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0.998998 | What is the difference between mealy and moore state machine?
A) Mealy and Moore models are the basic models of state machines. A state machine which uses only Entry Actions, so that its output depends on the state, is called a Moore model. A state machine which uses only Input Actions, so that the output depends on the state and also on inputs, is called a Mealy model. The models selected will influence a design but there are no general indications as to which model is better. Choice of a model depends on the application, execution means (for instance, hardware systems are usually best realized as Moore models) and personal preferences of a designer or programmer.
B) Mealy machine has outputs that depend on the state and input (thus, the FSM has the output written on edges) Moore machine has outputs that depend on state only (thus, the FSM has the output written in the state itself.
All of the concepts can be applied to Moore-model state machines because any Moore state machine can be implemented as a Mealy state machine, although the converse is not true. Moore machine: the outputs are properties of states themselves... which means that you get the output after the machine reaches a particular state, or to get some output your machine has to be taken to a state which provides you the output.The outputs are held until you go to some other state Mealy machine: Mealy machines give you outputs instantly, that is immediately upon receiving input, but the output is not held after that clock cycle. | 2019-04-20T16:20:53 | http://evlsi.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=53 |
0.999995 | A summary is a synthesis of important ideas in a text. Readers put together information as they process a text. Summarization does not mean simply a statement of important ideas or events put together after reading a text; during reading, students must make repeated judgments about the relative importance of ideas and organize the critical ideas in a coherent manner. Students must determine what is important and actively condense and transform this information in their own words. Summarizing helps students get the gist of a text so it can accessed later for different purposes. Research has shown that summarizing improves the comprehension of what has been read and enhances students’ overall comprehension ability.
An explicit and systematic approach to teaching summarization, along with use of models, has shown “a consistent, strong, positive effect” on students’ abilities to write good summaries (Graham and Perin, 16). Instruction in summarization helps readers identify or generate main ideas, connect central ideas, eliminate redundant information, and remember what they read.
“Summarizing can be done in writing, but also orally, dramatically, artistically, visually, physically, musically, in groups, or individually. Summarization is one of the most underused teaching techniques we have today, yet research has shown that it yields some of the greatest leaps in comprehension and long-term retention on information” (Wormeli, 2).
These strategies are intended to help students produce a quality, organized summary. Before assigning these strategies as independent work, it’s important to model, provide support with guided practice, and give students the opportunity to practice with a partner or small group.
Read only the subheadings of a chapter.
List the subheadings on paper.
Convert each subheading into a main-idea sentence.
For each main-idea sentence, add one to three sentences containing supporting details.
This is a group summarizing strategy with five steps.
After the students have read a section of text, ask them to turn their books face down and to recall whatever they can from the material. Record their input in a list on the board.
Allow students to return to the text to find more information and make corrections.
With student participation, rearrange the information into categories.
Help students write a topic sentence for each category and detail sentences that support it.
Engage students in revising the summary to make it more coherent.
This approach to teaching summarization introduces students to six rules.
Delete unnecessary or trivial material.
Delete material that is important but redundant.
Compose a word to replace a list of items.
Compose a word to replace the individual parts of an action.
When there is no topic sentence, invent one.
One way to help students pick out important details is to ask them to record only the information they remember.
Provide students with a reading selection.
Ask students to take notes of important details as they read.
When students have finished, direct them to turn over the paper or put aside the material and write what they remember without looking back.
After they have listed the details they recall, ask students to create a paragraph using this information.
Provide time for students to share and compare their paragraphs. This process of sharing helps students review content while identifying additional important information that they may have missed in their summaries.
This strategy requires students to synthesize information and identify important learning.
Select a section of text that includes several paragraphs. Consider placing the text on an overhead transparency or PowerPoint slide so the class can work as a group on their first efforts.
Read the first paragraph with the class. Cover the paragraph. Ask students to write one sentence that reflects their understanding of the paragraph.
Share several sentences, looking for similarities and differences.
Read the next paragraph and continue the process.
After students feel comfortable with the process, have them work independently.
After a day’s lesson, students write one word that best summarizes the topic. After identifying the word, each student should write a sentence or two that explains the word choice. Students share their word choices and explanations. Encourage students to support or refute the word choices.
Teach students the 5 W’s and an H questions.
Practice applying the questions to group readings (not all questions may apply).
Craft a sentence response to each question.
Reread the sentences to see if they flow and make sense together. Revise and add transition words if needed.
Summarization in Any Subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning by Rick Wormeli.
Get the Gist: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area from the Read Write Think website for summarizing ideas using GIST. This lesson was developed for grades 6-8.
Into the Book by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board. The site contains video clips, lesson ideas, books, research, and links about summarizing. There is also a summarizing song and poster that can be downloaded and used in the classroom. This site is designed for use with elementary students.
Almasi, J. (2003). Teaching strategic processes in reading. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools–A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D.J., & Pollock, J.E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
McKenna, M., and Stahl, S. Assessment for reading instruction. 2nd ed. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2003.
McKenna, M. (2002). Help for struggling readers. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Pinnell,G., & Scharer, P. (1987). Teaching for comprehension in reading grades K-2. Scholastic: New York. | 2019-04-25T17:54:30 | https://www.centralriversaea.org/curriculum/literacy/reading/comprehension/after-reading/summarizing/ |
0.99969 | Is this the scandal that will end Rob Ford's career?
A totally bungled and failed transit plan didn't end Mayor Rob Ford's political career. Neither did erratic driving habits or that time he almost punched a reporter because he was on land near his house. And when he called 911 because there was a comedian in his driveway and then allegedly swore at the operator? Didn't matter.
Conflict-of-interest allegations were dismissed as a leftist plot. Budget cuts, including threats to close libraries and deep slashes to transit service, even though he guaranteed the public he wouldn't have to? Barely worth mentioning! Even losing complete control of the political agenda at City Hall—losing virtually every major vote—wasn't enough to deter his core supporters.
But allegations that he used office staff and resources to help run his high school football team? That may have done it. This could be the beginning of the end of Rob Ford.
Yesterday, Ford left the field at Don Bosco Secondary School in Etobicoke surrounded by his players. They shielded him from the media until he reached his car. Later, the Toronto Sun—a media outlet that has been solidly in Ford's camp—published a stinging column by Megan Harris that demanded the mayor “smarten up.” The commentary on talk radio turned more negative too. Callers who just last week took pride in supporting the “average guy” mayor through all his personal and professional struggles now seem to be in reconsideration mode.
Football could be the thing that finally kills any lingering chance Rob Ford had at securing a second term in the mayor's office.
And, weirdly, I'm not sure this issue deserves to hurt him as much as it has. Objectively, this scandal is just not as damning as some of the others that litter Ford's political history. If you can ignore the disastrous communications strategy tossed off by the mayor's office and Councillor Doug Ford yesterday, the core of the allegation is simple: the mayor allowed the line between his personal and political life to get blurry.
That's not an uncommon thing amongst politicians at all levels. Insanely busy schedules make it too easy to look for shortcuts, to deploy staff where they shouldn't be deployed—to make mistakes. And, with a salaried assistant, it's often challenging to determine what counts as work time and what counts as volunteer time.
But it's impossible to look at this in isolation. Were he any other politician, this scandal could be navigable and even defensible. But this is Rob Ford, titan of talk, walloper of waste, conquerer of corruption. He's the guy who promised he would swoop into City Hall like Superman and put an end to the gravy train. He campaigned—and won—almost entirely on the basis of accusing every other councillor of doing things just like he's now allegedly done with his football team.
We'll learn more about the details behind these football allegations in the weeks to come, but the damage is done. Even if this understaffed and dysfunctional mayor's office manages to cobble together a plausible defence, by allowing this appearance of impropriety and waste to linger they've opened the door to the one accusation that can finally derail Ford's political career. This mayor is a hypocrite. | 2019-04-20T08:11:54 | http://graphicmatt.com/2012/09/13/is-this-the-scandal-that-will-end-rob-fords-career/ |
0.999994 | What exactly is Buttery Busy Ailment?
Non alcholic fatty lean meats condition is usually seen as an improved deposition of extra fat, in particular triglycerides, within the lean meats cells.
It's only natural for that liver to include some excess fat and also alone, this will cause no indicators. Using some people, of your cholesterol causes infection called steatohepatitis (steato=fat+hepar=liver +itis=inflammation), although there is zero romantic relationship between level of fat provide along with the prospect of infection.
Steatohepatitis can bring about cirrhosis of the liver (fibrosis, scare tissue along with set from the lean meats). Addititionally there is an association along with liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma).
What is causing Greasy Liver organ Sickness?
