text:
Point of Inquiry is taking a week off and filling in with a classic episode from March 27, 2009. After Saudi Arabia recently tried to silence the Center For Inquiry's UN representative, Josephine Macintosh, as she delivered a statement critical of their repeated assaults on freedom of religion, belief and expression, we felt that our Austin Dacey episode was fitting to fill in during our week off.
Austin Dacey serves as a representative to the United Nations for CFI, and is also on the editorial staff of Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry magazines. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and USA Today. His new book is The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life.
In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Austin Dacey details his trip to Geneva, Switzerland on behalf of the Center for Inquiry's UN mission. He describes the UN lobbying efforts of the Center and its response to the United Nations Human Rights Council's resolution "Combatting the Defamation of Religions." He explains that despite legitimate concerns about stereotyping Muslims or racial profiling, this resolution equates any criticism or satire of religious beliefs with bigotry. He contrasts Europe's position on free speech with the United States' and how it is used by Islamic countries to justify their blasphemy laws, which often carry mandatory sentences of death or life in prison. He talks about how the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the United Nations aims to build into international human rights such legal standards that actually outlaw offensive speech against religions. And he argues that what should be protected under international human rights laws are individuals, and not ideas — that persons should be protected from harm and discrimination, as opposed to ideologies being protected from being criticized or satirized.


text:
Pouf et Miette (1952)
Jean Mad (also written as Jean-Mad) was a longtime political artist and humorist for magazines like Le Rire (1915-1939), Le Matin (1921), Aux Ecoutes (1926-1950), L'Avant-Garde (1944) and La France au Combat (1945). He started working for the women's magazine Femmes Françaises in 1946.
He made comic strip adaptations of famous novels such as 'La Case de l'Oncle Tom', 'Croc-Blanc', 'Don Quichotte', 'La Reine Margot' and 'Le Roman de Renart', as well as the children's series 'Les Aventures de Pouf et Miette'. The latter also ran in Les Marianne du Nord. In 1947 he made a series of comic books starring 'L'Inspecteur Douglas' for Éditions J. Froissard.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
MEXICO CITY, July 3 (Reuters) - Authorities have found seven severed heads stuffed in plastic bags on the edge of a highway near the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco state prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The gruesome discovery about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the country's second-biggest city is a reminder of the criminal violence still plaguing Mexico, despite assurances from the government that the murder rate is falling.
More than 60,000 people died in violence linked to warring drug cartels during the 2006-2012 presidency of Felipe Calderon. An average of 1,000 people per month have been killed under his successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office December.
Jalisco, the home of tequila and mariachi music, has been hard hit by the ongoing violence. Murders were up more than 5 percent during the first five months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to Mexican police.
The bodies of two schoolboys suspected of bullying the son of a powerful drug trafficker were found in Jalisco this week.
In March Jalisco's tourism minister was shot dead in Guadalajara just a week after taking office. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Xavier Briand)


text:
I can't stop reading and thinking about China and wine. Perhaps topical stories are catching my eye, since I am tuned into the subject due to my visit to China in June; nonetheless, I have discovered another new development. It seems the looming tidal wave of Chinese wine consumption has finally reached local NY shores—or rather, we have gone to theirs, hoping to catch a ride in on the money wave: New York State Wine Outlet opens in Shanghai! Unfortunately, my visit was a month before the opening of this exciting experiment, or else I would have liked to see how the Chinese represent NY wines to the local populace. Currently, Chinese wine consumption is estimated at 1 measly bottle a head per year (I know some people who can put one back in a night—not good either though). This figure may sound small, but there are 1.3 billion humans over there, and consumption and income are ballooning.
It seems, rightfully so, that New York wants a slice of the egg custard (particularly if it is from Lord Stow's in Macau. Me too!) Empire State Cellars (the only all NY wine store), owned by Peconic Bay Winery in the North Fork, was commissioned with creating an assortment of 30 wines representative of different regions and styles from NY State. Wineries that comprised the initial shipment included: Anthony Road Wine Company, Bedell Cellars, Channing Daughters Winery, Hudson-Chatham Winery, Jamesport Vineyards, Medolla Vineyards, Paumanok Vineyards, Peconic Bay Winery, Shaw Vineyard and Shinn Estate Vineyards.
The Outlet itself is meant as a resource for trading, selling and showcasing NY wines plus the venue will host trade shows, promotional events and matchmaking (no, not like Elimidate) for distributors and buyers. Why is this exciting beyond merely the opportunity for New York to stake a claim in unchartered China? It was only a decade ago that NY State wines lacked the quality-price ratio (QPR) to compete nationally, let alone globally. I am sure many will pick a bone with that statement, but I stand by it having spent more than a decade tasting and mostly spitting the wines. However, in the last 5-6 years the vino has improved tremendously across the board; call it better weather (global warming) or better technique, or both. Either way, the price points look much more reasonable when the juice in the glass has balance, complexity and is delicious to drink.
So, what does the New York State Wine and Spints (yes, not Spirits) website look like? Kind of hilarious. Having just come back from China, I am familiar with the theme of poor Chinese –English translation and spelling, coupled with jumbled site design. They definitely have some work to do on the NYSWO website. For instance, some of the NY wineries have their names misspelled: sparking ponte vineyards should be Sparkling Pointe and lieb family cellards is, well, obvious. Also, content was lacking and functionality was off. I was the 76th visitor; my husband, 15 minutes later, was the 72nd. Maybe they are counting down from a million and #1 will win a prize! I applaud the efforts here, but wonder why winemakers stateside aren't insisting on a few fixes, given there is a large population of English speaking expats in Shanghai. Maybe the Chinese version of the site looks better-unfortunately, I can't read it!


text:
The CBO Warns on Too-High Medical Loss Ratio Requirements
One of the more quixotic amendments to the Senate health care bill has been Jay Rockefeller's insistence that companies get their medical loss ratio to 90% or higher--i.e., spend 10% or less on administrative costs. I've already outlined why I think this is misguided. A number of liberals I know think that this was merely an opening bid to secure, say, 85%. But I doubt it will even go there. Over the weekend, the CBO released a very strange memo indicating a hitch that I, certainly, was not expecting: if you drive the MLR higher than 80%, the CBO is going to stick the health insurers on the federal budget:
CBO has identified MLRs in the principal segments of the insurance market above which a significant minority of insurers would be affected; if a minimum MLR were set at or below those levels, CBO would not consider purchases of private health insurance to be part of the federal budget. Compared with MLRs anticipated under current law, MLRs under the PPACA would tend to be similar in the large-group market, slightly higher in the small-group market, and noticeably higher in the individual (nongroup) market--for reasons that are discussed in CBO's November 30 analysis of the effect of Senator Reid's proposal on insurance premiums. Taking those differences into account, CBO has determined that setting minimum MLRs under the PPACA at 80 percent or lower for the individual and small-group markets or at 85 percent or lower for the large- group market would not cause CBO to consider transactions in those markets as part of the federal budget.
A proposal to require health insurers to provide rebates to their enrollees to the extent that their medical loss ratios are less than 90 percent would effectively force insurers to achieve a high medical loss ratio. Combining this requirement with the other provisions of the PPACA would greatly restrict flexibility related to the sale and purchase of health insurance. In CBO's view, this further expansion of the federal government's role in the health insurance market would make such insurance an essentially governmental program, so that all payments related to health insurance policies should be recorded as cash flows in the federal budget.
Needless to say, it is very doubtful that Congress wishes to consolidate the operations of the nation's health insurers on the financial statements of the United States government. Of course, the CBO does not actually have the power to force the Federal government to include the profits and losses of health insurers. But it does have the power to do its own budget analysis and cost projections with such consolidated statements, which would mean, among other things, that any time you cost the insurers money, the CBO will score that as costing yourself money--i.e. as an expenditure.
In other words, I think the CBO just took away the last shred of Jay Rockefeller's legacy.
Update: I should note, in passing, that the CBO memo also kind of indicates that these MLRs would, um, pretty much devastate large swathes of the health insurance industry, as well as potentially causing costs to spiral out of control as companies slashed the administrative overhead dedicated to controlling them. But while this is a fine indictment of the bone-headed "Make it So!" style of progressive governance, it's rather beside the point, since the consolidation is pretty much an amendment-killer.


text:
By: Andrea Blair (a.k.a.Speedy), Seasonal Camp Director at Camp Hardee
1. Location, Location, Location
Camp Hardee sits on the bank of the beautiful Pamlico River. Campers create memories as they experience a dolphin visit while canoeing or perhaps enjoying one of our "floating" lunches.
2. Chef Greenblood
Our resident cook, Lillian Thompson (a.k.a. Greenblood), prepares the most scrumptious meals and delicious desserts! Greenblood ensures everyone is well-fed and satisfied.
3. Colorful Surroundings
Camper cabins are bright with inviting colors. As campers receive their cabin assignments on opening day, they are excited to discover the color of their cabin.
4. Cozy Family Atmosphere
Camp Hardee has one of the most enthusiastic and diverse groups of staff members that appear to have known each other for years. Their helpful and friendly attitudes resonate with campers and encourage them to do the same. At Hardee, the Girl Scout Promise and Girl Scout Law aren't just words — but also actions.
5. Amazing Camp Songs
Counselors go above and beyond when performing songs for the campers by each adding their own individual twists. The vibrant personalities of staff and campers shine through at opening campfire, getting the girls excited up for an amazing week at camp.
6. Fun and Engaging Activities
Campers at Hardee can participate in archery, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, and arts and crafts. Each of the trained instructors has fun ways to get every girl involved and excited!
7. Unique Programs
While the themes each week vary, the staff brings the same level of creativity and enthusiasm to each unit, making sure their experience is special. Programs include facials, theater performances, floating lunches, stargazing, videography and the list goes on.
8. International Experiences
Campers and staff come from all different corners of the globe. Mondays are known as the day girls view pictures and experience the food, songs, and dances from several different cultures, broadening their global awareness.
9. Groovy Dance Parties
Hardee campers cut loose every Tuesday night and dance to some of their favorite songs; or learn a new line dance. Everyone dresses to impress for the weekly theme!
10. Camper Council Voice
Two girls from each unit voice ideas and plan daily dress up themes such as Wacky Tacky, Super Hero, Twin Day and more.
What do you think make Girl Scout-NC Coastal Pines Camps Rock?
Be sure to visit and "Like" our camp Facebook pages.


