Be Set to Soar as Cars Drive Demand and Supply Is Sketchy,” May 19, 2012.
6Source: S&P Capital IQ Financial Communications. Stocks are represented by the S&P 500; bonds by the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index; gold, silver, platinum and palladium by prices per ounce in U.S. dollars on the London fix. You cannot invest directly in an index. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
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This goes to ele—augh, no, aside from over-compressing, we need to stop overusing that joke. Photo (CC-BY) Orin Zebest.
You’ve heard the gripes, and heard and seen the somewhat unscientific demos. Now it’s time to examine the over-compression of music with – science! Earl Vickers of STMicroelectronics examines the Loudness Wars in an academic paper, as noted to us by reader photohounds.
The Loudness War: Background,
Speculation and Recommendations
[PDF Link,]
The paper comes from last November, but it’s as relevant as ever. It’s not just the usual take, either. Its history begins with Phil Spector and vinyl, considering the impact of broadcast TV and not just the music industry. It notes the evolution of compression technologies, particularly multiband technologies.
Most importantly, though – and I’ve spoken regularly to mastering engineers about this – the paper turns to the issue of listening fatigue. Here’s one whithering criticism of the industry on that: some engineers even believe that thoughtless over-compression could be to blame for the decline of the entire industry.
Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig stated, “People talk about downloads hurting record sales. I and some other people would submit that another thing that is hurting record sales these days is the fact that they are so compressed that the ear just gets tired of it. When you’re through listening to a whole album of this highly compressed music, your ear is fatigued. You may have enjoyed the music but you don’t really feel like going back and listening to it again.”
2008 Metallica, unsurprisingly, more apocalyptically-loud than a 1909 Edison cylinder … for what it’s worth.
You’ve seen much of this before, but rarely in such well-annotated, comprehensive form.
Best of all? The conclusion applies lessons from Game Theory to work on making the loudness wars come to a conclusion.
Here’s another thought, too: with artists increasingly self-releasing or releasing through more specialized labels, greater access to music online, direct-to-consumer distribution, and online replacements for conventional terrestrial radio, many of the factors that produced some of the oddest hyper-compression at the top of the charts are fading into the background.
Pax Musica for the loudness wars, anyone?
• Simon
This is so damn true …
• Simon
Maybee the iPods headphones are also hurting record sales. I Think the bad ass quality headphones need highly compressed material cause' any other, not compressed material does sound bad on that bad quality headphones.
What if everyone would have B&W N803D Speakers on top of his head … ??
• cooptrol
Rob Henke is making a conscious effort to fight this tendency. His last record as Monolake, called Silence, Has very little compression, almost none, and he explains his mixing technique in a thorough essay on the album's liner notes, and also on his website.
We probably all agree we shouldn't overcompress, but when mastering time comes, we all secretly pump it up in fear of being softer than your colleagues. Some periferal genres do not need this, but if you are still using the classical kick, snare, bassline and mid-high melodics configuration, you're in for the loudness war.. And this includes many more genres than I can count (even IDM).
• Peter Kirn
Right, but it's worth reading the whole PDF — loudness per se doesn't necessarily have to be bad; the issue is working out how much is too much in regards to listening fatigue.
• Holotropik
Combined with crappy MP3 and no wonder the ear is feeling abused!
I have stopped pushing my music into a corner and started trying other techniques. Much happier about the results :)
• Kent Williams
I've made this point here before and I'll make it again: It's the shit music that gets over-limited. If you avoid bad pop-rawk, commersh metal, ticky tacky R&B, bling-centric hip hop, electro-pop and Swedish hard techno, you'll only rarely encounter over-limited music.
What I really want to stop is that over-the-top side chain compression of melodic material keyed to the kick sound. Just effing leave it, idiots!
• nylarch
>>>>It’s the shit music that gets over-limited.
Not necessarily. Flying Lotus records are both brilliant and so over compressed I have a hard time making it through a whole record (a bit better mix on Cosmogramma).
