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Slideshow ( 2 images )
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani agreed that it was time to “accelerate efforts” to end the war in Afghanistan, the State Department said on Thursday.
Pompeo and Ghani spoke by phone on Wednesday, the State Department said. Pompeo assured Ghani that the United States remains committed to a conditions-based drawdown of troops, according to the State Department.
Violence flared in Kabul on Thursday, with two explosions taking place moments after a bus carrying government employees was hit by a blast, killing five people.
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News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email
Two friends have beat million-to-one odds to crack the facial recognition on the iPhone X - after discovering it accepted both their faces.
Joe Clayton, 23, was shocked when best pal Brad Butcher, 22, unlocked Apple's most expensive phone just by looking at it.
The construction site manager had set up the gadget so only his face appearing in front of the camera would unlock the phone.
But the phone will also give Ben access - and therefore make contactless payments - despite Apple claiming the chances of a mix up are one in a million.
(Image: SWNS.com)
The childhood friends both have dark hair and brown eyes, but have distinctly different shaped faces, noses and mouths.
The discovery casts doubt on the security claims of the phone and Apple's 'million to one' claims.
Joe, from Melksham, Wiltshire, said: "We realised the issue was there in the gym when I crushed the back of my foot doing leg press in the gym.
(Image: SWNS.com)
"I passed the phone to Brad to message a friend about what had happened. He looked at the screen and it flashed open. It works every time.
"It's very worrying because a lot of people have this phone and it's a serious fault.
"It's not doing it with anybody else's face - only Brad - but we don't look that much alike.
(Image: SWNS.com)
"In the face we are quite different. We both have thick eyebrows but he definitely has a longer forehead.
"I think people say we're similar because of our jawlines and dark hair but the iPhone is meant to register facial depth which is a different thing altogether."
Brad, who uses an iPhone 7, said the experience has put him off getting another iPhone.
(Image: SWNS.com)
He said: "It seems like the only big difference between my iPhone 7 and Joe's X is the face recognition so I think it's ridiculous you have to pay such a high price for a feature that doesn't work properly.
"I wouldn't get another iPhone at all because it's such a large security feature that's clearly faulty.
Brad described the moment he opened the iPhone as "funny at first" and added: "I thought the phone was already unlocked until Joe said 'You must have unlocked it with your face'.
(Image: Apple)
"After that we laughed and did it again - it's quite scary really that it can be done so easily.
"Me and Joe don't look the same like we used to as kids, particularly in the face because his is much skinnier."
"You'd think that would be enough for the iPhone to recognise it's a different person."
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
The pair has since realised Brad can access Joe's phone every time he looks at it, giving him full access to his contacts, messages and apps - including contactless payment.
Apple say the probability of a random person unlocking an iPhone X with facial ID is one in a million - less than their 'fingerprint' technology.
Their website claims: "The probability that a random person in the population could look at your iPhone X and unlock it using Face ID is approximately one in one million (versus one in 50,000 for Touch ID)."
A spokesman for Apple refused to comment.
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PARIS (Reuters) - France is consulting with its European partners about the situation in Venezuela, the president’s office said on Wednesday as the South American country’s opposition leader declared himself interim president.
“We are closely following the situation and we are consulting our European partners,” a presidency official told Reuters after several countries in the region and Washington recognized opposition head Juan Guaido as interim president.
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Iris cypriana
Iris cypriana is a species in the genus Iris, it is also in the subgenus of Iris. It is a rhizomatous perennial, from Cyprus. It has narrow, glaucous and evergreen leaves, tall slender stem, with 2–3 branches, and 1–3 large flowers in lavender, lilac, red-lilac, to dark purple shades. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in temperate regions. It is listed in some sources as a synonym of Iris germanica.
Description
It has long and horizontal rhizomes and numerous secondary roots (underneath the rhizome), they are similar in form to other bearded irises.
It has 2–3 basal, narrow, ensiform (sword shaped), glaucous and evergreen leaves. They can grow up to long, and between wide. They are narrower than Iris mesopotamica leaves. They are finely and irregularly ribbed. The leaves, soon die after flowering, then compared to Iris junonia, the leaves re-grow in autumn. They are larger enough, that during winter they can be damaged by frosts.
It has a slender stem or peduncle, that can grow up to between tall.
It has 2–3 (rarely 4,) slender (slightly weak,) branches (or pedicels), near top of the plant.
The stem and branches have 2 (scarious) membranous spathes, (leaves of the flower bud). They are normally up to long, navicular (boat shaped), broad and rounded. The outer bracts are brown and paper-like, or completely scarious.
The stems (and many branches) hold between 1 and 3 flowers, in late spring, between March and May, or June. The large flowers, are in diameter, come in various shades, from lavender, lilac, red-lilac, to dark purple.
Like other irises, it has 2 pairs of petals, 3 large sepals (outer petals), known as the 'falls' and 3 inner, smaller petals (or tepals), known as the 'standards'. The falls are obovate and cuneate, or wedge shaped. They are long and wide. They can have green-brown, or white veining on the hafts (where the petal meets the stem). In the centre of the petal is a thick white beard, tipped with orange. The standards are oblong, and long, and wide. They are paler in colour than falls.
It has style branch that is 3.9 cm long and 1.9 cm wide.
It has a light green, perianth tube that is long. It is longer and more slender than Iris mesopotamica. It is also longer than Iris pallida.
It has filaments that are longer than anthers, which are 1.5 – 1.6 cm long and 1.5–1.8 cm long and 0.6 cm wide ovary. Iris pallida has small ovaries.
After the iris has flowered, it produces an oval seed capsule, that is long and wide. It is triangular in cross-section, with 6 grooves or ridges. Inside the capsule, are pyriform (pear shaped0 or D shaped seeds, that are brown and wrinkled. They can measure up to 8mm x 5mm. They also germinate easily.
Biochemistry
In 1956, a karyotype analysis was carried out on 40 species of Iris, belonging to the subgenera Eupogoniris and Pogoniris. The 48-chromosome tall bearded species include Iris kashmiriana, Iris mesopotamica, Iris cypriana and Iris croatica, are characterized by having 4 pairs of median-constricted chromosomes, twice the number of those present in Iris pallida Heinig.
As most irises are diploid, having two sets of chromosomes, this can be used to identify hybrids and classification of groupings.
Iris cypriana is a tetraploid,.
It has a chromosome count: 2n=48.
Note, Iris germanica has a count of 2n=40.
Taxonomy
It is commonly known as the Cyprian Iris, (under Iris germanica).
The Latin specific epithet cypriana refers to (coming from) Cyprus.
It was first published and described by Foster and Baker in The Gardeners' Chronicle (Gard. Chron.) Vol.2 on page 182 in 1888 and then by Baker in 'Handbook of the Irideae' (Handb. Irid.) on page 37 in 1892.
It was often confused with Iris mesopotamica and Iris trojana, Iris trojana is now classified as a synonym of Iris germanica.
In 1927, Iris pallida and Iris variegata were thought to be parent plants in Iris germanica. Then Mr Foster was sent plants from the Mediterranean, including Iris cypriana and Iris mesopotamica. He then started an iris breeding programme, that produced larger plants with different colours and patterns.
In 1982, Brian Matthew reclassified Iris cypriana as a synonym of Iris germanica. Some botanists link it to Iris pallida.
It has not been verified by United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service as of 19 September 2015.
It is listed in the Encyclopedia of Life as a synonym of Iris germanica.
It is also listed in The Plant List, as Iris × cypriana Foster & Baker as a synonym of Iris × germanica L.
Iris cypriana is a considered an 'unchecked name' by the RHS.
Distribution and habitat
It is native to Central Europe.
Range
It is found in Cyprus,<!also-->
It is thought that it may have come from somewhere else, such as Turkey or Iraq.
Habitat
It grows on rocky grounds.
Conservation
After its re-classification, specimens in the wild have not been found.
Cultivation
It is hardy to Europe zone H2. Meaning that it is hardy to −15 to-20oC (5 to −4oF).
It is very difficult to grow in the UK and eastern US, unless grown in dry sand under glass, during summer (after blooming, between July, August and September). The rhizome is liable to rot in wet climates.
It is best planted between August and September to get flowers the next year.
Aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae can be found on the plant.
Hybrids and cultivars
Since, being introduced it has been used in many plant breeding or hybridizing programmes. Robert Wallace (of Essex,) introduced many crosses (including 'Caterina', 'Crusader' and 'Lady Foster') after Dr Foster's death in 1907. As well as Iris 'Kashmir White' (in 1912).
A known Iris cypriana cultivar is 'Cypriana Tarsus'.
Known Iris cypriana crosses include;
'Ambrose Wiseman', 'Amy Brandon Thomas', 'Arac', 'Bashi – Bazouk', 'Bolinbroke', 'Caterina', 'Crusader', 'Erato', 'Halstead', 'Hamdo'llah', 'John Foster', 'Korolcyp', 'Lady Foster', 'Mareschal', 'Mother Of Pearl', 'Muriel', 'Nirvana', 'Red Embers', 'Shelford Chieftain', 'Stamboul', 'Tamerlain', 'Yolande'.
'Caterina' (is a cross between Iris cypriana and Iris pallida), introduced in 1909, it is tall, light lavender-violet or pale lavender, flowered with a white and yellow tipped beard.
'Crusader' (introduced in 1913), has large lavender blue flowers, on tall stems.
'Lady Foster', was introduced in 1913.
Toxicity
Like many other irises, most parts of the plant are poisonous (rhizome and leaves), and if mistakenly ingested can cause stomach pains and vomiting. Handling the plant may cause skin irritation or an allergic reaction.
References
External links
cypriana
Category:Endemic flora of Cyprus
Category:Garden plants of Europe
Category:Plants described in 1888
Category:Poisonous plants
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About Us
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Ricki & Copper
Ricki & Copper (1959–1969) was a popular local children's program that ran weekday mornings on WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was one of two locally produced children's shows that aired on WTAE, the other being Paul Shannon's Adventure Time, which aired in the afternoon. The show was originally an offshoot of another local program, The Comedy Show which ran from 1958 to 1959.
Background
The series was hosted by Ricki Wertz and "Copper", a half whippet, half golden retriever with reddish hair dog, who in real life was owned by Wertz. The live program featured children in the audience and like most children shows back in the day featured fun, games, safety tips and cartoons. She would also reward her audience with Hostess CupCakes after chanting "Ala-ka-zaam, Ka-zaam, Ka-zoom!" during every show.
Other characters on the program included a puppet called Mr. Boom-Man (who of course, was attached to a boom microphone), which was created by Wertz's husband, Tom Borden. The reason behind Mr. Boom-Man was to help Wertz keep the mostly 4 to 8 year olds on camera and not on Copper, who viewers believed was the actual star of the show.
In addition to the morning show, Wertz hosted a midday edition, Ricki & Magoo, which was a 15-minute program where she introduced Mr. Magoo cartoons after WTAE's noon newscast.
Final years
However, tragedy would strike the show in 1967, when a stroke resulted in Copper becoming paralyzed and would be euthanised that same year. Another dog, (full-blooded golden retriever with reddish hair) Copper Penny, would become the new "Copper."
But by 1969, Wertz decided to no longer do "Ricki & Copper" due to her decision to become a full-time mother after her daughter was born (prematurately). Wertz however continued to host another WTAE program, Junior High Quiz, until it ended its run in 1982.
Nostalgia
Even though the episodes have thought to be bulked-erased, Pittsburghers today still remember the series as photos and archives of the program can be found on several websites including WTAE's homepage. In December 2014, a rare full-length episode of the program that WTAE had taped was posted on the station's website.
Video Clips
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
See also
List of local children's television series
External links
"Ricki Wertz's career focused on kids" (from Tribune-Review in 2003)
Article from In Pittsburgh Newsweekly from 1998
Show detailed on WTAE's website
Pictures of Wertz at Pittsburgh's Familiar Faces
Article from 1996 mentions Ricki & Copper
Wertz photo
Category:Media in Pittsburgh
Category:Local children's television programming in the United States
Category:1959 American television series debuts
Category:1969 American television series endings
Category:1950s American children's television series
Category:1960s American children's television series
Category:American television programs featuring puppetry
Category:Television shows set in Pittsburgh
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Q:
How much longitude and latitude does a pixel represent in Google Maps with zero zoom?
In the documentation about this topic posted here it mentions that the top left corner of this 256x256 pixel Mercator world map has the coordinates 180° longitude y aprox. 85° latitude.
I'm developing a Unity3D application (using C#) in which I need to superpose different items on top of a map that I have retrieved using simple GET HTTP requests to the Google Maps API (maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap), so I need to know which the base scale is so I can extrapolate all the other scales with the mentioned base-2 sizes of every zoom value.
A:
The best resource for this is here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Slippy_map_tilenames#Resolution_and_Scale
Resolution and Scale
Exact length of the equator (according to wikipedia) is 40075.016686 km in WGS-84. A horizontal tile size at zoom 0 would be 156543.03 meters:
40075.016686 * 1000 / 256 ≈ 6378137.0 * 2 * pi / 256 ≈ 156543.03
Which gives us a formula to calculate resolution at any given zoom:
resolution = 156543.03 meters/pixel * cos(latitude) / (2 ^ zoomlevel)
Some applications need to know a map scale, that is, how 1 cm on a screen translates to 1 cm of a map.
scale = 1 : (screen_dpi * 39.37 in/m * resolution)
And here is the table to rid you of those calculations. All values are shown for equator, and you have to multiply them by cos(latitude) to adjust to a given latitude. For example, divide those by 2 for latitude 60 (Oslo, Helsinki, Saint-Petersburg).
Here it is tab-delimited (for convenient copy and pasting)
zoom resolution, m/px scale 96 dpi 1 screen cm is scale 120 dpi
0 156543.03 1 : 554 678 932 5547 km 1 : 739 571 909
1 78271.52 1 : 277 339 466 2773 km 1 : 369 785 954
2 39135.76 1 : 138 669 733 1337 km 1 : 184 892 977
3 19567.88 1 : 69 334 866 693 km 1 : 92 446 488
4 9783.94 1 : 34 667 433 347 km 1 : 46 223 244
5 4891.97 1 : 17 333 716 173 km 1 : 23 111 622
6 2445.98 1 : 8 666 858 86.7 km 1 : 11 555 811
7 1222.99 1 : 4 333 429 43.3 km 1 : 5 777 905
8 611.50 1 : 2 166 714 21.7 km 1 : 2 888 952
9 305.75 1 : 1 083 357 10.8 km 1 : 1 444 476
10 152.87 1 : 541 678 5.4 km 1 : 722 238
11 76.437 1 : 270 839 2.7 km 1 : 361 119
12 38.219 1 : 135 419 1.35 km 1 : 180 559
13 19.109 1 : 67 709 677 m 1 : 90 279
14 9.5546 1 : 33 854 339 m 1 : 45 139
15 4.7773 1 : 16 927 169 m 1 : 22 569
16 2.3887 1 : 8 463 84.6 m 1 : 11 284
17 1.1943 1 : 4 231 42.3 m 1 : 5 642
18 0.5972 1 : 2 115 21.2 m 1 : 2 821
Other Resources:
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.3/java/index.htm#designing_overlay_gm_mve.htm
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Article Tools
Voters in Newport Township will have to choose two Democrats from three commissioner candidates this primary election.
Incumbents John Zyla, 61, and John Vishnefski, 62, are defending their seats against John Grabowski in an election that comes on the heels of an ambulance flap over insurance reimbursements between the service in the township and another in Nanticoke and the township receiving a $500,000 grant to begin work on a new municipal building.
The incumbents say that, although it lacks major businesses for income, the township has been able to maintain a balanced budget while maintaining services like 24-hour fire protection, full-time police and garbage collection.
"Our biggest problem, we're looking at it every day - trying to get people to commit to the township is our infrastructure, because we're land rich and no big business," said Zyla, who was first elected commissioner in 1978. "I'm proud as we're going along that we're not in the red because we have no big business in the township now. Keeping everything going and not raising people's taxes, that's probably the proudest thing as a board."
Vishnefski, who has been a commissioner for about 10 years, said being able to begin work on the municipal building because of the grant is a "stepping stone" for the community.
"It's kind of like finally we can put something back into the township," he said.
Commissioners are still waiting to hear back from the ambulance companies on a potential resolution to the dispute with Nanticoke, and Vishnefski, a lifelong township resident, said he will be able to devote adequate time to the job if he's re-elected.
"Now in retirement I will have more time to spend with the other commissioners on making the township a better place to live," Vishnefski said.
Grabowski, a 47-year-old supervisor at Tru-Form in Wilkes-Barre, said he thinks honesty is the most important issue of the election. He noted that under his leadership as president of the Newport Township Recreation Board, the long-closed Coal Street park reopened with new equipment, there are more summer programs for children and the township's baseball fields are operating on a successful schedule.
"Raising a family in the Glen Lyon section of Newport Township drives me to make the township the best it can be for everyone," Grabowski said. "With this in mind I will be dedicated and hardworking for all the good of Newport Township."
[email protected], 570-821-2058
John Grabowski
Age: 47
Residence: Newport Township
Education: Greater Nanticoke Area High School
Employment: Tru-Form, Wilkes-Barre.
Experience: A supervisor position at Tru-Form has given me the experience of dealing with problems in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Family: Wife, Brenda Grabowski, and 10-year-old son, Jake.
John Vishnefski
Age: 62
Residence: Newport Township
Education: Greater Nanticoke Area High School, Class of 1970
Employment: Retired after 26 years in customer service at Pennsylvania American Water.
Experience: About 10 years as a Newport Township commissioner
Family: Wife, Diane; sons, John and Daniel
John Zyla
Age: 61
Residence: Newport Township
Education: Greater Nanticoke Area High School, Class of 1970; and one year at Northeasten Pennsylvania Technical Center
Employment: Utility plant operator for the Department of Corrections at SCI-Retreat.
Experience: Newport Township commissioner from 1978 to 1985; Greater Nanticoke Area School Board from 1985 to 1987; Sheatown committeeman from 1986 to 1993; Newport Township commissioner from 1993 to present; 35-year member of the Newport Township Lions Club.
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Mammary growth pattern in goats during pregnancy and lactation.
Nine groups of five dairy goats from four breeds, with each breed represented at least once in each group, were in our experiment to measure mammary gland growth. Groups were virgins, days 90 to 100 pregnancy, 5 days prepartum (145 days pregnancy), 1 or 2 days prepartum, and 1 or 2, 5, 10, 15, and 30 days in lactation. Virgins were 19 mo old while all others had one pregnancy and lactation prior to experiment. Indices of mammary growth included untrimmed and trimmed wet weights of udders, dried fat-free tissue weights, deoxyribonucleic acid and ribonucleic acid contents. Each index was in a regression equation best to describe the pattern of mammary growth. These included linear, quadratic, cubic, and exponential model Y = AebX in which Y was the index of mammary growth and X was the day of pregnancy. Total deoxyribonucleic acid was the best index of mammary growth with a correlation of .95 in the exponential model. The predictive equation for total deoxyribonucleic acid in milligram was Y = 167e.019X on a daily basis, and the rate of growth on a monthly basis was .57. Mammary growth in goats continued into early lactation, peaking at day 5. Ribonucleic acid doubled on the day after parturition, which reflected the rapid increase in protein synthesis at this time.
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Allahabad: The Allahabad high court on Wednesday directed its registry to place two separate petitions related to the decades-old Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi mosque dispute of Varanasi before an appropriate bench.
The order was passed by Justice Sangeeta Chandra on petitions filed by Anjuman Intazamia Masjid, Varanasi and Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Board of Waqfs, Lucknow.
The Anjuman Intazamia Masjid had moved the court challenging orders passed by Additional Districts Judge, Varanasi, in 1997 and 1998 whereby its application challenging a civil suit filed by the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir Trust had been turned down.
The Trust had filed the suit in 1991 claiming that a temple was constructed by Maharaja Vikramaditya more than 2,000 years ago on the site, where the mosque had been later erected.
Alleging that the temple was demolished by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1664 and a mosque constructed on a part of the land with the remains of the razed place of worship, the Trust has sought removal of the Gyanvapi Masjid from the site and possession of the entire piece of land.
In its application before ADJ Varanasi, the Anjuman Intazamia Masjid had contended that a “Mandir-Masjid dispute” could not be adjudicated by a civil court as it was “barred by law” and demanded that the trust’s petition be dismissed at the outset.
However, the lower court dismissed the application.
The Sunni Waqf Board had moved the court challenging the ADJ Varanasi’s orders turning down its request for being made a party to the civil suit. Initially, both parties had challenged the lower court orders filing petitions under Article 226 (power of High Courts to issue certain writs) of the Constitution.
Upon the high court’s advice, Anjuman Intazamia Masjid today filed an amendment application under Article 227 dealing with power of superintendence over all courts by the high court, which was allowed.
The Sunni Waqf Board could not come up with the same and, hence, was granted one week’s time. Justice Chandra directed that the petitions be placed before the bench having the requisite jurisdiction.
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Background {#Sec1}
==========
High Body Mass Index (BMI), poor diet, and physical inactivity were ranked among the top-10 risk factors attributable to the global burden of disease in 2010 \[[@CR1]\]. In New Zealand (NZ), 32% of adults are obese (BMI \> 30 kg/m^2^) and a further 35% are overweight, with notable sex and ethnic disparities. Compared with women, the prevalence of overweight is greater in NZ men classified as NZ European/Other (41% vs 32%), Māori (the Indigenous peoples of NZ; 33% vs 27%), and Pasifika (26% vs 16%, respectively) \[[@CR2]\]. Further, Māori and Pasifika men are 1.7 and 2.2 times more likely to be obese when compared with non-Māori and non-Pasifika men, respectively. Clearly overweight and obese NZ men, and in particular Māori and Pasifika men, are underserved by existing public health strategies \[[@CR3], [@CR4]\]. Healthy lifestyle programs that are both appealing to, and support, these men in weight loss and long-term lifestyle changes are urgently needed.
In the United Kingdom, Football Fans in Training (FFIT), a weight management and healthy lifestyle program, was developed to specifically target overweight and obese (BMI 28 kg/m^2^ or above) middle-aged men (aged 35--65 years) \[[@CR5], [@CR6]\]. FFIT was delivered via professional soccer clubs in Scotland, in an attempt to appeal to men, and draw on their fandom or allegiance to the clubs \[[@CR7]--[@CR9]\]. FFIT is evidence-based, gender-sensitized in context, content and style of delivery, includes behavior-change techniques known to be effective in promoting weight loss and physical activity \[[@CR10], [@CR11]\] and includes components designed to improve healthy eating, physical activity, and alcohol consumption \[[@CR12]\]. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) of FFIT (*n* = 748) showed a mean difference in weight loss of 4.94 kg (95% CI 3.95--5.94) at 12 months \[[@CR5]\]. After 3.5 years, 65% of the men had maintained a mean weight loss of 2.9 kg \[[@CR13]\]. Since the original FFIT trial, there has been considerable interest in using professional sports clubs to encourage men to participate in a range of health promotion initiatives \[[@CR5], [@CR14]--[@CR20]\]. Qualitative research has found that the social support received through participating in these sport-based lifestyle programs is highly valued by participants \[[@CR21]--[@CR23]\]. However, the type of support provided, and the extent to which participants gain a sense of identity with the program, have not been investigated.
In NZ, where a dominant rugby culture exists with large fan bases among NZ European, Māori and Pasifika people, we developed and piloted Rugby Fans in Training New Zealand (RUFIT-NZ), a program inspired by FFIT, but where professional football clubs were replaced with professional rugby clubs to harness sports club affiliation \[[@CR8]\]. Formative work conducted prior to the pilot study sought to determine the level of cultural adaptation required to engage Māori and Pasifika men in NZ and to meet the needs of NZ men more generally. This resulted in some adaptations to the UK FFIT program for NZ, including a more holistic perspective of health or "*haoura"* in Māori \[[@CR24]\], and changes to workshop sessions to include mindful eating, improving sleep, and reducing screen use and sedentary behaviors. Finally, for RUFIT-NZ, nutrition information was delivered by a nutritionist, reflecting men's desires to receive dietary advice from someone with specialist knowledge \[[@CR25]\].
A pilot RCT (*n* = 96) was conducted to evaluate the preliminary efficacy of RUFIT-NZ and to address feasibility issues including recruitment, retention, and acceptability of the program. After the 12-week intervention, a − 2.5 kg (95% CI − 0.4 to 5.4) difference in body weight was observed in favor of the intervention group. In addition, participants who received the program had significant reductions in waist circumference, resting heart rate, diastolic blood pressure, as well as improved fitness and improved adherence to lifestyle behaviors, including not smoking, and being physically active \[[@CR25]\]. Furthermore, 100% of those who completed the program said that they would recommend it to their friends, therefore supporting the feasibility and acceptability of RUFIT-NZ, and supporting a larger-scale RCT of the program \[[@CR25]\].
This paper describes the study protocol for the RUFIT-NZ main trial, which aims to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of RUFIT-NZ on weight loss and improvements in diet, physical activity, alcohol use, and in perceived social support at 52 weeks in overweight men aged 30--65 years. A secondary aim is to undertake an embedded process evaluation of RUFIT-NZ to assess reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance outcomes \[[@CR26], [@CR27]\]. Two dimensions operate at the individual level (reach and effectiveness) Additional file [1](#MOESM1){ref-type="media"}.
Methods {#Sec2}
=======
Study design {#Sec3}
------------
RUFIT-NZ is a pragmatic, multi-center, two-arm, parallel RCT, which includes an embedded process evaluation framework (RE-AIM) to assess reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance outcomes. *R*each refers to the proportion and characteristics of participants who receive the intervention. *E*ffectiveness concerns the impact of the intervention on the intended outcome. Adoption and implementation operate at the staff and organizational level. *A*doption refers to the percentage and characteristics of staff and settings that are willing to adopt or implement the intervention. *I*mplementation refers to the fidelity of implementing the intervention across settings and staff. *M*aintenance refers to the sustainability of the intervention once research support has ceased. This protocol has been prepared in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional trials (SPIRIT) 2013 Statement \[[@CR28]\] and is presented in Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}. The SPIRIT Checklist is shown as Additional file [2](#MOESM2){ref-type="media"}. Further, the intervention is described according to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Checklist \[[@CR29], [@CR30]\]. Table 1The schedule of the Rugby Fans in Training New Zealand (RUFIT-NZ) study period including; enrollment, interventions, and assessments
Study setting {#Sec4}
-------------
RUFIT-NZ is based within professional rugby clubs who participate in the Super Rugby competition across NZ (currently The Blues rugby club based in Auckland (North Island), The BNZ Crusaders based in Christchurch, and the Pulse Energy Highlanders based in Dunedin (both in the South Island)).
Study population and recruitment {#Sec5}
--------------------------------
Eligible participants are men aged 30--65 years who are overweight (defined as a BMI of ≥ 28 kg/m^2^), able to safely undertake physical activity, can understand and read English, and are able to provide written informed consent to participate in the study. All participants are pre-screened using the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) \[[@CR31], [@CR32]\] with physician consent to participate required for all participants endorsing any PAR-Q items. Participants are excluded if they are participating in another healthy lifestyle program or know at baseline that they will be unable to complete the 1-year follow-up. Participants are recruited via the respective club's fan base registries, including their Facebook pages, supporter mailing lists, and newspaper advertisements/articles; they are also recruited through Māori-specific networks (via *Marae* and media (e.g., Māori television and radio)) and Facebook advertisements.
Each advertisement links to the University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Science's research study recruitment page. Using this page, participants access additional information about the study, the Participant Information Sheet/Consent Form, and have the option of contacting the research team for further information or linking directly to the online plan and registration form. As part of the screening questionnaire, participants confirm that they can attend one of the pre-specified baseline assessments located at their preferred rugby club, and complete the PAR-Q \[[@CR31]\]. Participants are reminded to bring a letter to the baseline assessment from their general practitioner (GP) confirming that it is safe for them to exercise and participate in the study (if required). Once the online self-report screening questionnaire is complete, eligible participants are asked to select the pre-determined day and time that they would prefer to come to the club to complete their baseline measurements. During the baseline assessment and following collection of their weight and height, and calculation of BMI, participant eligibility is confirmed (see Additional file [3](#MOESM3){ref-type="media"}).
Sample size {#Sec6}
-----------
A total of 308 participants (154 per arm) will provide 90% power at 5% significance level (two-sided) to detect a clinically significant 5-kg difference \[[@CR7]\] on the primary outcome between the two groups at 52 weeks, assuming a standard deviation (SD) of 12 kg allowing for 20% loss to follow-up. Our SD is conservative and was derived from similar weight management trials for men \[[@CR25], [@CR33]\]. Based on the pilot study, the proposed 5-kg difference in body weight would be similar to a reduction in body mass of between 4 and 5% \[[@CR25]\]. As the indigenous population in NZ, we aim to recruit a total of 150 Māori participants (\~ 50% of the total sample size), which would provide 80% power to detect a 6-kg difference between groups under the same assumptions. Each club will implement strategies to minimize loss to follow-up and improve retention throughout the intervention (i.e., encouraging attendance, trainers notifying the coordinating center if men are absent for more than 2 weeks in a row with no explanation, and social media groups that all the men join) and for the follow-up testing sessions (i.e., provide the men with club merchandise where available, have club players present at the session, and offer alternate session times if required). As part of the consent process, participants are informed that they may withdraw from the program at any time during the study, without providing a reason to the research team or club.
Randomization {#Sec7}
-------------
Following baseline data collection, eligible and consented participants are randomized to either the RUFIT-NZ intervention or the control group in a 1:1 ratio using a computerized randomization process, ensuring allocation concealment. Randomization is stratified by baseline BMI category (\< 35 kg/m^2^ vs ≥ 35 kg/m^2^), self-reported ethnicity (Māori, Pasifika, non-Māori/non-Pasifika), and study center, using stratified block randomization with variable block sizes of 2 or 4. Participants are informed by email of their eligibility and allocation group within 2--3 days of their baseline assessment at the club. Due to the nature of the study, participants and research assistants will be aware of the treatment allocation post randomization. Study investigators and trial statistician will remain blinded until the end of the trial. To reduce assessment bias, the primary and key secondary outcomes will be measured objectively at 12 and 52 weeks.
Intervention {#Sec8}
------------
Specific details of the RUFIT-NZ program and how it was developed have been reported elsewhere \[[@CR25]\]. In short, RUFIT-NZ is a 12-week healthy lifestyle program, consisting of 12 × 2-h sessions. Each intervention session includes a 1-h workshop-based education component (see Table [2](#Tab2){ref-type="table"}) and 1-h group-based but individually tailored exercise training session. The education component aims to introduce participants to theory-based behavior-change techniques and to a range of topics relating to nutrition, sleep, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. The content of the classroom sessions has been standardized, so that the men participating at all clubs receive the same topic and key delivery points, but each club is able to tailor the sessions for delivery. Table 2The content of each workshop in the Rugby Fans in Training New Zealand (RUFIT-NZ) programWeek/sessionTopics/core messages to coverFacilitatorWeek 1: Lifestyle approach to health and goal-setting• Welcome and getting to know each other• Focus on lifestyle behaviors vs weight• SMART goal-setting• Team photoTrainerWeek 2:*"Big wins" -- nutrition*• Whole food philosophy including social aspects• Big wins for healthy diets• Incorporating fruit and vegetables• Healthy drink options• Healthy serving sizes• Reading food labelsNutritionist*Week 3: Planning and budgeting -- nutrition*• Menu-planning• Budgeting• Shopping• Being organized/importance of routineNutritionistWeek 4: Behavior change• Discussion of important behavior-change techniques: autonomous motivation, building confidence, goal setting, action and coping planning, self-monitoring, social supportTrainerWeek 5: *Mindful eating -- nutrition*• Focusing on your "circle of influence"• Eating out -- mindful eatingNutritionistWeek 6: Injury prevention• Informal session designed by trainer to meet individual needs of men in teamTrainer/physioWeek 7: *Q & A -- nutrition*• Q & A sessionNutritionistWeek 8: Alcohol and health• Alcohol weight-related facts• Standard drink sizes• Planning your drinkingTrainerWeek 9: Q & A (physical activity)• Q & A sessionTrainerWeek 10: Sleep and sedentary behavior• How sleep affects weight• How much sleep we need• Signs of sleep deprivation• Sleep hygiene tips• What is sedentary behavior• How SB affects weight• Tips for reducing SBTrainerWeek 11: Long-term behavior change and overcoming obstacles• Importance of enjoying PA for long-term maintenance• Overcoming obstacles• Planning for lifestyle change• Relapse preventionTrainerWeek 12: Team photo and motivational talk• Wrap-up• Motivational talk• Team photo and certificateTrainer*SB* sedentary behavior, *PA* physical activity
Education sessions are delivered predominantly by RUFIT-NZ-trained trainers, with the exception of the nutrition-based components, which are delivered by the club's nutritionist. RUFIT-NZ trainers are qualified strength and conditioning trainers involved with the respective rugby clubs.
With respect to the group-based in-stadia physical activity sessions, trainers are given the freedom to decide how to structure each of the sessions. This allows the trainers to decide how best to meet the needs of the individual men attending their specific RUFIT-NZ session. Each session progressively increases in difficulty over the 12 weeks, whilst taking account of each individual man's levels of fitness and is designed to be fun and varied, utilizing the supportive group involvement to foster the sense of being in a "team." The proposed group size ranges from approximately 15--20 men per trainer. Roll calls are taken at the beginning of each session to assess program attendance.
Throughout the intervention, men are encouraged to follow a daily step-based walking program \[[@CR34]--[@CR36]\]. All participants are encouraged to use a step counter (pedometer or smartphone app) to track their progress and receive a weekly step goal program to follow outside of the structured program. Furthermore, they are encouraged to do other forms of physical activity of their own choosing with a focus on integrating incidental activity into daily life (e.g., parking further from work). The RUFIT-NZ trainers also suggest "homework" physical activity that participants can do outside of the sessions. Participants' lifestyle behaviors in terms of alcohol, sleep, sedentary behavior, and nutrition will be guided by individual goals, which men set for themselves during the group education sessions and record in a workbook accompanying the program for their own reference.
The RUFIT-NZ nutrition-based content was developed by our investigator nutritionist (HE), and is delivered using a Family, Activity, Behavior (FAB) approach \[[@CR37]\]. However, because the diets of participants are influenced by their partners, family members (*whanau*) and friends, and the environment in which they live, learn, work, and play, the focus is on dietary changes that each participant can make within his own unique 'circle of influence' \[[@CR38]\]. The nutrition sessions are positively framed (e.g., "what are some good examples of healthy snacks?" and "where can I find quick easy recipes?"). Information is delivered via simple messages focusing on the practical elements of improving diet, and where possible is food -- rather than nutrient-focused. RUFIT-NZ nutrition sessions target the biggest "wins" for a healthy diet, considered to be: Eating as many fruit and vegetables as possibleCooking and preparing food and snacks at home as much as possibleEating mostly whole foods (as opposed to packaged/processed foods and takeaways)Drinking sugar-free beveragesConscious eating (screen-free, mindful eating, ideally in the company of others)
By focusing on these positive behaviors participants will, by default, consume less fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages, alcohol, energy, salt, sugar, and smaller portion sizes, reduce their risk of common nutrition-related diseases, and hopefully reduce their body weight. The men are also provided with a food diary to record their diet should they wish during the intervention. These messages also align with the NZ Eating and Activity Guidelines for Adults \[[@CR39]\].
Behavior-change techniques {#Sec9}
--------------------------
A wide range of evidence-based behavior-change techniques is used throughout the education and exercise sessions to equip men with the skills to initiate and maintain a healthy lifestyle \[[@CR40]\]. These are: (1) goal setting for, and self-monitoring of, weight, physical activity and healthy diet; (2) intention formation with action plans; (3) experiencing exercise sessions with increased challenges as well as positive feedback on exercise achievements and change reinforcement from trainers to build self-efficacy; and (4) identification of barriers and coping planning to help avoid relapse on completion of the program.
Wait-list controls {#Sec10}
------------------
The control group will continue with their usual lifestyle for 52 weeks during the trial period but will be offered the RUFIT-NZ program at the end of the 12-month follow-up period.
Training {#Sec11}
--------
All RUFIT-NZ trainers undergo a standardized training session prior to delivering the program. The training is delivered by a member of the RUFIT-NZ investigator team. Trainers receive a standardized booklet outlining the key principles of the program, content details for each of the education sessions, including PowerPoint presentations, participant worksheets and resources to help facilitate group discussions and interactions. Trainers are introduced to the Supportive, Active, Autonomous, Fair, and Enjoyable (SAAFE) delivery principles, which is an evidence-based framework designed to guide the planning, delivery, and evaluation of organized physical activity sessions \[[@CR41]\]. Trainers are encouraged to: (1) create a *S*upportive social environment, enabling learning from each other; (2) maximize participants' opportunities to be physically *A*ctive during the sessions; (3) satisfy participants' need for *A*utonomy by including elements of choice and providing a rationale for activities; (4) design and deliver experiences that are *F*air by allowing all participants to experience success regardless of their physical abilities; and (5) promote an *E*njoyable experience by focusing on fun and variety and incorporating games where possible.
Nutritionists are provided with a standardized document outlining the key principles to be promoted via RUFIT-NZ and the nutrition topics to be covered in each 1-h session. PowerPoint presentation templates, participant worksheets and resources are also offered to nutritionists to provide the basis for group discussions.
Baseline demographic information {#Sec12}
--------------------------------
A self-report web-based questionnaire will be administered at baseline to gather demographic information (age, date of birth, ethnicity, employment status, highest level of education, marital status, and income) from all participants.
Primary and secondary outcomes {#Sec13}
------------------------------
### Anthropometrics (baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-ups {#Sec14}
\(1\) body weight (measured using calibrated digital scales, (2) waist circumference measured using a tape measure, and (3) height measured using a stadiometer. The primary outcome is defined as the change in body weight from baseline to 52 weeks.
### Seated systolic and diastolic blood pressure (baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec15}
Measured using an automated sphygmomanometer (OMRON T9P Intellisense Blood Pressure Monitor) and/or a manual (Reister) Blood Pressure Monitor.
### Fitness (baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec16}
Assessed by a 6-km cycle test, a timed sit-to-stand test, and a timed push-up test.
### Lifestyle behaviors (baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec17}
Assessed using a self-report questionnaire: (1) leisure time activity (assessed by the Godin Leisure Time Physical Activity Questionnaire) \[[@CR42]\]; (2) cigarette smoking (assessed by a smoking history questionnaire) \[[@CR43]\]. (3) alcohol intake (assessed by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification test consumption (AUDIT-C)) \[[@CR44]\]; (4) sleep (assessed by the number of hours slept over a 24-h period); and (5) fruit and vegetable intake, discretionary foods, and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (assessed by the NZ Health Survey questions) \[[@CR45]\].
### Social support and social identity (12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec18}
Assessed in a subgroup of participants using a modification of the Athlete Received Support Questionnaire (ARSQ) \[[@CR46]\], and social identity measure, respectively \[[@CR47]\].
### RUFIT cost-effectiveness (baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec19}
Assessed by the EQ-5D \[[@CR48]\], a generic and validated measure of choice for which reliable NZ population preference values are available \[[@CR48]--[@CR50]\], to obtain a single preference index for calculation of Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs).
### Implementation of RUFIT-NZ as an ongoing program (12- and 52-week follow-ups) {#Sec20}
Assessed by an embedded process evaluation conducted using the RE-AIM framework \[[@CR26], [@CR27]\]. A mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) approach \[[@CR51]\] will be used for the process evaluation (see Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"} for specific details). Table 3Process evaluation conducted using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance (RE-AIM) metrics
Data collection and management {#Sec21}
------------------------------
All self-reported data are directly input via online surveys to the web-based data capture system Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) \[[@CR52], [@CR53]\] hosted at the National Institute for Health Innovation (NIHI). All objective data are collected on hardcopy at face-to-face sessions by trained researchers and then input to the same REDCap web-based data capture system hosted and managed at NIHI. At least two measurements are completed for each of the anthropometric and blood pressure measures. Anthropometrics, blood pressure and fitness testing data were collected by trained research assistants. All data are kept for 6 years and will only be used in future studies following a process of participant informed consent.
Post-trial care {#Sec22}
---------------
As this is a pragmatic trial, there are no post-trial plans for participants after the 52 weeks. Serious harm is not expected to arise as a result of the intervention. All trainers are required to have a current first-aid certificate and are instructed to report any serious adverse or adverse events related to exercise arising over the 12-week intervention to the central coordinating center. Participants are covered by the Accident Compensation Corporation (New Zealand's no-fault accidental injury compensation scheme) in the unlikely event that they sustain a physical injury.
Fidelity {#Sec23}
--------
Intervention fidelity is evaluated by means of direct observation by trained research assistants, using a standardized checklist at weeks 4 and 10 of the 12-week intervention. Feedback will be provided by the research team to the trainers to address any gaps in intervention delivery.
Monitoring and auditing {#Sec24}
-----------------------
A data monitoring committee was not deemed necessary due to the low-risk nature of the trial. Data are checked for any values that fall outside the range checks within the REDCap forms by the central coordinating center. An internal audit will be conducted on the trial by a senior project manager independent to the trial.
Analysis {#Sec25}
========
Statistical effectiveness analysis {#Sec26}
----------------------------------
All participants' data are collected via secure, web-based, case record forms developed by NIHI using REDCap. Statistical analysis will be performed using SAS version 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Baseline characteristics of all randomized participants (including age, ethnicity, employment status, highest level of education, marital status, and income) will be summarized descriptively for intervention and control groups separately. Continuous variables will be presented as means and standard deviations (SD). Categorical variables will be presented as frequencies and percentages. The results will be presented overall and by ethnic group.
Intervention evaluation will be performed on the principle of intention-to-treat (ITT). All statistical tests will be two-sided at a 5% significance level. The primary and secondary outcomes will be first summarized descriptively by randomized group at 12 and/or 52 weeks. The distribution of outcome measures will be checked. The primary outcome at 52 weeks will be evaluated using the analysis of covariance model, adjusting for baseline outcome value and stratification factors. Model-adjusted means and the difference between two groups will be estimated with 95% confidence interval and *p* value. Multiple imputations will be used on missing primary outcome data in the main ITT analysis. Sensitivity analyses using different assumptions on the missing data, including complete case analysis, will also be conducted to test the robustness of the main trial findings. Per-protocol analysis will be performed on randomized participants with no major protocol violations.
Generalized linear regression models will be used to analyze secondary outcomes measured at 12 and/or 52 weeks, using a link function appropriate to the distribution of outcome variable. The regression model will adjust for baseline outcome value (if measured) and stratification factors, similar to the primary analysis. Model-adjusted estimates will be presented with 95% confidence intervals and *p* values. For repeated outcome measures, random-effect mixed models will be used to take into account the correlated data collected from the same participant with a random-subject effect. The consistency of intervention effects between different ethnic groups will be tested using an interaction term between treatment group and ethnicity. As a pre-planned subgroup analysis, separate analyses will also be conducted and presented for the ethnic groups outlined above. Between-subjects' analysis will compare differences in the mean social identity and social support scores between control- and intervention-group participants at 12 and 52 weeks. Within-subjects' analysis will also be conducted to compare change in mean scores within groups at 12 and 52 weeks. No interim analysis is planned for the trial. The final trial results will be reported according to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 2010 guidelines.
Cost-effectiveness analysis {#Sec27}
---------------------------
This analysis will adopt a healthcare perspective. The within-trial analysis will determine the cost-effectiveness of RUFIT-NZ compared with a non-active intervention. No intervention will be used as the comparator as, in the absence of the RUFIT-NZ, this is the most likely alternative for this population. Throughout the analyses, the wait-list comparison group will be used as the source of data for the "no active intervention" group. As an ongoing program, Markov modeling will combine data from RUFIT-NZ with other information from a systematic evaluation of cost-effectiveness studies of weight management interventions \[[@CR54]\] to identify the long-term cost-effectiveness of the intervention.
RE-AIM analysis {#Sec28}
---------------
Qualitative data collection and analysis will be conducted by trained and experienced qualitative researchers. Interviews will be digitally recorded and transcribed. Data will be entered using NVivo11 software to facilitate qualitative analysis. An inductive thematic analysis approach will be used to identify the key themes emerging from the data \[[@CR55], [@CR56]\], which will then be collated according to the various RE-AIM principles \[[@CR26], [@CR27]\]. All RE-AIM data sources (see Table [3](#Tab3){ref-type="table"}.) will be combined so that the Study Advisory Group and investigators will make informed recommendations to determine the extent to which RUFIT-NZ achieved the desired RE-AIM outcomes.
Discussion {#Sec29}
==========
NZ men, and in particular Māori and Pasifika men, are at increased risk for overweight and obesity, but are a difficult group to engage with in healthy lifestyle programs \[[@CR3], [@CR4]\]. Findings from our previous feasibility work demonstrated that delivery of a healthy lifestyle program through professional rugby clubs is both feasible and acceptable to overweight NZ men \[[@CR25]\]. If effective, the RUFIT-NZ program, therefore, offers an opportunity to reach NZ men at increased risk of ill-health. This paper reports the design of a RCT designed to assess the long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the RUFIT-NZ program, and to evaluate the potential for implementation of RUFIT-NZ as an ongoing program. If effectiveness and cost-effectiveness is demonstrated, RUFIT-NZ may prove to be a unique way to target overweight NZ men.
Trial status {#Sec30}
============
Trial recruitment started in January 2019 and 200 participants (65%) were randomized as of 21 June 2019, protocol version 2.0 dated: 11 April 2019.
Supplementary information
=========================
{#Sec31}
**Additional file 1.** RUFIT-NZ Trial Registration Data. **Additional file 2.** SPIRIT 2013 Checklist: Recommended items to address in a clinical trial protocol and related documents. **Additional file 3.** Flow Chart Illustrating Enrolment and Randomisation Process. **Additional file 4.** Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form. **Additional file 5.** Award letter for study grant from the Health Research Council.
ARSQ
: Athlete Received Support Questionnaire
AUDIT C
: Alcohol Use Disorders Identification test Consumption
BMI
: Body Mass Index
CONSORT
: Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials
FAB
: Family, Activity, Behavior
FFIT
: Football Fans in Training
GP
: General practitioner
ITT
: Intention to treat
NIHI
: National Institute for Health Innovation
NZ
: New Zealand
PAR-Q
: Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire
QALYS
: Quality-Adjusted Life-Years
RCT
: Randomized controlled trial
RE-AIM
: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance
REDCap
: Research Electronic Data Capture
RUFIT-NZ
: Rugby Fans in Training New Zealand
SAAFE
: Supportive, Active, Autonomous, Fair, and Enjoyable
SD
: Standard deviation
**Publisher's Note**
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
=========================
**Supplementary information** accompanies this paper at 10.1186/s13063-019-4038-4.
The authors wish to acknowledge the rugby clubs who support this study and contribute their time and resources to RUFIT-NZ. The authors also wish to acknowledge the trainers and nutritionists who deliver the program, and the research assistants who help with the testing sessions. Finally, the authors wish to acknowledge the men who signed up to this program.
Dissemination of results {#FPar1}
========================
The *dissemination goal* would be to implement RUFIT-NZ via professional rugby clubs for overweight men. The *target audiences* would be the Ministry of Health, District Health Boards, Public Health Offices and the Heart Foundation, rugby and sports clubs, regional sports trusts, and people interested in weight management. Simple *key messages* would be developed addressing the effect of the RUFIT-NZ intervention on weight. The investigators and the professional sports clubs are the *influential sources*. Collectively our team has extensive networks in sport, physical activity, nutrition, patient networks for weight loss (general practice), and the community. This research builds on an existing network involving the Super Rugby clubs, the NZ Warriors, and the NZ Rugby Union. The *dissemination activities* would be performed by the *influential sources* and would be developed for each target audience. The *dissemination activities* would involve (1) media releases to print media (e.g., *NZ Doctor*, *NZ Rugby* Journals); (2) media releases to lay media and lay stakeholder groups (television, radio, national and community newspapers); (3) media releases to science media (Science Media Centre); (4) research briefings for relevant stakeholder organizations (provider organizations, vocational groups); (5) research summaries for key stakeholders and provider organizations; (6) local and international conference presentations, and publication in international peer-reviewed journals; and (7) participants will be thanked for their participation in the study, given a brief summary of the study results and an outline of their significance, and future research plans. Dissemination to Māori will be facilitated by Drs Heke and Kara and directed by Māori communities.
RM and EH conceived the study. RM, EH, SM, CA, AC, and MJ participated in its design and coordination, and RM, EH, SM, CA, AC, HE, YJ, SW, and DL helped draft the manuscript. KH, CMG, SW, YJ, HE, IH, ND, GS, and SK participated in the design of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The Trial Steering Committee which conceptualize and design the study: RM, EH, SM, HE, YJ, SW, DL, KH, CMG, IH, ND, GS, and SK. The coordinating center which manages and runs the project according to the design through NIHI: (RM, CA, AC, SM, and YJ). The protocol outlines author eligibility criteria, which has been sited and signed by all authors. Professional writers will not be used on any publications arising from this trial.
This work was supported by a Health Research Council Project Grant 18/513 (see Additional file [5](#MOESM5){ref-type="media"}). The HRC Board provided feedback on the study design which was incorporated into the project.
No individual participant data will be shared from this trial.
The protocol was approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (021888) dated 20 September 2018. Approval is granted until 20 September 2021. Recruiting will not begin at other centers in the trial until approval from those sites has been obtained. Informed consent will be obtained from all study participants. Prior to registering for the study, participants are asked to acknowledge that they have read and understood the Participant Information sheet and Consent Form (see Additional file [4](#MOESM4){ref-type="media"}) before being able to proceed with the online screening forms. Participants, trainers and key stakeholders will receive separate Participant Information sheets and Consent Forms for the interviews and are asked to acknowledge either online or in writing that they have read and understood these forms prior to the interview. Any study protocol modifications to the study objectives, methodology, or the participant process will result in a formal protocol amendment sent to the University Ethics Committee for approval.
Not applicable
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Q:
Want to use Fedora 15 (for GOME 3) until Ubuntu 11.10 releases, which Ubuntu applications are NOT available for Fedora?
I'm a long time Ubuntu user but having Unity in Ubuntu 11.04 is really an issue for me as I can't adjust to it. However, GNOME 3 seems more intuitive than Unity. As currently, there's no reliable way to have GNOME 3 installed on base of Ubuntu 11.04, so I'd like to migrate to Fedora 15 until next release of Ubuntu, which will have full GNOME 3 support. Following are the points related to migration I'm unclear about.
Which popular Linux software is NOT available to Fedora and is available to Ubuntu? (Any source of such list of applications would be great).
I use Launchpad PPAs for latest versions of certain applications in Ubuntu, what is a PPA alternative in Fedora?
Is "sudo" and "gksu" available?
Does Fedora 15 supports read/write to NTFS and FAT file systems.
Proprietary codecs are available? (like "ubuntu-restricted-extras" in Ubuntu).
My laptop hardware has been supported out-of-the-box in versions of Ubuntu from 8.10 to 11.04 (which I have used so far). And that includes
Intel integrated GPU as well, do I expect to face any issues in Fedora?
A:
Well, Fedora in an old GNU/Linux distribution with very long tradition and is much older than Ubuntu.
To answer your question: Most of the software you'll find on Ubuntu except maybe some Ubuntu specific programs, you'll find on Fedora.
Next, sudo is standard Unix command and you can expect in on pretty much any GNU/Linux or Unix system. Same thing for gksu and systems which use GNOME.
Fedora doesn't include proprietary codecs with default settings, but it's very easy to find third party repositories which host everything you'll need.
For example, there's no out of the box support for Adobe Flash, but there's a guide here on how to get it.
As far as I know, Fedora had support for ntfs-3g for quite some time, so it should work fine.
As for laptop issues, I really can't help you there. You told us nothing about your laptop yet you expect us to tell you if it's going to work or not. In general, the answer is yes, it's going to work, but you could very well be one of the exceptions and encounter problems with bugs.
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Day: May 7, 2020
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Although coronavirus conditions have created global economic difficulties, cryptocurrencies could see growth amid the struggle, according to one blockchain incubator’s head. “Short-term: digital currencies suddenly look appealing,” Polyient Labs CEO Brad Robertson told Cryptox in a May 1 email. “If someone only looked back at the last two weeks, they might think ‘cryptocurrencies are back, baby,’” he added. Bitcoin has rebounded faster than mainstream markets Bitcon crashed in tandem with mainstream markets on March 12 amid rising coronavirus fears. Both sectors have since recovered, although Bitcoin sprung back to life more…
▶ Coinbase Website: Coinbase.com ▶ CEX Website: cex.io On a recent trip to Singapore I meet up with a number of friends who are in the Bitcoin and Blockchain space. It was just before social distancing began so we enjoyed our last chance to share a beer and discuss where Bitcoin Crypto and Blockchain is at in our eyes and how things might shape up in the future especially in these difficult times caused by the Covid 19 outbreak. The guys also discuss what they are investing in and why.…
How does Bitcoin’s block halving work on an engineering level? We explain with help from Andreas Antonopoulos. In a recent video, Antonopoulos explained the Bitcoin Core code that controls the halving of the Bitcoin (BTC) block reward in detail. Bitcoin halving code. Source: Bitcoin Core Software. Line by line explanation Every time a Bitcoin block is evaluated or a new block is mined, the function GetBlockSubsidy gets called. Its purpose is to calculate the appropriate size of the block reward. Line 1240 evaluates the halving cycle and divides the current…
About Us
Fastcrypto.trade is a multi-platform publisher of news and information. fastcrypto.trade has earned a reputation as the leading provider of cryptocurrency news and information that improves the quality of life of its readers by focusing on finance. All posts are intended for informational purposes only. There are multiple security risks and methods that are ultimately made by the decisions of the user. There are various steps mentioned in reviews and guides and some of them are optional. Fastcrypto and the authors are not responsible for any losses, mistakes, skipped steps or security measures not taken, as the ultimate decision-making process to do any of these things is solely the reader’s responsibility. For good measure always cross-reference guides with other walkthroughs found online or CryptoX and other platforms.
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GLD-200 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 13-1296
___________
JAMES T. KIMBALL,
Appellant
v.
DELBERT SAUERS, WARDEN
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 3:12-cv-01776)
District Judge: Honorable Edwin M. Kosik
____________________________________
Submitted for Possible Summary Action Pursuant to
Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6 and for Possible Issuance
of a Certificate of Appealability Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)
April 18, 2013
Before: FUENTES, FISHER and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: April 24, 2013 )
_________
OPINION
_________
PER CURIAM
James T. Kimball appeals pro se from the District Court’s order dismissing his
petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Because the appeal presents no substantial question,
we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order.
I.
In 2000, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
convicted Kimball of conspiracy to distribute a prescription drug without a prescription
with the intent to defraud or mislead, and related offenses. The court sentenced Kimball
to 13 years’ imprisonment and Kimball unsuccessfully pursued a direct appeal. The
District Court denied his subsequent 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion.