Buttery lean meats could be categorised seeing that alcohol consumption and nonalcohol relevant. Booze is a one on one contaminant to the busy and can trigger redness. Nonalcoholic fat busy disorder (NAFLD) along with nonalcoholic linked steatohepatitis (NASH) are usually markedly distinct health problems high are wide ranging prospective results in which are connected to weight accumulation inside the hardworking liver.
Diet program: Utilization of excessive calories inside the diet (the surplus caloric intake overcomes your lean meats&#thirty-nine;ersus capability to metabolize fats inside a normal fashion, which results around body fat piling up from the busy).
Diseases: Fatty busy is usually related to form The second diabetes, morbid obesity, and also substantial triglyceride degrees in the maintain, celiac disease, as well as Wilson'ohydrates condition (problem of copper metabolic process).
Health concerns: Quick fat reduction and also lack of nutrition.
Medications: Medicines for example tamoxifen (Soltamox), amiodarone procedure (Nestorone), amiodarone dental (Cordarone, Pacerone), as well as amethopterin (Rheumatrex Amount Load up, Trexall) are generally associated with NAFLD.
There exists evidence for you to advise the inclusion of an association in between insulin weight along with the growth and development of NAFLD. Within this circumstances, although the shape makes sufficient blood insulin, the power regarding cells to be able to properly make use of that will insulin shots so that you can metabolise glucose will be uncommon. The general excess of blood sugar is then saved seeing that fats and may build up while in the hardworking liver.
Precisely what indicators have you feel in which motivated you to definitely find cure for your oily busy sickness?
What treatment performed you will enjoy in your oily busy sickness? The best way successful has been in which therapy?
Show concerning your experience with buttery liver organ sickness. | 2019-04-25T00:22:39 | http://www.global-medicalsearch.com/fatty_liver_disease/article_em.php |
0.999999 | Fourth grade students learn to calculate, solve problems, and develop mathematical fluency using the Bridges In Mathematics program and other resources. Students continue to think and communicate mathematically as they analyze, explore, and investigate with a focus on problem solving and mental math skills. Conceptual and critical thinking skills are targeted using class discussions of highly complex problems. All students are encouraged to present and explain their solutions, the thinking behind them and to explore alternative methods and creative solutions.
The primary school Spanish program is led by two native Spanish speaking teachers. Students are expected to develop four interrelated skills: auditory discrimination (listening), comprehension (understanding), production (speaking), and communication (the ability to use language meaningfully in new situations). We introduce the Santillana curriculum beginning in kindergarten and continuing through fourth grade. Our goal is for students to develop communicative competence in the Spanish language through cultural awareness activities that focus on the gradual development of listening, speaking reading, and writing skills. We use arts and crafts, role playing, music, visuals, hands-on materials and technology as teaching tools. The student’s progress is evaluated through periodic formal and informal assessments targeting the four main skills. Spanish classes meet four times a week in fourth grade.
In fourth grade, second language teaching can be described as both multi-sensory and multicultural. It is multi-sensory because our program includes visual, auditory and behavioral expectations for all students. It is multicultural because traditions and festivities from the Spanish-speaking world are brought to the classroom in different ways such as films, dances and art projects. Also, our students participate in an exchange program with Colegio Williams School in Mexico. They write to penpals and spend a week with a team of Mexican teachers who visit our school. Fourth grade students begin more formal reading and writing practice to prepare them for the middle school program.
Comprehend questions based on dialogues such as: ¿Cómo te llamas?, ¿Cómo se llama tu mamá?, ¿Dónde viven tus primos?
Express their feelings (¡Estoy cansado!).
Construct a short paragraph respecting grammar structure.
Fourth graders experience literacy in an environment designed to extend their skills and prepare for the transition to middle school. Students continue to participate in large and small group discussions and literature circles. Content area reading is an integral part of the fourth grade experience. Reading and writing workshop become more integrated with social studies and science, incorporating increasingly complex research and group projects. Creative writing is prominent, and students spend time writing about and presenting current events. Fourth grade also incorporates technology as a daily element and important learning tool through the one-to-one iPad program.
Fourth grade approaches the study of science as part of a lifelong exploration of the world around us. Students are encouraged to draw their own conclusions and study the scientific method in depth, using this to conduct experiments based on the questions that arise throughout the year. This emergent curriculum allows the students to build on their natural curiosities and make discoveries that matter to them as scientists and learners. Much of the science curriculum is integrated with the study of California, as students learn about plants and animals that are native to our state. Specific units include studies of the layers of the Earth, forms of energy, magnetism, light and color, and soil studies. The Outdoor Education Center is used throughout the year to teach students the process of composting, conduct soil studies, and to learn natural ways to treat plants for disease and pests. Fourth graders also participate in the school Science Fair for the first time, and conduct their own experiments at home to share during the fair.
The yearlong focus in fourth grade is on the state of California. A multidisciplinary approach is used, incorporating the state’s rich history, diverse geography, government, economics, social, and cultural issues. Students also focus on world geography, as well as landforms and how they influence life. The interrelated study of people in the societies of past and present aims to help students develop skills and insights that will help them act in a purposeful, knowledgeable manner in a rapidly changing world. Students also prepare weekly current events and present information to the class using technology and other resources. Public speaking skills are greatly emphasized in fourth grade through the current events and class presentations. A strong focus is also placed on working in groups to accomplish a larger task, providing students with relevant experiences in working with others, navigating conflict, and collaborating for a common purpose. | 2019-04-18T23:15:03 | http://www.mpms.org/academics/departments/fourth-grade |
0.999998 | Arnica Montana is very useful for older injuries.
Arnica Montana by Boiron relieves pain caused by repetitive movements.
As hard as you may work to avoid it‚ pain is something everyone has to deal with at some point. A growing number of people are turning to homeopathy when they suffer from mildly sore muscles and joint stiffness. Boiron’s Arnica Montana is a homeopathic remedy that works to reduce pain and promote healing in muscle tissue. Taking it before surgery may lessen postoperative discomfort and bruising‚ while potentially reducing recovery time. Those who suffer chronic back pain may also benefit from regular doses of this natural supplement.
The active ingredient in this product is Arnica montana‚ which can help with pain relief‚ help repair damaged tissue‚ work to reduce swelling‚ and help decrease the appearance of bruises. This sublingual supplement can also help you sleep better while alleviating motion sickness. Arnica may be safe for children when given in very small doses. It should be taken immediately after an injury has been sustained‚ in order to quickly reduce pain and swelling.
Adults and children should dissolve no more than five pellets of Arnica Montana by Boiron under the tongue three times per day‚ unless otherwise instructed by a doctor.
Borion has been providing homeopathic supplements since 1932. Its products are natural and safe ways to handle common health issues. Borion has also won several awards for its high quality‚ including being named the #1 Pharmacist Recommended Brand according to Pharmacy Times and U.S. News & World Report.
I use this Arnica Montana 1m by Boiron after a day of heavy lifting at the gym, I take it before bed. Helps with swelling and muscle recovery, also a good nights sleep.
I use this Arnica Montana 1m by Boiron regularly for my joint pain and injuries. It's great for me, I would highly recommend this.
I wish that they offered it in a distilled water ampule for those who cannot tolerate lactose.
I don't know how well the item works. But I use Arnica Montana 1m by Boiron because I want to feel better. No harm if it doesn't work. Sense it's natural. The shipping was very fast as well.
Taste, and easy to use.
I got Arnica Montana 1m by Boiron because I was having knee replacement surgery. Ordered it on Thursday night late. Got it on Monday for Wednesday surgery. Shipping was only $4.99 for superfast. Remedy only cost $7.?? I saw it on the web most for $10.++. Very happy.
Fast shipping. Sent correct dosage for presurgical dose.
I ordered this Arnica Montana 1m by Boiron for a bone bruise I sustained, revently. It truly seemed to help the pain and swelling.
Effective remedy for any muscle pain.
Arnica Montana by Boiron works wonders on any injury - heals the pain and any injury related shock to your body!
I have seen great results after using Arnica Montana by Boiron. Good homoeopathic relief! I was skeptical at the beginning but the results were great at the end.
Arnica Montana by Boiron has reduced swelling and bruising.
My bruises after my fall healed so quickly! | 2019-04-23T08:25:22 | https://pureformulas.com/arnica-montana-1m-by-boiron.html |
0.999999 | Will This Billionaire Investor Break Up Freeport-McMoRan?
The resource giant has suffered from a collapse in pricing for precious metals and oil and gas.
Having diversified into oil drilling like at this ultra-deepwater site in the Gulf of Mexico, resource company Freeport-McMoRan has seen performance wane. Image source: Freeport-McMoRan.
Buying up Plains Exploration and McMoRan Exploration in 2013 had seemed like such a prescient purchase for copper and gold miner Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX), even if it did cause the debt on its balance sheet to become bloated. When its mining operations at the massive Grasberg mine in Indonesia were put on hold soon after the purchases due to a spate of accidents, it was the energy component of its operations that had kept revenues flowing into its coffers.