• Andy
Yeah, it depends on music style and target audience. Bad quality players are also an important factor. Personally, I react very sensitive to over-compressed music. It becomes painful and exhausting to listen to it very quickly. When I check my own tracks in the mixing stage and something sounds wrong and unpleasant then it often helps when I just reduce the compression.
• Leon Trimble
it's not a joke, you see, if it goes to 11 then it's louder…
• James Levine
I'm looking forward to reading this thesis. Thank you for posting it. It analogously does follow the prisoner's dilemma schema. Remember, this is for non-repeated games, no history, and seemingly no grim trigger for future iterations. And information will not remedy the problem in a one-instance game: people can change their minds on a whim.
I'm looking forward to seeing Earl Victers' recommendations. One thing that comes to mind is creating a market for natural dynamics: radio stations that feature it (and don't make exception during commercial breaks), XM satellite channels, labels-like on food ("no HMMO's, no sodium lauryl sulfates etc."), and unplugged concert going.
On this last note, I'd argue that it is our relation to music that has become warped, and a lot of this goes back at least as far to the proscenium (they go farther back for theatre than for orchestra) replacing earlier concert halls and the expansion of the orchestra to accommodate pieces like Berlioz' New World and to dissolve socializing during the performance among the elite classes in France. Much of the demand to change the earlier architecture comes with scaling. If we could rid ourselves of the bigger is better and too big to fail economic pressures, then you wouldn't have loudness wars.
• redgreenblue
I look forward to reading the paper but want to contribute this theory:
The compact disc itself has contributed to the decline of music sales, especially in regards to long form (album) sales. This isn't a 'vinyl sounds better' argument but instead I'm focusing on the length of the modern album. Until the cd came along albums were limited to 35-40 minutes. Occasionally there would be double albums but even The Beatles couldn't pull that off without some iffy material.
Even if not every song on a 35 minute album wasn't the greatest you usually had a decent quality/filler ratio. Now enter the cd, 50-60-70 minutes starts happening, and people start expecting it, they feel ripped off if a disk is 35 minutes. But how many bands can fill 60 minutes with quality material? Even with bands I like once they get beyond 11 songs I'm ready for something else.
So fans start to notice that the quality/filler ratio has gone down but there may have been just as many good songs per release as before, but the need to fill the disk with filler weakens the album.
Speaking of albums, my new album 'Synaesthetic' is available for download at Bandcamp. 54 minutes of good electro-ambient music. And only 3 songs!
• Thomas Piper
It's Amazing how much work was put in to these technolgies to get dynamic range and now we use none of the range but we have devices that can handle it. sad. And it seems like it is getting worse
• Simon
Keeps getting worse ? I guess the same but keep asking me how it can get even more worse ? Maybe someday we will all be listening to pink noise !? Only rhythmic patterns fade between the noise …
Really, how can it get more worse ? What comes next ? no dynamic ?
• cooptrol
No dynamic sounds good! Ask Merzbow..
• cooptrol
I like chapter 4.2.1 of the pdf: "Avoid Loudness Envy"
• r
I'm always amused when researchers pretend that game theory has anything to do with social behavior. Nice work otherwise though…
• tom1
persever dynamics!
• heinrichz
great article..but this is wishful thinking..
..the loudness wars are not going to go away once hearing is gone.
• Pierre
@cooptrol +1 for Merzbow reference, my friend!
But yeah, I think there's a fine balance to be found when dealing with the usual nth-derivatives of rock genres and the sounds involved. You'll want to compress and pump it up a bit, but not to the point where your crashes are making everything buzz, à-la "Californication" (RHCP) or "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" (Arctic Monkeys) – regardless of how awesome those albums are.
• JoshuaB
I just graduated from an audio engineering school. As you can imagine this is a subject that came up quite often. We literally had a teacher ask us to help turn the tide being that we are the 'new generation' in the industry. Fight the good fight! Bring dynamics back to music. If it isn't loud enough let the listener turn it up!
• greg
This is a seriously shitty paper.
