text:
Purchasing and getting an HTC VIVE is still pretty much equally hard as getting an Oculus Rift, though thankfully being a Kickstarter backer has secured an Oculus Rift earlier. So while still not having an HTC VIVE (also still not being sold to many countries around the world), I've had the chance to try the device and play a bit with it on a recent event where Nvidia was demonstrating their VR Funhouse demo on a GTX 1080 equipped system. After being able to play around and try some VR demos on the two devices I'm able to compare them better and to give you an idea on what you can expect and what are the differences at the moment…
The HTC VIVE is a bit bulkier and heavier VR headset compared to the Oculus Rift, but that does not seem to be a problem when using it. The VIVE headset does not come with headphones attached, so you will need to find a good pair that won't interfere with the rest of the headset and will be comfortable. Even though the Rift comes with some sort of headphones attached, you'd probably want to detach them and still use a separate headset with it anyway. The only other major difference is the presence of a camera on the front of the HTC Vive, though I have yet to see it in action, in theory it could allow for some nice AR experiences or just to be able to switch to real world view without having to remove the headset.
The OLED displays inside both competing products does seem to be pretty much the same – 1200×1080 per eye with a 90 Hz refresh rate, pretty much the same type of lenses and you get about 110 degrees FOV. The end results is pretty much the same in terms of graphics quality and experience, and with the negative side effects minimized for both devices (it is not much harder to get dizzy using the VR headsets). So where is the major difference then? It is in the fact that the HTC Vive currently ships with controllers for each hand of the users while with the Oculus Rift you don't get these yet and they are supposed to start shipping their touch controllers sometime by the end of the year.
The presence or the lack of hand controllers at this point in time pretty much defines major difference. For the moment the Oculus Rift provides more stationary VR experiences where you probably sit in your chair while using the device, while the HTC Vive is focusing on more interactive and "active" action where you move around. Of course when Oculus ships their touch controllers things will probably get similar for both devices, especially when developers see that there is not much point in making exclusive titles for one of the devices with the VR market still so small.
The HTC Vive does seem at this point a bit more bothersome to setup and it requires more free space around your computer, so that you will be able to move around freely without hitting obstacles. It comes with two sensors that are used to setup a "working perimeter" and track your movement in the real world and then translate this into virtual world movement. The Oculus Rift currently uses only one sensor, but the touch controllers will come with an additional sensor for better tracking, so setting up things will probably look the same for both with the hand controllers. The HTC Vive controllers do seem a bit large and not so comfortable, while the Oculus touch doe seem to be more compact and it could turn up a more convenient solution, but we'll have to wait and see.
A bit about the Nvidia VR Funhouse demo that I've tried. It is a fun little demonstration of the level of interaction in the virtual world that you can achieve and it is Ok as a demonstration, but you probably will not be willing to replay it often. Not that you can since it is not yet publicly available, although it seems that Nvidia will be releasing it as a demo and in the form of a source code as well for developers. The VR Funhouse demo is quit heavy as it employs a lot of Nvidia technologies to make it look and feel as realistic as possible, maybe apart from the graphics that is a bit more cartoon-ish. Still the experience feels quite nice while you run through the various short games that you play inside the demo – hitting stuff, breaking stuff, shooting stuff, throwing stuff. It is easy and fun, though you might replay again some of the first games in order to get the hang of things initially. The only thing that felt a bit weird was the virtual world object placement relative to the hand controllers, in some of the games inside the VR Funhouse the positioning on top of the controllers made it feel a bit weird to get a good feel on where to throw the object exactly.
The other demo I've also tried, besides the VR Funhouse, was Tilt Btush by Google that lets you paint in 3D space. This was quite impressive when you get the hang of it, though the use of the two touch controllers for choosing tools and colors may need some getting used to. Since this demo also relies on the use of hand controllers it is only available on the HTC Vive, but it will most likely also support Oculus Rift once the touch controllers become available for it as well.
In short, there is a bit of a difference at the moment in what you can do with the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, but once the Rift gets its touch controllers available both should be pretty much on the same level. The visual quality and experience with the headset is pretty much on the same level, though still the resolution is a bit lower than it might be in order for the user not to be bothered by pixels and jaggy edges for example. For this to happen however we'll need some more time, because the graphics processing power needs to catch up a bit more to be able to handle higher resolution displays with high framerates without problems. If you ask what should you get, the HTC VIVE or the Oculus Rift, my answer will probably be which one you are able to actually get first as these are still hard to get ad you need to wait before your order will be fulfilled. For the moment the HTC VIVE offers a more active and interactive approach to VR experiences, while the Oculus Rift is in a more passive choice, but that difference will probably not be present in a couple of months anyway. Price wise both should be pretty much the same when you add in the Oculus touch controllers in the calculation, so again buy the one that you can get your hands on faster…