And the subsequent bursting of the commodities price bubble causing the value of precious metals to tumble made Freeport's diversification into oil and gas appear smart and far-sighted. After all, oil was looking fairly resilient in comparison.
Unfortunately, even the energy industry is getting crushed by dramatically lower prices and Freeport-McMoRan is being dragged down by its twin anchors of Plains Exploration and McMoRan Exploration. It's already written off over $5 billion related to its investments in them, almost $2 billion of which is being assigned to goodwill, an admission it overpaid for the drillers. Shares of Freeport are down 70% over the past year.
So news that billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has taken a big stake in resource and energy play is rightly creating a stir.
Icahn disclosed last week that he had established an 8.5% position in Freeport worth almost $1 billion, making him one of the company's biggest shareholders. His filing with the SEC says he wants to discuss with management and the board of directors Freeport's "capital expenditures, executive compensation practices and capital structure as well as curtailment of the Issuer's high-cost production operations."
Should investors think this means they're about to see the two energy plays spun out again? Could be.
Freeport bought Plains and McMoRan in 2013 for around $9 billion and the assumption of some $11 billion in debt, a move that angered a lot of stock owners who had bought into a mining operation, not an oil driller. The cozy relationship between the three companies also didn't sit well with investors: Not only was McMoRan's CEO also Freeport's chairman, but Plains also owned a third of McMoRan's stock. Directors who sat on both boards reaped a $131 million windfall from the transaction, Freeport Chairman James Moffett got $73 million, and Plains Chairman James Flores, who was also a McMoRan director, got a $200 million payout.
For all that money paid out, investors haven't gotten much in return, and it explains why Icahn is focusing on Freeport's capital expenditures.
The massive Grasberg mine in Indonesia has been both a source of revenue for Freeport-McMoRan and expense. Image source: Freeport-McMoRan.
While Freeport spent more than half of its capital investments on mining activities, or $4 billion worth, some $3.2 billion also went into its oil producing capabilities, draining its bank account and leaving just of $460 million in cash. At the end of fiscal 2013, it had nearly $2 billion in the bank. It's gotten so bad, even Freeport itself is talking about spinning off at least part of the oil business to keep financing the mining operations. It's also said it is cutting its capex budget by 25% this year to $4 billion, down from its prior estimate of $5.6 billion, which was already below the current year budget of $6.3 billion.
It would represent the second time Freeport has spun off McMoRan.
Back in the early 1990s, McMoRan's oil assets were actually part of Freeport's fold, but it wanted to focus on its core mining activities instead, so it spun off the oil and gas driller. The promise that Freeport saw in McMoRan was its ultra-deepwater reserves locked deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico salt geology at depths of 25,000-35,000 feet. At the time, McMoRan had said it expected to hit reserves of multi-trillion cubic feet.
Reuniting with its former progeny wasn't the first time a miner had pursued such a strategy, as BHP Billiton had pursued a similar dual track, but McMoRan was a much riskier bet because going to such depths as it proposed is not easy or cheap.
With Carl Icahn on board, it's become clear there are opportunities for dramatic cost savings, and while Freeport-McMoRan says it welcomes the chance for a dialogue with any of its investors, management is going to be hard-pressed to justify how it's conducted business thus far. Breaking up the resource and energy company into its constituent parts may become the first order of business. | 2019-04-24T19:10:08 | https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/04/will-this-billionaire-investor-break-up-freeport-m.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004 |
0.999997 | Will young adults will see Obamacare premiums soar?
Myth: Young people will pay a lot more for insurance under Obamacare.
Reality: It's true that premiums will likely rise for some young adults, particularly men. But that doesn't take two important considerations into account: federal subsidies and more comprehensive coverage.
The Obama administration Wednesday released a first look at how much consumers will pay for premiums in 36 insurance exchanges partly or fully run by the federal government. The exchanges open for enrollment on October 1, while coverage begins in January.
The new data showed that in Indianapolis, for instance, the sticker price for the cheapest bronze plan for a 27-year-old will be $204. Right now, he can get a policy for as little as $52.50, according to eHealthInsurance, an online marketplace.
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the least expensive bronze plan will cost $128, compared to $66 today.
But those comparisons are very misleading because they do not take out-of-pocket costs and coverage limits into account, said Linda Blumberg, senior fellow at The Urban Institute. The cheap insurance policies today have very high deductibles -- $10,000 each for the Indianapolis and Fort Lauderdale plans -- and don't cover mental health, brand-name drugs or pre-natal care. The out-of-pocket limit in each of these plans is $12,500.
"Part of the problem with these plans is that people think they are insured until something bad happens and then they find out they aren't covered," she said. The Obamacare plans are "real insurance."
Under Obamacare, the plans must cover an array of basic health benefits, including prescription drugs, maternity care and mental health. The out-of-pocket max is limited to $6,350 for an individual so the deductible on the bronze plans can't be higher than that.
And, Blumberg notes, the cheap plans on the market today are only available to healthy young adults with no pre-existing conditions. But insurers must offer the same coverage to everyone -- regardless of their health history -- under Obamacare.
Also, sticker prices on the Obamacare plans are not what most young adults will actually pay, Blumberg said. Single people earning less than $46,000 will be eligible for federal subsidies to defray premium costs. The size of the subsidy is based on age, income and residence.
So if the Indianapolis resident makes only $25,000, he will pay $70 for the bronze plan, while the young man in Fort Lauderdale would pay only $74, not too much higher than the current rates.
Young adults up to age 30 can also sign up for more bare-bones catastrophic plans under Obamacare, but they won't be eligible for subsidies. Such plans would cost $170 in Indianapolis and $86 in Fort Lauderdale. | 2019-04-25T18:28:22 | https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/27/news/economy/obamacare-young-premiums/index.html |
0.999999 | How do I use my molds for Hot Process Soapmaking?
Keeping cold-process soap properly insulated is important when pouring into individual 3 and 4 ounce cavities. Heat loss can be a problem due to a large surface area relative to a small volume of soap. This heat loss can retard saponification. One solution to this potential problem is an elevated pour temperature in the range of 115-125 degrees F. Another method involves pre-cooking the soap so that it's thoroughly saponified before being poured into the molds. This is hot-process soapmaking.
What are the advantages of hot-processing? One, the soap doesn't need to be insulated since it's neutral when spooned into the molds. It just needs to cool and harden, which takes 1-2 hours. Two, neutral soap is much gentler on dyes and fragrances- you'll find both stay "truer".
1. Use two pots for soapmaking: one, your soap pot, and two, a kettle large enough to comfortably contain your soap pot. An enamel five-gallon canning pot is ideal for most situations. This second kettle will become the bottom of a double boiler. Fill it with 3-5 inches of water.
2. Stir your soap until traced. Meanwhile, bring the water in the large kettle to a slow boil.
3. After tracing, place the soap pot inside the kettle. Keep the water at a gentle boil; cover if possible to retain heat.
4. Cook your soap for 1 3/4 hours. During this time it should become a soft translucent salve. Translucency is a sign that the soap is neutralizing.
Stir briefly 2 or 3 times during cooking to ensure even heat distribution throughout the soap mass.
5. After 1 3/4 hours the soap will be neutral. Dye, fragrance and spoon into molds. If the soap seems too thick to work with, thin with a few ounces of alcohol. Start with 2-3 ounces; gradually add more if needed. Pure ethanol (Everclear), 90%-99% isopropyl or vodka all work well. When dividing the soap up for different fragrances and colors, keep the unused portion hot, or it begins hardening as it cools. Hardened soap can be "remelted" over a double boiler. And finally, any air pockets in the molded soap? These can be removed by gently tapping the mold on the counter top. Another method for removing air bubbles is to cover the top of the soap-filled cavities with a sheet of plastic film. With the palm of your hand, press the soap gently but firmly into the cavity. | 2019-04-25T12:14:53 | https://aquariusaroma-soap.com/index.php?cPath=22_235&osCsid=9s87f4qqcbumcgq79e7s99s3v0 |
0.999929 | Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_validate_api_client folder.
$email = "[email protected]"; // string | Email address to validate, e.g. \"[email protected]\". The input is a string so be sure to enclose it in double-quotes.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_imagerecognition_api_client folder.
$style = "style_example"; // string | The style of the painting to apply. To start, try \"udnie\" a painting style. Possible values are: \"udnie\", \"wave\", \"la_muse\", \"rain_princess\".
$image_file = "C:\\temp\\input.png"; // \SplFileObject | Image file to perform the operation on. Common file formats such as PNG, JPEG are supported.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_document_convert_api_client folder.
$input_file = "C:\\temp\\input.docx"; // \SplFileObject | Input file to perform the operation on.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_nlp_api_client folder.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_ocr_api_client folder.