No original research, assumes that the music industry is in fact in decline, and even assumes a reason for it without a citation . . . nevermind there are more people successfully supporting themselves as musicians right now than there has been in the history of humanity.
Perhaps you need to stop reading press releases and commercial journalism, and start looking at numbers, slick.
When there are citations, they're bullshit. "Many experts *suspect* . . . " "portable media players *can* . . . "
And what the hell does game theory have to do with this at all? What on earth does the full page of discussion about it have to do with compression, the reasons for its increases, in either sense, or anything in the abstract?
Musicians don't have tools to compare their work with and without effects?
Isn't that what a bypass switch is for?
One can't bypass effects from the (real or virtual) mixer?
Would someone care to tell me how he determined a correlation, much less causality, between Norah Jones getting an award and the (completely unverified) claim that her record was noteworthy for its lack of compression?
Furthermore, is he really trying to tell me that The Eagle's Greatest Hits is something recording artists should try to emulate?
Does he think 10,000 signatures on an *online* petition means anything?
Who is this? Does he play golf with my dad?
Why did I have to read 16 pages before I got to anything, uhm, factual? Even when you get there, the research is flawed to the point of being useless, by his own admission.
Why doesn't someone put his or her figurative dick where his or her word processor is and give us a couple statements of fact without qualifiers or negations? Does that require something besides looking at spectrums of a seriously limited sample of commercial recordings on your desktop? Is that too hard?
Why doesn't this *interview* someone who makes decisions on how loud albums are instead of musing on why they might be making them louder?
Finally, On page 20, he seriously suggests that the same consumers who can't tell the difference between a compressed and uncompressed track casually are going to look at a database.
I want my 20 minutes back.
• Andy
Greg, I'm under the impression that you didn't get the whole text. He didn't just talk about compression (it's not a "how to become a better engineer" article), he try to explain why we all have to suffer from over compressed music. And here the game theory kicks in because it delivers an approach to explain the obvious constraint of pushing the loudness to the max. He also try to explain why we have to take the psychology of perception into account when we try to understand the effect of over compressed music.
Norah Jones (or her engineer) most likely got an award because her CD doesn't contain over-compressed shit AND it reaches a high level of mixing / mastering. It's not about the lack of compression. It's about the voluntary and intended renunciation of deadly compressed trash.
Just read it again and you may understand.
• Eddie
Many of your complaints have no solid basis. I was planning on reading the paper during the weekend but based on your comments decided to check it out today. Game Theory is nicely explained with specific regard to the loudness war:
"Many mastering engineers are reluctant to apply excessive compression, but they often feel pressured by musicians and record company executives who are motivated to stay competitive with others, even at the possible expense of audio quality"
To verify that Jones' record is not hyper compressed you simply have to listen to it. Not complicated at all. There's no correlation or causation involved regarding sales. Earl mentions a possibility of the record selling that many units because of its low level of compression compared to other albums from that year. The award is more closely related to the use of compression since it was a Best Engineered Album award.
Without addressing each of your points, I would recommend that you spend more than 20 minutes reading the paper and understanding it. I know I've benefited from spending more than 20 minutes reading comments by Bob Katz, Bob Ludwig, and others regarding the loudness war. For example:
Regarding your question "Who is this"? here's Earl's resume:
No mention of him playing golf, though ;)
I have no relation with Earl whatsoever, other than being a satisfied customer (SFX Machine Pro). I believe that I also asked him a question once via email and his reply was fast and friendly. I look forward to spending a couple of hours over the weekend reading this paper.
• Sylvain
• greg
Oh, I'm sure he's great at his job, I just walked away from that paper (not necessarily part of his job) feeling like I hadn't learned much . . . except a couple albums I have virtually no interest in are heavily/lightly compressed.
• Earl Vickers
This was intended primarily as a review article, and as indicated in the title of the paper, many of these topics are still highly speculative. I've tried to highlight areas where additional research is needed.