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Academic Expectations
University GPA Requirements
Credential candidates, like all graduate students are held to high standards for professionalism and academic performance. To remain in good academic standing, graduate students must maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 while in the program. Students falling below this level will be placed on academic probation by the Office of Graduate Studies for one semester. Two consecutive semesters of academic probation will result in academic disqualification from the university. Please be vigilant about your grades, and never hesitate to speak to your professors and your adviser about your performance in your coursework. Please consult the university's policy on academic standing (PDF) for more information.
A full explanation the university's grading system can be found in the University Catalog.
Program Grade Requirements
In addition to maintaining a 3.0 GPA, students must earn a minimum of a "C" grade in foundations courses, a minimum of a "B" grade in the Subject Specific Methods course and "Credit" in the fieldwork courses in order to have that course counted towards completing the requirements for a preliminary credential. Students are allowed to take any class a maximum of two times. Failure to meet minimum grade requirements when retaking a course will result in disqualification from the program.
University Policy on Incompletes
An incomplete grade ("I") can be assigned at the discretion of the instructor when a student has completed the majority of the requirements in a course and can provide justification for an extension of requirements.
An incomplete must be made up within one calendar year immediately following the end of the term in which it was assigned. This limitation prevails whether or not the student maintains continuous enrollment. Failure to complete the assigned work will result in an incomplete ("I") being converted to an "IC" (or a No Credit ["NC"] for non-traditionally graded courses) which will affect the grade point average. Please consult the University Catalog for complete information on Incomplete grades.
Academic Integrity Policy
The University emphasizes responsible citizenship and an awareness of ethical choices inherent in human development. Academic honesty and fairness foster ethical standards for all those who depend upon the integrity of the university, its courses, and its degrees. University degrees are compromised and the public is defrauded if faculty members or students knowingly or unwittingly allow dishonest acts to be rewarded academically. This policy sets the standards for such integrity and shall be used to inform students, faculty and staff of the university's Academic Integrity Policy.
At SJSU plagiarism is the act of representing the work of another as one's own without giving appropriate credit, regardless of how that work was obtained, and/or submitting it to fulfill academic requirements. Plagiarism at SJSU includes but is not limited to:
1. The act of incorporating the ideas, words, sentences, paragraphs, or parts of, and/or the specific substance of another's work, without giving appropriate credit, and/or representing the product as one's own work;
2. Representing another's artistic/scholarly works such as musical compositions, computer programs, photographs, paintings, drawing, sculptures, or similar works as one's own.
University faculty may subscribe to or use plagiarism detection services as a routine part of their grading practice.
Please consult the University's Policy on Plagiarism for more information.
Sign up for the University's free Plagiarism Tutorial.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I'm Vicky.
This morning I found out, quite by accident, that I had some sort of control over my mom's mind--at least when she was drunk. She would do whatever I told her to do (or whatever anyone else told her to do, for that matter). And since she was drunk most of the time, I could honestly say that I was one lucky little bitch. Imagine, 13 years old and able to tell my mom what to do and when to do it!
Well, it didn't take long for my puberty-driven imagination to run wild. By mid-afternoon I had dreamed up some very naughty plans. And by early evening I was ready to put those plans into action.
First, I called up my mom's best friend, the one who took her out partying every Saturday night. And I told that bitch that my mom was too ill to go out tonight, that mom was going to go to bed early and get some rest. She said "Shit!", then she said "Okay, thanks for calling," and hung up.
Fuck her.
Next, I went up to mom's room and found her sucking on a bottle of gin while rummaging through her underwear drawer. She was stark naked and still wet from her shower (her second shower of the day--the first one was to wash the homeless man's piss and cum off of her, though I'm sure she didn't even remember that). The warm smile and greeting she gave me, and the pleasant way she was moving about, told me that she had only one thing on her mind: PARTEE!
With some guilt I said: "Your friend just called. She said that she can't make it tonight. She said she's too ill. She's going to stay in bed and get some rest. She'll see you next weekend."
Mom said "Shit!", slammed the underwear drawer shut and sat down heavily on her bed, gin bottle to her lips.
I left her like that, went and took a bath, then pulled on a pair of clean white cotton underpants and returned to my mom's room. The gin bottle was empty and lying on the floor. She was stretched out on the bed, still naked, eyes closed. I couldn't help but smile as I sat down at her vanity dresser and began to apply makeup.
By the time I was finished I looked at least 20 or 21. I was sure of it. Red lipstick. Dark eyeshadow. My mom's sexy fake lashes. A little color to my cheeks. And my blonde hair done up in a little bun. Fuck, I was one hot little chick. If mom was sober right now, she'd slap the shit out of me and make me wash it all off.
Mom. I went to her underwear drawer and fished out the tiniest black thong. Hell, I thought, how could this possibly fit my mom. It fit me nicely however, and I tossed my own underpants aside.
In her closet I rummaged through her old clothes, ones that were too small for her now but that she had never bothered to throw out. I was almost as tall as she, but skinnier. Still, I soon found what I was looking for. A sleeveless red dress. Very light and flimsy, almost transparent. It would show a lot of cleavage and a lot of leg, and would fit my narrow waist just fine. I wriggled into it, made the proper adjustments, and saw in the mirror that it was smoking hot. Then I gasped aloud when I realized that anyone staring hard enough could see my black thong and my skinny white ass clearly through the sheer fabric. "Wow!" I said.
My mom's small feet even made it possibe for me to find a pair of matching red pumps that fit. "Fuck me" pumps. I fell in love with them.
When I was finally able to tear myself from the mirror, I found a nice short dress for my mom, one that showed off her sexy legs. (And if she ever made the mistake of bending over, it'd show off her ass too.) Panties and heels completed her outfit. A brush and a touch of lipstick made her beautiful. And dark glasses hid the fact that she was drunk as a skunk.
In the cab I told the driver to take me and "my friend" someplace nice where we could buy drinks and have a good time. He said don't you know any good places, and I said no, I'm new in town, you pick a place for me. (Shit, what the fuck did I know about bars and nightclubs. I was only 13. But he didn't need to know that. As far as he knew, we were just two chicks out on the town on a Saturday night. And weren't all cabbies supposed to know the best nightspots.)
Anyways, the cabbie turned in his seat and looked me and my mom up and down, his eyes lingering over my mom's long legs and exposed thighs and feasting on my barely covered pouting breasts. He really thought I was a grown woman and I loved it, but my mom just snuggled up against me on the seat, as if she were ready for bed. He grinned at that then turned back around and said, "I know just the place for you two."
Thirty minutes later he dropped us off on the seediest street I had ever seen in my life. It was a far cry from my safe suburban neighborhood. We stepped over the bum in the gutter, sidestepped someone's vomit on the sidewalk, walked past the hooker and her pimp, and entered the bar that the cabbie had told us we would love.
It was dark inside, so dark I bumped into several tables before I could see well enough to find an empty booth in the corner. It didn't help that I had to guide my mom along like a blind beggar drags around an unwilling child. And it was smoky too. Cigarette smoke drifting cloudlike through the air. I had to force myself not to cough and show my true age. But we got settled down in spite of it all, and in no time the waitress came and took our orders--white wine for me and a gin and tonic for my mom, with me doing the ordering--me, 13 and playing dress up, and having a ball.
Ten minutes after our drinks arrived I was shitfaced and laid back. Mom was even drunker than before, if that was possible. My young eyes were finally used to the dim light, and with soft music playing in the background I took time to observe my surroundings.
This bar looked like all the bars I had seen on tv. Several women sat on bar stools, sipping drinks and talking to one another. More women sat at tables and booths, in threes and fours, drinking and laughing and having fun. Here and there, women sat in twos, drinking and talking in low voices--and sometimes holding hands. In the middle of the room
couples were dancing, slow dancing, and the couples were all women. On second thought, this bar was not like all the bars I had seen on tv.
That fuckin' cabbie! I could wring his fuckin' neck!
Nervously, I continued to sip my wine while trying not to make eye contact with anyone. When the glasss was empty I barely noticed when the waitress came and filled it again. She refilled mom's too, saying something about them being paid for by the woman in the next booth. I barely heard her, I just kept sipping, too nervous to stop. What was I thinking. I only wanted to have a little fun. To get out of the house on a Saturday night and see what it would be like to be a grown up. Just something to tell my friends about and have a big laugh afterwards. Here I was dressed like a slut, all grown up, wanting desperately to flirt with some guy, an older guy, wanting a man's attention. . . . And there wasn't a man in the room!
I went to take a piss. My head spun and my knees wobbled, but I somehow made it to the bathroom, still careful not to make eye contact with anyone. Happily, I didn't get raped or molested along the way. And no one tried to enter my stall while I had my panties down. But when I came back out I got a shock that I'll remember for the rest of my life.
In the middle of the room, amidst the dancing couples, stood my mom, firmly in the grasp of a tall thin redhead. They were slow dancing. Mom, with her arms around the redhead's waist and with her head resting on the woman's shoulder. And the redhead, with her hands boldly up inside my mom's dress, clutching my mom's asscheeks. Their pelvises ground together in rhythm to the music. Their breasts flattened against one another's. The redhead, in a short cowgirl skirt and tight tee shirt, was clearly in control, guiding my drunk mom around the dance floor by her ass, while whispering in her ear.
What the fuck! I said to myself. I grabbed the bar stool for support then picked up someone's discarded drink and finished it in one gulp. Again I asked myself, What the fuck?
I watched for several minutes. I still couldn't believe it. Their bodies were pressed together so close it was like the redhead was fucking my mom right there on the dance floor. And who knew what she was doing with her hands. I could see them moving here and there beneath my mom's dress. But the whispering was what worried me the most. What was she saying to mom? What was she telling her?
Whatever it was, the redhead soon guided my mom right off the dance floor and through an open doorway into a back room that was even darker than the main bar room. And as she led my mom away, she slid her hand up to mom's waist in such a way that she lifted mom's dress up above her ass and showed everyone in the room mom's dissheveled panties. She
was letting everyone know that my mom was going to be her bitch.
I stood there for a second, dumbfounded, then made my way to that doorway and went through it. It was like walking into a cave at midnight. I couldn't see shit. And all that wine was making my head spin. I bumped against bodies. Tripped over more bodies. Fended off roving hands that tried to discover what was beneath my pretty red dress. The hands were delicate and soft--women's hands.
I backed up against a wall, reached out with both hands to steady myself, the wine kicking in real good now. I could hear soft moaning and grunting all around me, gasping and heaving breathing. From the floor. From the various lounge chairs and sofas. From hidden corners. There was the rustling of clothes. The sounds of wet kisses. Flesh slapping against flesh. Sucking sounds. Someone cried out in orgasm. Then someone grabbed my ass and buried their face in my crotch.
I cried out at the hot breath that was scalding my little pussy. I looked down and saw someone's head beneath my dress. I felt their hands clutching my asscheeks. My thong had been rudely pushed to the side so the woman could get to my pussy, and she got to it good. I cried out again, then spread my legs wide.
Whoever it was, her grown up tongue was like sandpaper to my 13-year-old cunt. I trembled all over, drooled like a baby. She licked up and down my little crack, slobbering wetly. I listened to the nasty lapping noises even while my cunt was burning. I gritted my teeth and groaned again and again. I found myself rising to the balls of my feet, pushed upwards by that woman's hot tongue.
Women were fucking and getting fucked all around me. My mom was somewhere among them, getting her drunk ass fucked too. But I wasn't thinking about any of them right now. I was on fire. My cunt was throbbing with heat. This dyke knew just what she was doing, and she was doing it just fine. I reached down and grabbed the back of her head, which was still hidden beneath my dress, and thrust my little pussy into her face, wanting more.
She gave me what I wanted. Her hungry mouth engulfed my young pussy, and I felt all of her heat. My tender flesh was scorched. She sucked and sucked, lewdly, nastily. My head spun crazily. My knees buckled. I held tight to her head to keep from falling, while her hot lips sucked on my pussy.
Soon my juices were dripping down my inner thighs, mingled with her spit. I began screaming, begging for it. She seemed to realize my desperation, and she immediately thrust her tongue up into my virgin hole as far as it could go. She tongue fucked my virgin pussy with abandon, while I bucked my little ass uncontrollably, slapping my asscheeks against the wall and smacking my cunt lips against the woman's face.
Just when I thought I was going to die from the bliss, she gave my little clit a tender bite, and I rewarded her with a mouthful of my sweet young juices. I spasmed again and again, flooding her mouth and soaking her face. I could hear her lapping and licking and swallowing greedily. But before she could get it all, my skinny legs gave out and I collapsed to the floor in a heap, still spasming.
As the spinning and the spasming subsided and my eyes slowly began to focus, I noticed for the first time that my dyke lover wasn't alone. Someone was stuck to her from behind, doggiestyle. Someone wearing a strap-on dildoe, the business end of which was buried to the hilt in my dyke lover's bushy cunt. That someone leaned towards me, wiped several strands of red hair out of her eyes, and said: "This is one hot lady. The best fuck I ever had. But I felt guilty stealing her away from you while you were in the john. So when I saw you follow us in here, I just told her to grab you and eat the shit out of your little pussy. I ordered her to give you the licking of your life. I felt that that was the least I could do. And it looks like she did just that. Strange woman. She doesn't talk much, but she does whatever I tell her."
I didn't say much either, after that. In fact, I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My heart was stuck in my throat. I just watched the redhead pull that long black dildoe out of that hairy cunt then get to her feet and walk off to find another willing hole. After she was gone, I hesitantly lifted my pretty red dress to reveal a very familiar and sopping wet face. My jaw fell to the floor.


text: Little Lion's Bible is a soft, cuddly Bible that children ages 2 to 5 can call their own. Throughout this plush-covered book, Little Lion learns that he is loved and cared for by God as he hears about God's faithfulness in stories from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. With sweet, rhyming text and colorful illustrations, this soft and cuddly character storybook Bible is sure to become a classic with preschoolers.


