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new IKEA store with parking
|IKEA Beheer BV, Amsterdam
|Gert Jan Knevel, Rob Dekker
|project team:
|Bas van Berkum, Wieshant Manna, Lard Joordens, Sven Willems
|Ingenieursbureau Boorsma
|Ingenieursbureau Boorsma (structure & facility); Halmos Adviseurs (M&E) Herman de Groot (M&E); Civil Support (infra); DGMR (fire safety)
|Diepholtstraat 3, Zwolle
|floor area:
| 29.700 m² - parking
29.700 m² - store
| 94.825 m² - parking
187.760 m² - store
|start design:
|November 2011
|start construction:
|April 2014
|February 2015
The new IKEA store is situated at the head of business park, Hessenpoort in Zwolle, and is visible from the highway, the A28. The business park is characterized by a high quality in appearance regarding its buildings and its immediate surroundings.
The architectural concept consists of one compact shopping volume of 120 x 120 meters enclosed by a continuous blue building skin unifying the outside of the IKEA complex in one building.
The building skin has either a closed, fully open or perforated facade. Where there is an opening in the building skin, the materials can be seen which conceal the program behind it formed by for instance the windows of the restaurant and the entrance area or on the other side of the building the doors of the loading bay. Alternatively, the the parking garage has a perforated building skin which satisfies the safety regulations concerning venlilation.
The design concerns a building for a new IKEA store located in the Hessenpoort business park. The new store has a floor area of 30.000m² and a parking garage for approx. 1000 parking places. The new IKEA store forms a pilot store incorporating a new type of layout of the IKEA shopping concept and furthermore it is the most grandscale sustainable IKEA store of the Netherlands.
Through a close collaboration with IKEA Sweden, a shopping store is developed in which the construction process is optimized and the building costs are reduced. The sustainability aspect of the building is reinforced by innovative solutions as the building makes use of geo thermal storage and regenerated heat. The building fully consists of LED lighting. On the roof are placed 5500 solar panels and 9 wind mills generating renewable energy. The province of Overijssel is supporting the sustainable initiatives of the project.
In addition there has been a close collaboration with landschapsbureau BDPkhandekar. The point of departure for placing the building within its provincial context comes out of positioning a collonade of trees alongside the entrance area and by extending the water channels into this green zone. Two bastions mark the entrance of the terrain. The transition space to the surrounding private terrain is executed by the use of waterways, ramps and rockfilled steel mesh fences. The existing monumental oak is harmoniously taken into the landscape design.


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Ty Segall and White Fence have both released solo material this year aside from their excellent collaborative album Hair – an eight track doozy of fun, sloppy garage rock jams. White Fence's solo work took the form of not one but two bloated and ultimately underwhelming LPs made up of meandering, laid back, psych-Sixties pop recorded on four track. Ty Segall, on the other hand, more correctly recognised that the strengths of Hair were its bite and its brevity – two qualities which he doubles down with on Slaughterhouse (just look at that title) by recording with his touring band for the first time, creating a record which not only retains the spunk and fire of Hair but amplifies it; hard edged riffs and searing lead guitar blazing through half an hour of balls-out rock music.
Aside from its unashamed garage-rock sensibilities, another of the endearing and electrifying qualities of Hair was its apparently spontaneous and under-rehearsed nature. This, again, is something which Segall wisely translates to Slaughterhouse – tracks like 'Diddy Wah Diddy' give the impression of being blasted out in a first take, Segall directing his band to go "extra fast", and then admitting that "I didn't know what we were doing" once it's – whoosh! - all over. And in spite of the laxity in approach to the arrangements and the performances (or more probably because of it) these tracks rock hard and keep tight – frequently using simple riffs as a way of being able to just wig out together without much fear of the wheels coming off. 'Mary' hammers across just two notes in its rollicking riff, but truly goes hell for leather in its one and a half minute running time – and the enjoyment that the band draw from distorted guitar and battered skin is obvious, and infectious.
Despite cuts like 'Wave Goodbye' operating in quite a doom-laden mid tempo register, it's refreshing to note that Slaughterhouse – despite its harder edge – draws as much energy from an accessible pop-sensibility as Hair, and maintains its warmly feel-good atmosphere. Tracks like 'Tell Me What's Inside Your Heart' take a leaf out of White Fence's Sixties pop handbook, Segall's vocal channelling McCartney and Lennon in a sunny-throated hook of bona fide melody. But even at its most abrasive, Segall's vocal is always rousing, and never alienating. Essentially, it's a tremendous excuse for Segall to make a hell of a lot of noise and, in light of his more stripped back and meditative work of recent times, it's a welcome return to the land of squalor indeed; the extended solos which nearly all of these songs give way to always sound joyous, never self indulgent. Slaughterhouse is an unashamedly bread and butter garage-rock record – a swift punch of an album which inevitably hits some artistic limitations, but succinctly delivers all the timeless qualities of in-yer-face riffage from a snotty garage band.
7Russell Warfield's Score

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is poised to ramp up its withdrawal of military equipment from Afghanistan in a massive logistics effort expected to cost up to $7 billion, a defence official said.
The US military is planning to send home some 24,000 vehicles and 20,000 shipping containers of gear collected in Afghanistan during a dozen years of war, the official said.
The equipment has to come out by land, sea and air by December 31, 2014, the scheduled final departure date for most US combat forces in the country.
Sensitive gear and weaponry will be sent directly by air or flown to nearby ports to be shipped the rest of the way.
Other equipment will come out by roadway, mainly across Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be loaded on ships for the trip home, the official said, on condition of anonymity. Not everything will be sent back to the United States. Equipment considered surplus will be donated to the Afghan government, sold to 11 allied countries who have expressed an interest or cut up and destroyed, he said.
"December 2014 is a big date. That's the date that's been mandated that we get out of country. So we are on track to meet that date," said the official, who briefed reporters on the withdrawal effort ahead of a trip to Afghanistan on Friday by US Deputy Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.
Carter was expected to meet with senior Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai to discuss the ongoing transition in Afghanistan, where Afghan forces have taken the lead role in providing security for the country with support from international troops as needed.
The deputy US defence chief also planned to assess the progress that has been made in preparing for the equipment withdrawal, known as "retrograde" by the military.
The defence official said withdrawal effort would have three periods of heightened activity: October 2013, the spring of 2014 and October 2014.
The US military has three ways to withdraw its equipment: by air via cargo planes, a so-called multi-modal system in which cargo planes carry the gear to a nearby port city to be loaded on ships, and by trucks to ports in Pakistan, a route known as the Pakistani Ground Lines of Communication.
US practice is to move sensitive equipment and weaponry by air or by multi-modal routes. Non-lethal military equipment can be transported by ground or multi-modal means.
"Our primary route and preferred route is the Pakistan Ground Line of Communication," the defence official said.
But transport across Pakistan has been problematic in the past. Pakistan closed its border crossings to NATO traffic for more than seven months after a US helicopter accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The border reopened in July 2012 after a US apology, but traffic has been slow to return to normal, in part because of Afghan administrative procedures and fee requests.
After working through the bureaucratic hitches, US exports across the Pakistani Ground Lines of Communication rose to about 30 percent of all equipment being sent home. But that dipped recently to about 19 percent as Muslims marked the holy month of Ramadan, the official said.
About 50 percent of the traffic since April has moved by multi-modal means, including much non-lethal gear, and 28 percent has moved by air, the official said. Ground routes are the least costly shipping method, multi-modal is a bit more expensive and air is the most costly, he said.
"If you had your druthers based on the expense you'd want to put as much as you can on the Pak GLOC," the official said. "Ideally in a perfect world if we went up to 60 percent on the Pak GLOC that would be great."
The Pentagon calculates it will cost between $5 billion and $7 billion to remove the gear it needs to bring out of Afghanistan. The cost will vary depending on how much equipment is shipped by each of the methods.