text:
Guard's testimony: Oscar Pistorius told me 'everything is fine'
The Associated Press
PRETORIA, South Africa — Oscar Pistorius told a concerned security guard on the phone that everything was "fine" after neighbors reported gunshots coming from the athlete's house the night he shot dead his girlfriend, according to testimony in the South African murder trial Friday.
The security guard, Pieter Baba, testified that Pistorius phoned him back moments after the initial brief conversation, but then started crying, didn't say anything and the line went dead. It was minutes after the double-amputee Olympian fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp, for which Pistorius is now on trial for murder.
"Not everything was in order as Mr. Pistorius was telling me," Baba recalled saying to a fellow guard as they were outside the runner's villa in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day last year.
Samantha Taylor, who cried twice during her time on the stand in the Pretoria court, said that Pistorius always carried a firearm when they dated, sometimes shouted angrily at her and her friends, once shot his gun out the sunroof of a car, and that their relationship ended when he cheated on her with Steenkamp.
There were murmurs in court when Taylor revealed what she said was the reason for their relationship ending. Taylor said she started going out with Pistorius in 2011 when she was 17 and the relationship finally ended in November 2012.
Taylor described some of Pistorius' habits while they were dating, including what side of the bed he slept on at home and where he kept his gun during the night. Taylor's observations of what Pistorius did when they were together show different habits from what he says he did when he shot Steenkamp with his licensed 9 mm pistol.
Pistorius, 27, is charged with premeditated murder for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model. Prosecutors charge he did it during an argument but he insists it was a mistake, and that he fired through the locked toilet door in his bathroom believing an intruder was behind it.
On the night Steenkamp died, security guard Baba had taken the short drive from the main gate of the enclosed estate to Pistorius' home with a colleague after neighbors called to report sounds like gunshots from that direction, the guard said.
He called Pistorius after seeing lights on in the house, and Pistorius told him everything was OK and the call ended. Soon after, Pistorius called back, said Baba.
"Maybe he wasn't sure about calling me back," Baba testified. "He just started crying over the phone. That's when the line went off."
A few minutes later, Johan Stander, a manager of the housing complex who Pistorius says he called to get an ambulance, arrived with his daughter and the group went to the front door of the house and someone pushed it open.
"I saw Mr. Pistorius coming down (the stairs) with Reeva," Baba said. "I was so shocked. I started regaining my senses when Mr. Stander said 'Oscar.'"
Stander then ordered Baba, who says he didn't enter the house, to go and call the police and an ambulance, the guard said.
Prosecutors are trying to build a case that Pistorius, one of South Africa's most celebrated sportsmen, intentionally killed Steenkamp after a fight and attempted to cover it up by saying he thought she was an intruder.


text:
To honor Billy Wilder's birthday (today would have been his 109th birthday), I'm sharing my thoughts on one of his most beloved comedies of all-time, SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959). Written (along with long-time writing partner IAL Diamond), produced, and directed by Billy Wilder, this film is a comedy that's both classic and contemporary. Then and now.
It was a slight change of pace for Wilder who was better known for his darker edge in filmmaking as evident by the majority of his films up through this time. (And they continued thereafter.) But here was a Billy Wilder film that was pure light-hearted fun, with a slapstick tone reminiscent of the silent comedies.
The story is simple enough. Two broke and struggling musicians (Tony Curtis as Joe and Jack Lemmon as Jerry) in 1929 Chicago witness a mob hit after a speakeasy raid and find themselves desperate enough (both financially and eager to hide from the mafia) to take on a gig with impossible odds. They've got the musical skills to fit the bill and the sojourn to breezy Seminole Ritz in Miami would be a warm welcome from the freezing midwest winter. But the cross-dressing in order to join this all-female band requires a leap in courage – and adaptation, in more ways than they bargained for.
Early on, they discover the challenges of passing as women; from the wardrobe, even down to the walk. They meet the beautiful Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, one of the members of their new troupe and Joe (dressed as 'Josephine') is fully smitten. Meanwhile, Jerry (dressed as 'Daphne') finds he's become a target of cupid's arrow himself. Joe E. Brown portrays the wealthy 'mature playboy' Osgood Fielding III, in dogged pursuit of Daphne. As you might imagine, it doesn't take long before the mafia tracks the boys down to their beach side hideaway. The hilarious antics and chaotic pace entangle as the fellas do their best to keep their gender roles in check, and balance their romantic pursuits, all while trying to save their skin from the mob's hunt.
Billy Wilder exemplifies that he could handle anything… from light-hearted comedies like this, to thought-provoking dramas. His legacy as one of the very best writer/directors in Hollywood reflected dramas that had some elements of dark comedy in it, and comedies with flickers of darkness underneath, as well. Let's face it, we all know that tragedy and comedy are just 2 sides of the same coin of storytelling. And Wilder was the master like none other.
Some highlights of Wilder's brilliant mastery in SOME LIKE IT HOT…
The Cast: It takes a skilled actor to command a great performance. But it takes a master director to bring out his/her very best. It helps to start with a stellar cast (no problem here) but you can't fake chemistry. Curtis and Lemmon are a dynamic duo – both adept at comedy and drama and play off each other like they've been close chums their entire lives. I'm a bit biased; but for me, Jack Lemmon can do no wrong. He worked very well with Billy Wilder and their partnership across seven films remains one of the best actor/director collaborations in Hollywood history. And while it's no secret that Wilder did not enjoy working with Monroe, it speaks volumes to their professionalism and skills to bring such iconic results.
The Writing: Billy Wilder would often take rather unexpected situations (like cross-dressing jazz musicians in the roaring twenties on the lam from the mob) for his stories then highlight the most fascinating characters that become vibrantly alive and real, thanks to his writing. We are pulled in and can't get enough. Here's an example of one of my favorite scenes that showcases this; starting when Joe asks Jerry (giddily shaking maracas, still dressed up as Daphne from his date), "who's the lucky girl?" to which Jerry responds "I am":
Some other fabulous lines:
Sugar: "Water polo? Isn't that terribly dangerous?"
Junior: "I'll say. I had two ponies drowned under me."
Sugar: "Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold!"
Sugar: "Story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop."
Sweet Sue: "Are you two from the Poliakoff agency?"
Josephine: "Yes, we're the new girls."
Daphne: "Brand new!"
Sugar: "I come from this musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and my father was a conductor."
Joe: "Where did he conduct?"
Sugar: "On the Baltimore and Ohio."
Osgood: "I am Osgood Fielding the third."
Daphne: "I'm Cinderella the second."
Osgood: "You must be quite a girl."
Daphne: "Wanna bet?"
Note, cross-dressing is not as relevant today as a vehicle for comedy as it once was as a premise, simply because we have evolved as a society that is more aware and accepting of transgender, transsexual, and cross-dressing populations. Keep in mind, the 'high jinks of cross-dressing' as a comedy tool has been utilized in a multitude of films and TV shows. But SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) holds up better than most because it doesn't rely upon that element as a singular joke or gag to occupy the entire film. Billy Wilder was smart enough to know that. His talents of layering multiple characters and sub stories, while creating delightful obstacles of chaos resulted in cinematic magic. Magic that is still as contemporary as it is a classic.
I'll leave you with some behind-the-scenes snapshots and the man behind the magic, Billy Wilder, as he orchestrates his talented cast in SOME LIKE IT HOT…
This article was my contribution to the 2nd annual BILLY WILDER BIRTHDAY BLOGATHON, hosted by the ever-lovely Aurora aka @CitizenScreen of Once Upon A Screen and yours truly of Outspoken & Freckled. Please explore both host sites as each of us will list the many, talented participants' posts- enjoy!
And happy birthday, Billy!!


text:
Sforza, Francesco I
Sforza, Francesco I fränchās´kō, sfôr´tsä [key], 1401–66, duke of Milan (1450–66); illegitimate son of Muzio Attendolo Sforza. He succeeded his father as leader of his band of mercenaries, and by his valor and sagacity he became one of the most powerful condottieri of his time. In 1441 he married Bianca Maria, illegitimate daughter of Filippo Maria (see under Visconti), duke of Milan. On Filippo's death (1447) the so-called Ambrosian republic was set up in Milan. Francesco, who commanded the Milanese troops, made himself master of the republic and was proclaimed duke in 1450 with the support of the Medici of Florence. He consolidated the power of Milan and in 1464 seized Genoa. An able prince, he patronized arts and letters and beautified Milan. His son, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, succeeded him as duke.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Italian History: Biographies