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No Yemen transfers 'at this time'
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the United States will halt all transfers of Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen for now but insisted he is not wavering in his commitment to shut down the prison for terror suspects.
"Given the unsettled situation, I've spoken to the attorney general and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time," Obama told reporters following a meeting at the White House with 20 top security advisers to discuss why the U.S. government failed to prevent the attempted aircraft bombing on Christmas Day.
Story Continued Below
"Make no mistake, we will close the Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for Al Qaeda," Obama said. "We will close the prison in a manner that keeps the American people safe and secure."
Obama has said the Christmas Day bombing plot was hatched in Yemen, an extremist haven on the Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. Embassy there closed Sunday and Monday because of a terrorist threat. The suspect in the attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has reportedly told the FBI that he crafted the plot with Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. In addition, the Al Qaeda branch there claimed responsibility for the attack.
Immediately after taking office, Obama had pledged to close Guantanamo Bay prison by this month, but that plan has been delayed by a series of setbacks, including resistance in Congress to bringing the prisoners to the United States and difficulties finding other nations willing to take the men.
Yemeni nationals make up nearly half of the remaining 198 prisoners at Guantanamo, and part of Obama's plan to close Gitmo involved sending many of them home.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged that the decision not to send any more of them back to Yemen soon could mean that an added number of them will have to be transferred to a new prison for former Guantanamo detainees that the administration hopes to set up in Thomson, Ill. There was never a plan to transfer the Yemenis as a group back to Yemen, White House aides said.
The suspension of transfers to Yemen will hold for the foreseeable future, as long as the current unstable security situation there remains, the aides said.
In recent days, the administration has sent mixed signals on the issue of releasing Guantanamo inmates to Yemen. During appearances on Sunday television talk shows, White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan brushed aside questions about a halt to repatriations to Yemen.
"We haven't, you know, stopped the process as far as dealing with them," Brennan said on CNN's "State of the Union." "Many of them are going to be prosecuted, some under the Article III courts, and some under — in military courts. Some of these individuals are going to be transferred back to Yemen at the right time and the right pace and in the right way."


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Increased coverage and operating capacity are sorely needed if future cellular networks are to provide adequate service. With more than one billion mobile-broadband users worldwide, heterogeneous-network (HetNet) technology is progressing rapidly to meet that goal. HetNet will provide substantial numbers of macro-networks and a large number of small cells, including femtocells. In the past, large cells encountered problems when they handled large numbers of users, which reduced the operating capacity per customer. Instead, HetNets will provide smaller, diversified cells as well as the intelligence needed to manage capacity and integrate large numbers of small cells.
In Planegg, Germany, Maxim Integrated Products (www.maxim-ic.com) has introduced HetNet solutions that target next-generation base-station equipment. Among these products are single-chip multiband-radio transceivers, broadband gain blocks, direct RF-synthesis digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and intelligent, digital point-of-load controllers. According to the company, the cellular radio-access network (RAN) is evolving into a heterogeneous network. That network needs diverse analog and mixed-signal base-station solutions for the main radio
signal paths, baseband processing support, and power-conversion nodes. Hence, Maxim believes that it has anticipated the HetNet evolution.
According to the firm, for example, the MAX2550–MAX2553 single-chip, small-cell radio transceivers can improve both residential coverage and network capacity. The MAX5879 direct RF-synthesis DAC targets multicarrier, multiband, and multi-standard macrocell, small-cell, and wireless-backhaul transmitters. The MAX2870 ultra-wideband, 23.5-to-6000-MHz synthesizer with an integrated voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) enables multiband local-oscillator (LO) frequency synthesis in base-station radios. Maxim also introduced the MAX15301 InTune digital point-of-load controller and the MAX2612–MAX2616 broadband, 40-to-4000-MHz gain blocks.
HetNet solutions, which are designed for next-generation base-station equipment, include single-chip multiband radio transceivers, broadband gain blocks, direct RF-synthesis DACs, and intelligent digital point-of-load controllers.
Maxim has also developed an RF DAC that can reportedly enable a digital transmitter solution supporting standards ranging from second- to fourth-generation (2G to 4G). The MAX5879 multi-Nyquist RF DAC creates a common hardware platform for multi-carrier, multi-band, and multi-standard base stations. Working with field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA) -based direct digital synthesis (DDS), the DAC makes it possible to implement traditional analog functions, such as the quadrature modulator and agile LO, in digital form. According to the company, this approach will eliminate in-phase and quadrature errors as well as the LO feedthrough often associated with
analog conversion.
The MAX5879's selectable-frequency-response modes support direct RF synthesis of common 3G/4G cellular bands in multiple Nyquist zones from 700 MHz to 2.8 GHz. A single MAX5879 RF DAC serves multiple standards, such as multicarrier GSM, WCDMA, and LTE.
Transceivers Can Cut System Costs
As part of the HetNet trend, femtocells in particular are increasingly being used to supplement base-station cell sites—especially those that are already operating at maximum capacity. Carriers also are moving to home- and office-located femtocell transceivers that provide a localized base station to handle cellular voice and data needs. To answer the call for femtocells, Maxim has developed femtocell transceivers that support WCDMA (Bands 1 to 6 and 8 to 10) and cdma2000 (Band Class
0, 1, and 10).
To help service providers achieve more compact, lower-cost radio designs, the MAX2550–MAX2553 transceivers work with minimal external components. According to the firm, they also will reduce operation and maintenance costs and help with the creation of more compact radio designs for modules and standalone femtocell applications. Such compact radios are essential, given the higher installation and maintenance costs associated with existing large macrocells. In some areas, carriers are struggling with space limitations and city regulations when planning to create more macrocell base stations.


text:
Note that readers may also view these records on Ancestry.com by using the links below:
Canada, Selected Service Records of Soldiers, 1914-1918 Free Index
Canada, Selected Service Records of War Dead, 1939-1945 Free Index
TORONTO, ON (December 15, 2010) – Ancestry.ca, Canada's leading family history resource, has launched online two new collections of military records from the First and Second World Wars.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) carefully selected these records from their holdings, which provide rich detail about the experiences of soldiers in the two World Wars. These records were digitized as part of the Lest We Forget workshops – an initiative designed to connect students with the stories of Canadians who served and died in war.
The collections, Selected Service Records of Soldiers, 1914-1918 and Selected Service Records of War Dead, 1939-1945, are fully searchable by the soldier's name, birth and death date and keyword and provide unprecedented information about soldiers' lives during their time serving in the military.
Individual soldiers' records in the collections contain up to three dozen forms detailing their enlistment, training, medical and dental history, hospitalization, discipline, pay, and discharge or notification of death, painting a rich picture of their lives and often tragic experiences.
Selected Service Records of Soldiers, 1914-1918 contains a sampling of approximately 100 individuals who served in the First World War. Amongst these documents is personal correspondence from the few surviving complete service files which have been recently released by LAC.
Selected Service Records of War Dead, 1939-1945 includes the enlistment records, medical and dental charts, evaluation reports, medal and promotion entitlements, letters (personal, military and recommendations), wills and inventory of personal effects of approximately 100 soldiers from the Second World War Service Files.
These new records add to what is already the largest online collection of Canadian military records found anywhere in the world, one that includes the Soldiers of the First World War, a collection of attestation papers for nearly 600,000 Canadian soldiers who fought in the 'War to End All Wars'.
Ancestry.ca genealogist Lesley Anderson comments: "There are so many Canadians with ancestors who fought in the two world wars - many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice - and so it is important that new generations continue to learn about their stories through workshops such as Lest We Forget.
Access to these collections, along with the other 128 million historical Canadian records available at Ancestry.ca, is part of the reason the company was recently short-listed by Canada's History Society for the 2010 Pierre Berton Award, Canada's top history prize, recognizing excellence in bringing Canada's history to a wider popular audience.
December 22, 2010
Press Release: WW1 and WW2 Military Records
1 comment:
- Annette Fulford said...
These same records are available for free at the Lest We Forget Project at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cenotaph/025009-1110-e.html#a
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Personalised Party Hats
Make you party, stag or hen night a night to remember with our special personalised party hats.
If you need your personalised hat fast, we can be make and send them the same day.
We can also arrange for special delivery before 1pm the next day.
If you have any problems uploading then email the image with your requirements to: email@example.com


text:
71. Carol Mann, golf
Her swing was as imposing as her stature. At 6 feet 3, Mann towered over rivals on the LPGA Tour, where she won 38 tournaments, including the 1965 U.S. Women's Open, and led the tour in earnings in 1969. Mann, who attended Notre Dame Prep, played for two decades and is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. She served as LPGA president in the 1970s.
World Golf Hall of Fame
Copyright © 2019, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad


text:
Peak Laser necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 170 diseños de 53 diseñadores freelance.
Peak Laser
We are a new company that offers laser engraving and laser cutting services. We will provide many different services from high end performance awards for corporations, arts & crafts projects, personal media player personalization, R/C airplane kit cutting services, and much more.
We are looking for a broad audience so we have to make a statement that appeals to a diverse customer base.
We are looking for a logo that will standout in a crowd.
Leaning towards a technical, clean, simple look. The name says it all.....we want to stand above the rest. We want to leave the door wide open because there are a lot of creative minds out there and we want to see what you've got.
List of criteria:
1) No resemblance to "Peak Antifreeze" or the "Prudential" mountain.
2) Possibly a peak in the logo. Abstract or otherwise, but not required.
3) Any premade font must be free. (No licensing)
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text: Looking for the best restaurants in London? Our complete guide points you in the right direction. Are you craving something specific? How about the best burgers in London? Or, why not tuck into a juicy steak? If you want to try something authentic, try the best fish and chips London has to offer; or indulge in the best afternoon teas in London, a real British tradition. For special occasions, discover some of London's best romantic or quirky restaurants, as well as all the Michelin-starred restaurants London has to offer. Quench your thirst at one of the many London cafes or visit some of the best London rooftop bars. Celebrate with a drink at a cocktail bar or champagne bar in London before heading out and discovering more things to do in London.