$image_file = "C:\\temp\\page.png"; // \SplFileObject | Image file to perform OCR on. Common file formats such as PNG, JPEG are supported.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_barcode_api_client folder.
Or you can install it manually by downloading it from our GitHub repo, and extracting to a ./vendor/cloudmersive/cloudmersive_virusscan_api_client folder.
$input_file = "/path/to/file.txt"; // \SplFileObject | Input file to perform the operation on. | 2019-04-23T22:04:09 | https://api.cloudmersive.com/php-client.asp |
0.997598 | Question 1: Portions were translated into ________ by Western Christian missionaries in the late 16th century.
Question 2: 475 BCE - 221 BCE), the Analects is the representative work of ________ and continues to have a tremendous influence on Chinese and East Asian thought and values today.
Question 3: The Analects of Confucius has also been ________ into many languages, most notably into English by James Legge, Arthur Waley, Charles Muller, and William Edward Soothill.
Question 4: Since Confucius' time, the Analects has heavily influenced the philosophy and moral values of ________ and later other East Asian countries as well.
Question 5: Towards the late ________, Zhang Yu, who was a teacher of Emperor Cheng, combined the Lu and Qi versions of Analects but kept to the number of chapters in the Lu Analects.
Question 6: Begun some time during the ________, the work was probably finished during the Warring States Period, though the exact publication date of the first complete Analects cannot be pinpointed.
Question 7: Written during the ________ through the Warring States Period (ca.
Question 8: A version of the analects, written on bamboo strips from before 55 BCE, was discovered in a tomb at Dingzhou/Dingxian in ________ province in 1973 and published in 1997. | 2019-04-19T21:13:46 | http://quiz.thefullwiki.org/Analects |
0.99908 | The horrific shooting of nine parishioners by a white supremacist in Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015, left the entire country stunned, forcing us to confront ghosts that many preferred to leave alone.
For Jeremy Davis, a native of Summerville, South Carolina, and the leader of the Charlotte band Elonzo Wesley, it put him in a place so personal and so raw that he had no choice but to write his way out. The result was "Emanuel," one of the best songs on Elonzo Wesley's newest album Spec, released in November on the Concord-based Silent Uproar label, the home of Sinners & Saints and the Avett Brothers' early rock incarnation, Nemo.
"Emanuel" merges the dirge-like brooding of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" with the lyrical immediacy of Neil Young's "Ohio," about the Kent State shootings of 1970. With his weary gentle vocals, Davis, 36, manages to evoke a detached, almost beatific aura of the tragedy while hammering home the emotional damage and the tragic cycle of violence. He ties in the shooting with the tragic fate of the church's founder, the former slave-turned-activist Denmark Vessey. While every song on Spec is a gem, in "Emanuel," Davis displays a deep knowledge of history, a mastery of songcraft and a rare ability to tie it all together into powerful storytelling.
Spec is not so much a departure as an evolution for Davis and his band. It's indie rock with Appalachian colors. It's bluegrass instruments telling modern tales. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and Elonzo Wesley will be taking the songs on the road, starting with a show at the Evening Muse on February 16, where the band will share the bill with Yes Ma'am.
We recently sat down with Davis and talked to him about the song, the album, his feelings on Southern racism and religion, and his evolving creative process.
Creative Loafing: "Emanuel" is one of the standout tracks on the new album. Can you talk a little bit about it?
Jeremy Davis: It's hard, of course, because it was such a horrible event. I wrote the song a few weeks after the shooting. I was traveling and staying at a Motel 6 in Tennessee. I just woke up suddenly and that song came in a few minutes. I think I had fallen asleep with the news on and the shooting was all over everything at that time, but it was one of those songs that just comes to you.
I sat on it until this record, because I felt weird about releasing it [then]. The whole thing, especially being from the Charleston area, made me so upset. As a South Carolinian, the shooting raised a conversation in South Carolina about the [Confederate] flag, and brought up a lot of stuff that, for me, is very close to home, growing up in South Carolina and being around certain viewpoints. The whole dichotomy of the South, slavery, the church where the shooting happened and the history of that place and the irony of Christianity and how it's completely a part of the whole mess.
The new album, Spec, is indie rock, but it uses traditional Appalachian instrumentation. How did you arrive at this approach?
Well my first group [Elonzo], I wrote all the songs for. You could have called it Americana, but it had drums and electric guitars, keyboards. A typical rock set-up. I loved playing with that band but I felt that some of the more subtle things about the music and the songs that I was writing just didn't come across in the live setting.
The natural instinct of a rock band is to rock, right? (laughs) You wanna get up there and be kind of aggressive with it. So that band broke up and I was playing solo for awhile, and that's when I started Elonzo Wesley. It was initially a solo project. I always had this idea that my songs were indie in the style of experimentation with the melodies, so I'm not trying to sound traditional, but I am coming from an Americana point of view, if that makes sense.
I'm not seeing any other bands taking bluegrass instrumentation and playing these kind of songs. Usually acoustic bands like this are playing more traditional songs. I like that music, but I want to do something different with it. We can be a high-energy band, but in a different way.
The style of the writing is more personal than traditional. It feels more influenced by the classic songwriters of the late 20th Century, starting with Bob Dylan. Are you an autobiographical kind of writer?
I grew up with my mom showing me a lot of music: Beatles, Dylan, Paul Simon, Neil Young. I heard Bob Dylan just as I was learning how to play guitar, and that approach was just burned into my head.
These are my stories, in musical form, definitely. Not always 100-percent autobiography or whatever, but I wouldn't want it to be. I think when you, as the listener, can feel that personal attachment, even if you don't understand the story, it gives you the opportunity to make it personal for yourself. At least it does in my case, when I listen to other peoples music.
Do you find it hard to stay creative in today's climate, with the speed and the ugliness of the public discourse online? How do you keep going?
It does affect me for sure — my everyday outlook on things — and probably for the negative a lot of the time. On the flip side of that, playing music and being creative is one of the only things that really brings me joy. So it makes me want to push harder to be more creative.
Jesse Stockton, a guy we played music with in Wilmington, said, "Music is medicine for people," which sounds like it belongs on a poster somewhere; but without being cliché, it's still true. People go to shows because they want to escape from whatever it is they're dealing with. I like that idea, and music is definitely a place where I can get a release from whatever else is happening.
How's the reception for Spec been so far, and what are your plans for the band?
I think it's been really good. We've just kind of grown naturally to where we are now, and people are always asking us to do other things, so we're getting busier and busier. We're playing the Whitewater Center in April; I think [the Charleston indie-rock band] Susto is playing that night. We're looking to book shows further west and farther up north this year.
Every time I tried to gear up for a tour in the past, the logistics didn't make sense, but I'm thinking now's the time. This is the band I've wanted for like, forever, and with this new record, it's time to get out there. | 2019-04-25T06:11:18 | https://clclt.com/charlotte/jeremy-davis-honors-charleston-church-shooting-victims-on-new-elonzo-wesley-album/Content?oid=8304592 |
0.999999 | Why is the gravitational field of the universe another name for space-time?
used by Riemann to describe the geometry of a space. This means that where Newtonian gravity dealt with one quantity to measure the gravitational field, Einstein's theory in the guise of "g-mu-nu" required a total of 10 unique quantities to more completely define how the gravitational field behaved. The force of gravity defined as changes in the gravitational field from place to place in Newtonian mechanics, was replaced by changes in the geometry of space from place to place in spacetime measured by the degree of curvature symbolized by "C-mu-nu" at each point. Einstein's minimalist adoption of "g-mu-nu" as the embodiment of the gravitational field was significant and has far-reaching ramifications. Before Einstein, the metric tensor "g-mu-nu" was a purely geometric quantity that expresses how to determine the distances between points in space. Geometers from the time of Gauss knew nothing about forces, mass and momentum, they did however use the metric tensor to uncover new and bizarre spaces resembling nothing that humans have ever experienced.
"Spacetime does not claim existence on its own but only as a structural quality of the [gravitational] field"
This is such a profound assumption that I have intentionally enlarged the font to emphasize its significance. It will turn out to be the cornerstone to a radically new understanding of the nature of space and the vacuum. But in its radical departure from older ideas about gravity, Einstein's view point sounds a lot like the old philosophical discussion of the Void which emphasized that without bodies, 'place' and therefore vacuum could not exist. If we consider that all bodies produce gravitational fields, we see that Einstein's general relativity arrives at nearly the same Aristotelian conclusion.