The section correlating Billboard sales rankings to dynamic range is original research. I think the paper also provides new ways of looking at a number of these topics. The game theory section is greatly abbreviated from what was originally planned, due to the length of the paper, and it is certainly not rigorous; however, I think it provides a useful way of viewing the situation.
While several of your complaints have some validity, many of them misrepresent what I said, and I'm sure that given more time, you could have expressed them without the gratuitous insults and obscenities. It sounds like you have a number of good ideas for how to write a better paper. I encourage you and others to help perform listening tests and other needed studies.
• ridiculous
good luck with your quiet songs
I'll be out bumping the the clubs with more bass
half the reason I dont enjoy listening to jazz is because they eq all the bass out and dont master it loud enough. Its like the And Justice For All of music genre's
speaking of Bob Katz, I totally respect him, but his primary focus is acoustic and classical music mastering. Two dead genres last time I checked or turned on the radio.
Not Techno Dubstep Drum n Bass, which is even engineered differently than those stale prog rock dweebs who did too much blow back in the 80's. Why not interview Simon from Exchange or the guys at Dubplates and Mastering Berlin
they are dons, and what they do translates brilliantly on million dollar sound systems.
absolutely pay for good mastering, but worrying about this nonsense and how it relates to electronic music is so ridiculous
• Andy
Yeah, wobble bass for everybody. We all need jazz like boom boom boom techno techno boom boom boom. Why? Because acoustic music is a dead genre. LoL You're really the man … ;)
Seriously: dance music has to be loud, but to compress the shit out of it is contra productive.
• Jonah
@Peter KirnWith more labels there is more to "competition". Each of these labels are more noise, more perceived need to be loud just to be heard over everyone else's noise.
Would a coalition among music forums, blogs, etc. to display a prominent link to a site that educates about over compression change things? Have the site Display The Beatles iTunes sales figures? :)
The thing is, loud generally does sound better, at first blush. And if loudness doesn't sound better it is more attention grabbing and stimulating.
Overcompressed, flat commodity music is salty, greasy fast food. And fast food sells.
Our system is based on an endless loop of new, different, more. This has brought more music technology prices down, but
The paper didn't really cover this when it talked about the "Remastering" problem. I think mp3s show that fidelity isn't a concern to most music consumers.
So, you gotta sell the same music to people that already have it in 3 other formats. You also don't want customers to listen to the whole song, at full quality or at their leisure (I mean I can't put a song on my MP3 player to test and see how I like it jogging for example). How do you get their attention and show increased value? You make it louder.
Electronic dance music especially falls back on shouting at you to cover up deficiencies and it works!
The music commodity industry doesn't have ideas, but it takes what's stimulating and pushes it to the extreme and to the point of parody. First from rock, now from electronic music. What's left after that?
PS. "Wall of Sound" wasn't meant to be literal. Just listen to "Be My Baby"! It has great dynamics.
• Holotropik
The point about listening to music at low volume is probably the most beneficial aspect to having music heavily compressed/limited.
• NeZoomie
I'm a little bit disappointed, there's no science in this paper.
• Peter Kirn
Well, parsing some of what people are saying, I see two issues:
1. Being anti-*loudness* doesn't make much sense. Compression and multi-band compression are tools to achieve sonic aims. So that's why, say, you might enjoy FlyLo — or not, but at least it's an artistic intention. By the same token, though, thoughtless over-compression distorts (literally and figuratively) artistic intent, and can dissatisfy your listeners.
2. I don't agree with others who assume independent electronic releases will be locked in just the same loudness wars. For one thing, as with the examples in the club — an over-compressed track may sound awful in the club, and that's dance music. I think your market is people's ears, and not having to go through narrow channels like radio may mean that you actually design your sound to those ears.
• Earl Vickers
By the way, I've posted a video based on the AES presentation at  ; .
• Irr Relevant
Hey Greg and all…
There is a whole lot of original research and papers on this topic on tc electronics website:
especially those by Thomas Lund ( and others)
And I'd like to point out the EBU's latest effort concerning the loudness practices, EBU Recommendation R128
• Klaas-Jan Jongsma
It is plain simple to me, i dont like music where people use compressors as musical instruments.