text:
As part of the iTunes 10.2 update released on Wednesday, Apple patched an unprecedented number of vulnerabilities in WebKit, the Web-rendering engine that powers Safari and the iTunes Store. According to French security firm Vupen, Apple plans to add those patches to Safari 5 in an update set to be released before the Pwn2Own hacking competition at CanSecWest 2011. Still, security researcher Charlie Miller, known for "pwning" Safari for the last three years running, doesn't think a potential patch will present much of a challenge in his fourth attempt to crack Apple's browser.
In the security bulletin for iTunes 10.2, Apple made note of 50 separate vulnerabilities related to "memory corruption issues." Those issues could enable a man-in-the-middle attack while browsing the iTunes Store, which Apple noted could lead to "unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution."
Computerworld noted that Apple typically patches WebKit security issues in Safari first, lending more credence to the belief that Apple may patch Safari very soon, before the contest. Only Apple and Google released patches before Pwn2Own last year.
That patch didn't stop Miller from winning his third Pwn2Own against Safari last year, and he doesn't expect any patch to stop him this year either. Any patch, if it comes, "won't be a problem," Miller told Ars.
"In years past, when I was first in line in the contest, I was very nervous that my vulnerability would get patched before the competition. Sometimes I sat on the vulnerability for an entire year waiting for the contest and I would have been sad if it got patched at the last second," Miller said. "This year, for Safari, I'm fourth or fifth in line to try, so I don't think it will affect me. At least one of those [other] guys will have their [vulnerability] not get patched or else the patch is so massive, it'll probably patch mine too."
Miller noted that even if a patch comes out and it doesn't specifically address a vulnerability he plans to use, it could still cause additional problems. "Sometimes just the fact that a new patch comes out will make things harder," Miller explained. "They may innocently change the way the memory is laid out, or addresses may change, etc."
Still, Miller thinks that a change in the rules from past Pwn2Own contests will keep any last-minute patch from spoiling his chances for another victory. "Back in the old days when I won, you had to hit the latest and greatest, even if the patch came out that day," he told Ars. "For the first time, as long as the vulnerability is still present on the day of the competition, the actual device being exploited was locked in a week or so ago."
The fourth annual Pwn2Own contest takes place next week at CanSecWest 2011, March 9-11. Hackers will have a chance to "pwn" IE8, Safari 5, Firefox 3, and Chrome 9 running on the latest hardware. Winners get cash prizes from a pool of $125,000, as well as laptops, including a 13" MacBook Air for the hacker that takes down Safari. Participants also have a chance to crack four different mobile platforms, including a Dell Venue Pro running Windows 7, an iPhone 4 running iOS, a Blackberry Torch 9800 running Blackberry 6 OS, and a Nexus S running Android.


text:
Burnout: Paradise was a controversial title for us here at Opposable Thumbs. At first, we were rather put off by the title, but it ultimately turned out to be a great addition to the series. Criterion Games is looking to build on the original experience this year with what the company has dubbed as the "Year of Paradise." Three major title updates are due between now and Christmas that will add some huge features to the game, including motorbikes.
Criterion has broken up the three updates into three named expansions: Cagney, Davis, and Eastwood. Each expansion will come loaded to the brim with some significant new content. Though features continue to be announced every day, here's a brief rundown of what's coming with each pack so far:
- Cagney (June) – custom soundtracks (PS3), competition liveries (Oval Steel Racer, Hippy Van), Hunter Olympus, improved standard definition presentation, improved ranked racing, 70 new Freeburn challenges, new in-game Live Update page (weather, news, calendar)
- Davis (August) – Motorbikes, nighttime races
- Eastwood (Fall) – "The other side of the bridge" expansion
Features continue to be announced on a daily basis. Oh yea, and it's all free. How's that for setting a precedent that others should follow?
Ben's thoughts
I'm sure some would argue that these things should have been made available from day one, but c'mon, these are huge updates, and Paradise certainly didn't feel like an unfinished game. I love how the title is expanding and changing to add these new features, and a custom soundtrack in all Burnout games is a must; finally having your own songs in the PS3 version of Paradise is a great thing.
Well done guys, keep it coming.