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|A deer and jaguar at the National University's Natural History Museum.
|From the Animal Bodies exhibit,
this friendly dog.
|From the Zoom exhibit,
a fern frond uncurls.
As it is, the university's effort is an interesting, if low-budget, museum, which should have particular interest for Bogotá residents (especially if they have kids and do not have queasy stomachs) thanks to its displays about the region's zoological, paleontological and arqueological histories - which receive less than their deserved attention on a continent where the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans and Argentina's dinosaurs hog the show.
|Skulls of prehistoric local residents.
The National University also has several off-campus museums in Bogotá, including the Claustro de San Agustin, just west of the Casa de Nariño, and the one-time home of martyred politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, in the Teusaquillo neighborhood a few blocks west of the Parque Nacional.
The Zoom photography exhibit is scheduled to run one more week, the Animal Bodies exhibit is scheduled to remain thru the end of March.
|A more familiar scene at the National University, the Plaza del Ché.
|A 6,000-year-old skeleton from the Tequendama area.
|Ever met an elephant in Bogotá? They used to roam here, as this fossilized skull proves.
|A Zoom image of a flower.


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Genealogy Center
Allen County Public Library
900 Library Plaza
Ft Wayne, IN 46802
Phone: (260) 421-1225
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Library hours are:
Monday – Thursday 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Friday/Saturday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Sunday 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Closed Sundays from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Driving Directions
From the South
Exit Interstate 69 at exit 102. Drive east on Jefferson Boulevard into downtown. Turn left on Ewing Street. The Library is one block north, at Ewing Street and Washington Boulevard.
Using US 27:
US 27 turns into Lafayette Street. Drive north into downtown. Turn left at Washington Boulevard and go five blocks. The Library will be on the right.
From the North
Exit Interstate 69 at exit 112. Drive south on Coldwater Road, which merges into Clinton Street. Continue south on Clinton to Washington Boulevard. Turn right on Washington and go three blocks. The Library will be on the right.
From the West
Using US 30:
Drive into town on US 30. US 30 turns into Goshen Ave. which dead-ends at West State Blvd. Make an angled left turn onto West State Blvd. Turn right on Wells Street. Go south on Wells to Wayne Street. Turn left on Wayne Street. The Library will be in the second block on the right.
Using US 24:
After crossing under Interstate 69, follow the same directions as from the South.
From the East
Follow US 30/then 930 into and through New Haven, under an overpass into downtown Fort Wayne. You will be on Washington Blvd. when you get into downtown. Library Plaza will be on the right.


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Glamorous Wonderland Costume Photo 3 of 8
Rate this costume:
5 votes
|add a comment
|Costume type:
|Costumes for Women
This homemade costume for women entered our 2015 Halloween Costume Contest.
A word from Anastasia, the 'Glamorous Wonderland' costume creator:
Hello! My name is Anastasia. In my country (Israel), we don't have Halloween (Even though me and my friends love throwing our own Halloween parties :), but we have "Purim" which is a Jewish ritual... Read more »


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Principles of Professional Conduct
As career professionals, we use the Principles for Professional Conduct of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) as our guide for ethical practice. We also hold the employers, students and alumni who work with our office to a high standard of professional conduct
The following recommended practices are intended to provide a framework for such conduct; please review them carefully.
- Review the requirements of all job postings carefully and make application only to jobs for which you meet the requirements.
- Acknowledge invitations for interviews or appointments promptly whether you accept or reject them. Accept invitations only if you intend to seriously consider an offer that may result.
- Notify the Career Center in advance if you must postpone or cancel appointments.
- NO-SHOWS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE! When you have accepted an invitation for an interview, please keep the appointment. If for any reason you are unable to keep the appointment, cancel within twenty-four (24) hours *. In the event of a cancellation, proper notice must be given to avoid removal from the Handshake system.
- Should you be invited for a site visit, discuss with the employer what costs the employer will cover and verify all arrangements in advance.
- Respond immediately to offers. Discuss offers with employers to verify terms and reach mutually acceptable response deadlines.
- Request extensions from employers if you need more time to consider their offers.
- Notify employers of your decision to accept or reject as soon as you have made your decision, and no later than the agreed upon deadline. Respond to every offer whether you accept or reject it.
- Upon acceptance of an offer:
- Never accept two offers and never renege or continue to interview after you have accepted an offer.
- Write your letter of acceptance to the employer.
- Notify the Career Center of your success immediately and have them make your Handshake account inactive.
- If this is a permanent position, also complete the online Graduate Follow-up Survey.
- Immediately notify other employers with whom you have offers pending.
- Let your word be your bond. Honor your acceptance as a contractual agreement with the employer.
* Note: Failure to appear for a scheduled on-campus interview requires that you schedule an appointment with an Associate Director or Director of the Career Center. You will also be required to write a letter of apology to the employer who was expecting you and provide a copy of the letter to the Career Center. More than one no-show will result in the loss of on-campus interviewing privileges for the semester. Missed interviews reflect poorly on you and the university, and keeps your peers from having access to that timeslot.
Falsification/Misrepresentation of Information
It is important that you represent yourself to potential employers honestly and accurately. Not doing so could cost you a job opportunity. You are solely responsible for the accuracy and contents of your registration data, resume and other employment application materials. Any misrepresentation or falsification of information is considered a violation of the UT Dallas Code of Conduct and will be referred to the Dean of Students. Such violation may also result in the the disabling of your Handshake account and the removal of on-campus interviewing privileges.
Student and Alumni Participation
Only currently enrolled students and alumni who have earned a degree from UT Dallas, are registered with the UT Dallas Career Center during the current year, and follow accepted principles for professional conduct are eligible to participate in on-campus interviews, the fall and spring UT Dallas Career Expos, and career counseling and assessments. Other career seminars and special events are open to the general public unless otherwise stipulated.