The intuitive idea that something must serve as the foundation for space and spacetime for that matter is powerfully seductive, and one to which virtually all physicists when caught off-guard, swear allegiance. They do so for the simple reason that to do otherwise leaves their mental constructs of the world literally hanging in mid-air. When we write our equations that depend on time and space locations, we consider this coordinate gridwork to exist in some more fundamental way than the particles, fields and energy they are meant to locate in space and time. We think of these coordinates much the way Newton must have in his world of absolute space and time, describing some immutable, rigid lattice work that is entirely aloof from the less than perfect matter and energy that moves through the gridwork subject to nature's physical laws. But Einstein firmly believed that this comfortable, intuitive view was wrong. If the metric "g-mu-nu" is identical to the gravitational field, which is what experimental evidence has since shown, then the coordinates of the physical spacetime manifold we erect to define place and time must also in some sense be constructs of the gravitational field. Let's look at these issues one at a time and see how modern-day mathematicians and physicists are trying to resolve them. First, let's examine Einstein's assertion that spacetime is a fundamental field in nature, and then let's have a closer look at the issue of how to physically interpret the points in the spacetime manifold.
Beginning with a landmark paper by Gunnar Nordstrom of Helsingfors in 1913, there have been many attempts to create what are called 'bi-metric' or 'prior-geometry' theories for gravity and spacetime. The object is to re-assert the existence of an underlying metric to the world which like a cake, supports the frosting which we see as the gravitational field, "g-mu-nu". We might then have the option of 'turning off' a gravitational field without Reality flashing out of existence at the same time. But gravity does not behave like light which can be turned on and off at will with a switch. Every erg of energy and scrap of matter produces a gravitational field. So, to turn off a gravitational field you must nullify all forms of matter and energy in the universe. This is hardly a sensible experiment to perform and would certainly not preserve the shape of Reality as we have come to know it. These approaches always run into other problems as well.
Prior-geometry theory sees "g-mu-nu" as being actually a compound object in disguise; one part being the gravitational field, the other part representing a pre-existing and immutable arena of spacetime. To make such a decomposition work, the part of "g-mu-nu" that is prior-geometry cannot be affected by matter or energy; that was the exclusive role to be played by the second component of "g-mu-nu" representing the gravitational field. Prior geometry would have to play the role of the absolute bedrock of spacetime that both special relativity and Newtonian physics are built-up from. Can such a decomposition really work? No observation by the time Einstein proposed general relativity, or since, has ever uncovered any physical evidence for some 'universal geometric object' or plenum which stands aloof from physics in the manner that prior geometry would have to. Prior-geometry theory would also require that some preferred universal frame of rest exist against which, like the ether or Newton's absolute space and time, we could gauge our motion. Also, no phenomenon had ever been discovered which did not obey the principle of reciprocity; the property of acting upon matter and in turn being acted upon by matter.
If this argument for the existence of prior-geometry sounds like the old argument Maxwell used for believing in the Ether, you are right. It is, after all, rather hard not to consider something like a prior-geometry at work in nature for much the same reason that the ether was such a seductive idea in electrodynamics for supporting light waves. Once again science moved along a parallel track, recapitulating the intuitive prejudices of an earlier time. Attempts were, in fact, made to create improved, workable prior-geometry theory and most of them were categorized in 1972 by Caltech physicists Wei-Tou Ni, Clifford Will and Kenneth Nordvedt at Montana State University. There have even been attempts at finding alternate mathematical descriptions to spacetime such as the work by H. Reichenbach in 1956 described in The Direction of Time. Reichenbach proposed that gravity is actually not a universal force according to his strict definition of such things. Philosopher Roberto Torretti at the University of Puerto Rico, however, commented on Reichenbach's analysis in a book called Relativity and Geometry by stating that Reichenbach's universal forces cannot be detected by any means because they modify the shape of the instrument used to measure them in the exact way needed to conceal their presence. They "...belong to the realm of science fiction and cannot be seriously countenance in real science" . As Sir James Jeans remarked in 1941 about the Ether, perhaps there is nothing to conceal in the first place.
The fact of the matter is that the experimental tests of general relativity are even now so restrictive that no other interpretation than Einstein's original one survives. Still, bi-metric theories continue to be of interest to some theoreticians because of their tantalizing capacity to offer slightly different solutions to older problems in general relativity. If only it were possible to preserve these beneficial features of prior-geometry theory without violating most experimental evidence for how gravitational fields operate. For example, as recently as 1989, in an article to the Astrophysical Journal, Rosen and his colleague Amos Harpaz at the Israel Institute of technology resurrected bi-metric general relativity and showed how it could modify what happens to a star collapsing to become a black hole. Instead of passing through its so-called event horizon and continuing to collapse to a singularity, it stops collapsing shortly after it arrives at its horizon size. It never evolves further to become a singularity as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity.
"...[prior- geometry] is built on the a priori, Euclidean four-dimensional space, the belief in which amounts to something like a superstition"
It has occasionally been said that the only way that wrong theories actually vanish is that their proponents die off. They are never replaced by a new generation of students willing to pursue ideas that consistently go against experimental evidence and logical consistency. Bi-metric general relativity may be another such theory whose days are numbered. Having dispatched prior-geometry as being unsupported by the results of any experiment, let's now look at the second part of our question of what spacetime represents physically.
Although Einstein defined the association between his gravitational field to be exactly equivalent to what mathematicians had previously called the metric to the manifold, there was one other issue that remained open. In Gauss's surface geometry, and Riemann's manifold geometry, the properties of space were not tied to a particular coordinate system. Physically, this means that if I used "spherical" coordinates "( R, theta, phi)" and you used "cartesian" coordinates, ( x, y, z) we would come to identical conclusions about the motion of a planet around the sun. In fact, anyone would do so long as they assigned to every point in the manifold a unique coordinate address expressed as a pair of triplet numbers. These so-called Gaussian coordinates had absolutely no physicality to them. But now comes Einstein who appropriates the metric to represent the gravitational field. How are we now to interpret the points that make up the mathematical manifold in terms of physical properties of the gravitational field?
Geometrically, a point has no size at all, and manifolds are built up from quite literally an uncountable infinitude of these points. Physically speaking, a point in spacetime is defined as an 'event' which has a unique address in the manifold. All observers will agree that such an event occurred, and each will assign it a unique address in their own coordinate system, but in comparing these addresses with other observers, the space and time components to the addresses will be different. An event at its most elementary level could be the collision between two particles or the emission of a photon of light by a particle. An event could be any intersection between two worldlines on the manifold. By filling up the manifold in this way, every mathematical point eventually finds itself near some intersection point in the net of intersecting worldlines described by the energy (light) and matter worldlines that fill-up the spacetime. At some point, one may then disregard the 'reality' of the abstract manifold and focus on the reality of the webwork of worldlines of the real particles which now defines the physical manifold of spacetime.
"To me the geometry of a physical space is primarily a subjective concept. What is objective is the material content of the space, the photons, electrons [etc]...When particles are present, it becomes possible to add objective elements to the mathematical elements. Thus, the collision between two particles can be used as a definition of a spacetime point...If particles were present in large numbers, for example, as virtual photons or gravitons, collisions with a test particle (e.g. electron) could be so numerous as to define an almost continuous trajectory. It is not [however] necessary that one have a physical definition of all points in our 4-dimensional spacetime...The empty background of space, of which ones knowledge is only subjective, imposes no dynamical conditions on matter."
What this means is that so long as a point in the manifold is not occupied by some physical event such as the interaction point of a photon and an electron, it has no effect on a physical process. It is the collective property of physical events which defines the physical spacetime manifold and its geometry. The interstitial space between the events is simply not there so far as the physical world is concerned. A spider is free to crawl around its web, but it cannot crawl around if the web is not there.
"entirely shun the vague word 'space' of which we must honestly acknowledge we cannot form the slightest conception."
"...time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live."
They are free creations of the human mind to use one of Einstein's own expressions. | 2019-04-24T14:01:57 | https://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/q2442.html |
0.999999 | 1. The ____ between the bottom of the door and the floor is big enough for a mouse to walk through!
2. I ____ to eat a burger instead of fried chicken tonight.
3. That Shakespeare play was long! I'm surprised I _____ it without falling asleep.
4. We wrote our own wedding ____ to say during the ceremony.
5. "______ coffee and dessert after your meal?" the waiter asked the guests at the fancy restaurant.
6. My shirt is so old that it has a ____ in it!
7. The prisoner ____ freedom after being locked up for 10 years.
8. We just ____ dinner, and now we're watching TV.
9. I ____ to never tell your secret to anyone.
10. ____ to watch the soccer game with me?
1. The key here is to realize that the sentence is describing a space between two things. Since a hole is an empty space in a single object (like a hole in a piece of paper), gap is the better answer because a gap is a space between two things--like the space between a door and the floor.
2. It's very important to think about the context of the sentence in number 2. This person is describing what he or she wants to eat for dinner tonight. We can use the general word "want" in this case, since it is clear the speaker is not starving. Somebody would yearn for food if they were very hungry or hadn't had a particular kind of food that they really like in a long time because "yearn" means to want something deeply.