text:
Continuing from last weeks part one, its important to understand where Im coming from on this. I appreciate Hip-Hop lyricism and am a strong advocate of consciousness in rap. When that consciousness includes any of the Six Written Lessons that Registered Members of the Nation of Islam receive, out of which come the 120 Lessons which the Nation Of Gods and Earth revere and study; and when that is combined with wit, style, street credibility and a mathematically precise beat, for me, then, knowledge, understanding (wisdom is when it is applied) in artistry have reached their apex.
Therefore, when I hear Jay Electronica, I get the Holy Ghost.
However, that isnt enough, for me to start speaking in tongues, yet.
Because I have already lived through the Conscious era of Hip-Hop where the Lessons, history, progressive philosophy and great quotes and teachings were weaved into music (and no one ever did that better than Big Daddy Kane) only to see that golden era end, because that consciousness lacked something.
It did not have an economic or business foundation associated with it, that would protect and institutionalize it.
I wrote about this in a very provocative piece at BlackElectorate.com a few years ago: "The Consciousness Of Wu-Tang Clan, Suge Knight, and Jay-Z."
Business acumen, institution building, and shrewd political maneuvering are the only way to protect conscious artistry.
Now, add to this my professional background and my focus on Jay Electronica becomes clearer.
As a former personal manager (Wu Tang Management); political strategist (Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney); economist (African Union); and journalist (The Final Call and Wall St. Journal) I never simply operate in the world of data, information, and knowledge for its own sake.
Those potential forms of power must be applied to influence reality for the better.
Thats the Hip-Hoppreneur worldview that I apply to the promise and challenges of making Jay Electronica an incredible success (beyond what he already is) on more than one level.
Convert The Political Progressive Hip-Hop Fan Base Into A Constituency. This is coming from a successful political strategist (Congresswoman Cynthia McKinneys 2004 Campaign). If Jay Electronica can accept a leadership profile (which is something he will have to search his own heart on and be at peace with) a major key to his success will be to court Hip-Hops independent political underground and convert them into his "supporters" rather than as simply fans. He has to allow people to see him as more than just an entertainer and give them reasons to "vote" for him as a change agent. This is part of the basis of my caution about how closely he aligns himself with certain conscious artists who are really only rhetorical lyricists. I want Jay Electronica to do tracks with them, and I want this segment to be enthusiastic about him creatively, but the real marginal utility (best function) of this group is to mobilize them around issues (and song concepts that highlight them), that result in a fiercely independent political mainstreaming of him. What do I mean?
Two examples come to mind Jadakiss in 2004 with Why?"; and Nas in 2009 with "Sly Fox." Both songs opened up each artist to new audiences, or significantly changed the way they were perceived by certain segments of existing audiences. I want the same to happen for Jay.
This is the key to what I call the credible crossover when an emerging fan base claims you, without you losing your current or core group of supporters.
"Why?" had a lot of intangibles working for it – like an election year which polarized major radio companies around political parties and an anti-Clear Channel sentiment over the corporations perceived favoring of President Bush – which contributed to so many competing stations being willing to play a song that included the explosive charge, "Why did Bush knock down the towers?" The net result was the temporary crossing over of Jadakiss from the street credible rapper category to a voice for political change, embraced by the so-called "backpakers," who previously had little use for him.
Nas "Sly Fox" aimed at Fox News Channel had some of the same dynamics (though Nas is as much Poet-Novelist as street credible) and was a stroke of genius converting him into the kind of griot (singers in African societies who rallied armies) that the great Cheikh Anta Diop wrote about. Nas was already respected by the political underground but his respect for Islam, reverence for Black nationalism, and even a stream of Pan-Africanism three areas that at times make the more socialist-oriented progressives uncomfortable had placed a ceiling on his popularity with this group. That changed with "Sly Fox." The political mainstreaming was complete when Nas appeared on The Colbert Report. If I were quarterbacking the gameplan Id judge it a success and know that Jay Electronica had hit the right tone when he had appeared on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report or to a lesser extent the Real Time With Bill Maher program (Mahers political edginess could make a strong appearance by Jay the stuff that legends are made of) and a select group of other talk shows.
With the right song concepts and promotion (viral, street, and guerilla) I believe Jay could surpass what either Jada or Nas did. The key would be his ability or those around him to make political noise in respected political forums. Here is where the data, information, and knowledge he feeds from needs to be translated into media deliverables and publicity in the form of op-eds, press releases, open letters, blogs, his signing of petitions (carefully, though, only for the right causes) and stimulating intellectual performances in interviews. Here I strongly suggest Jay E. absorb six people when it comes to delivering hot interviews that always reinforce a brand, image, and reputation: Jay-Z, Muhammad Ali, Immortal Technique, Star of Star and Buc Wild, 50 Cent, and Minister Farrakhan. Very few music industry publicists can navigate this kind of substantive and strategic terrain, as most of them primarily rely upon industry networking and spinning a Rolodex. What I think is required for someone like Jay Electronica is the industry-standard people-skills schmoozing, combined with a reading of historic and topical books, staying on top of local and international news, and briefings in a way he prefers and can digest. Yes, you are reading me correctly – Jay Electronica deserves power brokering and morning memos, like Obama, and on a regular basis from his team. He needs fuel for his intellectual fire, consistent with his image, and which allow him to credibly speak the different languages of his audience segments (current and emerging). I can count on one hand, the marketing and PR professionals in the business capable of reinforcing the kind of brand Jay needs a non-industry leadership profile with an interesting storyline of celebrity and reality.
But I do have great respect for Helio PR (www.heliopr.com) and Sasha Brookner for their consciousness, shrewd strategies, ill Rolodex, and ability to energetically work both grassroots and high-profile audiences qualities this challenging era requires. In one of our recent building sessions, Sasha made some points that I thought were critically important for keeping Jays brand, image and reputation in alignment: Electronica should be careful not to conduct interviews with promiscuity. Each piece of press should serve a purpose and rationale. He should 1) go minimal and not over-saturate 2) fight for Q&A formatted stories 3) Do some Op-Ed pieces for Huffington Post, New Yorker, etc. where his voice isnt filtered 4) Target unexpected media outlets to build a contrasting fanbase. You got people on the sidelines eager to say see it was all hype. He should dismiss the hype himself in order to take it out of their hands – music speaks for itself. Many rap artists with the greatest career longevity moved into this genre gradually without being a product of initial buzz so its important not to get caught up in the ephemeral rapture. Souljah Boy will never have the career span of a Mos Def. Electronica got a lot of rap icons co-signing for him and it doesnt hurt he has a ride or die chick with a cult-like female fanbase that are going to be checking for her love life.
Ensure International Appeal. I love the trailer for Exhibit A and its international appeal. Now, lets take it a step further. Lets do some mixtapes, remixes and collaborations with the powerful artists affiliated with the Hip Hop Revolucion collective (http://www.hiphoprevolucion.org/blog). Or, Jay Electronica could do a track saluting different cities and their "street" histories and traditions Toronto, Canada; Kingston, Jamaica; London, England; Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Tokyo, Japan; and Beijing, China. All he might need is a researcher and historian who could contact individuals on the ground in these countries (easy because of the fan base) and a few scholars and experts who would be happy to provide details on life on the ground and the culture of the people. Or, they could talk to immigrants living here from all of those hot spots, and get a feel for the culture. Jay Electronicas grasp of the streets, strategic philosophy and principles could be weaved together with these details. He could speak about local life, connect it to similarities in Philly, New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. He could make fun of rappers here, who wouldnt know how to find these places on a map. Diddy could arrange the musical production team to mix in instruments in the tradition of these countries. As advisers, perhaps, Diddy could call in Quest Love of the Roots (who Im sure appreciates Jay Electronicas nods to Philly as much as I do) to work with him on the arrangements. This one track alone could open Jay Electronica to concerts worldwide, remixes with popular local artists, and international sales abroad in places no other rapper has enjoyed. If he needs help with Africa I have A&Rs in Southern Sudan and Nairobi ready to go (smile). Any Hip-Hop artist who is just depending on, or trying to eat off of record sales in America is hustling backward. The real money is overseas and its time for an artist with street credibility here to expand their marketing and go get it. Jay Electronica could easily qualify.
In addition, with the right song concepts and political stances, Jay-Electronicas grasp of the language of Islam, could give him a Muhammad Ali type appeal/effect but, I wont utter how or why in public, right now.
Remember, the successful marketing of Electronica is partially a military maneuver. Im functioning right now as a spiritual rear echelon.
Do It Yourself Jay Electronica TV. One of the things that Im so glad that Jay Electronica appreciates, from what I have learned about his thinking, is that being "signed" to a major record label is no longer the height of success. Let me be blunt – the record label is fading as the premier platform for the marketing, promotion, and branding of an artist, and rapidly as musics most powerful sales and distribution point. Thats why its dangerous for Jay Electronicas fans to wait on Sony, Warner, Universal, or EMI as record labels; or New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston radio stations; or MTV and BET as video outlets; to suddenly embrace him and give him shine and burn. What we need is Jay Electronica TV a place where we can get that daily blog, weekly verse, and celebrity and reality footage. Jay could sell his music directly to the masses from the website, right now. He could write a short book, or release a chapter from an upcoming Jay Electronica autobiography. Lets put up the footage of all public and community-oriented events Jay Electronica is involved in online (like the recent touching benefit on behalf of raising awareness on diabetes: https://allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2010/01/14/22096541.aspx). Relying on rap blogs, urban radio, and mainstream video outlets to get the story out and make news is too slow when you are a phenomenon like this. The key is controlling the message and projection of image as much as possible.
To that end I was surprised to see that two domain names were available still jayelectronica.tv and jayelectronicatv.com. So knowing I was going to put this out there, I secured them in advance. I intend to transfer them personally or professionally to Jay Electronicas control, free of charge, word is bond.
The We Need Something Realer! Campaign. Jay Electronica (The Leader) Meets Jay Electronica (The Artist). This, again, is potentially the most difficult of all of the dynamics to navigate. Ive yet to meet an artist who wanted to be a leader as much as they wanted to be an artist, deep down. Thats fine, I dont believe in trying to make a person do what they dont want to do. Ive had these discussions with influential political leaders, "gang" members, rappers, and entrepreneurs. Although I have seen potential in them as leaders beyond their current profile, Ive come to realize that if a person doesnt see themselves in that light or want to pursue it, you are better off leaving them alone on that subject, being patient, and appreciating them for what they currently are – otherwise they will only eventually undermine whatever you may set in motion with them. Sometimes you can think more of a person than they think of themselves. Sometimes you can believe more in a person than they believe in themselves. But no matter how bad you want them to do more, you have to respect their free-will to be less, if they choose. It is their life, not yours.
I say that to say to all of us who may want Jay Electronica to assume the responsibility of Saviour of the culture, Street Consciousness rap Messiah, or the Divine Reconciler of North and South rap music; unless Jay Electronica wants that, it aint gonna happen, and its not fair to expect that of him.
In addition, building a leadership profile out of an artist or celebrity status, is the work of a professional team. An artist simply cant do it by themselves (although they can guide the group effort). Most artists fail in making the evolution because they simply dont have the right people around them capable of developing concepts and plans that balance culture, politics, and business, nor do they have the ability to execute them. In addition, because tedious administrative and management work kills the creative spirit, artists dont pay attention to certain areas as much as they should.
I call balancing all of this the challenge of the Hip-Hoppprenur .
The Hip-Hoppreneur challenge is not just helping an artist mature and develop as a leader, but to do it in a way that is good for their personal development and career as artists. I dont believe one has to pick between commerce and the community, especially if one has knowledge of self and the science of business.
We can make money and make moves that benefit the individual and collective.
To that end, and if Jay Electronica wants to do it, a campaign around developing him as a leader could be achieved easily because his image, brand, and reputation, so far, have all the necessary elements and are still in alignment.
One could develop a whole marketing campaign around one phrase, which Just Blaze shouts out on Exhibit C, We Need Something Realer!
Jay works out the campaign theme, before Just Blaze amplifies it for us, by spitting, "Thats why when you talk that tough talk I never feel ya/ You sound real good and you play the part well/ But the energy you given off is so unfamiliar/ I dont feel ya."
Judging by the unanimous head-nodding reaction to these lines, Jay Electronica has practically presented a political slogan for those of us in Hip-Hop who are tired of the era of keepin it real gone bad.
We now want to vote for Jay Electronica as the leader of this badly-needed movement.
And the "we" is a powerful bloc. Its gang-bangers real live Latin Kings, Crips, and Bloods etc – who think that most of these flag-claiming rappers are perpetrating a fraud. Its young single parent mothers struggling against the negative influence of rap on their children. Its older fans who dont understand how acting dumb and ignorant became a successful marketing strategy. Its fans who feel we shouldnt have to choose between political consciousness and street credibility. Its the edgy, radical and independent-minded who dont think rappers should be this non-threatening. Its the youth who are ready for a message but want us to admit there is nothing wrong with packaging it with a catchy hook, sense of humor, and innovative video. My good friend and genius Bomani Armah (http://www.notarapper.com/) proved this with his 2007 Read A Book phenomenon.
So what "We need somethin realer!" must translate into is real actions and deeds, projected properly through the community and media that demonstrate that Jay Electronica is the one who is realer than the rest.
Right now, before an album drops under the We Need Something Realer! campaign Jay Electronica could be on a tour speaking at and building with those in homeless shelters (how obvious is that considering he was once homeless), prisons, street organizations (gangs) community town hall meetings, colleges, professional and civic conferences and conventions, Nation of Islam Saviours Days and the Parliaments of the Nation Of Gods and Earths. The available honorariums would pad his pocket and the networking would open up non-music industry opportunities as well as strengthen his connection to several different segments in the marketplace, who would adopt him as their own as soon as they hear him.
Electronica could be sitting down with community leaders, building with Members of Congress similar to how I arranged for David Banner to meet with his Congressman, Bennie Thompson in 2005.
When I hear that phrase, "We need something realer!" I know what it can mean, and so do others: a marketing campaign thats good for Jay, good for the community, and good for business.
Right Place, Right Time, Right Team. First, things, first we arent having this conversation if Just Blaze doesnt produce one of the most powerful instrumentals any producer has ever made, in Exhibit C. This is important because Jay Electronica, in my opinion (as is the case with the handful of truly special artists) requires a master song arranger and debut concept/theme album. He needs a sound that lends itself to almost a movie soundtrack feel, which Just Blaze can deliver. But lets take it a step further. Im not sure that Just Blaze is an arranger like a Diddy is. Puffy (please let me call him that) is a genius and maybe the greatest arranger in Hip-Hop (he is not a producer) history (50 Cent is a very close second). One of the things that makes the Notorious B.I.G.s debut album, Ready To Die a classic is that Puffy resisted the temptation to make it an album filled with hits. Rather, he built it as a hit album. Puffy is the best I have ever seen in Hip-Hop at mastering song placement (RZA is a very close second) the order in which songs appear on an album, and he is the only arranger I would trust in making a theme or concept album for a rap artist using multiple producers. I believe that if Diddy was the executive producer of a Jay Electronica album he would know how to place Just Blaze in the lead producers position and bring in a few others like Drumma Boy, Mannie Fresh, DJ Premier, No I.D. and maybe Kanye West and Dr. Dre. I even trust Puff to find the right R & B producer to do the right kind of track for Jay E. Dont you think Puffy could kill a collaboration between Jay Electronica and Erykah Badu, or say Jay Electronica and Keyshia Cole, and what about Jay Electronica and Rihanna? Hell, Puff (more spiritual and conscious than you think) could even make a Jay Electronica-Queen Yonasda (http://www.queenyonasda.com/) collabo go places no song has ever gone before!
I do not believe anyone could have planned the stars being in alignment around this one artist as they have been thus far except the Divine Supreme Being (bear with me dear atheists, you already know I love you). Just Blaze making the beat; Diddy getting behind it; DJ Enuff searching his heart and deciding to play the record on New York radios most influential station; and Tolu Olorundas important early cultural interpretation of Exhibit C at AllHipHop.com everything kind of on its own has been happening naturally and according to universal order.
To conclude this marketing plan on that point – while the first law of the universe is motion, its second law is order. The right team has to help Jay Electronica (and any artist) make the right moves in business and in the broader culture bring order to the phenomenal energy and motion that lyricism and hot beats originate. This has to be about more than making hot records. There are just too many factors at work. Technological and demographic change alone make it necessary for artists nowadays to have a team that can go places they cant, and protect their creative spirit from the draining influence of paperwork, administration, management and strategic planning. Jay Electronica needs to be put in a comfortable position where he has ideas, concepts, and opportunities flowing his way in a manner that doesnt overwhelm him but empowers him to make final decisions and not get robbed.
I hope my public effort is only a sign of what he eventually receives in this regard.
Hes in a profound creative and spiritual place right now and he needs and deserves for things to happen and fall in place for him, in perfect timing.
We just cant leave this up to a Mystery God, or a music industry establishment that insists on doing things the old way – especially when the implications of what this artist represents become more clear to the worst enemies of the culture.
We really do need something realer.
Cedric Muhammad is a business consultant, political strategist, and monetary economist. He is also a former GM of Wu-Tang Management and a Member of the African Unions First Congress of African Economists. He is author of the book, The Entrepreneurial Secret (http://theEsecret.com/). His talk show, The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program can be viewed every Wednesday from 12 to 5 PM EST (USA) at: http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/media/. He can be contacted via e-mail at: cedric(at)cmcap.com