In September 2012, while incarcerated at the Federal Corrections Complex at
Allenwood, Kimball filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2241. He alleged that, during his sentencing hearing, the trial judge accepted new
charges without requiring an indictment, found Kimball guilty of the new charges, and
then added 150 months onto Kimball’s sentence. Although he also alleged that the trial
judge refused to appoint counsel, Kimball stated that this particular issue was not the
basis of his habeas petition. The Magistrate Judge determined that Kimball failed to
demonstrate that a motion under section 2255 would be an inadequate or ineffective
remedy. Overruling Kimball’s objections to the Magistrate Judge’s report and
recommendations, the District Court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction.
Kimball filed a timely notice of appeal.
2
II.
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a).1 We exercise
plenary review over the District Court’s legal conclusions. Vega v. United States, 493
F.3d 310, 314 (3d Cir. 2007). We may summarily affirm a judgment of the District Court
on any basis supported by the record if the appeal does not raise a substantial question.
See I.O.P. 10.6; see also Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011).
III.
The District Court properly dismissed Kimball’s section 2241 petition for lack of
jurisdiction. A motion filed under section 2255 in the sentencing court is the presumptive
means for a federal prisoner to challenge the validity of a conviction or sentence.
Okereke v. United States, 307 F.3d 117, 120 (3d Cir. 2002). By contrast, section 2241
“confers habeas jurisdiction to hear the petition of a federal prisoner who is challenging
not the validity but the execution of his sentence.” Coady v. Vaughn, 251 F.3d 480, 485-
86 (3d Cir. 2001) (noting that challenges to the execution of a sentence include, e.g.,
challenges to wrongful revocation of parole, place of imprisonment, and credit for time
served) (internal citations omitted). Here, Kimball claimed the trial court illegally
increased his sentence upon making a factual determination during his sentencing
hearing.2 We therefore agree with the District Court that Kimball’s claim is actually an
1
A certificate of appealability is not required to appeal the denial of a section
2241 petition. Burkey v. Marberry, 556 F.3d 142, 146 (3d Cir. 2009).
2
See S. Union Co. v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2344 (2012).
3
attack on the validity of his sentence and, as such, must be brought pursuant to section
2255.
However, a petitioner can seek relief under section 2241 if the remedy provided by
section 2255 is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255(e); In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245, 249-51 (3d Cir. 1997). “Section 2255 is not
inadequate or ineffective merely because the sentencing court does not grant relief, the
one-year statute of limitations has expired, or the petitioner is unable to meet the stringent
gatekeeping requirements of the amended § 2255.” Cradle v. United States ex rel. Miner,
290 F.3d 536, 539 (3d Cir. 2002) (per curiam). Rather, the “safety valve” provided under
section 2255 is extremely narrow and applies only in unusual situations, such as those in
which a prisoner has had no prior opportunity to challenge his conviction for actions later
deemed to be non-criminal by an intervening change in law. See Okereke, 307 F.3d at
120 (citing In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251).
Section 2255 is not inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of Kimball’s
detention. Kimball seeks to invoke the “safety valve” by way of the Supreme Court’s
recent decision in S. Union Co. v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2344 (2012), which applied
the rule announced in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), to the imposition of
criminal fines. Importantly, though, Kimball has not argued that Southern Union deemed
his actions to be non-criminal. Rather, Kimball asked the District Court to hold that
Southern Union invalidates his sentence. This is an argument that falls within the normal
4
ambit of section 2255, and outside of the unusual situation recognized by cases like
Dorsainvil.3
Kimball also expressed concern that section 2255 is inadequate for two additional
reasons. First, he stated that the trial court, which is the court that would hear any
successive section 2255 motion, will not admit to falsely imprisoning him. However, the
perceived bias of the trial court is not a basis for a section 2241 petition. See Tripati v.
Henman, 843 F.2d 1160, 1163 (9th Cir. 1988) (stating that alleged judicial bias does not
render section 2255 inadequate or ineffective because a petitioner may raise the issue of
bias on appeal or in a motion for recusal). Second, Kimball acknowledged that his claim
would not likely succeed under the strict gatekeeping requirements that apply to
successive section 2255 motions. He may be correct, but it is well-settled that the mere
fact a petitioner faces the strict gatekeeping requirements applicable to successive section
2255 motions does not make section 2255 an inadequate or ineffective remedy. See
Cradle, 290 F.3d at 539. For these reasons, Kimball has not shown that section 2255 is
“inadequate or ineffective” to test the legality of his detention. See In re Dorsainvil, 119
F.3d at 251.
Accordingly, the District Court did not err in dismissing Kimball’s section 2241
petition for lack of jurisdiction. For substantially the same reasons set forth by the
3
We note that, in any case, Kimball could have raised an Apprendi claim in his
initial section 2255 motion.
5
District Court, we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order dismissing Kimball’s
section 2241 petition. See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; I.O.P. 10.6.
6
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The influence of gender and socioeconomic factors on Hispanic/white differences in body mass index.
This article examines the effects of gender and socioeconomic factors on ethnic differences in body mass index (BMI) using a matched-pairs design of 688 pairs of Hispanics (principally Mexican American) and whites. Subjects, ages 25-74, were drawn from five population-based surveys conducted from 1979 to 1990 in four northern California cities. Hispanic women and men both had significantly higher BMI levels than the white women and men with whom they were matched (P < 0.001). These ethnic differences persisted across every level of education for both women and men, with the magnitude of the difference ranging from 0.9 BMI units (between the most educated Hispanic and white men) to 2.9 BMI units (between the least educated Hispanic and white women). The highest prevalence of overweight was among the least educated Hispanic women (61.1%) and Hispanic men (48.4%). The higher BMI levels of Hispanic women and men relative to their white counterparts were not explained by age, gender, education, city of residence, time of survey, or language spoken in a multiple regression model. Hispanic women and men both reported higher desired body weight (height standardized) than white women and men, indicating a possible contribution of cultural factors to the ethnic differences in overweight. These findings provide insight into the greater prevalence of overweight in Hispanic relative to white populations as well as guidance for weight-loss interventions tailored to low socioeconomic groups.
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Benefits and risks assessment of simvastatin in familial hypercholesterolaemia.
Familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is a frequent inherited monogenic disorder, associated with premature coronary artery disease. Life expectancy of FH patients is reduced by 15 - 30 years unless they are adequately treated with lipid-lowering therapy. Patients with this disorder need long-term drug therapy and the selection of treatment should be strongly based on its long-term safety and tolerability. The introduction of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitors has changed the treatment of FH. Simvastatin 40 - 80 mg/day effectively reduces serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and also reduces triglycerides with a modest rise in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Other potentially important effects, such as improvement of endothelial function, reduction of LDL oxidation and vascular inflammation, have been associated with simvastatin therapy in FH. In addition, simvastatin has been shown to abolish the progression, and even facilitate the regression of existing human atherosclerotic lesions. The safety and tolerability of simvastatin is clearly highlighted by the low rate of therapy discontinuation observed in several population-based clinical trials. Asymptomatic elevations in liver transaminase levels and myopathy are uncommon. The efficacy and tolerability of simvastatin at doses up to 80 mg/day are well-established, as well as its cost-effectiveness in the management of FH patients.
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My Garage Plans
Another Green Garage Building Idea
Not surprisingly the number one most consumed substance on Earth is water. You might be a little surprised to learn the second most widely used substance is concrete. That’s right, according to the Pacific Southwest Concrete Alliance the concrete is the second most used material on the planet.
You might think concrete is a responsible choice for the eco-conscious consumer. After all, it is made up of little more than cement, sand, gravel, and water. That sounds like a harmless enough combination, right? Not quite. Cement is extremely energy intensive to produce. It requires incredible amounts of energy, and it also releases a large amount of CO2 (a harmful greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.
Fortunately, there are several “green” alternatives to traditional cement and concrete. Read our article on eco-friendly concrete to learn more.
We hope you can use some of this information with your new garage plans to make your garage building project a little more eco-friendly.
Comments
Post a Comment
Building a Green Garage
The question of whether or not "green" construction methods are more costly than traditional construction methods is a hot topic these days. It is a complex subject that can be difficult to quantify since many of the benefits have no dollar value.
If you were to ask just about anybody, they would probably assume that the construction of a green building costs more than a traditional building. They would be right, but they would probably be surprised to find out how little extra it costs to go green. A recent study conducted by consulting firm Davis Langdon and the Urban Green Council showed that the increased cost of certified "green" construction in New York during 2008 was minimal: $440 per square foot compared to $436 per square foot for non-certified buildings. This equates to only a 1% cost increase for green construction! Of course, these cost calculations are for a commercial high-rise in New York, and are most likely far more expensive than the construction costs of your new garage. However, it does help disprove the myth that green construction is unattainably expensive. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) estimates the increased cost between 2% - 5% - still a very minimal amount. In many cases, the initial startup costs are higher, but the overall lifecycle cost to maintain and operate the building is lower due to energy optimizing measures used during construction.
While green construction may have additional monetary costs, it also affords us other savings that are not so easily calculated. For example, if green buildings operate more efficiently, they will burn fewer fossil fuels and ultimately promote cleaner air. And if fewer hazardous chemicals are used in the products we put in our homes, garages and offices (and believe me, they are everywhere - from the paint on our walls, to the finish on our hardwood floors, to the linens on our beds), it will enhance our health and decrease a wide variety of harmful (and potentially painful) side effects. How do we put a price on our safety and wellness? How do we put a price on the safety and wellness of our planet?
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This project is directed towards the clarification of interrelationships between anticancer drugs and treatments and immunological responses against tumors, with a view to obtain leads helpful in exploiting existing or pharmacologically modified tumor immunity in conjunction with chemotherapy. Model systems applicable and relevant to the study of selective effects of anticancer agents on specific components of the immune response to autochthonous and syngeneic tumors will be developed. The effects of anticancer drugs on immune effectors leading to immunosuppression and immunosynergism will be studied both in vivo and in vitro; the emphasis will be on alterations of effector cell functions and interactions during ongoing responses, because these may be particularly relevant to the clinical situation where primary sensitization probably occurs long before diagnosis. The selective reversal of specific immunosuppressive effects of certain drugs by the administration of relevant metabolites will be studied. Complement-dependent and independent cytotoxicity of sensitized cells exposed to drug in vivo or in vitro, primary in vitro immunization, and interactions among components of the immune response will be areas of consideration using autochthonous and syngeneic mammary tumors, and allogeneic leukemic cells, as both antigen and target. Drugs studied will include antifolates, methylglyoxal-bis-guanylhydrazone, arabinosylcytosine, cyclophosphamide, daunorubicin, adriamycin, 5-fluorouracil, vincristine and others. The increased antigenicity of transplantable leukemia sublines resistant to drugs will also be investigated.
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A blog dedicated to model building and painting. It has evolved from 40k, and now encompasses 30k, historical, and scale model building.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Tutorial: Casting Your Own Resin Bases
A while back I created some press molds to make some green stuff bases for my Blood Angels/Grey Knights armies. Since then I have walked the way of resin! While prepping the images for this post, I cast 25 resin trench bases. The coolest part about this process is that it is dirt simple. I can completely re-theme an army by creating cool new bases, and then mass producing them. The bases you see here are for my Death Korps of Krieg army.
You should go online and buy the starter kit from Alumilite. Seriously...do it now.
I bought the starter kit. I think it was 70 bucks or so, but I don't remember. The bases were primed with black primer as added fixative for the sand.
I spent most of the resin making buildings(ahem...ruined cathedral), but for bases it takes very little. I have about 55-60 bases now, and am ready to sculpt some more serious designs. The gallon jugs are the way to go once you get the hang of it. I have the GW battle bunker for teaching me to make bases.
This stuff is awesome. I think I could rebase my entire collection in a a weekend.
A heads up on the Alumilite starter kit at a discount. If you have a Hobbylobby craft store around they carry the alumilite kits, silicon and resin and have a 40% off coupon you can print off of their website a couple times a month.
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Black Male Amazon of Mars
by Lee Brackett
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Lee Brackett
An Erica Joan Stark story.
A Gender Switch Adventure.
THROUGH ALL THE LONG cold hours of the Norland night the Martian had not moved nor spoken. At dusk of the day before Erica Joan Stark had brought her into the ruined tower and laid her down, wrapped in blankets, on the snow. She had built a fire of dead brush, and since then the two women had waited, alone in the vast wasteland that girdles the polar cap of Mars.
Now, just before dawn, Camara the Martian spoke.
"Stark."
"Yes?"
"I am dying."
"Yes."
"I will not reach Kushat."
"No."
Camara nodded. She was silent again.
The wind howled down from the northern ice, and the broken walls rose up against it, brooding, gigantic, roofless now but so huge and sprawling that they seemed less like walls than cliffs of ebon stone. Stark would not have gone near them but for Camara. They were wrong, somehow, with a taint of forgotten evil still about them.
The big Earthwoman glanced at Camara, and her face was sad. "A woman likes to die in her own place," she said abruptly. "I am sorry."
"The Lady of Silence is a great personage," Camara answered. "She does not mind the meeting place. No. It was not for that I came back into the Norlands."
She was shaken by an agony that was not of the body. "And I shall not reach Kushat!"
Stark spoke quietly, using the courtly High Martian almost as fluently as Camara.
"I have known that there was a burden heavier than death upon my brother's soul."
She leaned over, placing one large hand on the Martian's shoulder. "My sister has given her life for mine. Therefore, I will take her burden upon myself, if I can."
She did not want Camara's burden, whatever it might be. But the Martian had fought beside her through a long guerilla campaign among the harried tribes of the nearer moon. She was a good woman of her hands, and in the end had taken the bullet that was meant for Stark, knowing quite well what she was doing. They were friends.
That was why Stark had brought Camara into the bleak north country, trying to reach the city of her birth. The Martian was driven by some secret demon. She was afraid to die before she reached Kushat.
And now she had no choice.
"I have sinned, Stark. I have stolen a holy thing. You're an outlander, you would not know of Ban Cruach, and the talisman that she left when she went away forever beyond the Gates of Death."
Camara flung aside the blankets and sat up, her voice gaining a febrile strength.
"I was born and bred in the Thieves' Quarter under the Wall. I was proud of my skill. And the talisman was a challenge. It was a treasured thing—so treasured that hardly a woman has touched it since the days of Ban Cruach who made it. And that was in the days when women still had the lustre on them, before they forgot that they were gods.
"'Guard well the Gates of Death,' she said, 'that is the city's trust. And keep the talisman always, for the day may come when you will need its strength. Who holds Kushat holds Mars—and the talisman will keep the city safe.'
"I was a thief, and proud. And I stole the talisman."
Her hands went to her girdle, a belt of worn leather with a boss of battered steel. But her fingers were already numb.
"Take it, Stark. Open the boss—there, on the side, where the beast's head is carved..."
STARK took the belt from Camara and found the hidden spring. The rounded top of the boss came free. Inside it was something wrapped in a scrap of silk.
"I had to leave Kushat," Camara whispered. "I could never go back. But it was enough—to have taken that."
She watched, shaken between awe and pride and remorse, as Stark unwrapped the bit of silk.
Stark had discounted most of Camara's talk as superstition, but even so she had expected something more spectacular than the object she held in her palm.
It was a lens, some four inches across—man-made, and made with great skill, but still only a bit of crystal. Turning it about, Stark saw that it was not a simple lens, but an intricate interlocking of many facets. Incredibly complicated, hypnotic if one looked at it too long.
"What is its use?" she asked of Camara.
"We are as children. We have forgotten. But there is a legend, a belief—that Ban Cruach herself made the talisman as a sign that she would not forget us, and would come back when Kushat is threatened. Back through the Gates of Death, to teach us again the power that was hers!"
"I do not understand," said Stark. "What are the Gates of Death?"
Camara answered, "It is a pass that opens into the black mountains beyond Kushat. The city stands guard before it—why, no woman remembers, except that it is a great trust."
Her gaze feasted on the talisman.
Stark said, "You wish me to take this to Kushat?"
"Yes. Yes! And yet..." Camara looked at Stark, her eyes filling suddenly with tears. "No. The North is not used to strangers. With me, you might have been safe. But alone... No, Stark. You have risked too much already. Go back, out of the Norlands, while you can."
She lay back on the blankets. Stark saw that a bluish pallor had come into the hollows of her cheeks.
"Camara," she said. And again, "Camara!"
"Yes?"
"Go in peace, Camara. I will take the talisman to Kushat."
The Martian sighed, and smiled, and Stark was glad that she had made the promise.
"The riders of Mekh are wolves," said Camara suddenly. "They hunt these gorges. Look out for them."
"I will."
Stark's knowledge of the geography of this part of Mars was vague indeed, but she knew that the mountain valleys of Mekh lay ahead and to the north, between her and Kushat. Camara had told her of these upland warriors. She was willing to heed the warning.
Camara had done with talking. Stark knew that she had not long to wait. The wind spoke with the voice of a great organ. The moons had set and it was very dark outside the tower, except for the white glimmering of the snow. Stark looked up at the brooding walls, and shivered. There was a smell of death already in the air.
To keep from thinking, she bent closer to the fire, studying the lens. There were scratches on the bezel, as though it had been held sometime in a clamp, or setting, like a jewel. An ornament, probably, worn as a badge of rank. Strange ornament for a barbarian queen, in the dawn of Mars. The firelight made tiny dancing sparks in the endless inner facets. Quite suddenly, she had a curious feeling that the thing was alive.
A pang of primitive and unreasoning fear shot through her, and she fought it down. Her vision was beginning to blur, and she shut her eyes, and in the darkness it seemed to her that she could see and hear...
HE STARTED UP, shaken now with an eerie terror, and raised her hand to hurl the talisman away. But the part of her that had learned with much pain and effort to be civilized made her stop, and think.
She sat down again. An instrument of hypnosis? Possibly. And yet that fleeting touch of sight and sound had not been her own, out of her own memories.
She was tempted now, fascinated, like a child that plays with fire. The talisman had been worn somehow. Where? On the breast? On the brow?
She tried the first, with no result. Then she touched the flat surface of the lens to her forehead.
The great tower of stone rose up monstrous to the sky. It was whole, and there were pallid lights within that stirred and flickered, and it was crowned with a shimmering darkness.
She lay outside the tower, on her belly, and she was filled with fear and a great anger, and a loathing such as turns the bones to water. There was no snow. There was ice everywhere, rising to half the tower's height, sheathing the ground.
Ice. Cold and clear and beautiful—and deadly.
She moved. She glided snakelike, with infinite caution, over the smooth surface. The tower was gone, and far below her was a city. She saw the temples and the palaces, the glittering lovely city beneath her in the ice, blurred and fairylike and strange, a dream half glimpsed through crystal.
She saw the Ones that lived there, moving slowly through the streets. She could not see them clearly, only the vague shining of their bodies, and she was glad.
She hated them, with a hatred that conquered even her fear, which was great indeed.
She was not Erica Joan Stark. She was Ban Cruach.
The tower and the city vanished, swept away on a reeling tide.
She stood beneath a scarp of black rock, notched with a single pass. The cliffs hung over her, leaning out their vast bulk as though to crush her, and the narrow mouth of the pass was full of evil laughter where the wind went by.
She began to walk forward, into the pass. She was quite alone.
The light was dim and strange at the bottom of that cleft. Little veils of mist crept and clung between the ice and the rock, thickened, became more dense as she went farther and farther into the pass. She could not see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping in the crevices of the cliffs.
All at once there was a shadow in the mist before her, a dim gigantic shape that moved toward her, and she knew that she looked at death. She cried out...
It was Stark who yelled in blind atavistic fear, and the echo of her own cry brought her up standing, shaking in every limb. She had dropped the talisman. It lay gleaming in the snow at her feet, and the alien memories were gone—and Camara was dead.
After a time she crouched down, breathing harshly. She did not want to touch the lens again. The part of her that had learned to fear strange gods and evil spirits with every step she took, the primitive aboriginal that lay so close under the surface of her mind, warned her to leave it, to run away, to desert this place of death and ruined stone.
She forced herself to take it up. She did not look at it. She wrapped it in the bit of silk and replaced it inside the iron boss, and clasped the belt around her waist. Then she found the small flask that lay with her gear beside the fire and took a long pull, and tried to think rationally of the thing that had happened.
Memories. Not her own, but the memories of Ban Cruach, a million years ago in the morning of a world. Memories of hate, a secret war against unhuman beings that dwelt in crystal cities cut in the living ice, and used these ruined towers for some dark purpose of their own.
Was that the meaning of the talisman, the power that lay within it? Had Ban Cruach, by some elder and forgotten science, imprisoned the echoes of her own mind in the crystal?
Why? Perhaps as a warning, as a reminder of ageless, alien danger beyond the Gates of Death?
Suddenly one of the beasts tethered outside the ruined tower started up from its sleep with a hissing snarl.
Instantly Stark became motionless.
They came silently on their padded feet, the rangy mountain brutes moving daintily through the sprawling ruin. Their riders too were silent—tall women with fierce eyes and russet hair, wearing leather coats and carrying each a long, straight spear.
There were a score of them around the tower in the windy gloom. Stark did not bother to draw her gun. She had learned very young the difference between courage and idiocy.
She walked out toward them, slowly lest one of them be startled into spearing her, yet not slowly enough to denote fear. And she held up her right hand and gave them greeting.
They did not answer her. They sat their restive mounts and stared at her, and Stark knew that Camara had spoken the truth. These were the riders of Mekh, and they were wolves.
II
STARK WAITED, UNTIL THEY should tire of their own silence.
Finally one demanded, "Of what country are you?"
She answered, "I am called N'Chaka, the Woman-Without-a-Tribe."
It was the name they had given her, the half-human aboriginals who had raised her in the blaze and thunder and bitter frosts of Mercury.
"A stranger," said the leader, and smiled. She pointed at the dead Camara and asked, "Did you slay her?"
"She was my friend," said Stark, "I was bringing her home to die."
Two riders dismounted to inspect the body. One called up to the leader, "She was from Kushat, if I know the breed, Thorda! And she has not been robbed." She proceeded to take care of that detail herself.
"A stranger," repeated the leader, Thorda. "Bound for Kushat, with a woman of Kushat. Well. I think you will come with us, stranger."
Stark shrugged. And with the long spears pricking her, she did not resist when the tall Thorda plundered her of all she owned except her clothes—and Camara's belt, which was not worth the stealing. Her gun Thorda flung contemptuously away.
One of the women brought Stark's beast and Camara's from where they were tethered, and the Earthwoman mounted—as usual, over the violent protest of the creature, which did not like the smell of her. They moved out from under the shelter of the walls, into the full fury of the wind.
For the rest of that night, and through the next day and the night that followed it they rode eastward, stopping only to rest the beasts and chew on their rations of jerked meat.
To Stark, riding a prisoner, it came with full force that this was the North country, half a world away from the Mars of spaceships and commerce and visitors from other planets. The future had never touched these wild mountains and barren plains. The past held pride enough.
To the north, the horizon showed a strange and ghostly glimmer where the barrier wall of the polar pack reared up, gigantic against the sky. The wind blew, down from the ice, through the mountain gorges, across the plains, never ceasing. And here and there the cryptic towers rose, broken monoliths of stone. Stark remembered the vision of the talisman, the huge structure crowned with eerie darkness. She looked upon the ruins with loathing and curiosity. The women of Mekh could tell her nothing.
Thorda did not tell Stark where they were taking her, and Stark did not ask. It would have been an admission of fear.
In mid-afternoon of the second day they came to a lip of rock where the snow was swept clean, and below it was a sheer drop into a narrow valley. Looking down, Stark saw that on the floor of the valley, up and down as far as she could see, were women and beasts and shelters of hide and brush, and fires burning. By the hundreds, by the several thousand, they camped under the cliffs, and their voices rose up on the thin air in a vast deep murmur that was deafening after the silence of the plains.
A war party, gathered now, before the thaw. Stark smiled. She became curious to meet the leader of this army.
They found their way single file along a winding track that dropped down the cliff face. The wind stopped abruptly, cut off by the valley walls. They came in among the shelters of the camp.
Here the snow was churned and soiled and melted to slush by the fires. There were no men in the camp, no sign of the usual cheerful rabble that follows a barbarian army. There were only men—hillmen and warriors all, tough-handed killers with no thought but battle.
They came out of their holes to shout at Thorda and her women, and stare at the stranger. Thorda was flushed and jovial with importance.
"I have no time for you," she shouted back. "I go to speak with the Lady Ciara."
Stark rode impassively, a dark giant with a face of stone. From time to time she made her beast curvet, and laughed at herself inwardly for doing it.
They came at length to a shelter larger than the others, but built exactly the same and no more comfortable. A spear was thrust into the snow beside the entrance, and from it hung a black pennant with a single bar of silver across it, like lightning in a night sky. Beside it was a shield with the same device. There were no guards.
Thorda dismounted, bidding Stark to do the same. She hammered on the shield with the hilt of her sword, announcing herself.
"Lady Ciara! It is Thorda—with a captive."
A voice, toneless and strangely muffled, spoke from within.
"Enter, Thorda."
Thorda pushed aside the hide curtain and went in, with Stark at her heels.
THE DIM DAYLIGHT did not penetrate the interior. Cressets burned, giving off a flickering brilliance and a smell of strong oil. The floor of packed snow was carpeted with furs, much worn. Otherwise there was no adornment, and no furniture but a chair and a table, both dark with age and use, and a pallet of skins in one shadowy corner with what seemed to be a heap of rags upon it
In the chair sat a woman.
She seemed very tall, in the shaking light of the cressets. From neck to thigh her lean body was cased in black link mail, and under that a tunic of leather, dyed black. Across her knees she held a sable axe, a great thing made for the shearing of skulls, and her hands lay upon it gently, as though it were a toy she loved.
Her head and face were covered by a thing that Stark had seen before only in very old paintings—the ancient war-mask of the inland Queens of Mars. Wrought of black and gleaming steel, it presented an unhuman visage of slitted eyeholes and a barred slot for breathing. Behind, it sprang out in a thin, soaring sweep, like a dark wing edge-on in flight.
The intent, expressionless scrutiny of that mask was bent, not upon Thorda, but upon Erica Joan Stark.
The hollow voice spoke again, from behind the mask. "Well?"
"We were hunting in the gorges to the south," said Thorda. "We saw a fire..." She told the story, of how they had found the stranger and the body of the woman from Kushat.
"Kushat!" said the Lady Ciara softly. "Ah! And why, stranger, were you going to Kushat?"
"My name is Stark. Erica Joan Stark, Earthwoman, out of Mercury." She was tired of being called stranger. Quite suddenly, she was tired of the whole business.
"Why should I not go to Kushat? Is it against some law, that a woman may not go there in peace without being hounded all over the Norlands? And why do the women of Mekh make it their business? They have nothing to do with the city."
Thorda held her breath, watching with delighted anticipation.
The hands of the woman in armor caressed the axe. They were slender hands, smooth and sinewy—small hands, it seemed, for such a weapon.
"We make what we will our business, Erica Joan Stark." She spoke with a peculiar gentleness. "I have asked you. Why were you going to Kushat?"
"Because," Stark answered with equal restraint, "my comrade wanted to go home to die."
"It seems a long, hard journey, just for dying." The black helm bent forward, in an attitude of thought. "Only the condemned or banished leave their cities, or their clans. Why did your comrade flee Kushat?"
A voice spoke suddenly from out of the heap of rags that lay on the pallet in the shadows of the corner. A woman's voice, deep and husky, with the harsh quaver of age or madness in it.
"Three women beside myself have fled Kushat, over the years that matter. One died in the spring floods. One was caught in the moving ice of winter. One lived. A thief named Camara, who stole a certain talisman."
Stark said, "My comrade was called Greshi." The leather belt weighed heavy about her, and the iron boss seemed hot against her belly. She was beginning, now, to be afraid.
The Lady Ciara spoke, ignoring Stark. "It was the sacred talisman of Kushat. Without it, the city is like a woman without a soul."
As the Veil of Tanit was to Carthage, Stark thought, and reflected on the fate of that city after the Veil was stolen.
"The nobles were afraid of their own people," the woman in armor said. "They did not dare to tell that it was gone. But we know."
"And," said Stark, "you will attack Kushat before the thaw, when they least expect you."
"You have a sharp mind, stranger. Yes. But the great wall will be hard to carry, even so. If I came, bearing in my hands the talisman of Ban Cruach..."
She did not finish, but turned instead to Thorda. "When you plundered the dead woman's body, what did you find?"
"Nothing, Lady. A few coins, a knife, hardly worth the taking."
"And you, Erica Joan Stark. What did you take from the body?"
With perfect truth she answered, "Nothing."
"Thorda," said the Lady Ciara, "search her."
Thorda came smiling up to Stark and ripped her jacket open.
With uncanny swiftness, the Earthwoman moved. The edge of one broad hand took Thorda under the ear, and before the woman's knees had time to sag Stark had caught her arm. She turned, crouching forward, and pitched Thorda headlong through the door flap.
She straightened and turned again. Her eyes held a feral glint. "The woman has robbed me once," she said. "It is enough."
She heard Thorda's women coming. Three of them tried to jam through the entrance at once, and she sprang at them. She made no sound. Her fists did the talking for her, and then her feet, as she kicked the stunned barbarians back upon their leader.
"Now," she said to the Lady Ciara, "will we talk as women?"
The woman in armor laughed, a sound of pure enjoyment. It seemed that the gaze behind the mask studied Stark's savage face, and then lifted to greet the sullen Thorda who came back into the shelter, her cheeks flushed crimson with rage.
"Go," said the Lady Ciara. "The stranger and I will talk."
"But Lady," she protested, glaring at Stark, "it is not safe..."
"My dark master looks after my safety," said Ciara, stroking the axe across her knees. "Go." Thorda went.
The woman in armor was silent then, the blind mask turned to Stark, who met that eyeless gaze and was silent also. And the bundle of rags in the shadows straightened slowly and became a tall old woman with rusty hair and locks, through which peered craggy juts of bone and two bright, small points of fire, as though some wicked flame burned within her.
She shuffled over and crouched at the feet of the Lady Ciara, watching the Earthwoman. And the woman in armor leaned forward.
"I will tell you something, Erica Joan Stark. I am a bastard, but I come of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands. But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!
"I will take Kushat, Who holds Kushat, holds Mars—and the power and the riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!"
"I have seen them," said the old woman, and her eyes blazed. "I have seen Ban Cruach the mighty. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen Them, the shining ones. Oh, I have seen them, the beautiful, hideous ones!"
She glanced sidelong at Stark, very cunning. "That is why Otara is mad, stranger. She has seen."
A chill swept Stark. She too had seen, not with her own eyes but with the mind and memories of Ban Cruach, of a million years ago.
Then it had been no illusion, the fantastic vision opened to her by the talisman now hidden in her belt! If this old madman had seen...
"What beings lurk beyond the Gates of Death I do not know," said Ciara. "But my dark master will test their strength—and I think my red wolves will hunt them down, once they get a smell of plunder."
"The beautiful, terrible ones," whispered Otara. "And oh, the temples and the palaces, and the great towers of stone!"
"Ride with me, Stark," said the Lady Ciara abruptly. "Yield up the talisman, and be the shield at my back. I have offered no other woman that honor."
Stark asked slowly, "Why do you choose me?"
"We are of one blood, Stark, though we be strangers."
The Earthwoman's cold eyes narrowed. "What would your red wolves say to that? And what would Otara say? Look at her, already stiff with jealousy, and fear lest I answer, 'Yes'."
"I do not think you would be afraid of either of them."
"On the contrary," said Stark, "I am a prudent woman." She paused. "There is one other thing. I will bargain with no woman until I have looked into her eyes. Take off your helm, Ciara—and then perhaps we will talk!"
Otara's breath made a snakelike hissing between her toothless gums, and the hands of the Lady Ciara tightened on the haft of the axe.
"No!" she whispered. "That I can never do."
Otara rose to her feet, and for the first time Stark felt the full strength that lay in this strange old woman.
"Would you look upon the face of destruction?" she thundered. "Do you ask for death? Do you think a thing is hidden behind a mask of steel without a reason, that you demand to see it?"
She turned. "My Lady," she said. "By tomorrow the last of the clans will have joined us. After that, we must march. Give this Earthwoman to Thorda, for the time that remains—and you will have the talisman."
The blank, blind mask was unmoving, turned toward Stark, and the Earthwoman thought that from behind it came a faint sound that might have been a sigh.
Then...
"Thorda!" cried the Lady Ciara, and lifted up the axe.
III
THE FLAMES LEAPED HIGH from the fire in the windless gorge. Women sat around it in a great circle, the wild riders out of the mountain valleys of Mekh. They sat with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves around a dying quarry. Now and again their white teeth showed in a kind of silent laughter, and their eyes watched.
"She is strong," they whispered, one to the other. "She will live the night out, surely!"
On an outcrop of rock sat the Lady Ciara, wrapped in a black cloak, holding the great axe in the crook of her arm. Beside her, Otara huddled in the snow.
Close by, the long spears had been driven deep and lashed together to make a scaffolding, and upon this frame was hung a woman. A big woman, iron-muscled and very lean, the bulk of her shoulders filling the space between the bending shafts. Erica Joan Stark of Earth, out of Mercury.
She had already been scourged without mercy. She sagged of her own weight between the spears, breathing in harsh sobs, and the trampled snow around her was spotted red.
Thorda was wielding the lash. She had stripped off her own coat, and her body glistened with sweat in spite of the cold. She cut her victim with great care, making the long lash sing and crack. She was proud of her skill.
Stark did not cry out.
Presently Thorda stepped back, panting, and looked at the Lady Ciara. And the black helm nodded.
Thorda dropped the whip. She went up to the big dark woman and lifted her head by the hair.
"Stark," she said, and shook the head roughly. "Stranger!"
Eyes opened and stared at her, and Thorda could not repress a slight shiver. It seemed that the pain and indignity had wrought some evil magic on this woman she had ridden with, and thought she knew. She had seen exactly the same gaze in a big snow-cat caught in a trap, and she felt suddenly that it was not a woman she spoke to, but a predatory beast.
"Stark," she said. "Where is the talisman of Ban Cruach?"
The Earthwoman did not answer.
Thorda laughed. She glanced up at the sky, where the moons rode low and swift.
"The night is only half gone. Do you think you can last it out?"
The cold, cruel, patient eyes watched Thorda. There was no reply.
Some quality of pride in that gaze angered the barbarian. It seemed to mock her, who was so sure of her ability to loosen a reluctant tongue.
"You think I cannot make you talk, don't you? You don't know me, stranger! You don't know Thorda, who can make the rocks speak out if she will!"
She reached out with her free hand and struck Stark across the face.
It seemed impossible that anything so still could move so quickly. There was an ugly flash of teeth, and Thorda's wrist was caught above the thumb-joint. She bellowed, and the iron jaws closed down, worrying the bone.
Quite suddenly, Thorda screamed. Not for pain, but for panic. And the rows of watching women swayed forward, and even the Lady Ciara rose up, startled.
"Hark!" ran the whispering around the fire. "Hark how she growls!"
Thorda had let go of Stark's hair and was beating her about the head with her clenched fist. Her face was white.
"Werewolf!" she screamed. "Let me go, beast-thing! Let me go!"
But the dark woman clung to Thorda's wrist, snarling, and did not hear. After a bit there came the dull crack of bone.
Stark opened her jaws. Thorda ceased to strike her. She backed off slowly, staring at the torn flesh. Stark had sunk down to the length of her arms.
With her left hand, Thorda drew her knife. The Lady Ciara stepped forward. "Wait, Thorda!"
"It is a thing of evil," whispered the barbarian. "Witch. Werewolf. Beast."
She sprang at Stark.
The woman in armor moved, very swiftly, and the great axe went whirling through the air. It caught Thorda squarely where the cords of her neck ran into the shoulder—caught, and shore on through.
There was a silence in the valley.
The Lady Ciara walked slowly across the trampled snow and took up her axe again.
"I will be obeyed," she said. "And I will not stand for fear, not of god, woman, nor devil." She gestured toward Stark. "Cut her down. And see that she does not die."
She strode away, and Otara began to laugh.
From a vast distance, Stark heard that shrill, wild laughter. Her mouth was full of blood, and she was mad with a cold fury.
A cunning that was purely animal guided her movements then. Her head fell forward, and her body hung inert against the thongs. She might almost have been dead.
A knot of women came toward her. She listened to them. They were hesitant and afraid. Then, as she did not move, they plucked up courage and came closer, and one prodded her gently with the point of her spear.
"Prick her well," said another, "Let us be sure!"
The sharp point bit a little deeper. A few drops of blood welled out and joined the small red streams that ran from the weals of the lash. Stark did not stir.
The spearwoman grunted. "She is safe enough now."
Stark felt the knife blades working at the thongs. She waited. The rawhide snapped, and she was free.
She did not fall. She would not have fallen then if she had taken a death wound. She gathered her legs under her and sprang.
She picked up the spearwoman in that first rush and flung her into the fire. Then she began to run toward the place where the scaly mounts were herded, leaving a trail of blood behind her on the snow.
A woman loomed up in front of her. She saw the shadow of a spear and swerved, and caught the haft in her two hands. She wrenched it free and struck down with the butt of it, and went on. Behind her she heard voices shouting and the beginning of turmoil.
The Lady Ciara turned and came back, striding fast.
There were women before Stark now, many women, the circle of watchers breaking up because there had been nothing more to watch. She gripped the long spear. It was a good weapon, better than the flint-tipped stick with which the girl N'Chaka had hunted the giant lizard of the rocks.
Her body curved into a half crouch. She voiced one cry, the challenging scream of a predatory killer, and went in among the women.
She did slaughter with that spear. They were not expecting attack. They were not expecting anything. Stark had sprung to life too quickly. And they were afraid of her. She could smell the fear on them. Fear not of a woman like themselves, but of a creature less and more than woman.
She killed, and was happy.
They fell away from her, the wild riders of Mekh. They were sure now that she was a demon. She raged among them with the bright spear, and they heard again that sound that should not have come from a human throat, and their superstitious terror rose and sent them scrambling out of her path, trampling on each other in childish panic.
She broke through, and now there was nothing between her and escape but two mounted women who guarded the herd.
Being mounted, they had more courage. They felt that even a witch could not stand against their charge. They came at her as she ran, the padded feet of their beasts making a muffled drumming in the snow.
Without breaking stride, Stark hurled her spear.
IT DROVE through one woman's body and tumbled her off, so that she fell under her comrade's mount and fouled its legs. It staggered and reared up, hissing, and Stark fled on.
Once she glanced over her shoulder. Through the milling, shouting crowd of women she glimpsed a dark, mailed figure with a winged mask, going through the ruck with a loping stride and bearing a sable axe raised high for the throwing.
Stark was close to the herd now. And they caught her scent.
The Norland brutes had never liked the smell of her, and now the reek of blood upon her was enough in itself to set them wild. They began to hiss and snarl uneasily, rubbing their reptilian flanks together as they wheeled around, staring at her with lambent eyes.
She rushed them, before they should quite decide to break. She was quick enough to catch one by the fleshy comb that served it for a forelock, held it with savage indifference to its squealing, and leaped to its back. Then she let it bolt, and as she rode it she yelled, a shrill brute cry that urged the creatures on to panic.
The herd broke, stampeding outward from its center like a bursting shell.
Stark was in the forefront. Clinging low to the scaly neck, she saw the women of Mekh scattered and churned and tramped into the snow by the flying pads. In and out of the shelters, kicking the brush walls down, lifting up their harsh reptilian voices, they went racketing through the camp, leaving behind them wreckage as of a storm. And Stark went with them.
She snatched a cloak from off the shoulders of some petty chieftain as she went by, and then, twisting cruelly on the fleshy comb, beating with her fist at the creature's head, she got her mount turned in the way she wanted it to go, down the valley.
She caught one last glimpse of the Lady Ciara, fighting to hold one of the creatures long enough to mount, and then a dozen striving bodies surged around her, and Stark was gone.
The beast did not slacken pace. It was as though it thought it could outrun the alien, bloody thing that clung to its back. The last fringes of the camp shot by and vanished in the gloom, and the clean snow of the lower valley lay open before it. The creature laid its belly to the ground and went, the white spray spurting from its heels.
Stark hung on. Her strength was gone now, run out suddenly with the battle-madness. She became conscious now that she was sick and bleeding, that her body was one cruel pain. In that moment, more than in the hours that had gone before, she hated the black leader of the clans of Mekh.
That flight down the valley became a sort of ugly dream. Stark was aware of rock walls reeling past, and then they seemed to widen away and the wind came out of nowhere like the stroke of a great hammer, and she was on the open moors again.
The beast began to falter and slow down. Presently it stopped.
Stark scooped up snow to rub on her wounds. She came near to fainting, but the bleeding stopped and after that the pain was numbed to a dull ache. She wrapped the cloak around her and urged the beast to go on, gently this time, patiently, and after it had breathed it obeyed her, settling into the shuffling pace it could keep up for hours.
She was three days on the moors. Part of the time she rode in a sort of stupor, and part of the time she was feverishly alert, watching the skyline. Frequently she took the shapes of thrusting rocks for riders, and found what cover she could until she was sure they did not move. She was afraid to dismount, for the beast had no bridle. When it halted to rest she remained upon its back, shaking, her brow beaded with sweat.
The wind scoured her tracks clean as soon as she made them. Twice, in the distance, she did see riders, and one of those times she burrowed into a tall drift and stayed there for several hours.
The ruined towers marched with her across the bitter land, lonely giants fifty miles apart. She did not go near them.
She knew that she wandered a good bit, but she could not help it, and it was probably her salvation. In those tortured badlands, riven by ages of frost and flood, one might follow a woman on a straight track between two points. But to find a single rider lost in that wilderness was a matter of sheer luck, and the odds were with Stark.
One evening at sunset she came out upon a plain that sloped upward to a black and towering scarp, notched with a single pass.
The light was level and blood-red, glittering on the frosty rock so that it seemed the throat of the pass was aflame with evil fires. To Stark's mind, essentially primitive and stripped now of all its acquired reason, that narrow cleft appeared as the doorway to the dwelling place of demons as horrible as the fabled creatures that roam the Darkside of her native world.
She looked long at the Gates of Death, and a dark memory crept into her brain. Memory of that nightmare experience when the talisman had made her seem to walk into that frightful pass, not as Stark, but as Ban Cruach.
She remembered Otara's words—I have seen Ban Cruach the mighty. Was she still there beyond those darkling gates, fighting her unimagined war, alone?
Again, in memory, Stark heard the evil piping of the wind. Again, the shadow of a dim and terrible shape loomed up before her...
She forced remembrance of that vision from her mind, by a great effort. She could not turn back now. There was no place to go.
Her weary beast plodded on, and now Stark saw as in a dream that a great walled city stood guard before that awful Gate. She watched the city glide toward her through a crimson haze, and fancied she could see the ages clustered like birds around the towers.
She had reached Kushat, with the talisman of Ban Cruach still strapped in the bloodstained belt around her waist.
IV
HE STOOD IN A LARGE SQUARE, lined about with huckster's stalls and the booths of wine-sellers. Beyond were buildings, streets, a city. Stark got a blurred impression of a grand and brooding darkness, bulking huge against the mountains, as bleak and proud as they, and quite as ancient, with many ruins and deserted quarters.
She was not sure how she had come there, but she was standing on her own feet, and someone was pouring sour wine into her mouth. She drank it greedily. There were people around her, jostling, chattering, demanding answers to their questions. A boy's voice said sharply, "Let her be! Can't you see she's hurt?"
Stark looked down. He was slim and ragged, with black hair and large eyes yellow as a cat's. He held a leather bottle in his hands. He smiled at her and said, "I'm Thanir. Will you drink more wine?"
"I will," said Stark, and did, and then said, "Thank you, Thanir." She put her hand on his shoulder, to steady herself. It was a supple shoulder, surprisingly strong. She liked the feel of it.
The crowd was still churning around her, growing larger, and now she heard the tramp of military feet. A small detachment of women in light armor pushed their way through.
A very young officer whose breastplate hurt the eye with brightness demanded to be told at once who Stark was and why she had come there.
"No one crosses the moors in winter," she said, as though that in itself were a sign of evil intent.
"The clans of Mekh are crossing them," Stark answered. "An army, to take Kushat—one, two days behind me."
The crowd picked that up. Excited voices tossed it back and forth, and clamored for more news. Stark spoke to the officer.
"I will see your captain, and at once."
"You'll see the inside of a prison, more likely!" snapped the young woman. "What's this nonsense about the clans of Mekh?"
Stark regarded her. She looked so long and so curiously that the crowd began to snicker and the officer's beardless face flushed pink to the ears.
"I have fought in many wars," said Stark gently. "And long ago I learned to listen, when someone came to warn me of attack."
"Better take her to the captain, Lugh," cried Thanir. "It's our skins too, you know, if there is war."
The crowd began to shout. They were all poor folk, wrapped in threadbare cloaks or tattered leather. They had no love for the guards. And whether there was war or not, their winter had been long and dull, and they were going to make the most of this excitement.
"Take her, Lugh! Let her warn the nobles. Let them think how they'll defend Kushat and the Gates of Death, now that the talisman is gone!"
"That is a lie!" Lugh shouted. "And you know the penalty for telling it. Hold your tongues, or I'll have you all whipped." She gestured angrily at Stark. "See if she is armed."
One of the soldiers stepped forward, but Stark was quicker. She slipped the thong and let the cloak fall, baring her upper body.
"The clansmen have already taken everything I owned," she said. "But they gave me something, in return."
The crowd stared at the half healed stripes that scarred her, and there was a drawing in of breath.
The soldier picked up the cloak and laid it over the Earthwoman's shoulders. And Lugh said sullenly, "Come, then."
Stark's fingers tightened on Thanir' shoulder. "Come with me, little one," she whispered. "Otherwise, I must crawl."
He smiled at her and came. The crowd followed.
The captain of the guards was a fleshy woman with a smell of wine about her and a face already crumbling apart though her hair was not yet grey. She sat in a squat tower above the square, and she observed Stark with no particular interest.
"You had something to tell," said Lugh. "Tell it."
STARK TOLD THEM, leaving out all mention of Camara and the talisman. This was neither the time nor the woman to hear that story. The captain listened to all she had to say about the gathering of the clans of Mekh, and then sat studying her with a bleary shrewdness.
"You have proof of all this?"
"These stripes. Their leader Ciara ordered them laid on herself."
The captain sighed, and leaned back.
"Any wandering band of hunters could have scourged you," she said. "A nameless vagabond from the gods know where, and a lawless one at that, if I'm any judge of men—you probably deserved it."
She reached for wine, and smiled. "Look you, stranger. In the Norlands, no one makes war in the winter. And no one ever heard of Ciara. If you hoped for a reward from the city, you overshot badly."
"The Lady Ciara," said Stark, grimly controlling her anger, "will be battering at your gates within two days. And you will hear of her then."
"Perhaps. You can wait for her—in a cell. And you can leave Kushat with the first caravan after the thaw. We have enough rabble here without taking in more."
Thanir caught Stark by the cloak and held her back.
"Sir," he said, as though it were an unclean word. "I will vouch for the stranger."
The captain glanced at him. "You?"
"Sir, I am a free citizen of Kushat. According to law, I may vouch for her."
"If you scum of the Thieves' Quarter would practice the law as well as you prate it, we would have less trouble," growled the captain. "Very well, take the creature, if you want her. I don't suppose you've anything to lose."
Lugh laughed.
"Name and dwelling place," said the captain, and wrote them down. "Remember, she is not to leave the Quarter."
Thanir nodded. "Come," he said to. Stark. She did not move, and he looked up at her. She was staring at the captain. Her locks had grown in these last days, and her face was still scarred by Thorda's blows and made wolfish with pain and fever. And now, out of this evil mask, her eyes were peering with a chill and terrible intensity at the soft-bellied woman who sat and mocked her.
Thanir laid his hand on her rough cheek. "Come," he said. "Come and rest."
Gently he turned her head. She blinked and swayed, and he took her around the waist and led her unprotesting to the door.
There he paused, looking back.
"Sir," he said, very meekly, "news of this attack is being shouted through the Quarter now. If it should come, and it were known that you had the warning and did not pass it on..." He made an expressive gesture, and went out.
Lugh glanced uneasily at the captain. "He's right, sir. If by chance the woman did tell the truth..."
The captain swore. "Rot. A rogue's tale. And yet..." She scowled indecisively, and then reached for parchment. "After all, it's a simple thing. Write it up, pass it on, and let the nobles do the worrying."
Her pen began to scratch.
Thanir took Stark by steep and narrow ways, darkling now in the afterglow, where the city climbed and fell again over the uneven rock. Stark was aware of the heavy smells of spices and unfamiliar foods, and the musky undertones of a million generations swarmed together to spawn and die in these crowded catacombs of slate and stone.
There was a house, blending into other houses, close under the loom of the great Wall. There was a flight of steps, hollowed deep with use, twisting crazily around outer corners.
There was a low room, and a slender woman named Balina, vaguely glimpsed, who said she was Thanir' sister. There was a bed of skins and woven cloths.
Stark slept.
HANDS and voices called her back. Strong hands shaking her, urgent voices. She started up growling, like an animal suddenly awaked, still lost in the dark mists of exhaustion. Balina swore, and caught her fingers away.
"What is this you have brought home, Thanir? By the gods, it snapped at me!"
Thanir ignored her. "Stark," he said. "Stark! Listen. Women are coming. Soldiers. They will question you. Do you hear me?"
Stark said heavily, "I hear."
"Do not speak of Camara!"
Stark got to her feet, and Balina said hastily, "Peace! The thing is safe. I would not steal a death warrant!"
Her voice had a ring of truth. Stark sat down again. It was an effort to keep awake. There was clamor in the street below. It was still night.
Balina said carefully, "Tell them what you told the captain, nothing more. They will kill you if they know."
A rough hand thundered at the door, and a voice cried, "Open up!"
Balina sauntered over to lift the bar. Thanir sat beside Stark, his hand touching hers. Stark rubbed her face. She had been shaved and washed, her wounds rubbed with salve. The belt was gone, and her bloodstained clothing. She realized only then that she was naked, and drew a cloth around her. Thanir whispered, "The belt is there on that peg, under your cloak."
Balina opened the door, and the room was full of women.
Stark recognized the captain. There were others, four of them, young, old, intermediate, annoyed at being hauled away from their beds and their gaming tables at this hour. The sixth woman wore the jewelled cuirass of a noble. She had a nice, a kind face. Grey hair, mild eyes, soft cheeks. A fine woman, but ludicrous in the trappings of a soldier.
"Is this the woman?" she asked, and the captain nodded.
"Yes." It was her turn to say Sir.
Balina brought a chair. She had a fine flourish about her. She wore a crimson jewel in her left ear, and every line of her was quick and sensitive, instinct with mockery. Her eyes were brightly cynical, in a face worn lean with years of merry sinning. Stark liked her.
She was a civilized woman. They all were—the noble, the captain, the lot of them. So civilized that the origins of their culture were forgotten half an age before the first clay brick was laid in Babylon.
Too civilized, Stark thought. Peace had drawn their fangs and cut their claws. She thought of the wild clansmen coming fast across the snow, and felt a certain pity for the women of Kushat.
The noble sat down.
"This is a strange tale you bring, wanderer. I would hear it from your own lips."
Stark told it. She spoke slowly, watching every word, cursing the weariness that fogged her brain.
The noble, who was called Rogaina, asked her questions. Where was the camp? How many women? What were the exact words of the Lady Ciara, and who was she?
Stark answered, with meticulous care.
Rogaina sat for some time lost in thought. She seemed worried and upset, one hand playing aimlessly with the hilt of her sword. A scholar's hand, without a callous on it.
"There is one thing more," said Rogaina. "What business had you on the moors in winter?"
Stark smiled. "I am a wanderer by profession."
"Outlaw?" asked the captain, and Stark shrugged.
"Mercenary is a kinder word."
ROGAIN studied the pattern of stripes on the Earthwoman's dark skin. "Why did the Lady Ciara, so-called, order you scourged?"
"I had thrashed one of her chieftains."
Rogaina sighed and rose. She stood regarding Stark from under brooding brows, and at length she said, "It is a wild tale. I can't believe it—and yet, why should you lie?"
She paused, as though hoping that Stark would answer that and relieve her of worry.
Stark yawned. "The tale is easily proved. Wait a day or two."
"I will arm the city," said Rogaina. "I dare not do otherwise. But I will tell you this." An astonishing unpleasant look came into her eyes. "If the attack does not come—if you have set a whole city by the ears for nothing—I will have you flayed alive and your body tumbled over the Wall for the carrion birds to feed on."
She strode out, taking her retinue with her. Balina smiled. "She will do it, too," she said, and dropped the bar.
Stark did not answer. She stared at Balina, and then at Thanir, and then at the belt hanging on the peg, in a curiously blank and yet penetrating fashion, like an animal that thinks its own thoughts. She took a deep breath. Then, as though she found the air clean of danger, she rolled over and went instantly to sleep.
Balina lifted her shoulders expressively. She grinned at Thanir. "Are you positive it's human?"
"She's beautiful," said Thanir, and tucked the cloths around her. "Hold your tongue." He continued to sit there, watching Stark's face as the slow dreams moved across it. Balina laughed.
It was evening again when Stark awoke. She sat up, stretching lazily. Thanir crouched by the hearthstone, stirring something savory in a blackened pot. He wore a red kirtle and a necklet of beaten gold, and his hair was combed out smooth and shining.
He smiled at her and rose, bringing her her own boots and trousers, carefully cleaned, and a tunic of leather tanned fine and soft as silk. Stark asked his where he got it.
"Balina stole it—from the baths where the nobles go. She said you might as well have the best." He laughed. "She had a devil of a time finding one big enough to fit you."
He watched with unashamed interest while she dressed. Stark said, "Don't burn the soup."
He put his tongue out at her. "Better be proud of that fine hide while you have it," he said. "There's no sign of attack."
Stark was aware of sounds that had not been there before—the pacing of women on the Wall above the house, the calling of the watch. Kushat was armed and ready—and her time was running out. She hoped that Ciara had not been delayed on the moors.
Thanir said, "I should explain about the belt. When Balina undressed you, she saw Camara's name scratched on the inside of the boss. And, she can open a lizard's egg without harming the shell."
"What about you?" asked Stark. He flexed his supple fingers. "I do well enough."
BALIN came in. She had been seeking news, but there was little to be had.
"The soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm," she said. "The people are excited, but more as though they were playing a game. Kushat has not fought a war for centuries." She sighed. "The pity of it is, Stark, I believe your story. And I'm afraid."
Thanir handed her a steaming bowl. "Here—employ your tongue with this. Afraid, indeed! Have you forgotten the Wall? No one has carried it since the city was built. Let them attack!"
Stark was amused. "For a child, you know much concerning war."
"I knew enough to save your skin!" he flared, and Balina smiled.
"He has you there, Stark. And speaking of skins..." She glanced up at the belt. "Or better, speaking of talismans, which we were not. How did you come by it?"
Stark told her. "She had a sin on her soul, did Camara. And—he was my friend."
Balina looked at her with deep respect. "You were a fool," she said "Look you. The thing is returned to Kushat. Your promise is kept. There is nothing for you here but danger, and were I you I would not wait to be flayed, or slain, or taken in a quarrel that is not yours."
"Ah," said Stark softly, "but it is mine. The Lady Ciara made it so." She, too, glanced at the belt. "What of the talisman?"