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I can't figure how to replace a failed evaluation with a null value.
I am very new to Mathematica.
I have an equation that are being processed using the
Solve[] function and I then need to forward the results to other steps in my process. Some of the equations don't have solutions. This is desired and I want to eliminate those possibilities.
After generating a list with all the solutions I process that list like this:
SillySyntax[Rule_] = Quiet[x /. Rule];
Quiet[Curve = Table[SillySyntax[Curves[[i]]], {i, 5}]]
This works fine, but sometimes when errors such as the following happen they break my workflow by not putting a null in there. Instead leaving a ghost of an equation. This is not desired because I know a priori that these errors mean that the system is not physical. How can I remove these aberrations and ensure that
SillySyntax will output only numbers or empties.
Greater::nord: "Invalid comparison with 0.347148 -1.5103810834566311` I"


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The datasets below are made available as Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Services (WMS). They can also be accessed by websites that use a map-based interface to connect to WMS services, allowing data from different providers to be visualised spatially and compared.
Many of these services contribute to BGS complying with the EU INSPIRE directive.
Connect to the WMS data services from the links below:
These data are delivered under the terms of the Open Government Licence, subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced BGS materials: "Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI [year]". Contact us if you create something new and innovative that could benefit others firstname.lastname@example.com


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Ask Jim Griffin Questions About Choruss... Along With My Concerns About It
from the ask-away deptIt's no secret that I think Jim Griffin's plan for Choruss -- to set up a licensing system for P2P -- isn't just grossly flawed, but dangerous in many ways. We discussed at length why the very idea of any sort of licensing (i.e., a "tax") on online music is a bad idea. We've also worried about the apparent bait-and-switch nature of the plan -- in that, while it would grant either "covenants not to sue" or (potentially) "licenses" for any file sharing you do, it wouldn't stop the recording industry from still trying to shut down file sharing apps as illegal.
A few months back, I finally met Jim and was still left with many, many questions about the program -- especially because I felt that when anyone tried to pin him down on any particular bad idea that's been associated with the project, he would cut off the discussion by saying, "we're just experimenting -- so just let us get data before you criticize." And this, in fact, is a part of the problem. Rather than discussing the merits of any particular idea, Griffin keeps suggesting that -- despite evidence, history or theories about how various license programs work -- none of that is relevant to discuss until he's got data on his particular experiment. The way the plan is structured is that different (as yet unnamed) universities and colleges will begin testing Choruss this fall -- and each university will set it up how they see fit, in order to get comparative data. Thus, some could make it compulsory. Some could make it voluntary. Some could charge a lot. Some could bundle it with something else. Some could charge a flat fee. Some could charge a per download fee. Some could charge a per listen fee. But, if you try to dig down into the problems with any of these, Griffin has just said, "well, we're just experimenting, and we don't know if it's a good idea or not." Unfortunately, this avoids allowing us to discuss the details of why the concept is troubling, because we're told repeatedly it's just an experiment.
Jim Griffin to answer questions
That said, in an email exchange, Griffin agreed that if we asked folks at Techdirt what questions they had about the program, he would answer them -- and I hope that we can get more detailed answers. Now, to say our email conversation has been without conflict would be incorrect, and there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the timing of us soliciting questions (I had hoped to do it as a part of The Free Summit, which he was scheduled to attend, but for perfectly legitimate reasons, he was unable to attend at the last minute). But Griffin says he wants to answer whatever questions we have, and I'd like to send him some good ones.
My own concerns
To kick it off though, I'm going to share an edited/updated version of the last email I sent Griffin, after he asked again why I was so against Choruss. In pitching Choruss, Griffin likes to tell the story of the founding of SACEM, the very first collective licensing society. He talks about how since restaurants benefited from the music, they should pay for that benefit -- and how that's the basis of every collection society since: any place/service that benefits from music should pay for that benefit. I have serious qualms about that thinking, and here's why:
My worries about Choruss come from a few different angles. I think any sort of collective/group licensing scheme involving such a third party is an economically inefficient, and unnecessary solution, that ends up doing more harm than good. I know you like to tell the story of SACEM. To me, that's a horror story. It's a story of how to create a system that leads to massive wasted resources, inefficiency, a reliance on a bad (but easy) business model, followed quite quickly by regulatory capture that leads to an ever increasing inefficiency. Look at what SACEM has resulted in, and all I see are massive inefficiencies. The idea of adding to that legacy concerns me. If you look at collections societies, over time they just keep trying to increase how much they collect, and will often lean on the government for help in doing so. The story of PRS in the UK is instructive here.So, with that, let's kick off some questions that I have as "starter" questions, and let's see what else you guys can come up with in the comments. Also, feel free to let me know which of the starter questions/user submitted questions you like best. Once we have a good bunch, I'll send them to Griffin and when we get his answers, I'll post them here. Some of these starter questions are the same ones I asked earlier this year, but I've added a few as well:
My concern is specifically that we're seeing other business models that are working tremendously well. I know you were unable to stay for my keynote in Nashville, but I went through examples of many different artists (small, medium and big) who were embracing new business models to tremendous success -- none of which relied on any sort of licensing proposal.
So, then, along comes a licensing plan where I need to pay (and, yes, I know this isn't determined yet and experiments will occur) say... $5/month for Choruss. Now suddenly that's $60/year that I'm paying for music (some of which gets siphoned off by the bureaucracy in the middle, even if it's a non-profit, just for administration) that relies on some magic formula to figure out who it goes to. I'm now less inclined to spend additional money directly with my favorite artists, because I've already spent the money via Choruss. My favorite artists get less money (and I'm reliant on your system to make sure that my favorite artists are actually rewarded). My money is spent less efficiently, and now there's a group in the middle who has every incentive in the world (even as a non-profit) to try to get an ever increasing part of the pie.
That just doesn't make sense to me.
You talk about the two issues: collecting a pool of money and distributing it efficiently. What's wrong with letting the market do that? People are giving money, gladly, to the artists who give them a reason to buy. That's your efficient collection and distribution system all in one. Except it doesn't need a middleman like Choruss.
The problem the recording industry faces isn't that there hasn't been an effective licensing system in the middle. It's that they weren't giving people a reason to buy. A licensing scheme isn't a reason to buy. It's a removal of a threat. That's negative value (we won't sue!), not positive value (here's additional scarce value you want to pay for). The artists I highlighted in my presentation were all giving positive reasons to buy. I'm afraid that focusing on a system like yours focuses on that negative reason to buy (you won't get sued!) rather than the positive reason (check out all the benefits I get).
That's my big concern.
That concern is exacerbated by the fact that every time a direct question is asked about how Choruss will work, your response is "it's just an experiment, so we don't know." I recognize that it is an experiment and you don't know all of the answers, but it feels very much like a dodge. I'm sure it's a fine line, because there are many details you don't know about, but you've been so vague about everything that it's hard to know what to think. A bunch of universities have agreed to it, but who are they? Why would they agree to test something without the details being clear? Who's setting up what those details are? In Nashville, you said some would involve all students, but at the SanFran Music Tech event you were saying they'd all be voluntary for the users. It just has this quantum feel to it. Any time anyone tries to get specific and warn about a certain aspect, you can just claim "well, we might not do that."
My biggest concern, frankly, is that putting in this inefficient, unnecessary bureaucracy in the middle, we take away resources from the new, more efficient, business models that are working. Both times I've seen you speak about Choruss, you've claimed that those business models won't necessarily be harmed, because they can still be built on top of Choruss -- but that goes against fundamental economics. If people have less money due to Choruss, they're a lot less likely to buy into these other business models.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that competing between business models is a good thing, but the very foundation upon which any sort of collective licensing system is built is to basically get everyone to opt-in, somehow or another -- and thus is set up to crowd out more efficient business models. Otherwise it just doesn't work. So you have every incentive to get third parties (universities, ISPs) to put in place policies that either force, or heavily incentivize, their students/subscribers to adopt a much more inefficient plan. The incentives are skewed. You and the universities/ISPs benefit -- but users (and musicians) do not.
- Why do we even need such a plan when plenty of musicians are showing that they can craft business models on the open market that work?
- How does adding yet another middleman make the music market any more efficient?
- What's wrong with letting the market mechanism handle the collection and distribution of the funds directly between musicians and fans?
- Will the recording industry promise to stop trying to shut down file sharing systems if this program gets adopted?
- Will the recording industry promise to stop pushing for 3 strikes if this program gets adopted?
- How will the program prevent the gaming opportunities, where artists set up scripts to constantly reload/download their songs?
- Why should music be separated out and subsidized while other industries have to come up with their own business models?
- Why should those who don't listen to much music and aren't interested in giving their money to the recording industry be required to participate if their university or ISP decides to make them?
- Why should we have a business model focused on negative value (you don't get sued), rather than positive value (here's something scarce that's worth buying)?
- The history of collections societies shows that they only tend to expand, and try to capture more rents. Why would Choruss be different?
- If Choruss becomes big, won't lots of other industries want in? Movies will want their own version. Then newspapers. And if newspapers are getting their cut, then why not bloggers too? Or blog commenters? Or just any website? The road this leads down is a bad one, where we end up creating massive bureaucracies to subsidize every form of content, rather than focus on business models where those content providers have to provide a reason to buy their particular product. How do you prevent that?
Filed Under: business models, copyright, jim griffin, licensing, music, questions
Companies: choruss