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Geiszler Family History: Map of Baden
Here are the notes from his naturalization record: According to the Franklin County Clerk of Superior Court (in Ohio), Joseph Keizler was admitted to Citizenship of the United States of America in 1858. Joseph was a native of Baden, Germany. The record was certified on 11 Oct 1858. (Keizler would be the phonetic spelling of the name Geißler.)
I wanted to know where Baden would be found. Hopefully, I could find clues as to where to look next.
|Map of German divisions of land
I must rely more heavily on the naturalization document for clues. But, could it be possible that Joseph lived in Baden near Stuttgart? Or is this a random note that is best ignored?
I'll be honest, I don't have any more clues with this map. But, at least I have a rough idea of where Baden is.


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Now for those of you who dont know how Im talking about, Karatti's orignal design was to be that of a humanoid made entirely out of cyrstal, then it was changed to what we see today, but Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like he appeared in this form in the UK NA Comics as well. Any way, I have always felt that the ranks of the Mutants( and for the Snake Men for that matter) have always been sparse for their higher ups, and I'm not down just to Create characters out of thin air, Sooooo I thought using this Prototype, concept art type idea of Cyrstollar to fill the ranks of the Mutants. (my other ideas are for Cruncher (ep.16 mutant form of NA Heman,some how seperated from he-man himself) He-slave (using DNA from he man Skelator Creates a clone of NA He-man, brandishing the hilt from NA skelator staff) both Na versions of Faker really) and Maxis and Zark. They were from the episdoe "Childrens Planet" And Maxis was a large humanoid with heat/freeze vision, while Zark was a 2 headed humanoid Dragon that was friends with Maxis. It seems that they both had worked for Skelator with his mutant pals until Skelator banished him to this frozen waste land. Former Mutants- I like it)
This totally got off the subject Cyrstollar, If the line continues to due well and all the Charaters that deserve to get figures (esentially all the ones that have previously had some) and the ones that truely deserve figures (not guy in yellow in tug a war match, more like green goddess, eldor, queen marlena,etc) then down the line I would like to see guys like this made ( granted we have the rights to him, not even sure, and jetlag for the others mentioned above) as well as Detector. The Existing media has plenty to draw from, no reason to create characters. Hope someone else feels the same way I do about this character.I was just reading some background material on him, and it says his weapon of choice is the laser axe, similar to slushheads, so if he ever gets made that should be one of his accessories.