text:
Want more radio episodes like these in your inbox?
Sign up to Monocle's email newsletters to stay on top of news and opinion, plus the latest from the magazine, radio, film and shop.
The Menu - latest episodes
Food Neighbourhoods 338: Gloucester Road, Bristol
Monocle Radio's Lilian Fawcett heads to Gloucester Road in Bristol to explore the diverse and growing food scene in southwest England's biggest city.
Berlin special
This week, Markus Hippi heads to Berlin. He visits Nobelhart & Schmutzig, a Michelin-starred restaurant on Friedrichstrasse with a focus on local produce. He also pops into Kin Dee, an authentic Thai restaurant opened by…
Food Neighbourhoods 337: Nice, France
This week, Monica Lillis guides us through Nice on France's Côte d'Azur. She wanders through the Old Town in the east of the city to explore its cafés, bars and charming eateries.
Summa, 'Rice Table' and FoodTank
Monocle's Milan correspondent Ivan Carvalho heads to the Summa wine fair in South Tyrol and Chris Cermak chats to the co-founder of FoodTank, Danielle Nierenberg, a US non-profit think-tank focused on all things food and…
Food Neighbourhoods 336: Soho, London
This week we join Jeremy Lee, chef patron of Quo Vadis, on a bustling tour of his favourite cafés, delis and restaurants in the London neighbourhood of Soho.
Mixers and shakers
Monocle's US editor, Christopher Lord, speaks to the founders of one of the world's most renowned cocktail bars, Attaboy, on New York's Lower East Side. Sophie Monaghan-Coombs catches up with the founder of Beak Brewery,…
Food Neighbourhoods 335: Anchorage, Alaska
This week we join Monocle contributor Louis Allen as he dons his snow boots, dodges moose and takes in the northern lights on a tour of Anchorage's culinary highlights.
Modern dining guide: from Michelin stars to markets
Monocle's Ed Stocker speaks to Riccardo Gaspari and Ludovica Rubbini, the duo behind Michelin-starred restaurant Sanbrite in the Dolomites. Also in the programme: Naomi Xu Elegant heads to the newly opened Salt & Palm…
Food Neighbourhoods 334: Providence, Rhode Island
This week we head to Providence, Rhode Island, a New England town famous for its universities and also as a place that elected a convicted felon twice. It's this storied past that makes it such a dynamic foodie destination…
João Rodrigues's food mission and new London restaurant Lasdun
This week, Markus Hippi speaks to Jon Rotheram, co-founder of new London restaurant Lasdun, while Ivan Carvalho catches up with chef João Rodrigues in the Minho region of Portugal. Plus: Sophie Monaghan-Coombs visits the…
Food Neighbourhoods 333: Kypseli
This week, Hester Underhill guides us through Kypseli in Athens. Named after the Greek word for "beehive", the buzzy, sprawling neighbourhood is home to a diverse array of restaurants and cafés.
Through the grapevine
Monocle Radio's Markus Hippi speaks to award-winning author Jon Bonné about his new two-book box set, Sally Howard takes us to Georgia where a new finding sheds light on the nation's ancient winemaking traditions and we…
Food Neighbourhoods 332: Tbilisi's Old Town
This week, Sally Howard explores Tbilisi's Old Town, the heart of the ancient Georgian capital. She tries a selection of sharing dishes with heavy Persian, Mongol and Russian influences and, of course, a healthy dollop of…
Violet bakery and Marc Almert
Markus Hippi speaks to Claire Ptak, owner of Violet bakery and cake shop in East London, and Alexei Korolyov catches up with Marc Almert, sommelier at Zürich's Baur au Lac hotel. Plus: Tomos Lewis updates us on the maple…
Food Neighbourhoods 331: Lygon Street
This week, we head to Melbourne. Lygon Street in Carlton offers as fine a selection of Italian cuisine as you'll find anywhere – very arguably including Italy. Our guide is Monocle's Andrew Mueller.


text:
Culture Week of the Peru Republic students
The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) again has the name of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who has become a symbol of the African peoples' struggle for independence. This was announced on Thursday by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
The new list of federal innovation sites (FIS) of the Russian Federation includes 30 new organizations. Among them is the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. This became possible thanks to the development of the Digital Preparatory Faculty of RUDN University.
RUDN rose to the 26th position in the UI GreenMetric 2022 ranking and confirmed the status of the "greenest" university in Russia. The ranking includes 1,050 world universities, of which 52 are Russian.