• bryan tewell
I believe the loudness wars stem less from perceptions by industry executives of being able to more effectively catch a listener's attention, but have a lot more to do with trying to more realistically capture the experience of going to a live (loud) concert. I know this may seem a bit counter-intuitive especially with advances in studio production technology that usually suck all the realism out of recorded performances, BUT, a lot of these advances have also helped push the loudness wars forward. For example, drum replacement and doubling may make drum performances sound (or sometimes even exist as) manufactured (fake) performances, but the main advantage and purpose of such a production technique is increasing the punch and volume of the drums without making them noisy or over-bearing in a mix. With this, you start to feel the drums a lot more in general settings (including everything from a high-fidelity audio environment all the way down to ipod phones,) Just as you would in a real-life performance context. I know to many this mindset may seem extremely counter-intuitive, but I submit to the world that this process of mixing is actually better suited for certain types of music (not all, and honestly, not very many types of music). It brings the listener of a recording closer to the experience of seeing some kinds of music live through the excitement and energy of the music being really loud… I bet you don't have many people arguing on this side of the fence.
• http://ff butthole
Dynamic music will make a CD sound far more like a live performance, when you attend a concert it may be loud but the snare drum still snaps the bass cuts through the mix and everything has a balance.
I'm not sure having the drums and bass sound like they were recorded in a library makes it sound live at all.
Listen to AC/DC back in black either the CD from the 80's or the vinyl and then listen to a modern band like Foo Fighters or Pendulum. Then crank up the volume I can guarantee black in black will sound far more "live".
• James
Do you remember the pepsi challenge? Turns out in a sip test, people prefer pepsi over coke. The secret? More sugar? Stands to reason then that coke should consider trumping pepsi in the sugar content then, right? Turns out in a more sustained test, say bringing home a six pack, more people end up preferring coke.
The loudness wars is much about that initial reaction from consumers and vying for their attention. I remember once when a tv manufacturer came out with a limiter on their set's volume. That idea was shut down within the year; I speculate they had too much pressure from other interests. And so for those of us who prefer DnB to jazz, I just want to point out that some agonizingly annoying ad is going to come on your tele or radio station and blow the volume of your track hell out of the water (not that either genre has much coverage there anyway).
• Eddie
Finally I got to read the article, watch the video, listen to samples, and look at additional research.
Regarding the questions “Is there a problem?” and “How do we solve it?” I would say that there is indeed a problem, and we are unlikely to solve it.
Our best bet would be to educate the artists and consumers. This is easier said than done. One obstacle is that most people don’t know how to listen and/or what to listen for. Even musicians.
Why should people with better ears pay a premium? If we want to win the war on loudness and educate people, I would go in the opposite direction. Allow artists and engineers to release better, more musical representations of their art, without any price increase. In fact, make it cheaper –or even free- as educational material.
Make better mixes available so that listeners can compare and contrast both versions. Just as movies have a director’s cut, allow an “engineer’s cut” even if it’s just a sample of the whole song.
Many engineers today will do whatever the artist and/or label tells them. They have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and clients to keep happy. But perhaps they could be allowed to create their own final mixes that are independent of the commercial product.
Some challenges:
Consumers are easily manipulated, and by now they tend to believe that louder is better. This is reinforced since louder does seem better as an initial impression, even if it’s not better for long-term listening or when listening more critically to the audio quality. Examples of consumer manipulation include the food industry and the “nutritional supplement” industry. Both are billion dollar industries that often sell questionable products. They can even market as “healthy” things that are unhealthy, and people buy the products. For example, instead of showing sugar as an ingredient they may call it evaporated cane juice. Low-fat, reduced-fat, no sugar added, natural, etc., may be included in food that is not healthy, yet consumers are deceived into thinking that they’re eating healthier.
Here’s a 122-page report… (I have not read it yet).