"Return it where it came from," Thanir said. "My sister is a better thief than Camara. She can certainly do that."
"No!" said Balina, with surprising force. "We will keep it, Stark and I. Whether it has power, I do not know. But if it has—I think Kushat will need it, and in strong hands."
Stark said somebrely, "It has power, the Talisman. Whether for good or evil, I don't know."
They looked at her, startled. But a touch of awe seemed to repress their curiosity.
She could not tell them. She was, somehow, reluctant to tell anyone of that dark vision of what lay beyond the Gates of Death, which the talisman of Ban Cruach had lent her.
Balina stood up. "Well, for good or evil, at least the sacred relic of Ban Cruach has come home." She yawned. "I am going to bed. Will you come, Thanir, or will you stay and quarrel with our guest?"
"I will stay," he said, "and quarrel."
"Ah, well." Balina sighed puckishly. "Good night." She vanished into an inner room. Stark looked at Thanir. He had a warm mouth, and his eyes were beautiful, and full of light.
She smiled, holding out her hand.
The night wore on, and Stark lay drowsing. Thanir had opened the curtains. Wind and moonlight swept together into the room, and he stood leaning upon the sill, above the slumbering city. The smile that lingered in the corners of his mouth was sad and far-away, and very tender.
Stark stirred uneasily, making small sounds in her throat. Her motions grew violent. Thanir crossed the room and touched her.
Instantly she was awake.
"Animal," he said softly. "You dream."
Stark shook her head. Her eyes were still clouded, though not with sleep. "Blood," she said, "heavy in the wind."
"I smell nothing but the dawn," he said, and laughed.
Stark rose. "Get Balina. I'm going up on the Wall."
He did not know her now. "What is it, Stark? What's wrong?"
"Get Balina." Suddenly it seemed that the room stifled her. She caught up her cloak and Camara's belt and flung open the door, standing on the narrow steps outside. The moonlight caught in her eyes, pale as frost-fire.
Thanir shivered. Balina joined his without being called. She, too, had slept but lightly. Together they followed Stark up the rough-cut stair that led to the top of the Wall.
She looked southward, where the plain ran down from the mountains and spread away below Kushat. Nothing moved out there. Nothing marred the empty whiteness. But Stark said,
"They will attack at dawn."
V
THEY WAITED. Some distance away a guard leaned against the parapet, huddled in her cloak. She glanced at them incuriously. It was bitterly cold. The wind came whistling down through the Gates of Death, and below in the streets the watchfires shuddered and flared.
They waited, and still there was nothing.
Balina said impatiently, "How can you know they're coming?"
Stark shivered, a shallow rippling of the flesh that had nothing to do with cold, and every muscle of her body came alive. Phobos plunged downward. The moonlight dimmed and changed, and the plain was very empty, very still.
"They will wait for darkness. They will have an hour or so, between moonset and dawn."
Thanir muttered, "Dreams! Besides, I'm cold." He hesitated, and then crept in under Balina's cloak. Stark had gone away from him. He watched her sulkily where she leaned upon the stone. She might have been part of it, as dark and unstirring.
Deimos sank low toward the west.
Stark turned her head, drawn inevitably to look toward the cliffs above Kushat, soaring upward to blot out half the sky. Here, close under them, they seemed to tower outward in a curving mass, like the last wave of eternity rolling down, crested white with the ash of shattered worlds.
I have stood beneath those cliffs before, I have felt them leaning down to crush me, and I have been afraid.
She was still afraid. The mind that had poured its memories into that crystal lens had been dead a million years, but neither time nor death had dulled the terror that beset Ban Cruach in her journey through that nightmare pass.
She looked into the black and narrow mouth of the Gates of Death, cleaving the scarp like a wound, and the primitive ape-thing within her cringed and moaned, oppressed with a sudden sense of fate.
She had come painfully across half a world, to crouch before the Gates of Death. Some evil magic had let her see forbidden things, had linked her mind in an unholy bond with the long-dead mind of one who had been half a god. These evil miracles had not been for nothing. She would not be allowed to go unscathed.
She drew herself up sharply then, and swore. She had left N'Chaka behind, a naked girl running in a place of rocks and sun on Mercury. She had become Erica Joan Stark, a woman, and civilized. She thrust the senseless premonition from her, and turned her back upon the mountains.
Deimos touched the horizon. A last gleam of reddish light tinged the snow, and then was gone.
Thanir, who was half asleep, said with sudden irritation, "I do not believe in your barbarians. I'm going home." He thrust Balina aside and went away, down the steps.
The plain was now in utter darkness, under the faint, far Northern stars.
Stark settled herself against the parapet. There was a sort of timeless patience about her. Balina envied it. She would have liked to go with Thanir. She was cold and doubtful, but she stayed.
Time passed, endless minutes of it, lengthening into what seemed hours.
Stark said, "Can you hear them?"
"No."
"They come." Her hearing, far keener than Balina's, picked up the little sounds, the vast inchoate rustling of an army on the move in stealth and darkness. Light-armed women, hunters, used to stalking wild beasts in the show. They could move softly, very softly.
"I hear nothing," Balina said, and again they waited.
The westering stars moved toward the horizon, and at length in the east a dim pallor crept across the sky.
The plain was still shrouded in night, but now Stark could make out the high towers of the Queen City of Kushat, ghostly and indistinct—the ancient, proud high towers of the rulers and their nobles, set above the crowded Quarters of merchants and artisans and thieves. She wondered who would be queen in Kushat by the time this unrisen sun had set.
"You were wrong," said Balina, peering. "There is nothing on the plain." Stark said, "Wait."
SWIFTLY NOW, in the thin air of Mars, the dawn came with a rush and a leap, flooding the world with harsh light. It flashed in cruel brilliance from sword-blades, from spearheads, from helmets and burnished mail, from the war-harness of beasts, glistened on bare russet heads and coats of leather, set the banners of the clans to burning, crimson and gold and green, bright against the snow.
There was no sound, not a whisper, in all the land.
Somewhere a hunting horn sent forth one deep cry to split the morning. Then burst out the wild skirling of the mountain pipes and the broken thunder of drums, and a wordless scream of exultation that rang back from the Wall of Kushat like the very voice of battle. The women of Mekh began to move.
Raggedly, slowly at first, then more swiftly as the press of warriors broke and flowed, the barbarians swept toward the city as water sweeps over a broken dam.
Knots and clumps of women, tall women running like deer, leaping, shouting, swinging their great brands. Riders, spurring their mounts until they fled belly down. Spears, axes, swordblades tossing, a sea of women and beasts, rushing, trampling, shaking the ground with the thunder of their going.
And ahead of them all came a solitary figure in black mail, riding a raking beast trapped all in black, and bearing a sable axe.
Kushat came to life. There was a swarming and a yelling in the streets, and soldiers began to pour up onto the Wall. A thin company, Stark thought, and shook her head. Mobs of citizens choked the alleys, and every rooftop was full. A troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright mail, to take up their post in the square by the great gate.
Balina said nothing, and Stark did not disturb her thoughts. From the look of her, they were dark indeed.
Soldiers came and ordered them off the the Wall. They went back to their own roof, where they were joined by Thanir. He was in a high state of excitement, but unafraid.
"Let them attack!" he said. "Let them break their spears against the Wall. They will crawl away again."
Stark began to grow restless. Up in their high emplacements, the big ballistas creaked and thrummed. The muted song of the bows became a wailing hum. Women fell, and were kicked off the ledges by their fellows. The blood-howl of the clans rang unceasing on the frosty air, and Stark heard the rap of scaling ladders against stone.
Thanir said abruptly, "What is that—that sound like thunder?"
"Rams," she answered. "They are battering the gate."
He listened, and Stark saw in his face the beginning of fear.
It was a long fight. Stark watched it hungrily from the roof all that morning. The soldiers of Kushat did bravely and well, but they were as folded sheep against the tall killers of the mountains. By noon the officers were beating the Quarters for women to replace the slain.
Stark and Balina went up again, onto the Wall.
The clans had suffered. Their dead lay in windrows under the Wall, amid the broken ladders. But Stark knew her barbarians. They had sat restless and chafing in the valley for many days, and now the battle-madness was on them and they were not going to be stopped.
Wave after wave of them rolled up, and was cast back, and came on again relentlessly. The intermittent thunder boomed still from the gates, where sweating giants swung the rams under cover of their own bowmen. And everywhere, up and down through the forefront of the fighting, rode the woman in black armor, and wild cheering followed her.
Balina said heavily, "It is the end of Kushat."
A LADDER banged against the stones a few feet away. Women swarmed up the rungs, fierce-eyed clansmen with laughter in their mouths, Stark was first at the head.
They had given her a spear. She spitted two women through with it and lost it, and a third woman came leaping over the parapet. Stark received her into her arms.
Balina watched. She saw the warrior go crashing back, sweeping her fellows off the ladder. She saw Stark's face. She heard the sounds and smelled the blood and sweat of war, and she was sick to the marrow of her bones, and her hatred of the barbarians was a terrible thing.
Stark caught up a dead woman's blade, and within ten minutes her arm was as red as a butcher's. And ever she watched the winged helm that went back and forth below, a standard to the clans.
By mid-afternoon the barbarians had gained the Wall in three places. They spread inward along the ledges, pouring up in a resistless tide, and the defenders broke. The rout became a panic.
"It's all over now," Stark said. "Find Thanir, and hide him."
Balina let fall her sword. "Give me the talisman," she whispered, and Stark saw that she was weeping. "Give it me, and I will go beyond the Gates of Death and rouse Ban Cruach from her sleep. And if she has forgotten Kushat, I will take her power into my own hands. I will fling wide the Gates of Death and loose destruction on the women of Mekh—or if the legends are all lies, then I will die."
She was like a woman crazed. "Give me the talisman!"
Stark slapped her, carefully and without heat, across the face. "Get your brother, Balina. Hide him, unless you would be uncle to a red-haired brat."
She went then, like a woman who has been stunned. Screaming men with their children clogged the ways that led inward from the Wall, and there was bloody work afoot on the rooftops and in the narrow alleys.
The gate was holding, still.
STARK FORCED her way toward the square. The booths of the hucksters were overthrown, the wine-jars broken and the red wine spilled. Beasts squealed and stamped, tired of their chafing harness, driven wild by the shouting and the smell of blood. The dead were heaped high where they had fallen from above.
They were all soldiers here, clinging grimly to their last foothold. The deep song of the rams shook the very stones. The iron-sheathed timbers of the gate gave back an answering scream, and toward the end all other sounds grew hushed. The nobles came down slowly from the Wall and mounted, and sat waiting.
There were fewer of them now. Their bright armor was dented and stained, and their faces had a pallor on them.
One last hammer-stroke of the rams.
With a bitter shriek the weakened bolts tore out, and the great gate was broken through.
The nobles of Kushat made their first, and final charge.
As soldiers they went up against the riders of Mekh, and as soldiers they held them until they died. Those that were left were borne back into the square, caught as in the crest of an avalanche. And first through the gates came the winged battle-mask of the Lady Ciara, and the sable axe that drank women's lives where it hewed.
There was a beast with no rider to claim it, tugging at its headrope. Stark swung onto the saddle pad and cut it free. Where the press was thickest, a welter of struggling brutes and women fighting knee to knee, there was the woman in black armor, riding like a god, magnificent, born to war. Stark's eyes shone with a strange, cold light. She struck her heels hard into the scaly flanks. The beast plunged forward.
In and over and through, making the long sword sing. The beast was strong, and frightened beyond fear. It bit and trampled, and Stark cut a path for them, and presently she shouted above the din,
"Ho, there! Ciara!"
The black mask turned toward her, and the remembered voice spoke from behind the barred slot, joyously.
"The wanderer. The wild woman!"
Their two mounts shocked together. The axe came down in a whistling curve, and a red swordblade flashed to meet it. Swift, swift, a ringing clash of steel, and the blade was shattered and the axe fallen to the ground.
Stark pressed in.
Ciara reached for her sword, but her hand was numbed by the force of that blow and she was slow, a split second. The hilt of Stark's weapon, still clutched in her own numbed grip, fetched her a stunning blow on the helm, so that the metal rang like a flawed bell.
The Lady Ciara reeled back, only for a moment, but long enough. Stark grasped the war-mask and ripped it off, and got her hands around the naked throat.
She did not break that neck, as she had planned. And the Clansmen who had started in to save their leader stopped and did not move.
Stark knew now why the Lady Ciara had never shown her face.
The throat she held was white and strong, and her hands around it were buried in a mane of red-gold hair that fell down over the shirt of mail. A red mouth passionate with fury, wonderful carving bone under sculptured flesh, eyes fierce and proud and tameless as the eyes of a young eagle, fire-blue, defying her, hating her...
"By the gods," said Stark, very softly. "By the eternal gods!"
VI
A woman! and in that moment of amazement, he was quicker than she.
There was nothing to warn her, no least flicker of expression. His two fists came up together between her outstretched arms and caught her under the jaw with a force that nearly snapped her neck. She went over backward, clean out of the saddle, and lay sprawled on the bloody stones, half stunned, the wind knocked out of her.
The man wheeled his mount. Bending low, he took up the axe from where it had fallen, and faced his warriors, who were as dazed as Stark.
"I have led you well," he said. "I have taken you Kushat. Will any woman dispute me?"
They knew the axe, if they did not know him. They looked from side to side uneasily, completely at a loss, and Stark, still gasping on the ground, thought that she had never seen anything as proud and beautiful as he was then in his black mail, with his bright hair blowing and his glance like blue lightning.
The nobles of Kushat chose that moment to charge. This strange unmasking of the Mekhish lord had given them time to rally, and now they thought that the Gods had wrought a miracle to help them. They found hope, where they had lost everything but courage.
"A boy!" they cried. "A strumpet of the camps. A man!"
They howled it like an epithet, and tore into the barbarians.
He who had been the Lady Ciara drove the spurs in deep, so that the beast leaped forward screaming. He went, and did not look to see if any had followed, in among the women of Kushat. And the great axe rose and fell, and rose again.
He killed three, and left two others bleeding on the stones, and not once did he look back.
The clansmen found their tongues.
"Ciara! Ciara!"
The crashing shout drowned out the sound of battle. As one woman, they turned and followed him.
Stark, scrambling for her life underfoot, could not forbear smiling. Their childlike minds could see only two alternatives—to slay him out of hand, or to worship him. They had chosen to worship. She thought the bards would be singing of the Lady Ciara of Mekh as long as there were women to listen.
She managed to take cover behind a wrecked booth, and presently make her way out of the square. They had forgotten her, for the moment. She did not wish to wait, just then, until they—or she—remembered.
She.
She still did not believe it, quite. She touched the bruise under her jaw where he had struck her, and thought of the lithe, swift strength of him, and the way he had ridden alone into battle. She remembered the death of Thorda, and how he had kept his red wolves tamed, and she was filled with wonder, and a deep excitment.
She remembered what he had said to her once—We are of one blood, though we be strangers.
She laughed, silently, and her eyes were very bright.
The tide of war had rolled on toward the Queen City, where from the sound of it there was hot fighting around the castle. Eddies of the main struggle swept shrieking through the streets, but the rat-runs under the Wall were clear. Everyone had stampeded inward, the victims with the victors close on their heels. The short northern day was almost gone.
She found a hiding place that offered reasonable safety, and settled herself to wait.
Night came, but she did not move. From the sounds that reached her, the sacking of Kushat was in full swing. They were looting the richer streets first. Their upraised voices were thick with wine, and mingled with the cries of men. The reflection of many fires tinged the sky.
By midnight the sounds began to slacken, and by the second hour after the city slept, drugged with wine and blood and the weariness of battle. Stark went silently out into the streets, toward the Queen City.
According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city-states, the castles of the queen and the noble families were clustered together in solitary grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen now, the great halls open to the sky. Time had crushed the grandeur that had been Kushat, more fatally than the boots of any conqueror.
In the house of the queen, the flamboys guttered low and the chieftains of Mekh slept with their weary pipers among the benches of the banquet hall. In the niches of the tall, carved portal, the guards nodded over their spears. They, too, had fought that day. Even so, Stark did not go near them.
Shivering slightly in the bitter wind, she followed the bulk of the massive walls until she found a postern door, half open as some kitchen knave had left it in her flight. Stark entered, moving like a shadow.
THE PASSAGEWAY was empty, dimly lighted by a single torch. A stairway branched off from it, and she climbed that, picking her way by guess and her memories of similar castles she had seen in the past,
She emerged into a narrow hall, obviously for the use of servants. A tapestry closed the end, stirring in the chill draught that blew along the floor. She peered around it, and saw a massive, vaulted corridor, the stone walls panelled in wood much split and blackened by time, but still showing forth the wonderful carvings of beasts and women, larger than life and overlaid with gold and bright enamel.
From the corridor a single doorway opened—and Otara slept before it, curled on a pallet like a dog.
Stark went back down the narrow hall. She was sure that there must be a back entrance to the king's chambers, and she found the little door she was looking for.
From there on was darkness. She felt her way, stepping with infinite caution, and presently there was a faint gleam of light filtering around the edges of another curtain of heavy tapestry.
She crept toward it, and heard a woman's slow breathing on the other side.
She drew the curtain back, a careful inch. The woman was sprawled on a bench athwart the door. She slept the honest sleep of exhaustion, her sword in her hand, the stains of her day's work still upon her. She was alone in the small room. A door in the farther wall was closed.
Stark hit her, and caught the sword before it fell. The woman grunted once and became utterly relaxed. Stark bound her with her own harness and shoved a gag in her mouth, and went on, through the door in the opposite wall.
The room beyond was large and high and full of shadows. A fire burned low on the hearth, and the uncertain light showed dimly the hangings and the rich stuffs that carpeted the floor, and the dark, sparse shapes of furniture.
Stark made out the lattice-work of a covered bed, let into the wall after the northern fashion.
He was there, sleeping, his red-gold hair the colour of the flames.
She stood a moment, watching him, and then, as though he sensed her presence, he stirred and opened his eyes.
He did not cry out. She had known that he would not. There was no fear in him. He said, with a kind of wry humor, "I will have a word with my guards about this."
SHE FLUNG ASIDE the covering and rose. He was almost as tall as she, white-skinned and very straight. She noted the long thighs, the narrow loins and magnificent shoulders, the small virginal pectorals. He moved as a woman moves, without coquetry. A long furred gown, that Stark guessed had lately graced the shoulders of the queen, lay over a chair. He put it on.
"Well, wild woman?"
"I have come to warn you." She hesitated over him name, and he said, "My father named me Ciaran, if that seems better to you." He gave her his falcon's glance. "I could have slain you in the square, but now I think you did me a service. The truth would have come out sometime—better then, when they had no time to think about it." He laughed. "They will follow me now, over the edge of the world, if I ask them."
Stark said slowly, "Even beyond the Gates of Death?"
"Certainly, there. Above all, there!"
He turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the cliffs and the high notch of the pass, touched with greenish silver by the little moons.
"Ban Cruach was a great queen. She came out of nowhere to rule the Norlands with a rod of iron, and women speak of her still as half a god. Where did she get her power, if not from beyond the Gates of Death? Why did she go back there at the end of her days, if not to hide away her secret? Why did she build Kushat to guard the pass forever, if not to hoard that power out of reach of all the other nations of Mars?
"Yea, Stark. My women will follow me. And if they do not, I will go alone."
"You are not Ban Cruach. Nor am I." She took his by the shoulders. "Listen, Ciaran. You're already queen in the Norlands, and half a legend as you stand. Be content."
"Content!" His face was close to hers, and she saw the blaze of it, the white intensity of ambition and an iron pride. "Are you content?" he asked her, "Have you ever been content?"
She smiled. "For strangers, we do know each other well. No. But the spurs are not so deep in me."
"The wind and the fire. One spends its strength in wandering, the other devours. But one can help the other. I made you an offer once, and you said you would not bargain unless you could look into my eyes. Look now!"
She did, and her hands upon his shoulders trembled.
"No," she said harshly. "You're a fool, Ciaran. Would you be as Otara, mad with what you have seen?"
"Otara is an old woman, and likely crazed before she crossed the mountains. Besides—I am not Otara."
Stark said somberly, "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach herself..."
He must have seen the shadow of that horror in her eyes, for she felt his body tense.
"What of Ban Cruach? What do you know, Stark? Tell me!"
She was silent, and he went from her angrily.
"You have the talisman," he said. "That I am sure of. And if need be, I will flay you alive to get it!" He faced her across the room. "But whether I get it or not, I will go through the Gates of Death. I must wait, now, until after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon, and the gorges will be running full. But afterward, I will go, and no talk of fears and demons will stop me."
He began to pace the room with long strides, and the full skirts of the gown made a subtle whispering about him.
"You do not know," he said, in a low and bitter voice. "I was a girl-child, without a name. By the time I could walk, I was a servant in the house of my grandfather. The two things that kept me living were pride and hate. I left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but every day I went. I knew even then that only force would free me. And my mother was a king's son, a good woman of her hands. Her blood was strong in me. I learned."
He held his head very high. He had earned the right to hold it so. He finished quietly, "I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."
"Ciaran." Stark came and stood before him. "I am talking to you as a fighting woman, an equal. There may be power behind the Gates of Death, I do not know. But this I have seen—madness, horror, an evil that is beyond our understanding.
"I think you will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would not go into that pass for all the power of all the kings of Mars!"
Once started, she could not stop. The full force of that dark vision of the talisman swept over her again in memory. She came closer to him, driven by the need to make his understand.
"Yes, I have the talisman! And I have had a taste of its purpose. I think Ban Cruach left it as a warning, so that none would follow her. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen the Gates of Death—not with my own eyes, Ciaran, but with hers. With the eyes and the memories of Ban Cruach!"
She had caught his again, her hands strong on his strong arms.
"Will you believe me, or must you see for yourself—the dreadful things that walk those buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the mists of the pass?"
His gaze burned into hers. His breath was hot and sweet upon her lips, and he was like a sword between her hands, shining and unafraid.
"Give me the talisman. Let me see!"
She answered furiously, "You are mad. As mad as Otara." And she kissed him, in a rage, in a panic lest all that beauty be destroyed—a kiss as brutal as a blow, that left her shaken.
SHE BACKED AWAY slowly, one step, and she thought he would have killed her. She said heavily:
"If you will see, you will. The thing is here."
She opened the boss and laid the crystal in him outstretched hand. She did not meet his eyes.
"Sit down. Hold the flat side against your brow."
He sat, in a great chair of carven wood. Stark noticed that his hand was unsteady, his face the colour of white ash. She was glad he did not have the axe where he could reach it. He did not play at anger.
For a long moment he studied the intricate lens, the incredible depository of a woman's mind. Then he raised it slowly to his forehead.
She saw his grow rigid in the chair. How long she watched beside his she never knew. Seconds, an eternity. She saw his eyes turn blank and strange, and a shadow came into his face, changing it subtly, altering the lines, so that it seemed almost a stranger was peering through his flesh.
All at once, in a voice that was not his own, he cried out terribly, "Oh gods of Mars!"
The talisman dropped rolling to the floor, and Ciaran fell forward into Stark's arms.
She thought at first that he was dead. She carried his to the bed, in an agony of fear that surprised her with its violence, and laid his down, and put her hand over him heart.
It was beating strongly. Relief that was almost a sickness swept over her. She turned, searching vaguely for wine, and saw the talisman. She picked it up and put it back inside the boss. A jewelled flagon stood on a table across the room. She took it and started back, and then, abruptly, there was a wild clamor in the hall outside and Otara was shouting Ciaran's name, pounding on the door.
It was not barred. In another moment they would burst through, and she knew that they would not stop to enquire what she was doing there.
She dropped the flagon and went out swiftly, the way she had come. The guard was still unconscious. In the narrow hall beyond, Stark hesitated. A man's voice was rising high above the tumult in the main corridor, and she thought she recognized it.
She went to the tapestry curtain and looked for the second time around its edge.
The lofty space was full of women, newly wakened from their heavy sleep and as nervous as so many bears. Thanir struggled in the grip of two of them. His scarlet kirtle was torn, his hair flying in wild elf-locks, and his face was the face of a mad thing. The whole story of the doom of Kushat was written large upon it.
He screamed again and again, and would not be silenced.
"Tell him, the warlock that leads you! Tell his that he is already doomed to death; with all his army!"
Otara opened up the door of Ciaran's room.
Thanir surged forward. He must have fled through all that castle before he was caught, and Stark's heart ached for him.
"You!" he shrieked through the doorway, and poured out all the filth of the quarter upon Clara's name. "Balina has gone to bring doom upon you! She will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will die!—die!—die!"
Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread, as she let the curtain fall. Mad with hatred against conquerors, Balina had fulfilled her raging promise and had gone to fling open the Gates of Death.
Remembering her nightmare vision of the shining, evil ones whom Ban Cruach had long ago prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness grow within her as she went down the stair and out the postern door.
It was almost dawn. She looked up at the brooding cliffs, and it seemed to her that the wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that mocked her growing dread.
She knew what she must do, if an ancient, mysterious horror was not to be released upon Kushat.
I may still catch Balina before she has gone too far! If I don't—
She dared not think of that. She began to walk very swiftly through the night streets, toward the distant, towering Gates of Death.
VII
IT WAS PAST NOON. HE HAD climbed high toward the saddle of the pass. Kushat lay small below her, and she could see now the pattern of the gorges, cut ages deep in the living rock, that carried the spring torrents of the watershed around the mighty ledge on which the city was built.
The pass itself was channeled, but only by its own snows and melting ice. It was too high for a watercourse. Nevertheless, Stark thought, a woman might find it hard to stay alive if she were caught there by the thaw.
She had seen nothing of Balina. The gods knew how many hours' start she had. Stark imagined her, scrambling wild-eyed over the rocks, driven by the same madness that had sent Thanir up into the castle to call down destruction on Ciaran's head.
The sun was brilliant but without warmth. Stark shivered, and the icy wind blew strong. The cliffs hung over her, vast and sheer and crushing, and the narrow mouth of the pass was before her. She would go no farther. She would turn back, now.
But she did not. She began to walk forward, into the Gates of Death.
The light was dim and strange at the bottom of that cleft. Little veils of mist crept and clung between the ice and the rock, thickened, became more dense as she went farther and farther into the pass. She could not see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping in the crevices of the cliffs.
The steps of the Earthwoman slowed and faltered. She had known fear in her life before. But now she was carrying the burden of two women's terrors—Ban Cruach's, and her own.
She stopped, enveloped in the clinging mist. She tried to reason with herself—that Ban Cruach's fears had died a million years ago, that Otara had come this way and lived, and Balina had come also.
But the thin veneer of civilization sloughed away and left her with the naked bones of truth. Her nostrils twitched to the smell of evil, the subtle unclean taint that only a beast, or one as close to it as she, can sense and know. Every nerve was a point of pain, raw with apprehension. An overpowering recognition of danger, hidden somewhere, mocking at her, made her very body change, draw in upon itself and flatten forward, so that when at last she went on again she was more like a four-footed thing than a woman walking upright.
Infinitely wary, silent, moving surely over the ice and the tumbled rock, she followed Balina. She had ceased to think. She was going now on sheer instinct.
The pass led on and on. It grew darker, and in the dim uncanny twilight there were looming shapes that menaced her, and ghostly wings that brushed her, and a terrible stillness that was not broken by the eerie voices of the wind.
Rock and mist and ice. Nothing that moved or lived. And yet the sense of danger deepened, and when she paused the beating of her heart was like thunder in her ears.
Once, far away, she thought she heard the echoes of a woman's voice crying, but she had no sight of Balina.
The pass began to drop, and the twilight deepened into a kind of sickly night.
On and down, more slowly now, crouching, slinking, heavily oppressed, tempted to snarl at boulders and tear at wraiths of fog. She had no idea of the miles she had travelled. But the ice was thicker now, the cold intense.
The rock walls broke off sharply. The mist thinned. The pallid darkness lifted to a clear twilight. She came to the end of the Gates of Death.
Stark stopped. Ahead of her, almost blocking the end of the pass, something dark and high and massive loomed in the thinning mists.
It was a great cairn, and upon it sat a figure, facing outward from the Gates of Death as though it kept watch over whatever country lay beyond.
The figure of a woman in antique Martian armor.
After a moment, Stark crept toward the cairn. She was still almost all savage, torn between fear and fascination.
She was forced to scramble over the lower rocks of the cairn itself. Quite suddenly she felt a hard shock, and a flashing sensation of warmth that was somehow inside her own flesh, and not in any tempering of the frozen air. She gave a startled leap forward, and whirled, looking up into the face of the mailed figure with the confused idea that it had reached down and struck her.
It had not moved, of course. And Stark knew, with no need of anyone to tell her, that she looked into the face of Ban Cruach.
IT WAS A FACE made for battles and for ruling, the bony ridges harsh and strong, the hollows under them worn deep with years. Those eyes, dark shadows under the rusty helm, had dreamed high dreams, and neither age nor death had conquered them.
And even in death, Ban Cruach was not unarmed.
Clad as for battle in her ancient mail, she held upright between her hands a mighty sword. The pommel was a ball of crystal large as a woman's fist, that held within it a spark of intense brilliance. The little, blinding flame throbbed with its own force, and the sword-blade blazed with a white, cruel radiance.
Ban Cruach, dead but frozen to eternal changelessness by the bitter cold, sitting here upon her cairn for a million years and warding forever the inner end of the Gates of Death, as her ancient city of Kushat warded the outer.
Stark took two cautious steps closer to Ban Cruach, and felt again the shock and the flaring heat in her blood. She recoiled, satisfied.
The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the mouth of the pass, protected Ban Cruach herself. A barrier of short waves, she thought, of the type used in deep therapy, having no heat in themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their vibration. But these waves were stronger than any she had known before.
A barrier, a wall of force, closing the inner end of the Gates of Death. A barrier that was not designed against woman.
Stark shivered. She turned from the sombre, brooding form of Ban Cruach and her eyes followed the gaze of the dead queen, out beyond the cairn.
She looked across this forbidden land within the Gates of Death.
At her back was the mountain barrier. Before her, a handful of miles to the north, the terminus of the polar cap rose like a cliff of bluish crystal soaring up to touch the early stars. Locked in between those two titanic walls was a great valley of ice.
White and glimmering that valley was, and very still, and very beautiful, the ice shaped gracefully into curving domes and hollows. And in the center of it stood a dark tower of stone, a cyclopean bulk that Stark knew must go down an unguessable distance to its base on the bedrock. It was like the tower in which Camara had died. But this one was not a broken ruin. It loomed with alien arrogance, and within its bulk pallid lights flickered eerily, and it was crowned by a cloud of shimmering darkness.
It was like the tower of her dread vision, the tower that she had seen, not as Erica Joan Stark, but as Ban Cruach!
Stark's gaze dropped slowly from the evil tower to the curving ice of the valley. And the fear within her grew beyond all bounds.
She had seen that, too, in her vision. The glimmering ice, the domes and hollows of it. She had looked down through it at the city that lay beneath, and she had seen those who came and went in the buried streets.
Stark hunkered down. For a long while she did not stir.
She did not want to go out there. She did not want to go out from the grim, warning figure of Ban Cruach with her blazing sword, into that silent valley. She was afraid, afraid of what she might see if she went there and looked down through the ice, afraid of the final dread fulfillment of her vision.
But she had come after Balina, and Balina must be out there somewhere. She did not want to go, but she was herself, and she must.
HE WENT, going very softly, out toward the tower of stone. And there was no sound in all that land.
The last of the twilight had faded. The ice gleamed, faintly luminous under the stars, and there was light beneath it, a soft radiance that filled all the valley with the glow of a buried moon.
Stark tried to keep her eyes upon the tower. She did not wish to look down at what lay under her stealthy feet.
Inevitably, she looked.
The temples and the palaces glittering in the ice...
Level upon level, going down. Wells of soft light spanned with soaring bridges, slender spires rising, an endless variation of streets and crystal walls exquisitely patterned, above and below and overlapping, so that it was like looking down through a thousand giant snowflakes. A metropolis of gossamer and frost, fragile and lovely as a dream, locked in the clear, pure vault of the ice.
Stark saw the people of the city passing along the bright streets, their outlines blurred by the icy vault as things are half obscured by water. The creatures of vision, vaguely shining, infinitely evil.
She shut her eyes and waited until the shock and the dizziness left her. Then she set her gaze resolutely on the tower, and crept on, over the glassy sky that covered those buried streets.
Silence. Even the wind was hushed.
She had gone perhaps half the distance when the cry rang out.
It burst upon the valley with a shocking violence. "Stark! Stark!" The ice rang with it, curving ridges picked up her name and flung it back and forth with eerie crystal voices, and the echoes fled out whispering Stark! Stark! until it seemed that the very mountains spoke.
Stark whirled about. In the pallid gloom between the ice and the stars there was light enough to see the cairn behind her, and the dim figure atop it with the shining sword.
Light enough to see Ciaran, and the dark knot of riders who had followed his through the Gates of Death.
He cried her name again. "Come back! Come back!"
The ice of the valley answered mockingly, "Come back! Come back!" and Stark was gripped with a terror that held her motionless.
He should not have called her. He should not have made a sound in that deathly place.
A woman's hoarse scream rose above the flying echoes. The riders turned and fled suddenly, the squealing, hissing beasts crowding each other, floundering wildly on the rocks of the cairn, stampeding back into the pass.
Ciaran was left alone. Stark saw his fight the rearing beast he rode and then fling himself out of the saddle and let it go. He came toward her, running, clad all in his black armor, the great axe swinging high. "Behind you, Stark! Oh, gods of Mars!" She turned then and saw them, coming out from the tower of stone, the pale, shining creatures that move so swiftly across the ice, so fleet and swift that no woman living could outrun them.
HE SHOUTED to Ciaran to turn back. She drew her sword and over her shoulder she cursed his in a black fury because she could hear his mailed feet coming on behind her.
The gliding creatures, sleek and slender, reedlike, bending, delicate as wraiths, their bodies shaped from northern rainbows of amethyst and rose—if they should touch Ciaran, if their loathsome hands should touch her...
Stark let out one raging catlike scream, and rushed them.
The opalescent bodies slipped away beyond her reach. The creatures watched her.
They had no faces, but they watched. They were eyeless but not blind, earless, but not without hearing. The inquisitive tendrils that formed their sensory organs stirred and shifted like the petals of ungodly flowers, and the color of them was the white frost-fire that dances on the snow.
"Go back, Ciaran!"
But he would not go, and she knew that they would not have let him. He reached her, and they set their backs together. The shining ones ringed them round, many feet away across the ice, and watched the long sword and the great hungry axe, and there was something in the lissome swaying of their bodies that suggested laughter.
"You fool," said Stark. "You bloody fool."
"And you?" answered Ciaran. "Oh, yes, I know about Balina. That mad boy, screaming in the palace—she told me, and you were seen from the wall, climbing to the Gates of Death. I tried to catch you."
"Why?"
He did not answer that. "They won't fight us, Stark. Do you think we could make it back to the cairn?"
"No. But we can try."
Guarding each others' backs, they began to walk toward Ban Cruach and the pass. If they could once reach the barrier, they would be safe.
Stark knew now what Ban Cruach's wall of force was built against. And she began to guess the riddle of the Gates of Death.
The shining ones glided with them, out of reach. They did not try to bar the way. They formed a circle around the woman and man, moving with them and around them at the same time, an endless weaving chain of many bodies shining with soft jewel tones of color.
They drew closer and closer to the cairn, to the brooding figure of Ban Cruach and her sword. It crossed Stark's mind that the creatures were playing with her and Ciaran. Yet they had no weapons. Almost, she began to hope...
From the tower where the shimmering cloud of darkness clung came a black crescent of force that swept across the icefield like a sickle and gathered the two humans in.
Stark felt a shock of numbing cold that turned her nerves to ice. Her sword dropped from her hand, and she heard Ciaran's axe go down. Her body was without strength, without feeling, dead.
She fell, and the shining ones glided in toward her.
VIII
TWICE BEFORE IN HIS LIFE Stark had come near to freezing. It had been like this, the numbness and the cold. And yet it seemed that the dark force had struck rather at her nerve centers than at her flesh.
She could not see Ciaran, who was behind her, but she heard the metallic clashing of his mail and one small, whispered cry, and she knew that he had fallen, too.
The glowing creatures surrounded her. She saw their bodies bending over her, the frosty tendrils of their faces writhing as though in excitement or delight.
Their hands touched her. Little hands with seven fingers, deft and frail. Even her numbed flesh felt the terrible cold of their touch, freezing as outer space. She yelled, or tried to, but they were not abashed.
They lifted her and bore her toward the tower, a company of them, bearing her heavy weight upon their gleaming shoulders.
She saw the tower loom high and higher still above her. The cloud of dark force that crowned it blotted out the stars. It became too huge and high to see at all, and then there was a low flat arch of stone close above her face, and she was inside.
Straight overhead—a hundred feet, two hundred, she could not tell—was a globe of crystal, fitted into the top of the tower as a jewel is held in a setting.
The air around it was shadowed with the same eerie gloom that hovered outside, but less dense, so that Stark could see the smouldering purple spark that burned within the globe, sending out its dark vibrations.
A globe of crystal, with a heart of sullen flame. Stark remembered the sword of Ban Cruach, and the white fire that burned in its hilt.
Two globes, the bright-cored and the dark. The sword of Ban Cruach touched the blood with heat. The globe of the tower deadened the flesh with cold. It was the same force, but at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Stark saw the cryptic controls of that glooming globe—a bank of them, on a wide stone ledge just inside the tower, close beside her. There were shining ones on that ledge tending those controls, and there were other strange and massive mechanisms there too.
Flying spirals of ice climbed up inside the tower, spanning the great stone well with spidery bridges, joining icy galleries. In some of those galleries, Stark vaguely glimpsed rigid, gleaming figures like statues of ice, but she could not see them clearly as she was carried on.
She was being carried downward. She passed slits in the wall, and knew that the pallid lights she had seen through them were the moving bodies of the creatures as they went up and down these high-flung, icy bridges. She managed to turn her head to look down, and saw what was beneath her.
The well of the tower plunged down a good five hundred feet to bedrock, widening as it went. The web of ice-bridges and the spiral ways went down as well as up, and the creatures that carried her were moving smoothly along a transparent ribbon of ice no more than a yard in width, suspended over that terrible drop.
Stark was glad that she could not move just then. One instinctive start of horror would have thrown her and her bearers to the rock below, and would have carried Ciaran with them.
Down and down, gliding in utter silence along the descending spiral ribbon. The great glooming crystal grew remote above her. Ice was solid now in the slots of the walls. She wondered if they had brought Balina this way.
There were other openings, wide arches like the one they had brought their captives through, and these gave Stark brief glimpses of broad avenues and unguessable buildings, shaped from the pellucid ice and flooded with the soft radiance that was like eerie moonlight.
At length, on what Stark took to be the third level of the city, the creatures bore her through one of these archways, into the streets beyond.
BELOW HIM NOW was the translucent thickness of ice that formed the floor of this level and the roof of the level beneath. She could see the blurred tops of delicate minarets, the clustering roofs that shone like chips of diamond.
Above her was an ice roof. Elfin spires rose toward it, delicate as needles. Lacy battlements and little domes, buildings star-shaped, wheel-shaped, the fantastic, lovely shapes of snow-crystals, frosted over with a sparkling foam of light.
The people of the city gathered along the way to watch, a living, shifting rainbow of amethyst and rose and green, against the pure blue-white. And there was no least whisper of sound anywhere.
For some distance they went through a geometric maze of streets. And then there was a cathedral-like building all arched and spired, standing in the center of a twelve-pointed plaza. Here they turned, and bore their captives in.
Stark saw a vaulted roof, very slim and high, etched with a glittering tracery that might have been carving of an alien sort, delicate as the weavings of spiders. The feet of her bearers were silent on the icy paving.
At the far end of the long vault sat seven of the shining ones in high seats marvellously shaped from the ice. And before them, grey-faced, shuddering with cold and not noticing it, drugged with a sick horror, stood Balina. She looked around once, and did not speak.
Stark was set on her feet, with Ciaran beside her. She saw his face, and it was terrible to see the fear in his eyes, that had never shown fear before.
She herself was learning why women went mad beyond the Gates of Death.
Chill, dreadful fingers touched her expertly. A flash of pain drove down her spine, and she could stand again.
The seven who sat in the high seats were motionless, their bright tendrils stirring with infinite delicacy as though they studied the three humans who stood before them.
Stark thought she could feel a cold, soft fingering of her brain. It came to her that these creatures were probably telepaths. They lacked organs of speech, and yet they must have some efficient means of communications. Telepathy was not uncommon among the many races of the Solar System, and Stark had had experience with it before.
She forced her mind to relax. The alien impulse was instantly stronger. She sent out her own questing thought and felt it brush the edges of a consciousness so uttely foreign to her own that she knew she could never probe it, even had she had the skill.
She learned one thing—that the shining faceless ones looked upon her with equal horror and loathing. They recoiled from the unnatural human features, and most of all, most strongly, they abhorred the warmth of human flesh. Even the infinitesimal amount of heat radiated by their half-frozen human bodies caused the ice-folk discomfort.
Stark marshalled her imperfect abilities and projected a mental question to the seven.
"What do you want of us?"
The answer came back, faint and imperfect, as though the gap between their alien minds was almost too great to bridge. And the answer was one word.
"Freedom!"
Balina spoke suddenly. She voiced only a whisper, and yet the sound was shockingly loud in that crystal vault.
"They have asked me already. Tell them no, Stark! Tell them no!"
She looked at Ciaran then, a look of murderous hatred. "If you turn them loose upon Kushat, I will kill you with my own hands before I die."
Stark spoke again, silently, to the seven. "I do not understand."
AGAIN the struggling, difficult thought. "We are the old race, the kings of the glacial ice. Once we held all the land beyond the mountains, outside the pass you call the Gates of Death."
Stark had seen the ruins of the towers out on the moors. She knew how far their kingdom had extended.
"We controlled the ice, far outside the polar cap. Our towers blanketed the land with the dark force drawn from Mars itself, from the magnetic field of the planet. That radiation bars out heat, from the Sun, and even from the awful winds that blow warm from the south. So there was never any thaw. Our cities were many, and our race was great.
"Then came Ban Cruach, from the south...
"She waged a war against us. She learned the secret of the crystal globes, and learned how to reverse their force and use it against us. She, leading her army, destroyed our towers one by one, and drove us back...
"Mars needed water. The outer ice was melted, our lovely cities crumbled to nothing, so that creatures like Ban Cruach might have water! And our people died.
"We retreated at the last, to this our ancient polar citadel behind the Gates of Death. Even here, Ban Cruach followed. She destroyed even this tower once, at the time of the thaw. But this city is founded in polar ice—and only the upper levels were harmed. Even Ban Cruach could not touch the heart of the eternal polar cap of Mars!
"When she saw that she could not destroy us utterly, she set herself in death to guard the Gates of Death with her blazing sword, that we might never again reclaim our ancient dominion.
"That is what we mean when we ask for freedom. We ask that you take away the sword of Ban Cruach, so that we may once again go out through the Gates of Death!'
Stark cried aloud, hoarsely, "No!"
She knew the barren deserts of the south, the wastes of red dust, the dead sea bottoms—the terrible thirst of Mars, growing greater with every year of the million that had passed since Ban Cruach locked the Gates of Death.
She knew the canals, the pitiful waterways that were all that stood between the people of Mars and extinction. She remembered the yearly release from death when the spring thaw brought the water rushing down from the north.
She thought of these cold creatures going forth, building again their great towers of stone, sheathing half a world in ice that would never melt. She thought of the people of Jekkara and Valkis and Barrakesh, of the countless cities of the south, watching for the flood that did not come, and falling at last to mingle their bodies with the blowing dust.
She said again, "No. Never."
The distant thought-voice of the seven spoke, and this time the question was addressed to Ciaran.
Stark saw his face. He did not know the Mars she knew, but he had memories of his own—the mountain-valleys of Mekh, the moors, the snowy gorges. He looked at the shining ones in their high seats, and said,
"If I take that sword, it will be to use it against you as Ban Cruach did!"
Stark knew that the seven had understood the thought behind his words. She felt that they were amused.
"The secret of that sword was lost a million years ago, the day Ban Cruach died. Neither you nor anyone now knows how to use it as she did. But the sword's radiations of warmth still lock us here.
"We cannot approach that sword, for its vibrations of heat slay us if we do. But you warm-bodied ones can approach it. And you will do so, and take it from its place. One of you will take it!"
They were very sure of that.
"We can see, a little way, into your evil minds. Much we do not understand. But—the mind of the large woman is full of the man's image, and the mind of the man turns to her. Also, there is a link between the large woman and the small woman, less strong, but strong enough."
The thought-voice of the seven finished, "The large woman will take away the sword for us because she must—to save the other two."
Ciaran turned to Stark. "They cannot force you, Stark. Don't let them. No matter what they do to me, don't let them!"
Balina stared at his with a certain wonder. "You would die, to protect Kushat?"
"Not Kushat alone, though its people too are human," he said, almost angrily. "There are my red wolves—a wild pack, but my own. And others." He looked at Balina. "What do you say? Your life against the Norlands?"
Balina made an effort to lift her head as high as his, and the red jewel flashed in her ear. She was a woman crushed by the falling of her world, and terrified by what her mad passion had led her into, here beyond the Gates of Death. But she was not afraid to die.
She said so, and even Ciaran knew that she spoke the truth.
But the seven were not dismayed. Stark knew that when their thought-voice whispered in her mind,
"It is not death alone you humans have to fear, but the manner of your dying. You shall see that, before you choose."
SWIFTLY, SILENTLY, those of the ice-folk who had borne the captives into the city came up from behind, where they had stood withdrawn and waiting. And one of them bore a crystal rod like a sceptre, with a spark of ugly purple burning in the globed end.
Stark leaped to put herself between them and Ciaran. She struck out, raging, and because she was almost as quick as they, she caught one of the slim luminous bodies between her hands.
The utter coldness of that alien flesh burned her hands as frost will burn. Even so, she clung on, snarling, and saw the tendrils writhe and stiffen as though in pain.
Then, from the crystal rod, a thread of darkness spun itself to touch her brain with silence, and the cold that lies between the worlds.
She had no memory of being carried once more through the shimmering streets of that elfin, evil city, back to the stupendous well of the tower, and up along the spiral path of ice that soared those dizzy hundreds of feet from bedrock to the glooming crystal globe. But when she again opened her eyes, she was lying on the wide stone ledge at ice-level.
Beside her was the arch that led outside. Close above her head was the control bank that she had seen before.
Ciaran and Balina were there also, on the ledge. They leaned stiffly against the stone wall beside the control bank, and facing them was a squat, round mechanism from which projected a sort of wheel of crystal rods.
Their bodies were strangely rigid, but their eyes and minds were awake. Terribly awake. Stark saw their eyes, and her heart turned within her.
Ciaran looked at her. He could not speak, but he had no need to. No matter what they do to me...
He had not feared the swordsmen of Kushat. He had not feared his red wolves, when She unmasked his in the square. He was afraid now. But he warned her, ordered her not to save him.
They cannot force you. Stark! Don't let them.
And Balina, too, pleaded with her for Kushat.
They were not alone on the ledge. The ice-folk clustered there, and out upon the flying spiral pathway, on the narrow bridges and the spans of fragile ice, they stood in hundreds watching, eyeless, faceless, their bodies drawn in rainbow lines across the dimness of the shaft.
Stark's mind could hear the silent edges of their laughter. Secret, knowing laughter, full of evil, full of triumph, and Stark was filled with a corroding terror.
She tried to move, to crawl toward Ciaran standing like a carven image in his black mail. She could not.
Again his fierce, proud glance met hers. And the silent laughter of the ice-folk echoed in her mind, and she thought it very strange that in this moment, now, she should realize that there had never been another man like his on all of the worlds of the Sun.
The fear he felt was not for himself. It was for her.
Apart from the multitudes of the ice-folk, the group of seven stood upon the ledge. And now their thought-voice spoke to Stark, saying,
"Look about you. Behold the women who have come before you through the Gates of Death!"
Stark raised her eyes to where their slender fingers pointed, and saw the icy galleries around the tower, saw more clearly the icy statues in them that she had only glimpsed before.
MEN, set like images in the galleries. Women whose bodies were sheathed in a glittering mail of ice, sealing them forever. Warriors, nobles, fanatics and thieves—the wanderers of a million years who had dared to enter this forbidden valley, and had remained forever.
She saw their faces, their tortured eyes wide open, their features frozen in the agony of a slow and awful death.
"They refused us," the seven whispered. They would not take away the sword. And so they died, as this man and this woman will die, unless you choose to save them.
"We will show you, human, how they died!"
One of the ice-folk bent and touched the squat, round mechanism that faced Balina and Ciaran. Another shifted the pattern of control on the master-bank.
The wheel of crystal rods on that squat mechanism began to turn. The rods blurred, became a disc that spun faster and faster.
High above in the top of the tower the great globe brooded, shrouded in its cloud of shimmering darkness. The disc became a whirling blur. The glooming shadow of the globe deepened, coalesced. It began to lengthen and descend, stretching itself down toward the spinning disc.
The crystal rods of the mechanism drank the shadow in. And out of that spinning blur there came a subtle weaving of threads of darkness, a gossamer curtain winding around Ciaran and Balina so that their outlines grew ghostly and the pallor of their flesh was as the pallor of snow at night.
And still Stark could not move.
The veil of darkness began to sparkle faintly. Stark watched it, watched the chill motes brighten, watched the tracery of frost whiten over Ciaran's mail, touch Balm's dark hair with silver.
Frost. Bright, sparkling, beautiful, a halo of frost around their bodies. A dust of splintered diamond across their faces, an aureole of brittle light to crown their heads.
Frost. Flesh slowly hardening in marbly whiteness, as the cold slowly increased And yet their eyes still lived, and saw, and understood.
The thought-voice of the seven spoke again.
"You have only minutes now to decide! Their bodies cannot endure too much, and live again. Behold their eyes, and how they suffer!
"Only minutes, human! Take away the sword of Ban Cruach! Open for us the Gates of Death, and we will release these two, alive."
Stark felt again the flashing stab of pain along her nerves, as one of the shining creatures moved behind her. Life and feeling came back into her limbs.
She struggled to her feet. The hundreds of the ice-folk on the bridges and galleries watched her in an eager silence.
She did not look at them. Her eyes were on Ciaran's. And now, his eyes pleaded.
"Don't, Stark! Don't barter the life of the Norlands for me!"
The thought-voice beat at Stark, cutting into her mind with cruel urgency.
"Hurry, human! They are already beginning to die. Take away the sword, and let them live!"
Stark turned. She cried out, in a voice that made the icy bridges tremble:
"I will take the sword!"
She staggered out, then. Out through the archway, across the ice, toward the distant cairn that blocked the Gates of Death.
IX
ACROSS THE GLOWING ICE OF the valley Stark went at a stumbling run that grew swifter and more sure as her cold-numbed body began to regain its functions. And behind her, pouring out of the tower to watch, came the shining ones.
They followed after her, gliding lightly. She could sense their excitement, the cold, strange ecstasy of triumph. She knew that already they were thinking of the great towers of stone rising again above the Norlands, the crystal cities still and beautiful under the ice, all vestige of the ugly citadels of woman gone and forgotten.
The seven spoke once more, a warning.
"If you turn toward us with the sword, the man and the woman will die. And you will die as well. For neither you nor any other can now use the sword as a weapon of offense."
Stark ran on. She was thinking then only of Ciaran, with the frost-crystals gleaming on his marble flesh and his eyes full of mute torment.
The cairn loomed up ahead, dark and high. It seemed to Stark that the brooding figure of Ban Cruach watched her coming with those shadowed eyes beneath the rusty helm. The great sword blazed between those dead, frozen hands.
The ice-folk had slowed their forward rush. They stopped and waited, well back from the cairn.
Stark reached the edge of tumbled rock. She felt the first warm flare of the force-waves in her blood, and slowly the chill began to creep out from her bones. She climbed, scrambling upward over the rough stones of the cairn.
Abruptly, then, at Ban Cruach's feet, she slipped and fell. For a second it seemed that she could not move.
Her back was turned toward the ice-folk. Her body was bent forward, and shielded so, her hands worked with feverish speed.
From her cloak she tore a strip of cloth. From the iron boss she took the glittering lens, the talisman of Ban Cruach. Stark laid the lens against her brow, and bound it on.
The remembered shock, the flood and sweep of memories that were not her own. The mind of Ban Cruach thundering its warning, its hard-won knowledge of an ancient, epic war ...
She opened her own mind wide to receive those memories. Before she had fought against them. Now she knew that they were her one small chance in this swift gamble with death. Two things only of her own she kept firm in that staggering tide of another woman's memories. Two names—Ciaran and Balina.
She rose up again. And now her face had a strange look, a curious duality. The features had not changed, but somehow the lines of the flesh had altered subtly, so that it was almost as though the old unconquerable queen herself had risen again in battle.
She mounted the last step or two and stood before Ban Cruach. A shudder ran through her, a sort of gathering and settling of the flesh, as though Stark's being had accepted the stranger within it. Her eyes, cold and pale as the very ice that sheathed the valley, burned with a cruel light.
She reached and took the sword, out of the frozen hands of Ban Cruach.
As though it were her own, she knew the secret of the metal rings that bound its hilt, below the ball of crystal. The savage throb of the invisible radiation beat in her quickening flesh. She was warm again, her blood running swiftly, her muscles sure and strong. She touched the rings and turned them.
The fan-shaped aura of force that had closed the Gates of Death narrowed in, and as it narrowed it leaped up from the blade of the sword in a tongue of pale fire, faintly shimmering, made visible now by the full focus of its strength.
Stark felt the wave of horror bursting from the minds of the ice-folk as they perceived what she had done, And she laughed.
Her bitter laughter rang harsh across the valley as she turned to face them, and she heard in her brain the shuddering, silent shriek that went up from all that gathered company...
"Ban Cruach! Ban Cruach has returned!"
They had touched her mind. They knew.
HE LAUGHED AGAIN, and swept the sword in a flashing arc, and watched the long bright blade of force strike out more terrible than steel, against the rainbow bodies of the shining ones.
They fell. Like flowers under a scythe they fell, and all across the ice the ones who were yet untouched turned about in their hundreds and fled back toward the tower.
Stark came leaping down the cairn, the talisman of Ban Cruach bound upon her brow, the sword of Ban Cruach blazing in her hand.
She swung that awful blade as she ran. The force-beam that sprang from it cut through the press of creatures fleeing before her, hampered by their own numbers as they crowded back through the archway.
She had only a few short seconds to do what she had to do.
Rushing with great strides across the ice, spurning the withered bodies of the dead... And then, from the glooming darkness that hovered around the tower of stone, the black cold beam struck down.
Like a coiling whip it lashed her. The deadly numbness invaded the cells of her flesh, ached in the marrow of her bones. The bright force of the sword battled the chill invaders, and a corrosive agony tore at Stark's inner body where the antipathetic radiations waged war.
Her steps faltered. She gave one hoarse cry of pain, and then her limbs failed and she went heavily to her knees.
Instinct only made her cling to the sword. Waves of blinding anguish racked her. The coiling lash of darkness encircled her, and its touch was the abysmal cold of outer space, striking deep into her heart.