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Chinese Charting of Maritime Asia
Summary and Keywords
Navigation played a major role in the integration of East Asian polities and economies prior to and during the arrival of European traders in the 16th and 17th centuries. That arrival stimulated an increase in the volume of intra-regional trade in East Asia as Chinese merchants organized exports on a large scale to meet European demand, yet the history of the production of nautical charts in China has been little studied, due in no small part to the poor survival of sea charts and other documentation. The most important new addition to maritime charting in the past decade is the rediscovery of the Selden Map in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This map of navigation routes throughout East Asia is unprecedented, and may be seen as marking the beginning of the transformation of Chinese cartography under the influence of European mapping techniques.
Keywords: chart, China, Ocean, Maritime, Nautical, East Asia, Selden Map, Laud Rutter, Ming dynasty, Zheng He
If the history of maritime charting is the history of who mapped the water, for whose use, and by what methods, there is little to distinguish China from other zones of active nautical practice in the early-modern world in any but the third aspect. In Europe and China alike in the 16th and 17th centuries, the water was charted by those who sailed it to trade, and the demand for these charts was principally for the use of commercial voyagers. Some sea charts were drawn for and by diplomatic envoys who sailed abroad, but these were in a minority. Most charts were in the hands of navigators, merchants, and those who worked the sea lanes or sojourned abroad. The numbers are impressive. In 1630, the minister of war reported to the emperor that every year one hundred thousand people boarded ships in the southeastern coastal provinces, mostly Fujian, to go abroad and find work as temporary sojourners.1 Many of these people owned charts. When a junk that the East India Company purchased in Bangkok in 1615 was becalmed in the East China Sea on its way to Japan, and the Chinese captain too ill to sail it, company employee Edward Sayers had to take over. Sayers was at a loss to direct their course until he discovered that one of the Chinese cooks on board had what he called an old "platt," the antique English word for chart (which survives today as "plot," as in the expression "plotting a course").2
The main challenge for the study of Chinese nautical charting is the relative scarcity of charts or other records of navigation. An envoy observes in his report on his mission to the kingdom of the Ryukyu Islands in 1579 that "this kind of chart seems not to be in short supply," yet so little survives today. The state was the greatest preserver of documentation of all sorts, especially of maps, yet the Ming court did not significantly interest itself in maritime matters except when they were perceived as impinging on state security. Charts of the ocean had political utility only to the extent that they marked the maritime border and defined a national defense perimeter.
The period of exception was the first third of the 15th century, when Emperor Yongle (r. 1403–1424) dispatched a series of diplomatic fleets under the command of Zheng He (1371–1433) and other court eunuchs to prompt rulers all over Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean to submit tribute to Heaven's appointed ruler of the world, and thereby weave an illusion of legitimacy to his coup. These voyages were operations of the imperial household, mounted not for trade but for tribute, and thus of a fundamentally different character than the private trade of the late Ming. But imperial envoys needed maritime charts as much as commercial traders did, at least during the years when the expeditions traveled (1405–1433).3 Thereafter, the only nautical charts the Ming state needed were those for envoys traveling to nearby states in the East China Sea, such as Ryukyu.
The history of maritime charting would be better told on the basis of the materials produced and circulated in the commercial sphere, but these materials are hard to come by, due in no small part to the state's intermittent hostility toward private overseas trade. For much of the Ming dynasty, the state kept close control over the coast, sometimes banning private shipping altogether in the interest of state security. An anxiety about Chinese dealing without authorization with foreign traders reached its nadir in 1525, after a conflictual decade of illegal Portuguese attempts to trade in China, when Emperor Jiajing (r. 1522–1567) closed the coast to any vessel of two or more masts, effectively ruling out the shipping of cargo on the high seas.4 When Jiajing died in 1567, the court rescinded the ban under pressure from the governor of Fujian, who understood the financial benefits that maritime trade brought to his province. The three-quarters of a century from the late 1560s to the final years of the dynasty in the early 1640s became the period when Chinese maritime merchants traded most actively with their Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, Japanese, Vietnamese, Malay, and Muslim counterparts at ports scattered through the long arc of islands off the coast of East Asia, from Nagasaki, Japan, in the northeast to Aceh, Sumatra, in the southwest. This trade was sustained by the westward flow of silver from Japan as well as from Spanish mines in the Americas, which was at its high point through this same period. For this trade, Chinese needed and produced charts and other navigational documents. Though precious little survives, there is just enough material that survives from the last century of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to permit the following sketch of traditional Chinese navigation.
Chinese Navigational Practices
"Once you are through the harbor entrance, the spray from the whitecaps fills the air and the surging waves leap as high as the Milky Way. No longer can you track the bluffs along the coast. No longer can you note the villages as you pass through them or count off the post stations stage by stage. The senior officers ply the oars and raise the sails, cutting a path through the flood of waves with only the compass needle to show them the way. They rely on its readings to forge ahead, sometimes letting the needle stay on one of the main bearings, sometimes letting it point in a direction between them."5 Thus Zhang Xie, a professional writer living in Moon Harbor, Zhangzhou's busy harbor on the southern Fujian coast, describes the exhilarating experience of launching a junk to sea in his 1618 handbook of maritime travel, Dongxi yang kao (Study of the eastern and western sea routes).
In this passage, Zhang reveals more than just the excitement of heading out onto the open sea. He notes several distinguishing features of Chinese navigation. First, he tells his landlubber readers that traveling on the water is different from traveling on land, where landmarks are fixed and distances easily determined. Second, he points out that coastal landmarks can be used to guide a ship only if it sails close enough to the coast; any further and they become valueless. Third, once the ship is too far from shore to read the profile of the landward horizon, the pilot has two options. One is to look up at the Milky Way and sail by the stars; the other is to use a compass. It was above all the compass, in Zhang's view, that made maritime navigation possible.
Unlike the Arab compass with its thirty-two points ("winds"), spaced at every eleven and a quarter degrees around the circle, the Chinese nautical compass has twenty-four points at every fifteen degrees: four at the four cardinal directions at ninety degrees (N, E, S, W), four at the four ordinal directions at forty-five degrees (NE, SE, SW, NW), and two each within the eight arcs of forty-five degrees among these eight points. Larger ships carried two compasses, one fore and one aft, to correct for error and ensure that the ship was properly aligned on its course. Although the captain was in charge of the vessel, Zhang Xie observes that the pilot controlled navigational decisions. "Though the deeps across which he traces his watery course are vast, he is listened to in all things affecting the command of the ship," he reports. A pilot had to be skilled in more than compass reading. "He knows there are regularities in cloud formations and the movement of winds, and with this knowledge he ploughs through the waves for ten thousand li and is never once fooled into taking the wrong course." By consulting his compass every twenty nautical miles, Zhang writes, pilots "may grope their way forward in the gloom and yet have complete knowledge of whatever part of the ocean they are in and what dangers they have to look out for. Indifferent to the storms buffeting them, they remain at ease in their places. Despite sharp winds and crashing waves, they voyage on as though everything were normal. With their long experience at doing this, they sail as though they are walking on level ground. At a glance they can figure out whatever it is they need to know."6
The possibility of pilot error was nonetheless high. Another maritime enthusiast writing a century later declared, "Off by a hair and you will miss your distant destination, to your endless regret." To avoid such regret, he cited the need for the pilot to factor time of day, wind direction, and the speed of the current into his directional calculations.7 Zhang Xie noted also the importance of keeping track of depth and speed. For depth the pilot had sounding lines. Ascertaining speed, which was essential for determining position on a course, was more difficult. Pilots counted time in units of geng, or watches, ten to the day. To estimate his speed, he dropped a speed log off the bow and paced its passage to the stern, then multiplied the time taken by the ratio between a given unit of distance (usually the li, or about a third of a mile) and the length of the ship. Clocking time was the main problem. As Zhang Xie explains, "To calculate how far they have traveled on their course, pilots set the distance covered in twenty-four hours as ten watches. By counting how many watches they have sailed, they can calculate where they are." A watch was the time it took to cover four forty-eight li, or roughly fifteen nautical miles. The standard way to time a watch was to light incense, of which the burn rate was known, and from the amount of incense burned deduce the time that had elapsed and therefore the distance traveled. This calculation improved significantly with the adoption of the European hourglass in the 18th century, and then of course mechanical clocks thereafter.8
Chinese navigational charts reflect the use of these various methods. Most record compass bearings and geographical features such as sandbars, islands, and coastlines. Some also include time-distances and depths. To appreciate the range of formats for recording maritime knowledge, let us consider four known from the Ming period: coastal maps, nautical route charts, rutters, and the Selden Map.
Types of Maritime Maps
Coastal Maps
Not all charts of the ocean are "nautical" in the sense of being produced for navigational purposes. Coastal maps are properly not maritime charts at all, but they sometimes include coastal sailing routes and deserve inclusion for reference purpose. In general, the impulse for producing these maps came from the state, which was eager to document its borders and organize information useful to border defense in legible form. Nautical data appear on coastal maps, but only secondarily.
Many coastal maps survive from the Ming depicting the coast from the Gulf of Bohai in the north to Hainan Island in the south. Best known is the series of maps produced for the compendium of maritime defense knowledge, published in 1562 as Chouhai tubian (Illustrated compendium on maritime security). These maps did not recycle pre-existing maps, but were surveyed anew.9 They depict the coast in a series of consecutive frames, printed over many folio pages. Each folio accounts for roughly forty-five miles of coastline. These maps are drawn from the land and looking toward the water, with land and water each sharing roughly half of the space within the frame. The water is marked by place names and captions that describe features of interest to mariners, such as anchorages and tides. Only one of these maps, dedicated to showing where the coast was vulnerable to predation from Japanese pirates, marks sea routes heading toward Japan. They are not otherwise charts for plotting a course.
Images of the maritime border were popular at court and beyond. Three decades later, a concertina-style map of the coast ten feet long was published under the title Quanhai tuzhu (Annotated atlas of the complete ocean), with a preface dated 1591 and signed with the name of Li Hualong (1554–1612).10 Nicely engraved and visually easy to read, the map directs the viewer's attention to the ocean, devoting a greater proportion of space to it than to the land, and dotting that space with generic two-masted ships under full sail. Even more beautiful is the maritime defense map that Dong Kewei painted for the court in color on a series of ten silk scrolls in the year or two following the publication of the Li Hualong map. Each scroll measures 67 inches from top to bottom, and when placed together attain a total width of about twenty feet.11 This set is said to have been based on the coastal map in Chouhai tubian, yet it far exceeds that model in its fineness of detail and the care with which islands and other locations along the coast have been portrayed. The set also includes twenty-seven small text boxes (cartouches) dotted about the maps.
Of particular interest for the history of state navigation is the cartouche in the Gulf of Bohai, which begins: "This is the old sea transport route of the Yuan dynasty. It starts in Meihua Battalion in Fujian and ends at Zhigu," today's Tianjin. The cartouche is located beside a thin pathway through the water, indicated simply by the absence of the otherwise continuous fish-scale-style waves. This is just one of several routes marked on this scroll, and is continued on subsequent scrolls. Whether to reopen the sea route to transport grain from the south to the capital, as the Yuan chose to do rather than rebuild the Grand Canal, was a subject of debate at the time. The colophon advocates reviving the sea route, citing several authorities on its superiority over the Grand Canal, including the eminent mid-Ming statecraft scholar Qiu Jun. This set of coastal maps was thus produced to support certain defense policies, not to depict sea routes, although the inclusion of routes is worth noting. It has been suggested that the map was intended for publication, but the 1605 inscription by Minister of Personnel Xu Bida suggests that they remained at court, where they may have been used for policy evaluation.
Many Qing maps of the Chinese coast survive. Many continue to view the sea from the land, though in the Qing increasingly such maps reverse the perspective and view the land from the sea. A fine late-Qing example is Qisheng yanhai quantu (Complete map of the coastline of seven provinces), a colored handscroll that Fairbank acquired in China before 1949 and donated to Harvard University. The artist presents the coast in careful visual detail but has straightened it into one long horizontal sequence, consistent with the map's purpose, which is informational rather than navigational.
Route Charts
Route charts were drawn to depict itineraries of sea travel. Route maps in general were common in the Ming, favored by travelers wishing to know how to get from one place to another. These maps listed way stations and markers along the way, which is what Zhang Xie was alluding to when he wrote of "noting the villages as you pass through them and counting off the post stations stage by stage."12 By contrast, routes maps for ocean travel are rare. Here are three formats for which examples survive.
Best known is a set of charts referred to variously as the Zheng He map, the Mao Kun map, or the Wubei zhi map. It is a continuous chart of the route that the Zheng He expeditions sailed to the Indian Ocean, starting at the imperial boatyard in Nanjing and ending in Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It survives in a printed version that the statecraft scholar Mao Yuanyi (1594–c. 1641) included in his digest of writings on national defense, Wubei zhi (Records of military preparedness), published in 1621. This map is based on route charts of the Zheng He voyages, and may have come to Mao from his grandfather, Mao Kun (1512–1601), who may have acquired them while he was working on the maps for Chouhai tubian. The sequence fills twenty folio pages in Wubei zhi, changing scale as it proceeds. Along the China coast, each sheet covers about 95 miles. In the Strait of Malacca, a folio covers about 250 miles. The penultimate folio showing the Arabian Sea covers in excess of 600 miles.
The Wubei zhi charts have received much scholarly attention.13 J. V. Mills was enthusiastic enough in 1951 to declare them "real mariners' charts," though he did lament that "they contain some errors and certain surprising omissions."14 Of most interest is not what they got or failed to get right, but in their formal elements. Even though the version in Wubei zhi is many copies removed from whatever original might once have existed, the charts preserve some telling features. First, routes are depicted mostly as hugging the coast, as the armadas themselves appear to have done, rather than crossing blue water. Second, the charts reverse the perspective of coastal maps. They have been drawn from the water and look toward the land, as route maps should. Third, for both of these reasons, the charts pay considerable attention to the coastal features that helped sailors to locate their position, indicating and sometimes naming major landmarks, as one would do with coastal sailing. Fourth, they are marked with place names, particularly of islands and other obstacles in the water. Fifth, the cartographer has drawn the course that the ships took as a meandering dotted line. Finally, he has included annotations along that line giving sailing directions and compass bearings. The detail of information suggests that while this is not a nautical chart, it is a good summary of one. Short of crossing the Arabian Sea, but possibly even there, a pilot could rely on these directions to reach his destination.
The second type of maritime route chart is another production associated with the court: sea charts for emissaries to overseas tributaries. Several have been published depicting the itinerary of Chinese envoys traveling from Meihua Fort on the Fujian coast—the same port from which the Zheng He expeditions set forth—to the kingdom of Ryukyu, the capital of which is on today's Okinawa. Every envoy bound for Ryukyu was required to submit a report of his journey that included a chart of the route. Known by the generic title of Liuqiu guohai tu (Chart of crossing the ocean to Ryukyu), this chart survives in at least two versions. A printed version appears in the published report of Xiao Chongye's embassy of 1579, and a manuscript version in the report of Xia Ziyang's embassy of 1606. Both authors, neither of whom was a mariner, express amazement that a ship's course can be charted over water. Xia Ziyang poses the standard rhetorical question, "On the ocean, how is it possible to draw a route across it?" and then admits that all he has been able to do is to "sketch an approximation." In 1579, Xiao Chongye similarly asks, "Charting the ocean is like painting the sky: how can it be easy to capture its likeness?" Then he goes on to explain that "to record a water route you have to use a compass, which is the south-pointing method of the ancients." After making a few comments about this sea chart, he offers the revealing observation that "this kind of chart seems not to be in short supply." 15
Like the Wubei zhi map, the Ryukyu route charts focus on the route and provide a visual depiction of landmarks that served to guide the ship on its course. These maps show the route not as a dotted line but as a continuous line of text. The final stretch from Huangwei Yu (Yellowtail Island) to the port of Naha on the 1579 chart reads: "We again took the same mao heading (90º) for 5 watches. When the ship was abeam of Chiyu (Red Island), it stayed on a mao heading for 5 watches. When the ship was abeam of Nianmi Shan (Sticky Rice Island), it turned onto an yimao heading (97½º) for 6 watches. When the ship was abeam of Machi shan (Horsetooth Island), it went straight into Ryukyu" (fig. 3).16 The 1606 version plots a more southerly course from Yellowtail Island and tracks different marks.17
The third type of sea route chart depicts the east coast of China in a series of panels. No route is explicitly designated, but the charts show mariners where to sail and what places to avoid. The oldest may be the Qing manuscript that turned up in a used bookstore in Shanghai in 1956. Said to have come from the Hangzhou area, it is probably a copy of a Ming pilot's chart. It was published in 1980 in an annotated edition by Zhang Xun.18 This chart uses a format different from the other two examples. It looks from the water to the land, as they do, but it does not maintain any consistency of distance from one section to the next, nor does it indicate a continuous ship's course. Instead, it consists of a series of ninety-six sketches of small islands, outcroppings, and coastal landforms along the east coast of China from Liaoning Bay to the mouth of the Pearl River, with annotations explaining where to moor and how to navigate difficult passages.
For example, panel sixty-five shows two main islands and a dozen smaller islands along the coast of eastern Guangdong from Nan'ao Island (which stands off from Moon Harbor) to Chi'ao (Red Island) in the region of Honghai Bay, a distance of 150 miles. The annotation on the right below Nan'ao Island drawn in profile reads: "You will see this shape standing off at 22½ ̊. In the distance you will see a blocked water passage in which there is an islet. If as you pass they disappear, drop a sounding at 20 fathoms (tuo, the distance between the hands of two outstretched arms): the bottom is red sand layered with broken shells." The annotation on the left below a group of small islands in front of a profile rendering of Chi'ao—labeled "this island is red"—reads: "In the lee of this island you can sound 23 fathoms, the bottom is muddy. Abeam of Chi'ao you draw 22 fathoms, this is a black sand area. On an yimao heading (97½ ̊) you can reach Nan'ao."19
At least one other example of this genre survives: a Qing manuscript in 122 pages now in the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. Acquired by the commander of the HMS Herald in 1841 during the First Opium War, it depicts the coastline of East Asia from the Goto Archipelago off Kyushu to the Gulf of Thailand.20 Other exemplars should come to light.
For historical research, the most important textual source for maritime routes is what in English is called a rutter; in Portuguese, a portolano; and in Chinese, a compass manual (zhenjing). A rutter describes routes in words rather than drawing them in pictures. Each route is broken down into a sequence of compass bearings and the distances over which the pilot should hold to that heading until another bearing is given. A rutter can also include a range of information useful for piloting a ship at sea, such as mnemonic rhymes explaining how to read the weather.