Could something similar be done in music? Can we push for health-related research in this case?
With food supplements it’s worse. Progress has been made with the USP Verified symbol. At least this allows consumers to know that they’re getting what is described in the package (e.g., Vitamin C, Garlic, etc.). In this multi-billion dollar industry it was not uncommon for some products to be different than what was described. And of course, the USP verification does not address whether or not the product actually works as described.
In spite of labels and available information, consumers in these industries make sub-optimal choices.
Could a label be used for music (eventually)? “Prolonged exposure may lead to listening fatigue.” Or a positive one: “Mixed and mastered with your prolonged listening pleasure in mind.”
How do we educate the listening public, when musicians and engineers may also need educating? I've encountered plenty of musicians and some “engineers” who think that louder is better, compress everything, and in spite of working in the music BUSINESS don’t have the proper ear training in this regard. If these people represent a challenge, how about the average listener? Worse yet, how about the fanboyz/grlz?
Look at Death Magnetic’s reviews on Amazon. A majority of the reviewers gave it 4 or 5 stars. Do they care about sound? There are those who complain about the sound quality, and interestingly some people will disagree with them. Similar to Springsteen’s Working on a Dream. That album has a horrible sound.
Indeed there’s a problem. Fortunately there’s awareness, technology (TT Dynamic Range Meter), and people who want to make a positive change. There’s also humor:
Posting -as educational material- comparisons on YouTube (e.g., Wicked Game) may also help. Just a few seconds of each version. This could help educate people. For my own edification I heard It's Oh So Quiet after applying heavy compression and making the volume of the original and the compressed file the same so that they would be comparable. Those can be ear-opening exercises for the general public, since the effect is evident. No room for subtleties ;)
Thanks for the paper and video Earl :)
• yo
To be honest we're getting into an age of the loudness war is getting louder by the day! 4/4 music designed for a club sounds better over comp'd & slightly distorted however in a broadcasting environment it will sound like crap thus radio edits nowadays usually retain the dynamics for that purpose than their original counterparts. Get use to it folks the loudness thing is the norm now for dance music. | <urn:uuid:27a1162b-64a8-41ef-b888-8c2a6c64b166> | 2 | 1.890625 | 0.069155 | en | 0.960764 | http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/07/from-the-trenches-of-the-loudness-wars-a-broad-survey-of-research/ |
Beachwood, Ohio Cancels Little League All-Star Game to Boost Self-Esteem of Players, Retroactively Surrender to Germans
Great, so now every single kid in Beachwood between the ages of 9-12 thinks they're going to play in the Major Leagues instead of the twenty-five kids who make the All-Star Game.
"Yay, Timmy, you're great, nice swing."
Except only your mom is going to cheer for you when you hit a foul ball.
Let's strip away the illusions early, you live in Beachwood, your industry-gone; your jobs — gone; your crack whore who used to let you play fill in the blank between her missing teeth — gone to Louisville, Kentucky where the real money is.
The decision to cancel the game was based on a letter written by Fred Engh.
In pertinent part, Engh marshals the persuasive powers of the English language to argue:
"All-Star games should be benched for several reasons:
• "It doesn’t take much to figure out that kids who mature quicker than others are going to be stronger, faster and probably more productive on the field. So, we’re simply recognizing players whose bodies have developed faster in many cases."
If recognizing bodies that have developed faster is the problem, we might as well eliminate 7th and 8th grade boys. Because they really have no other reason to live.
Beachwood Cancels All-Star Game to Raise Player's Self-Esteem [Fox 8 Cleveland]
Bench All-Star Games. Kids Will Thank You For It [North Star Pubs] | <urn:uuid:9b6cf1dc-a3cb-4f41-bf51-b2a80bc483c5> | 2 | 1.734375 | 0.067401 | en | 0.949908 | http://deadspin.com/5022642/beachwood-ohio-cancels-little-league-all-star-game-to-boost-self-esteem-of-players-retroactively-surrender-to-germans?tag=littleleague |
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