Hold the sword close, hold it closer, like a shield. The pain is great, but I will not die unless I drop the sword.
Ban Cruach the mighty had fought this fight before.
Stark raised the sword again, close against her body. The fierce pulse of its brightness drove back the cold. Not far, for the freezing touch was very strong. But far enough so that she could rise again and stagger on.
The dark force of the tower writhed and licked about her. She could not escape it. She slashed it in a blind fury with the blazing sword, and where the forces met a flicker of lightning leaped in the air, but it would not be beaten back.
She screamed at it, a raging cat-cry that was all Stark, all primitive fury at the necessity of pain. And she forced herself to run, to drag her tortured body faster across the ice. Because Ciaran is dying, because the dark cold wants me to stop...
The ice-folk jammed and surged against the archway, in a panic hurry to take refuge far below in their many-levelled city. She raged at them, too. They were part of the cold, part of the pain. Because of them Ciaran and Balina were dying. She sent the blade of force lancing among them, her hatred rising full tide to join the hatred of Ban Cruach that lodged in her mind.
Stab and cut and slash with the long terrible beam of brightness. They fell and fell, the hideous shining folk, and Stark sent the light of Ban Cruach's weapon sweeping through the tower itself, through the openings that were like windows in the stone.
Again and again, stabbing through those open slits as she ran. And suddenly the dark beam of force ceased to move. She tore out of it, and it did not follow her, remaining stationary as though fastened to the ice.
The battle of forces left her flesh. The pain was gone. She sped on to the tower.
She was close now. The withered bodies lay in heaps before the arch. The last of the ice-folk had forced their way inside.
Holding the sword level like a lance, Stark leaped in through the arch, into the tower.
THE SHINING ONES were dead where the destroying warmth had touched them. The flying spiral ribbons of ice were swept clean of them, the arching bridges and the galleries of that upper part of the tower.
They were dead along the ledge, under the control bank. They were dead across the mechanism that spun the frosty doom around Ciaran and Balina. The whirling disc still hummed.
Below, in that stupendous well, the crowding ice-folk made a seething pattern of color on the narrow ways. But Stark turned her back on them and ran along the ledge, and in her was the heavy knowledge that she had come too late.
The frost had thickened around Ciaran and Balina. It encrusted them like stiffened lace, and now their flesh was overlaid with a diamond shell of ice.
Surely they could not live!
She raised the sword to smite down at the whirring disc, to smash it, but there was no need. When the full force of that concentrated beam struck it, meeting the focus of shadow that it held, there was a violent flare of light and a shattering of crystal. The mechanism was silent.
The glooming veil was gone from around the ice-shelled woman and man. Stark forgot the creatures in the shaft below her. She turned the blazing sword full upon Ciaran and Balina.
It would not affect the thin covering of ice. If the man and the woman were dead, it would not affect their flesh, any more than it had Ban Cruach's. But if they lived, if there was still a spark, a flicker beneath that frozen mail, the radiation would touch their blood with warmth, start again the pulse of life in their bodies.
She waited, watching Ciaran's face. It was still as marble, and as white.
Something—instinct, or the warning mind of Ban Cruach that had learned a million years ago to beware the creatures of the ice—made her glance behind her.
Stealthy, swift and silent, up the winding ways they came. They had guessed that she had forgotten them in her anxiety. The sword was turned away from them now, and if they could take her from behind, stun her with the chill force of the sceptrelike rods they carried...
She slashed them with the sword. She saw the flickering beam go down and down the shaft, saw the bodies fall like drops of rain, rebounding here and there from the flying spans and carrying the living with them.
She thought of the many levels of the city. She thought of all the countless thousands that must inhabit them. She could hold them off in the shaft as long as she wished if she had no other need for the sword. But she knew that as soon as she turned her back they would be upon her again, and if she should once fall...
She could not spare a moment, or a chance.
She looked at Ciaran, not knowing what to do, and it seemed to her that the sheathing frost had melted, just a little, around his face.
Desperately, she struck down again at the creatures in the shaft, and then the answer came to her.
She dropped the sword. The squat, round mechanism was beside her, with its broken crystal wheel. She picked it up.
It was heavy. It would have been heavy for two women to lift, but Stark was a driven woman. Grunting, swaying with the effort, she lifted it and let it fall, out and down.
Like a thunderbolt it struck among those slender bridges, the spiderweb of icy strands that spanned the shaft. Stark watched it go, and listened to the brittle snapping of the ice, the final crashing of a million shards at the bottom far below.
She smiled, and turned again to Ciaran, picking up the sword.
IT WAS HOURS LATER. Stark walked across the glowing ice of the valley, toward the cairn. The sword of Ban Cruach hung at her side. She had taken the talisman and replaced it in the boss, and she was herself again.
Ciaran and Balina walked beside her. The color had come back into their faces, but faintly, and they were still weak enough to be glad of Stark's hands to steady them.
At the foot of the cairn they stopped, and Stark mounted it alone.
She looked for a long moment into the face of Ban Cruach. Then she took the sword, and carefully turned the rings upon it so that the radiation spread out as it had before, to close the Gates of Death.
Almost reverently, she replaced the sword in Ban Cruach's hands. Then she turned and went down over the tumbled stones.
The shimmering darkness brooded still over the distant tower. Underneath the ice, the elfin city still spread downward. The "shining ones would rebuild their bridges in the shaft, and go on as they had before, dreaming their cold dreams of ancient power.
But they would not go out through the Gates of Death. Ban Cruach in her rusty mail was still lord of the pass, the warder of the Norlands.
Stark said to the others, "Tell the story in Kushat. Tell it through the Norlands, the story of Ban Cruach and why she guards the Gates of Death. Women have forgotten. And they should not forget."
They went out of the valley then, the two women and the man. They did not speak again, and the way out through the pass seemed endless.
Some of Ciaran's chieftains met them at the mouth of the pass above Kushat. They had waited there, ashamed to return to the city without him, but not daring to go back into the pass again. They had seen the creatures of the valley, and they were still afraid.
They gave mounts to the three. They themselves walked behind Ciaran, and their heads were low with shame.
They came into Kushat through the riven gate, and Stark went with Ciaran to the Queen City, where he made Balina follow too.
"Your brother is there," he said. "I have had his cared for."
The city was quiet, with the sullen apathy that follows after battle. The women of Mekh cheered Ciaran in the streets. He rode proudly, but Stark saw that his face was gaunt and strained.
He, too, was marked deep by what she had seen and done, beyond the Gates of Death.
They went up into the castle.
Thanir took Balina into his arms, and wept. He had lost his first wild fury, and he could look at Ciaran now with a restrained hatred that had a tinge almost of admiration.
"You fought for Kushat," he said, unwillingly, when he had heard the story. "For that, at least, I can thank you."
He went to Stark then, and looked up at her. "Kushat, and my brother's life..." He kissed her, and there were tears on his lips. But he turned to Ciaran with a bitter smile.
"No one can hold her, any more than the wind can be held. You will learn that."
He went out then with Balina, and left Stark and Ciaran alone, in the chambers of the queen.
CIARA SAID, "The little one is very shrewd." He unbuckled the hauberk and let it fall, standing slim in his tunic of black leather, and walked to the tall windows that looked out upon the mountains. He leaned his head wearily against the stone.
"An evil day, an evil deed. And now I have Kushat to govern, with no reward of power from beyond the Gates of Death. How woman can be misled!"
Stark poured wine from the flagon and brought it to him. He looked at her over the rim of the cup, with a certain wry amusement.
"The little one is shrewd, and he is right. I don't know that I can be as wise as she... Will you stay with me, Stark, or will you go?"
She did not answer at once, and he asked her, "What hunger drives you, Stark? It is not conquest, as it was with me. What are you looking for that you cannot find?"
She thought back across the years, back to the beginning—to the girl N'Chaka who had once been happy with Old One and little Tika, in the blaze and thunder and bitter frosts of a valley in the Twilight Belt of Mercury. She remembered how all that had ended, under the guns of the miners—the women who were her own kind.
She shook her head. "I don't know. It doesn't matter." She took his between her two hands, feeling the strength and the splendor of him, and it was oddly difficult to find words.
"I want to stay, Ciaran. Now, this minute, I could promise that I would stay forever. But I know myself. You belong here, you will make Kushat your own. I don't. Someday I will go."
Ciaran nodded. "My neck, also, was not made for chains, and one country was too little to hold me. Very well, Stark. Let it be so."
He smiled, and let the wine-cup fall.
THE END
Artwork by arthurx Titanium
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Jekkara Press
You can find out more about the Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn at the Jekkara Press wordpress website:
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or the blogger site
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Also by Jekkara press
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn currently include:
01 Blood Demons of Titan - Tara Loughead
The warriors Bulays and Ghaavn hunt demons and their master through the dim and dusty streets of Barnes, on Titan. Can they stop him before he completes a devastating ritual?
02 Death Queen of Neptune - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn are called in to investigate why a frontier base on Neptune has gone silent. Ice monsters and an ancient, beautiful evil await.
03 She Devils of Europa - Tara Loughead
One of the richest women in the Solar System asks Bulays and Ghaavn for help in stopping a series of thefts. There is a mystery to solve at the most
expensive resort in existence, The Europa. Larceny, magic and dancing await, in an all expenses paid evening.
04 Shadow Emperor of Phobos: The Martian Moon War Part 1 - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn try and stop a underworld shooting war. First they must get past a Martian Shadowcat, employ surprising combat techniques, and try and reason with Ghaavn's criminal mentor.
05 Desert Empress of Deimos: The Martian Moon War Part 2 - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn are caught in the middle of a crime family war. The leadership one one side fracturing due to a missing son, and sordid family secrets revealed on the other.
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Devil In Iron, Respawned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. A resurrected demon menaces Conyn on an island fortress, along with other monsters.
The Pool of the Black One, Reswum [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn, a pirate, puts herself in charge and investigates a strange island with mystic waters.
Jewels of Gwahlur, Reboxed [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn encounters deity impersonation, tries for treasure, boys and ape monster fighting.
Queen of the Black Coast, Recrowned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Conyn survives the slaughter of her pirate colleagues and finds a man to fire her blood. Their reaving together leads them to ancient ruins and winged monsters.
Red Nails, Polished [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Conyn finally catches Valerian of the Red Brotherhood, and the pair end up fighting for their lives against a sorcerous death cult in an ancient city.
Beyond the Black River, Recrossed [Conyn the Barbarian] by Roberta E. Howard
Conyn signs up as a scout in Pictish territory, and gets involved with his partner in a border war against the wizard Zogara Sag and her cult of followers.
Queen of the Martian Catacombs Engraved (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett
Her old mentor asks Erica Joan Stark to help stop a clan war, to pay off old debts. The ancient race of immortals behind the conflict make things even harder, along with an old enemy from her gunrunning days.
Black Male Amazon of Mars (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett
Stark agrees to take the amulet of a dying friend to safety, but has to survive an encounter with a warlord with a secret, and an ancient race of terrible freezing guarded by a legendary ruler.
Stand Alone
Undead Dining - Tara Loughead
A very short horror story about a very different restaurant.
Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
06 Heart Breakers of Hyperion – Tara Loughead
The Gender Switch Adventures
Black Male Amazon of Mars (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett
Song In A Minor Key, Retuned (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore
The Tree of Life, Revisited (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore
The Valor of Cappea Verra, Recapped (Cappea Verra) - Poula Anderson
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First Degree Burn – All the Important Details
Superficial burns or burns of first degree are an injury that usually affects the top layer of the skin. It is one of those mildest forms of wounds and typically does not need any medical treatment. On the other side, some superficial burns can be very painful and require frequent visits to the medical practitioner. To treat first degree burns, one must be aware of the first-degree burn symptoms. These kinds of injuries are quite common, and they occur mostly in the household accident that includes touching a hot stove or burner accidentally. In this context, it is important to note that sunburn can also lie in the category of first degree burns. There exist a plethora of home remedies that can be applied to treat first degree burn.
The Causes of First Degree Burns That Should Be Taken Into Account
The various objects of a first degree burn always play a pivotal role in facilitating effective treatment. It is vital to note that early degree burns affect only the epidermis of the skin and the site of the burnt area sports a painful and reddish characteristic. The context of long-term tissue damage is very rare and usually comes with decrease and increase in the color of the skin. Here is the list of standard causes of first degree burns.
Scalds
Scalds are the most common cause of first-degree burns. It is a common cause of burn for the first degree in kids who are younger than four years old. The hot liquid that spills from a pot may cause injuries to the hands. In this context, it is important to note that hot steam can also cause blisters on the skin. Scalds can also take place if you shower with boiling water. The temperature higher than the average levels can inflict serious skin injuries and these types of injuries are also quite common in young kids.
The Context of Sunburns
Sunburn takes place in the skin when they stay out in the sun for a considerable period. This is why it is always advisable to apply sunscreen on the affected part. The sun produces intense UV rays which go through the epidermis of the skin and can result in blisters and reddening of the surface of the skin. It is quite common in beaches.
Electricity
With the emergence of electrical appliances in a lot of modern households, electrical burns can cause first-degree charring of the skin. Electrical cords and sockets are the main culprits behind the cause of superficial burns. If you kid put his or her fingers in the openings of an outlet or bites an electrical wire, then he or she may suffer from first degree burns. However, it is always dependent on the amount of voltage that passes through the cable and socket.
The Prevention of First Degree Burns
A majority of first degree burns can efficiently be prevented if you take into account the proper precautions. However, the treatment procedure of first-degree burns usually revolves around the phenomenon of taking adequate care of the skin. Here is the list of precautions necessary to prevent first degree burns.
Make sure that you cover all the electrical wires where your kids cannot reach them\
You have to unplug the appliances that should not be in use
If you are living in tropical and equatorial climates, it is necessary to apply sunscreen on the skin that comes with a sun protection factor (SPF). The SPF levels should be higher than 30 so that there is a prevention of sunburn.
You have to make sure that you keep a hot pot on the back burners where your kids can reach. Also, you have to ensure that you stay vigil on the young kids in the kitchen
Be on the lookout to reset the temperature of the water heater to minimal levels to avoid burns related to first degree
Always lay emphasis on buying proper type of electrical cords as they would protect your kids from harmful electrical shocks
The Treatment Procedure of First-Degree Burns
It is important to note that a majority of first degree burns have their treatment procedures at home. If you have experienced a first-degree burn, always opt to apply basic first aid. If irritation and pain persists, you can go forward to call your physician. The doctor would assess the burn to gauge its severity. The doctor would usually evaluate the burn by using a wide range of techniques. He or she would examine the depth of the burn and how much the burn has penetrated into the skin. The doctor would also be on the lookout for the various signs related to infection which depicts swelling and oozing.
The doctor would always be on the lookout for causes of first degree burns to determine the action plan in the correct action plan of treatment. And the doctor will also be on the lookout to see if the area requires immediate treatment. For instance, if there is burning in the difficult areas of the body, then the doctor would recommend dangerous medications.
The appropriate and prompt medical attention is necessary if the burnt area becomes infected and extremely excruciating. Burns on various regions would need an immediate visit to the physician. These areas always comprise of groin, hands, feet and face. You can also take into account the prospect of various home remedies so that your burns get treated in a proper manner. You should also take into account the first-degree burn symptoms so that you can adequately devise the home care remedies. Thorough research is always needed in designing effective treatment procedures related to first degree burns. Aloe Vera coupled with honey is widely used to treat primary degree burns.
Other Ways to Treat a First Degree Burn
It is interesting to note that early degree burns are the minor type of burns. They can be effectively treated at home. It is so because, in the case of first degree burns, only the outer layer of the skin gets affected. The outer layer of this coat is also known as the epidermis. The affected area is red in color and would be painful to touch. Besides that, there would be the formation of blisters which would shed in 5 to 6 days. There are various ways to treat a first degree burn.
For instance, you can opt to soak the burn in cold water for a minimum duration of five minutes. You can also choose to cover the burn with loose gauze which should be sterile in nature. Always make sure that you apply the bandage with clean hands as dirty hands would affect the treatment process and can cause acute infections. You can also opt to use burn creams and aloe versa creams and ointments. You can also apply an antibiotic ointment. Pain always accompanies first degree burns, and hence you have to consume ibuprofen in reducing pain and swelling. If the burn gets out of control and gets painful, you should always look forward to visiting a certified medical practitioner.
The Healing Period of a First Degree Burn
The healing period of a first degree burn is always dependent on the treatment procedures. As the skin peels, it may also heal. However, it also takes 5 to 25 days for a first degree burn to recover in an effective manner. The process of healing may always depend on the affected area. Make sure that you contact your doctor even if the burn depicts signs of deterioration. You can also opt to visit the pediatrician if your kid is suffering from a first degree burn. The healing period in case of a kid always takes the longer time to heal because children are not much attention to the caring needs of the first degree burns.
The First Aid Procedures Related to First Degree Burns
The first and foremost thing in case of a wound is to contain the extent of the damage related to burns. The first aid procedures would always prevent the burn from getting spreading.
You have to remove clothing or any other accessories that are covering the burnt area. However, make sure that you do not pluck the garment from the affected area
You should keep the damaged area under running water so that the burning sensation can be contained in a proper manner
You do not have to apply creams on the burn as it would further aggravate the injury. However, you can give the individual a little dose of morphine as it is beneficial in relieving the pain of the body
Always make sure that the affected person drinks a lot of fluids so that there is the complete absence of dehydration.
First Degree Burn – All the Important Details
Reviewed by admin on
Mar 23.
Superficial burns or burns of first degree are an injury that usually affects the top layer of the skin. It is one of those mildest forms of wounds and typicallSuperficial burns or burns of first degree are an injury that usually affects the top layer of the skin. It is one of those mildest forms of wounds and typicall
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Figures 1 - 5
Click Pics to ENLARGE
Figures 6 - 11
The Split Clean & Jerk for Bodybuilders
by Gord Venables (1962)
This article is not for weightlifters. It is for bodybuilders who want to acquire a greater degree of overall strength by lifting the largest possible poundages overhead with confidence.
How much can you lift overhead? Seems to me to be a simple enough question for any weight man to answer. Novices assume and rightly so, that the more weight you can lift overhead the stronger you are. Well, how much can YOU lift overhead?
If you're a bodybuilder you probably have a pretty good idea of how much you can press while lying on a bench, and some of you may even know how much weight you can press overhead. But, to get the greatest weight overhead you don't press it, you jerk it.
You can lift more weight overhead in the Jerk than by any other method, but to jerk a weight you first have to clean it to your shoulders. If such terminology as 'press', 'clean', and 'jerk' seem strange to you -- you are a novice, so perhaps this article will help enlighten you a little.
A bodybuilder should spend some time and energy on the Olympic lifts and their variations. No other lifts will build terrific body speed/strength and at the same time improve ability. Granted, the Snatch requires more agility than the Clean & Jerk. Nevertheless, more weight can be lifted in the latter, and the more weight lifted the more strength acquired.
Strength is important to a bodybuilder. The stronger and more confident he is with heavy weights, the more poundage he can use in his exercises and - the more poundage used properly the more muscle acquired. Reasoning thusly, it would be wise for every bodybuilder to acquire a greater degree of strength and confidence with heavy weights. Big shapely muscles are a joy to behold, but strength is a priceless possession. The Split-Clean & Jerk builds great strength.
The Clean & Jerk is actually two movements:
1) the clean pull-in to chest, and
2) the jerk to arms' length overhead.
There are two methods of cleaning -- the split, and the squat. I would like you to consider the split method of cleaning here. It is easier to master, the split-clean bears similarity to the jerk, and I find it develops a different form of agility and confidence in bodybuilders.
In pulling the barbell to the chest (cleaning), the bar should be grasped with the hands about shoulder width apart, shins almost touching the bar, feet should be spaced as for a heavy dead lift, the back flat and the arms straight. (Fig. 1)
Keeping the back as flat as possible the bar is pulled hard and high (Figs. 2 and 3). Start bending the arms as soon as the barbell leaves the floor. This is a different technique than that used by Olympic weightlifters, but one I should like you as a bodybuilder to use. Pull the bar as close to the body as possible without touching any part of the body.
You can pull a very heavy barbell only so high, and that is about 2 to 4 inches above waist level. The instant the barbell reaches its highest position above waist level the feet must be instantly split fore and aft, the hands turned over and the elbows thrust forward (Figs. 4 and 5).
All this must be done in a split second, and if the bar does not land solidly on the chest just above the sternum it will come crashing back down to the floor. Even if the bar reaches the sternum it can be dropped if the elbows are not instantly thrust forward. The old expression of "whipping the barbell onto the chest" is an apt description. Flexibility in the wrists is important at this phase.
Your feet should hit the floor together the instant the bar lands above the sternum. The rearward leg may be slightly bent but it must be rigid. The knee must not touch the floor.
The forward leg should appear as in Fig. 5 when the feet touch the floor. Whether you split the right or the left foot forward is immaterial; whichever comes naturally to you is the proper way.
The moment the bar has settled on the chest and there is no chance of it falling forward, come to the erect position (Fig. 6). If you are perfectly balanced in the full split come erect by pushing the forward leg until it is almost straight, bringing it back to the starting position. Then bring the rearward leg up in line with the forward foot. If the weight is very heavy it may be necessary to bring the feet together in several movements and this is acceptable.
Stand in the erect position (Fig 6) until steady, taking as much of the weight of the bar on the chest and shoulders as possible. Buy thrusting the elbows high the bar will rest against the sternum and both shoulders. This is a solid position from which to jerk. Avoid taking all the weight on the hands. Many topnotch lifters emphasize this point by allowing the bar to roll back to the fingertips; the entire weight being supported between shoulders and sternum, for the impetus of the jerk comes from the legs through the body. The bar must have a firm foundation for the overhead jerk.
Take a slight dip of not more than 4 inches (Fig. 7). That is all that is needed. It is the sudden upward speed of the jerk that shoots the weight overhead, not a slow, deep dip. Straighten out the legs as fast as possible (Fig. 8) as if you were going to jump and heave the barbell up.
You can heave the barbell only so high and the instant it has reached its greatest height split the feet fore and aft (Fig. 9) just as you did in the Clean except that you will not have to split as wide (Fig. 10). You split only low enough to lock the arms. The arms should be locked the instant the feet touch the floor. If they don't you will be forced to press the barbell into arm lock and when it gets very heavy this is difficult unless you are a phenomenal presser. Better to have your timing perfect so that the elbows straighten and lock the arms the instant your feet touch the floor.
Make certain the bar is locked safely overhead and you are balanced (neither too far forward or too far backward) then come to the erect position (Fig. 11). Bring the forward foot up first then the rearward. More than one movement may be taken if necessary.
The barbell must be held motionless at arms' length overhead for a minimum of two seconds before being lowered to the chest and then to the floor.
If you are a fairly strong overhead presser (can press more than 50% over bodyweight) you should, after some time, be about to jerk about 1.25 times what you can press. If your Press is better than 50% over bodyweight you should Clean & Jerk about 1.20 times that amount. If you are a weaker presser (about 25% or less over bodyweight) you might Clean & Jerk 1.5 times what you can press.
Bodybuilders should experiment with doing the Clean & Jerk at least once a week, even if it is only for the satisfaction of knowing how much they can lift to arms' length overhead. The body strength and mental confidence you acquire will be well worth the time put in.
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High performance nitrogen removal through integrating denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation and Anammox: from enrichment to application.
Integrating denitrifying anaerobic methane oxidation (DAMO) with Anammox provides alternative solutions to simultaneously remove nitrogen and mitigate methane emission from wastewater treatment. However, the practical application of DAMO has been greatly limited by slow-growing DAMO microorganisms living on low-solubility gaseous methane. In this work, DAMO and Anammox co-cultures were fast enriched using high concentration of mixed sludges from various environments, and achieved nitrogen removal rate of 76.7 mg NH4+-N L-1 d-1 and 87.9 mg NO3--N L-1 d-1 on Day 178. Subsequently, nitrogen removal rate significantly decreased but recovered quickly through increasing methane flushing frequency, indicating methane availability could be the limiting factor of DAMO activity. Thus, this work developed a novel Membrane Aerated Membrane Bioreactor (MAMBR), which equipped with gas permeable membrane for efficient methane delivery and ultrafiltration membrane for complete biomass retention. After inoculated with enriched sludge, nitrogen removal rates of MAMBR were significantly enhanced to 126.9 mg NH4+-N L-1 d-1 and 158.8 mg NO3--N L-1 d-1 by membrane aeration in batch test. Finally, the MAMBR was continuously fed with synthetic wastewater containing ammonium and nitrite to mimic the effluent from partial nitritation. When steady state with nitrogen loading rate of 2500 mg N L-1 d-1 was reached, the MAMBR achieved total nitrogen removal of 2496.7 mg N L-1 d-1, with negligible nitrate in effluent (~6.5 mg NO3--N L-1). 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and fluorescence in situ hybridization revealed the microbial community dynamics during enrichment and application. The high performance of nitrogen removal (2.5 kg N m-3 d-1) within 200 days operation and excellent biomass retention capacity (8.67 kg VSS m-3) makes the MAMBR promising for practical application of DAMO and Anammox in wastewater treatment.
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Zika virus (ZIKV) has spread rapidly in the Pacific and throughout the Americas and is associated with severe congenital and adult neurologic outcomes. Nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT) assays were developed for diagnostic applications and for blood donor screening on high-throughput NAT systems. We distributed blinded panels to compare the analytical performance of blood screening relative to diagnostic NAT assays.STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS:A 25-member, coded panel (11 half-log dilutions of a 2013 French Polynesia ZIKV isolate and 2015 Brazilian donor plasma implicated in transfusion transmission, and 3 negative controls) was sent to 11 laboratories that performed 17 assays with 2 to 12 replicates per panel member. Results were analyzed for the percentage reactivity at each dilution and by probit analysis to estimate the 50% and 95% limits of detection (LOD50 and LOD95 , respectively).RESULTS:Donor-screening NAT assays that process approximately 500 µL of plasma into amplification reactions were comparable in sensitivity (LOD50 and LOD95 , 2.5 and 15-18 copies/mL) and were approximately 10-fold to 100-fold more sensitive than research laboratory-developed and diagnostic reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction tests that process from 10 to 30 µL of plasma per amplification. Increasing sample input volume assayed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assays increased the LODs by 10-fold to 30-fold.CONCLUSIONS:Blood donor-screening ZIKV NAT assays demonstrate similar excellent sensitivities to assays currently used for screening for transfusion-transmitted viruses and are substantially more sensitive than most other laboratory-developed and diagnostic ZIKV reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assays. Enhancing sensitivities of laboratory-developed and diagnostic assays may be achievable by increasing sample input.
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Q:
Cross Dependent Cascading Dropdowns in MS Access
My concept is this: There are three columns relating to a definite hierarchy. I would like our users to be able to input into the combo boxes in whichever order they'd like and have the information pulled in the other two combo boxes be reactive to this.
Example: Country / State / (County/Region/District/City) in a tracker; The sql referenced table with source info would be Country_Name, State_Name, County_Name
If one were to put in "Vienna" into County, one would have options for Georgia, Missiouri, etc. under state, and United States and Austria as options for Country (I have no idea the larger provincial structure for Austria to add them to a state field--this is meant as an analogous example).
If one were to put in "Virginia" under state one would get United States as an option for Country, and Various counties as options for County.
The hierarchy would be relatively normal for inputting a country, as that's the natural drill down.
I do understand how to do a cascading (one-way) combo-box. The problem lies with being unable to use a nested Iif in the control source, or being unable to temporarily amend the control source through _AfterUpdate cases--please excuse the pseudocode:
Private Sub State_AfterUpdate()
If Country = "" And County = "" Then
Me.Country.ControlSource = "SELECT Country_Name FROM Natl_Structure WHERE State_Name = " & Forms![Postal]![State]
Me.County.ControlSource = "Select County_Name FROM Natl_Structure WHERE State_Name = " & Forms![Postal]![State] & ";"
Elseif Country <> "" And County = "" Then
Me.County ControlSource = "Select County_Name FROM Natl_Structure WHERE (State_Name = " & Forms![Postal]![State]) AND (Country_Name = " & Forms![Postal]![Country] & ";"
...and flip it for the opposite case. And set up the opposite of the first case for if both were setup (not that it would be necessary at that point, but just to account for all cases). Then apply the same sort of measure to the other two combo boxes.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
A:
You have to use IIF in your control sources to check if there is already a value in the other combo boxes or not.
Me.County.ControlSource = "Select County_Name FROM Natl_Structure WHERE 1=1" &
IIf(IsNull(Forms![Postal]![State]),"", " AND State_Name = " & Forms![Postal]![State]) &
IIf(IsNull(Forms![Postal]![Country]),""," AND Country = " & Forms![Postal]![Country])
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I’m generally pretty critical of the traditional bulletpoint style for a presentation. But most people, of course, use them anyway. They might as well do it well.
Here is a presentation by former SI communications manager, Frank DeSanto, that he did for our summer undergraduate research program (REU) last year. He makes a number of good suggestions.
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Caped wonders with super powers have been created throughout history during times when people were in dire need of "heroes". They could fly or do a Houdini from the arch-rival's snare. But, these heroes stay on the comic book (or the silver screen). Hence, we in the real world face challenges ourselves--sans super powers. Whether it's families breaking apart or declining literacy in the country, it is we who answer the call from where we are, with what we have.
Monday, October 31, 2005
True love and flatter abs
Even with cable and the Internet, many girls still turn to Seventeen, Cosmo Girl and Teen Vogue for the latest on celebrities, fads, fashion, makeup, music, movies, and other “must-buy” products.
Many of these magazines’ articles -- and ads, which can fill as much as 75 percent of the pages -- prey upon girls’ normal adolescent desire to be popular and attractive. They send the damaging message to girls that they are lacking and need certain products to try to make the grade. And they can have quite an impact: Studies have shown a relationship between reading fashion and beauty magazines and loss of self-confidence and healthy body image in girls.
How can we protect the girls in our lives from these hostile messages? Ban the magazines? I don’t advocate that, even though my daughters eventually banned Seventeen themselves, because they felt depressed after reading it. Teen girls need to make such decisions themselves. Rather than turning Cosmo Girl into forbidden fruit, try this:
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Once again Kanye West has tricked Progressives into showing their true colors. After months of Tweets and other declarations of support for Trump, it all culminated yesterday in a lunchtime meeting between Kanye and Trump himself.
Of course, the Progressive plantation bosses went into overdrive attacking Kanye for daring to think for himself. And their obsessive attacks on everything about Kanye from his education, to his reading skills, to his mental health prove that Progressive outrage and anger is all fake. Progressives are only outraged when their stranglehold on a traditionally Democratic voting demographic is threatened.
A huge fear the Democrats have is losing the faith of black voters. A small percentage of black voters moving to the Republican party could spell doom for the Democrats for decades to come. And this is exactly the reason they are falling over themselves in an attempt to demonize West and portray him as a fool and mentally unstable.
This is exactly the same scenario behind the Progressive’s faux outrage over the treatment of illegal immigrants. They don’t really care how immigrants are treated, but new immigrants often vote for Democrats, so immigrants are a huge voting demographic for the Democrats and one that they can increase very easily by simply easing immigration policies.
This is why they show outrage over immigration policies, because once again it threatens their hold on a voting demographic if immigration enforcement is tightened.
It’s the same with the Democrats recent outrage over Justice Brett Kavanaugh. They claimed to care about sexual abuse, but in reality they simply care that the court will have a conservative on the bench instead of an activist liberal judge. If they cared about women’s abuse accusations, they would look in the mirror and see many high profile Democrats who have been accused of abuse, and accused with real evidence and police reports. But Democrats ignore these accusations and instead feign outrage over Brett Kavanaugh.
Progressives are only outraged when their power is threatened. It’s an old tactic and one they have overplayed since Trump took office. They take a policy issue and divide it into two sides, one side being moral, and other being immoral. Of course, they take the moral side and then feign outrage over anyone who dares take the side they deemed as immoral. But looking a little deeper into each issue shows a common root cause for their outrage, and that’s a threat to their power.
Note: If you enjoyed this article, please make sure to share it. Also, visit our store where we feature different political and meme style T-shirt designs every week and it helps support the site and keep it free from obnoxious pop-ups and video ads.. Click here to visit our store.
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I am not fond of the bloggy format of dissecting a piece of writing sentence by sentence by sentence, although Gerecht’s piece could easily provoke such a response. Each sentence presents a misrepresenation or other ugliness that it seems wrong to allow to pass. But I’d like to make my response more succinct.
Since the title begins with “The Iran Deal,” one might expect that that would be the subject of the article. But few words are expended on the substance of the deal compared to, for example vituperation against Barack Obama. The personalization of Gerecht’s argument is typical of criticism by opponents on Twitter and elsewhere.
So we have, in Gerecht’s words,
Barack Obama’s profound aversion to the use of American military power
A stronger president and secretary of state certainly would have been willing to walk away.
Obama was… a man deeply uncomfortable with American hegemony and the essential marriage of diplomacy and force.
Obama made it increasingly clear that he was unwilling to fight
With Iran, Obama certainly appeared to have a cause
Obama’s paralyzing fear of war
Obama was… giving the homage that hypocrisy pays to virtue.
Obama’s “wishful thinking” about the region
Obama provided the agreement that Ali Akbar Salehi was searching for.
That’s representative of the content of the first six paragraphs. There are a few more whacks at Obama, along with Ben Rhodes and John Kerry, further down in the article. All is asserted with no support.
The first indication in the article of the content of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, nowhere fully spelled out) comes in paragraph 3:
the strategic and moral absurdity of paying, via sanctions relief, for Iranian imperialism in the Middle East so we can have a short surcease to the mullahs’ quest for the bomb
This is larded with judgments – “strategic and moral absurdity,” “Iranian imperialism,” “short surcease,” and the assumption that “the mullahs” are driving toward a bomb. The fact goes unnoticed that the purpose of sanctions was to bring the Iranian government to the negotiating table and thus removing those sanctions was likely to be part of those negotiations.
Then come four paragraphs with more invective against Obama, speculations on the motivations of various Iranian factions, and Gerecht’s conclusions as to likely futures in the Middle East.
Gerecht then plays dumb about why missiles were not a part of the agreement, something which was addressed many times by the Obama administration: In order to reach an agreement, that agreement had to be circumscribed. If Iran has no nuclear weapons, it cannot put one on a missile. Another point emphasized during and after the negotiations was that the JCPOA was intended to be the first of a series of agreements. That intention is being sabotaged by the neverending attempts of the opponents to undermine the deal.
More speculation and invective follow, again with little to no evidence. The next few paragraphs implicitly outline a familiar theme of the opponents: All of Iran’s military bases must be open for inspection at all times, lest they hide some component of their nuclear program. No country will agree to such inspections. This concern also ignores the power of overhead satellite photos to detect unusual activity. Gerecht mocks the agreement as applying to the part of Iran’s efforts less likely to be seen (nuclear weapon research) but not on the more-likely-to-be seen missiles. But that makes sense: open up the closed, and monitor the more open.
Gerecht then shifts to “post-JCPOA” and criticism of the Trump administration. He finds Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis as feckless as Obama and his people. But now the team of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo has arrived to frighten Tehran.
However, Gerecht recognizes the possibility that Trump may pull out of the JCPOA and do nothing afterward. Gerecht presents what he believes to be the way forward: “Contain, roll back, and squeeze.”
Gerecht mentions military power throughout. Again, his words:
It was surely Barack Obama’s profound aversion to the use of American military power that so enfeebled his nuclear diplomacy
the essential marriage of diplomacy and force
Obama made it increasingly clear that he was unwilling to fight
avoiding a fight
Obama’s paralyzing fear of war
The suggestion that going to war with the clerical regime is too high a price to pay to stop the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons… is downright odd.
[As a desired quote from the Obama administration] This administration is unwilling to use military force to stop the mullahs’ quest for the bomb. We are unwilling to contain Iranian aggression in the Middle East. This is the best that we can do under those circumstances.
Contain, roll back, and squeeze.
As long as Trump is willing to use military force against the regime’s nuclear sites, and we don’t know whether he is, then time is on our side, not theirs.
Let us try to crack the regime.
And, of course, the masculine virtues accrue to such warlike intentions, as opposed to the weaker (= feminine) diplomacy of Barack Obama, very personalized:
It was surely Barack Obama’s profound aversion to the use of American military power that so enfeebled his nuclear diplomacy
I do not know whether a more forceful president and secretary of state… could have gotten a “good deal” with Tehran
A stronger president and secretary of state certainly would have been willing to walk away.
more astute, less fearful men would have been more patient, and more willing to let sanctions bite deeper into the economy and political culture of the Islamic Republic.
Obama made it increasingly clear that he was unwilling to fight over the clerical regime’s nuclear-weapons ambitions.
The many debilitating weaknesses of the JCPOA
Obama’s “wishful thinking” about the region
his [Trump’s] rhetoric is commendably harsh.
It is always good to see a Revolutionary Guard Corps website announce about Bolton that “Trump’s Raging Bull has arrived.”
American resolve always convulses and paralyzes the clerical regime.
Contain, roll back, and squeeze.
most Democrats and some Republicans went soft by the end of the Cold War.
The three bulleted lists overlap in a marriage of invective, warmongering, and gendering. The whole piece is rhetoric, not argument, as is all too common from those opposing the JCPOA.
Our country is infected with warmongers, who have never met a war they did not like.
Unfortunately, I have to agree that it certainly appears this way to people living outside the US. Why the hell else would you have a military force that costs you more than what the rest of the world spends. Besides fear.
Mr. Gehrecht nor any others objecting to the deal will ever be maimed by an IED on some godforsaken road in Iran because of the war they want. Perhaps if they get it, they should be mandatorily parachuted into Iran in the first wave.
Let’s cut to the chase: 90% of the opposition to the Iran deal is because it’s “bad for Israel.” Which to me would be the #1 reason to support the Iran deal if it were the case, but then I’m just another renegade Jew.
@dmbeaster: and @Mnemosyne:
As I commented on the last thread about this, bullying is fundamental to the entire conservative mindset. Threats and actual violence are the only conflict resolution that makes any sense to them. It is inescapably obvious to them that peaceful, negotiated diplomacy cannot possibly stop The Enemy. This combines interestingly with it also being a deeply chickenshit movement, where they run away if they face real resistance.
EDIT – @B.B.A.:
I’d say it’s only 30%. Most of the resistance is because it’s not mean enough. A big chunk of conservative support of Israel is only because it’s a proxy war against Evil Arabs. The rest is Armageddon fetishists.
@JMG: Nor will they suffer the brunt of the crisis: refugees, destabilization of the remaining nations thereby,terrorism and the possibility of it spreading even beyond the Middle East.
I suspect these people are the ideological and maybe even literal heirs of the China lobby, who agitated for years for a war against another massive foe in retaliation for “losing” China. So who “lost” Iran, and why should millions of American lives and over a trillion dollars of American money be spent taking back something that was never ours in the first place?
I’ve only read the first two paragraphs, but I had to stop and say how much I love Balloon Juice, one reason being that a poster can use words like “tendentious” and “vituperation” and other vocabulary I love. And if that makes me an elitist snob, I will fly the flag proudly.
Mary G, most of us went to school and are proud of it. If a reader around here complained about such long words, we would say “stuff it” and go look it up. We refuse to dumb ourselves down from grown-up word and ideas. Perhaps that’s what keeps the trolls away-actually having to think at a level above 4th grade,
Gehrecht appears to be almost explicitly stating that he would prefer starting a war in order to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions rather than entering into an agreement to do so.
See Frankensteinbeck’s comment just above yours, because I think he hits the nail on the head. People like this think that physical violence is the only way to truly solve problems, and any kind of negotiation or diplomacy only postpones the day when you have to start shooting the other side, so why not cut to the chase?
@dmbeaster:
It’s easy to think that war is the end all be all of a country if you’ve never had to be at risk of dying in one. How many wars with a foreign power has the US been in, on it’s own land? Two? And attacked by a country what, once? How many wars have we been in? Yeah that number is not close to the same.
And military service is not necessarily the same as reasonable thought about warfare and not having a nuclear war. We have examples working in the current WH.
@JMG:
They should all be booted out of a plane without chutes over Iran if they call for or start a war. We should have a law that you can’t advocate for war if you aren’t willing to physically fight in it, no matter your age, gender or medical condition. Although I do wonder what level and degree of crap someone like drumpf would have literally thrown at them in boot camp. And how many hours after the company was formed that it would start. I’m betting not long at all, and quite a bit.
The vast majority of Republican pundits mainly use ad hominem insults, ideological posturing and a complete disregard for factual analysis no matter what the topic is. Gerecht is notoriously grotesque in his rants but we’re talking about degrees not any essential differences with other GOP pundits.
Our country is infected with warmongers, who have never met a war they did not like.
And who themselves (or their issue) won’t go within thousands of miles of danger. At least Grandpa Walnuts put his money, and his body, where his mouth was, unlike Soundstage Sanctus Ronaldus and his satraps, including the current crop of RWNJs.
@hellslittlestangel:
It might also be that a lot/most comment sections are worse horseshit than the articles themselves. Of course if a lot/all of the articles didn’t have that level of horseshit in them maybe the comments wouldn’t either.
When Obama was elected I think that the voters were tired of the war. One that was started by an attack of our country. I know I was happy with the Iran agreement. I do not think most ordinary citizens will read the tripe this man writes. I think they need to be very careful of starting a war.
@debbie: It’s very possible Chamberlain thought it was a bad time to fight. British military leaders mostly thought they weren’t ready to fight Germany. They were almost certainly wrong, in the sense that the war would have gone better starting in 1938, but that is what they thought.
@Waratah:
Those wars were not started because either of those countries attacked us. They were started by insane assholes like the author that Cheryl writes about. Their purpose wasn’t revenge or from strategic planning against an actual threat, they were wars for wars sake.
That The Atlantic doesn’t have a comments section indicates to me that they know that much of what they publish is horseshit.
It’s something of a mini-trend these days, and the Atlantic will selectively publish comments from readers in the columns. At least James Fallows does.
But there is no good solution. BoingBoing manually monitor their comments and get pilloried for that. And given the absence of dross in the NYT comments, I suspect they do the same. But sites that do no policing get flooded with posts saying “Earn $95 per hour working from home…” and “Fag HUSSEIN Obama Nazi Commie fuck in AZZ!!!”.
Blocking all comments sucks.
Policing the comments sucks.
Allowing all comments sucks.
In the long term I suspect automated policing of comments will become the norm, but it doesn’t work that well right now.
@NorthLeft12: Ever notice that these same war mongers are the very same ones who “develop” hundreds of reasons why they cannot participate physically in this war that send all our young folk out as cannon fodder?
However, Gerecht recognizes the possibility that Trump may pull out of the JCPOA and do nothing afterward. Gerecht presents what he believes to be the way forward: “Contain, roll back, and squeeze.”
This sounds like some weird, uncomfortable sexual position.
Great demolition of opposition to the Iran deal.
Of course, part of the attack on Obama was that he was weak because he was black. He was weak because he was “one of them,” a Muslim, and could not be trusted to go to war for America, or for Israel.
There is also the resurgence of the old slavery era fantasy that non-whites cannot look a strong white man in the eye, and that Iran can be made to submit to the US because that is the natural order of things.
There is also the resurgence of the old slavery era fantasy that non-whites cannot look a strong white man in the eye, and that Iran can be made to submit to the US because that is the natural order of things.
Yep. They think that the Iranians would not strike back with asymmetric warfare because they will recognize the natural superiority of Americans (Israelis) and submit to our will.
The whole “submission” thing is another thing that marks it as a gendered discourse — men are “naturally” dominant, women are “naturally” submissive, so any response that does not require physical force is inherently “feminine,” with all of the misogynistic stereotypes that brings.
All this talk about military responses to Iran which, of course, wouldn’t be justified in any legal sense. But that do they think Iran is going to do, sit there an take it? Do they really think Iran wouldn’t also respond with force? That whatever platform the US uses to launch this attack on Iran wouldn’t be immediately hit right back?
I don’t get it. Why is it they think this application of military force only goes one way?
The Iraqi armed forces didn’t have much interest in keeping Saddam Hussein in power and collapsed easily when the US showed up. Anyone who thinks that the Iranians are equally likely to turn on their leaders needs to be taken to the psychiatric ER for a 72-hour hold, because their delusions are dangerous to everyone around them.
“the old slavery era fantasy that non-whites cannot look a strong white man in the eye,” which was true because if a non-white looked a winte man in the eye he would be at least beaten to a pulp, if not lynched or tortured to death.
I’m thinking that if Trump starts a war we will lose a carrier battle group immediately, and that will compel Trump to use nuclear weapons. I would hope that the rest of the world would force us to stop that aggression immediately, but who knows?
Perhaps the immediate push of gasoline prices to $12/gallon when Trump withdraws from the current agreement with regard to Iran would stop Trump’s war mongering? Because the first thing Iran could do to retaliate against Trump would be to close the Persian Gulf to all traffic. We don’t get that much of our crude from the Persian Gulf, but the world does!
@Mnemosyne: Countries like China, India and Iraq have long lived and rich civilizations, they became the so called third world thanks to the machinations of western powers in the last couple of centuries. They are just reasserting themselves after the colonial era. Their histories didn’t begin with the first encounter with the West.
I could write (and others could do it much better) a piece in style similar to Reuel Marc Gerecht’s, 90 percent rhetoric/unsupported assertions, with a few mostly-irrelevant factoids and actual arguments stirred in like raisins to make it go down easier if one is gullible. He would see red, and fume. Very probably without any self-awareness. (Daniel Larison deserves more praise IMO.)
Why was the Atlantic piece even published? It was shoddy propaganda (though he probably believes every word of it), and publishing it makes the Atlantic complicit in any subsequent nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and the resulting increases in unnecessary risk of a nuclear exchange damaging or destroying human civilization. (I don’t forgive Bret Stephens (“The Iran Deal Is a Lie”, 1 May 2018) either.)
Yes, racism is definitely part of the desire to destroy everything Obama did.
It is central to Trump’s mindset. His fear and raw race hatred of Obama is behind almost all his choices. He is like one of the pharohs who wanted to obliterate every single thing that represented the memory of his predecessor. Trump also reminds me of the post Reconstruction South, when every elected black official was thrown out of office, and Black Codes were instituted to ensure the continuation of white supremacy. Poor and lower class whites were crushed as well, but we’re successfully sold the idea that being a member of the club of whiteness would offset their loss of any real power.
The Iraq War was supported out of a desire for revenge for 9/11. Didn’t matter that we attacked an innocent party.
Very true. I was amazed that so few people pointed out that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, and in fact hated bin Laden more than we did prior to 9/11.
Saddam was not religious, was secular, and under his rule women had far more opportunity than in most Islamic states. Unless they came to the attention of Saddam or his family, of course.
I don’t understand this continuing hatred for Iran at all. The people who led the revolution and took diplomats hostage are no longer in power, most have died of old age! I guess it’s learned hatred on the part of bully Republlicans.
“the old slavery era fantasy that non-whites cannot look a strong white man in the eye,” which was true because if a non-white looked a winte man in the eye he would be at least beaten to a pulp, if not lynched or tortured to death.
Stupid white racists could not admit that it was purely the application of power that sustained them and invented the myth of inherent white male power. You can read Southern sports reporters writing in the 1950s and 1960s how Alabama football had to be segregated because black players could not face or compete against the flower of white Southern manhood.
Similarly, Trump was not only a birther, but also floated the idea that Obama’s academic record had been falsified because it was not possible that a black man could be Harvard scholar.
@Waratah:
Lots of people rose up against the war. But the fucking insane assholes who think that war is everything were only looking for an excuse to start one. Never forget that they had the intel about terrorists flying planes into buildings and waved it off as if it wasn’t important. Don’t forget that all planes were grounded on 9/11, I know I was on one that morning, flying from the east to LA, and we were flying less than about 150 miles from the plane that crashed in PA. The only planes that were allowed to fly after the grounding were military planes and one plane taking people back to Saudi Arabia, the country that most of the terrorists were from.
This isn’t rocket surgery, the war mongers were in charge and wanted war to prove that the US is the baddest bully on the block. They hated President Obama for a lot of reasons but a major one was that he wasn’t/isn’t a bully. Like they are.
@Arclite: I read an article stating that Neville Chamberlain was wrongly blamed for appeasement – because Britain’s military hadn’t recovered from WW1. Britain didn’t have the resources to fight both Japan and Germany at the same time, so Mr. Chamberlain was trying to buy time while Britain re-armed. The “peace in our time” statement contradicts this, but may have been needed to reassure a public still recovering from the horrors of WW1.
Speaking of colonialism. It was not just a brutal subjugation accompanied by genocide and mass starvation it was also a mind fuck. The current government in India has made its prime agenda trying to rewrite the people who fought for India’s freedom out of history and have swallowed the colonial narrative hook line and sinker. If there is anyone I detest more than T enablers and supporters, its the enablers and supporters of the current Indian Prime Minister.
@Ruckus: There’s not enough psychoanalysis in political discourse, I think. It is a mental framework that I find more illuminating and predictive of human behavior than some of the other ways we look at things.
@Mnemosyne:
These old white fuckers haven’t got the slightest clue that the world changes every day and has changed dramatically in their lifetimes. They are stuck at the physical age of 14, with their mental growth stopped at 7. Their world is cap guns, cowboys and indians. They want to be serious, so they talk of war but they can’t think through any equation more complex than 2+2, especially if it’s a word problem.
If I knew how I’d make a macro I could just plug in.
They are not Dems.
They do not do politics
They do not vote
They are not persuadable
They make a lot of on line noise, which belies they’re minority status and power. Your reaction is exactly what they are trying for.
In the early ’90s a friend who had known, or knew of, Gerecht back in the ’80s when he was working for the CIA told me me a MeToo story about him. There was an attractive foreign postgrad studying at a US university who needed to renew her student visa to return for the fall semester. If memory serves, she was Turkish. Renewal for foreign postgrads was practically automatic in those days. Gerecht knew she needed the renewal and inserted himself into the process for no particular reason. Well, except that he wanted to convince her to go out with him. When she turned down his advances, Gerecht made sure that her visa renewal was denied.
Let’s cut to the chase: 90% of the opposition to the Iran deal is because it’s “bad for Israel.”
And even that is a lie (which I presume is the reason for the scare quotes.) It’s only “bad” for the Israeli right wing, the same people wingnuts call themselves “pro-Israel” for supporting. Netanyahu had been making the same dishonest arguments against it as our wingnuts, while Israeli intelligence types have mostly been saying the opposite.
@bill arnold:
Propaganda has to be believed to be effective at all because there is little to no actual truth in it. IOW If one wants to tell the truth you don’t need propaganda.
This war/muslim/middle east bullshit has been very successful propaganda, very little truth and it’s been believed by millions.
@J R in WV: The right wingnuts know that Iran is still a sore point for many folks in the USA. They remember how the hostage crisis cost Jimmy Carter the election, and think that winning a war with Iran would show how they’re strong and Democrats are weak.
Slight problem: we could well lose such a war. Iraq had no allies – Iran would have Russia and China behind them. Iran is also much larger than Iraq, and controls the Straits of Hormuz – a choke point for the tankers carrying oil to much of the world. Plus, we no longer have the resources that we had when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve lost many allies and much good will, and borrowed billions of dollars since then – not to mention new tax cuts.
Besides, the Navy would be fighting a “brown water” war, where their ships are easy to locate and target. Meanwhile, Russia and China (and possibly North Korea) would see any such war as a window to start their own invasions for fun and profit. Like Britain in the 1930s, the US no longer has the ability to fight a 2-front war… we’d likely lose such a war.
Of course, when we’re defeated, Trump will claim that we were fatally “stabbed in the back” by the deep state, Obama, Hillary, Jimmy Carter…
“Perhaps the immediate push of gasoline prices to $12/gallon when Trump withdraws from the current agreement with regard to Iran would stop Trump’s war mongering? Because the first thing Iran could do to retaliate against Trump would be to close the Persian Gulf to all traffic. We don’t get that much of our crude from the Persian Gulf, but the world does!”
If Treason Tribble pulls the US out of the JCPOA, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the Germany remain.
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I think that Adam’s response to you really wasn’t strong enough. Last line was about putting one’s hand in a wood chipper and pulling out a stump. I think that it would be like putting one’s hand in and having the rest pulled in and there being nothing left but small bloody bits. Human chips as it were.
Some people wonder about what all that money we spend is for. It isn’t to keep a fighting force that can be big enough to be effective against the rest of the world, it pays for extremely expensive military projects (F35, ships of the future) but not as much for personal and the amount of what we our missions around the world cost in this day and age. It’s bloody expensive being the world’s police and far more to be the arbitrators of what the rest of the world is up to.
The truth about how propaganda functions is actually somewhat counter-intuitive. It doesn’t have to be believed or even be particularly believable. Propaganda can and typically does work primarily by stirring up lots of mud to the point that its intended audience gets tired of resisting the assault on their consciousness, shuts down some of their critical faculties as a result, and in doing so either accepts some of the propagandists’ “facts” and/or their framing of the argument, or at worst accepts that there is some sort of room for dispute. In other words, propagandists know that at first people’s BS detectors are likely to shoot down anything a propagandist says, so they overwhelm their BS detectors.
Propagandists assume that people will still recognize that some or much of what they’re being fed is false, so they often include obvious lies to nourish the audience’s desire to think that it is still successfully separating the lies from the things that might possibly be true.
Propaganda works primarily by repetition, and secondarily by appeals to authority (often faux-authorities) who are brought in to bolster the repetition and give the audience an excuse to just stop resisting quite so persistently the blizzard of BS they’re being subjected to.
BoingBoing manually monitor their comments and get pilloried for that. And given the absence of dross in the NYT comments, I suspect they do the same.
Hmm, they do a good job of keeping out spam, but there are plenty of trolls in Krugman’s comment section. But yeah, the fact that comments for appear immediately (and they tell you that) suggests manual review; if it was entirely automated, they could post immediately.
@Suzanne:
I think you are correct but I would add that I don’t see how that could be accomplished within the last 20 yrs of our history.
The conservatives have sold a story that might makes right, and disproven it time and time again and still we are back in the same place all over again. Well back in the same place but with much stronger enemies and us far weaker because of our forceful stupidity and asinine financial policy.
@Brachiator: Sure. It’s interesting to read that Snopes article, and realize that his “I could have done it better” BS on foreign policy goes way further back than when he “officially” got involved in politics.
@smintheus:
Yes.
I was simplifying quite a bit. But yes repetition is vital to making it work, think Fox. It’s conservative bullshit wrapped up in “news,” but even then a lot of the time it is slanted. But it’s on most of the time and gets shown in many public places that the shear repetition works.
Propaganda works primarily by repetition, and secondarily by appeals to authority (often faux-authorities) who are brought in to bolster the repetition and give the audience an excuse to just stop resisting quite so persistently the blizzard of BS they’re being subjected to.
Propaganda largely gives people what they want, in simplified nuggets. Those people who don’t want it are separated from the group and dealt with.
Yes, which is why FDR was able to imprison US citizens based on their race with very little outcry at the time.
But the point is that FDR was able to keep his coalition together by promising that the lion’s share of the New Deal would go to white people and that he would not sign a federal anti-lynching law. Obama did not have that leverage over his coalition. The Democrats only had a filibuater-proof majority in the Senate for a few months because of Franken’s contested election.