text:
- Detail
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Night 1: Be escorted to the railway station by HE staff for boarding the train to travel up Lao Cai city.
Day 1: Lao Cai – Sapa – Hill Tribe villages – Homestay (B/D)
5.00: Arrive at Lao Cai Train station in the early morning. Be picked up by your tour guide and taken an 01hr drive to Sapa for breakfast and morning shower in a local restaurant. Free time to visit Sapa town and market.
2.00pm: (4hr trekking) Visit Lao Chai Village – home of Black H'mong minority. Trekking through Muong Hoa Valley with many beautiful sceneries along the river, then reach Ta Van village to make friends with a Dzay family where your dinner and homestay are served here.
Night 2: Homestay at Dzay family
Day 2: Tavan – Giang Ta Chai – Sapa – Lao Cai station (B)
Wake up with the locals in the sound of pigs, chickens and the family dogs. The family is already on their feet preparing your breakfast. Farewell to the family and trek through a bamboo forest to Giang Ta Chai – home of Red Dzao people. Meet and talk to people to learn more about their daily life, customs and traditions. Pass over the Cau May (Rattan Bridge) then back to Sapa Town by private car. Free afternoon to discover Sa Pa town or shopping in the local market.
16.30: Leave the town for Lao Cai train station. Dinner (on your own cost) and lounge in a local restaurant here then catch the night train back to Hanoi.
Night 3: Night train back to Hanoi
Day 3: Hanoi
The train arrives at Hanoi in the early morning, Hanoi Elegance Hotel staff will pick you up, and escort you back to the hotel (optional).
For guests who await to check-in, we highly recommend you order the extra package including All-you-can-eat breakfast and Spa coupon @USD30 per person. This will rejuvenate your body after the tiresome return journey from Sapa by train in early morning.
Tour ends.
Prices (US$)
NoteJoin-in group is not available. Please contact us if you need further information
Private transfers, 02 round trip train tickets in a 4 soft-sleeper shared-cabin*, E.S. guide, admission fees, meal as specified @
Homestay – opt 1
Hotel – opt 2
Homestay & hotel – opt 3
Homestay & hotel & market tour – opt 4
* Should you would like to charter the whole cabin to have more privacy aboard, there will be a surcharge of USD90 x 2 person.
Insurance, drinks, other personal expenses. Tips are welcome!
What to bring: Passport, comfortable footwear for trekking, insect repellent, rain gears, hat, sun cream, warm clothing.