Most of the rutters we have today document routes that diplomatic embassies took when they sailed abroad, their survival dependent on their official status. A simple version is the record of two "compass routes" (zhenlu) to Japan in the 1602 anthology on coastal defense, Liangzhe haifang leikao xubian (Further documents by category concerning the maritime defense of Zhejiang). The first traces the route to Japan starting in Taicang at the mouth of the Yangzi River, in eleven stages, and the second gives the route from Meihua on the Fujian coast, in seventeen stages. Topographical bearings, compass directions, time distances, depths, and other navigational information are provided, along with sketches of the shapes of the larger islands marking the way.21
A more complex example, recording the routes that the Zheng He expeditions took to the Indian Ocean, is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, under the makeshift title Shunfeng xiangsong (Dispatched on following winds) and known in English as the Laud Rutter, after the archbishop who donated it to the Bodleian Library in 1639. It dates from the late Ming. The other, entitled Zhinan zhengfa (Correct method for the compass), is a chapter in a manuscript copy of a book entitled Bingqian (Latchkeys to military knowledge). Although this book includes a preface dated 1635, Xiang Da, who published both Bodleian rutters in a combined annotated edition in 1962, deduced that the latter was inserted in the first century of the Qing. The third surviving rutter is a composite text compiled by Zhang Xie and included as the ninth chapter of Dongxi yang kao, Zhang's handbook on maritime trade.
The Laud Rutter records a wide selection of maritime routes, extending as far as the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. By the late Ming, the reach of Chinese trading vessels went no farther than the western mouth of the Strait of Malacca. The rutter went farther because, as the author of the preface observes, the material was derived from records of the Zheng He sailings. As Chinese ships traveling around the South China Sea in the late Ming were using exactly the same routes Zheng He took, the information was standard navigational lore, unaffected by the fact that an imperial fleet sailed the same routes two centuries earlier. The first route in the rutter runs from Five Dragon Mouth at Quanzhou, Fujian, to the chief Vietnamese port in the Gulf of Tonkin. Quanzhou had been China's main ocean port during the Song and Yuan dynasties, but was eclipsed by Zhangzhou in the 16th century. The route to Vietnam is the first of forty-nine outbound routes in the Laud Rutter. Most of these are paired with a return route, for a total of eighty-three. The second Bodleian Library rutter, Zhinan zhengfa (Correct method for the compass), provides directions for forty-eight routes.
Zhang Xie's rutter, compiled on the basis of several he was able to get his hands on in Moon Harbor, is shorter. To organize his material, Zhang follows the old distinction of western versus eastern routes.22 First, he provides sixteen routes running southwest toward Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia, called the Western Sea (Xiyang) routes. The first starts at Zhenhai ("Quelling the ocean"), the naval base below Moon Harbor, and runs to the Gulf of Tonkin. The farthest point on Zhang's string of Western Sea routes is Aceh, Sumatra, which was as far as Chinese ships sailed in his day. He then gives eight Eastern Sea (Dongyang) routes out to Taiwan and down along the coast of the Philippines as far as Borneo. His structure of routes is indifferent to the Zheng He data, which makes his rutter a better approximation of where Chinese mariners actually traveled in the late Ming.
Composite Maps
Charts exist primarily for navigational purposes, and secondly for coastal defense. But the information they contain can be used to generate regional maps designed around landforms that have been charted from the water. This was the process that, in European cartography, led from portolan charts of coastal areas drawn in the 14th century, to composite maps of Europe in the 15th century, and then to the Atlantic region and eventually the entire world in the 16th century. There survives today one example of this process of composite mapping from navigational charts: the Selden Map. This wall map of East Asia was deposited in the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1659 as part of the bequest of John Selden (1584–1654), an English lawyer, constitutional theorist, and Orientalist. Selden may have acquired this map in the late 1620s along with a Chinese compass and possibly even the Laud Rutter, which he may have presented to William Laud in return for political protection. Its format is roughly that of a hanging scroll painting five and a half feet long. The extensive decoration and coloring indicate that it was intended for display.
The map depicts all of East Asia, from Japan in the upper right-hand corner to the islands of Java and Sumatra in the bottom left. Selden called it his "map of China," though in fact China occupies barely a third of the top half and is the least innovative part of the map. The center of the map is occupied by the South China Sea. The left side ends at the western terminus of the Strait of Malacca. The anonymous cartographer has inserted the name of Calicut at random on the coast of the Indian Ocean, accompanied by a cartouche giving brief instructions to sail from Calicut to Aden, Djofar, and Hormuz. He must have found this Zheng-He-style information in something like the Laud Rutter, including it against the day that someone might end up in the Indian Ocean and need to know how to sail across it.23
The important place names on the Selden Map are port cities, which dot the coastlines. Connecting these ports, the cartographer has drawn a web of straight lines representing navigation routes. These lines segment and change angle from time to time according to the changes of course of a ship traveling that route. Most of these segments are annotated with their compass bearings. The lines have been draw to approximate the distances and angles of the courses they describe. They are aligned closely to the compass rose the cartographer has drawn at the top of the map, and both the compass and the lines tilt about six degrees to the left to reflect the declination of magnetic north.
The map has been drawn to a scale of about 1:4,750,000. A distance scale appears below the compass rose. This scale is drawn as a Chinese decimal ruler (chi) divided into ten units (cun, "inches"), each of which is halved and then further graduated into five subunits per half-inch (called fen or "tenths"). The ruler as it has been drawn on the map measures 14.7 inches, which is notably longer than the standard length of a Ming-dynasty ruler (about 12 inches.). Given that the traditional ruler in Hong Kong today measures 14.7 inches, however, this may well be a tracing of the actual ruler the cartographer used to draw the map. In fact, what the ruler seems to be calibrated to is not an abstract length but the distances depicted on the map. As has been noted, Chinese pilots measured distance by measuring time. Accordingly, each inch on the ruler corresponds to one day's sail (ten watches at an average speed of four knots).24 This works out to a physical distance of ninety-six nautical miles (110 miles.). It was time and not space that the cartographer was measuring with this ruler. Each tenth on the ruler was the distance traveled in one watch.
When the map was lifted off its cloth backing in the course of restoration, it was discovered that a draft of the principal navigation route down the east coast of China had been drawn on the verso side of the sheet. These marks suggest that the cartographer started to draw his map on one side of the sheet, then turned it over and redrew it on the other. What this reveals is that he produced the map by drawing the route lines first on the basis of a written record such as a rutter, then filled in the landforms around these lines. Compiling the chart from navigational data explains the remarkable accuracy of the Selden Map. Complete accuracy escaped the Selden cartographer, however, given his inability to calculate the effect of the curvature of the earth's surface. But then, that problem defied the portolan chartmakers as well. Curvature would not be solved until the recovery of Euclidean trigonometry in the 16th century, and would only be mastered for cartography through the work of Gerardus Mercator.
Conventional wisdom suggests that every map is a copy of another map. There are no Chinese precedents for this map, but the overall design may indicate that the Selden cartographer had seen a European chart of East Asia drawn from portolan methods. As Peter Shapinsky has shown in his study of Japanese use of European portolan charts, navigators in East Asian waters shared their charts and navigational knowledge across cultural boundaries, leading to a hybridity that generated its own products.25 This map detail dating from 1649 (fig. 7) displays the sort of image of East Asia that the Selden cartographer might have seen. It is unlikely that an "original" of the Selden Map will ever be found, as the cartographer, though inspired by a European image, worked his map up on the basis of Chinese, not European methods and data. The Selden Map appears to be the only attempt to compose a composite map from rutter data.
Discussion of the Literature
After a surge of interest in Chinese maritime navigation in the middle decades of the 20th century, notably by John Vivian Gottlieb Mills, who devoted his life's research to the documentary records of the Zheng He expeditions, the topic of maritime charts disappeared from the Western literature. This falling off may be attributed to a lack of primary documents, though perhaps as well to the decline in popular knowledge of how to read and interpret nautical charts.
The rediscovery of the Selden Map in 2008 reinvigorated the study of the history of maritime navigation. The two principal studies are by Robert Batchelor, a historian of England who called up the map from storage in 2008, and Timothy Brook, a historian of China. Batchelor's London showcases the Selden Map in the context of English interest in maritime trade through the 16th and 17th centuries. Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China contextualizes the map in relation to Chinese cartographic traditions as well as to the growth of European Sinology and the development of the international law of the sea. The two agree that the map was probably not produced in China, though they differ in proposing its origin, with Batchelor locating its maker in the Philippines in 1619, and Brook in Bantam, Java, in 1608. The difference hinges on their different reconstructions of when and how the map might have reached London.
A topic that requires further study is the design and use of the maritime compass. Each of the twenty-four angles of fifteen degrees into which the Chinese compass is divided bears the name of a character taken from one of the eight trigrams, ten Heavenly Stems, or twelve Earthly Branches. Between these twenty-four points of the compass are marked another twenty-four binomes based on the names of the two points within whose fifteen-degree arc they lie. For example, chen is marked on the compass at what we designate as 120 degrees, and the next point, continuing clockwise and marked xun, is 135 degrees. A challenge for historians has been to read these compass directions. Mills noticed the problem in his 1937 article on the Zheng He charts in the Wubei zhi and offered three alternative readings. Did chenxun mean follow a chen course (120 degrees) and then switch to a xun course (135 degrees); travel on a course midway between chen and xun (127.5 degrees); or travel in a direction somewhere between chen and xun (120–135 degrees)? Mills favored the first explanation.26 In 1944, W. Z. Mulder, a Dutchman with ten years' navigational experience in the South China Sea, proposed a fourth alternative, which is that there was not one point midway on each 15-degree arc, but two. For the case given, xunchen should be read as chen by xun, that is, 125 degrees, and chenxun as xun by chen, or 130 degrees.27 Although Mills dismissed Mulder's reconstruction, Brook followed it in the first edition of Mr. Selden's Map of China, persuaded in part by a compass diagram in the British Library that Michael Shen, the first educated Chinese to visit Oxford, drew for the Bodleian librarian Thomas Hyde in 1687 on the basis of a compass that John Selden donated to Oxford. Lengthy discussion with Endymion Wilkinson subsequently suggested that this reconstruction was not supported by the patterns of binomes found in other navigational texts, and that the correct way of reading the binomes was to locate them, regardless of the order of their characters, at one point midway between the two positions named, in this case, at 127.5 degrees. The second edition of Mr. Selden's Map of China follows this interpretation. It is worth raising the matter here to alert future researchers that the issue may not be closed.
Primary Sources
All of the currently known primary sources for the history of maritime mapping in the Ming dynasty have been explored here: coastal maps, route charts, rutters, and the Selden Map. Of written sources, Zhang Xie's Dongxi yang kao is the most informative, as he drew on a large mass of documentary material and personal observation to produce his handbook. More sources await discovery, not just in China but in Japan and possibly other locations around East Asia where Chinese sojourned.
Additional material on Asian navigation history may be gleaned from the diaries of men working for the East India Company, particularly those of John Saris and Richard Cocks for the early 17th century.28 The archives of the East India companies in London, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and elsewhere should also yield useful material pertaining to Chinese navigation.
Links to Digital Materials
The Selden Map is available in two locations, one from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library and the other at Factum Arte, which produced the high-resolution (22.3 data pixels per displayed pixel) image for the Bodleian Library.
Further Reading
Batchelor, Robert. London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549–1689. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.Find this resource:
Brook, Timothy. Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008.Find this resource:
Brook, Timothy. Mr. Selden's Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Also published as Mr Selden's Map of China: The Spice Trade, a Lost Chart and the South China Sea. London: Profile, 2013.Find this resource:
Drake, Fred W. China Charts the World: Hsu Chi-yü and his Geography of 1848. Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.Find this resource:
Leonard, Jane. Wei Yuan and China's Rediscovery of the Maritime World. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984.Find this resource:
Mills, John V. G. Ma Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan, 'The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores' (1433). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1970.Find this resource:
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, Pt. 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1971.Find this resource:
Ptak, Roderich. China, the Portuguese, and the Nanyan: Oceans and Routes, Regions and Trade (c. 1000–1600). Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. Trade and Transfer across the East Asian "Mediterranean." Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2005.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. East Asian Maritime World, 1400–1800: Its Fabrics of Power and Dynamics of Exchanges. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2007.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2008.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela, ed. Trading Networks in Early Modern East Asia. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2010.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela. "The 'China Seas' in World History: A General Outline of the Role of Chinese and East Asian Maritime Space from its Origins to c. 1800." Journal of Marine and Island Cultures 1.2 (December 2012): 63–86.Find this resource:
Schottenhammer, Angela, and Roderich Ptak, eds. The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2006.Find this resource:
Wade, Geoff, ed. Southeast Asia-China Interactions: Reprint of Articles from the Journal of The Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Singapore: NUS Press, 2007.Find this resource:
Yee, Cordell. "Reinterpreting Traditional Chinese Geographical Maps." In The History of Cartography. vol. 2, Pt. 2. Edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward, 35–70. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.Find this resource:
Yee, Cordell. "Taking the World's Measure: Chinese Maps between Observation and Text." In The History of Cartography. vol. 2, Pt. 2. Edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward, 96–127. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.Find this resource:
(1.) Noted in Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (New York: Bloomsbury, 2008), 170.
(2.) Cited in Timothy Brook, Mr Selden's Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 96.
(3.) For a complete bibliography of the copious studies of the Zheng He voyages, see Jong Liu, Zhongping Chen, and Gregory Blue, eds., Zheng He's Maritime Voyages (1405–1433) and China's Relations with the Indian Ocean World: A Multilingual Bibliography (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014).
(4.) Timothy Brook, "Trade and Conflict in the South China Sea: China and Portugal, 1514–1523," in A Global History of Trade and Conflict since 1500, eds. Lucia Coppolaro and Francine McKenzie (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 20–37.
(5.) Zhang Xie, Dongxi yang kao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 171, translated in Brook, Mr Selden's Map of China, 110.
(7.) Preface to Zhinan zhengfa, in Xiang Da, ed., Liangzhong haidao zhenjing (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 107.
(8.) The newly recognized value of the hourglass is signaled by the inclusion of a full-page illustration of one in a Chinese book about the Ryukyu Islands published in 1757, Liuqiuguo zhilüe (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1969), tuhui 34b.
(9.) For a survey of coastal maps, see Li Xiaocong, "Zhongguo lishishang de haiyang kongjian yu yanhai ditu," and Claudine Salmon, "Coastal Map from the Beginning of the Qing Dynasty, with Special Reference to the Qingchu haijiang tushuo," both in The Perception of Maritime Space in Traditional Chinese Sources, eds. Angela Schottenhammer and Roderich Ptak (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2006), 155–189.
(10.) Published in Zhonghua guditu zhenpin xuanji (Harbin, China: Haerbin ditu chubanshe, 1998), 114–115. Li, who at that time was serving as director of education in Shandong province, may or may not have been involved in the production of this map, though his subsequent posting to Liaodong at the start of Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea could indicate an informed interest in maritime affairs. See the biography of Li Hualong by Chaoying Fang in Dictionary of Ming Biography, eds. L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 822–826. This map is kept in the Beijing Library.
(11.) Published in Zhongguo gudai dituji: Mingdai (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1994), plates 39–45, pp. 24–25. This map is preserved in the Number One Historical Archives in Beijing.
(12.) On route maps for land travel, see Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002).
(13.) The text is available in a modern edition in Xiang Da, ed., Zheng He hanghai tu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961). For a close study of aspects of the chart, see John V. G. Mills, "Arab and Chinese Navigators in Malaysian Waters in about A.D. 1500," in Southeast Asia-China Interactions, ed. Geoff Wade (Singapore: NUS Press, 2007), 409–488. Several essays in Zheng Yijun and Zheng Hesheng, eds., Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao xuanbian (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), examine the Wubei zhi chart: see especially Liu Mingshu, "Zheng He hanghai shiji zhi zaitan," (192–215), and Fan Wentao, "'Zheng He hanghai tu' diming kaoshi" (216–241).
(14.) John V. G. Mills, "Notes on Early Chinese Voyages," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1.2 (April 1951): 17.
(15.) Xiao Chongye, Shi Liuqiu lu (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1969), 18; and Xia Ziyang, Shi Liuqiu lu (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1969), 73. For studies of these charts, see Maria Schreibweis, "Der Seeweg China-Ryukyu am Beispiel des Gesandtschaftsberichts Shi Liuqiu lu von Chen Kan (1489–1538), in Trade and Transfer across the East Asian "Mediterranean," ed. Angela Schottenhammer (Wiesbaden, Germanhy: Harrassowitz, 2005), 11–74; and Angela Schottenhammer, "Islands in Traditional Chinese Sources: An Introduction," Crossroads: Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World 7 (2013).
(16.) Xiao Chongye, Shi Liuqiu lu, 14–16.
(17.) Xia Ziyang, Shi Liuqiu lu, 29–32: "On a bing (165º) wind, it took an yimao heading (97½º) for 7 watches. On a ding (195º) wind, it took a chenxun heading (127½º) for 1 watch. When the ship was abeam of Nianmi Shan, it again took a chenxun heading (127½º) for 6 watches. When the ship was abreast of Wengju Shan at Tunaqi, it again took a chenxun heading (127½º) for 1 watch. When the ship was abeam of Machi Shan (Horsetooth Island), went directly to Naba Harbor of Ryukyu."
(18.) Zhang Xun, Gu hanghai tu (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1980).
(20.) Qian Jiang and Chen Jiarong, "Niujin cang 'Mingdai dongxi yang hanghai tu' jiemeizuo—Yelu cang 'Qingdai dongnan yang hanghai tu'," Haijiao shi yanjiu 2013:2, 1–101.
(21.) Fan Lai, Liangzhe haifang leikao xubian (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1983), 9.7a–10a.
(22.) On the distinction between Eastern Sea and Western Sea, see Li Xiaocong, "Zhongguo lishishang de haiyang kongjian yu yanhai ditu," 160–166.
(23.) Timothy Brook, "Traces of the Zheng He Voyages in Late-Ming Navigational Materials," in Ming China: Courts and Contacts, eds. Craig Clunas and Jessica Harrison-Hall (London: British Museum, 2016), 253–259.
(24.) On the problem of ship speeds, see Brook, Mr. Selden's Map of China, 162–163.
(25.) Peter Shapinsky, "Polyvocal Portolans: Nautical Charts and Hybrid Maritime Cultures in Early Modern East Asia," Early Modern Japan 14 (2006): 4–26. See also Kazutaka Unno, "Cartography in Japan," in The History of Cartography, Vol. 2, Pt. 2., eds. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 381–386.
(26.) John V. G. Mills, "Malaya in the Wu-pei-chih Charts," in Southeast Asia-China Interactions, 372.
(27.) W. Z. Mulder, "The 'Wei Pei Chih' Charts," Toung pao 37 (1944): 5–6.
(28.) John Saris, The Voyage of Captian John Saris to Japan, 1613, ed. Ernest Satow (London: Hakluyt Society, 1900); and Richard Cocks, Diary of Richard Cocks, ed. Edward Thompson, 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1883; repr. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010).