Well, really the Iran agreement does allow Iran to compete commercially in the middle east, unlike before when sanctions prevented a level playing field for the Persians. So in the non-military sense, it is worse for Israel than the previous situation.
In the military sense, Israel has nukes and multiple delivery systems, even for a second or third strike, while no one else in the middle east has those sorts of weapons systems. The end of the Iranian agreement will end that situation, as Iran will be able to complete their construction of nuclear weapons in short order.
I feel sure they are finished with research and development, and perhaps done with design of the infrastructure needed to support their design goals. I would be if I was in charge of Iran. ? How close are Iran and Pakistan? They share 200 miles of border, do they have commerce, travel and educational connections as well? The CIA factbook says, no not much.
@B.B.A.: @Jay: There is excellent work by historians and political scientists about this subject, and BBA is spot-on. The New Deal originally didn’t cover black Americans, b/c tha twas the price Roosevelt paid to segregations for their support, without which the New Deal couldn’t have been passed.
But even moreoso, it is a *lie* that the New Deal was some radical golden age. It. Was. Not. Roosevelt basically did the minimum, and once the economy got going again, they turned down the screws of austerity again, resulting in the downturn of 1937. It was really only the coming of WWII, that dragged the US economy out of the Depression.
@Jay: I should add that even in Most Cracker-iest Texas Goddamn, our American History teacher, Mr. Witherspoon, taught us in 1979 about the weak-tea nature of the New Deal, the 1937 downturn, etc. It’s not something new — did you not get taught this in high school?
@Jay: Hindsight is a glorious thing. 40 years from now, when the history of the Lesser Depression is written, Obama will be credited as having prevented it, and the Great Recession will join the Recession of 1937 in the annals of “he didn’t do enough”. There’s been ample written about this subject (and unlike the history of WWII and the Nazis, I haven’t re-read it recently). I’m sure you can find excellent texts.
@Jay: ummm. Nope. The reason they needed to be cautious about Iraq and the banking meltdown is that there were a lot of congressional democrats caught on the wrong by side of the history there. Unless new information starts to surface that the democrats were colluding with Russia as well, they don’t have anyone in their side to protect this time around.
@J R in WV: Its complicated. The RWNJs were inspired by European fascists, its just fascism with saffron clothes having little to do with Hinduism as it is practiced by millions. Their narrative is factually challenged. In short, they want to deny any credit to Jawaharlal Nehru and M.K.Gandhi, so they elevate their contemporaries who they had ideological arguments with but who were by no means RWNJs themselves (like Bhagat Singh, Bose etc who were to the left of Congress). Its all about stolen valor. Most of the predecessors of current avatar of today’s ruling party at the centre were British enablers but now they wrap themselves in the flag.
ETA: Sorry, that’s as clear as mud. I will try and do a blog post about this.
The reason they needed to be cautious about Iraq and the banking meltdown is that there were a lot of congressional democrats caught on the wrong by side of the history there.
Exactly. You can tell which “progressives” are motivated by misogyny because they bash Hillary Clinton while lionizing Joe Biden, the Senator from MBNA.
Unless new information starts to surface that the democrats were colluding with Russia as well, they don’t have anyone in their side to protect this time around.
I’ve noticed that “progressives” and the right have started trying to claim that Hillary was the one who was helped by the Russians, which is patent bullshit, but par for the course. I also doubt that any prominent Democrats are going to be caught up in the Russia scandal, but I bet a lot of “progressive” heroes will be. We already know that Kucinich is taking money from Russia Today.
@Mnemosyne: Kids These Days, they just don’t remember how scared Dem officials were, that a public stand against the Iraq War would be career-ending. I mean, there’s a reason Kerry waffled on his vote — it was scary, b/c it wasn’t clear that the American public would forgive a vote against the war.
Yes, -today- it looks like an obvious decision. But back then, it took extraordinary political courage. And sure sure, there were Dems who had it, and did it — there was a LOT of angry debate in Congress about it. But if we expect all our elected officials to be willing to sacrifice their careers for a moral position, we’re gonna have pretty weak officials.
@Fair Economist: Pretty sure there’s a line of thinking that says that Chamberlain took the Munich deal with open eyes because Britain was totally unprepared for war, and needed the time to rev up the war machine.
I don’t know whether or not the argument makes sense, but guessing I could find links … I know I’ve seen the arguments.
@J R in WV: Vaguely remembering an article in the Atlantic circa 2000 on war games positing Iraq (Iran?) as the adversary. I can’t find the article either in my midden heap or with an online search, but the general “commanding” Iraqi forces launched all his missiles at the inception of the conflict and inflicted YUUUGE losses on American naval forces.
Quite the surprise for all concerned.
I am kicking myself that I can’t find the article, but no doubt Cheryl or Adam and/or many others know(s) the reference and/or the story behind the reference.
@J R in WV: Colin Powell’s assertion in his UN speech that Saddam supported the Ansar al-Islam group was the clearest indication that Powell was either lying or misinformed. The improbability of the claim strongly suggested that the US case against Iraq was, uh, not entirely credible.
@Brachiator: The number of friends, colleagues, and relatives – Jillies and BernieBros and Trumpkins – who told me that Hillary was the warmonger in the race and must at all costs be kept out of the Oval Office…
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Hello Kitty is NOT a cat!
It’s a personal goal of mine to be less judgmental, but in times like these it’s difficult! So I’m reading an article that says that San Rio has clarified that Hello Kitty is NOT a cat.
“She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat.”
None of that description justifies how she’s not a cat. Minnie Mouse is a cartoon character, she’s a girl, and a friend, but she’s still a mouse.
“She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.”
Again, that doesn’t mean she’s not a cat. That’s called anthropomorphism. It’s when an animal or thing is made to seem human. Again, Minnie Mouse isn’t on all fours and she’s a mouse. A monkey stands on two legs while still being a monkey.
“She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a cat. Mickey Mouse has a pet dog named Pluto, yet he’s friends with a character named Goofy, who is a dog that is standing on two feet and talks. If only that argument worked. It just means there are humanoid cats and animal cats in the San Rio world.
I also read that Hello Kitty’s real name is Kitty White. Even if Walt Disney had named Minnie Mouse, Minnie Black, she’d still be a mouse! Now, if you can give me a better reason as to why she’s not a cat, I might concede. Maybe she’s part of a cat-like race called Purleens in an alternate universe. Okay great, she’s not a “cat” she’s a Purleen which is cat-like. Great. She’s a little girl in a costume. Okay, she’s not a cat. However, the impression that I am getting is that she’s an anthro cat and they just don’t want to admit it. I know she’s your creation, but until you give me a better explanation, Hello Kitty is cat to me.
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Q:
Java nextInt() generates negative numbers
I am making a random line generator for fun. For some reason, the program does not make use of the maximum numbers I provided in the nextInt(). Strangely, the only nextInt() that works properly is space.
Here is my code:
public class LineFractal extends Applet {
Random rnd = new Random();
int width = 640;
int height = 640;
int x = 1000;
int endy1 = rnd.nextInt(320);
int endx1 = rnd.nextInt(320);
int starty1 = rnd.nextInt(320);
int startx1 = rnd.nextInt(320);
int space = rnd.nextInt(25);
public void init() {
setSize(width, height);
Frame c = (Frame)this.getParent().getParent();
c.setTitle("Line Generator");
}
public void paint(Graphics g) {
while (x > 0) {
x -= 1;
g.drawLine(startx1, starty1, endx1, endy1);
endy1 += space;
endx1 -= space;
}
g.drawString("Space: " + space, width-100, height-10);
g.drawString("Y (End): " + endy1, width-100, height-20);
g.drawString("Y (Start): " + starty1, width-100, height-30);
g.drawString("X (End): " + endx1, width-100, height-40);
g.drawString("X (Start): " + startx1, width-100, height-50);
}
}
Why is it doing this?
EDIT: Just ran it again, and the X (Start) and the Y (Start) do work, but the (End) integers do not. They will generate a completely random number, sometimes as low as -21842. But they are not always negative.
A:
Java nextInt() generates negative numbers
No, nextInt() -- the way you are calling it -- does not return negative numbers.
Your loop that repeatedly subtracts space from endx1 is what's causing endx1 to become negative.
A:
Facts:
endx1 can have an initial value between 0 and 319.
space can have a value between 0 and 24.
x starts at 1000
Once for each x, you decrease endx1 by space, meaning that it can reach values as low as 0 - (1000 * 24) = -24000 or as high as 319 - (1000 * 0).
So, in essence, your code is an overly elaborate way to assign endx1 a random value between -24000 and 319. Of course it's going to be negative most of the time.
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Spanish Police Arrest 11 Suspected Islamic Militants
Police in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta have arrested at least 11 suspected Islamic militants.
Police sources say forces sent by boat from the Spanish mainland carried out the sweep in pre-dawn raids early Tuesday across the tiny enclave on Morocco's northwestern coast.
Authorities identified two of the detainees as brothers of Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed, a Spaniard who spent two years in detention at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after his 2001 capture near the Afghan-Pakistani border. Authorities say Ahmed, who was released earlier this year by a Spanish court, was not among those arrested today.
The French news agency, AFP, quotes Spanish anti-terror services as saying authorities were alerted when a group linked to al-Qaida posted a document on the Internet calling for "a war against the infidel Spanish state."
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<< Is the W-2 reporting of the SDI tax significant as far as eligibility for itemization and deduction?
Looking at a a few different W-2s, the SDI amounts are reported variously in boxes 14 and 19. Based on perusal of some earlier posts, and the 1040 sch. A (and W-2) instructions, I think the employer has the choice of where to report this, and it has no significance as far as whether or not it may be included on schedule A, right? >>
Placement on the W-2 makes no difference.
<< 2. If an employer offers an "enhanced" disability plan (typically supplement or replace the SDI payment to enable payout of a larger fraction of salary during disability), is this still itemizable? (If yes, presumably, only up to the normal ceiling on SDI taxes.) >>
Neither a replacement nor a supplement is deductible, because neither is a tax. (Disability premiums are not deductible as a medical expense either.) If the employer offers a supplement and you still pay SDI, you can still deduct the SDI.
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Efficacy of laser treatment for onychomycotic nails: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective clinical trials.
Laser therapy for onychomycosis is emerging but its efficacy remains unestablished. To examine current evidence on efficacy of laser treatment of onychomycosis. A systematic review and one-arm meta-analysis, including all prospective clinical trials, identified on PubMed, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE databases. Trials with participants as unit of analysis (UOA), n = 13, were analyzed separately from trials with nails as UOA, n = 7. Summary proportions and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated. Outcomes were mycological cure, clinical improvement, or complete cure. Twenty-two prospective trials (four randomized controlled trials and 18 uncontrolled trials) with a total of 755 participants were analyzed. Summary proportions with 95% CI for participants as UOA were mycological cure 70.4%, 95% CI 52.2-83.8%; clinical improvement 67.2%, 95% CI 43.2-84.7%; and complete cure 7.2%, 95% CI 1.9-23.5%. High statistical heterogeneity was detected (mycological cure I2 = 88%, P < 0.01; clinical improvement I2 = 69%, P < 0.01; complete cure I2 = 60%, P = 0.11). The current level of evidence is limited and with high heterogeneity, making it difficult to assess the true efficacy of laser treatment for onychomycosis. Larger randomized controlled trials with well-defined methodology are warranted.
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SHARE
There is a palpable fear in the Middle East that a full-blown regional conflict could break out; if it were to happen, the costs would be catastrophic.
Given the manifest economic devastation that violent conflict would bring about, why do people still start wars?
Before answering this question, it is worth clarifying exactly why war is usually an irrational enterprise. This issue is analysed in game theory, which is a branch of mathematical economics. Violent conflict has a direct economic cost on all parties, including the victorious one: armament; mobilisation; loss of life; damage to infrastructure; and so on. An armed engagement results in a reconfiguration of resource ownership, such as when a country claims new territory from a neighbouring country, or pirates seize a ship. Game theorists consider such actions “irrational” because all of the warring parties would be better off if they accepted the post-conflict resource reconfiguration without the preceding violent exchange.
To illustrate, in 1776, what was about to become the United States, declared independence from Britain. After eight years of combat, leading to the death of over 100,000 people, and millions of dollars of military expenditure, Britain formally accepted the colonies’ independence in the Treaty of Paris. Had the terms of the treaty been accepted by both sides in 1775, then in principle, thousands of lives and millions of dollars would have been saved by the warring factions. An analogous argument can be made in virtually every example of violent conflict, whether it is two children fighting in a playground, or the Second World War.
The strategy of conveying the irrationality of violence in an attempt to avert it is regularly deployed by prospective warriors. For example, a robber will often brandish a gun and remind you that it is in your interest to surrender your possessions without resisting; and foreign naval vessels that illegally enter another country’s waters may be met with harmless warning shots.
Unfortunately, individuals and governments have a long history of violent conflict, despite its apparent irrationality. What explains this phenomenon?
Game theory tells us that the decisive factor is uncertainty (technically referred to as “imperfect information”) by the prospective warriors about the goals, the resolve and the military capabilities of the different parties.
To see why, let us return to the example of American independence. Had the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris been offered to King George III’s representatives in 1775, they would have surely rejected them, because they were convinced of their military superiority over the colonies. The British would have rationally surmised: “Why on earth would we surrender the ability to control and tax the colonies if a small expeditionary force would be sufficient to crush the insurgency?” In other words, they didn’t believe that the Americans had the military might to resist British rule; as a result, the expected cost of the war was considerably lower than the implied losses in the Treaty of Paris. The British did not fight to the death, however. They fought long enough to realise that they could not beat their colonies, whereupon it became rational to concede defeat.
The British probably also suffered from uncertainty regarding the colonists’ will. Perhaps they overestimated the prevalence of loyalists, or underestimated the rebels’ resolve. Similarly, if you suspect that a robber is either too cowardly to use the gun that he is brandishing, or that it might be fake, then you may refuse to hand over your wallet. This might force the robber to shoot you, possibly non-lethally, to demonstrate his ability to coerce you into surrendering your possessions. It costs him a bullet and a higher prison sentence in the event that he gets caught, but such costs are necessary for him to overcome the uncertainty that is interrupting his asset seizure.
Returning to the Middle East at present, what kind of uncertainty might be pushing prospective warriors closer to war? Prior to 2001, and more specifically to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iran, the configuration of resource ownership in the Middle East was quite stable, and the different powers had a good sense of each other’s military capabilities. Today, the extensive use of proxies and non-state actors has created a great deal of uncertainty regarding the military resources at the disposal of each government, creating the possibility that two different countries overestimate their own power - a precursor to war.
What can be done to de-escalate? One strategy is to use mediators to credibly disseminate information about military capabilities. For example, a team of UN experts with inside knowledge of each side’s military prowess might successfully convince one of the parties to backdown preemptively by demonstrating to it that its aggression will result in its own defeat.
Unfortunately, with much military information being sensitive and secret, there are limits to what can be credibly conveyed verbally; and that is why the world’s history is littered with wars that initially seem like economic folly, but turn out to be, upon closer inspection, inevitable information-gathering exercises.
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Q:
Can I say: "native to the time period?"
I am writing a piece on Propaganda, and I am quoting George Orwell. What I try to say is that the quote gives a an insider's perspective in terms of the era, not of the geographical location.
I want to say something like this:
A perspective native to the time period (the 40s) is provided by Orwell in his BBC Broadcast: ". . . .
A:
I love this question.
When I read your sentence, I couldn't find anything wrong with it. It sounded natural to me. Yet when I looked up the word native in the dictionary, I couldn't find a definition that would support such usage.
I checked Collins, I checked Macmillan, I checked Wordnik, I even checked the OED. Over and over again, I found definitions referring to place and region, but definitions referring to time proved elusive. The more I searched, the more I became skeptical.
Then I tried searching for the phrase "native to the era" in Google books, and on the web. Google initially reports 12,000,000 results found, but it doesn't take long to see that's a false number (the actual result is closer to 25 or 30). There are only three hits returned on Google books, and none of them show that phrase.
You wouldn't be the first to use the word to refer to time instead of place; one blogger wrote:
Generation Z is the first generation that can truly be considered native to the era of social networking and high speed Internet.
I would call this a trap word, one that sounds fine when you first hear it, but one that might prompt the careful reader (or the pedant) to say that you are uninformed. If you are writing, I'd avoid this usage and opt for a rephrase.
If you really wanted to stick with it, and were challenged, I did find this vague definition on the Wordnik page:
native (adj.) Naturally related; cognate; connected (with).
That might give you some rationale, but it doesn't seem to be a common sense of the word.
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Phinglet, a Coat-Hook For Your Phone
There is a bartender’s gadget called the bar-blade. It’s a wide strip of metal with a beer bottle opener at one rounded-off end and a large hole at the other. When I first saw one (starting a job in a fancy London bar), I asked the bartender what the hole was for. “This,” he said, spinning the ‘blade around on his finger. “No, seriously,” I said. He fixed me in the eye, still spinning the bar-blade. “Really,” he said.
The Phinglet turns your iPhone into a bar-blade. And while it’s there, it also doubles as a kickstand. And a tripod mount.
But the best part is that the Phinglet’s inventor — Borislav Ignatov — came up with the idea after his friend suffered a “freaking accident” and dropped his iPhone into water. Sometimes a typo is truer than the intended text.
The Phinglet attaches to the back of any smooth phone or case using a peel-and-stick 3M adhesive film, the same used in various stores to stop you stealing the gadgets on display. This is also reusable, should you want to remove it. The Phinglet pivots on this sticky turret and either tucks out of the way or twists into action, putting a kind of old-style ring-pull on your phone for dangling and spinning.
The companion widget is called the Wedge, which jams into the Phinglet’s finger hole and sticks out at an angle, propping up the phone. A threaded hole will screw it onto any tripod.
In all, a neat, if maybe niche, design. Bartenders will likely pony up the $20 Kickstarter pitch right away, simply because they know how fast it is to grab from a pocket. If you wait for it to (hopefully) see full production, the Phinglet and Wedge will cost you $30–still a good deal.
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Abu Dhabi: The number of UAE soldiers martyred in Yemen rises to 45 after 23 more soldiers succumbed to their injuries. The General Command of the UAE Armed Forces had earlier said that 22 soldiers have died while taking part in the Saudi-led operation aimed at driving out Houthi rebels, WAM reported Friday.
The incident took place at an arms depot at a military base in the eastern province of Marib in central Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia and a coalition of other Arab states have been fighting since March to restore to power the internationally recognised government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi and to repel the Iran-backed Al Houthis, who took control of the capital Sanaa in September.
Army depot targeted
Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, said the army depot was targeted by surface to surface missile.
The General Command of the UAE Armed Forces extended condolences and sympathy to the families of the martyrs praying to Allah Almighty to rest their souls in peace.
At least six other Emirati soldiers have been killed in Yemen since the offensive began. The UAE soldiers’ death bring the death toll of servicemen fighting in Operation Restoring Hope to 28 since the Saudi-led coalition began the fight to restore the Yemen government and oust Al Houthi rebels who have seized control of parts of the country, including the capital of Sanaa.
UAE soldiers load their military vehicle with rockets during manoeuvres
Twenty-seven UAE soldiers have died in Yemen and in June, a non-commissioned officer was killed during a training exercise in Saudi Arabia as part of a training exercise as part of the operation.
Dr Gargash tweeted: “O Allah Almighty, may You grant them Your mercy. Our sons, the heroes, make the ultimate sacrifice for their homeland, their people. Their memory shall remain for ever.”
He added the martyrdom of our sons increases our resolve to finish the mission. “Heroes of the UAE show their gallantry. Our flag will remain high and a cowardly attack will not deter us, nor will it stops us from realising our goals.”
He emphasized that the test of Yemen and the steadfastness of the Arab coalition sends a clear Arab message of willpower and perseverance. “We will not be an easy prey or a facile target. The UAE leads the way in both action and bravery.
Dr Gargash added that the souls of our martyrs safeguard our future. “We stand by Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the entire GCC. The glory of the UAE is unshakable. I bow down to our nation and to the martyrdom of its sons. We mourn our heroes in every street, neighbourhood and city, but our flag will remain high and proud.”
Abdullah Bin Zayed receives condolences from Kerry
Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, received a phone call from John Kerry, US Secretary of State, during which he offered his condolences on the death of the 22 Emirati martyrs who took part in Operation Restoration of Hope, carried out by the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
Shaikh Abdullah thanked Kerry for the phone call and his condolences.
Five Bahraini soldiers killed in Yemen
The General Command of the Bahraini Defence Force announced that five Bahraini soldiers died while performing their national duties by participating in the defence of the Saudi Arabia’s southern border.
The martyrs are Sergeant Major Mohammad Nabil Hamad, First Sergeant Mohammad Hafedh Younis, First Sergeant Abdul Qadir Hassan Al Alas, First Sergeant Hassan Eqbal Mohammad and Corporal Abdul Moneim Ali Hussain.
Martyrs' Day
The 30th of November has been designated as Martyr’s Day in memory of and in tribute to our fallen heroes, President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan ordered on August 19.
Martyr’s Day will be a national holiday, according to the President’s order.
The martyrs “offered their lives so as to keep the UAE flag flying aloft while they were performing their national duties within and outside the country, in civilian, military and humanitarian fields,” the President’s order stated.
Shaikh Khalifa’s order aims to honour the legacy of the UAE heroes whose sacrifices have not only made the nation proud but also helped to alleviate injustice, especially in the case of our heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, in support of the Yemeni people’s struggle to regain their country back from the tyranny of the Al Houthi militia and its allies.
It highlights the fact that the UAE was built and being preserved by the sacrifices of the patriot men and women who have given their all.
TIMELINE:
Timeline of UAE soldiers killed in Yemen
Hazim Obaid Al Ali - Martyred on June 23, 2015
Non-commissioned officer Hazim Obaid Al Ali, 40, died in routine military exercises as part of the Armed Forces’ involvement in Operation Restoring Hope with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The serviceman had seven children, between the ages of 3 and 14.
Abdul Aziz Sarhan Saleh Al Ka’abi - Martyred on July 16, 2015
Lieutenant Abdul Aziz Sarhan Saleh Al Ka’abi, 24, martyred while performing his national duty as part of Operation Restoring Hope of the Saudi-led alliance aimed at supporting the people of Yemen and the legitimate government there.
Saif Yousuf Ahmad Al Falasi - Martyred on July 20, 2015
Non-commissioned officer Saif Yousuf Ahmad Al Falasi was killed while he was carrying out his national duty within the forces participating in Operation Restoring Hope, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia to back the legitimate government of Yemen. Al Falasi, 35, was a father of five from Dubai.
Juma Jawhar Juma Al Hammadi - Martyred on Saturday, August 8, 2015
First Corporal Juma Jawhar Juma Al Hammadi lost his life in Operation Restoring Hope in Yemen, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
Khalid Mohammad Abdullah Al Shehi - Martyred on Saturday, August 8, 2015
First Corporal Khalid Mohammad Abdullah Al Shehi was killed while he was carrying out his national duty within the forces participating in Operation Restoring Hope, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia to back the legitimate government of Yemen.
Fahim Saeed Ahmad Al Habsi - Martyred on Saturday, August 8, 2015
First Corporal Fahim Saeed Ahmad Al Habsi also lost his life in Operation Restoring Hope in Yemen, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
Abdul Rahman Ebrahim Eisa Al Beloushi Martyred on August 12, 2015
Corporal Abdul Rahman Ebrahim Eisa Al Beloushi was martyred while performing his national duty as part of the UAE forces in ‘Operation Restoring Hope’.
- Compiled by Gulf News Archives
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Q:
Manipulating JSON String in C# without Object
I have JSON String which I am reading from file.
I don't have the source of the JSON Object.
So I can't call JsonConvert.DeserializeObject.
However I want check if the JSON String has specific structure, if yes, append some string or If not append the structure.
allmodules {
feature: 'test-a'
}
submodules {
//some data
}
Assume if there's not allmodules, I would like to append my structure
allmodules {
feature: 'debug-a'
}
If it's already available, just append feature: 'debug-a'
And so on I have some custom work to do. Is there any efficient way to do this without breaking JSON format. Most of the questions regarding String to Object de-serialization, however as I mentioned I don't have original Object, and can't do that.
A:
You can do this using JObject and doing a little manual parsing. It could look something like this:
public string AppendAllModules(string json)
{
var obj = JObject.Parse(json);
JToken token;
if (obj.TryGetValue("allmodules", out token))
return json;
obj.Add(new JProperty("allmodules", new JObject(new JProperty("feature", "test-a"))));
return obj.ToString();
}
Given:
{
"submodules": {
"name": "yuval"
}
}
Would yield:
{
"submodules": {
"name": "yuval"
},
"allmodules": {
"feature": "test-a"
}
}
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Q:
Web Workers: SetInterval and SetTimeout reliability
In a browser environment, setTimeout and setInterval aren't reliable for accuracy - where time sensitivity is an issue.
Recently, we've been given requestAnimationFrame, which allows us to do a little better (in terms of performance.now() and its timestamps).
Long story short - I decided to build a metronome in Javascript, and while it works, it's fairly inaccurate above a certain tempo. While compensating for late frames allows the tempo not to desync over time, the individual beats are slightly off, which doesn't work for a metronome. (This is not a problem for animation, as it by nature doesn't need to be discrete.)
Right now, I have the option of attempting to perform a lookahead based on a threshold that I specify, to attempt to place the click between available frames (using setTimeout in the animation loop). I imagine, though, that I'll run into similar problems as setTimeout isn't reliable in the browser due to the event loop, unless the HTML5 Audio API will allow you to delay playback by a number of milliseconds.
My question: Are setTimeout and setInterval more accurate and reliable in a web worker vs the browser environment?
A:
We can say 'yes' for your question, Web workers are reliable for settimeout and setinterval functions,because web workers runs on background according to ui, so they provide you non-blocking ui events(they might affect metronome tempo), while you are processing the continuing metronome timing.
By the way there is a good doc about web workers in here.
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note: This is still a draft which I plan to expand into more precise instructions
I'd like to elaborate a bit more on my previous comment, which while also dealing with visualization, is about a software solution instead of the hardware solution I also posted.
The basic idea is displaying a spectrogram together with the (windowed) Minecraft so that the audio visualization helps locating mobs, caves etc. So first some background information from Wikipedia:
A spectrogram is a time-varying spectral representation (forming an image) that shows how the spectral density of a signal varies with time. Also known as spectral waterfalls, sonograms, voiceprints, or voicegrams, spectrograms are used to identify phonetic sounds, to analyse the cries of animals; they were also used in many other fields including music, sonar/radar, speech processing, seismology, etc. The instrument that generates a spectrogram is called a spectrograph.
As an example, here's a spectrogram of a violin:
Time flows from left to right while the bottom represents lower frequencies and the top the higher ones. It's actually easier to understand in animation, so here's some classical music
(there's also the infamous Aphex Twin face, see e.g. here. It's actually incredible what stuff one can do with this.)
Since the location of objects requires Stereo sound, you need a software that can plot a real time stereo spectrogram. (Ok, maybe a simple spectral analyser may suffice, but in order to compensate for the difficulty of identifying a signal, looking back in time for a second sounds fair) I'll assume you don't want to buy a commercial product for this, and why should you when there's freeware available?
The simplest one I found is called Spectrogram 5.0. It's a tiny download and provides a stereo view, although the resolution is quite raw IMHO. (I'll update this answer if you have trouble with the configuration).
The OpenSource project Spek looks promising but doesn't seem to support live output at the moment, while the Overtone Analyzer Free Edition looks a lot more elaborated but I haven't found a Stereo visualization setting yet. Other programs I have not yet checked are SFS/RTGRAM, WaveSurfer, Waterfall Spectrum Analyzer.
Finally, there is Spectrum Lab, which I have used quite some time ago. I don't remember if it supports Stereo, but with the correct settings the results are great...
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OCR
66 Bryn Mawr Stories
That he had thought well of it she could not doubt,
but she wanted to know what she had said. Long
after she had gone to her room that night she had
sat thinking. The poetry of college spirit! What
had she said about it P Perhaps she had said some-
thing absurd, had made her subject ridiculous. lt
hardly seemed so from what she had heard. And
yet,-could she think that the inspiration of that
moment of discovery had lasted through an hour of
unconsciousness? How much more probable that
the shadowy something she had tried to define had
been so real to the memory or the imagination of
her hearers that the mere mention of it had for them
an instant fascination.
And now this morning, finding herself the first
downstairs, she had picked up the paper. She
would find out at last. A few moments ago she
had finished reading, and throwing the paper aside
with the impatience of disappointment, had stepped
out on to the porch. In those five minutes she had
come to view the whole thing with a lively enjoy-
merit.
There was a column about it in the paper, but
no outline, nothing but praise and the hope that she
would make her speech fully effective by publish-
ing it. Was there perhaps a touch of malice in
that suggestion? Had the reporter grasped more
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Q:
Why is there a difference between binascii.b2a_base64() and base64.b64encode()?
I'm trying to understand some divergent behavior I'm seeing with the following two functions:
def hex_to_64(string):
hex_string = binascii.a2b_hex(string)
return binascii.b2a_base64(hex_string)
def hex_to_64_2(string):
hex_string = binascii.a2b_hex(string)
return base64.b64encode(hex_string)
If I pass in a hex string to the former, I get it back with a newline at the end, and the latter without. Is there a reason for that?
A:
Nothing special, the implementators decided to do it that way. It is documented at binascii module.
Convert binary data to a line of ASCII characters in base64 coding. The return value is the converted line, including a newline char. The length of data should be at most 57 to adhere to the base64 standard.
If you don't feel comfortable with that just right strip it:
hex_to_64('aa').rstrip('\n')
>>>'qg=='
Hope this helps!
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There are well known patents disclosing methods and systems for creation of complex shape parts using powder metallurgy techniques.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,452 to Walker describes a process for fabricating multi-alloy components such as a turbine disk, made from a metal or metal alloy which has been processed to display super plastic properties at elevated temperatures, is diffusion bonded to a component or components, such as turbine blades, made from another metal or metal alloy, by disposing the components in a press with the surfaces to be bonded in mating contact. Moisture and oxygen are removed from between the surfaces. Heat and pressure are then applied, such as by forging at an elevated temperature or by hot isostatic pressing, to cause super plastic deformation of at least one of the components at the bonding surfaces. The heat and pressure are held sufficiently long to diffusion bond the surfaces. The new integral assembly is then heat treated to obtain desired properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,581,300 to Hoppin, et al. discloses a method of a dual alloy turbine wheel manufacture of a cast integral blade ring pressure-sealed to a wrought alloy hub and thereafter bonded thereto by hot isostatic pressing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,587,700 to Curbishley, et al. also discloses a method, where a dual alloy cooled turbine is manufactured by casting a hollow cylinder of first nickel-base alloy material with high creep resistance to produce directionally oriented grain boundaries. A preform of a second nickel-base alloy material with high tensile strength and high low-cycle-fatigue strength is diffusion bonded into the bore of the hollow cylinder by subjecting the cylinder and preform to hot isostatic pressing. The resulting cylindrical block is cut into thin precisely flat wafers. A plurality of alignable holes for forming fluid cooling passages are photo chemically etched into the individual wafers. The wafers then are laminated by vacuum diffusion bonding techniques, with the holes aligned to form fluid cooling passages. The resulting laminated block is machined to produce the turbine wheel with turbine blades through which the cooling passages extend.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,100,050 to Krueger, et al. discloses an article of manufacture duel alloy turbine disks having at least a first and a second part, each part having different mechanical properties, compositions, microstructures or combinations thereof, being joined together using a forging process to yield a substantially defect-free joint region. The article in the form of a turbine disk is particularly suited for use in a gas turbine engine in which the hub or inner portion must be resistant to low cycle fatigue and have high strength, while the rim or outer portion must be resistant to stress rupture failure and creep failure.
“Hot isostatic Pressing—Theory and Applications” Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference, pp 259-265, Kratt et al. describes technology of HIPing complex shape parts with dual chemical composition and properties from metal powders.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,583 to Jenkel, et al. discloses a method of integrally bladed rotor fabrication, in which deformable hollow single crystal blades are protected from deformation during diffusion bonding to the disk by encapsulation in a ceramic protective shell. The ceramic shell serves to occupy the areas between the blades and the surrounding forging die set, so that during application of high temperatures and pressures, damage to the blades is prevented without the use of complex segmented die assemblies.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,540 to Marlowe, et al. discloses two step process for bonding the elements of a three-layer cladding tube in which a method is provided for preparing a cladding tube having an outer substrate, an intermediate zirconium barrier layer, and an inner liner. The method includes the following steps: (a) bonding an inner liner alloy sheath exterior circumferential surface to a zirconium sheath interior circumferential surface to form a barrier/inner liner sheath, and (b) bonding the exterior surface of the zirconium sheath on the barrier/inner liner sheath to the interior circumferential surface of an outer substrate alloy tube to form the cladding tube. Alternatively, the method includes the following steps: (a) bonding the zirconium sheath exterior circumferential surface to the outer substrate alloy tube interior circumferential surface to form a substrate tube/barrier sheath, and (b) bonding the exterior circumferential surface of the inner liner alloy sheath to the interior circumferential surface of the zirconium sheath of the substrate tube/barrier sheath to form said cladding tube. In either approach the tube produced by step (a) is heat treated before step (b) is performed. The bonding steps are performed by extrusion and sometimes hot isostatic pressing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,593,085 to Tohill, et al. discloses a method of manufacturing of impeller assembly, where two articles is sealed together to define a cavity there between. A vacuum is drawn in the cavity by means of an evacuation tube having a passageway. The passageway is then sealed and the articles are subjected to a temperature and pressure to diffusion bond the articles together. A successful diffusion bond can be determined if the evacuation tube sidewall is collapsed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,210,633 to Kratt, et.al offers a novel method of manufacturing articles of a complex shape by subjecting powder material to Hot Isostatic Pressing. The method involves manufacturing a capsule with at least one insert. The capsule is filled with outgassed powder. Thereafter, the powder in the capsule is subjected to hot isostatic pressing. The capsule is removed to produce a finished article, such as a bladed disk. The thickness of capsule walls is made variable so as to provide substantially unidirectional axial deformation of the powder during the Hot Isostatic Pressing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,401 to Miglietti discloses a process for diffusion bonding of cracks and other gaps in high-temperature nickel and cobalt alloy components. The gap is filled with alloy powder matching the substrate alloy, or with an alloy of superior properties, such as MAR-M 247, MAR-M 247LC, or CM 247LC. A braze containing a melting point depressant is either mixed into the alloy powder or applied over it. The depressant is preferably hafnium, zirconium, or low boron. The component is heated for 15-45 minutes above the melting point of the braze, which fills the spaces between the alloy powder particles. The component is diffused at a temperature above or below the liquidus of the braze and solution heat-treated and aged at a temperature at which the braze and alloy mixture in the gap is solid, but the depressant diffuses away.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,619,537 to Zhang, et al. discloses diffusion bonding of copper sputtering targets to backing plates using nickel alloy interlayears. A sputter target assembly including a high purity copper sputter target diffusion bonded to a backing plate, preferably composed of either aluminum, aluminum alloy, aluminum matrix composite materials, copper, or copper alloy, and a Ni-alloy interlayer, preferably composed of Ni—V, Ni—Ti, Ni—Cr, or Ni—Si, located between and joining the target and backing plate, and a method for making the assembly. The method of making involves depositing (e.g., electroplating, sputtering, plasma spraying) the interlayer on a mating surface of either the sputter target or backing plate and pressing, such as hot isostatically pressing, the sputter target and backing plate together along mating surfaces so as to form a diffusion bonded sputter target assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,409 to Barone, et al. discloses a method of producing light alloy castings by foundry technology in which, after solidification and shake-out, the casting is subjected to a heat-treatment cycle comprising a solution heat-treatment step at a temperature high enough to put into solution the phases precipitated in the course of the solidification of the casting, possibly followed by a quenching step and an ageing step, wherein the solution heat-treatment step is performed at least partially in hot isostatic pressing conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,720,086 to Strutt discloses liquid interface diffusion bonding of nickel-based superalloys as comprises a metal honeycomb core such as a nickel-alloy honeycomb core and a nickel-alloy facing sheet bonded thereto. The composition and method of this invention are useful in applications where high strength, heat resistant materials are required, such as in aircraft and aerospace-related structures. The composition is prepared by a method comprising: (a) providing a nickel-alloy honeycomb core having a mating surface and a nickel-alloy facing sheet having a mating surface; (b) placing together the honeycomb core mating surface and the facing sheet mating surface, and providing there between a metal foil comprising nickel, zirconium, and at least one additional metal selected from the group consisting of titanium, niobium, and chromium; (c) subjecting the mating surfaces and metal foil there between to sufficient positive pressure to maintain position and alignment for joining; and (d) heating the mating surfaces and metal foil there between in a protective atmosphere for at least 2 hours to a temperature sufficient to cause melting between the metal foil and mating surfaces of the facing sheet and honeycomb core.
The methods and systems disclosed in Patents and publication mentioned above show that configuration and production routes for bimetallic and sometimes multi-component parts like turbine disks (blisk), impellers, cladded valves and housings are based on diffusion bonding of solid to solid components. Diffusion bonding is usually achieved by hot forging or hot isostatic pressing. There are two goals at least, that should be provided under forging or HIPing:—create bonding of dissimilar materials with tensile strength of the interface area not lower than the strength of a weaker alloy and therefore—provide required properties for integral part.
However traditional heat treatment of solid parts separately or jointly after HIP (forging) following one of the preferred heat treatment regimes cannot provide the level of required properties and microstructure.
As a result all listed above technical solutions do not enable to achieve the goal of a robust manufacturing process for multi-component complex shape parts consisting of different materials including powder material and solid materials each of them possessing the properties which are optimal for the performance of the said multi-component part. The reason is that these solutions do not account the deterioration of the properties of the monolithic component during HIP and heat treatment which is usually done in accordance with the regimes of powder material which has to be consolidated to full 100% density and firmly bonded to the solid monolithic material.
The goal of the present invention is to develop methods and systems for manufacturing of multi-component complex shape parts consisting of monolithic and powder materials working at different performance conditions (for example, turbine blisks), and possessing optimal properties so that monolithic and as powder components are not deteriorated as a result of joint processing which is usually done in accordance with the regimes of powder material which has to be consolidated to full 100% density and firmly bonded to the solid monolithic material.
In particular for bimetallic blisks made from monolithic and powder Ni-based superalloys with cast blades and powder hub and rim, the object of the present invention is to provide the method and system for manufacturing such multi-component part with 100% density of the powder material firmly HIP bonded to the monolithic blades without deterioration of the micro-structure and properties of the blades.
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Q:
Unable to get a websocket app work through kubernetes ingress-nginx in a non-root context path
Here is a sample WebSocket app that I'm trying to get it to work from a Kubernetes ingress-nginx controller.
Kubernetes yaml:
echo "
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: ws-example
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: wseg
spec:
containers:
- name: websocketexample
image: nicksardo/websocketexample
imagePullPolicy: Always
ports:
- name: http
containerPort: 8080
env:
- name: podname
valueFrom:
fieldRef:
fieldPath: metadata.name
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: ws-example-svc
labels:
app: wseg
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- port: 80
targetPort: 8080
protocol: TCP
selector:
app: wseg
---
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: ws-example-svc
annotations:
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
rules:
- host: myhostname.com
http:
paths:
- backend:
serviceName: ws-example-svc
servicePort: 80
path: /somecontext
" | kubectl create -f -
I get this error:
WebSocket connection to 'ws://myhostname.com/somecontext/ws?encoding=text' failed: Error during WebSocket handshake: Unexpected response code: 400
When I try to connect using a WebSocket client web page like this http://www.websocket.org/echo.html
The version of ingress-nginx is 0.14.0. This version supports WebSockets.
Update, I'm able to directly access the websocket running pod, when I port-forward from my localhost to pod's port.
[rpalaniappan@sdgl15280a331:~/git/zalenium] $ kubectl get pods -l app=wseg
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
ws-example-5dddb98cfb-vmdt5 1/1 Running 0 5h
[rpalaniappan@sdgl15280a331:~/git/zalenium] $ kubectl port-forward ws-example-5dddb98cfb-vmdt5 8080:8080
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 8080
Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 8080
Handling connection for 8080
[rpalaniappan@sdgl15280a331:~/git/zalenium] $ wscat -c ws://localhost:8080/ws
connected (press CTRL+C to quit)
< Connected to ws-example-5dddb98cfb-vmdt5
> hi
< hi
< ws-example-5dddb98cfb-vmdt5 reports time: 2018-12-28 01:19:00.788098266 +0000 UTC
A:
So basically this:
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
is stripping the /ws from the request (combined with path: /ws) that gets sent to the backend everytime your browser tries to issue a WebSocket connection request. The backend expects /ws when it receives a connection request.
If you specify path: /mypath and /mypath/* it works (works for me):
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: ws-example-svc
annotations:
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /
spec:
rules:
- host: myhostname.com
http:
paths:
- backend:
serviceName: ws-example-svc
servicePort: 80
path: /mypath
- backend:
serviceName: ws-example-svc
servicePort: 80
path: /mypath/*
A:
https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx/user-guide/miscellaneous/#websockets
If the NGINX ingress controller is exposed with a service
type=LoadBalancer make sure the protocol between the loadbalancer and
NGINX is TCP.
Sample AWS L4 Service https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/blob/master/deploy/provider/aws/service-l4.yaml#L11
# Enable PROXY protocol
service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-proxy-protocol: "*"
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Officials with FEMA and GEMA are expected to visit Carroll County and municipalities this week to review requests for financial re-imbursement after last month’s severe winter weather.
Carroll is one of several counties that can get some money back after a presidential disaster declaration. The county and cities could get back around 75-percent of the money spent clearing debris from right-of-ways; and work done in preparing for the storm and during.
Carroll County has had 12 presidential disaster declarations since 1990, allowing to re-coup some of the money spent during a disaster. That’s the most in the state during that period, according to EMA Director Tim Padgett.
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State Sen. John Bonacic accuses insurers of delaying flood payments
ALBANY, N.Y. -- At a state Senate Republican roundtable Monday focusing on problems that followed the floods of 2011, Sen. John Bonacic accused insurers of dragging out settlements to policyholders in order to boost profits.
"What I find is that when there is a claim, whether it is a property damage claim, whether it is a personal injury claim, there is a strategy with the insurance industry to hold onto the funds as long as they can," said Bonacic, R-Mount Hope. "And they invest them. And they delay, and they delay, and they delay. The thinking is, if we can hold onto the funds and put that victim off for two to four years, we will cover that loss with the earnings that we will make from our investments."
"We can talk as much as we want about who are the good guys that stepped up, who are maybe the bad guys -- we had one insurance company mentioned today. But how do we get over the generic problem of how profits and losses are made and how do we standardize that to deliver justice to the victim."
"I've been with Allstate for 34 years and frankly I'm taken aback by your comments," company Vice President Paul Tracey said. "There is no such strategy that you suggest. I've been in the claim department for 34 years. The claim department, there is no such strategy whatsoever to hold onto funds. It's been my experience -- I've been directed and I've directed others, to pay claims as fairly and quickly as possible."
"There's actually an incentive to get the claims paid quickly," said Don Griffin, vice president, Personal Lines at Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. "They want to do that because the insurance company actually gets a percentage of the claim."
He said there are major differences between homeowners and flood insurance, with the latter designed to cover catastrophic losses. For example, the only coverage for basement damage under flood insurance is for loss of heating, air conditioning and similar HVAC equipment, and policies don't cover the loss of contents of a house.
Earlier, Allstate was slammed by Schoharie County Treasurer Bill Cherry, who recounted his story of how the insurer has treated his family in the aftermath of the destruction of his village home. He had flood insurance on his 19th century residence, though it is not located on a flood plain.
"Our house was destroyed in the flooding," Cherry said. "It is still standing but it is empty, it is gutted, foundation walls collapsed. It is unlivable at this point. We are in an apartment. My experience regarding the flood insurance, unfortunately I don't have anything good to say."
"I'm sure that there's very well meaning people in the insurance industry that go out of their way to try to help folks, but my family had a terrible time with the flood insurance."
He said he stopped counting the number of insurance adjusters who handled his claim after the sixth one was replaced.
Monday's meeting was the latest in a series of forums Senate Republicans have held to draw attention to the losses suffered by people in the Catskills and upstate valleys as a result of last summer's back to back storms.
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The present invention relates generally to navigational devices, and in particular to navigational devices as part of a combined multi-functional system.
A natural progression in devices is to build more function or even to combine more functions into one device. In the past ten years, for example, mobile communications, personal data assistants, and portable navigational devices have boomed. Currently, millions use cellular phones on a daily basis. Cellular phones have become so inexpensive that college students can readily afford them. Cellular phones have been given added capability. Some have been provided with paging capability, for example. Recently, cellular phones have been provided with the ability to interface with the internet. Current cell phones also have calendaring capabilities built in and some are now being combined with personal data assistants (xe2x80x9cPDAsxe2x80x9d).
PDAs are now also exceedingly popular. The first PDA-type devices merely held a listing of contacts and may have had a calendar function. Now PDAs, in addition to holding contact data and a calendar, hold e-mail. PDAs have now been provided with the capability to respond to e-mail and are linked or synchronized with a computer periodically so any e-mail answers can be ported over to a computer for sending. Calendar changes are also synchronized.
Navigational devices represent yet another technology that has boomed as of late and which is now becoming popular and affordable. Previously, navigational devices were expensive and far from portable or hand-held. Most navigational devices could only be found on ships and airplanes. Now, navigational devices are popular options in luxury cars and navigational devices have become popular with outdoorsman of all types. Fisherman have them to mark out there favorite fishing holes, for example. These devices have also been combined with other devices, such as depth finders or fish finders which are popular with anglers.
Recently, PDAs and navigational devices, such as global positioning systems (xe2x80x9cGPSxe2x80x9d), have been combined. There are problems with such combined devices. For example, current combination devices which include a PDA and a GPS are confusing to use. One of the more confusing aspects is switching between the software applications needed for the GPS and the software applications needed for the PDA.
Still another problem is that the GPS or navigational devices generally use more power than other portable technologies that can be included in a portable, electronic device. The hardware needed to acquire signals from satellites is generally much more needy of power than the power needed to keep a cellular phone or a PDA operating. Thus, one of the problems associated with marrying a GPS with another device is that the length between charges for the other device may decline drastically. In other words, the more power hungry GPS portion of a combination device will discharge the batteries faster than a separate PDA, cellular phone or other device.
There are also problems with maintaining a relatively small size while still having the necessary capability to acquire the satellite signals needed to determine position on the GPS portion of the device. A GPS generally needs a fairly substantial antenna. Incorporating the antenna into the housing of a combined GPS and PDA may wreck havoc with the size of the device. As a result, all combination models are provided with an external GPS antenna. Using a patch antenna in such and-held devices is advantageous since these are more low profile. However, there is a problem with fixing the antenna into a device since the antenna is generally most effective orientated a specific way with the satellites rather than oriented with respect to a housing or the case of the combined device. For example, a patch antenna is most effective if it is essentially parallel with the earth. Many of the housings are made to be used in a hand-held mode. When holding the housing the housing is generally horizontally orientated. If a hand-held unit is to be mounted in an automobile, the mounting orientation is limited to more horizontal orientations so that the antenna is effective. A large problem with mounting a device with a fixed antenna so that the antenna is effective at receiving GPS signals generally makes the display almost impossible for the driver to see. As a result, an antenna fixed with respect to the housing may suffer in one use as compared to another. Providing a movable antenna also presents the problems of keeping the antenna at a position, especially in a vibrating environment such as driving down a dusty washboard gravel road.
There is always a problem with carrying separate devices. Each one needs a power cord, different batteries and other different accessories. So there is always a need for combined functions in one device. What is needed is a portable, hand-held electronic device that is user friendly and generally easy to use. For example, one that switches from one application to another with ease or even automatically. What is also needed is a device that includes a power savings mode so that the user is not continually recharging the device rather than using it. There is still a further need for a device that is small enough that it is handy to use and store in a pocket or purse. There is also a need for a device that minimizes the number of auxiliary accessories that must be carried. Specifically, there is also a need for a device that includes a GPS or other navigational device with other devices. Such a device needs an antenna which is part of the device but which is also positionable to more than one position. Also needed is a device which can operate in a hand-held orientation or in a car-mounted orientation. The device also needs to be neat and which is free of wires routed externally about the housing. The device also needs to be durable. There is also a need for a navigational route planning device which rapidly and efficiently generates a route plan, especially when a route was not completed.
A portable electronic device includes a housing, a processor located within the housing, a memory in communication with the processor, and a display in communication with the processor. The display is positioned on a surface of the housing. The portable electronic device has a first component, and a second component. One of the first and second components include a navigational component. The navigational component further includes an antenna attached to the housing. The antenna is a patch antenna having a width of about 1 inch and a length of about 1 inch. The antenna is movable between a stowed position and a signal acquisition position. The navigational component has a deployment indicator which indicates the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. The navigational component also includes an operational component which is activated in response to the deployment indicator indicating the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. In some embodiments, the operational component includes a global position information acquisition component which is enabled in response to the deployment indicator indicating the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. The operational component includes a set of instructions executable by the processor for processing signals acquired by the antenna. The set of instructions is enabled when the deployment indicator indicates the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. The set of instructions is disabled in response to the deployment indicator indicating the antenna has been moved from the signal acquisition position to the stowed position. The display switches to the user interface associated with the navigational component in response to the deployment indicator indicating the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. The navigational component is a positioning system which uses at least three signals to triangulate a position, such as a GPS.
Also disclosed is a navigation system which includes a mass storage device adapted to store navigation data, a server adapted to communicate with the mass storage, and the portable, multi-function electronic device discussed in the previous paragraph. The navigational device has an operational component which is activated in response to the deployment indicator indicating the antenna is in the signal acquisition position. The operational component includes a power savings mode which is enabled in response to the deployment indicator indicating that the antenna position has been changed to the stowed position from the signal acquisition position. The power savings mode includes halting a signal acquisition process. The operational component includes a set of software instructions executed by the processor or hardwired combinatorial logic.
Advantageously, the invention provides for a device having a navigational component and one or more other functions, such as a PDA function or a cellular phone function. The portable, hand-held electronic device is user friendly since one function switches to another essentially automatically. The portable, hand-held electronics device includes a power savings mode so that the user is not continually recharging the device rather than using it. The device is small enough to be handy to use and stores in a pocket or purse. The device includes a GPS or other navigational device with other devices. The GPS antenna is low profile and is positionable to more than one position so that the device can operate in a hand-held orientation or in a car-mounted orientation. The device is durable, and free of wires routed externally about the housing. Routing the connector between the antenna and hardware within the case provides for a neat, uncluttered design.
These and other embodiments, aspects, advantages, and features of the present invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following description of the invention and referenced drawings or by practice of the invention. The aspects, advantages, and features of the invention are realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities, procedures, and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
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"I was done (in a time of 3:40.14) and back at my hotel when I got a call from my brother in Houston, that's how I learned about (the explosions)," Goodkin said from her home in Briarcliff Tuesday. "For this to happen in Boston, where the people were so warm and welcoming and supportive is especially sad and heartbreaking."
Uguen finished in a time of 3:18.52, seven minutes better than her previous personal record. Uguen said she returned home after finishing.
"I was just leaving the city when my friend called me frantic asking me if I was ok," Uguen said. "I thought it was because I just ran but then he explained to me what happened. Just very scary and sad. The crowd was unbelievable and of course no one deserves such horror. Very sad day."
Three people were killed and more than 150 injured when two bombs exploded near the end of the 107th Boston Marathon four hours into the race.
Another Briarcliff runner, Amelia Wagner, had not finished the race when it was halted at the 4:10.44 mark.
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Re: WJC record on mass incarceration
From:[email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] CC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Date: 2015-04-29 13:32 Subject: Re: WJC record on mass incarceration
Makes sense to me. Thanks - agree Christina - thoughts? Sent from my iPhone On Apr 29, 2015, at 10:41 AM, Adrienne Elrod <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Thanks Jake. Karen - do you know what reporters/outlets are asking for clarification? Adrienne K. Elrod Spokesperson Hillary For America www.hillaryclinton.com<http://www.hillaryclinton.com> @adrienneelrod On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 7:33 AM, Jake Sullivan <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I think we should say that we've learned a lot in the last twenty years. Crime is way down which is good but we've locked up too many people and we should do something about it. Then point to wjc comments. Be matter of fact about it. > On Apr 29, 2015, at 9:39 AM, Karen Finney <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Sorry, thought Jen &Kristina were on HRC email. > Agree we need to decide how to handle - not sure how they dealt in 08 > - but in this case- but as the Politico magazine piece points out she > was silent about these issues while first lady of Arkansas - WJC as > Governor supported the death penalty and tougher rules; but also some > of the Clinton policies from the 90's contributed to mass > incarceration (unless we want to argue otherwise) and she helped > lobby/advocate for them > Makes it easier to say that was then this is now If WJC has said he > was wrong or now realizes what it created > > Should we jump on a quick call? > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Apr 29, 2015, at 9:14 AM, Christina Reynolds <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> + Jen and Kristina. There's a larger question here and a decision at a >> higher pay grade as to what to with his record. Personally, I don¹t think >> we want to be on the hook for comparing his record to her positions or >> giving reporters any room to call her shifts from his policy a ³flip >> flop.² Are we going to point out that she¹s running on her own experience >> and record or accept the premise and help them out here? >> >>> On 4/29/15, 9:05 AM, "Karen Finney" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> Brian - what was it you said about WJC talking about the crime bill >>> and impacts? Got an email from a reporter - partially following up on >>> the Politico magazine story - looking at how she squares what she's >>> talking about today w/Clinton record. We should be prepared to push >>> back on that today >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "HRCRapid" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]<mailto:hrcrapid%[email protected]>. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:hrcrapid%[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:hrcrapid%[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
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Q:
AddUrlSegment throws NullReferenceException in RestSharp
I am trying to use RestSharp's AddUrlSegment to sub the token in a URL
ex: "www.test.com/{someToken}/Testing"
I am using this code:
string theToken = "someStringToken";
restRequest.AddUrlSegment("someToken",theToken);
This throws a NullReferenceException, when I try to execute the request.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong.
Thanks.
A:
Alright I figured this out. The version of RestSharp I have (NUGET), apparently does not support the method above. Also the Resource property is the one that should be getting the url that is going to be replaced so the final code is something like this.
string _baseUrl = "www.test.com";
RestClient client = new RestClient(_baseUrl);
RestRequest restRequest = new Request();
restRequest.Resource = "/{someToken}/Testing";
restRequest.AddParameter("someToken", theToken , ParameterType.UrlSegment);
This piece of code works with the version I got from NUGET
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Q:
.net MVC passing linq data from controller to view
I am trying to pass data from controller to view. I have searched the web but could not find a solution.
if I do this it works:
Controller:
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select a) ;
ViewBag.data = yyy;
View:
@foreach(var item in ViewBag.data)
{
@item.Value
}
But the following code does not work:
Controller:
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select new {Value = a.Value, TypeCode = a.TypeCode, Return = Calculate(a.Return)}) ;
ViewBag.data = yyy;
View:
@foreach(var item in ViewBag.data)
{
@item.Value
}
It gives "item does not contain a definition for Value" for the view file.