text:
A hearing officer has ruled against a landowner who fears that a plan to inject waste from a Carlinville coal mine into subterranean mining voids will pollute groundwater.
The mine already has problems with groundwater pollution, according to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which last year called in the state attorney general's office to pursue enforcement action against Macoupin Energy, the mine's owner. The company is a subsidiary of Foresight Energy, one of the state's largest mining companies that came to Illinois more than a decade ago after company owner Chris Cline sold off mines in West Virginia and bet big on Illinois coal.
Cline's company bought the mine from Exxon in 2009 knowing that it was inheriting groundwater pollution problems. On Monday, hearing officer Jack Price ruled against Lisa Salinas, who owns more than 300 acres near the mine and argues that injecting waste from coal processing directly into the earth instead of a massive above-ground impoundment would poison groundwater supplies.
The unlined impoundment is the suspected source of groundwater pollution already documented by the state Environmental Protection Agency. In light of existing pollution problems from the impoundment, Salinas and other mine critics say it makes no sense to inject waste directly into the ground.
But Price in his ruling that upheld a state Department of Natural Resources decision to allow waste injection said that he has heard from no experts who can prove fears will become reality. Part of the problem, Price found, is that there has been no testing to establish how much pollution, if any, is already beneath Salinas' land.
"No person who can testify from personal knowledge nor professional expertise how underground pollutants will or will not move has been disclosed, nor was there any disclosure of any current pollution of her land or water," Price wrote. "Without a baseline of pollution, no one can tell if any future pollution of petitioner's (Salinas') land has occurred."
The so-called coal slurry from coal-processing operations is laden with poison. Ben Stout, a biologist from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia retained by Salinas, says that a slurry sample taken in 2011 had the highest levels of toxic substances he's seen in slurry samples he's examined from more than a dozen operations in other states.
The Macoupin County sample had excessive levels of eight contaminants, Stout said, with more than 80 times the amount of arsenic considered safe under federal drinking water standards and more than 300 times the acceptable amount of cadmium. Arsenic is a suspected carcinogen that can cause skin and circulatory damage; cadmium can cause kidney damage.
"That's pretty bad," Stout said. "Just the notion that you could inject that in the ground is wrong. … It's pretty obvious to me they didn't look at the data."
Salinas said she plans to appeal Price's decision in court. She said that the state should have denied permission to inject waste as soon as it received slurry test results in 2011.
"Why something this simple is being allowed to slip through the cracks is unbelievable," Salinas said.
Chemicals typically used in coal processing include a substance that recently leaked into the Elk River near a water treatment plant in West Virginia, prompting the state to warn people not to drink tap water. More than a dozen people were hospitalized, hundreds reported symptoms that included nausea and vomiting and schools in eight counties were closed.
West Virginia in 2009 stopped issuing permits to inject coal slurry into mining voids after a state-sponsored study failed to find that the practice hadn't contributed to groundwater contamination that prompted lawsuits against mining companies, including one that was settled in 2011 for more than $35 million.
Jack Spadaro, former director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy that trains mine inspectors, says that studies done as part of West Virginia lawsuits against mining companies accused of polluting groundwater were more damning than the 2009 probe that was deemed inconclusive.
"The studies done in the lawsuits were very conclusive," said Spadaro, who has also reviewed data from the Carlinville operation. "They were done by experts. I was one of them."
Spadaro says he believes that injecting coal slurry from the Macoupin mine into the earth would violate federal environmental law, but he concedes that such injection has been permitted in Illinois and elsewhere.
"That's what happens in all of these places, Illinois and West Virginia, where there's political control of the regulatory agencies," Spadaro says. "The things that are done are preposterous and in clear violation of the law, but it's allowed to go on because of a permitting process that provides cover for the people who are violating the law."
Contact Bruce Rushton at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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WEATHER: Beautiful! 85ish and non-humid and beautiful! Tralala!
MILES: 15ish.
MILES THIS WEEK: 15ish.
WHERE TO: C&O Trail
MOOD: Fantastically excited.
Today we started the hardcore tapering, meaning that this week's long run was under 20 miles. Yeah, it disturbs me, too. But that's how it goes when you have 13 DAYS UNTIL RACE DAY! Ohhhh I can't breathe for the vast quantity of excitement coursing through my veins right now (that and the lack-of-blood-sugar in said veins, as I am waiting patiently at the Apple store for my files to alll back up onto a hard drive and I will have to wait here much longer, apparently, and I haven't eaten in forever, so that is sort of fiddling with my bodily/breathing/metabolic functions as well) (anyway).
Grandma's Marathon in 2 weeks. I am running it this time with the illustrious C., whom you may remember from blogposts of yore. And if you don't,
you are not sufficiently loyal and you can go straight to hell allow me to give you a quick rundown: C. is a delightful person w/ whom I went to college, and who is now doing Ironmans.


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It's obvious I'm a fan of long-form game analysis, particularly story-based. I love to write about games, read about games, watch reviews of games, and talk about games. In a way, the retrospective is just another stage of the experience.
This is producing a strange side-effect where I'm starting to feel glad that the Mass Effect 3 ending was so completely awful in every way, lacking in both coherence and closure, and completely discarding core themes in the last minutes of the game. Sure, a high-profile series ended in a train wreck and a great chunk of lore-rich world-building has been reduced to pretentious mush, but the resulting conversations and deconstructions have been more interesting to me than the game itself. I enjoyed assembling my own list of objections, and I'm still collecting new objections to my running mental tally.
Here is yet another person stepping up to deconstruct the ending. Yes, they lead off with a nod to Red Letter Media, but the review doesn't go that way. This is actually the most highbrow one I've found so far, and the author plays things very straight.
Link (YouTube)
The bit about the Socratic exercise really resonated with me. Yes, this is the thing I love most about sci-fi.
I'll actually be glad when people stop saying, "You're ripping off Red Letter Media!" when someone does a long-form analysis. There's a lot of room for different approaches in this gig, and the more the merrier.
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
Shamus Plays WOW
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
Fable II
The plot of this game isn't just dumb, it's actively hostile to the player. This game hates you and thinks you are stupid.
Gamers Aren't Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Object-Oriented Debate
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.


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When people lay eyes on the Imerovigli Skaros they may think it's just another natural volcanic "sculpture". However, those familiar with the island's history know that up there, on this small piece of land, once stood an inviolable castle, with the public and private buildings of the island's medieval capital.
Skaros is the most important attraction in Imerovigli, an impressive rock seen also from Fira. The fortified settlement was presented for the first time in 1421 by the traveller and map maker Boundelmonti. Travellers of the 17th century report that its natural position rendered it impregnable to attacs. The only accurate surviving image of the Imerovigli Skaros is a pencil sketch belonging to Thomas Hope, housed at the Benaki Museum, Athens.


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This 16.2 cu.-ft. (claimed) bottom-freezer Blomberg BRFB1822SSN refrigerator has
Results in the following chart are gathered from Consumer Reports' 2018 and 2019 Spring Surveys of 4,880 bottom-freezer refrigerators, owned by members who purchased a new unit between 2009 and 2019.
Our predicted brand reliability ratings are based on a statistical model that estimates problem rates within the first 5 years of ownership, for bottom-freezer refrigerators that are not covered by an extended warranty or service contract. Higher ratings are indicative of better reliability. Brands receiving a red or orange rating cannot be recommended by CR at this time.
Our owner satisfaction ratings are based on the proportion of members who are extremely likely to recommend their bottom-freezer refrigerator brand to friends and family.
Source: Consumer Reports' 2018 and 2019 Spring Surveys.
Source: Consumer Reports' 2018 and 2019 Spring Surveys