3. To "get through" something means to finish something that is very long or difficult. to "finish" something, on the other hand, is the general word we use when something ends. Since the speaker had difficulty finishing the Shakespeare play, it would be more appropriate to use "get through" in this context (although "finish" would still be correct--though less descriptive).
4. A vow is a formal promise. Since a wedding is a very formal ceremony, "vow" is commonly used to describe the promises that a bride and groom make to each other.
5. "Would you care for" is a formal way of saying "Do you want." You can almost always use these interchangeably, although in formal settings, it is more polite to say "would you care for...?"
6. Since this sentence is not about the space between two things, hole is the correct word to use in this context. Remember, a hole is an empty space in a single thing or object.
7. Since the prisoner in this sentence probably really wanted to leave prison after such a long stay there, he or she would be yearning for freedom. "Want" would be OK to use here, but it would be less descriptive.
8. Since dinner is not usually something that is long or difficult, it is more appropriate to use the general word, finish, in this sentence.
9. Context is the key in number 9. Nothing in this sentence suggests that this is a formal setting. It sounds like something one friend might casually say to another. Therefore, "promise" is the more appropriate word for this sentence.
10. Since this sentence is about watching a soccer game, it is not a formal setting. It would sound silly if you asked, "Would you care to watch the soccer game?" In situations like this, stick with the general phrase, "Do you want...?" | 2019-04-21T10:31:13 | https://www.skypeenglishclassnow.com/extra-english-help/appropriate-words/appropriate-words-7/ |
0.99961 | Akkadian - A language spoken by most of Mesopotamia. It replaced Sumerian as the primary language.
Akkadian Empire - The Akkadian Empire was the world's first empire. It formed when Sargon the Great conquered many of the Sumerian city-states and united them under one leader.
Aqueduct - A man-made channel built to carry water from one location to another.
Ashur or Assur - Assur was the original capital city of the Assyrian Empire. It was also the name of the primary god in the Assyrian religion.
Assyrian Empire - An empire known for their fierce warriors, the Assyrian Empire rose and fell several times to rule over much of Mesopotamia and the Middle East.
Babylonian Empire - The Babylonian Empire ruled much of Mesopotamia from the city of Babylon. The empire rose and fell over the course of ancient history.
Chariot - The chariot was a two wheeled vehicle pulled by horses. It was typically used for warfare and was one of the strengths of the Assyrian army.
City-state - A city-state is an independently governed region that is centered around a single powerful city. The civilization of the Sumer was governed by many independent city-states.
Civilization - A civilization is an advanced state of human society. Typically a civilization is marked by advanced government, agriculture, science, and culture.
Code of Hammurabi - A written code of law from 1772 BC. It was put in place by Babylonian King Hammurabi. It is one of the oldest detailed recordings of a code of law in world history.
Cuneiform - One of the earliest forms of writing invented by the Sumer. It uses wedge shaped marks to make picture symbols on clay tablets.
Cylinder seal - An engraved stone cylinder used to create a seal or signature on clay tablets.
Dynasty - When one family rules a kingdom or empire for a period of time, passing down the reign to the next generation.
Empire - A large number of states or regions that are ruled by a single leader called the emperor or empress.
Fertile Crescent - A large area of land in the Middle East that is shaped like a crescent on a map. It runs from the Persian Gulf, along the Tigres and Euphrates rivers, over to the Mediterranean Sea, and down the Nile River Valley of Egypt.
Gilgamesh - A Sumerian King of the city-state of Uruk. He later became known in mythology as a demigod with superhuman strength.
Irrigation - Watering crops through man-made efforts such as ditches and canals.
Lyre - A stringed instrument shaped like a small harp.
Marduk - The primary god of the Babylonians.
Mesopotamia - A term used to describe the lands between and near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It is mostly located in present day Iraq and Syria.
Mina - A unit of weight equal to 60 shekels or around 1.25 pounds.
Nebuchadnezzar - A famous king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt much of the city including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Persian Empire - The last major empire of Ancient Mesopotamia, the Persian Empire conquered much of the Middle East.
Scribe - A person trained in writing cuneiform script. They were well-respected in Mesopotamian society.
Shekel - A standard unit of weight first used in Mesopotamia.
Siege weapons - Weapons used to capture cities and take down walls. The Assyrians were experts at using siege weapons such as battering rams and siege towers.
Stylus - A writing tool made from a reed that scribes used to make wedge shaped symbols on clay tablets.
Sumer - The first human civilization in world history, the Sumer began to form towns in 5000 BC.
Ziggurats - Large temples usually located at the center of a Mesopotamian city. Ziggurats looked like pyramids with a flat top.
Zoroastrianism - The main religion of the Persian Empire, it followed the teachings of Zoroaster. | 2019-04-24T08:33:26 | https://www.ducksters.com/history/mesopotamia/glossary%20and_terms.php |
0.999979 | A supposed sect of an Essene order, among Palestinian Jews of the second century. The only passage in which the name occurs is Miḳwaot ix. 6 (Tosef. ib. vi. 14 [vii. 1]), where the following Halakah is recorded by a tanna of the middle of the second century, concerning the question of dipping the clothing for Levitical purification: "Garments belonging to the Bannaim may not have a mud-stain even upon one side, because these people are very particular concerning the cleanliness of their clothing, and any such spot would prevent the purifying water from actually penetrating the garment as it is usually worn; but with a 'bor' [explained as an unlearned and uncultured man], it matters not if his clothing contain a mud-spot at the time of dipping, for such a one is not so particular about cleanliness."
The identity of these Bannaim was lost to the amoraim of a century later. Hence the term was explained as "scholars who occupy themselves with the study of the world's construction"; so that "Bannaim" would mean "building-masters" or "building-students," from "banah" (to build) (Shab. 114a). Similarly to this explanation, Frankel (see below) understood the Bannaim to be an Essene order who were employed with ax and shovel (compare Josephus, "B. J." ii. 8, § 9); while other scholars, such as Sachs and Derenbourg ("Essai sur l'Histoire de la Géographie de la Palestine," p. 166), agree in the main with Frankel, but explain "Bannaim" to mean "those who bathe," from the Judæo-Aramean word "banna'a," equivalent to the Greek βαλανεîον (bath). Thus the name of this order would then be identical in meaning with the "Ṭobele Shaḥarit" (Hemerobaptists), as the Essenes are sometimes called. Nevertheless it is highly probable that the word "Bannaim" in the above-mentioned Mishnah means simply "bathers," without reference to any particular sect, but in connection with the clothing used at the bath. This is, according to Rashi, the conception of the Mishnah held by the amora Simeon b. Laḳish, who explains by (clothes used in the bath or immediately afterward) (Shab. l.c.; but Jastrow, "Dict.," and Krauss, "Lehnwörter," assign a quite different meaning to ).
The misunderstanding of this Mishnah originates in taking "Bannaim" as an antithesis to "bor," and this latter as meaning "an uncultured person." But "bor" is never found as the antithesis of Essene; a proper opposition would be "ḥaber" and "'Am ha-Areẓ." A comparison of the passage with its parallel in the Tosefta, l.c., shows that "bor" means nothing more than a "well," which explanation casts a quite different light upon the Mishnah and its exposition. The Tosefta reads: "When mire from a roadside strip [ ; see Mishnah, l.c. 2] has fallen upon clothing, there are three varying opinions whether such mud prevents Levitical purification. One holds it to be a preventive only when it goes through both sides of the garment; a second, that it prevents purification even though it adhere only to one side; while an intermediate opinion claims that if the garment be one belonging to the Bannaim, the second opinion must be upheld, and if not, then the first." So far the Mishnah, to which the Tosefta adds, "but if the mire comes from a pit ["bor"; the Mishnah, l.c. 2, calls it ], the solution depends upon whether the pit is large and containing much mud, or small" (the text is corrupt in the usual editions, but may be found correct in ed. Zuckermandel and in Hai Gaon's commentary on the Mishnah, l.c.). According to this view, the Mishnah says nothing about the clothing of a bor, but speaks of the mire from a pit (bor), which is declared a preventive of Levitical purification, even though it be upon only one side of the garment. This explanation of the Mishnah, current in the gaonic period, was revived by Elijah Wilna in modern times (see his gloss on the passage); and it takes the foundation from under the interpretation of "Bannaim" as a class of persons opposed to the bor. The Mishnah simply says that bathing-clothes must be scrupulously clean, and that the smallest stain prevents their Levitical purification. Compare Banus, Bannaah, Essenes. | 2019-04-26T03:45:06 | http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2447-bannaim |
0.999998 | Which plug adaptor do I need when travelling from Balearic Islands to Okinawa Prefecture?
The table below summarises the plug types, voltage and frequency of electrical current in both Balearic Islands and Okinawa Prefecture.