Any help would be great.
Thank you.
-edited: updated the second controller linq query. and corrected the first controller linq query.
A:
It's because You already select Value and Value has no such property as Value. You should change in controller:
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select a.Value); to
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select a);
OR change the view to
@foreach(var item in ViewBag.data)
{
@item
}
//////////////////////////////////////////////// EDITS ////////////////////////////////////////////////
Than You should not use anonymous object. You should create ViewModelClass. For Example:
public class AuthoritiesViewModel
{
public string Value { get; set; }
public string TypeCode { get; set; }
public string Return { get; set; }
}
And change your controller:
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select new AuthoritiesViewModel{ Value = a.Value, TypeCode = a.TypeCode, Return = Calculate(a.Return)});
ViewBag.data = yyy;
and in your view you will be able to use:
<table>
<tr>
<th>Value</th>
<th>TypeCode</th>
<th>Return</th>
</tr>
@foreach(AuthoritiesViewModel item in ViewBag.data)
{
<tr>
<td>@item.Value<td>
<td>@item.TypeCode<td>
<td>@item.Return<td>
</tr>
}
</table>
Also, I have a question to You. Why do You use ViewBag to pass data from controller to view? Why don't You use Model to pass these data to view according to MVC pattern?
//////////////////////////////////////////////// MORE EDITS ////////////////////////////////////////////////
To send more than one query result You can create more complex model. For example:
public class AuthoritiesViewModel
{
public string Value { get; set; }
public string TypeCode { get; set; }
public string Return { get; set; }
}
public class AnotherQueryViewModel
{
public string AnotherQueryValue { get; set; }
public string AnotherQueryTypeCode { get; set; }
public string AnotherQueryReturn { get; set; }
}
public class ModelClass
{
IEnumerable<AuthoritiesViewModel> Authorities { get; set; }
IEnumerable<AnotherQueryViewModel> AnotherQueryResults { get; set; }
}
And change the controller:
var yyy = (from a in Connection.Db.Authorities select new AuthoritiesViewModel{ Value = a.Value, TypeCode = a.TypeCode, Return = Calculate(a.Return)});
// do your another select
var zzz = (from smthing select new AnotherQueryViewModel ...)
// create model instance
ModelClass model = new ModelClass()
{
Authorities = yyy.AsEnumerable(),
AnotherQueryResults = zzz..AsEnumerable()
}
// return view with model
return View("view", model);
and in view you can use:
@model ModelClass
@*display first query result*@
<table>
<tr>
<th>Value</th>
<th>TypeCode</th>
<th>Return</th>
</tr>
@foreach(AuthoritiesViewModel item in Model.Authorities)
{
<tr>
<td>@item.Value<td>
<td>@item.TypeCode<td>
<td>@item.Return<td>
</tr>
}
</table>
@*display second query result*@
<table>
<tr>
<th>Another Query Value</th>
<th>Another Query TypeCode</th>
<th>Another Query Return</th>
</tr>
@foreach(AnotherQueryViewModel item in Model.AnotherQueryResults)
{
<tr>
<td>@item.AnotherQueryValue<td>
<td>@item.AnotherQueryTypeCode<td>
<td>@item.AnotherQueryReturn<td>
</tr>
}
</table>
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In many business to business scenarios involving buyers (disbursers) and suppliers (merchants), the buyers still pay via check (paper), and suppliers have to wait a full thirty days, or typically, longer, to get paid. Such buyer-merchant relationships can benefit from the use of payment by electronic means, and earlier payments to the sellers.
The buyers, however, are reluctant to make use of card payment systems, because payment by check allows for greater control of payments, with less risk of fraud. Due to their risk-averse nature, commercial buyers tend to prefer the additional control, and fraud protection, afforded by check payments. In addition, buyers prefer to be able to control the time at which payment is made, so that cash flow and account balances can be properly maintained. Buyers typically enjoy the ability to maintain a “float” by delaying payment via check payments. In such scenarios, the buyer (disburser) orders goods from a supplier (merchant). The supplier then sends the goods, along with an invoice. The buyer then compares what has been ordered with what has been received, and, upon a satisfactory review, the invoice is approved, and a check can be issued. Such control is not allowed by typical merchant card payment systems.
Such buyers suffer, however, from inefficiencies involved with the use of paper payments, and leave cash on the table which could result from earlier payments.
Thus, there is a need for an improved systems and methods for providing improved payment arrangements related to credit and payment cards.
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TURF GRIPPING ADVANTAGE
Pulsar cleats by Softspikes® are the #1 selling cleat in golf and the overwhelming choice of touring professionals worldwide. The Pulsar cleats feature all the same turf grip and walking comfort advantages of Black Widow plus the additions of radiused legs for extra durability and cleat webbing for easier cleaning.
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For more information on your rights (including the right to object to and ability to refuse and withdraw consent for direct marketing at any time) and our data processing, please see our PRIVACY POLICY.
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A wide variety of language recognition systems are designed to use one or more input modes. Typically, these input modes include a text input mode, speech input mode, and/or handwriting input mode. One of the fundamental objectives underlying these language recognition systems is to enable users to create text using one or more input modes with increased reliability at increased rates. The text input mode, for example, often allows increased input rates by enabling the user to perform actions with less precision than is required by comparable systems. In addition, this mode often provides a predictive completion feature that suggests word completion. The voice and handwriting input modes utilize a different set of input actions that some users may find easier and faster than typing. These inputs are then translated to text.
In general, language recognition systems rely upon local language models with a lexicon of textual objects that can be generated by the system based on the input actions performed by the user. In some cases, the devices running the language recognition system use the language models to map input actions performed by the user to one or more of these textual objects in the lexicon. These models are often dynamic and grow and learn as they are used, allowing a user to improve the baseline prediction with usage and teaching. However, since each user is different, these language models dynamically evolve in different ways based on each user's interactions. Users typically must train language models to recognize words that they actually want to input. Some products allow users to deliberately download supplementary word lists for use on their own devices.
In an ideal world, language models would contain all the words that users actually want to enter on an input device and none of the words that they do not want to enter. Unfortunately, language models often do not perfectly match users' language usage. With traditional language recognition systems, a user's device or devices would need to individually learn or develop a customized local language model based on user inputs. Moreover, a number of variables affect the accuracy with which these language recognition systems recognize and map the inputs to the textual objects. Prominent among these factors is whether the textual object resides within the lexicon and the frequency of use of the textual object. For example, if a word is not frequently used, a text input system might misrecognize the word, favoring one that is statistically more likely to be utilized. Among the words that are commonly misrecognized are proper names, such as those for people, streets, restaurants, and other words that have a special relevance in personal messages like voicemails. As a result, the language model for any one user's device(s) may have a less than desirable response because the language model, even if trained with all of the user's previous inputs, may not include additional vocabulary relevant to the user and the input context.
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By Rose Cahalan in 40 Acres, Research, Special on |
For the second time in as many months, a University of Texas study on an emotionally charged, politically divisive topic is under scrutiny.
In February, UT geologist Charles Groat published a study that found no direct link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and groundwater contamination. Now a new report by nonprofit watchdog the Public Accountability Initiative has found Groat failed to disclose that he was paid by a company that practices fracking.
Groat is on the board of Plains Exploration and Productions and holds $1.6 million in company stock. According to State Impact Texas, his total compensation from the company is close to $2 million. Groat’s supervisors at UT did not know about his industry affiliation until the University started getting questions last month from Bloomberg News, the Austin-American Statesman reported today.
The University will convene a group of outside experts to review the study, UT provost and executive vice president Steven Leslie said today.
“We believe that the research meets our standards, but it is important to let an outside group of experts take an independent look,” said Leslie. “We hope to have that group identified and the results back within a few weeks.”
The news raises big questions about the sometimes-hazy rules for how industry and academia should work together—and what defines a conflict of interest.
“It’s not at all unusual for industry to pay for academic research,” said UT mechanical engineering professor Michael Webber. “It’s a good thing for the two to cooperate. But it’s important to disclose your affiliations. I’ve done consulting work with industry, and I list it on my website and my C.V. The problem tends to go away if you disclose.”
In June, UT sociologist Mark Regnerus’ study on gay parenting sparked debate. Some critics raised eyebrows over the fact that Regnerus accepted funding from two right-wing think tanks—a funding source he fully disclosed in his study—and a blogger’s complaint about the study triggered a mandatory UT inquiry into possible flawed methodology.
UT is currently revising its conflict-of-interest policy to comply with a UT System-wide change, said Tara Doolittle, UT director of media outreach. “Essentially the change would expand which faculty and staff would need to disclose financial interests, beyond those who engage in privately funded research and those who have the authority to direct university funds,” Doolittle said.
Photo via Flickr Creative Commons
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Electronic equipment, such as computers, facsimile machines and copiers, often are secured against unauthorized use by requiring a mechanical key for operation thereof. The key interfits with a key receptacle provided in the equipment, and movement of the receptable in turn controls an electrical switch that enables or disables the equipment depending on the position of the key.
Another level of security applied to such equipment is carried out by an identification card containing identification data encoded on a magnetic or optical stripe thereon, stored in an integrated circuit "chip" in the card, formed on embossments of the card, or a combination thereof. In some equipment, therefore, the manufacturer of the equipment must provide, and the user must carry, both a mechanical key and identification card, to operate the equipment.
The cost of providing an integrated circuit within a conventional credit card for this purpose is high, bearing in mind that the thickness of the card is, by standard, 30 mils. However, an integrated circuit for this purpose is necessary to process identification data stored therein, together with keyboard entered data, to determine whether the user is authorized to operate the equipment. The integrated circuit additionally carries out data logging and reporting.
For example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 236,614, of Benton et al., filed on Aug. 23, 1988 and assigned to the assignee of this invention (Benton I), an apparatus for carrying out financial transactions at a common site or at remote sites via a facsimile machine, uses, in one embodiment thereof, a key containing an integrated circuit "chip" for turning on the facsimile machine and storing transaction data as well as a facsimile signature of the owner. As disclosed in another application of Benton et al., (Benton II) Ser. No. 236,614, filed on Aug. 23, 1988, a particular key may be retained by a cord to an identification card containing information corresponding to information stored in the chip.
Although the "keys" disclosed in the Benton et al. applications are satisfactory, the keys are relatively expensive to produce. For example, the integrated circuit in Benton II must be packaged in a relatively thin (thin enough to interfit with a key receptacle) carrier, and formed with "teeth" having a predetermined orientation on the carrier. Wiring must be routed from the integrated circuit at one end of the carrier to electrical contacts on the teeth in the region of the other end. This routing of the wiring is difficult to carry out reliably since multiple wires must traverse a relatively narrow shank portion of the key.
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abstract: 'Carbon chains are sometimes considered as possible carriers of some diffuse interstellar bands. Spectroscopic observations in UV band carried by spectrometer STIS fed with HST, give us the possibility to detect many interstellar molecules. We focused our attention on C2 molecule and we detected it in spectra of three reddened stars (HD27778, HD147933, HD207198). Interstellar molecule C2 was detected as a set of absorption lines around 2313 angstroms.'
author:
- Marcin Dyrka
- Bogdan Wszołek
- Micha l Pawlikowski
title: ' Interstellar C2 Molecule as Seen in HST/STIS Data '
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Introduction
============
Spectroscopic observations of the early spectral type stars in visible light give us a rich astrophysical information about the nature of Diffuse Interstellar Bands (DIBs). DIBs were first detected about 85 year’s ago by Heger (1922). From the beginning they are the subject of intensive examination and analysis. Up today, these absorption structures of interstellar origin are not identified. We still do not know what the carriers of DIBs are (Herbig-1995, Wszołek and Godłowski-2003).
Some authors (e.g. Fulara 1993) claim that DIBs may originate due to interaction of light with interstellar molecules named carbon chains (like C2, C3, C4,...). To verify the hypothesis about carbon chains as DIBs’ carriers one needs to examine mutual correlation between intensities of DIBs’ and lines given by these molecules.
First detection of short carbon chains in interstellar clouds announced in literature, mobilized us to check whether diffuse clouds producing DIBs contain C2 - which probably is the most abundant molecule among interstellar carbon chains.
Observational Data
====================
We did make use from spectroscopic UV data given by Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) at HST. The access to HST data archive is possible by visiting homepage: http://archive.stsci.edu/. We have got UV spectra for our sample of reddened stars. This sample contained 12 stars (HD): 22591, 23180, 24398, 24534, 27778, 34078, 147933, 192639, 198478, 206267, 207198 and 210839.
Archive spectra are accessible as binary FITS files. Spectra were achieved with use of echelle technique therefore each FITS file is divided into many orders.
Furthermore in some cases observations were made many times.
After decoding STIS data, using software package IRAF, there became clear that retrieved spectra meet our criteria (quality, wave length band, number of observing repetitions) only in three cases, namely for stars: (HD) 27778, 147933 and 207198.
Data Analysis
===============
Three software packages were used for data analysis and presentation:
IRAF - helped us to achieve ASCII files (lambda, intensity) from original FITS files.
REWIA v. 1.4 - sofware package written by Jerzy Borkowski (Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Toruń, Poland) was used for normalizing spectra and for dividing them by continuum. Averaging procedure was carried out also with the help of this program.
Finally, ORIGIN package was used for graphic presentation of spectra.
We focused our attention on D-X (2313 angstroms) band of C2 molecule. This band contains a set of numerous and well separated rotational lines, named as Mulliken System. We have used high-resolution STIS spectra with R=110000. Each star from our 3 - element sample was observed 8 times. To maximize S/N ratio we averaged observations and finally we achieved satisfying result.
We detected D-X band of C2 in spectra of all our stars. Figure 1 is to show how good is detection of this band for our target stars. Nineteen rotational lines of considered band is well visible. In the case of HD207198 the Doppler splitting of lines is seen. That means that we have to deal with more then one cloud on the line of sight and that these clouds have different radial velocities.
Conclusions
===========
The most important result of our analysis is that C2 molecules are present in those interstellar clouds, which produce DIBs. Furthermore 2313 angstroms band of C2 is easily detectable in STIS data. Unfortunately STIS observations are very inhomogeneous (different wavelength regions, different resolutions, different gratings) and they make some difficulties when we want to acquire numerous sample of spectra covering such wavelength region as we wish. A sample of target stars with DIBs’ detection counts about 100. From the other hand the only few stars of this sample has satisfactory C2 detention. To solve the problem whether C2 may be a crucial molecule as far as DIBs’ carriers are concerned, one needs much more observations of C2 lines.
Fulara J.: 1993, Nature 366, 433;
Heger M.L.: 1922, Lick. Obs. Bull., 10, p.146;
Herbig G.H.: 1995, ARA&A, 33, p.19;
Wszołek B., Godłowski W.: 2003, MNRAS, 338, p.990;
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Why Long-Term Separation From Parents Harms Kids
People who’ve been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, Sunday, June 17, 2018. Photo by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP.
As a society, we often wax eloquent about how important it is to nurture, support, and protect our children. The sad reality, however, is that all too often major, life-changing decisions are made without any consideration of their potential lifelong and devastating effects on kids.
Case in point: Children separated from their parents at borders as new immigration policies are debated. Separation from parents for even short periods can cause anxiety disorders that can last a long time.
I wish to underscore that my explanation here is apolitical. Instead, I am writing as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, parent, and member of our society who would prefer that we be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to protecting vulnerable children at high risk for separation anxiety disorder and other emotional and behavior problems.
Effects of separation
Separation anxiety disorder is a disorder that is marked by unusually strong and clinically significant fear and distress related to separation from the home, a parent, or other attachment figures. The fear and distress exceed levels appropriate for the individual’s age and developmental level and lasts at least four weeks in children.
Symptoms can include persistent fears of parents being killed or kidnapped, worries about a parent getting sick, and being afraid to go to school. Abdominal pain, nausea, and other physical symptoms are also common.
Uncertainty and pathological doubting can dominate. These children with separation anxiety disorder never get the “all clear signal” that they or their loved ones are safe unless they are physically together. Even then, safety is precarious because there is always the risk for future separation.
At-risk children
Low socioeconomic status, a family history of anxiety or depression, and other environmental, hereditary, and genetic factors appear to increase the risk of developing separation anxiety disorder. However, some of the most common precipitants of separation anxiety symptoms are stress, trauma, or a sudden change in environment, such as a divorce or death in the family, a move to a new house or school, or from being forcibly separated from a parent or loved one.
It is important to point out that it is perfectly normal for young children to experience separation anxiety. It is a normal developmental milestone. For example, it is common for young children to get nervous and scared when their parent leaves and says goodbye. This usually gets better in children as they get older, but in about 4% to 5% of children and adolescents, separation anxiety persists and requires therapeutic intervention.
Treatment for separation anxiety disorder includes therapy, reassurance of the child and caregivers, and psychoeducation to provide the family with information about this disorder and the available treatment services that they can receive. However, medication may also be required for severe cases.
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The present invention relates generally to a bus system, and particularly to a bus system capable of adjusting signal characteristics in response to topography dependent parameters.
A bus system is a chip-to-chip electronic communications system in which one or more slave devices are connected to, and communicate with, a master device through shared bus signal lines. FIG. 1 illustrates in block diagram form a bus system. The bus system includes a Master control device (M) that communicates with one or more Slave devices (D) via a bi-directional data bus. Typically, the bi-directional data bus comprises a plurality of bus signal lines, but for simplicity, FIG. 1 illustrates only one bus signal line. The terms bus signal line and channel are used synonymously herein. Thus, it will be understood that the data bus includes many channels, one for each bit of data. Each bus signal line terminates on one side at an I/O pin of the master device and terminates on its other side at one end of a resistive terminator (T). The resistance of the terminator is closely matched to the loaded impedance, ZL, of the bus signal line to minimize reflections and absorb signals sent down the bus signal line toward the terminator. The opposite end of the terminator is connected to a voltage supply that provides an AC ground and sets the DC termination voltage of the bus signal line. The positions along the bus signal line tapped by the Master terminator, and Slaves are labeled pM, pT, and p1 - - - pN, respectively.
Bus systems are typically designed to work with several configurations to allow system flexibility. For example, the bus may have several connector slots for inserting individual Slaves or Modules of Slaves, and each Module may have different numbers of devices. This allows the user to change the number of chips that operate in the bus system, allowing small, medium, and large systems to be configured without complex engineering changes, such as changes to the printed circuit board layout. FIG. 2 illustrates a Bus System that provides this flexibility by providing three connectors for three Slave Modules. This figure does not necessarily illustrate the physical layout of an actual system, but shows the electrical connections of the Bus System. The first Module is shown with eight Slaves, the second with four Slaves, and the third Modules with no Slaves. The third Module serves only to electrically connect the terminator to the bus signal line. For simplicity, this configuration can be referred to as an 8-4-0 configuration, and many other configurations are possible by inserting different Modules into the three connector slots (e.g. 8-8-8, 4-0-0, etc.). As in FIG. 1, FIG. 2 designates the points at which each device taps the bus signal line (e.g. Slave B2 taps the bus signal line at point pB2). The Bus System of FIG. 2 is very flexible; however, this flexibility results in configuration-dependent and position-dependent channel characteristics that lead to signaling complexities and reduce the reliability of data transmission through the system.
FIG. 3 diagrams structure and electrical properties of a bus signal line in a populated Module of the Bus System of FIG. 2. The portion of the bus signal line that connects to the Slaves forms a repetitive structure of signal line segments and Slaves that can be modeled as a transmission line of length d, with electrical characteristics as shown. In FIG. 3 Lo is the inductance per unit length, Co is the capacitance per unit length, Gp is the dielectric conductance per unit length, and Rs is the conductor resistance per unit length. The lossy, complex characteristic impedance of such transmission line is given by: Z OL = R S + j xe2x80x83 ω xe2x80x83 L O G P + jωC 1
However, assuming Rs and Gp are small, the characteristic impedance of the bus signal line segment is closely approximated by the simpler equation Zo={square root over (Lo/Co)}.
FIG. 3 also shows the dominant electrical properties of the Slaves I/O pins where L1 is the effective input inductance, C1 is the effective input capacitance, and R1 is the effective input resistance. This input resistance incorporates all input losses including metallic, ohmic, and on-chip substrate losses; is frequency dependent; and tends to increase with frequency. However, assuming that the input capacitance dominates the input electrical characteristics of the Slave (i.e. Xc=1/(2xcfx80fC1) greater than greater than XL=2xcfx80fL1 and Xc=1/(2xcfx80fC1) greater than greater than R1) at the system operating frequency, the effective loaded impedance of the bus signal lines is closely approximated by: Z L = L o · d ( C o · d ) + C 1
This equation implies that the lumped capacitance of the Slaves"" I/O pins is distributed into the effective impedance of the transmission lines. However, the repetitive arrangement of Slaves at intervals of length d along the bus signal line causes the bus signal line to possess a multi-pole low-pass filter characteristic. This lowpass characteristic essentially limits the maximum data transfer rate of the bus system. The cut-off frequency of the channel increases as the number of devices on the channel decreases; as the device spacing, d, decreases; and as the input capacitance, C1, decreases. FIGS. 4, 5 and 6, illustrate these effects. Additionally, dissipative sources of loss such as the dielectric of the bus"" printed circuit board substrate, the skin effect resistance of the bus"" metal traces, and the slave devices"" input resistances, R1, also contribute to the low-pass characteristic of the bus signal line, further reducing the usable bandwidth. FIG. 7 illustrates this. For any number of Slaves, it is clearly desirable to have minimum device pitch, d; minimum input capacitance, C1; and minimum loss (e.g. R1) for maximum frequency operation of the system.
For these reasons, the device pitch, d, is generally kept at a fixed, minimum practical length which is determined by space limitations and printed circuit board technology. Likewise input capacitance is kept to a fairly tight, minimum range determined by silicon ESD requirements and processing limitations. Losses are also typically controlled within a specified range. Therefore, although there is some variation in these three factors, the major determinant of the channel""s response and bandwidth is the configuration and number of devices. This is illustrated in FIG. 8. FIG. 8 illustrates the channel response from the Master to the last Slave device on the channel (i.e. the forward transmission to device DN) for three system configurations, 16-8-8, 8-4-0, and 4-0-0. The solid line for each configuration plots the typical response while the shading around each line indicates the range of likely channel responses for that configuration considering manufacturing variations in device pitch, input capacitance, and loss (both R1 and channel losses). FIG. 8 suggests that the channel characteristics are largely determined by the system configuration, such that transmission of data through Bus System (to the last device) depends strongly on the configuration used (i.e. number and type of modules used). Thus, it may be possible to improve the performance of the Bus System by adjusting transmitter or receiver parameters in response to the particular system configuration that is being used in order to compensate for the configuration-dependent transmission characteristics.
FIG. 9 illustrates the channel response between the Master and the first, middle, and last Slaves in an N-device Bus System. The solid lines in FIG. 9 plot the typical response for the first, middle, and Nth device while the shading around each line indicates the range of likely channel responses for that device position considering manufacturing variations in device pitch, input capacitance, and loss. FIG. 9 suggests that for a given channel configuration, the channel characteristics between the Master and any individual slave is largely determined by the position of the slave device within the Bus System configuration. Thus, the Bus System performance may be improved between the Master and each individual Slave by adjusting certain transmitter or receiver parameters according to which Slave is being addressed, thus compensating for the position-dependent channel characteristics.
FIG. 10 illustrates the channel response between the Master and the Slave on each of three modules of a three-module Bus System. The solid lines of FIG. 10 plot the typical response of the middle device in each of the three modules while the shading around the line for Module B indicates the range of channel responses for Slaves on that module. This range of channel responses takes into account manufacturing variations in device pitch, input capacitance, and loss as well as the range of physical positions within the module. The range of channel responses on Module A may overlap the range of channel responses for Module B, and similarly the range of channel responses on Module C may overlaps that of Module B. FIG. 10 suggests that for a given channel configuration, the channel characteristics between the Master and any individual Slave is largely determined by the Module on which the Slave is located. Thus, it may be possible to improve the performance of the Bus System by adjusting certain transmitter or receiver parameters according to which Module is being addressed to compensate for the Module position-dependent channel characteristics.
FIGS. 8-10 demonstrate that although Bus Systems with the same configuration have individual differences, electrical characteristics can generally be associated with each configuration, Module, or Slave position. For example, a 4-4-0 Bus System generally has less attenuation than a 4-8-0 Bus System, therefore, signaling between the Master and any Slave depends on the individual device characteristics, its position in the Bus System, and the configuration of the Bus System.
FIG. 11 illustrates the effect of position-dependent channel characteristics on binary signaling between the master device and various slave devices in a system. FIG. 11A shows what a . . . 101010 . . . binary data pattern might look like when it is transmitted at the Master. The signal at the Master has a fairly large amplitude given by the equation VSwing.M=(VOH.Mxe2x88x92VOL.M)=(VTermxe2x88x92VOL.M)=(VL+VH).M and has sharp rise and fall times indicated in FIG. 11A as tr and tf, respectively. Additionally, the transmitted signal is asymmetric relative to the reference voltage, vref. The amount of asymmetry is measured by the equation: Asym = V L - V H V L + V H
As the signal propagates down the channel, its shape is altered by the channel""s response. For a low pass channel as shown in FIGS. 4-10, both the signal""s amplitude and edge rate will decrease as it propagates down the channel. For example, FIG. 11B illustrates what the signal of FIG. 11A might look like by the time it reaches the middle Slave, and FIG. 11C shows what it may look like by the time it reaches the end of the channel. The decreased amplitude lowers the Bus System""s voltage margin whereas the slower edge rates decreases the timing margin. FIGS. 11A-11C also illustrate how voltage asymmetry varies based upon the position of the receiving device with respect to the master.
Referring now to FIG. 12A, configuration dependent channel characteristics may give rise to an undesired timing skew between clock and data signals as they propagate from the transmitting device (which may be the Master or a Slave) to the receiving device (which may be a Slave or the Master). Ideally, data signals should be detected by the receiving device at a time t1 during the data eye. As used herein, xe2x80x9cdata eyexe2x80x9d refers to the period, denoted xe2x80x9ctbit,xe2x80x9d during which valid data is on the bus between data transition periods. Time t1 corresponds to the center of the data eye and it provides maximum timing margin, xc2xd tbit, for data detection between data transition periods. When the clock transition occurs in the center of the data eye, xe2x80x9ctiming centerxe2x80x9d is said to exist. FIG. 12A illustrates this ideal relationship between the data signal and the receiving device""s receive clock signal. A data signal transmitted so that it aligns ideally with respect to a receiving device""s receive clock signal may arrive at the receiving device early or late with respect to the receiving device""s receive clock signal. In some embodiments, the best data receive time may be at another point within the data eye, other than the center, due to known or predicted characteristics of the data channel.
It is well known that channel characteristics introduce undesired timing skew between the receive clock signal and data signals at the time of detection that varies as a function of the position of the receiving device with respect to the transmitting device and the direction of signal transmission. For example, channel characteristics may cause the Master to read data from Slaves too early in the data eye and may cause the Master to write data to the Slaves too late in the data eye. How early or late the Master reads or writes depends upon the system configuration and the location of each Slave relative the master. FIG. 12B is a timing diagram illustrating the master""s receive clock signal transition occurring early in the data eye by an error period of xcex4. FIG. 12C is a timing diagram illustrating the Master""s transmit clock transition occurring late in the data eye by an error period of xcex4.
Corruption of data transmitted via the Bus results not only from static characteristics, but also from data dependent phenomenon such as residual and cross-coupled signals. Residual signals on the Bus result from past transmissions on the same channel and tend to cause voltage margins on the channel to vary from one sampling interval to the next. Cross-coupled signals result from inductive coupling of signals on neighboring channels, rather than from past signals on the same channel. Cross-coupled signals also tend to cause voltage margins on the channel to vary from one sampling interval to the next. Herein voltage margin variations caused by residual signals are referred to as temporal variations while margin variations caused by cross-coupled signals are referred to as cross-coupling variations.
FIG. 25 illustrates a bit-stream of 0, 1, 1, 0, transmitted on the Bus, which exhibits the voltage margin variation that can result from residual signals. The voltage on the channel rises to VHI during transmission of the first logical 0. As, the voltage on the channel does not reach VLO during transmission of the first logical 1, instead reaching a local minimum 200 mV above VLO. By contrast, the voltage on the channel drops 100 mV below VLO during transmission of the final logical 1. Finally, the voltage on the channel reaches a local maximum 200 mV below VHI during transmission of the final logical 0. FIG. 25 thus illustrates how an output signal on a channel is affected by prior transmissions on the same channel. In general, a logical 1 that follows a logical 0 is less likely to reach VLO than a logical 1 that follows transmission of another logical 1. Similarly, a logical 0 that follows a logical 1 is less likely to reach VHI than a logical 0 that follows transmission of another logical 0. Both of these effects result in reduced voltage margins at the receiver, making the Bus System more susceptible to bit errors caused by noise and other margin-reducing effects.
To offset some of the channel""s corrupting effects on data signals, prior art systems have used a combination of adjustable parameters; e.g. these parameters include: edge or slew rate control and current or swing control. These parameters are typically set to improve communication with the last Slave on the channel, and the parameters are then held constant no matter which Slave is accessed. This technique often does improve the performance of the Bus System. For example, adjusting the current control such that the last Slave on the channel received a balanced, full swing signal certainly improves communication between the Master and the last Slave. Communication between these two devices might otherwise be unreliable. However, adjusting the swing such that the last Slave is improved can corrupt communication between the Master and the first few Slaves on the channel. For example, reflections of this large, asymmetric signal at channel discontinuities near the first few Slaves can severely degrade the voltage margin of the first few Slaves, particularly the VH voltage margin. Secondly, the large asymmetry at the first few Slaves causes duty cycle error since VREF is not at the center of the data waveform. This degrades the timing margin at the first few devices. Therefore, a need exists for a Bus System that adjusts its transmitter, channel, and/or receiver parameters to improve communication between the Master and any Slave on the channel.
The apparatus of the present invention improves bus communications by adjusting signal characteristics in response to topography dependent parameters. In a first embodiment as a bus transmitter, the apparatus of the present invention adjusts a transmit signal characteristic in response to a topography dependent parameter. The bus transmitter of the present invention includes a port, a register, parameter adjustment circuitry, and an output driver. The port receives a topography dependent parameter, which will be used to adjust a transmit signal characteristic. Coupled to the port, the register stores the topography dependent parameter for later use by the parameter adjustment circuitry. The parameter adjustment circuitry responds to the topography dependent parameter by adjusting a parameter control signal, which is coupled to the output driver. Prior to driving an output signal onto a bus, the output driver adjusts the transmit signal characteristic in response to the parameter control signal.
In a second embodiment as a bus receiver, the apparatus of the present invention adjusts a receive signal characteristic in response to topography dependent parameter. The bus receiver of the present invention includes a port, a register, parameter adjustment circuitry, and an input buffer. The port receives the topography dependent parameter and stores it in the register. The register couples the topography dependent parameter to the parameter adjustment circuitry, which responds to it by adjusting a receiver characteristic. The input buffer receives an input signal from a bus coupling the receiver to a transmitter of the input signal. The input buffer generates a first signal from the input signal by adjusting the receive parameter of the input signal in accordance with the adjusted receiver characteristic.
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Physical immobility as a sensitive indicator of hydraulic fracturing fluid toxicity towards Daphnia magna.
The process of extracting hydrocarbon resources by hydraulic fracturing is an increasingly utilised technique worldwide, resulting in an effluent called flowback and produced water (FPW). This effluent is a complex mixture of salts, metals and organic compounds, and has been shown to be highly toxic to aquatic biota, an effect attributed mainly to its salt and organic components. However, in the current study we show that the water flea, Daphnia magna, is physically impaired by, and rendered immobile at the surface of, test waters containing FPW. This effect occurs at concentrations significantly lower than the reported median lethal concentration for the same test FPW, and suggests that physical immobility is a more sensitive ecological indicator of adverse environmental effects associated with FPW exposure. We showed that this effect could be mediated by the dual action of waterborne surfactants, which decrease surface tension, and floating hydrocarbons, which adhere to daphnids that break through the water surface and prevent resubmergence. While mortality does not occur in physically impaired daphnids within the prescribed 48h, animals are unable to return to the water column, and thus cannot feed. Stranding at the water surface will also impair the capacity of the animals to shed the carapace, thus impeding reproduction. These results suggest that assessment of acute toxicity of FPW may need to be determined differently from traditional effluent toxicity assessments.
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Roll-to-roll redox-welding and embedding for silver nanowire network electrodes.
We developed a continuous roll-to-roll redox-welding and embedding method for the fabrication of electrodes of silver nanowire (AgNWs) networks. The roll-to-roll welding method involved a sequence of oxidation and reduction reactions in an aqueous solution. The redox-welding significantly decreased the sheet resistance of the AgNW film owing to the strong fusion and interlocking at the nanowire junction, while the optical transmittance was maintained. The first oxidation step using HNO3 generated ionized silver (Ag+) which got re-deposited onto the nanowire junctions via an autocatalytic reaction. The oxide layers, which formed on the nanowire surface by both air exposure and the first step of oxidation, were removed by the second reduction step using NaBH4. The redox-welded AgNW electrodes exhibited a sheet resistance of 11.3 Ω sq-1 at the optical transmittance of 90.5% at 550 nm. Furthermore, redox-welding of the AgNWs significantly enhanced their mechanical robustness compared to that of the as-coated AgNWs. The redox-welded AgNWs embedded in a UV curable resin, using a roll-to-roll embedding process, were successfully applied as anode electrodes for large-area and flexible organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). The device performance is superior to that of a device based on the as-coated AgNW electrode, and is also comparable to that of a device using commercial ITO as the electrode. The redox-welding and embedding processes provide a facile and reliable method for fabricating large-area transparent flexible electrodes for next-generation flexible optoelectronic devices.
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Military
Further Reading
Tactical Assignments
Operations
Homeport
Official Homepage
DDG 74 McFaul
The dark blue and gold, of the shield are the colors traditionally used by the Navy. Neptune, the god of the sea embodies maritime prowess and swift mobilization. The waves suggest a coastline and underscore Chief Petty Officer McFaul's insertion from the sea by rubber raiding craft to block General Noriega's escape from Panama.
The cross on the shield commemorates the Navy Cross awarded posthumously to Platoon Chief Petty Officer Donald L. McFaul for extraordinary heroism in action under fire saving his teammate's life. McFaul was mortally wounded by enemy fire. The aegis shape highlights the USS MCFAUL's modern multimission warfare operations with quick decisive action. The colors and quarterly division are adapted from the Panamanian flag and represent Operation JUST CAUSE in the Republic of Panama. The four sections also allude to SEAL Team four, McFaul's SEAL team. The laurel represents achievement and honor, the palm, which is indigenous to the tropical regions, alludes to the location of Panama and also symbolizes victory.
Donald L. McFaul
Chief Petty Officer Donald L. McFaul was born 20 September 1957 in Orange County, California. He graduated from Bend Senior High School, Bend, Oregon in 1974. He enlisted in the Navy upon graduation from high school, and after recruit training was assigned to Naval Station Treasure Island, where he worked for Port Services as an Engine Specialist. In 1977, Chief McFaul volunteered and was selected to join the Naval Special Warfare Community.
He underwent Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training (Class 95) in the spring of 1978. Chief McFaul was assigned to SEAL Team ONE where he made three deployments in support of Special Operations out of Subic Bay, Philippines. In 1985, Donald McFaul the SEAL became Donald McFaul the civilian, trying his hand at engine repair and spending relaxing days of fishing in Seattle, Washington, and Kodiak, Alaska. Missing the challenge and excitement of the SEAL Team, Donald McFaul returned to the Special Warfare Community. He attended Defense Language Institute for Spanish in Monterey, California where he met his wife Patricia. In February 1988, Chief McFaul was assigned to SEAL team FOUR and Don and Patricia were married.
While at SEAL Team FOUR Chief McFaul deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of the Middle East Forces and later deployed to Naval Special Warfare Unit EIGHT at Naval Station Rodman, Republic of Panama. His final deployment was as Platoon Chief of Gulf Platoon on 18 December 1989, where he was killed in action during combat operations.
His awards include the Navy Achievement Medal with Gold Star, Navy Unit Citation, and Good Conduct Medal with Bronze Star. He was posthumously awarded the "Purple Heart" and the "Navy Cross".
According to his Navy Cross citation (awarded posthumously), McFaul was serving as platoon chief of SEAL Team 4 at Paitilla Airfield, Republic of Panama, during Operation Just Cause when, in the absence of effective cover fire and with disregard for his own personal safety, entered the "kill zone" to rescue his teammates.
As he attempted to pull a seriously wounded comrade to safety, McFaul was raked by enemy automatic weapons fire. Succumbing to his mortal wounds, McFaul laid himself across his teammate to protecting him from enemy fire.
"ENC McFaul demonstrated the highest possible sacrifice and valor. His extraordinarily heroic actions, in total disregard for his personal safety, saved the life of his comrade [and] set the highest possible standard for leadership by example in combat."
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Spring Onion Seeds, Evergreen ORGANIC
A favorite for market growers, yet easy for the home grower, too. Good disease resistance and strong production make this a winner. This variety tends to divide into clumps, is cold hardy and bolt resistant.
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Q:
Set -webkit-transform and transform using JS
I am trying to change "transform" css property of element, using jQuery:
myBlock.css('-webkit-transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
myBlock.css('-moz-transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
myBlock.css('-ms-transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
myBlock.css('-o-transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
myBlock.css('transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
I want to see all of these properties applied to element, but the result is only
transform: rotate(45ged);
I tried JavaScript style, but it does not help too:
myBlock.style.WebkitTransform = "rotate(" + angle + "deg)";
Applied style is the same, as in previous example.
I found information, that modern jQuery versions (from 1.8) remove prefixes automatically. But why JS-style removes vendor properties?
To write all of these in one "attr('style', 'properties')" string is not a solution, because in this case it removes existing styles.
So the question is: how to apply all transform properties, using JS or jQuery?
Thanks for any help.
Edit: the goal is to have prefixed properties in saved html after executing JS command, not just to execute JS command and rotate div on angle's value.
A:
So, I have not found any good solution, except to modify "style" string. Here is it:
myBlock.css('transform', 'rotate(' + angle + 'deg)');
// Fix for old android versions:
var blockStyle = myBlock.attr('style');
if (blockStyle.indexOf('-webkit-transform') === -1) {
blockStyle += " -webkit-transform: rotate(" + angle + "deg);";
}
myBlock.attr('style', blockStyle);
The first line of code overwrites all transform properties, including prefixed. After its execution there will be no -webkit-transform part in style string. Then we add it.
In case of there still will be -webkit-transform in style string somehow after the first command (for me it never happen in modern Chrome, Firefox and Edge), I have else statement, a little bit ugly, but it works.
var blockStyle = myBlock.attr('style');
if (blockStyle.indexOf('-webkit-transform') === -1) {
blockStyle += " -webkit-transform: rotate(" + angle + "deg);";
} else {
var blockStyleArrayOriginal = blockStyle.split('-webkit-transform: rotate(');
blockStyle = blockStyleArrayOriginal[0].trim() + " -webkit-transform: rotate(" + angle + blockStyleArrayOriginal[1].substring(blockStyleArrayOriginal[1].indexOf('deg)'));
}
myBlock.attr('style', blockStyle);
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Q:
prOGraMMIng PuZZleS & cOde ____
Input
A non-empty encoded string consisting of printable ASCII characters (in the range 32-126), where some missing letters have been replaced with _.
Output
A decoded string of the same length with all letters in lowercase, including the missing ones.
How?
Edit: As mentioned by @Deusovi in the comments, this is a variant of Bacon's cipher.
Gather all letters in the original string and group them by 5. Additional letters that do not fit in a full group of 5 are ignored.
Convert each group into binary: lowercase = 0, uppercase = 1. This leads to a list of integers.
Use each value N in this list to replace each _ in the original string with the N-th letter of the alphabet (0-indexed), in order of appearance.
Example: prOGraMMIng PuZZleS & cOde ____
prOGr --> 00110 --> 6 --> 7th letter = 'g'
aMMIn --> 01110 --> 14 --> 15th letter = 'o'
gPuZZ --> 01011 --> 11 --> 12th letter = 'l'
leScO --> 00101 --> 5 --> 6th letter = 'f'
By replacing the missing letters and converting everything back to lowercase, the original string is unveiled:
programming puzzles & code golf
This is the expected output.
Clarifications and rules
The missing letters are guaranteed to appear at the end of the string. More formally: there will never be any letter after the first _ in the input string. However, there may be other printable ASCII characters such as spaces and punctuation marks.
The input is guaranteed not to contain any useless capital letter: all capital letters are bits set to 1 which are required to decode the missing letters. Everything else is in lowercase.
The input string is guaranteed to be valid. Especially:
It will always contain enough full groups of 5 letters to decode the underscores.
The binary-encoded integers are guaranteed to be in the range [0-25].
There may be no _ at all in the input string, in which case you just have to return the input.
This is code-golf, so the shortest answer in bytes wins!
Test cases
Input : hello!
Output: hello!
Input : helLO, worl_!
Output: hello, world!
Input : i aM yoUr faTh__.
Output: i am your father.
Input : prOGraMMIng PuZZleS & cOde ____
Output: programming puzzles & code golf
Input : Can YOu gUesS tHE ENd oF This ____?
Output: can you guess the end of this text?
Input : THe qUICk brown FOx JUMps oVEr the la__ ___.
Output: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Input : RoadS? wHERe we're goinG WE doN't need _____.
Output: roads? where we're going we don't need roads.
Input : thE greatESt Trick thE DeVIl EVer PUllEd wAs CONvInciNg tHe WorLD h_ ____'_ _____.
Output: the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
Some extra test-cases:
Input : BInar_
Output: binary
Input : 12 MonKey_
Output: 12 monkeys
Input : hyPerbolIZ__
Output: hyperbolized
Input : {[One Last Test ca__]}
Output: {[one last test case]}
A:
05AB1E, 18 bytes
Code:
áS.u5ôJC>.bv'_y.;l
Uses the 05AB1E encoding. Try it online!
Explanation:
á # Remove non-letters from the input string.
S # Split the result into individual characters.
.u # Check if is uppercase for each character.
5ôJ # Split into binary numbers of length 5.
C # Convert from binary to decimal.
> # Add one.
.b # Map 1 → A, 2 → B, 3 → C, ..., 25 → Y, 26 → Z.
v # For each letter:
'_y.; # Replace the first occurrence of '_' with the current letter.
l # Convert the string to lowercase.
A:
Perl 5 -pF -MList::Util=sum, 75 bytes
@a=grep!/\W|\d/,@F;s!_!(a..z)[sum map{a gt shift@a&&16/2**$_}0..4]!eg;$_=lc
Try it online!
Explanation:
-pF reads a line of input into the variable $_ and, split into characters, into the array @F.
@a=grep!/\W|\d/,@F sets the array @a equal to those members of @F that don't satisfy the regex \W|\d. \W is anything but letters, numbers, and _; \d is numbers. So \W|\d is anything but letters and _, and @a has all the letters and _ characters. We will wind up never examining the _ characters in @a. (Note that this only works because the input is guaranteed ASCII.)
map{a gt shift@a&&16/2**$_}0..4 does the following for 0 through 4: It shifts the next element off of @a, shortening it, and evaluates whether a is asciibetically greater than that element (i.e. whether that element is uppercase). If so, && isn't short-circuited, so we get 16 divided by 2 to rhe power of the input value (0 through 4). Otherwise && is short-circuited and we get 0. map returns the list of five numbers to sum, which adds them.
That's the element we want from the list a..z, and that's what we get from (a..z)[…].
s!_!…!eg converts each _ in $_, in turn, to the appropriate letter.
$_=lc converts $_ to the lowercase version of itself, and -p prints it.
A:
Python 2, 113 bytes
s=input()
i=k=0
for c in s:
if c.isalpha():k+=k+(c<'a');i+=1;s=s.replace('_',chr(k%32+97),i%5<1)
print s.lower()
Try it online!
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Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of obtaining the position of a shot region formed on a substrate, an exposure method, and a method of manufacturing an article.
Description of the Related Art
One of apparatuses used in the manufacturing process (lithography process) of a semiconductor device or the like is an exposure apparatus (lithography apparatus) which transfers the pattern of a mask (original) to a substrate (for example, a wafer or glass substrate) coated with a resist (photoresist). The exposure apparatus needs to transfer the pattern of a mask at high accuracy to each of a plurality of shot regions formed on a substrate. It is important to align the pattern of the mask and each shot region at high accuracy. In the exposure apparatus, the positions of a plurality of marks arranged in each of a plurality of shot regions are detected prior to exposure. Based on the detection result, accurate positions in each of the plurality of shot regions formed on the substrate are measured.
The exposure apparatus also needs to improve the throughput (productivity). In the exposure apparatus, it is therefore important to shorten the time (measurement time) taken to obtain the positions of a plurality of shot regions formed on a substrate. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-284396 has proposed a method of shortening the measurement time by detecting a plurality of marks on a substrate so as to shorten the moving distance of the substrate, instead of detecting the marks by moving the substrate in each shot region. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-223150 has proposed a method of, when detecting the position of a mark arranged in a shot region on a substrate, shortening the measurement time by applying a focus value used when the position of a mark on another substrate was detected.
In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-284396, a plurality of marks on a substrate are merely detected to shorten the moving distance of the substrate. Thus, the measurement time can be shortened by only a decrease in the moving distance of the substrate. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-223150 does not disclose a method of, when obtaining the position of a target shot region, applying the position of a mark arranged in a shot region formed next to the target shot region on the same substrate.
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Q:
In what order should Python’s list.__contains__ invoke __eq__?
Consider the following Python program:
class Foo(object):
def __init__(self, bar):
self.bar = bar
def __repr__(self):
return 'Foo(%r)' % (self.bar,)
def __eq__(self, other):
print('Foo.__eq__(%r, %r)' % (self, other))
return self.bar == other
foo1 = Foo('A')
foo2 = Foo('B')
assert foo1 not in [foo2]
Under CPython 2.7.11 and 3.5.1, it prints:
Foo.__eq__(Foo('A'), Foo('B'))
Foo.__eq__(Foo('B'), 'A')
But under PyPy 5.3.1 (2.7), it prints:
Foo.__eq__(Foo('B'), Foo('A'))
Foo.__eq__(Foo('A'), 'B')
Although Python 3.5’s documentation states that equality should be symmetric “if possible”, sometimes it is not. In that case, the order of arguments to Foo.__eq__ becomes important.
So, is the above CPython behavior an implementation detail, or is it a part of list’s public interface (meaning that PyPy has a bug)? Please explain why you think so.
A:
Per the language reference:
For container types such as list, tuple, set, frozenset, dict, or
collections.deque, the expression x in y is equivalent to any(x is
e or x == e for e in y).
The other examples in the same section show the same ordering for the equality test. This suggests that the comparison should be item_maybe_in_list.__eq__(item_actually_in_list), in which case this could be considered a bug in PyPy. Additionally, CPython is the reference implementation, so in any discrepancy that version wins!
That said, you should raise it with that community to see how they feel about it.
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Q:
Sybase bcp: Unexpected EOF encountered in BCP data-file
I've got a couple of issues with bcp.
I'm trying to load data from a text file to Sybase ASE 16.0 . The DB is on my local machine (Win 7 64-bit).
I'm using this command:
bcp dbname.owner.TO_INTS in "SomeInts.txt" -P password -S server -U sa -f "bcp_tblTO_INTS.fmt" -e "bcp.errlog.txt"
Here is the format file ("bcp_tblTO_INTS.fmt"):
10.0
1
1 SYBINT4 0 5 "" 1 SEEMS_THIS_IS_IGNORED
The target table has a single column, defined as an INT:
CREATE TABLE owner.TO_INTS
(
FROM_INT INT NOT NULL
)
LOCK ALLPAGES
ON 'default'
GO
I have two problems.
bcp will only populate the target table if the data has just four characters in it (ie, values from 1000 to 9999). If I use values outside this range I get:
Unexpected EOF encountered in BCP data-file.
bcp copy in failed
The values are not being populated correctly:
Input value (in file) : 1000 Populated as (in Sybase):808464433
Input value (in file) : 9999 Populated as (in Sybase):960051513
The file encoding is ANSI. The EOL character is LF.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
Dave.
A:
Since your file is only one column, remove the format file and use the -c option instead. This will BCP the file in character (plaintext) mode, and should resolve the issue.
As noted, you may need to change the EOL character to CRLF
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Description
Popular Cedar Plan with open area in kitchen and great room. Entry from garage into mudroom open to laundry room and master closet. Laminate in kitchen and great room, stainless appliances and granite counter-tops. Hubbell gives you more with Kohler plumbing. Amana 96% furnace, passive radon system, HERS energy testing, GE appliances and much more! Pale Smoke interior package. Johnston Schools and conveniently located close to the new 100th St. exit/entrance to I-80/35. You will enjoy the large front porch in addition to the rear 12x12 deck. Pet friendly and an association for lawn and snow. West Prairie March Home of the Month. $3000 Rate Buydown & $1750 in closing costs when Buyer uses our Preferred Lender.
School Ratings & Info
Description
Popular Cedar Plan with open area in kitchen and great room. Entry from garage into mudroom open to laundry room and master closet. Laminate in kitchen and great room, stainless appliances and granite counter-tops. Hubbell gives you more with Kohler plumbing. Amana 96% furnace, passive radon system, HERS energy testing, GE appliances and much more! Pale Smoke interior package. Johnston Schools and conveniently located close to the new 100th St. exit/entrance to I-80/35. You will enjoy the large front porch in addition to the rear 12x12 deck. Pet friendly and an association for lawn and snow. West Prairie March Home of the Month. $3000 Rate Buydown & $1750 in closing costs when Buyer uses our Preferred Lender.
9555
Saw Grass Lane
Johnston,
IA
50131
Property Description
Popular Cedar Plan with open area in kitchen and great room. Entry from garage into mudroom open to laundry room and master closet. Laminate in kitchen and great room, stainless appliances and granite counter-tops. Hubbell gives you more with Kohler plumbing. Amana 96% furnace, passive radon system, HERS energy testing, GE appliances and much more! Pale Smoke interior package. Johnston Schools and conveniently located close to the new 100th St. exit/entrance to I-80/35. You will enjoy the large front porch in addition to the rear 12x12 deck. Pet friendly and an association for lawn and snow. West Prairie March Home of the Month. $3000 Rate Buydown & $1750 in closing costs when Buyer uses our Preferred Lender.
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Magnetic games of the general type to which this invention pertains are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,339,209 and 3,734,502 and in my Canadian Pat. No. 962,713. In my earlier game nine pylons each having a ball receiving pocket in the top are arranged in three rows and three columns beneath a flat, transparent cover. That game was designed for playing tic-tac-toe and the pylons had different heights, with the center pylon being the shortest and thus requiring the greatest degree of skill because of the greatest drop distance from the flat cover.
In the prior art magnetic games using magnetic balls as the game pieces, magazine receptacles for holding the balls have been disposed below and in proximity to the transparent cover for selective pick up and movement over the target area by a hand-held permanent magnet. In that type of structure the spacing between the balls and the cover must be held within relatively close dimensional tolerances and the strength of the magnet must be maintained within predetermined limits to permit the player to selectively lift the balls out of the magazine receptacles and to then move them to the playing area over the targets. For example, if the spacing is too great the balls may not be picked up when the magnet is positioned above them. On the other hand, if the spacing is too small movement of the balls into and out of the magazine will be prevented.
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Appartement avec cuisine & piscine à Avignon
Appartement avec cuisine & piscine à Avignon
Our guest house located in Montfavet, green lung of Avignon, welcomes you for a stay of relaxation and discovery.
A beautiful hand-painted fresco gives its name to this apartment with very bright kitchen. Two large windows on the garden illuminate the blond wood of the furniture and the soft green of the tapestry. Large bathroom with bath.
In the morning, enjoy a generous homemade breakfast by the laurel-lined pool or in the pool house.
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Effects of sublingual nitroglycerin in patients receiving transdermal nitroglycerin for coronary artery disease: prevention of cross-tolerance.
The systemic hemodynamic and coronary dilative responses to sublingual nitroglycerin were studied in patients receiving transdermal nitroglycerin. A total of 48 patients with coronary artery disease were divided into 4 groups: 12 patients receiving 1 tablet of sublingual nitroglycerin without transdermal nitroglycerin (Group 1), 12 patients receiving 1 tablet of sublingual nitroglycerin with 12-hour-daily intermittent therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin (Group 2), 12 patients receiving 1 tablet of sublingual nitroglycerin with continuous therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin with continuous therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin (Group 3), and 12 patients receiving 2 tablets of sublingual nitroglycerin with continuous therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin (Group 4). Before and during administration of sublingual nitroglycerin, aortic pressure, left ventricular pressure, and coronary artery diameter were examined at diagnostic cardiac catheterization in all patients. During sublingual nitroglycerin, the decreases of aortic systolic pressure and left ventricular end-diastolic pressure were greater in Group 1, 2, and 4 than in Group 3. Dilation of coronary arteries by sublingual nitroglycerin tended to be greater in Group 1, 2, and 4 than in Group 3. Thus, the effects of sublingual nitroglycerin for the relief of ischemia might be more prominent in patients with intermittent therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin than in those with continuous therapy. The increased dose of sublingual nitroglycerin for the relief of ischemia might be more effective in patients with continuous therapy of transdermal nitroglycerin.
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The present invention relates to apparatus for exposing and developing photosensitive material, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for exposing and developing so-called film units each of which comprises several sheet-like constituents and wherein the constituents of a film unit must be separated from each other during a certain stage of the developing operation.
As a rule, apparatus for exposing film units comprise a light source, a set of color filters, a platform which supports the original during imaging onto a film unit, and an adjustable optical system which images the original onto a film unit. The developing unit for the exposed film units is normally remote from the exposing means.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,308,717 granted Mar. 14, 1967 to Okishima et al. discloses an apparatus wherein the exposing and developing units are assembled in a common housing. The photosensitive material is furnished in the form of a roll of photographic paper, and such paper is fed directly into the developing unit as soon as it leaves the exposing station. The developing unit includes several vessels each of which contains a different developing liquid. A drawback of the patented apparatus is that it occupies too much space. This is especially undesirable when the apparatus is to be used in a private home, e.g., by an amateur who desires to make his own enlarged prints of color photographic films. Moreover, the means for transporting the photosensitive material through the developing unit is complex and expensive. Still further, the number of liquid baths is substantial, and the photographer must ensure that each and every section of the exposed photographic paper remains in each of the baths for a different predetermined interval of time.
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Part One: Parable Sayings
I. Chiding Physicians
The first parable in time sequence which Scripture records Christ speaking
is the parable in our text. That it is a parable is plainly stated in
Scripture. But in spite of this fact, it is all but completely ignored in the
lists and books on Christ's parables.
The plain indication that our text contains a parable is found in the word
"proverb" in our text. Christ said, "Ye will surely say unto me
this proverb, Physician, heal thyself." The word "proverb" is a
translation of the Greek word parabole which is translated
"parable" 46 of the 50 times it appears in the New Testament (see
Preface). This is the only place in the New Testament where it is translated
"proverb."