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Seniors on the go stay sharp
Publish Date:
News Organization:
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Marilyn Gregory is practicing to compete in a tournament using Nintendo's popular Wii video gaming system. Just last month, she started writing for a blog. She regularly exercises and likes to make jewelry and play games such as table bowling.
For an 83-year-old in an assisted-living facility, Gregory stays pretty active.
"Exercise every day keeps the doctor away, that's what I like to say," said Gregory, who lives in the Barton Senior Residences on the west side of Chicago. "I'm in the activity room all the time."
Doctors once cautioned seniors against exercise, concerned that such activity could lead to broken bones and other medical problems. But geriatric specialists and other experts today recommend seniors exercise and do other activities to maintain their flexibility and hone their cognitive skills, said Dr. Susan Hughes, a professor at University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Public Health.
"The news continues to be so positive on so many fronts and for so many people with so many conditions, that the benefits so far outweigh the few, if any, untoward events," said Hughes, who also is the co-director for the school's Center for Research on Health and Aging.
The best senior exercise programming combines aerobic activity with modest strength training and flexibility exercise, Hughes said. Such activity helps improve residents' health while helping to maintain seniors' independence, Hughes said.
That's what assisted-living facilities can offer.
Many senior citizens may have health issues but don't require around-the-clock care and supervision as a nursing home might provide, said Barton marketing director Arnie Kanter. But if they need help with some ailments, doing chores or keeping track of medications, assisted-living facilities are a good option, he said.
The type of facility the senior goes to also depends on what he or she can afford, said Kanter. Barton houses residents 65 and older with assets of less than $2,000, he said.
At Sunrise Assisted Living in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago, residents can take senior-friendly yoga and tai chi classes as part of the facility's daily exercise offerings, said Shantel Mitchell Cooley, director of community relations.
"Nobody likes to give up their independence," Mitchell Cooley said. "Exercise helps them maintain their independence and improve their balance."
Research has shown that cardiovascular activity is directly related to cognitive health, said Hughes, of UIC.
"To the extent that exercise helps with physical health, there's also a spillover in maintaining your brain," Hughes said. "It's such a win-win kind of situation."
Other activities—even if they aren't physically challenging—may help seniors' mental health by getting them out of their apartments and interacting with others, Hughes said.


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January 9, 2012
"And if the truth was as the government claims, I wouldn't be standing up for my husband here today, because as I have said, I will not put my life at risk for anyone. So the reason I'm standing here today, is because I know my husband is innocent and he rightfully should be at home or after all the misconduct, he at the very least deserves a new trial with counsel who can and will present his case." CYNDI STEELE
From the ACLU to hard-core traditional conservative pundits, opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act is united. Yet you hear almost nothing in the propaganda media about the final nail in the coffin of the Republic. Legalizing a draconian police state is in place. Burning the final copy of the Bill of Rights accomplished at last. Finally, the goal of inflicting universal fear in the minds of every American who still possesses the ability of critical thinking is now complete. Will anyone care about the interment of citizens in the entombment of maximum security prisons? The NDAA leaves no doubt. No one is safe.
Ask E.D. Kain, who writes in Forbes,
"If Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a law recently passed by the Senate which would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists."
Well, we know that Obama signed this draconian edict into law. The intention of this legislation is to eradicate the constitution. Jonathan Turley writes in the Guardian, The NDAA's historic assault on American liberty, agrees.
"On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the constitution."
Chuck Baldwin warns in the essay, BILL OF RIGHTS IS NO MORE and chastises the Statist NeoCons for their complicit silence or even their phony arguments and apology for the loss of Liberty.
"Americans should realize that, coupled with the Patriot Act, the NDAA, for all intents and purposes, completely nullifies a good portion of the Bill of Rights, turns the United States into a war zone, and places US citizens under military rule. And what is even more astonishing is the manner in which the national press corps, and even the so-called "conservative" talking heads, have either completely ignored it, or have actually defended it. The likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al., should be ashamed of themselves!"
Think you are secure and never to be one of the prey hunted by an American Gestapo? Even before the passage of the NDAA legislation, targeting of dissenting voices is a common practice. In the era of "Guantanamo Incarceration", silencing internal rebellion means eliminating voices of political opposition. The case of attorney Edgar J. Steele is a frightening example of the corrupt iniquity of the state and the lengths taken to destroy one man (and his family).
If you are not familiar with this tragedy, read and review the full account and details in THE FRAME-UP OF EDGAR STEELE, the outrageous railroading of a truth-teller whom the liars don't like. The summary posed by the kangaroo court proceedings states, "In an appalling miscarriage of justice, the exceedingly politically incorrect lawyer Edgar J. Steele was found guilty on all four trumped-up charges." Rayelan, the publisher of Rumor Mill News offers up this analysis in Edgar J. Steele… Did the ADL Set Him Up?
"Edgar J. Steele was thrust into the public eye when he defended Pastor Richard G. Butler, founder of a white supremacist organization, the Aryan Nations.
IMO his arrest and conviction was a direct payback by the ADL.
Here is the ADL url for the article about him. All you have to do is read the url to see what I mean."
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Watch the YouTube four part series in his own words. Political Prisoner Edgar J. Steele's Nov. 3rd, 2011, PRISON interview Part 1, Part II, Part III and Part IV.
If you have doubts about Steele's veracity, his wife clearly confirms the truth. Now read the text of Mrs. Cyndi Steele's victim statement, sentencing hearing, 11/9/2011.
"So a year and a half has brought us to this day where I'm supposed to stand here as a victim… a victim of my husband. How do I do that, when he is not the one that has victimized me. How do I do that, when the only ones I have been victimized by is Larry Fairfax, our own government agents, an overly aggressive woman prosecutor, and yes your honor, even this court system itself with its own prejudices has victimized me. Of course, this means that my husband is a victim as well.
Yet, no matter what I have said here today, there is only one thing that matters. Today, there is great injustice being done. As the alleged victim and the wife of the falsely accused, I have to ask your honor, that a stop is put to this injustice and the court free my husband so he can come home, where he belongs and so our family can be whole again. Otherwise, at least grant him a new trial so he gets a trial that is fair. He is innocent and has wrongly been convicted of crimes he did NOT commit. Otherwise, the court is condemning an innocent man and destroying his family. The court will not only be sentencing an innocent man to what is a death sentence, but it will wrongly be sentencing his children to live without their father and wrongly be sentencing me, his wife, to live without her husband. How am I supposed to see that as justice?
It has been the lies, the misconduct, the violations of my statutory crime victim rights, violations of the constitution, the unfair trial, ineffective assistance of counsel by McAllister and the false conviction that is causing my family to be destroyed, my finances (including retirement savings) to deplete such that I fear bankruptcy and a host of other issues, too long to list here. It is because of all these injustices that has made me a VICTIM!"
Now that Mr. Steele is being moved into the black hole of a modern Alcatraz, his final fate is sealed if the government has its way. This injustice needs to be national news and the public must confront this selective prosecution of political prisoners.
Cyndi Steele makes an appeal for Edgar in a mailing, Victorville death prison protest, 1/5/2012.
Ed has been designated to the US Penitentiary in Victorville, CA. As if it is not bad enough what they have unjustly done to him, they have designated him to a max security, death trap prison and as far away from me as they possibly can.
I don't know if you are aware that Victorville was originally the George Air Force base, the first jet facility in America. When the Air Force abandoned it, they dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel in the ground water table. Jet fuel, when ingested, or when placed on the skin (showers) over prolonged periods, causes Astrocytoma, a deadly form of cancer. Astrocytoma builds tumors on the spine and in the brain, which kill you.
A campaign to help Karla Fuller a former inmate, who suffered from this poisoning while incarcerated there, finally got out of this death trap, but it was too late. She died within a year.
I'm again asking for your help in asking people write to Senator Mike Crapo and demand that Ed be housed at a different facility. Please send this information as far and wide as possible to every politician at the Federal level, Senators, and Congressmen, etc.
You may conclude that Edgar Steele, a person you never met, is unfortunate but it does not affect you. Such a conclusion could not be more confused or shortsighted. The NDAA legal cover now makes it procedurally efficient and politically sanctioned to save a bunk in the same cell as Mr. Steele.
There is a direct connection in the political prosecution of Edgar Steele, for being a defender of unpopular clients against the despotism of the state, and the government's thirst for enslaving any citizen for expressing dissent against a tyrannical empire. Wake up to the reality that the National Defense Authorization Act is meant to include you in the net of punishment for all political prisoners.
The NDAA is the climax of the destructive police state, intended and implemented against the American people. Anyone who believes that this law exempts boot sucking government supporters is a fool beyond salvation.
There is a reason why the United States has the largest prison population in the world. Wait for the next contrived terror excuse and you will witness even more of your neighbors sitting behind locked doors for their resistance to another false flag operation.
What will you do when you seek a lawyer to represent you at your Star Chamber? If the system can rail road an accomplished attorney like Edgar Steele, your per se defense seems irrelevant, because the legal system is designed for the courts to strip you of all your natural rights. Learn this lesson now, and do your best to help Free Edgar Steele.
The Reopen America Back to School Special is now live! Earn double Patriot Points on our hottest items!