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I was quite surprised to read not one but two columnists attack a new law, the FAIR Education Act, just signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.
I usually find both columnists quite interesting and agree with most of their viewpoints, especially Dan Kimber's "Education Matters" column. I'm not quite sure why both Kimber and Patrick Caneday ("Small Wonders: Small Wonders: Honor them for what they've done," July 23) are so hostile to inclusion of gay and lesbian historical people and matters.
Although both try to sound concerned and sympathetic to gays and lesbians, and generally have a calm tone instead of outright bigotry or hatred, I found opinions by both as simplistic and ignorant.
In fact, I'm fairly confident that if I asked each 10 simple questions in regard to gay and lesbian leaders and historical information they would probably fail, and I would not blame them. They are straight men whose teachers never taught them anything about gays and lesbians and who never read information on gays and lesbians in our school history books.
Unfortunately, even most gays and lesbians have to go out of their way to find out about their own history since they grew up in heterosexual families.
The simple fact is that history should include everyone and everything historical and should not leave any voids, even about controversial issues, people and communities. A good example of this is in regard to the Jewish holocaust. Almost everyone has learned about this horrible event in which millions of Jews, communists, gypsies and political opponents of the Nazis were slaughtered. In countless history books up until very recently — and even today in most junior and high schools — the thousands of gay men who wore pink triangles in the concentration camps and were exterminated by the Nazis were completely left out of the picture.
If it is important to know that Martin Luther King was one of the leaders who led African Americans to freedom as well as Cesar Chavez who helped Mexican Americans gain equality, why is it that we should leave out the civil rights leaders of the gay community?
Sexual orientation is who a person is not what a person does.
Gay and straight students need to know that Leonardo Da Vinci, Alexander the Great, Alan Turing and Martina Navratilova were and are gay so that straight students can see that these are important historic people who accomplished great things in their own right. They need to know they were gay so that they can gain a clear, complete picture of real people and not ridiculous stereotypes.
Caneday wonders why we need to know that they're gay. After all, do we need to know that "John Muir walked off the dusty trails and into a warm bed of a woman?"
The truth is that the overwhelming assumption of society is that obviously he was straight, as was everyone else. Internet resources provide a wealth of pictures and information on John Muir's wife and their two children.
But many important historical gay people were not shown to have a partner. In fact, up until very recent times, obituaries would omit or deny printing the name of a gay partner and neglect to mention the partner in anniversary or wedding announcements as well.
Perhaps the best reason why the FAIR Education Act is necessary is so gay and lesbian students can learn that despite the constant harassment, name calling and violence committed against them, there is still hope and that others just like them accomplished great things that helped the world.
Mark Satterlee