In Okinawa Prefecture there's more than one socket type in use. You may require more than one adaptor.
The voltages found in Balearic Islands and Okinawa Prefecture are significantly different.
Is your appliance compatible with the voltage used in Okinawa Prefecture (100V)?
If your appliance is not compatible with multiple voltages, you will need a transformer to adjust the voltage input when using your appliance in Okinawa Prefecture.
The frequency of electrical current found in Balearic Islands (50Hz) differs to that found in Okinawa Prefecture (60Hz). | 2019-04-25T10:14:01 | https://www.whichplug.com/balearicislands-to-okinawaprefecture/ |
0.969497 | 1. Was there an Ice Age?
Yes. There was a time when glaciers covered large areas of North America and northwestern Europe.1 Most scientists believe there were several ice ages, but some creationists suspect there was only one Ice Age, with fluctuations that produced the appearance of more than one. Ice caps still remain in Antarctica and Greenland, along with many glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere.
There are several lines of evidence that show the presence of ice sheets over much of northern North America in the past. This evidence includes moraines, glacial polish and large boulders known as erratics. Glaciers tend to flow downhill, very slowly. As the glacier moves, more ice is added to the glacier’s head, so the glacier may appear to the causal observer to be stationary. Glacial movement scrapes up rocks from the ground surface and pushes them to the sides and front of the glacier, forming piles of unsorted rock debris. The rock piles along the sides of the glacier are called lateral moraines, while the one at the tip of the glacier is called a terminal moraine. When glaciers move over solid rock, they leave scars in the form of scratches or glacial polish. A glacier may carve a U-shaped valley into the mountains as it moves. Large boulders that fall onto the surface of the glacier will be carried downhill, sometimes for many miles. When the glacier melts, the large boulder, known as a glacial erratic, may be deposited far from its source. These and other glacial features are common over large areas of Canada and parts of the northern United States, showing that these areas were once covered with ice.
2. When was the Ice Age?
Probably not long after the Flood. Many records point toward climatic cooling and establishment of glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere in the uppermost Pliocene,2 which is near the top of the geological column. This would fit well if at least the upper Cenozoic is post-Flood. A lapse of time between the release of the animals from the ark and the onset of the Ice Age would provide time for the animals to disperse across the northern continents before the ice accumulated enough to block further dispersal.
3. Why doesn't the Bible say anything about the Ice Age?
The Bible records the history of the people who preserved the knowledge of the promised Messiah. The Ice Age is not relevant to that history. On the other hand, references such as Job 38:223 may indicate a cooler climate in early biblical history.
4. What caused the Ice Age?
There have been many conjectures about the cause of the Ice Age.4 From a creationist perspective, one of the most interesting models5 was developed by M.J. Oard. In this reconstruction, the ocean was still warm immediately after the flood. This means much water would evaporate and produce precipitation, especially along the storm track of the eastern coast of North America. This storm track brought large amounts of snow to northern North America, where the greatest buildup of ice occurred. As the earth’s crust adjusted to the changes caused by the Flood, earthquakes and volcanic activity occurred. Volcanoes ejected dust and sulfates into the air, which blocked the sun and kept the summers cool. This increased the amount of precipitation and reduced summer melting of the snow and ice.6 As the ground became covered with snow, it reflected more of the sun's heat instead of absorbing it. This cooled the air even more, accelerating the cooling process. After several hundred years, the ocean had cooled sufficiently that the amount of new snow declined. Volcanic activity declined also, allowing the summers to become warmer and melting the ice.
5. How long did the Ice Age last?
6. How did the Ice Age affect the plants and animals?
The Ice Age affected plants and animals in several ways. First, as the climate cooled, climatic zones shifted toward the equator. Species had to move with their climate zone, become adjusted to a different climate, or go extinct. There are numerous examples of all three responses.13 For example, wooly mammoths adapted to the cooling climate in northern Asia by growing long hair. A few mammoths were trapped in mud and snow, and their bodies preserved for thousands of years, waiting to be discovered and studied by scientists.14 There are no longer any native elephants in northern Asia, as the wooly mammoth is now extinct.
The Ice Age also affected the ability of organisms to disperse to new areas. As ice accumulated on the continents, so much water was lost from the ocean that sea level was reduced by about 100 meters (330 feet). The lowering of sea level exposed land bridges, such as those linking Asia with North America, southeastern Asia with the islands of the Sunda Shelf, Australia with Tasmania and New Guinea, and others. This permitted land dispersal in areas that are now separated by the sea. As the ice sheets grew across North America, they formed a barrier to land animals and plants, making it difficult for species to disperse between Asia and North America. As the ice sheet melted, the climate warmed, and species were able to migrate northward.
7. What about other Ice Ages in the geologic column?
8. What are the most significant unsolved questions regarding Ice Ages?
How and how quickly did the ice sheets form and how did they affect the movement of humans and terrestrial animals? What processes account for the appearance of large numbers of layers in ice cores and cyclical oscillations in climate proxies from marine and terrestrial records?
Wright AE, Moseley F, editors. Ice Ages: Ancient and Modern. Geological Journal Special Issue No. 6. (Liverpool: See House Press, 1975).
Bartoli, G, et al. Final closure of Panama and the onset of northern hemisphere glaciation. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 237(2005):33-44; Ravelo, AC et al. Regional climate shifts caused by gradual global cooling in the Pliocene epoch. Nature 429(2004):263-267.
“Have you entered the treasury of snow, or have you seen the treasury of hail,” Job 38:22.
Imbrie J, Imbrie KP. Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).
See: Oard MJ. A post-flood ice-age model can account for Quaternary features. Origins 17(1990):8-26; Oard MJ. 1 An Ice-Age Caused by the Genesis Flood. ICR Technical Monograph. (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1990).
Eruption of Samalas volcano about 1257 AD may have caused the cool climate period known as “The Little Ice Age.” See Lavigne, F. et al, Source of the great A.D. 1257 mystery eruption unveiled, Samalas volcano, Rinjani Volcanic Complex, Indonesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, US (2013); doi: 10.1073/pnas.1307520110, accessed 3 October 2013.
See the papers by Oard in footnote 5.
North Greenland Ice Core Project. High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period. Nature 431(2004):147-151.
EPICA group. Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core. Nature 429(2004):623-628.
Craig, H, Horibe Y, and Sowers T. Graviational separation of gases and isotopes in polar ice caps. Science 242(1988):1675-1678; Lorius, C et al. A 150,000-year climatic record from Antarctic ice. Nature 316(1985):591-596.
Rempel, A et al. Possible displacement of the climate signal in ancient ice by premelting and anomalous diffusion. Nature (May 2001)411:568-571.
E.g., see Lomolino, MV, et al. Biogeography, 4th edition, (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2010), 313-357.
Fisher, DC et al. Anatomy, death, and preservation of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) calf, Yamal Peninsula, northwest Siberia. Quaternary International 255(2012):94-105. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.05.040; Wong, K. 2013. Can a mammoth carcass really preserve flowing blood and possibly live cells? Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13103.
E.g., Eyles, N. Earth’s glacial record and its tectonic setting, Earth-Science Reviews 35(1993):1-248; Smith, LB and Read JF. Rapid onset of late Paleozoic glaciation on Gondwana: Evidence from upper Mississippian strata of the midcontinent, United States. Geology 28(2000):279-282.
See: Gravenor CP, Von Brunn V. Aspects of Late Paleozoic glacial sedimentation in parts of the Parana Basin, Brazil, and the Karoo Basin, South Africa, with special reference to the origin of massive diamictite. In McKenzie GD, editor. Gondwana Six: Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Paleontology. Geophysical Monograph 41. (Washington DC: American Geophysical Union, 1987), 103-111; Rampino MR. Tillites, diamictites, and ballistic ejecta of large impacts. Journal of Geology 102(1994):439-456; Bennett MR, Doyle P, Mather AE. Dropstones: their origin and significance. Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology 121(1996):331-339; Oberbeck VR, Marshall JR, Aggarwal H. Impacts, tillites, and the breakup of Gondwanaland. Journal of Geology 101(1993):1-19, and Responses in Journal of Geology 101(1993):675-679; 102:483-485. | 2019-04-18T18:56:18 | https://www.grisda.org/ice-age |
0.999505 | Have you requested extra responsibilities in any of your previous roles?
The interviewer wants to see that you have a desire to learn, grow, and try on new challenges! No hiring authority wants to hire the complacent employee so show them you are willing to see opportunity when it arises!
Your willingness to take on additional tasks, with a positive attitude, gives the interviewer all the more reason to want to get to know you better. Hiring managers are looking for people who will be proactive and help to carry the team.
- Offering to take work off of a colleague's plate, if they seem stressed.
- Just jumping in and take on a new responsibility!