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A southwest Florida community is rallying around a 72-year-old man this holiday season after authorities say a teenager kicked him while her friend videotaped it.
Lee County Sheriff's officials said a 15-year-old high school basketball player and several teammates were walking through a neighborhood when they spotted Robert Lerberg gardening last month.
Authorities say the teen kicked Lerberg from behind and laughed, while another videoed it. The assault outraged county residents. Authorities say the teen also allegedly knocked on another senior's door that day and slapped the victim in the face. She faces two felony battery charges. The Associated Press is not naming the suspect because she is a minor.
U.S. & World
The News-Press reports several companies are donating gardening materials and labor; and one person bought Lerberg a Christmas tree.


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Easy Shrimp Potstickers2015-11-22
- Yield : 40 potstickers
- Prep Time : 45m
- Cook Time : 10m
- Ready In : 55m
Average Member Rating
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- 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 egg
- 40 round wonton or gyoza wrappers
- 3 tablespoons peanut oil
- 1/3 cup ponzu
- 1 scallion, minced
- 1 teaspoon chili sauce (recommended: Sriracha)
- 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
Step 1
Potstickers: In a food processor, add the shrimp, garlic, scallions, soy sauce and egg. Pulse until combined but still chunky. Remove the mixture to a bowl. To assemble the potstickers, put about 1 teaspoon of filling into the center of a wonton wrapper. Moisten the rim of the wrapper with water. Fold the dough until the ends meet and press the air out of the center towards the edges. Seal by pressing firmly. This is the simplest way.
Step 2
To make the classic pleated look: using your thumb and index finger, pinch the corner of the unsealed wonton closed. Using your other hand pull a bit of the unsealed wonton edge toward the pinched corner and pinch to make a slight pleat in the wrapper, continue to pull the loose wrapper in and pleating until you run out of space, then push the air out through the final opening and pinch together. Repeat for the rest of the wontons. You can freeze them at this point on a baking sheet first, and then transfer to a freezer bag.
Step 3
Dipping sauce: Stir all the ingredients together in a small serving bowl.
Step 4
When ready to cook the potstickers, add oil to a large saute pan. When oil begins to swirl, add potstickers to the pan and cook until golden brown on 1 side. Flip and add 3 ice cubes. Immediately cover the pan to let the potstickers steam and cook through, about 3 minutes. Remove to a large platter and serve with dipping sauce.