text:
Bokeh, that creamy out-of-focus area in photos, can be manipulated to achieve subtle and beautiful results. Today we're going to show you how to turn some dirt cheap materials into a custom bokeh lens hood.
What Is This "Bokeh" Thing and What Does It Look Like?
Every photograph has what is known as a depth of field (or DOF). The depth of field, simply put, is the area of the photograph in focus. Everything too close to the the camera (and away focal point of the lens) is out of focus and anything too far away from the sweet spot is also out of focus. Any time you look at a portrait with a soft focused background or a nature photograph with a bird in flight against an unfocused background of trees, you're seeing the effects of depth of field—only the object in the focal plane is in focus and everything closer or farther away than the focal plane is out of focus.
What we're interested in is the too-far-away portion of the photo. The Japanese term for that area, and the most popularly used, is "bokeh" pronounced "boh-ka". Old school American photographers will also refer to it as the "circle of confusion" or "blur circles" but bokeh better describes the concept we're interested in for this tutorial as it goes beyond simply describing what is in and out of the focal area (as circle of confusion does) and refers instead to the entire area outside of the focus, the quality of the light, and the effects of the lens and lens aperture on the blur and highlight shapes within that out of focus area. In other words, bokeh is a word that completely encapsulates the essence and aesthetic quality of a blurred background photo. The photo above, by Kevin Dooley, does a great job of showcasing both depth of field and bokeh highlights.
On a naked camera lens, the shape of the blurry bokeh highlights is determined by the shape of the aperture blades–seen above–deep within the lens housing. Some companies produce camera apertures that create geometric and angular bokeh, some produce apertures that produce bokeh that is more circular. Portrait photographers often prize certain lenses for the subtle effect the aperture has on the background of their photos.
What we're going to to do in this tutorial is create a lens hood for our camera lens that has a custom shape cut out of it. This custom cut-out will provide the shape of the bokeh, overriding the effects of lens aperture and allowing us to change the bokeh shape from a hexagonal or circular shape into anything our arts-and-crafts skill level will allow us to cut out of the template—radiation symbols, crescent moons, snow flakes, if you can find a craft hole-punch of it or carefully hand cut it out, you can turn it into a bokeh cap.
What Do I Need For This Tutorial?
For this tutorial you'll need very few things, the camera equipment aside you can make it from scrap you find around the house. Here's a run down of what you'll need:
- A camera with a large aperture lens
- A few sheets of black card or cover stock
- A razor/craft knife
- A ruler/straight edge
- A pair of scissors
- A roll of dark tape (electrical tape works very well)
- Optional: A craft/scrapbooking hole punch
- Optional: A can roughly the diameter of your lens
- Optional: A cutting mat
For this tutorial we used a Nikon D80 camera with a Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens. The inexpensive 50mm 1.8 lenses you can get for most SLR cameras are excellent candidates for this project, the larger aperture lens you have access to the better. Also, of all the tools we used a humble soup can was the most useful one. We dug around in the pantry until we found a small can of condensed soup that was almost exactly the same size as the barrel of the 50mm lens. This made rolling/taping the lens hood so much easier as we could use the can as a sturdy mold to keep from crushing the hood as we worked with it.
Have your tools gathered up? Great! Let's get started with a little DIY photography fun.
Crafting the Hood
Crafting the lens hood is a simple task—the most important part is that you take your time and measure carefully. Because this is a photography project taking the time to tape cleanly and seal off any light leaks is very important.
Although you can make this a fixed lens hood (i.e. the entire assembly only creates one bokeh shape) we opted to make our labor more worthwhile and craft an interchangeable model. Rather than make one disc and tape it down to the hood, we instead made a little view-finder like cutout (seen in the photo above) that allows us to slide individual bokeh templates in and out of the lens hood—thus you can use a snow flake for one photo and then slide it out and use a diamond shape for the next, only one lens hood required. We recommend this technique as it makes it way easier to use craft store paper punches. It's much easier to fit a one inch wide strip of card stock into the paper punch than a three inch diameter disc. All that said, let's get onto the actual steps.
First, grab a regular sheet of white computer paper or any other piece of scrap paper. Wrap it around your lens barrel and use a pen to mark off the diameter and the height of the lens. Unroll it and lay it on your cutting mat. Measure the height and diameter off the scrap paper and then transfer those measurements to the black card stock. Cut the barrel piece out. Wrap the cardstock around the barrel of the lens (or the same-sized can) and secure it with a small piece of tape. You want it snug but not so snug that it's difficult to get on and off. After you've sized it, pull it off and wrap a piece of black tape all the way around the seam to hold it in place.
Next, we'll need to cut the two cap pieces. This is where having a can that is the same size as the lens barrel is really helpful. If you have a can of the appropriate size, use that as a tracing template. If you don't have a can of the appropriate size you can use a draftsman's compass, carefully trace around the lens barrel and cut it to fit, or (if the cardstock is stiff enough) use the lens hood barrel you just made. However you arrive at a circular state of being, you'll need to cut out two of them.
Once you have your two circles, grab your ruler. In the center of one of them draw a 1" square. Line up the two circles and carefully cut through them both with the razor knife. At this point you should have two cap pieces, roughly 3 inches or so in diameter (depending on the size of your lens) with a 1" square window cut into the center of them.
Using small strips of tape, affix the first cap pieces to the top of the cardstock barrel. For the first cap you want to tape all the way around and make sure you have a nice seal. Overlap the electrical tape slightly and press it down firmly.
For the second cap, place it over the first (make sure the squares are lined up) you need to leave a roughly 1.25" opening on opposite sides of the square. In the photo above the red arrows indicate the area that remains untaped. If you don't leave the 1.25" gap on each side then you won't be able to slide the bokeh templates in.
Now is a great time to reinforce the whole structure. If the hood isn't already on the can, now is a great time to slide it on. Wrap the entire barrel with tape and double check that all the seams are sturdy and the tape is pressed down.
At this point all that is left to do is create the bokeh templates. Using the same card stock, cut a series of strips. Our strips were 3.25" long by 1.25" wide. 1.25" is a good width for the 1" window we cut in the caps, adjust the width to fit your lens—you want just enough overlap on each side of the barrel to make inserting and removing the slides easy.
Once you have a few strips cut you can start making your bokeh shapes. We had a small craft punch on hand which we used to punch out the star shape seen in the photo above. We also used a razor knife to cut out various other shapes including some smiley faces and a Christmas tree.
The big thing to keep in mind is that the cut out for the bokeh shouldn't be too big or too small. If you make it too small you reduce the amount of light coming into the lens so much that the photo will be underexposed. If you make the cutout too big then the shape won't be readily identifiable in the photo. An idea size if you're using a 1.8 lens is around 15-20mm wide. If you're using a lens with a higher aperture value like 3.5/f you might want to adjust your size accordingly. If you have to error in one direction, a little too big is preferable to a little too small as a blurrier bokeh highlight is more ideal than too little light getting into the camera.
Once you have a few shapes punched out it's time to test the bokeh hood!
Bokeh Test Shots and Background Fun
Our first stop, thanks to the holiday season, was the living room. Christmas lights makes for great bokeh highlights. In the photo above we shot the Christmas tree with a naked lens and then again with the bokeh lens cap (and the star insert). In the first shot the highlights took on the shape of the lens aperture, a nearly perfectly round highlight. In the second shot the bokeh template overrules the shape of the lens aperture and the highlights take on the shape of the star cutout.
The most important thing is that you set your camera lens to the lowest aperture setting available. If it can only go down to 3.5, crank it down to 3.5. If it can go all the way to down to 1.4, crank it down to 1.4. The wider you can get your aperture the more pronounced your shapes will be. The tighter your aperture the less pronounced they'll be—by the time you get up to the double digit aperture settings aperture numbers you'll lose the highlight shapes all together.
Our Christmas tree cutout was a little on the small side and rather hard to cut out (who knew cutting a 14mm high Christmas tree into a sheet of cardstock with a razor knife would be so hard). None the less it demonstrates how whatever shape you cut into the slides, the shape will be influence the bokeh highlights.
Smiley faces were another easy to pull off bokeh option. By far the best looking one we had was the star, but that was due entirely to the crisp cut the craft punch made. If you're into crafting or know an avid scrap booker you'll have better access to a large number of craft punches. Another option would be to call local scrapbook stores and see if they have an in-house work area where they host scrap booking sessions and let customers try out materials. If so, you can pay them a visit and punch out a bunch of different templates.
Returning to the bokeh test: it's all well and good to create fun abstract pictures of pretty lights but the real test is photographing people. We enlisted the help of our lovely and vivacious assistant, fired up the flash bulbs, and shot a few test shots. You'll need to play with your exposure settings to get the subject in the foreground and the bokeh highlights in the background just the way you want them, but when you nail it the results are extremely pleasing. Who needs circles of light when you can have stars?
Before we leave the topic of custom bokeh hoods, it's worth noting that there are commercial versions of the sweet DIY model we just made. When bokeh-altering first became popular in online photography communities it was all DIY, after a time, however, several companies released commercial bokeh kits.
The most economical and versatile on the market is the Bokeh Masters Kit. For $25 you get a holder, 21 shapes, 8 blanks, and a holder for all your bokeh altering gear. If you're using the Lens Baby system, you can pick up a set of 9 bokeh discs for $20—not a bad price if you're using the Lens Baby system but not very economical if you have to buy a $150+ Lens Baby lens to get started. For simple effects and the DIY pride, however, it's tough to beat our tutorial—our total cash outlay was only a few bucks for a pack of heavy black card stock.
- › 10 of the Best Articles for Learning More About Photography
- › How to Manipulate Depth of Field to Take Better Photos
- › Why Do Some Smartphones Use Multiple Cameras?
- › What Do I Need To Know Before Buying A New Lens For My Camera?
- › How to Create Your Own Custom Bokeh Wallpaper in Photoshop
- › Which iPhones Have Portrait Mode?
- › How To Enable AirPrint for iOS Printing From Any Mac or Windows PC
- › How to Test and Replace Your CMOS Battery


text:
by David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com August 13, 2004 DefenseReview did not receive any of the information contained in the first two paragraphs of this story from Le Mas Ltd., or from Stan Bulmer. Le Mas/Stan Bulmer will not discuss military operational use of, or field performance data relating to, the Blended Metal Technology (BMT) or BMT APLP …Read More »
Tag Archives: armored
South Korea to Field First Man-Portable Airburst Grenade Launcher Weapon for Mobile Infantry: Meet the Daewoo K11 20mm/5.56mm Dual-Caliber Airburst Weapon
By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com December 15, 2009 Now, this is interesting. "The Korea Times" is reporting that some of the 350 South Korean troops deploying to Afghanistan (to protect 120 South Korean civilian reconstruction workers) will be armed with the Daewoo K11 semi-auto, mag-fed 20mm grenade launcher/select-fire 5.56x45mm NATO (5.56mm NATO) assault rifle a.k.a. airburst assault …Read More »
Artis Iron Curtain Active Protection System (APS): Shoot-Down Ballistic Reactive Ground Vehicle Defense System
By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com A company called Artis, LLC has developed an anti-RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade) ground vehicle defense system called the Iron Curtain Active Protection System (APS) that integrates C-band radar, a distributed optical sensor, and a ring of ballistic countermeasures to neutralize incoming RPGs. Here's how it works: Iron Curtain's C-band radar detects and tracks …Read More »
Airtronic USA Develops American RPG-7: Meet the Amerikansky Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher
By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com April 13, 2009 Updated on 4/26/09. My good friend and professional contact, prolific infantry small arms/machine gun designer Jim Sullivan (a.k.a. L James Sullivan), has complained to me quite a bit about U.S. military infantry warfighters not having an American version of the Russian RPG-7 / RPG-7V shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade weapon …Read More »
Flexible Biological Scalar Body Armor for Future Soldiers?
By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com July 31, 2008 MIT materials science and engineering researchers are studying the flexible biological scalar armor system a.k.a. flexible dermal armor system utilized by Polypterus senegalus a.k.a. Senegal bichir a.k.a. Gray bichir a.k.a. "dinosaur eel", a "living fossil" fish, for its potential applicability for developing more advanced military body armor, vehicle armor …Read More »
Fury and CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS/UAVs Armed with Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM)
By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com Speaking of sub-Hellfire-yield laser-guided missiles, Thales UK Air Systems Division (ASD) has introduced a new low-cost, lightweight multi-role missile called, appropirately enough, the Lightweight Multirole Missile (a.k.a. Lightweight Multi-role Missile)–or LMM for short–as a follow-on to the Starstreak Self-Propelled High-Velocity Missile (SP HVM) a.k.a. Starstreak Multi-role Missile (surface-to-air/surface-to-surface missile) and Starburst surface-to-air …Read More »
Super Bainite Steel Armor for Armored Vehicles: Super Armor On-the-Cheap
by David Crane defrev at gmail dot com It looks like vehicle armor a.k.a. vehicular armor just got a whole lot cheaper to make. A team at the British Ministry of Defence's (MOD) in-house science and technology center Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the University of Cambridge and QinetiQ have teamed up to develop a process for making a …Read More »
AIG Asymmetric Warrior ASW338LM .338 Lapua Magnum Modular Precision Sniper Rifle
by David Crane defrev at gmail dot com All photographic images contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, and they are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. All photos were shot with a 7.2-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (Model #: DSC-P150). February 21, 2008 Ashbury International Group Inc. (AIG) had an interesting .338 …Read More »
An AR-15 / M16 Rifle with 95% Less Recoil and Minimal Additional Weapon Weight?
by David Crane [email protected] November 14, 2007 DefenseReview recently received an interesting document on a proposed recoil-attenuation system a.k.a. recoil-mitigation system for firearms, everything from infantry small arms up to cannon systems. It comes from inventor Dr. R.A. Zeineh a.k.a. Dr. Z., the man behind the first laser scanner and the AAE Cloaking / Adaptive Camouflage system for infantry personnel …Read More »
'Airborne Armour': An Important Book on Air-Mechanized Maneuver Warfare
A Review by Air-Mech-Strike Study Group (AMS-SG). The following review is exclusive to DefenseReview. 9/27/07 Airborne Armour is a must-have book for understanding Airborne 3D maneuver operations, period. Flint is a superb researcher and writer and this book is a masterpiece. However, Keith Flint is also at times the typical whiny, turret tank dueler where every tracked tank is never …Read More »