The "physician" parable of our text was a common saying among the
Jews in Christ's day. It also appeared "in Euripides and Aeschylus among
the Greeks, and in Cicero's Letters... and the Chinese used to demand it
of their physicians"—(Robertson). This "physician" parable is
recorded only in the Gospel of Luke. But that is fitting, for Luke was a physician.
To further examine this first parable in time sequence of Christ, we will
consider the meeting for the parable, the message of the parable, and the
misuse of the parable.
1. The Meeting for the Parable
Christ spoke this parable at a meeting in the synagogue in Nazareth, the
town which had been His home town for twenty-eight or so years until He left it
to go into His public ministry. At the time of this meeting, it was early in
the public ministry of Christ. But in spite of the short time of His public
ministry, His fame in Galilee (where Nazareth was located) had already
"went out... through all the region round about"—(Luke 4:14).
The crowd in the synagogue meeting was hostile to Christ, and that fact is
why the parable was spoken by Christ. The hostility was so great that after
Christ taught in the meeting, the crowd took Him to a cliff and tried to push
Him off it to kill Him (Luke 4:29). But
Christ disappeared miraculously to foil their murderous efforts (Luke 4:30).
2. The Message of the Parable
To examine the parable's message, we note the condemnation in the message
and the clarification about the message.
The condemnation in the message. The parable's primary message is a
condemnation of hypocrisy. This parable compares a physician who heals others
but not himself to those who do not act themselves as they advise others to
act. Barnes said about this parable, "The meaning is this: Suppose that a
man should attempt to heal another when he was himself diseased in the same
manner; it would be natural to ask him first to cure himself... [to] manifest that
he was worthy of confidence."
Thus the message of the parable tells us to fulfill our own responsibilities
before we tell others to fulfill their responsibilities. "In one of his
familiar epistles to Rome's greatest orator [Cicero], then dejected at the loss
of Tullia, Sulpicius made this appeal: 'Do not forget that you are Cicero; one
who has been used always to prescribe for and give advice to others; do not
imitate those paltry physicians who pretend to cure other people's diseases,
yet are not able to cure their own'" (Bevan). Paul gave the same message
in his epistle to the Romans when He wrote, "Thou therefore which teachest
another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal,
dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou
commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" (Romans 2:21,22).
The parable's principle is in our saying, "Clean your own doorstep before
you clean other's."
This parable saying is good support for high qualifications for church
officers and teachers. It is a forceful reminder that those who would proclaim
the Gospel to a lost world must also embrace the Gospel in their own hearts.—We
need the application of this parable in our government, too; for, as an
example, congressmen are notorious for making laws for the citizenry which they
exempt themselves from obeying.
The clarification about the message. It needs to be made clear that
the focus on self in this parable is not an encouragement to be selfish; it is
instead an encouragement to be a good example. Taking care of your own needs
before helping others may appear on the surface to encourage selfishness. But
that is not the case at all here in this parable. Rather, this parable says we
should evidence in our own life what we are trying to improve in the lives of
others. A doctor who tells overweight people to diet to avoid the peril of
being overweight is not selfish because he first dieted to remedy an overweight
problem. Rather, he is simply being a good example of his advice.
3. The Misuse of the Parable
The main reason for the mention of this parable by Christ was to tell folk
that it would be misused against Him. The parable would be twisted, distorted,
and perverted to make it apply to Christ. Evil people are ever perverting truth
in order to oppose truth. They can misuse the best of parables and the most
holy of doctrines to accuse the innocent or to sanction evil. "The legs of
the lame are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools"—(Proverbs 26:7).
We note two times in which the parable was misused against Christ. First, it
was misused by the countrymen of Christ; and second, it was misused at the
cross of Christ.
By the countrymen of Christ. Our text for this parable tells us two
things about the misuse of this parable against Christ by His countrymen. They
are the prediction of the misuse and the prompting of the misuse.
First, the prediction of the misuse. Christ predicted ("Ye will
surely say") that His countrymen at Nazareth would misuse this parable
against Him. This prediction revealed the omniscience of Christ. His prediction
evidenced that He knew what was in the hearts of His listeners in the synagogue
in Nazareth. He knew what they were thinking and what they would eventually say
to Him. He likewise knows the same about all of us; a truth that should sober
and purify us.
Second, the prompting of the misuse. That which prompted Christ's
countrymen to misuse this parable was their unbelief in Christ as Israel's
Messiah. In His teaching in the synagogue service, Christ had just spoken of
Himself as a healer (Luke
4:18); and He had already worked some miracles of healing in nearby Capernaum
(Luke 4:23)
which supported His claim as being Israel's Messiah. But because He did not
work similar miracles in Nazareth, the Nazareth people would not believe Him.
And if He did not work miracles in Nazareth, He was, in their opinion, like a
physician who could not heal himself. This was accusing Christ of hypocrisy
which was a ludicrous charge indeed! Unbelief, however, can be very ludicrous
in its criticism.
The unbelief of the people was totally unjustified. They had ample evidence
in the miracles done elsewhere to believe. Furthermore, "He had lived
among them for the most of thirty years a sinless life, the greatest of all
miracles in a sinful world"—(Edgar). This failure to believe Christ though
He had lived sinlessly among them for many years was reason enough for His
doing miracles elsewhere. Nazareth had not used the blessing of His presence
well, and so they lost future blessing. If you do not use your blessings well,
it will hinder you from receiving more blessing in the future. Poor stewardship
of privilege will shut the door to more privilege. So "he did not many
mighty works there because of their unbelief"—(Matthew 13:58).
At the cross of Christ. The most evil misuse of this parable saying
occurred at Calvary (the actual words of the parable were not used, but the
principle of the parable was embodied in the words that were used at Calvary).
All three Synoptic Gospels record this sneering attack on Christ at Calvary
which said, "Save thyself, and come down from the cross... He saved
others; himself he cannot save"—(Mark 15:30,31;
cp. Matthew
27:40-42; Luke
23:35,37).
When on the cross, Christ was accused of being one who said He would save
people but was not able to save Himself from the cross. So the accusers so much
as said Christ was a physician Who could not heal Himself. And until He did
save Himself, they said they would not believe Him. "If he be the King of
Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him"—(Matthew 27:42).
How dense were the minds of these unbelieving critics of Christ. They did
not understand the work of Christ. What the critics called hypocrisy was
instead great sacrifice, for the reason Christ did not save Himself from the
cross was so He could save others from condemnation! Saving Himself from the
cross would have ruined the Gospel. Christ became poor so we could become rich
(2 Corinthians
8:9). Likewise Christ died so others could live (1 Thessalonians
5:10). But unbelief perverts this action of Christ to that of a physician
who cannot heal himself.
Unbelief addles the brains of unbelievers. Hence, when we preach the Gospel
it is "unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks
foolishness"—(1 Corinthians
1:23). The unbelieving mind sees the Gospel as foolish and unworkable. So
they see Calvary as Christ's failure. Also they see capital punishment as murder
but murderous abortion as the "right" of women. They see pornography
as freedom of speech, but prayer and Bible reading in school as something else.
The unholy, unbelieving mind is as confused as it is corrupt. "Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools"—(Romans 1:22) is
the fitting epitaph for these unbelievers.
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Q:
Windows 10 scaling and blurriness issue
A day ago, I suddenly started noticing blurry text & images on my screen, as well as weird scaling issues.
First of all, here is how my status bar and windows look like:
(notice the battery icon, in particular).
All the texts now look different and blurry: in my browser, in terminals, everywhere.
In the browser, websites look different, smaller. To be sure this wasn't just an illusion, I measured a columned layout. Even though the browser scaling is set to 100%, when developer tools report a 1200px wide column, if I take a screenshot and paste it in Photoshop, I can see that it's actually only 970px wide.
I had a look at this question: Windows 10 Font blurry 125% scaling but the suggestions didn't really help:
setting a custom scaling level of 125% does seem to fix the browser scaling issue, but it scales the status bar and other things to a scale that I was not used to (so this was not my previous value, for sure); also, why would I need to set 125% to make a pixel be 1px wide?
checking "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" on every application is really not a solution
What could be the cause of this sudden change and how to revert it?
A:
The issues are mostly solved now, after a cumulative update of Windows 10 released around 10 or 12 August 2016.
Everything looks perfect on my laptop's 3K display, and although I still feel like the text is sometimes slightly blurry on my external Full HD screen, it is much more crisp and readable, and the icons now look all right!
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Establishing Community Medicine Banks Around the World
by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz
March 30, 2012 | 12:09 pm
Did you know that about 30,000 individuals die every day from curable diseases? Some evils are entirely dreadful because they are not preventable; there is little we can do in the face of a hurricane or tsunami. But it is even more tragic when we ignore preventable human suffering.
Yesterday, I took my UCLA Hillel students to volunteer at the Refuot community medicine bank in Buenos Aires, Argentina, funded by the Fundación Tzedaká. Since 1999, Refuot has distributed around 580,000 medicines to more than 12,000 Jews and non-Jews through 70 Jewish centers in Argentina. I left the medicine bank inspired by their heroic work and yet deeply troubled by how much more work there is to do to improve medicine access worldwide.
One story among thousands is that of Juan Granovsky. He was born in 1937, and worked for decades in a fumigation and disinfection company. He receives about $90 a month in retirement benefits, but it is not enough to cover the cost of the medicines he now needs. He suffers from diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and has had six heart bypass operations. Granovsky typifies the patient who would have no access to medication without the help of the medicine bank. Where would Juan turn if the medicine bank wasn’t here for him?
Usually these needed medicines are donated from pharmaceutical laboratories, but if someone is in need of another medicine, the medicine bank purchases it after searching for the best drug prices on the market. The Argentinian government covers some HIV and cancer treatments, but the community medicine bank is needed to treat patients with other diseases such as Parkinson’s, Crohn’s, and diabetes that the government is not equipped to address. All medicines are packaged and then sent to hospitals and health professionals, where they are dispensed to patients.
The idea that we are responsible to ensure that others have access to medicines is not a new one. The great Talmudic sage Rav Huna set the model for the importance of granting others access to the drugs they need. “Whenever he discovered some [new] medicine he would fill a water jug with it and suspend it above the doorstep and proclaim, ‘Whosoever desires it let him come and take of it’” (Ta’anit 20b). Rav Huna understood the loss of human dignity felt when an individual is unable to meet personal health needs and those of loved ones. Further a society based on intellectual, moral, and spiritual values cannot thrive if all must be consumed with their basic physical survival needs.
Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, the great 20th century Jewish legal authority taught that Jewish law demands that every community must play a crucial role in granting access to medicine: “When poor people are ill and who cannot afford medical expenses, the community sends them a doctor to visit them, and the medicine is paid for by the communal fund” (Tzitz Eliezer 5:4).
The most strategic way to address sickness is by improving exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, and preventive care. But where health counseling, governmental funding, and education are unavailable or insufficient, medicines are especially crucial. We should consider helping to financially support Refuot, establishing more amazing community medicine banks, and advocating pharmaceutical companies to donate more medicines to those in need worldwide.
Pharmaceutical companies must do more to provide universal access and government must provide tax incentives that help companies to do so. Most importantly, like Refuot, we all can and must support local and foreign organizations ensuring the just distribution of drugs to those who need them.
There are few situations in life as terrifying as a life-threatening disease without access to the necessary medicines. How can we let innocent individuals die around the world when a pill that costs less than one cent to produce can save their lives? G-d commands us to take care of the poor, the starving and the sick and with 30,000 dying every day of curable diseases we don’t have much time to delay.
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Mass storage systems, particularly RAID systems, and working methods suitable for operation thereof, are known. In particular, “A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)” by David A. Patterson, Garth Gibson and Randy H. Cats, published in the International Conference on Management of Data, 1988, Chicago, discloses the concept, since known generally as the RAID system, of distributed storage of data over several hard disks that are physically independent of each other. A user of the mass storage system no longer notices the physical separation of the individual mass storage devices, but stores data in a logical or virtual file system, the associated data of which is archived physically on one or a plurality of mass storage devices.
The use of RAID systems offers a number of advantages in general. In particular, extensive data can be distributed over several physical hard disk drives. This has the advantage inter alia that read/write accesses can be accelerated, since the data transfer rates of several physical mass storage devices are available. Furthermore, a redundancy of the data and hence a safeguard against the failure of an individual hard disk drive can be achieved by archiving data simultaneously on several physical mass storage devices. The advantages can also at least partially be combined with one another in different operating modes, which are known generally as RAID levels.
One disadvantage that accompanies the above-mentioned RAID approach is that the provision of a multiplicity of mass storage devices operated independently of one another necessitates an increased energy requirement. Even the provision of just a few hard disk drives, for example, four hard disk drives each having a capacity of 250 GB, compared to the provision of a single hard disk drive having, for example, a capacity of 1 TB, requires a not inconsiderable increased demand for electrical energy owing to the control electronics that are additionally required and the drive for the disk pack that is present in each case. This additional energy requirement increases further if, as described above, redundant data retention is desired. Hence further, additional hard disk drives are used. In particular in the commercial environment, in which nowadays very large amounts of data are held in centralized data centers, the problem is exacerbated. If several hundred or, if necessary, even several thousand hard disk drives are being used, in addition to the power required to operate them, further expense is incurred to cool them during operation.
Measures to reduce energy consumption of individual disk drives are known. For example, it is known to use an operating system or an internal hard disk controller to deactivate the drive for a pack of rotating storage media temporarily, if a drive is not currently being accessed. However, the disconnection known per se contains a series of disadvantages. First, upon renewed access to a mass storage device that has been deactivated in this manner, the disk pack must first be re-accelerated before the desired access can be carried out, which leads to longer access times. Second, the repeated switching off and re-acceleration of the disk pack results in increased mechanical wear and, hence, a shorter service life of the mass storage device. Therefore, at least in data centers in which a multiplicity of files are held for a multiplicity of users in extensive mass storage systems, such energy-saving options are not normally, or only seldom, used.
Another problem is describing a working method for a mass storage system and a mass storage system, which for substantially the same performance has a reduced energy consumption compared to known mass storage systems, or which for the same energy requirement is able to provide a better performance. From the point of view of its users, the mass storage system should preferably behave like a conventional mass storage system.
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Q:
Referring to javascript instance methods with a pound/hash sign
This question is similar to Why are methods in Ruby documentation preceded by a hash sign?
I understand why in Ruby instance methods are proceeded with a pound sign, helping to differentiate talking about SomeClass#someMethod from SomeObject.someMethod and allowing rdoc to work. And I understand that the authors of PrototypeJS admire Ruby (with good reason) and so they use the hash mark convention in their documentation.
My question is: is this a standard practice amongst JavaScript developers or is it just Prototype developers who do this?
Asked another way, is it proper for me to refer to instance methods in comments/documentation as SomeClass#someMethod? Or should my documentation refer to ``SomeClass.someMethod`?
A:
No, I have not yet met another JavaScript project that uses this notation.
Something like this is useful in JavaScript, though, because unlike in many languages Class.methodName would refer to classmethods like String.fromCharCode, not instance methods which is what you are more often talking about. The method invoked by myinstance.methodName would be not MyClass.methodName but MyClass.prototype.methodName, and MyClass.prototype is an annoyance to keep typing.
(The standard JS library confuses this by making many instance methods also have a corresponding classmethod. But they're different functions.)
is it proepr for me to refer to instance methods in comments/documentation as SomeClass#someMethod?
Do what you like/find most readable. There's no standard here.
A:
I think it comes from javadoc.
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/windows/javadoc.html#{@link}
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Americans aren’t moving back to the cities. Just 20- and 30-somethings.
But actually, not all 20- and 30-somethings are moving back to the cities. Only those with a four-year college degree and incomes in the top 40 percent are.
And not even all 20- and 30-somethings with a four-year college degree and incomes in the top 40 percent are moving back into cities. Mostly the ones without school-age kids are.
And if you thought that was it, it turns out that not all 20- and 30-somethings with a four-year college degree in the top 40 percent of income without school-age children are moving back into cities. It’s mostly just the ones that are white.
Such is the Russian nesting doll of myth-busting from the housing researcher Jed Kolko in a post today on urbanization. There was a period, shortly after the collapse of the housing bubble, when it really did look like the United States might collapse back into dense cities, in a dramatic return to pre-1950s America. Instead, it turns out that America isn’t ready to abandon the suburban project. They just like sun and space too much. In fact, most American cities wouldn’t even be growing today if not for immigration.
If the U.S. is returning to any previous period, it’s looking like another Gilded Age—one based on geography. The richest 10 percent of households were most likely to move into dense urban areas between 2000 and 2014. The poorest 10 percent fled cities the fastest. Meanwhile, the U.S. is becoming much more urban for the white childless elite, and much more suburban for everybody else. The fastest growing suburbs are the most prototypically suburban: They have the lowest density, the greatest need for cars, and the most single-family neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the fastest growing urban areas among this privileged demographic are the most dense—places like Manhattan and Brooklyn, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C.
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Family's mercy has its own impact
After making the gut-wrenching decision to remove his life support, Charlene Schwint held the hand of her beloved kid brother when he died.
Gregory Spyropoulos was a 50-year-old house painter, a good-looking guy with an easy manner and sharp sense of humor. He struggled with substance abuse and was never able to shake off his demons. But he was loved — by his son, his extended Greek clan and the many friends he cultivated while growing up in Fitchburg.
"It was something you never expect to happen in your family," said Schwint, 66.
Three days before his death, Spyropoulos was crossing Cleghorn Street in Fitchburg when he yelled at a passing motorist to slow down. The driver got out of his car, a confrontation ensued and Spyropoulos was punched in the face. He fell to the ground and the motorist drove off, according to prosecutors. Spyropoulos was found bleeding in the street.
The man who punched Spyropoulos was Glenn E. Lowell Sr., the same age as his victim, a delivery man for a Chinese restaurant. On June 20, 2012, hours before Spyropoulos died, Lowell turned himself in to police after reading about Spyropoulos' injuries in the local newspaper.
On Thursday, the tearful defendant was placed on probation for five years after pleading guilty to manslaughter. And while some have decried the sentence as too lenient for a lost life, among those missing from the angry chorus are the people who suffered the most: The victim's family.
"I feel bad for him," Schwint said last week of the man who killed her brother. "This could happen to anyone. One punch thrown the wrong way.…There was nothing to be gained by Mr. Lowell being sent to jail and being taken away from his family."
The plea agreement was reached days before the case was set to go to trial in Worcester Superior Court, and after prosecutors consulted with Spyropoulos' family members. As part of the plea, Lowell must complete an anger management course, attend a head injury course and perform 100 hours of community service.
Spyropoulos' sister read an impact statement to the court that recounted the family's devastation. And while she called Lowell a "murderer and selfish killer," the family's remarkable kindness and grace earned the praise of prosecutors and even the presiding judge.
After Lowell was sentenced and left the courtroom, Judge James R. Lemire asked Spyropoulos' family members to remain. He then took the unusual step of leaving the bench to speak to them personally. Taking Schwint's hand, the judge said the family's compassion and understanding struck a chord with him.
During an interview later that day, Schwint said she realized that Lowell did not intend to kill her brother, but also believes that, based on her brother's severe head injury, Lowell punched him more than once. Lowell's lawyer, meanwhile, was prepared to argue that Spyropoulos threw the first punch and his client acted in self-defense.
"The end result is still the same," Schwint said. "No one wins in a situation like this. Hopefully we all can learn a lesson — when you make a quick decision, there can be terrible consequences."
Through his lawyer, Kristen J. Patria, Lowell declined to comment. Patria called his client a good father and said the resolution "was the best outcome for everyone."
Still, how remarkable that a family can see beyond its grief and extend such mercy to the man responsible for it. Schwint is no bleeding heart; while she can't forgive Lowell, she has no desire for revenge or retribution.
"He's never going to understand what we've been through," Schwint said. "But he has to live with this, too."
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As an album, Bloom is full of references to flowers and fruit, metaphors for abundance and growth. But because these things are fleeting, it evokes mortality, too — even a sense of urgency. Listening to it reminded made me think of Boy Erased, and of how so many queer youth don’t get to experience their youth because of homo- and transphobia. As a queer person, do you think you have a different relationship to time than straight people do?
Before coming out, I remember distinctly feeling like there was a delay on my life. All my friends were doing just dumb stuff that kids do, like making out with people at parties and starting to date, and just, you know, getting their first girlfriend or boyfriend. When we went on leavers (the Australian equivalent of spring break where kids just get messy) I remember feeling ashamed that I just couldn’t feel like I could take part in any of that. I remember everyone was getting hickies, and I pulled my best friend, who’s a girl, into a room and told her that I was devastated because everyone was having all these romantic and sexual experiences for the first time, and I just felt like I was sitting this one out, waiting for something. I was waiting to come out or waiting to find a community of people who were like me. I didn’t know any gay people growing up or any queer people growing up, and so I just really felt alone and kind of lost, and I just wasn’t experiencing life.
She was so sweet and gave me a hickey on my neck so I could show it off a little bit to everyone else. It made me feel a little bit better, and also made me feel depressed for myself. And that’s a really real experience, I’m sure, for a lot of queer people. You know, maybe you just wanna take part and feel like a person, and you crave all the things that everyone else craves — community and friendship and kinship and love — when you’re young and queer. It’s really hard to find those things and it really makes you feel lost.
I feel like that sense of untimeliness is what gives the album that urgency. You’ve said before that Bloom is a love album, and so while on the one hand it’s very joyful and sexy and personal, I also get the feeling that because you’re coming from this different timeline, it’s also very political. Do you feel that way?
Maybe I do feel extra joyous and extra liberated that I’ve found the things I’ve found. My parents have been married for 27 years, and that’s my model in my head. They’re more in love than ever. I look to them as a kind of example of one type of a really healthy, happy relationship, and that’s something I’ve always wanted to find for myself. Growing up, I had no idea where I could even begin to find something like that. Now, to be 23, maybe it’s a little weird to be experiencing these things for the first time, maybe it’s not. I just felt excited to finally be getting the experience of crazy, unabashed love that I’ve always wanted to know and feel. I just wanted to take a second to celebrate that and document it a little bit for myself, so I can look back on it in the future and say, “Wow, I remember exactly how that felt.”
It’s like a time capsule. Even though you’re still quite young — you’ve accomplished a lot already — there’s also a lot ahead of you, too. As you’re becoming more established as an actor, do you see your acting becoming as important as your music?
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The Archive
The tools, samples and other resources presented here are no longer under active development or support. While we continue to make them available to developers we do not recommend using them in new projects because future hardware features may not be supported.
Sample Code
NVIDIA Graphics SDK
This collection of DirectX 11 code samples is older than the NVIDIA GameWorks Samples. This older release SDK includes a browser, code samples, detailed whitepapers, and videos.
Development Tools
FX Composer is no longer in active development and will not receive any further updates. v2.5 is the final release of this product. Please refer to NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition for your shader debugging/profiling/authoring needs.
NVIDIA Shader Debugger for FX Composer is no longer in active development and will not receive any further updates. v2.5 is the final release of this product. Please refer to NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition for your shader debugging/profiling/authoring needs.
NVIDIA ShaderPerf
NVIDIA ShaderPerf is a command-line shader profiling utility. ShaderPerf is no longer in active development and will not receive any further updates. The version available is the final release of this product. Please refer to NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition for your shader debugging/profiling/authoring needs.
NVIDIA PerfHUD is a powerful real-time performance analysis tool for Direct3D applications. We recommend all DirectX 9 developers to migrate to using Nsight™ Visual Studio Edition 2.2 or newer for graphics API debugging, profiling and system trace. DirectX 9/10/11 is supported in Nsight™ Visual Studio Edition from version 2.2 onward. NVIDIA® Nsight™ Development Platform, Visual Studio Edition is a graphics debugging and profiling environment integrated into Visual Studio. All future development of PerfHUD will be deprecated as a result of DirectX 9 support in Nsight™ Visual Studio Edition.
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Q:
How to initialize an object using async-await pattern
I'm trying to follow RAII pattern in my service classes, meaning that when an object is constructed, it is fully initialized. However, I'm facing difficulties with asynchronous APIs. The structure of class in question looks like following
class ServiceProvider : IServiceProvider // Is only used through this interface
{
public int ImportantValue { get; set; }
public event EventHandler ImportantValueUpdated;
public ServiceProvider(IDependency1 dep1, IDependency2 dep2)
{
// IDependency1 provide an input value to calculate ImportantValue
// IDependency2 provide an async algorithm to calculate ImportantValue
}
}
I'm also targeting to get rid of side-effects in ImportantValue getter, to make it thread-safe.
Now users of ServiceProvider will create an instance of it, subscribe to an event of ImportantValue change, and get the initial ImportantValue. And here comes the problem, with the initial value. Since the ImportantValue is calculated asynchronously, the class cannot be fully initialized in constructor. It may be okay to have this value as null initially, but then I need to have some place where it will be calculated first time. A natural place for that could be the ImportantValue's getter, but I'm targeting to make it thread-safe and with no side-effects.
So I'm basically stuck with these contradictions. Could you please help me and offer some alternative? Having value initialized in constructor while nice is not really necessary, but no side-effects and thread-safety of property is mandatory.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: One more thing to add. I'm using Ninject for instantiation, and as far as I understand, it doesn't support async methods to create a binding. While approach with initiating some Task-based operation in constructor will work, I cannot await its result.
I.e. two next approaches (offered as answers so far) will not compile, since Task is returned, not my object:
Kernel.Bind<IServiceProvider>().ToMethod(async ctx => await ServiceProvider.CreateAsync())
or
Kernel.Bind<IServiceProvider>().ToMethod(async ctx =>
{
var sp = new ServiceProvider();
await sp.InitializeAsync();
})
Simple binding will work, but I'm not awaiting the result of asynchronous initialization started in constructor, as proposed by Stephen Cleary:
Kernel.Bind<IServiceProvider>().To<ServiceProvider>();
... and that's not looking good for me.
A:
I have a blog post that describes several approaches to async construction.
I recommend the asynchronous factory method as described by Reed, but sometimes that's not possible (e.g., dependency injection). In these cases, you can use an asynchronous initialization pattern like this:
public sealed class MyType
{
public MyType()
{
Initialization = InitializeAsync();
}
public Task Initialization { get; private set; }
private async Task InitializeAsync()
{
// Asynchronously initialize this instance.
await Task.Delay(100);
}
}
You can then construct the type normally, but keep in mind that construction only starts the asynchronous initialization. When you need the type to be initialized, your code can do:
await myTypeInstance.Initialization;
Note that if Initialization is already complete, execution (synchronously) continues past the await.
If you do want an actual asynchronous property, I have a blog post for that, too. Your situation sounds like it may benefit from AsyncLazy<T>:
public sealed class MyClass
{
public MyClass()
{
MyProperty = new AsyncLazy<int>(async () =>
{
await Task.Delay(100);
return 13;
});
}
public AsyncLazy<int> MyProperty { get; private set; }
}
A:
One potential option would be to move this to a factory method instead of using a constructor.
Your factory method could then return a Task<ServiceProvider>, which would allow you to perform the initialization asynchronously, but not return the constructed ServiceProvider until ImportantValue has been (asynchronously) computed.
This would allow your users to write code like:
var sp = await ServiceProvider.CreateAsync();
int iv = sp.ImportantValue; // Will be initialized at this point
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394 F.Supp.2d 416 (2005)
Elena Pagan SAN MIGUEL, Plaintiffs,
v.
NECSO REDONDO, S.E., Redondo Entrecanales, S.E., American International Insurance Company of PR, Inc., Defendants.
No. Civ. 04-1051JAF.
United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.
June 9, 2005.
*417 *418 Manuel Duran-Rodriguez, Manuel Duran Law Office, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs.
Carmen Lucia Rodriguez-Velez, Pedro J. Manzano-Yates, Fiddler Gonzalez & Rodriguez, P.S.C., Hato Rey, PR, Hector F. Oliveras-Delgado, Jeannette M. Lopez, Pinto-Lugo, Oliveras & Ortiz, PS, San Juan, PR, for Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
FUSTÉ, Chief Judge.
Plaintiff, Elena Pagán San Miguel, filed the present complaint against Defendants *419 Necso Redondo, S.E., Redondo Entrecanales, S.E., and American International Insurance Company of Puerto Rico, Inc. ("AIICO") alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e and 2000e-3 (2003 & Supp.2004); 29 P.R. LAWS ANN. §§ 194-194b (2001) ("Puerto Rico Law No. 115"); 29 P.R. LAWS ANN. § 185 et seq. (2001) ("Puerto Rico Law No. 80"); 29 P.R. LAWS ANN. § 146 (2001) ("Puerto Rico Law No. 100"); and 29 P.R. LAWS ANN. §§ 1321-1341 (2001) ("Puerto Rico Law No. 69"). Docket Document No. 1.
Defendant Necso/Redondo moves for summary judgment, Docket Document No. 20, and Plaintiff opposes the motion. Docket Document No. 40. Defendant AIICO also moves for summary judgment, Docket Document Nos. 29, 77, 78, and Plaintiff and Defendant Necso/Redondo oppose the motion. Docket Document Nos. 55, 58. Upon careful review of the pleadings, the submitted evidence, and applicable case law, we grant in part and deny in part Defendant AIICO's motion and grant in part and deny in part Defendant Necso/Redondo's motion.
I.
Factual and Procedural Synopsis
Unless otherwise indicated, we derive the following factual summary from the complaint and the statements of facts submitted by the parties in their summary judgment and opposition motions. Docket Document Nos. 21, 31, 40, 55, 57, 65, 79, 80.
Plaintiff is a Puerto Rico resident and former employee of Defendants Necso Redondo, S.E. and Redondo Entrecanales, S.E.
Defendant Necso Redondo ("NR") was a partnership formed between Necso Entrecanales Cubiertas ("NEC"), a Spanish company, and Consorcio Redondo Construction ("CRC"), a Puerto Rican company. The managing partner of NR was NEC. NR was incorporated under Puerto Rico law to contract with the Puerto Rico Government to construct five Hato Rey Stations of the Tren Urbano Project including: Sagrado Corazón, Nuevo Centro, Roosevelt, Domenech, and Piñero (Judicial Center). One administrative office serviced the five stations.
Redondo Entrecanales ("RE") was a second partnership formed between the same parent companies. The managing partner of RE was CRC. RE was incorporated to construct three stations of the Tren Urbano Project: Centro Médico, Río Bayamón, and Villa Nevarez. RE had an administrative office in each of the three stations under its contracts.
On March 20, 2000, NEC bought CRC's share in the partnership of each company. NR and RE were "single employers" for the purpose of Plaintiff's complaint and will be referred to jointly as "Defendant Necso/Redondo."
Defendant AIICO was Defendant Necso/Redondo's insurer from April 22, 2002, to April 22, 2003.
Plaintiff began working for Defendant Necso/Redondo on June 18, 2001, as a clerk in the Hato Rey Project Administrative Office. In July 2001, Juan Luis Bustamante began working for Defendant Necso/Redondo as the Project Administrative Manager in the Hato Rey office.
In August 2001, Plaintiff arrived at work to find approximately twenty pages of pornographic material left in the printer dock. According to Plaintiff's allegations, Bustamante was the only person besides her with access to the computer. She believed that he was responsible for leaving the pornographic material in the printer, and *420 reported the incident to the Human Resources director, Rosa Nieves.
Approximately two months later, in October 2001, Plaintiff overheard Bustamante, a Colombian citizen, refer to his co-workers, and Puerto Rican women in general, as a "bunch of prostitutes." Plaintiff reported the incident to Nieves, who relayed the report to Jacinto Piris, the controller and administrative manager of NR's Hato Rey Project. Soon thereafter, Plaintiff was relocated to the Río Bayamón Administrative Office. Deliana Vélez, the clerk at the Río Bayamón administrative office, was relocated to the Hato Rey project.
At the Río Bayamón office, Plaintiff worked alongside Aris Trinidad, a Puerto Rican woman. Within two weeks of joining the new project, Plaintiff heard Piris, a Spanish citizen, make offensive, threatening comments to Trinidad, saying that she "should not exist," and was a "dumb Puerto Rican." Over the course of the following four months, several incidents occurred wherein Piris lashed out at Trinidad and/or Plaintiff, calling them "stupid," denigrating their Puerto Rican origins, and making physically-threatening gestures. During an incident on or about January 31, 2002, Piris grabbed Trinidad's arm. As a result, Trinidad filed a police complaint against Piris. Piris returned without incident to the Río Bayamón office once or twice over the next four months.
On May 16, 2002, Plaintiff filed a discrimination complaint with the Puerto Rico Department of Labor's Anti-Discrimination Unit and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), and delivered a copy of the charge to Nieves' office. Four days later, on May 20, 2002, Plaintiff was terminated. The Río Bayamón office closed two months later because the project had reached completion.
Plaintiff filed the present complaint on January 27, 2004, alleging gender and national origin discrimination and retaliatory discharge. Docket Document No. 1. Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief, back pay, and compensatory, punitive and liquidated damages. Id.
On December 23, 2004, Defendant Necso/Redondo moved for summary judgment. Docket Document No. 20. On January 21, 2005, Plaintiff filed an opposition to the motion. Docket Document No. 40. Defendant Necso/Redondo filed a reply on February 14, 2005. Docket Document No. 66.
Defendant AIICO filed a separate motion for summary judgment on January 3, 2005. Docket Document No. 29. On January 27, 2005, Plaintiff filed an opposition. Docket Document No. 55. On January 28, 2005, Defendant Necso/Redondo also filed a motion in opposition to Defendant AIICO's summary judgment motion. Docket Document No. 58. On March 4, 2005, Defendant AIICO filed a separate reply to each opposition. Docket Document Nos. 77, 78.
II.
Summary Judgment Standard Under Rule 56©
The standard for summary judgment is straightforward and well-established. A district court should grant a motion for summary judgment "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." FED. R. CIV. P. 56©. A factual dispute is "genuine" if it could be resolved in either party's favor, and "material" if it potentially affects the case's outcome. Calero-Cerezo v. United States *421 Dep't of Justice, 355 F.3d 6, 19 (1st Cir.2004).
The moving party carries the burden of establishing that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). However, the burden "may be discharged by `showing'-that is, pointing out to the district court-that there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case." See id. at 325, 106 S.Ct. 2548. The burden has two components: (1) an initial burden of production that shifts to the non-moving party if satisfied by the moving party; and (2) an ultimate burden of persuasion that always remains on the moving party. See id. at 331, 106 S.Ct. 2548.
The non-moving party "may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of the adverse party's pleading, but ... must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(e). Summary judgment exists "to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assess the proof in order to determine the need for trial." Euromodas, Inc. v. Zanella, 368 F.3d 11, 17 (1st Cir.2004) (citing Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992)).
III.
Analysis
A. Defendant AIICO's Summary Judgment Motion
Defendant AIICO moves for summary judgment on the grounds that the Financial Lines Employment Practices Liability Policy ("EPL") created a duty to indemnify Defendant Necso/Redondo, but not a duty to defend Defendant Necso/Redondo. Docket Document No. 29. Defendant AIICO also asserts that the insurance contract issued to Defendant Necso/Redondo does not extend coverage over Plaintiff's claims. Id.
1. Defendant AIICO's Duty to Defend
Defendant AIICO first argues that the EPL terms do not create a duty to defend and, therefore, summary judgment is appropriate. Docket Document No. 77. Defendant Necso/Redondo agrees with this interpretation, but insists that we should deny Defendant AIICO's summary judgment motion because Defendant AIICO's duty to indemnify depends upon facts established at trial. Docket Document No. 58.
We find Defendant AIICO's assertion has no bearing on its liability under state law. Under Puerto Rico law, "[a]ny individual sustaining damages and losses shall have, at his option, a direct action against the insurer under the terms and limitations of the policy...." 26 P.R. LAWS. ANN. § 2003; see de Leon Lopez v. Corporacion Insular de Seguros, 742 F.Supp. 44, 47 (D.P.R.1990) (citing Garcia v. N. Assurance Co., 92 P.R.R. 326, 1965 WL 14310 (1965)). That is to say, Puerto Rico law creates a substantive claim against an insurer separate and distinct from any claim that a plaintiff may have against an insured. De Leon Lopez v. Corporacion Insular de Seguros, 931 F.2d 116, 122 (1st Cir.1991). Thus, Plaintiff has a right to sue Defendant AIICO directly for any claims covered by the insurance policy. See Garcia v. Northern Assurance Co., 92 P.R.R. 236, 246, 1965 WL 14310 (1965) (holding that the injured has a cause of action and a right of action against the insurer when he has a right of action and cause of action against an insured); see also Ramos v. Cont'l Ins. Co., 493 F.2d 329, 331 (1st Cir.1974) (holding that the Puerto Rico direct action statute allows the injured to bring a separate cause of action against the insurer); Fraticelli v. *422 St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 375 F.2d 186, 188 (1st Cir.1967) (same); In re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 789 F.Supp. 1212, 1217 (D.P.R.1992); Reyes-Lopez v. Misener Marine Const. Co., 854 F.2d 529, 530 n. 2 (1st Cir.1988) ("Under `liability insurance' policies ... the insurer is liable only if its insured would be liable.") (citing 12 Couch on Insurance § 45:28). Ultimately, the duty to defend debate is between Defendant Necso/Redondo and Defendant AIICO. It is inapposite, however, to determining Plaintiff's claims against Defendant AIICO.
2. The Prior Acts Endorsement
Defendant AIICO's second argument, whether the EPL covers Plaintiff's claims, provides the appropriate legal context within which to analyze Defendant AIICO's summary judgment motion.
Under the Puerto Rico Insurance Code, an insurance contract is "construed according to the entirety of its terms and conditions as set forth in the policy, and as amplified, extended, or modified by any lawful rider, endorsement, or application attached ... to the policy." 26 P.R. LAWS ANN. § 1125; PFZ Props., Inc. v. Gen. Accident Ins. Co., 136 D.P.R. 881, 902 (1994). When interpreting a contract, contract clauses and provisions should be read in relation to one another, giving to those that are unclear the meaning which arises from considering all the clauses together. 31 P.R. LAWS ANN. § 3475. Terms should be assigned their common meanings, and any term having multiple meanings should be read in the sense most suitable to give it effect. 31 P.R. LAWS ANN. § 3474.
Under Puerto Rico law, when a policy's terms, conditions, and exclusions are unambiguous, they must be enforced according to the parties' will. Quinones Lopez v. Manzano Pozas, 141 D.P.R. 139, 156 (1996). Absent an ambiguity, the contract terms bind the parties. Garcia Curbelo v. A.F.F., 127 D.P.R. 747 (1991).
The EPL policy, covering the period from April 22, 2002, through April 22, 2003, with a continuity date of April 22, 2002, included an endorsement entitled "Prior Acts Endorsement" that reads as follows:
In consideration of the premium charged, its [sic] understood and agreed that this policy only provides coverage for Loss arising out of claims for alleged Wrongful Acts occurring on or after APRIL 22, 2002 and prior to the end of the Policy Period and otherwise covered by this policy. Loss(es) arising out of the same or related Wrongful Act(s) shall be deemed to arise from the first such same or related Wrongful Act.
Docket Document No. 31, Exh. 1. On May 16, 2002, Plaintiff filed a complaint with the EEOC, alleging discriminatory acts that occurred between August 2001 and January 31, 2002. Docket Document Nos. 21; 31, Exh. 2. Because the alleged discrimination took place on or before January 31, 2002, Defendant AIICO contends that Plaintiff's losses "aris[e] out of the same or related Wrongful Act(s)" occurring before April 22, 2002, and, therefore, are not covered by the insurance policy. Docket Document No. 29.
Defendant AIICO argues that Plaintiff's claims arise out of a course of conduct that began in August 2001 and, therefore, are related Wrongful Acts that predate the insurance policy. Docket Document No. 29. Both Plaintiff and Defendants counter that Plaintiff's claims of discrimination and retaliation are not identical and arise out of distinct acts. Docket Document Nos. 55, 58. We agree with the latter view.
The alleged acts that form the basis of Plaintiff's gender and national origin discrimination claims occurred between August *423 2001 and January 31, 2002. Docket Document Nos. 55, 58. No discriminatory acts took place after that date. Thus, the allegations of discrimination arose out of the same or related Wrongful Acts that occurred before the commencement of the EPL policy's coverage on April 22, 2002. Because all acts of discrimination occurred before April 22, 2002, and because the contract terms clearly exclude such acts from the EPL's coverage, Defendant AIICO is not liable for damages that allegedly resulted from those illegal acts. Accordingly, we grant Defendant AIICO's motion for summary judgment as to the claims of gender and national origin discrimination for events occurring between August 2001 and January 31, 2002.
We hold differently, however, as to the allegation of retaliatory termination. Plaintiff's complaint asserts that on May 16, 2002, Plaintiff filed an EEOC complaint against Defendants, on May 20, 2002, she was terminated, and that there was a causal connection between these two events. Docket Document No. 1. According to the complaint, the retaliation claim arises from two events in May 2002, and, thus, arises from events that occurred after the commencement of the EPL policy period. Id. Therefore, we deny Defendant AIICO's summary judgment motion with regard to the Plaintiff's retaliation claim.
B. Title VII Claims
Defendant Necso/Redondo moves for summary judgment on the grounds that Plaintiff: 1) has failed to make a prima facie showing of gender or national origin discrimination; 2) has failed to establish that Defendant Necso/Redondo harbored a hostile work environment; and 3) cannot prove that Defendant Necso/Redondo terminated Plaintiff in retaliation for Plaintiff's EEOC filing. Docket Document Nos. 20, 66.
When considering claims of discrimination under Title VII, we apply the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. The McDonnell Douglas standard requires that a plaintiff set forth a prima facie case by showing that: (1) he is within a protected group; (2) he met the employer's legitimate job performance expectations; (3) he experienced an adverse employment action; and (4) the employer had a continuing need for the Plaintiff's services and replaced him with a person of roughly the same qualifications. Williams v. Raytheon Co., 220 F.3d 16, 18 (1st Cir.2000); Suárez v. Pueblo Int'l, Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir.2000); Vega v. Kodak Caribbean, Ltd., 3 F.3d 476, 479 (1st Cir.1993); Freeman v. Package Mach. Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1335 (1st Cir.1988). "[A] discharged employee is not replaced when another employee is assigned to perform the plaintiff's duties in addition to other duties, or when the work is redistributed among other existing employees already performing related work. Rather, [a] person is replaced only when another employee is hired or reassigned to perform plaintiff's duties." LeBlanc v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 846 (1st Cir.1993); see also Hidalgo v. Overseas Condado Ins. Agencies, 120 F.3d 328, 334 n. 6 (1st Cir.1997).
If the plaintiff either produces direct evidence of discrimination or establishes a prima facie case, there is a presumption that the employer unlawfully discriminated against him. González v. El Día, Inc., 304 F.3d 63, 68-69 (1st Cir.2002); Domínguez-Cruz v. Suttle Caribe, Inc., 202 F.3d 424, 430 (1st Cir.2000). The burden of production then shifts to the employer-defendant, who must rebut the inference of discrimination by articulating some legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment action. Domínguez-Cruz, 202 F.3d at 430; Vega v. Kodak Caribbean, Ltd., 3 F.3d 476, 479 (1st Cir.1993). If the *424 employer meets this burden, the inference of unlawful discrimination is dispelled, and the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that the employer's alleged justification is a pretext for discrimination. Vega, 3 F.3d at 479; Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 823 (1st Cir.1991). At this stage, the plaintiff must produce evidence beyond the mere assertion that the alleged justification is implausible and must show that the employer's discriminatory animus actually motivated the adverse employment action. See Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604, 610, 113 S.Ct. 1701, 123 L.Ed.2d 338 (1993); Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 825. The plaintiff must prove that he would not have suffered the adverse employment action but for his belonging to the protected class. See Kelley v. Airborne Freight Corp., 140 F.3d 335, 348 (1st Cir.1998). Thus, federal law "does not stop a company from discharging an employee for any reason (fair or unfair) or for no reason, so long as the decision to fire does not stem from the person's age." Freeman, 865 F.2d at 1341.
1. Transfer as Gender or National Origin Discrimination
Plaintiff claims that her transfer from the Hato Rey office to the Rio Bayamon office was a discriminatory act that she suffered as a result of being a Puerto Rican woman. Docket Document No. 40. As proof, Plaintiff alleges that she was within a protected group, she met all job expectations, the transfer was an adverse employment action, and she was replaced by Bustamante, a Colombian male. Id.
We are convinced, however, as Defendant Necso/Redondo explains, that Deliana Velez, a Puerto Rican woman, and Plaintiff, merely switched positions. Docket Document Nos. 66; 85, Exh. 2. Bustamante was already working at Hato Rey, occupying the position of "Project Clerk," while both Plaintiff and Velez were "clerks." Docket Document No. 85, Exh. 2. Bustamante did not replace Plaintiff. Velez did. Because Plaintiff was replaced by a Puerto Rican female, a member of the same protected class, Plaintiff cannot establish the fourth element of the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case. See O'Connor v. Consolidated Coin Caterers Corp., 517 U.S. 308, 311, 116 S.Ct. 1307, 134 L.Ed.2d 433 (1996) (citing Texas Dep't of Comty Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 254 n. 7, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981)); Rossy v. Roche Prods., 880 F.2d 621, 625 (1st Cir.1989) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817); Soto v. Runyon, 13 F.Supp.2d 215, 219 (D.P.R.1998) (stipulating that a plaintiff must show that after his rejection, the position was filled by a person not within the protected class). Thus, Plaintiff cannot establish a claim of gender or national discrimination with regard to her transfer from Hato Rey to Río Bayamón.
2. Hostile Work Environment Claim
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Necso/Redondo discriminated against her by creating a hostile work environment. Docket Document No. 1, 40. Title VII provides that "[i]t shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
Defendant Necso/Redondo argues that Plaintiff was not subjected to a hostile work environment because the alleged incidents were isolated and infrequent. Docket Document No. 66.
A hostile work environment violates Title VII "[w]hen the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, *425 ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993) (citations and quotation marks omitted); Kosereis v. Rhode Island, 331 F.3d 207, 216 (1st Cir.2003). Though there is no "mathematically precise test" to determine whether Plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that she was subjected to a hostile work environment, Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, 114 S.Ct. 367; Kosereis, 331 F.3d at 216, the pattern of conduct complained of must be "(1) characterized by intimidation, ridicule and insult, not just minor unpleasantness or criticism, (2) offensive to the complainant precisely because of his or her membership in a protected class, and (3) sufficiently burdensome to materially alter the conditions of the complainant's employment." White v. N.H. Dep't of Corr., 221 F.3d 254, 259-60 (1st Cir.2000). We look to all of the circumstances, including the frequency and severity of the discriminatory conduct, whether it was physically threatening or humiliating, and whether it unreasonably interfered with Plaintiff's work performance. See Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 116, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002); Che v. Mass. Bay Trans. Auth., 342 F.3d 31, 40 (1st Cir.2003); Kosereis, 331 F.3d at 216; Gorski v. N.H. Dep't of Corr., 290 F.3d 466, 472 (1st Cir.2002); O'Rourke v. City of Providence, 235 F.3d 713, 729 (1st Cir.2001). Courts are supposed to use "[c]ommon sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context," to distinguish between innocuous behavior and severely hostile or abusive conduct. Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 82, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998); Kosereis, 331 F.3d at 216. Hostile work environment claims based on racial or origin harassment are reviewed under the same standard as those based on sexual harassment. See Nat'l R.R., 536 U.S. at 116 n. 10, 122 S.Ct. 2061; see also Faragher v. Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 786-87, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998); Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 66-67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986).
Plaintiff has alleged repeated incidents that involved physically-threatening and humiliating conduct. Docket Document Nos. 1, 40. Defendant Necso/Redondo does little to rebut these allegations. Docket Document No. 66. Piris screamed abusive epithets about women and Puerto Ricans, told Plaintiff's co-worker repeatedly that she should not exist, and grabbed Plaintiff's co-worker by the arm in a fit of rage. Docket Document No. 40. These outbursts allegedly took place on a monthly basis, and both Plaintiff and Trinidad filed police reports as a result of Piris' behavior. Id. These comments are not simple teasing, offhand comments or isolated incidents. See Faragher, 524 U.S. at 788, 118 S.Ct. 2275; White, 221 F.3d at 259-60. Taken as a whole, the incidents were frequent, severe, offensive, threatening, and abusive. See Nat'l R.R., 536 U.S. at 116, 122 S.Ct. 2061; Kosereis, 331 F.3d at 216; Gorski, 290 F.3d at 472; O'Rourke, 235 F.3d at 729. We further note that determining whether the work conditions rose to the level of a hostile work environment is "best left for the jury." Che, 342 F.3d at 40. Consequently, Defendant Necso/Redondo's motion for summary judgment with regard to the hostile work environment claim is denied.
3. Retaliation
Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee "because [the employee] has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice ... or because [the employee] has *426 made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under [Title VII]." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3.
Like other discrimination claims, in the absence of direct evidence, a plaintiff must first make a prima facie claim of retaliation. To present a prima facie case of retaliation, a plaintiff must show (1) that she engaged in protected activity, (2) that she suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) that there was a causal nexus between the protected activity and the firing. Bishop v. Bell Atl. Corp., 299 F.3d 53, 58 (1st Cir.2002); Higgins v. New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., 194 F.3d 252, 262 (1st Cir.1999); Hernandez-Torres v. Intercontinental Trading, Inc., 158 F.3d 43, 47 (1st Cir.1998). Once Plaintiff makes her prima facie showing, the burden shifts to Defendant Necso/Redondo to articulate legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for its employment decisions. See Fennell v. First Step Designs, Ltd., 83 F.3d 526, 535 (1st Cir.1996); see also Texas Dep't of Comty. Affairs, 450 U.S. at 252-53, 101 S.Ct. 1089. If Defendant Necso/Redondo does so, the ultimate burden falls on Plaintiff to show that the proffered legitimate reason is pretextual and that the adverse employment action resulted from the Defendant Necso/Redondo's retaliatory animus. Fennell, 83 F.3d at 535 (citing St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 510-11, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993)).
a. Prima Facie Case of Retaliation
Defendant Necso/Redondo does not dispute the first two elements of Plaintiff's prima facie case. Docket Document No. 22. The record indicates that Plaintiff engaged in a protected activity, and was subsequently terminated. Docket Document No. 40. We focus on the third element to determine whether there was a causal nexus between Plaintiff's EEOC complaint and her termination.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Necso/Redondo terminated her employment on May 20, 2002, because she filed an EEOC complaint on May 16, 2002. Docket Document No. 1. Defendant Necso/Redondo counters that neither Piris nor Nieves knew of the EEOC complaint when the decision to terminate Plaintiff was made and, therefore, Plaintiff cannot establish a causal connection between the two. Docket Document No. 22.
Providing no direct evidence, Plaintiff relies almost exclusively upon the temporal proximity between her EEOC complaint and her termination to establish the causal nexus necessary for the third prong. Docket Document No. 40.
The cases that accept mere temporal proximity between an employer's knowledge of protected activity and an adverse employment action as sufficient to establish a prima facie case uniformly require that the temporal proximity be "very close." Clark County Sch. Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 273-74, 121 S.Ct. 1508, 149 L.Ed.2d 509 (2001); see also Bishop, 299 F.3d at 60 (finding thirty-month period insufficient).
Defendant Necso/Redondo terminated Plaintiff only four days after she filed an EEOC complaint. This clearly satisfies the "very close" requirement. See Calero-Cerezo v. United States Dep't of Justice, 355 F.3d 6, 25-26 (1st Cir.2004) (finding that a one-month interval between the protected conduct and the adverse employment action provides sufficient temporal proximity to establish a prima facie case). Nieves' assertion that she had no knowledge of Plaintiff's EEOC complaint when she decided to terminate Plaintiff, Docket Document No. 21, is inadequate to undercut the strength of the inferences drawn from the temporal proximity. See Wright *427 v. CompUSA, Inc., 352 F.3d 472, 478 (1st Cir.2003) (holding that temporal proximity alone, despite employer's proffer of a legitimate excuse, was sufficient to establish a prima facie case). Therefore, we find that Plaintiff has established a prima facie case of retaliation.
b. Legitimate Excuse for Termination
As Plaintiff has established a prima facie case, the burden shifts to Defendant Necso/Redondo to articulate a non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment action. See Fennell, 83 F.3d at 535. Defendant Necso/Redondo asseverates that the adverse employment action was not retaliatory, but rather part of their general practice to make "reductions in force" when a project or phase of a project reached partial or total termination. Docket Document No. 21. According to Defendant Necso/Redondo, the Rio Bayamon office had nearly reached completion and Plaintiff was terminated as a result. Id. Defendant Necso/Redondo supports its claim with evidence that the Rio Bayamon office was closed two months later. Id. Proof that Plaintiff would have been terminated regardless of her protected conduct adequately carries Defendant Necso/Redondo's burden. See, e.g., Board of County Com'rs, Wabaunsee County, Kan. v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668, 685, 116 S.Ct. 2342, 135 L.Ed.2d 843 (1996). Having provided a legitimate reason for its employment decision, Defendant Necso/Redondo has satisfied its burden. Wright, 352 F.3d at 478.
c. Pretext
Under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting process, the burden returns to Plaintiff to demonstrate Defendant Necso/Redondo's stated reason was pretextual. Plaintiff can meet this burden "either directly, by persuading the Court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly, by showing that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence." Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. 1089.
Pretext can be proven in several ways, including, but not limited to, evidence of differential treatment in the workplace, statistical evidence showing disparate treatment, temporal proximity of an employee's protected activity to an employer's adverse action, and the employer's comments that intimate a retaliatory mindset. Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d at 824 (1st Cir.1991) (citing cases). Whatever the sources of proof, a plaintiff, in order to survive judgment as a matter of law, must present evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that the employer retaliated against the plaintiff for engaging in protected activity. Id.
Plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that Defendant Necso/Redondo's stated reason for Plaintiff's termination was pretextual. See Wright, 352 F.3d at 478. Again, we focus on the temporal proximity between the EEOC filing and Plaintiff's termination. The four-day period is so proximate and provocative that, based upon that fact alone, a reasonable fact-finder could determine that Defendant Necso/Redondo's stated reason was pretextual. Id. Furthermore, though the Rio Bayamon office was eventually closed and Plaintiff's position was eliminated, Plaintiff's co-worker was not terminated for another two months. Docket Document No. 22. Even if Plaintiff eventually would have been terminated for non-discriminatory reasons, her early termination on May 20, 2002, is potentially significant for the purpose of liability under Title VII. The First Circuit has consistently held that determinations of motive and intent, particularly *428 in discrimination cases, are questions better suited for the jury, as proof is generally predicated on inferences, rather than direct evidence. Petitti v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 909 F.2d 28, 34 (1st Cir.1990) (quoting Rossy v. Roche Prod. Inc., 880 F.2d 621, 624 (1st Cir.1989)). Accordingly, we deny Defendant Necso/Redondo's motion regarding the claims of retaliation.
IV.
Conclusion
In accordance with the foregoing, we GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Defendant AIICO's motion for summary judgment. Docket Document Nos. 29, 77, 78. Thus, Plaintiff's retaliation claims survive Defendant AIICO's motion for summary judgment, while the gender and national origin claims are dismissed.