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Surgery museum holds wonders for the brave
You would expect a place called the International Museum of Surgical Science to display a lot of sharp-edged instruments — and does it ever. From ancient blades used to cut holes in a patient's skull (a still-mysterious procedure called trepanation) to the modern devices used to remove blockages from blood vessels, this Chicago museum provides a fascinating historical tour of surgical technology.
In many cases the old gadgets on display would be thoroughly familiar to today's physicians. Surgical tools unearthed from the Roman city of Pompeii, smothered by volcanic ash in the year 79, are barely different from their modern analogs. These and other relics will appeal especially to those who are medically inclined or have an interest in history.
Yet the museum doesn't just dwell on past glories. Visitors can see how prosthetics have advanced from the days of peg legs and hooks to high-tech devices made with


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Chris Nelson just picked up wood carving six months ago — now he's turned that hobby into a business. Here are some pieces carved by Nelson and childhood friend/frequent collaborator Brett Sargent. See the full story here.
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CDC: Flu Season Likely To Be Severe One
The CDC says the U.S. is experiencing one of the most severe flu seasons in recent memory. CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald says it could be on par with the 2014-2015 flu season.
"We are currently in the midst of a very active flu season with much of the nation experiencing widespread and intense activity," Fitzgerald said.
The "very active" flu season started early, which is never a good sign, officials said. According to the CDC's latest data, influenza is peaking across the entire country. At least 20 children have died because of this year's strain with many more needing hospital stays.
Some states are pleading with residents to get the flu shot to help alleviate crowded emergency rooms. Health officials say influenza is a major killer, sending anywhere between 140,000 and 710,000 to the hospital each year. Around 12,000 to 56,000 die from it, depending on the severity of the virus. Even healthy adults can die from the flu.
The most vulnerable are the very young, the very old, people with compromised immune systems, and those with asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. According to the CDC, several strains of the flu are currently floating around the country, H3N2, H1N1 and two strains of influenza B are what's making people sick.
The CDC says the most common strain right now is H3N2, which the current vaccine on the market protects against. Health officials say the current vaccines on the market provide around 30 percent protection from the H3N2 flu.


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Sunset Guided Battlefield Bus TourApril 23, 2018
Gettysburg National Military Park Licensed Guide will do the presentation on Double Decker Bus(weather permitting). Tour is 2 hours in length and covers all three days that took place in Gettysburg. You will depart bus for at least one scenic stop.
Interested in adding other attractions to your Battlefield Tour? Choose the "Gettysburg Value Plan."
Please note: Bottom is not air-conditioned and weather permitting.
Introducing the Tour Plus at the Gettysburg Tour Center!
An easy to use iPad software tool that automatically shows guests images based on GPS location. We supply you with an iPad and as you travel through the battlefield Tour Plus shows you appropriate images including maps, historical figures, old photos, weapons, timelines, and bonus pictures. Much more than just a history lesson Tour Plus is about you, and enhancing your experience of the Gettysburg Battlefield! (One Ipad per family and limited quantities available).
To add the Tour Plus to your battlefield tour, add the option to your shopping cart via the drop down tour options.


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Starz Renews Da Vinci's Demons for Season 3 with New Showrunner
May 6, 2014 4:03 PM EDT
Starz has renewed Da Vinci's Demons for a third season, albeit with a new showrunner. John Shiban, a former staff writer on The X-Files, will join the show as an executive producer and showrunner, replacing creator David S. Goyer. Goye… Read more