text:
Shortly into the confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) may have felt some nominee déjà vu.
This Tuesday morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate committee reviewing Sessions's nomination, read a letter from more than 1,000 legal scholars at law schools across the country who questioned whether Sessions had changed since the Senate committee rejected his nomination for a federal judgeship.
Sessions was adamant
"This caricature of me from 1986 was not correct," Sessions responded, running down his efforts as U.S. attorney in Alabama to integrate schools, prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan and shut down gerrymandering based on race. Of questions his critics raised about how he handled a voter rights case and prosecution of Klansmen convicted of killing a black teenager when he was U.S. attorney in the 1980s, he said: "I conducted myself honorably and properly.... I did not harbor the kind of animosity and race-based discrimination ideas that I was accused of. I did not!"
The allegation that Sessions has said racially insensitive things has haunted him throughout his career.
The accusations back in 1986 mostly came from (but were not limited to) Sessions's former deputy, Thomas Figures. He sent a letter to the Senate and reporters claiming his boss said insensitive things about black people, at times directly to him.
Figures, who is black, said Sessions told him to be careful about what he said ''to white folks" after Figures got into a heated argument with a white colleague. And Figures testified Sessions called him "boy" on multiple occasions.
Figures also said Sessions had joked about the Ku Klux Klan, saying he thought its members were "okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana."
A Justice Department lawyer, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had described the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired."
As he has his whole career, Sessions vigorously denied that he had or has any racial prejudice. Though he didn't specifically deny making any of the comments ascribed to him, Sessions told the Senate committee he had been quoted out of context.
The New York Times reported at the time: "Sessions acknowledged at the hearing that he once 'may have said something about the N.A.A.C.P. being un-American or Communist, but I meant no harm by it.'"
"I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create," Sessions testified. "I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks."
The damage, however, had been done. By the time the testimony was finished, Sessions's "reputation was in tatters," wrote Isaac Stanley-Becker in The Post this July.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), then the leading Democrat in the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the New York Times that after hearing Sessions's accusers out, his prospects for a nomination were "bleak" and Sessions appeared unfit for a federal judgeship.
In the end, the Republican-controlled committee voted 10 to 8 to block Sessions's nomination, with two Republicans joining Democrats to stop it from going forward to a full vote in the Senate. At the time, CNN calculated, Sessions was only the second nominee in 50 years to be denied by the Senate for a federal judgeship.
Sessions returned home, defeated but not destroyed. He went on to become attorney general of Alabama in 1994, and just two years later he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he has been ever since. He is quite popular in his home state: In subsequent reelections, Sessions has never won with less than 59 percent of the vote. In 2014, he ran unchallenged.
In the ultimate ironic twist, Sessions now sits on the very same Senate committee that rejected him.
Every so often, Sessions has reflected on that moment 30 years ago that almost destroyed his career. He told CNN in a 2009 interview that the accusations against him were "heartbreaking." And he told Stanley-Becker this summer: "Racism is totally unacceptable in America. Everybody needs to be treated fairly and objectively."
Sessions hasn't been mired in a controversy since about his comments on race. But critics point to his voting record and the causes he has championed in the Senate to claim that Sessions harbors racial prejudice: He is one of the Senate's most hard-line anti-immigration lawmakers, and he has opposed the Voting Rights Act.
The Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich, who tracks hate speech, told Stanley-Becker that Sessions is guilty of it, and that his mere presence in Trump's inner circle is "a tragedy for American politics."
Hebert, the former Justice Department lawyer who testified against Sessions in '86, told the New York Post in November that "anybody who'd really put Jeff Sessions as head of the Justice Department with his record is not interested in uniting the country but dividing it further."
On the flip side, anti-illegal-immigration and immigration-reduction groups congratulated Sessions on his nomination.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was among a number of Senate Republicans who quickly praised Sessions's fitness for the job.
I found out the rumor is FACT Sen Sessions is nominated to be AG I know he will be confirmed NOW I should get all my oversight Qs answered— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 18, 2016
But the then soon-to-be top Senate Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sounded an ominous tone about Sessions:
I know Senator Sessions and we work out in the gym, but the fact that he is a Senator does not absolve him from answering tough questions in the confirmation process. Given some of his past statements and his staunch opposition to immigration reform, I am very concerned about what he would do with the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and want to hear what he has to say.
And key Senate Democrats on the Judiciary panel, such as California's Dianne Feinstein, took a much more cautious approach, essentially keeping their options open into how hard they wanted to go after Sessions for his troubles in '86.
Sen. Feinstein—who'll be top Judiciary Dem—sends shot across the bow in stmt on Sessions: "Sometimes that means telling the president no." pic.twitter.com/tVVco5PhcE— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) November 18, 2016
And here was outspoken liberal icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
Elizabeth Warren says a Sessions AG nom means Trump is "embracing the bigotry that fueled his campaign rallies." pic.twitter.com/Yr2IILQDN9— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 18, 2016
No matter how vigorously he denies accusations of racial prejudice, it seems, Sessions has been unable to entirely live down what some of his colleagues said about him 30 years ago. And as Trump's pick to be the top U.S. law enforcement officer, the story that haunts him came roaring back to life.


text:
Armed with a court-signed abatement warrant, officials swarmed Kenneth Epstein's home on Friday and began hauling away items after they declared it uninhabitable, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
City spokesman David Riggleman said Epstein had created a space for himself to crawl atop the materials, but wouldn't have been able to walk upright in the house.
"It's a very tragic situation, but it's also tragic for the neighbors," Councilman Stavros Anthony said.
Building code officials went to the home last week but couldn't enter because too much stuff was blocking the door. They had to take the door off the hinges.
In all, a private removal company working with officials removed about 15 truckloads of materials.
Items removed so far included five refrigerators filled with food so rancid it had liquefied. Five dead cats also have been found, and nine others were captured by animal control officers.
Epstein declined to comment, telling the Review-Journal: "You can write whatever you like about me."
He has been cooperative except when he locked himself in the house Friday when workers tried to enter to remove stuff authorized under the administrative warrant.
Items that Epstein wants to keep will be put in two storage bins and fumigated. If he doesn't pay for the cleanup, the city will file a lien against his house.
Epstein has received eight city citations about the hoarding since 2007. According to neighbors, the problem became more severe in the last two years as materials piled onto his front courtyard and back patio.
Epstein became the home's owner in 2010 after his mother died.
People often become hoarders because of trauma in their life, according to experts.
"This probably won't be the last episode. We understand we may have to return," Riggleman said.


text:
Thanks to everyone who posted on T-SQL Tuesday this month. Below is a summary of the posts, so have a look through if you've not had chance yet.
As an aside, if you've not watched the film yet, it's available here (Google | AmazonUK | AmazonUS)
There were some really interesting, and terrifying posts here, so pull up a chair, grab some whiskey, turn the lights down, and have a read through.
Don't forget to keep an eye out for the next TSQL2sDay post, in a couple of weeks time.
The Posts!
Rob Farley – When someone deletes a shared data source in SSRS
Thomas Rushton – SQL Wildcards
Rick Krueger – Nightmare on TSQL Street – The Case of the Missing Cache
Matthew Velic – Soylent Growth
Chris Shaw – Are you kidding me ?
Thomas Rushton (Again!) – Soylent Inbox
Jason Brimhall – High Energy Plankton
Jes Borland – Soylent Green SQL Server
Steve Jones (Voice of the DBA) – Soylent Green
Chris Yates – Soylent Green
Jeffrey Verheul – Soylent Green