text: Escaping the boundaries of human perspective is a fundamental task of science. Telescopes cross distance; microscopes, size; other tools detect sounds beyond hearing or light beyond sight. Datasets spanning years and decades allow patterns to emerge on scales outside the days and weeks of customary attention. In astronomy, of course, where multi-decade records sparked the Age of Wonder, long-term datasets are now routine. Ditto geology, the discipline which made it possible to conceive deep time. But other fields, especially in the life sciences, are just catching up. In the 20th century, biologists, ecologists and epidemiologists launched many long-term studies, designed with an eye beyond their own time. More recently, researchers have mined records — from captains' logs to Google Books — that in retrospect contain useful data. The approaches embody some of science's great virtues: foresight, patience and cleverness. On the following pages, Wired Science presents some of its favorite long-term datasets. Above: Japanese Cherry Blossom Festivals In Japan, cherry blossom festivals are an ancient and wildly popular tradition, featuring days-long celebrations carefully timed to coincide with peak flowering. The festivals are so prominent in Japanese culture that their collective descriptions in diaries, literature and administrative records have been turned into a six-century-long record of blossoming dates and locations across the islands. Because the trees blossom at certain temperatures, scientists can infer historical weather information, and ultimately climate trends, from these dates. Few other historical climate records contain such fine-grained detail. Images: Above) Kazuhiko Teramoto/Flickr Below) Top row, the known dates of full cherry flowering from the 11th century to present. April 1 is the year's 91st day, and May 1 is the 122nd. Bottom row, estimated historical March temperatures as calculated from flowering dates. (Yasuyuki Aono & Yuko Omoto/Journal of Agricultural Meteorology) Continuous Plankton Recorder Designed in 1931 by marine biologist Alister Hardy, the Continuous Plankton Recorder is a biopunk-named, nondescript-looking steel box containing two skeins of silk mesh. When it's dipped into the sea, plankton are trapped between them. Since sampling methods were formalized in 1948, nearly 300 ocean-crossing ships have carried CPRs from their bows. Sample by sample, over millions of miles, they've produced a global record of activity at the base of oceanic food chains. Images: Above) A Continuous Plankton Recorder unit hangs from prow of a ship. (Sandra Zicus/Australian Antarctic Division) Below) Decade-by-decade spatial distribution of plankton and small crustacean biomass for the northwestern European shelf. (Sophie Pitois & Clive Fox/ICES Journal of Marine Science) Chillingham Cattle The wild cattle of Chillingham, England have been studied since 1860, when their original owner was encouraged in record-keeping by none other than Charles Darwin, a man uniquely positioned to appreciate long-term datasets. Since the 1950s, Chillingham cows calved during winter with increased frequency. This appears to be a function of climate change: Warmer springs result in earlier vegetation growth, which result in earlier mating. Unfortunately for calves, winter is a difficult time to be born. Images: Above) Chillingham cattle. Yellow Book/Flickr Below) Proportion of births occurring in each season per year over a 62-year period. (Burthe et al./Journal of Animal Ecology) Florida Fishing Trip Photographs Fish stories are synonymous with tall tales, but photographs are another matter, and snapshots taken by charter boat operators in Key West, Florida provide year-by-year documentation of an ecosystem in transition. Overfishing and reef destruction almost eliminated large fish, then medium-sized fish, finally leaving only the small ones. Images: Above) Trophy fish caught on a Key West charter boat in 1957 (Loren McLenachan/Conservation Biology) Below) Top, fish caught in the early 1980s; middle, fish caught in 2007; and at bottom, species composition of displayed fish arranged in order from largest to smallest. (Loren McLenachan/Conservation Biology) Isle Royale Wolves During an especially deep winter in 1949, two wolves from Ontario crossed a frozen Lake Superior, arriving at Michigan's Isle Royale. The island teemed with moose, and the pair stayed; nine years later, Purdue University wildlife ecologist Durward Allen started to study them. They've been monitored ever since in what may be the single longest-running study of any animal population. A trove of fantastically detailed information has been gathered about the wolves, such as the exact locations where they've killed 3,654 moose since 1958. In recent years, chemical analysis techniques have allowed Isle Royal researchers to quantify the flow of nutrients that represents, with each carcass ultimately feeding plants and animals over three square acres. From this perspective, wolves don't simply kill moose; they spread life across the island. Images: Above) Wolves and pup. (United States Department of Agriculture/Man and Biosphere Program) Below) Top left, a wolf-killed moose carcass; top right, the same carcass three days later. In the middle is a map of moose carcass density between 1958 and 1982; below, a map of changes in carcass density between that period and 1983-2006. (Bump et al./Ecology) E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project Long-term studies of animals like the Chillingham cattle and Isle Royale's wolves can hint at evolutionary trends, but a deeper picture of evolution requires hundreds or thousands of generations. At Michigan State University, microbiologist Richard Lenski has tracked 12 once-identical Escherichia coli populations that were seeded in 1988 and have evolved independently ever since, a period of time spanning 50,000 generations. Lenski's E. coli strains are now distinct, each possessing unique adaptations and traits, and research on them has deepened scientific understanding of evolution's underlying principles — such as the very nature of evolvability itself. Images: Above) Flasks containing samples from Lenski's 12 original populations. (Brian Baer and Neerja Hajela/MSU/Wikimedia Commons) Below) Long-term trait frequencies in strains of Lenski's E. coli. (Lenski et al./Science) Google Books Cultural evolution clearly happens, but it's difficult to study with the formal rigor of biological evolution. With a few exceptions, such as anthropological monographs of canoe design in Polynesia, the data's just too messy. But with the advent of digital archiving and analysis tools, anything that can be scanned and formatted as text is a potential source of cultural data; the 2010 Science publication of an investigation into the century-spanning, 500 billion word-deep database of Google Books hinted at what might be possible. Images: Above) Stewart Butterfield/Flickr Below) Name frequencies in English-language Google Books texts over the 20th century. (Michel et al./Science) Framingham Heart Study In 1948, some 5,209 adult residents of Framingham, a blue-collar Massachusetts town, enrolled in what would become the longest-running epidemiological study ever. Nothing like it had been done; the participants would submit to medical checkups every year, eventually giving researchers a large-scale, long-term picture of human health. The study is now on its third generation; much of what's now considered bedrock conventional wisdom about heart disease and stroke — such as their links to cigarette smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure — were actually groundbreaking insights from Framingham. Images: Above) Walter Sullivan and Jane Klug, two of the Framingham Heart Study's founders and original participants, photographed in October 2010. (Framingham Heart Study) Below) Correlation of stroke mortality risk (y-axis) and blood pressure (x-axis) with age in men and women. (Lewington et al./Lancet) 20th Century Reanalysis Project Completed just this year, the 20th Century Reanalysis Project combines historical records from a hodgepodge of sources — the records of sea captains and explorers, doctors and old news accounts — into detailed weather maps, giving the late-19th and 20th centuries a modern level of meteorological coverage. Images: Above) Historic weather map for Jan. 28, 1922, the day the Knickerbocker Storm hit Washington, D.C. (NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project) Below) Reconstructed meteorological conditions for that day. (J. Whitaker/NOAA Earth System Research Lab) Ice Cores Ice cores — long, cylindrical sections of ice removed from polar ice caps and glaciers — are humanity's richest source of prehistoric climate data. In layer upon layer of chemically distinctive water are traces of past atmospheres and ecosystems, forest fires and earthquakes and solar variation. They're ubiquitous in climate research; they're also beautiful. Images: Above) Ice core close-up. (American Museum of Natural History) Below) Inside the U.S. Geological Survey National Ice Core Lab. (USGS) The Hutton Unconformity Though geology is almost by definition a study of long-term datasets, an exception should be made for one: a hillside in Jedburgh, Scotland where layers of ancient schist drive upward into layers of slightly less ancient sandstone, dramatically illustrating the wild ideas of 18th-century doctor and geologist James Hutton. In 1787, when Hutton first saw the so-called unconformity that would later bear his name, it was widely believed that Earth was about 6,000 years old. Hutton, however, believed that modern rock formations resulted from violent upheavals conceivable only in terms of deep time. It was a bold, even heretical claim, and required a bold demonstration. The jagged stratification of Jedburgh, so different than the smooth schist-and-sandstone layering seen elsewhere in Scotland, would provide it. "Alive in a world that thought of itself as 6,000 years old, a society which had placed in that number the outer limits of its grasp of time, Hutton had no way of knowing that there were 70 million years just in the line that separated the two kinds of rock, and many millions more in the story of each formation," wrote John McPhee of Hutton in Annals of the Former World. "But he sensed something like it, sensed the awesome truth, and as he stood there staring at the riverbank he was seeing it for all humankind." Images: Above) A 1787 engraving by John Clerk of Hutton's Unconformity near Jedburgh, Scotland. (Geological Conservation Review) Below) A U.K. sandstone formation between Ayre of Huxter and Lang Rigg. (P. Stone/Geological Conservation Review)