We also GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Defendant Necso/Redondo's motion for summary judgment. Docket Document Nos. 20, 66. Plaintiff's gender and national origin claims with regard to her transfer from Hato Rey to Rio Bayamon are dismissed. Plaintiff's hostile work environment and retaliation claims survive Defendant Necso/Redondo's motion.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
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Q:
External exFat HDD as NAS, can't create rename/delete directories or files
I'm trying to use my Pi as a NAS (among other things), so I mounted an external HDD and set up samba to use it. However, it turns out now that when I connect from my mac I can't rename or delete files and directories on it.
These are the permissions on it currently:
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 131072 Mar 19 20:02 disk1
I tried to chmod both the disk itself and folders on it, but I get the message that the function is not implemented.
From what I gathered, chmod is not supported for exFat. I used exFat so that I could unplug the disk and use it on both my macbook and my windows pc safely.
Is there anything I can do to fix this? Currently my options seem to be:
Format the disk to another file system.
Learn to live with the fact that I can store things on the NAS from other devices, but need to login to my Pi to alter/delete them
Is there anything I'm missing here? In case I need another file system, which would be recommended?
A:
The permissions displayed are not on the disk itself, as exFAT does not support ownership etc, but are inherited from the directory in which it is mounted.
The permissions displayed indicate that only the owner of the files (root) has write permission. You could fix this by creating a Samba group, and giving this write permission.
Rather than using Samba (which is a b... of a protocol) you may want to try installing netatalk on the Pi. This would let you access the Pi filesystem from Finder, like a native file. (Of course this won't enable control of file ownership etc, because of the exFAT limitations.)
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Q:
Bad file descriptor error when trying to associate fmemopen file descriptor with stdin
I'm trying to interpose fscanf function that originally reads from stdin like fscanf(stdin,"%ms", &secret). In my interposed function, I'm trying to make it to read from an input file that I created with character string. Following is what I'm doing:
int fscanf(FILE *stream, const char *format, ...){
FILE * in ;
char * buffer = "secretString";
size_t length = strlen(buffer);
in = fmemopen(buffer, length, "r");
if (in== NULL){
handle_error("fmemopen");}
// This is the part where I'm trying to feed my file as stdin
// since original fscanf expects stdin which I'm trying to hack
int dptr = fileno(in);
dup2(dptr, 0);
va_list args;
va_start(args, format);
int p = vfscanf(in, format, args);
va_end(ap);
fclose(in);
return p;
}
However, I'm getting Bad file descriptor error. I would appreciate if someone can tell me what am I doing wrong.
A:
I'm not clear where you got the idea that you should try to replace the file descriptor for stdin like this. It can't work that way, because the whole point of fmemopen is that there is no underlying file (and thus no file descriptor) behind it; it's merely an adaptation of an in-memory buffer to the stdio API.
Fortunately, I see no reason you need or want to remap file descriptors to do what you want. If you're intercepting fscanf and re-calling vfscanf with a different FILE* argument, stdin is not getting used, so any changes to it would have no effect.
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Peter O’Neil: Top parties in three-horse race, poll finds
Related
OTTAWA — A surprising national poll released Thursday is boosting speculation within — if not yet outside — New Democratic Party circles that the NDP has a legitimate shot at forming government after the October election.
The Ekos poll of 2,177 Canadians from May 6-12, using interactive voice response technology, had the main parties in a tight three-way battle.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were at 30 per cent, the NDP at 29 per cent, and the Liberals at 27 per cent, with the Green party in fourth with eight per cent, according to a survey which is, according to Ekos, accurate to within 2.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
The NDP was up five points over the previous week, suggesting that the historic Alberta election result put wind in the party’s sails.
“But it would be a mistake to see the NDP’s rise as merely a bounce effect from Alberta,” Ekos pollster Frank Graves said in his analysis.
“In fact, the past four months have shown a clear pattern of growing support for the New Democrats, lifting them up from 18 points in early February to 29 points today.”
The poll’s regional breakdown for B.C. had the NDP at 31 per cent, the Tories at 29 per cent, the Liberals at 28 per cent, and the Greens at 10 per cent
Graves added a caveat for New Democrat stalwarts hoping for their first invitation to a 24 Sussex Drive garden party.
“The critical question is whether these shifts represent a new normal or just ephemeral byproduct of the Alberta election.”
A B.C. survey by Insights West released earlier this week also suggested the NDP is on the rise. It found that 35 per cent of decided voters were favouring the NDP, versus 29 per cent for the Conservatives, 25 per cent for the Liberals, and 10 per cent for the Greens.
The poll, done May 7-9, involved 814 respondents and has an error margin of 3.1 points, according to pollster Mario Canseco.
The poll had the NDP up slightly from the party’s 32.5-per-cent showing in the 2011 election, while the Conservatives were down sharply from the 46-per-cent result.
That has raised questions about potential NDP gains at the Conservatives’ expense in the autumn election.
If the 2011 election results are transposed onto the new 42-seat B.C. electoral map, the NDP got the most votes in 11 ridings and came second — almost always to Conservatives — in another 24.
While the gap between first and second was huge in most instances, in others the gap was within 15 percentage points: Courtenay-Alberni, North Island-Powell River, Vancouver Centre (won by Liberal Hedy Fry), South Okanagan-West Kootenay, Port Moody-Coquitlam, Burnaby-North Seymour, Kootenay-Columbia, and Fleetwood-Port Kells.
University of B.C. political scientist Richard Johnston said the NDP’s momentum is based not just on an Alberta carry-over, but also on some key issues.
NDP leader Tom Mulcair “has been the only real critic of the government,” he said.
If anti-Harper Canadians start viewing the NDP — rather than the Liberals — as the best vehicle to defeat Tories, that could be disastrous news for Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Johnston said.
“The Liberals are a house of cards, and I have been saying so since 2011.”
University of Victoria professor emeritus Norman Ruff concurred.
“This picture undermines the grooming of Trudeau as the ‘Dauphin’ and will put still more bravado in Mulcair’s step as it blows away any notion that the 2011 NDP breakthrough was only a one-off,” he said.
But Johnston doesn’t share Sandhu’s optimism about the possibility Mulcair might be Canada’s next prime minister, due largely to the divided anti-Tory opposition in seat-rich Ontario.
Despite its national gains, the NDP remained third in Ontario, at 27 per cent, compared to the Conservatives at 33 per cent, the Liberals at 31 per cent, and the Greens at eight per cent, according to Ekos.
“I don’t see it happening, not in 2015,” Johnston said, predicting that a Liberal-NDP split of the anti-Conservative vote in Ontario will help Harper get the most seats when all the votes are counted.
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Peter O’Neil: Top parties in three-horse race, poll finds
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One of the local TV station in Salt Lake is doing a report about these kits. I can't remember which one it is but I think it is on tonight. If I see another ad for it, I'll post the station and the time.
The station that ran a report on these testing kits was Fox 13 in Salt Lake City. It must have been on last night, Feb. 26th. I missed it. The report is on their website. It mainly reported on the privacy concerns about what happens or can happen to your information.
* DNA is only the result of a fraction of your ancestry.* The results and interpretation they give is questionable.* They probably sell on your DNA to health insurers, and are building up a database on people like Facebook and Google do.
tumwater Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> With various message streams regarding ancestry,> heredity, family lines, which of the various> services would be considered the best?>> Any recommendations?>> The stream on Jews in CO and NM in Spanish> families has me intrigued, I'm from northern NM> and come from Spanish heritage.One that reports your Neanderthal DNA, like 23andme. I found out I am 2.8% Neanderthal and I have 160 relatives that I now know of and can communicate with, all over the world.
I find the whole process interesting. BTW, I had 271 Neanderthal traits. A first cousin popped up on my relative list and I contacted him and asked why I didn't know him. It turns out he was adopted (more family secrets) and we had a good time over text and email finding our family. We have the same Great Grand parents.
I hope to have your experience one day. My father was adapted and never knew his birth parents / relatives. All his life, he always wondered if he just ran into a brother, sister and other family member whenever we took vacations.He died a few years ago, before I paid attention to ancestry DNA,They weren’t all over tv as they are now.That would of made his day to get his own true results back.I did my mom’s and mine last year, mainly to try to find someone from my fathers side by elimination.She had what we expected, except she had ALSO some 10 % middle eastern and 6% Jewish , 46 % Southern Europe , that we didn’t know.I had 34% British, and 16% Western Europe,which I knew, but 11% Jewish , 16% Eastern Europe, but only 6% Greek, which my mom only got 35%, her dad was supposed to be 100% Greek, that’s all he ever talked about, turns out he probably had some middle eastern in him that he didn’t know about or was hiding.I also had 4% Russian , few other traces.So, I figured the Eastern European and Russian was on his side, since it didn’t show up on hers.I was confused about the Jewish part though, how could I get 11% Jewish if my mom is only 6%?I hope I find some of my relatives on my dads side.
tumwater Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> The stream on Jews in CO and NM in Spanish> families has me intrigued, I'm from northern NM> and come from Spanish heritage.
A prospective "Welcome to the tribe!" tumwater... :D
If you go to YouTube and do a search for: "Dr. Henry Abramson, Sephardim," a number of really interesting lectures will come up, some of which I have already seen and highly recommend, and others which I have yet to see.
Dr. Abramson (who is a historian; he teaches history at university level) is in the midst of a new series right now, titled "The Sephardic Diaspora."
I just finished listening to Part 3: "Who Was the Chida?"...and I am looking forward to listening to Part 1 and Part 2 of this new series (I often listen to his lectures when I am working in the kitchen).
[EDITED TO ADD: I have just finished Part 1, which is a well-done and well-presented overview of this history, but may be a bit overly detail-rich as an easy Intro. In my life, I have always (instinctively) looked for the "most easily accessible door" to enter a subject new to me, and this optimum "new door" has often proven to be sideways or peripheral to the main subject I am trying to learn. For me, I think, right now, that Part 3 would have been an easier-for-me "entry door"...but I also haven't heard Part 2 yet, so consider this a preliminary report which is subject to future revision. And to clarify: mostly I am listening to these lectures first, as I work in the kitchen or wherever, and I look at the video screen when there is something I really want to see at that moment. Then later, when I am NOT working in the kitchen or whatever, I actually VIEW the video. :) ]
[EDITED TO ADD: I just finished Part 2, the title of which is going to sound both odd and arcane: "Who Was Samuel Usque?," a person I had never heard of before a few hours ago---and very probably no one reading this has probably ever heard about before either. Regardless, Part 2 of this series is a pivotal presentation, in that it explains not only "why" and "how" Portugal became so mixed-up in all this (which is a very important part of the story), but FAR more importantly, it explains the HUMAN story which WAS the living reality of the Jews, and the "hidden Jews"/"Christians," of the pre-Inquisition (including the Expulsion) period...the Inquisition itself period...and the [mostly] post-Inquisition period (which includes the Spanish colonization of what is now the southwestern United States).
If you want to know the human story of the people who actually lived those lives, Part 2 of this series is where to begin---even if you, like me, had never heard the name "Samuel Usque" before today.]
If your brain initially works better with facts, dates, and data points, then my recommendation is that you begin this series with Part 1.
If you are more interested in the human story of the PEOPLE who did these things, and WHY they did these things, then I recommend beginning with Part 2.
The other important item of note is: as part of this new series, there will be (in a week or two, if I am remembering correctly) an evidently to-the-point presentation specifically about the "Crypto-Jews" [meaning: "secret Jews"..."hidden Jews"...Marranos...anusim (this is the word in Hebrew)...pick whatever term you feel most comfortable with].
Dr. Abramson is exceptionally good at presenting what is often very convoluted history in understandable and interesting ways to general audiences---I understand he is also markedly popular with his university undergraduate and graduate students as well---and I am very much looking forward to what he has to say about the hidden Jews of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
Dorothy Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> Some of my nurse friends theorized that this> disease meant incest and inbreeding were in a> victim’s background.>> I’m blaming all of the polygamy on my dad’s> side.
I have never heard of this before...and I thank you, Dorothy, for this post.
This possibility might, in future years, be of great value for me to know.
I did 23&me, no surprises, Irish and Eastern European (Polish). Smidges of other European nationalities like Scandinavian, German, but these were far back in time. Those Vikings went everywhere. I did reconnect with the daughter of a cousin in Canada I had lost touch with, but most of the many names they gave me were pretty distant cousins of some degree.
I did not opt for the health stuff, too much of an anxious hypocondriac to be told I MIGHT get something, especially something that cannot be cured. My husband thinks their health stuff is questionable and he knows much more about science than me.
It was kind of fun to do, but I really cannot relate to someone who shared a many times great-grandparent with me from 200 plus years ago. But I am not much into genealogy either.
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Ravens notebook: Jacoby Jones gets third return TD of season
-- The latest star turn in Ravens return specialist Jacoby Jones' stellar season unfolded Sunday night as he bolted into the end zone on a punt return for a touchdown.
Jones' 63-yard first-quarter score during a pivotal 13-10 AFC North victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field marks his third return for a score this season, and his second in the past two games.
The speedy 6-foot-2, 220-pounder twisted and turned up the left sideline, eluding tacklers before breaking away from the defense for good when he reversed field and outran defenders to reach the right corner of the end zone.
Jones celebrated in trademark fashion with an elaborate, exuberant dance in the end zone.
"We've been emphasizing punt returns because we already got two kickoff returns," Jones said. "As soon as Josh Bynes pushed his guy out and I got up in the seams, daylight opened up. We've been working on it real hard and it hit like it did in practice. The boys did a good job of blocking, and I did what I do best and that's run as fast as possible.
"As soon as I called it, I paused so they could get down and get on their blocks. I started one way and Josh did a great job of pushing his guy off when I got inside. They were trying to get outside the wall, but I saw nothing but open field to the right, so I thought: 'Why not go this way?'"
This touchdown follows Jones returning a kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown a week ago during a 55-20 rout of the Oakland Raiders, and being named the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for the second time this season.
Jones said there was little chance Steelers rookie punter Drew Butler would catch up with him in pursuit, saying: "People in hell have snow cones," when asked if the punter had a chance to chase him down.
Signed to a two-year, $7 million contract during the spring, the former Houston Texans starter tied an NFL record for longest kickoff return with a 108-yard score against the Dallas Cowboys.
"Go out there and vote for Jacoby for the Pro Bowl," said Anthony Allen, Jones' primary blocking back. "He's a returner, he's one of the best in the game. He can kick return or punt returner with the best of them."
Jones has never been named to the Pro Bowl before, but indicated heading into this game that he plans to bring a large entourage to Hawaii with him if he's named to the AFC squad.
That includes Jones' mother, Allen and special-teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg.
"If it happens, I'm taking everybody," Jones said Sunday. "Lets all go to Hawaii, but I've got my eyes on the Super Bowl."
Jones said his latest dance is called the "Choppa City Juke," mixed with a dance borrowed by Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
"Jacoby should be on Dancing With The Stars," Allen said. "He comes up with something different every week."
Jones averaged 33 yards per punt return against the Steelers, including the touchdown while executing four fair catches.
He returned two kickofs for 58 yards.
"Jacoby Jones came up big again," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "He's been huge. He's the best dancer on the team, too. I'm proud of Jacoby, I'm proud of the special teams. Those are the hidden points that mkae differences in games."
Pitta sidelined with concussionRavens tight end Dennis Pitta got knocked out of the game with concussion symptoms sustained during the first quarter.
Pitta went to the locker room to be examined after being shaken up on a tackle by free safety Ryan Clark and linebacker Lawrence Timmons.
Pitta was also examined during the Oakland game, but managed to return and caught five passes for 67 yards with one touchdown.
For the season, Pitta has 38 receptions for 381 yards and three touchdowns. That includes one reception for five yards against Pittsburgh.
Steelers running back Isaac Redman (Bowie State) left the game with a concussion and defensive lineman Ziggy Hood left with a back injury.
Immediate contributor
Out of football since being cut during the offseason by the Raiders, newly-minted Ravens cornerback Chris Johnson got up to speed in a hurry on the basic details of defensive coordinator Dean Pees' playbook.
Signed to a one-year, $825,000 contract last Tuesday following a successful tryout, Johnson was able to put that knowledge to use against the Steelers as he forced a fumble that led to 26-yard Justin Tucker field goal.
Johnson left the game after tweaking his hamstring, but indicated it wasn't serious and wasn't limping after the game in the locker room.
"I came down wrong," Johnson said. "It's all good. It's just strained a little bit."
Johnson, 33, entered the game cornerback in the second defensive series when the Ravens came out in the nickel package, lining up outside as Corey Graham shifted inside to play the slot receiver.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pounder stripped wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders from behind with free safety Ed Reed picking up the loose football and returning it 17 yards to the Steelers' 12-yard line.
"I've been doing this for a long time," said Johnson, who has eight career interceptions. "I take boxing lessons, so that's a jab from me. Once I seen him cut across my face, I just wanted to get my hands in there and I knew I knocked the ball out."
Reid gets the start
Left offensive guard Jah Reid started the first game of his NFL career one week after playing all but two series against the Raiders in relief of veteran Bobbie Williams.
The 6-foot-7, 330-pounder worked almost exclusively with the first-team offense during practice last week.
Although Reid delivered a solid block a week ago against the Raiders on Pro Bowl running back Ray Rice's touchdown run, he faltered early in the game against Pittsburgh.
Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel got past Reid with a quick move to deck Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco in the first half.
"I want to acknowledge the first play was terrible," Reid said. "I had some good plays and bad plays. I played hard. Hopefully, I didn't disappoint the coaches. I'll give Keisel credit.
"It wasn't a missed assignment. He just beat me fair and square. I learned from it and I tried not to let it hapepn again in the game."
Williams said he feels confident he'll get another chance at some point this season.
"You know what, they wanted to make sure everything is rested up," Williams said. "They wanted to let Jah get the opportunity. Absolutely, there will be more opportunities for me."
Added Graham: "That's how it is. When you have injuries, the next guy has to step up and I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to play with Ed Reed and Chykie Brown and you just got to step up and make plays. The game's not going to stop, and the team's not going to stop. We have to find a way to fit in and find a way to get it done."
The Pro Bowl special-teams ace also delivered a big hit on unsuspecting Steelers tight end Heath Miller late in the game to help preserve the win.
"I tried to go out there and make plays, and I was fortunate," said Graham, who intercepted three passes last season with the Chicago Bears. "He didn't see me coming and instead of going for the ball, I went for the hit."
Meanwhile, backup safety James Ihedigbo delivered a punishing hit on his sack of Leftwich on a delay blitz.
"It was a zone pressure," Ihedigbo said. "I was supposed to come outside, and I saw it open up. I went for it and made a good play. That's what I'm here for, whatever I can do to make an impact. I was glad that I did and helped our team."
The Ravens' oft-maligned defense held the Steelers to 10 points as Leftwich completed just 18 of 39 passes for 201 yards and no touchdowns for a 51.3 quarterback rating.
The Steelers were held to 17 first downs and 311 yards of total offense, progress for a defense that has struggled to stop people this season.
"We got to find a way to go out there and get it done," Graham said. "We haven't been playing the best the last couple weeks, or the whole season some people say, but we have to find a way to get wins and that's what we were able to go out and do today."
R. Lewis in the house
Injured Ravens middle linebacker Ray Lewis made his presence felt on the sidelines, waving around his surgically-repaired right arm in a way that suggests his recovery is going well.
On injured reserve-designated to return, the former NFL Defensive Player of the Year flew into Pittsburgh on Sunday to attend the game.
Before kickoff, Lewis exhorted his defensive teammates to get them fired up.
After the game heading into the locker room, Lewis said loudly: "That's how you finish."
Lewis could return at some point this season despite undergoing surgery for a torn right triceps suffered against the Cowboys.
The Ravens are hoping he can recover from his injury in time for the postseason.
Lewis has been spending time in Florida recuperating from his injury, but visited the Ravens during a practice at team headquarters recently and went to the Raiders game.
Homecoming for Gradkowski
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Ravens rookie center Gino Gradkowski played at Heinz Field when he was in high school.
And Gradkowski returned to his hometown Sunday night with roughly 30 family members and friends in the stands.
"My dad actually knows a guy with the Steelers, so he took care of the tickets," Gradkowski said Friday. "I'll be able to go home and see my family and have dinner, no [popular Pittsburgh sandwich shop] Primanti Brothers this time. My mom's going to cook. It's awesome to be able to come back to Pittsburgh as an NFL player for the first time. It's a really cool thing for me."
End zoneThe Ravens scratched nose guard Terrence Cody due to an arm injury with Ma'ake Kemoeatu starting again. ... Starting left defensive end Pernell McPhee was deactivated because of right knee and thigh injuries, and Arthur Jones started in his place for the third game in a row. ... The Ravens also deactivated cornerback Jimmy Smith (sports hernia surgery), kick returner Deonte Thompson and cornerback Asa Jackson. ... The Ravens' game captains were Reed, Flacco and outside linebacker Albert McClellan. ... Baltimore won the coin toss and deferred. ... Several former Steelers legends were at the game for an alumni gathering, including retired wide receivers Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, and Hines Ward as well as former running back Jerome Bettis and defensive linemen Joe Greene and L.C. [email protected]/RavensInsider
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An Oklahoma public university is reconsidering its original decision to remove religious articles from its chapel after it received a complaint from an organization that describes itself as a “national religious liberty watchdog group.”
On Friday East Central University (ECU) announced it was putting a halt to its removal of religious articles, such as bibles and crosses, from its Kathryn P. Boswell Memorial Chapel and steeple, until receiving feedback from students and faculty.
“We moved too quickly,” said Katricia Pierson, ECU president. “We regret not taking time to pause and thoughtfully consider the request and the results of our actions on all of the students, faculty and community members who we serve.”
Pierson said the school began removing the religious items after receiving a complaint from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a group that says it “envision[s] an America where everyone can freely choose a faith and support it voluntarily, or follow no religious or spiritual path at all, and where the government does not promote religion over non-religion or favor one faith over another.”
AU's Ian Smith spoke to @spulliam on why an OK university should consider removing Bibles & crosses from its chapel https://t.co/kiEmzJ7Wo2 — Americans United (@americansunited) June 30, 2017
The university should be a welcoming place for people of all faiths or none. We appreciate the university's serious review of the issue. https://t.co/mfhQNfxtGg — Americans United (@americansunited) June 30, 2017
Much of the Americans United website is devoted to LGBT advocacy and reproductive rights.
During #PrideMonth & every month, we stand with the LGBTQ community & oppose discrimination in the name of religion: https://t.co/Ywf7AxMVxh pic.twitter.com/QafCtFfF4L — Americans United (@americansunited) June 30, 2017
According to the Washington Post, the letter Americans United sent to ECU states:
While it is legal for a public university to have a space that can be used by students for religious worship so long as that space is not dedicated solely to that purpose, it is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to display religious iconography on government property. Please remove or cover the religious displays and items.
Ian Smith, an attorney for Americans United, told the Post he does not know of other schools that have religious icons displayed.
“In this case, everything screams this is a Christian chapel,” he said, adding that students can bring their own religious items to the chapel.
“Iconography communicates a message,” he said. “It can’t be a room just for religious use.”
However, in 2013, John Eastman, law professor at Chapman University, told Breitbart News the phrase “separation of Church and State” is not in the Constitution as many believe. He added that Americans United has continued the phrase’s incorrect usage as it sues city councils, schools, and other groups to pressure them to remove God from their institutions.
“It’s become part of the common parlance … you go to any city council meeting, [and you’ll hear] ‘You can’t do that, it violates the separation of church and state.’ People believe that’s what the Constitution actually says,” Eastman said.
ECU has also received a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which requested the school discontinue its sacred music program. FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor claims the sacred music program is not academic and secular, but religious, and, therefore violates the Constitution, reports Tulsa World.
“ECU certainly cannot train Christian ministers to promote a sectarian religious message,” the FFRF letter stated. “Similarly, it cannot train choir leaders to promote the same message.”
Randall Christy, founder of the Gospel Station Network based in Ada, Oklahoma, told Tulsa World, “It’s time for Christian people to take a stand for our history and heritage.”
“The idea that the cross excludes people is not true — it’s the opposite,” Christy said. “The cross represents that all are welcome, that people of all walks of life are loved by God.”
“I urge Gov. Fallin to stop this removal of the cross until all legal options can be examined,” he continued. “And I encourage Christians to immediately make your voices heard on this matter. ECU administration is not the enemy here. It’s outside forces at work to force this action upon our local university.”
Pierson said the school will bring together a committee of students, faculty, and community members to study the issue of removing the religious items.
“I commend ECU for reviewing the policies, and taking the time to thoughtfully consider the impacts on everyone in the university and Ada community,” said state Sen. Greg McCortney (R), according to the university’s announcement.
“ECU is committed to diversity and welcomes different perspectives,” Pierson continued. “This is an opportunity to have a thoughtful dialogue. ECU will not take further action until the committee has had ample time to discuss and establish policies or guidelines for religious expressions in the art, history, architecture, study and areas of worship on campus.”
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133 Ill. App.3d 704 (1985)
479 N.E.2d 350
GRANT L. BRIGGS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
DALE ALLEN GADDIS et al., Defendants-Appellants (Marathon Oil Company, Defendant-Appellee).
No. 5-84-0482.
Illinois Appellate Court Fifth District.
Opinion filed April 12, 1985.
E.H. Price and Mark Shaner, both of Robinson, for appellants.
Thomas J. Logue, of Glenn & Logue, of Mattoon, for appellees Grant L. Briggs and Davana M. Briggs.
Judgment affirmed.
JUSTICE WELCH delivered the opinion of the court:
Plaintiffs Grant and Davana Briggs brought this action for a declaratory judgment that they were entitled to one-half of the royalties from an oil and gas lease covering a 13-acre tract of land owned by the Briggs and a 40-acre tract adjacent to it. The Briggs also sought payment by defendant Marathon Oil and Gas Company (Marathon) for *705 their share of royalties due and owing. Defendants Dale and Ann Gaddis are the owners of the adjacent 40-acre tract; defendant Virginia Walker is a partial assignee of the mineral rights as to the tract owned by the Gaddises. After a bench trial, the circuit court of Crawford County granted the relief sought by Briggs. Mr. and Mrs. Gaddis and Ms. Walker appeal. We affirm.
In 1907, lessors Marion D. Eaton et al. executed an oil and gas lease to the lessee, the Ohio Oil Company, of 53 acres in Crawford County. The minerals under the entire 53-acre tract were owned by the same people until September 9, 1931, when the ownership became divided, with Rosa Coffman becoming the owner of the minerals under the east 40 acres and Elizabeth Eaton becoming the owner of the minerals under the west 13 acres. The lease contained no entireties clause. Instead, an oral agreement was made between the two owners that they would each receive one-half of the royalties for all oil produced from the entire lease, regardless of whether such oil was produced from the 13-acre tract or from the 40-acre tract. All the oil was collected in a single tank battery.
The arrangement continued through the various subsequent owners of the two tracts, with such owners signing various "division orders" (i.e., agreements) setting out the agreed arrangement. The last division order was on July 21, 1955, when there was one producing well on the 40-acre tract and one on the 13-acre tract. The division order provided that, by agreement, the royalty from oil produced would be split equally by the owners of the tracts and their successors in title "until such time as secondary recovery methods may be put in operation on the premises." Sometime thereafter Marathon succeeded the Ohio Oil Company and began paying out the royalties. The Briggs acquired the minerals under the 13-acre tract in 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Gaddis acquired one-half of the minerals under the 40-acre tract in 1972, and Ms. Walker acquired another one-half of the minerals under the 40-acre tract in 1977. From October 1971 until May 1974, there was no production from the 40-acre tract. The operator of the lease during most of 1975 was Henry Halley. Halley notified Gaddis that he was going to begin waterflood operations. He obtained an easement from Gaddis for the power source for the waterflood system, began construction of a new tank battery, and plugged the well on the 13-acre tract. Halley informed Gaddis that he would have his attorney prepare the necessary agreement and documents for the waterflood. Before the documents were prepared, Halley's attorney died, and Halley sold out to a new operator, C.E. Billingsley. No papers for the waterflood were ever prepared, submitted, or signed, and the area of *706 the waterflood was never defined.
In early 1975, Briggs approached Gaddis to propose exchanging royalties so that each would own all the royalty for their respective tracts, but Gaddis was not interested in exchanging royalties at this time. Later, Gaddis observed the setting of stakes on the tract "on pattern" and, believing a waterflood was imminent, went to Briggs to discuss exchanging royalty interests, but at this time Briggs was not interested in proceeding with the exchange. Gaddis then notified Marathon Oil Company, the oil purchaser, by letter that the contract had terminated because the sole producing well on the 13-acre tract was plugged. In the letter, he failed to mention that he believed secondary recovery methods had commenced. Marathon started withholding royalty payments from the Briggs.
During 1977 and 1978, the operator, Billingsley, drilled new wells on the 40-acre tract. Billingsley also applied for and received a permit to drill a salt water input well. He then had the salt water input well drilled in the center of the 40-acre tract.
In 1978, Billingsley started injecting water into the subsurface through an input well on the 40-acre tract on gravity alone. In 1982, he started injecting water under pressure. Billingsley testified at trial that he injected the water into the same formation from which the oil was produced because that was the only good body of sand that would take the water. He testified that the 53-acre lease was not desirable to be used in a waterflood by itself because the geological structure was bigger than the 53-acre tract. He also stated that he had allowed two other operators to dump "a load or two" of salt water left from leases that they operated into his well and that all the salt water from his other leases was not going into the input well. He further testified that he drilled two new wells on the 13-acre tract in 1983. The oil production of the well started increasing 2 1/2 years after he started disposing of the salt water in the input well.
On March 30, 1983, Briggs filed a complaint asking (1) for a declaration that he was entitled to one-half of the proceeds from royalties from the 53-acre tract pursuant to the 1955 division order and (2) for an order directing Marathon to pay the proceeds it had withheld. The amended complaint was based on contract, waiver, and estoppel. The trial court granted the relief sought under the contract and waiver theories. A motion to reconsider was denied Mr. and Mrs. Gaddis and Ms. Walker, and they subsequently filed their notice of appeal.
1 The sole issue raised on appeal is whether the trial court's finding that no secondary recovery methods had been put in operation on the lease was against the manifest weight of the evidence.
*707 It is well settled that a judgment is against the manifest weight of the evidence only when an opposite conclusion is apparent or when findings appear to be unreasonable, arbitrary, or not based on evidence. Duffek v. Vanderhei (1980), 81 Ill. App.3d 1078, 1088-89, 401 N.E.2d 1145, 1153.
In the case at hand, the permit for drilling a "water input" well and the application for the permit were introduced into evidence. No "waterflood" permit was issued by the Department of Mines and Minerals. Mr. Briggs testified that as far as he knew the 13-acre tract he owned had not been placed into any kind of waterflood unit. Mrs. Briggs testified that she never discussed a waterflood with Halley or Billingsley.
The operator, Billingsley, stated under oath that he injected the water into the same formation from which the oil was produced because that was the only good body of sand that would take the water. He testified he was familiar with a waterflood, with what it took to put one together, with the permits you would have to obtain before you started to put one together, and with the publication requirements. He also testified that he wouldn't try to put in a big waterflood with that small amount of acreage. He further stated that for a waterflood he would "get acreage and drill and put around the outside," thus driving the oil to a central well.
In response to a question on redirect as to whether or not the well was part or all of a waterflood unit, the operator answered: "It has helped production, yes, sir." When he was asked if it was a waterflood in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Department of Oil and Gas and if it is a "secondary recovery unit," he equivocally stated: "Well, it has helped so I guess you could say partially, in a way."
Mr. and Mrs. Gaddis and Ms. Walker contend that the aforementioned testimony at trial showed that the well in question was much more than a mere salt water disposal well. They claim instead that it was a waterflood operation. Therefore, because secondary recovery methods were being employed, they contend the agreement terminated. Their argument is centered on the fact that oil production was increased as a result of salt water being injected into the salt water disposal well.
However, the trial court, basing its opinion on the "testimony of witnesses, exhibits, and the Illinois Statutes," found that secondary recovery methods had not been employed. In order to determine whether the trial court's finding was in accordance with the manifest weight of the evidence, we must understand the pertinent terms in *708 question.
The term "secondary recovery of oil" is defined as "the production which may be obtained by the injection of gas, air, water or other substance into the reservoir for the maintenance, increase or renewal of the reservoir pressure." (1 Summers, Oil & Gas sec. 76, at 235-36 (2d ed. 1954).) Mr. and Mrs. Gaddis and Ms. Walker contend that the evidence adduced at trial shows that the operator of the lease was injecting water-made pressure into the formation from which the oil was being produced, and thus secondary recovery in the form of a waterflood was taking place. However, the similarities between a secondary recovery water input well and a disposal well include the possibility of increased production of oil. Williams and Meyers' Manual of Oil and Gas Terms defines salt water disposal as "[t]he disposition of salt water produced with the oil from a reservoir." However, the manual further states: "[I]n the case of East Texas Field, the water was returned to the reservoir, below the oil-water contact line, thus maintaining reservoir pressure and increasing the ultimate recovery from the field." Thus the mere disposition of salt water, even when one is not conducting a waterflood, may inadvertently increase the recovery from the field and may not be secondary recovery per se. 8 Williams & Meyers, Manual of Oil & Gas Terms 790-91 (1984).
Williams and Meyers' Manual of Oil and Gas Terms incorporates both terms, "secondary recovery" and "salt water disposal," into their definition of an injection well. They describe an injection well, which is synonymous with an input well, as "[a] well employed for the introduction into an underground stratum of water, gas, or other fluid under pressure. Injection wells are employed for the disposal of salt water produced with oil or other waste. * * * They are also employed for a variety of other purposes including: (1) Pressure maintenance * * *; (2) Cycling * * *; (3) Secondary recovery * * *; and (4) Tertiary recovery * * *." Thus not all injection wells are involved in secondary recovery. 8 Williams & Meyers, Manual of Oil & Gas Terms 790-91 (1984).
Usually, unitization is necessary to undertake a secondary recovery program. The unitization or consolidation of separate leases or tracts covering an entire pool or field, or a substantial part thereof, for development and operation as one unit is accomplished either by a voluntary agreement or by statute. Mineral Law sec. 6-84 (Ill. Inst. Cont. Legal Educ. 1982).
Defendant's theory is that a waterflood was put into operation only on the 40-acre lease. In support of that theory, Gaddis testified that the previous operator had wanted to put in a waterflood, but the *709 papers were never prepared or signed. He further stated that the previous operator had started the construction of a new tank battery, which is now overgrown with weeds. No explanation was offered as to why, other than inconvenience, the numerous requirements for a waterflood were not complied with.
2 The findings and judgment of the trial court in nonjury cases will not be disturbed by the reviewing court if there is any record evidence to support the finding. Schioniger v. County of Cook (1983), 116 Ill. App.3d 895, 899, 452 N.E.2d 783, 787.
Given the permit for a water input well, the failure to follow statutory procedure for establishing a waterflood as set out in section 8b and section 23.1 of "An Act in relation to oil, gas, coal and other surface and underground resources * * *" (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 96 1/2, pars. 5414, 5438), the small amount of acreage involved, the rather lengthy period of injecting water on gravity alone, and the fact that all of the salt water produced from Billingsley's other leases was not going into the water input well, the trial court's findings were warranted.
3 Thus, we conclude, after thoroughly examining the record in the case at hand, that there is substantial evidence to support the findings of the trial court that "the water injection well is not or was ever intended to be a prime means of secondary recovery" and that the trial court's findings are not unreasonable or arbitrary. See Duffek v. Vanderhei (1980), 81 Ill. App.3d 1078, 1088-89, 401 N.E.2d 1145, 1153.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit court of Crawford County is affirmed.
Affirmed.
KARNS, J., concurring.
PRESIDING JUSTICE JONES, dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent.
In determining that the operator of the leases in issue here, Billingsley, had not instituted a "secondary recovery method," the trial court and the majority obviously placed great reliance upon the fact that the State of Illinois had not issued a permit for a waterflood (a secondary recovery method). It might be facetiously said that oil-producing formations are not flooded with State permits, they are flooded with water. Some further reliance was seemingly placed upon the fact that the input-recovery method utilized by Billingsley on the *710 Gaddis 40 acres was not that generally followed in permit-authorized secondary recovery operations.
The record contains an order on pretrial conference signed by all the parties. One of its provisions was that the division order containing the special clause in question "constituted a legal and binding Contract between the parties who signed it, including the Plaintiffs and the Defendants, Dale Allen Gaddis, Anna Lee Gaddis, and Virginia R. Walker." The special clause of the division order dated July 21, 1955, read:
"This supplemental division order is filed to evidence the fact that it is mutually satisfactory to all the undersigned parties that payment be made to them and/or their successors in title as hereinabove set out for the entire 1/6 R.I. in this 53-acre lease, effective with all oil run on and after July 1, 1955, until such time as secondary recovery methods may be put in operation on the above described premises * * *."
This same special clause was also inserted into the division order dated August 30, 1951. This is important to note, since it evidences an agreement of long standing among the royalty owners of the 53 acres regarding the consequences of the institution of secondary recovery methods. What Billingsley did on the Gaddis lease was, without question, a method of secondary recovery of oil from that lease, and Billingsley admitted that it was. Moreover, the Billingsley operation on the Gaddis 40 acres constituted waste and was contrary to Illinois statutes prohibiting waste. The consequence of the decision of the trial court and the majority is that the defendant royalty owners have been deprived of their rights under their contract and have lost a full one-half of the royalty payments assured them by the contract.
In considering whether the Gaddis lease was being subjected to secondary recovery methods by Billingsley, it would be advisable to keep in mind that he had, by his own testimony, over 40 years' experience in the oil business, consisting of drilling, producing and flooding. He obviously knew that he was installing a secondary recovery by waterflood, and that is plainly shown by both his actions on the Gaddis 40 acres and his admissions in his testimony.
At the time Billingsley acquired the Gaddis lease it had one producing well in a corner location. In due course he drilled three additional producing wells to the same producing formation in the remaining corner locations on the Gaddis 40 acres. He then drilled the "saltwater disposal" well in the middle of the 40 acres and began injecting water into the producing formation, at first by gravity flow but later under pressure. The very natural, and known, consequence *711 was that the injected water drove the oil from the injection well to the four producing wells on corners of the 40 acres. The resulting great increase in the production of oil from the Gaddis 40 acres is detailed in the record and candidly attributed to the "saltwater disposal" well.
Aside from the admissions of Billingsley, there is a sure indication that a secondary recovery by waterflood was knowingly installed by him, and that indication is found in the fact that three additional, and presumably very expensive, production wells were drilled by Billingsley contemporaneously with the drilling of the disposal well. If Billingsley, or any other operator, was drilling a well solely for saltwater disposal, it would not be either necessary or desirable to drill any additional production wells.
If further confirmation of secondary recovery from the Gaddis 40 acres should be needed, it is to be found in the testimony of Billingsley himself, given on cross-examination:
"Q. And that water input well does exactly the same thing, absolutely and completely the same thing as a waterflood well on the same place for the same purpose, doesn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. Absolutely no difference except the name?
A. Right."
In closely related testimony, Billingsley related that the greatly increased production from the Gaddis 40 acres was directly attributable to the injection of water. His further testimony indicated that he was familiar with the requirements to be fulfilled in getting a State permit for a secondary recovery operation and that he was also familiar with the traditional methods of secondary recovery by waterflood whereby water is injected into the periphery of an oil-bearing formation to drive the oil to production wells at the center of the formation.
It is obvious in this case that Billingsley conducted the somewhat unorthodox, but nevertheless effective, waterflood operation on the Gaddis lease because it was easy, relatively cheap and did not require that he become involved with any other persons or production companies. He did not make application to the State for a permit to conduct secondary recovery by waterflood because he knew it would not be granted. His chosen method of waterflooding of a single 40-acre tract was inefficient, could not be confined in its effect upon the producing formation to the 40-acre tract, and would be wasteful of the oil reserves in the formation. Each of these factors is contrary to State policy to protect oil reserves, prevent waste and protect owners of royalty and oil and gas leasehold interests.
*712 It is true that Billingsley had a State permit for a water injection well on the Gaddis 40 acres. However, the application and representations submitted to the State Department of Mines and Minerals are not in the record. The permit is suspect, since it authorizes injection of water for disposal purposes that is squarely contrary to statutory provisions and prohibited as waste. Section 1 of "An Act in relation to oil, gas, coal and other surface and underground resources * * *" (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 96 1/2, par. 5401) defines waste, as related to this case, as:
"`Waste' means `physical waste' as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry, and further includes:
* * *
(3) the drowning with water of any stratum or part thereof capable of producing oil or gas, except for secondary recovery purposes." (Emphasis added.)
Section 1.1 of the same Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 96 1/2, par. 5402) provides:
"Waste as defined by this Act is prohibited."
In conclusion, it should be noted that the owners of the royalty under the Gaddis 40 acres will never be able to collect the bargained-for royalties that would arise from installation of secondary recovery methods on their lands. Secondary recovery has already been instituted and can never be reversed, or repeated.
I would reverse.
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As it stands, this investigator, whose job it is to scrutinize government handling of child welfare cases, is funded by, you guessed it, the state agency that supervises child protection work.
That has to change.
Becky Miller Updike told me that during her two-year tenure, her recommendations for improvements in how the state-supervised, county-administered system operates generally were received cordially. But ultimately, they went nowhere.
“I have a hard time believing that all of these recommendations are useless,” she said.
When you think of the number of kids who’ve died in Colorado after having contact with the system, kids who have no one else to protect them from all kinds of horrible abuse and neglect, that description of bureaucratic indifference is infuriating.
Lawmakers created the office of the child protection ombudsman in 2010 in an effort to bring independent review to child abuse and neglect cases. It came on the heels of a high number of deaths of children who had, to one degree or another, contact with the child welfare system.
B.J. Nikkel, a Republican state representative at the time, said she and others very much wanted to have the ombudsman accountable to the legislature. She still supports that.
“The office needs to be totally independent of the administration,” she said.
She was, however, in the political minority and decided in the end that it was better to have the office exist, even if not perfectly situated, than to let the opportunity go by.
“I thought, certainly, it was better to get something created,” she said.
Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, was also involved in creating the office and acknowledges that “best practice” would have the office exist independently of the Colorado Department of Human Services.
“It was not going anywhere,” she said. “We had pushback from everywhere.”
That included objections from the department, the administration and the counties, she told me.
Newell said there are ongoing conversations about what the best structure is, and she’s open to changing it.
If this sounds like just so much bureaucratese, think about the very nature of child protection work. The preservation of privacy for children and families requires confidentiality, and understandably so.
While it is intended to protect those investigated, confidentiality also happens to over cover bureaucrats too. It is a well-known problem in taking on child welfare reform.
But the beauty of the ombudsman position is that this person is privy to the nitty-gritty details of a case and can critique government conduct while protecting individual privacy.
It’s a shame that Updike, who by many accounts was a strong and professional presence in the office, did not have all the tools to really go after what ails child welfare.
Unfortunately, problems with Colorado’s child welfare system have existed through one gubernatorial administration after another despite reform efforts that have merely nibbled at the edges of problems.
Josh Penry, former GOP minority leader of the state Senate, said tolerance for the lack of transformative change should be at an end.
“This has been going on through [Govs.] Owens, Ritter and now Hickenlooper,” he said. “It’s clear that an incremental approach is not working.”
Penry would put the ombudsman in the state attorney general’s office and give the position subpoena power to encourage independence and muscle. “The real power is to shame the system into improving,” he said.
He’s exactly right.
No matter how many internal campaigns there are to be transparent and to encourage best practices, there is nothing as bracing as the unflinching scrutiny of an outsider with no connections to the subject at hand.
Becky Updike is composing a report as she goes out the door that speaks to these sorts of deficiencies. She hopes to see productive change.
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Place:Entella, Sicilia, Italy
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Entella (Greek: ), was an ancient city in the interior of Sicily, situated on the left bank of the river Hypsas (modern Belice), and nearly midway between the two seas, being about 40 km from the mouth of the Hypsas, and much about the same distance from the north coast of the island, at the Gulf of Castellamare.
It was a very ancient city, and apparently of Sicanian origin, though the traditions concerning its foundation connected it with the Elymi and the supposed Trojan colony. According to some writers it was founded by Acestes, and named after his wife Entella, a tradition to which Silius Italicus alludes, while others ascribed its foundation to Elymus, and Virgil represents Entellus (evidently the eponymous hero of the city) as a friend and comrade of Acestes. Thucydides, however, reckons Eryx and Egesta the only two cities of the Elymi, and does not notice Entella at all, any more than the other places of native Sicanian or Siculian origin. The first historical mention of Entella is found in Diodorus, who tells us that in 404 BCE the Campanian mercenaries, who had been in the service of the Carthaginians during the war, having been admitted into the city on friendly terms, turned their arms against the inhabitants, put all the male citizens to the sword, and made themselves masters of the place, of which they retained possession for many years. During the subsequent wars of Dionysius with the Carthaginians, the Campanian occupants of Entella sided with their former masters, and even continued faithful to their alliance in 396 BCE, when all the cities of Sicily except five went over to that of Dionysius. It was not until 368 BCE that the Syracusan despot was able to reduce Entella; the city appears to have still remained in the hands of the Campanians, but was now hostile to the Carthaginians, who (in 345 BCE) in consequence ravaged its territory, and blockaded the city itself. Soon after we find the latter apparently in their hands, but it was recovered by Timoleon, who restored it to liberty and independence.
From this time we hear little more of it. The name is only incidentally mentioned during the First Punic War, but it seems to have taken no part in the struggles between Rome and Carthage. It continued, however, to be a tolerably flourishing municipal town: its territory was fertile in wine ) as well as corn, and Cicero praises the inhabitants for their industry in its cultivation, but, like most of the cities of Sicily, it suffered severely from the exactions of Verres. We still find its name both in Pliny (among the populi stipendiarii) and Ptolemy but no further notice of it is found in ancient authors. It however continued to subsist throughout the Middle Ages, until the 13th century, when, having been converted into a stronghold by the Saracens, it was taken by the emperor Frederick II and utterly destroyed, the inhabitants being removed to Nocera near Naples. The site, which still retained its ancient name in the days of Fazello, is described by him as a position of great natural strength, surrounded by abrupt precipices on all sides but one, but having a table land of considerable extent on its summit. Its location at Rocca d'Entella, in the comune of Contessa Entellina, stands at an angle of the Belice, so that that river encircles it on the north and west. The ruins remaining there in the time of Fazello seem to have been only those of the mediaeval town and its Saracenic castle.
There are extant coins of Entella, with the legend at full; while others struck under the Campanian occupation of the city have , and on the reverse .
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Anna Rasmussen
Anna Melloni Rasmussen (1898-1983) was a Danish spiritualist medium.
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Rasmussen was alleged to have produced psychokinetic phenomena, such as moving pendulums in sealed glass cases. She was endorsed as genuine by the psychical researcher Harry Price. Christian Winther (1873-1968) of the Danish Society for Psychical Research investigated her mediumship, producing a favourable report in 1930. The report was later disputed as new experiments from researchers at the University of Copenhagen in 1945 suggested all her phenomena could be explained by physical causes. In 1950, Rasmussen was exposed as a fraud as a secret camera had caught her using fraudulent methods to produce spiritualist phenomena. The exposure made headlines in Danish newspapers, seriously damaging the spiritualist community in Denmark.
References
Category:1898 births
Category:1983 deaths
Category:Psychokineticists
Category:Spiritual mediums
Category:Spiritualists
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Pigments from Soil Bacteria and Their Therapeutic Properties: A Mini Review.
Advancement in research on dyes obtained from natural sources e.g., plants, animals, insects and micro-organisms is widening the application of natural dyes in various fields. The natural dyes substituted their synthetic analogs at the beginning of twentieth century due to their improved quality, value, ease of production, ease of dyeing and some other factors. This era of dominance ended soon when toxic effects of synthetic dyes were reported. In the last few decades, pigments from micro-organisms especially soil derived bacteria is replacing dyes from other natural sources because of the increasing demand for safe, non-toxic, and biodegradable natural product. Apart from application in agriculture practices, cosmetics, textile, food and paper industries, bacterial pigments have additional biological activities e.g., anti-tumor, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, immunosuppressive anti-viral, and many more which make them a potential candidate for pharmaceutical industry. Optimization of culture conditions and fermentation medium is the key strategies for large scale production of these natural dyes. An effort has been done to give an overview of pigments obtained from bacteria of soil origin, their dominance over dyes from other sources (natural and synthetic) and applications in the medical world in the underlying study.
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Why the Riviera Maya is the Perfect Destination
Recently a friend of ours sent us an email asking us if we could recommend a place that he and his wife could go for their February vacation. Someplace “warm, relatively cheap, preferably international.” Then just last week, my sister and her fiance asked us to recommend a place they could go for their honeymoon next summer. They wanted to lounge on the beach and liked the idea of all-inclusive resort. My first thought in both cases was the Riviera Maya, an area of Mexico that stretches from the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, at Cancun, south to the Belize border. I’ve gushed about it before.
The more I think about it, the more I think this might just be the most universally appealing destination I’ve ever been to. It interests a wide range of travelers: singles, couples, families, on all budgets from thrifty to luxury.
Here are a few of the things that make the Riviera Maya perfect for just about anyone:
My own beach paradise Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve
The beaches!
The turquoise sea and the white silky sand are, hands down, the most wonderful thing about the Riviera Maya. Though the beaches are busy in Playa del Carmen and near the larger resorts, you can find less visited stretches in Tulum and Sian Ka’an.
Luxury resorts for less
Diverse, affordable accommodations:
You can get all-inclusive packages at very nice resorts for cheap (when I went a few years ago, we paid only $79/pp at the BlueBay Grand Esmerelda, booked via BookIt which has good discounts on resort packages). If you are not into the resort thing (we only stayed a few, very relaxing nights before moving on), there are a wide range of condo rentals, hotels and hostels in Playa del Carmen and Tulum, and bare bones huts on the beach. There are even places where you can just rent a hammock for the night!
Anthropology/Cultural Heritage:
Mayan ruins are scattered throughout the region, little reminders of communities that existed long ago. Though it is not the most impressive specimen of Mayan architecture in Mexico, the temple perched above the beach at Tulum is possibly the most scenic. Additionally, one of the largest Mayan cities, Chichen Itza is just a short bus ride away.
Environment/Ecology:
Cenotes are deep pits, caused by the collapse of limestone bedrock on the Yucatan Peninsula. These pits, often in caves and sunken formations, fill with groundwater and become a beautiful, otherworldly environment as the surfaces are filled in with the jungle flora. There are LOADS of cenotes all over the Yucatan and Riviera Maya, many of which allow swimming.
The Sian Ki’an Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected area in the Mexican Caribbean, covering 1.3 million acres. Large parts of this wildlife reserve are open only to scientific and conservation uses. Human activities are controlled across the entire region. You can visit the reserve for ecological tours (we did a sunset birdwatching trip), kayaking trips, and even spend the night inside the park in affordable and comfortable tent cabins on the beach. I really recommend this experience because you’ll be one of only a handful of people there at night. That’s a pretty magical feeling.
The largest coral reef in the northern hemisphere is just a short boat ride from Playa del Carmen, and it’s great for snorkeling, though recent storms and environmental degradation have apparently made the coral less impressive in recent years.
City Life:
If you’re more of an urban adventurer, the bars, restaurants and shops of Playa del Carmen will keep you busy. The many spas in town offer lower-prices on massages and spa treatments than you’ll find at the resorts.
Local Food and Culture:
Unlike some resort areas where it’s easy to forget you are in a foreign country, regional food and culture are easy to find in the Riviera Maya. Wander just a few blocks from the coast in Play del Carmen and Tulum to find authentic markets, food stalls, restaurants and shops that serve the local community. Wandering the streets, you’ll see that people do actually live in homes with thatched roofs (palapas)!
More Information:
I’ve read some other blog posts recently with useful info about the area (and gorgeous photos!):
Comments
Hi, I have come over from Y Travel blog – I have never been to Mexico – it is so far from Australia. Mexico therefore seems very exotic to me. The beaches are so beautiful – a little different to those in Australia. I like the white of the sand. I think I would prefer the out of the way places, not the big resort areas.
Hi Jan! Great point, Mexico is neither easy to get to nor inexpensive to fly to to when you’re coming from Australia! But if you make it there, it’s a large and diverse country worth spending some time to travel around. In this area the white sand really beautiful, and so soft! You would love Sian Ka’an and some of the southern beaches near Tulum. I’d love to visit Australia one day! Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef is on my list 🙂
Thanks for mentioning us. Riviera Maya in Mexico is awesome for the price and distance from mainland USA. And of course, the rest of Mexico is just equally if not more beautiful. One of the most underrated destinations, we think.
Great post Cassie! We have spent the last 3 weeks on the Riviera Maya and we have completely fallen in love with it! We have also explored a little inland and loved that too!
There is so much to do and see here from beaches to ruins to eco parks to museums and a whole lot more! Its an incredible place and I don’t understand why Mexico gets such a bad rap. Yes I am sure there are areas of Mexico that aren’t great but doesn’t every country have those areas?
I love this part of the world and I know we will be back again… and again most probably!
I totally agree! Mexico is my favorite country and I’ve been to several regions, twice traveling solo and never felt unsafe, but they’ve really fallen victim to terrible media that frightens tourists and keeps them away. The drug violence is bad and getting much worse in many areas, but not in the places that tourists are likely to go. Glad you are loving it as much as I do!
Yes! I forgot about that when I found this old post yesterday. That was one of the draws for me too, but I didn’t plan well enough so I only saw a few of the less photogenic cenotes–that just looked like very deep swimming holes. I’ll keep a look out for flights for you!
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Modelling the transition of asexual blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum to gametocytes.
In this paper, we investigate the transition of asexual blood stages of P. falciparum to gametocytes. The study is based on daily data, collected from 262 individual courses of parasitaemia. We propose several mathematical models that follow biological reasoning. The models are fitted with maximum likelihood and are compared with each other. The models differ in the assumptions made about the mortality of circulating gametocytes and about the transition rate of the asexual parasites. Gametocyte mortality is modelled as being (i) constant over time, (ii) linearly increasing over time, (iii) linearly increasing over gametocyte age, and (iv) exponentially increasing over gametocyte age, respectively. The transition rate is either kept constant per patient or piecewise constant within intervals that correspond to waves of asexual parasitaemia which are assumed to be caused by different Pf(emp1)-variants. According to likelihood ratio tests, the models with age-dependent mortality rate and wave-dependent transition rates are superior to the models with constant transition rate and/or constant or time-dependent mortality rate. The best fits are reached for models with exponentially increasing (Gompertz-type) mortality. Furthermore, an impact of high asexual parasite densities on the survival of gametocytes, interpreted as a cytokine-mediated effect, is evident in some cases.
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The Believer’s service dog is an important part of our family; when the three of us are out on the town, people sometimes ask me when it’s appropriate to pet him. I tell them, first, that the key thing is to ask her permission before paying any attention to her dog. I then compare him to a dentist. If a dentist was drilling your teeth, you wouldn’t want someone to wander into the room and start rubbing your dentist’s head and shoulders, exclaiming “What a good dentist!” If you can understand why it would be wrong to do that, you should be able to understand why it is wrong to interrupt a service dog on the job.
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