text:
French is, truthfully, not the hardest research language in the world to learn for an Anglophone, but there can be other issues of access that a translation put out by an Anglophone publisher can help minimize — like, well, access. For example, I don't really think I would have too much of a problem with the French in Archimandrite Job Getcha's Le typikon décrypté: manuel de liturgie byzantine (Paris: Cerf, 2009), but a quick consultation of WorldCat tells me that, were I to try to get it via interlibrary loan, my home library would have all of three options in the entire world from which they could try to acquire it. Were I to try to buy it, it would be probably close to $70 once all shipping charges and currency conversions had taken place. By contrast, even if I don't have a problem with the French, getting Paul Meyendorff's translation, The Typikon Decoded: An explanation of Byzantine liturgical practice (Yonkers: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2012), for $23 and free shipping is just a lot easier all around. That may not be the most scholarly attitude in the world, but I'm over it.
I will admit that I am first and foremost a bit befuddled by the title of this book. I assume it is intended to evoke Schmemann, who in Introduction to Liturgical Theology criticized the modern implementation of liturgical rubrics, arguing that liturgical taxis
was fettered and became the private possession of the typikonshckiki precisely because the ecclesiological key to its understanding and acceptance had been lost and forgotten. It is only necessary to read over the "rubrics" and prescriptions with new eyes, and to meditate on the structure of the Ordo, in order to understand that its major significance lies in its presentation of worship as the service of the new people of God… [E]verything that is important and basic in the Ordo is a Byzantine "transposition" of the original meaning of worship as the corporate act and "fulfillment" of the Church. (pp.218-19)
In other words, Schmemann is saying, the Typikon is best understood as a descriptive document of how the Church worships, not a prescriptive document of how churches should worship. I'm not here to argue or side with Schmemann; my point is simply that the title appears to be referencing this critique and suggesting that the author has taken Schmemann's call-to-arms as his mission. The preface suggests something of this approach in talking about about how the Typikon, "…far from being merely a collection of dry and legalistic rules, is in fact a summary of two millennia of the Church's experience… It is living Tradition and the foundation of Orthodox spiritual life" (p.7). Despite comments like that, Schmemann's manifesto doesn't really seem to be the practical trajectory of the book, however — which, I should hasten to say, is fine, because there are lots of other merits that make the book worthwhile, but perhaps a title less laden with baggage would have been more to the point.
So, what is the book doing? The first chapter is a very nice introduction to liturgical books used in the Byzantine rite; he uses Velkovska's chapter "Byzantine liturgical books" in Liturgical Press' Handbook for Liturgical Studies (1997) as a starting place, which has been a standard reference (to say nothing of the only real resource for Anglophone scholars available) up till now, but he's able to bring a number of points up to date, which is most appreciated. It's an excellent summary of what the different books are and the historical issues surrounding them. Following that discussion, the second chapter outlines the services of the Hours, the services celebrated daily apart from the Divine Liturgy — the Midnight office, Orthros, the Hours themselves (First, Third, Sixth, Ninth, the "Intermediary" Hours, Typika), Vespers, and Compline. Again, Archimandrite Job does a lovely job giving an introductory explanation of what the individual offices are and a brief account of where they come from.
The third, fourth, and fifth chapters are largely matters of application, dealing with the Typikon is applied for services governed by the Menaion, that is to say the observances tied to fixed calendar dates, then the Triodion, the observances leading up to Great Lent and going up through Holy Week, and finally the Pentecostarion, the services throughout Paschaltide, ending with the Feast of All Saints on the Sunday after Pentecost. As with the first couple of chapters, there are brief, useful summaries of historical matters throughout.
The Typikon Decoded is quite useful as an introductory treatment of Byzantine liturgical issues; one gets a sense of the various historical poles at work — city and monastery, Jerusalem and Constantinople, Studite vs. Sabaite, contemporary Greek practice vs. contemporary Slavic practice, etc. — and how these factors are synthesized over time. In conjunction with something like Robert Taft's The Byzantine rite: a short history, a similarly accessible treatment of some of these issues, albeit from a bit of a different angle, Archimandrite Job's book could serve as an excellent initial reference point. One also gets a picture of the foundational scholarship that is still yet to be done for Byzantine liturgy; critical editions of the liturgical books, for example. This is a baton that somebody needs to pick up and run with; there's a lifetime's worth of work out there for the textual scholar interested in Byzantine liturgy (and, it should be noted, Archimandrite Job is hardly the first person to try to encourage some reader somewhere to take it on).
Some caveats must be noted, however. Other reviewers have already noted the near-total absence of Greek language liturgical scholarship by important figures such as Gregorios Stathis; besides that oversight, with the exception of a small handful of significant references — the aforementioned Velkovska, for example, and Peter Jeffery's work on the Georgian recensions of the Jerusalem liturgical books in relation to the Oktoechos — Archimandrite Job effectively treats Anglophone scholarship as so much chopped liver. It seems very odd to this reviewer, for example, in a discussion of the state of the question of psalmody in the Cathedral Rite of Hagia Sophia, to ignore Alexander Lingas' studies of the Great Church's Vespers and Matins services. Granted that the Matins study remains unpublished as a book ("yet", I am assured), but the dissertation is readily available as a PDF with a simple Google search. In Archimandrite Job's treatment of the historical circumstances surrounding Akathistos Saturday during Great Lent in particular, his representation of the current state of the discussion was very surprising, omitting entirely the recent work of Leena Peltomaa and Vasiliki Limberis. That said, the other side of this problem is that the book is a great bibliographic reference for the Anglophone scholar for non-Anglophone research, particularly French and — perhaps more important — Russian. As much as we English speakers may have no excuse when it comes to French (and vice-versa), many of us still make excuses where Russian is concerned (myself included!), and The Typikon Decoded is an excellent reference with respect to that particular language barrier.
Other caveats are more cosmetic; I know we're not supposed to talk about copyediting issues in book reviews, but persistent errors become distracting. Meyendorff universally chooses the verb "incense" rather than "cense" to describe the ritual action of swinging a smoking thurible, and while the dictionary tells me that's a perfectly acceptable option, I can't help but instinctively feel, when I read a phrase like "The priest incenses the entire congregation", that I'm reading about a cleric giving a particularly bad homily rather than filling the room with aromatic smoke. There's also the matter of the page header for the fifth chapter giving the chapter title as "The Services of the Pentecostarian" (as opposed to "Pentecostarion") on every page.
Still, I should stress that these issues are cosmetic rather than substantive. In terms of substance, SVS Press and Meyendorff's efforts are well worth it, making a very useful introductory treatment of Byzantine liturgy accessible to a wider audience, and giving a much-needed initial glimpse into Russian scholarship for English speakers.
Update, 10:34pm 26 May 2013: Sorry, two other points — a confusing reality of translating this kind of work is that hymns tend by convention to be referred to by incipit; Χριστὸς ἀνέστη, for example, instead of the Apolytikion for Pascha. Well, you have three choices as to how to do that in the target language; if they're in a liturgical language that you expect your audience to be familiar with, like Greek, you can leave them in Greek. Or, you translate the incipits anew; maybe I refer to Χριστὸς ἀνέστη as "Christ stood up". Or, you can decide that you're going to use the incipits of a commonly used set of liturgical books in the target language; the Triodion and Festal Menaion of Met. Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary, maybe, and you make that point of reference explicit in a translator's foreword. Meyendorff does not leave them untranslated, but I'm not entirely sure what he is doing; the incipits are not what I'm used to, and while I'm able to identify them from context most of the time, he doesn't explicitly identify a schema that he's adopting (there is no translator's foreword or notes, and more's the pity).
The other point is reasonably brief: a topical index would have been most welcome. Alas.
Update #2, 10:52pm 26 May 2013: One other thing that occurred to me that I really appreciate about Archimandrite Job's treatment of the Byzantine liturgical aesthetic vis-à-vis the application of the Typikon's rubrics: he treats it as, in fact, a multisensory aesthetic, rather than strictly as a manipulation of texts. He makes reference to singing, to censing, to lighting of lamps, to ritual movement — he does a very nice job of presenting the services as a bodily experience of worship; it is not simply a cold transmission and reception of texts. He does this without drawing any particular attention to it, it's simply assumed as being the case, which is why it just occurred to me that it's one of the positive features of the book.


text:
A new web application called Wolfram|Alpha looks like Google but is far scarier in its implications for humanity's future. Developers say it will "provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries." A single source of definitive answers? What could go wrong?
Wolfram|Alpha is making geeks across the world swoon, but maybe we should be just a little wary of any software that promises to become the repository of all knowledge, and then the analyzer of that knowledge on top of that. Go to the Wolfram|Alpha site and check it out. Just plug in a question or term, and it will provide you with what it believes is a factual answer. Places and companies get good results. But you'll get nothing but a confused output if you ask, "What is the air flight velocity of an African swallow?"
Here's what Wolfram|Alpha's creators have to say about their nascent mega-brain:
Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything . . . Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.
OK, knowledge to the masses - sounds good. Turning everything into something computable . . . sounds Matrixy. Serve as a knowledge engine . . . sounds like the computer in THX 1138. Not good, people, not good.
I want a computer that can help me understand the world, but one that analyzes complex information FOR me? Especially information about culture and language, two areas that are notoriously ambiguous? I'm not so sure.
And here's where things get truly hair-raising. Wolfram|Alpha has a plan. In a section called "the future," the developers write:
Wolfram|Alpha was made possible in part by the achievements of [computing software] Mathematica and A New Kind of Science (NKS). In their different ways, both of these point to far-reaching future opportunities for Wolfram|Alpha-whether a radically new kind of programming or the systematic automation of invention and discovery.
Wolfram|Alpha is being introduced first in the form of the wolframalpha.com website. But Wolfram|Alpha is really a technology and a platform that can be used and presented in many different ways. Among short-term plans are developer APIs, professional and corporate versions, custom versions for internal data, connections with other forms of content, and deployment on emerging mobile and other platforms.
"Automation of invention and discovery"? Hey, invention is what HUMANS do! Plus, I don't want this scary interpreter of all knowledge and inventor of all things on my freakin' Android phone, either. That's basically asking to be nuked.
via Wolfram|Alpha (not to be confused with Wolfram & Hart)


text:
The world's most web-restricted country, North Korea is now hosting the highly controversial torrent website, The Pirate Bay. According to the press release by the site, which was posted on the blog as well as its Facebook page, claims that Kim-Jong Un, the North Korean premier invited the website to his country, following recent attempts to seize the servers in Sweden.
The latest development comes a week after The Pirate Bay informed that they have moved their servers to Norway and Spain, owing to increase pressure from within Sweden. The site sees the irony itself:
"This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech are said to be held high, and to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.
Well, this isn't the first time The Pirate Bay has claimed to move its hosting to North Korea. Back in 2007, they had played a similar prank, so we must take this news with a pinch of salt. For now, the IP does track back to STAR-KP
Ryugyong-dong, Potong-gang District in North Korea. And to mark this, The Pirate Bay has changed its iconic logo by replacing the pirate flag with the North Korean flag!
The Pirate Bay has been at loggerheads with the United States over illegal file-sharing and other allegations. Their founders have been jailed, the servers were seized multiple times, and employees are constantly threatened. But the site continues to move on, with support from people and nations supporting free-speech and free-web. But someone like Kim-Jong Un joining the fray in support of the free internet has to be the most ironic thing of the decade IF the news is indeed true.
Related Post: The Pirate Bay Proxy List
Update: just like many of us suspected, this has turned out to be a hoax according to multiple reasons. A curious programmer wanted to see for himself if there was any truth in this announcement. Will from www.rdns.im found out that this announcement was nothing more than a hoax, just like TPB did in 2007 on April Fool's Day. Will's conclusion on this phony move from The Pirate Bay:
While it is one of the more advanced fake routings, it is still pretty lame; a single drop to AS4737 (like a server in China with a BGP session), and it would look much more real and much harder to detect. I cannot certainly say where TPB is hosted now, but it must be Asia, and it seems to be Phenom Penh, Cambodia, as the ICMP replies after it is only minimally higher than there.
Also, if you are really into geeky stuff and you know what a "fake routing" and "transit link" means, then you might want to check part 2 of Will's discovery, as well. But Will isn't the single one who confirmed the hoax. Tom Paseka with CloudFlare thinks the same. This might be a hoax for now, but who knows, after years of outside pressure, maybe North Korea could become a hosting paradise.
Radu Tyrsina contributed to this post