"In my current role I asked my boss if I could take over the social media marketing. We are a small company, and my supervisor was struggling with it. Being a millennial, I am always on social media, and I understand what types of posts gain attention. After taking over the task, I grew our Instagram following from just 400 to 2000 in 2 months! I am always game for taking on new tasks, especially when they are in my wheelhouse."
"Most of the time, yes. I don't like to get "bored" or have an empty to-do list. Working hard makes the time go by faster. I don't ask for more work when I have a full load and am staring at overtime possibilities, though."
"To be an excellent manager and leader, I need to show that not only am I proactive, but that being so will positively impact career growth. I need to lead by example, so I am always looking for more projects or responsibilities."
"I like to take it on myself to figure out the fastest way to get something done while maintaining my high standards. Then, I continue to innovate on that. I like being efficient and effective. The most recent addition to my responsibilities includes planning all promotions for the annual calendar and coordinating with sales on how they will pitch and execute those promotions."
"I ask for extra responsibilities all of the time! I am constantly seeking out new ways that I can learn more and exceed customer expectations in my role."
"Yes, I will request extra responsibilities when it's appropriate. I will on occasion ask 'what more can I do?' or 'what's next?' I like going above and beyond, and I always have my eye on the end game prize. I know that often the way to get there, faster, is to request the extra responsibilities and demonstrate my want for it."
"I often seek out more responsibility, either in mentorship or curriculum writing, for example. Even if it's nothing specific or mandated, I take on these responsibilities willingly. I want to help better the department and myself. Also, I am the freshman girl's soccer coach at the district's high school."
"In my current role I asked my boss if I could take over the social media marketing. We are a small shop, and my supervisor was struggling with it. Being a millennial, I am always on social media, and I understand what types of posts gain attention. After taking over the task, I grew our Instagram following from just 400 to 2000 in 2 months! I am always game for taking on new tasks, especially when they are in my wheelhouse."
"In my current role I asked my boss if I could take over the social media marketing. We are a small restaurant and my supervisor was struggling with it. Being a millennial, I am always on social media and I really understand what types of posts gain attention. After taking over the task, I grew our Instagram following from just 400 to 2000 in 2 months! I am always game for taking on new tasks."
"Just last week I stepped up to cover an additional shift. My colleague called out sick and her shift needed to be covered. I know she would do the same for me."
1. Tell me about a time when you made a suggestion requesting change in an organization.
3. When have you had to be extra thorough in completing tasks?
4. When have you had to think quickly in response to sudden change?
5. What has made you ready for this responsibility?
6. Tell me about your relationship with your previous boss. | 2019-04-21T10:10:25 | https://www.mockquestions.com/interview/Competency/Have-you-requested-extra-responsibilities-in-any-o-GQT23197328.html |
0.999981 | Where did the work samples and activities come from?
What is the purpose of providing a commentary with the work sample?
The work samples are all authentic pieces of work from real students. The activities and work samples on the site have come from Board of Studies publications, and from practising teachers in New South Wales. Further activities and work samples will be added to this website over time.
Work samples with written commentaries assist teachers to have a clear understanding of the standards. A 'commentary' with a work sample describes aspects of student performance and makes reference to the assessment criteria of the activity and the relevant strands of the Foundation Statements. The related Foundation Statement strands (K-6) are shown below the commentaries.
The samples of work with the commentaries, when taken collectively, help teachers to clearly see the quality of work typically produced by students who are midway through Kindergarten, or at the end of Kindergarten.
Teachers can use this information to understand the progress and achievements of their students in Kindergarten.
This project is coordinated by the Office of the Board of Studies in conjunction with the Department of Education and Training, the Catholic Education Commission and the Association of Independent Schools. Practising teachers, nominated by these sectors, have participated in the process and worked together in groups or online. The teachers represented a range of different types of schools and locations.
Practising teachers have made a professional judgement about each work sample, based on their knowledge and their experience of teaching students in that subject area in Kindergarten.
In making their judgements, the teachers carefully considered the types of knowledge, skills and understandings in the subject area that students in Kindergarten typically demonstrate. In doing this, they looked closely at the syllabus outcomes and content for Kindergarten, and at the descriptions in the Foundation Statements (K-6) of the nature and scope of learning in that subject area.
They looked at the activity, and considered what it asks students to do, especially the criteria for assessing learning. They then thought about how students in Kindergarten would respond to the task and the types of work they would produce midway through or at the end of Kindergarten. The teachers then looked in detail at the work sample, and made a judgement based on what a student midway through or at the end of Kindergarten would be expected to produce on that activity. | 2019-04-19T04:49:29 | https://arc.nesa.nsw.edu.au/go/k-6/work-samples-teacher-commentaries-for-early-stage-1 |
0.998994 | My friend just bought a used AL63 tank. How much air will he have compared to an AL80?
Does he have 3/4 the amount? Will it last 3/4 as long?
Assuming at a particular depth an Al80 lasts him 25 mins (to say 800psi), what can he expect to get out of it time wise?
The 63 means 63 cf at it's service pressure. The 80 means 80 cf at it's service pressure.
They aren't covering this kind of thing in open water any more?
Thanks for the sarcasm. I do understand there is 17 cf less; I guess I incorrectly worded that past of my question. I am unsure exactly how volume relates to pressure. When I start a dive with 3000 psi, and start an ascent at say 800 psi, does that mean I have used 22/30 of my air, or is pressure not related this way to volume?
What's Open Water? Is that like E-Learning?
Thanks for the sarcasm, although I notice you weren't able to answer the questions I asked. I do understand there is 17 cf less; I am unsure exactly how that relates to pressure. When I start a dive with 3000 psi, and start an ascent at say 800 psi, does that mean I have used 22/30 of my air, or is pressure not related this way to volume?
I can answer. It means he has 17 cf less of gas in his tank than in an AL 80 and needs to plan accordingly. 3000 psi does not always mean 80 cf. You breath gas in volume, not pressure. The volume you breath varies with SAC and depth.
I simply do not have time today to describe all the details of gas management to you. My guess, however, is that your "friend" does not have nearly a big enough tank with an AL63 if they only get 25 minutes out of an AL80.
25 mins at 150 feet is okay, isn't it?
Actually most AL80 with a 3000psi fill have 77 cubic feet of gas, where a 63 filled to 3000psi has 63 cubic feet of gas.
That will take 42/59 * 25 = 20.8 minutes.
The way these questions are being posed I remember a line from Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home.
Thanks for the reply. While I do know how much each tank holds, I was unsure as to actual volume of air consumed. I wasn't sure if having 1/3 the original psi meant 1/3 of the original air volume left, although I assumed it probably was. I guess by hypothetically grabbing numbers for comparison sake I was confusing the situation. I now understand that 3/4 the air means 3/4 the bottom time as compared to the larger tank.
Remember you still need to think about your Rock Bottom gas reserves though.
1500psi in a 40 though is only 20 cu ft. Thats likely not enough gas for both of the divers in the example above to survive.
Its an excellent exercise to run the numbers and see what pressure you need to reserve for a safe ascent from any particular depth.
My rule of thumb,using an Al80 is to ascend when the pressure is 10 times depth +300.
from 70 feet it is 1000 psi and so on.
Thats actually fairly conservative ,which is not a bad thing, and its easy to remember.
Each manufacturer could be slightly different but here is a list of specifications for Catalina aluminum cylinders: http://www.xsscuba.com/tank_cat_alum_specs_.html. You should notice that the AL80 is actually 77.4 cubic feet (cf) of air at 3000 PSI.
The relationship between air and pressure is linear. So 77.4 / 3000 or 0.0258 cf / PSI. Therefore if your friend uses 2200 PSI (3000 - 800) for a 25 minute dive on an AL80, they used 2200 * 0.0258 cf of air or 56.76 cf of the 77.4 cf. This means they have 20.64 cf of air left. Their consumption rate is 56.76 cf in 25 minutes or normalized to 2.2704 cf / min.
An AL63 is actually 63 cf of air. Therefore 1 PSI for that cylinder is going to be 63 / 3000 or 0.021 cf / PSI.
If they want to end the dive with 800 PSI (or use 2200 PSI) it would be 2200 PSI = 46.2 cf. At 2.2704 cf / min we would have just over 22 minutes.
On the other hand, if you wanted to end the dive with 20.64 cf of air left in the cylinder then you want to end with 983 PSI (20.64 / 0.021). This means you want to use 63 - 20.64 or 42.36 cf. At a consumption rate of 2.2704 cf / min you would have 42.36 / 2.2704 or just over 18 minutes.
The rule of back on board the boat with 500 PSI is a general rule and not always the best rule. It assumes you are using an AL80. The last calculation is the safer rule. You want a certain about of time left in you cylinder. The amount of cubic feet of air and how long it will last for you is directly related. The PSI needs to be calculated for each cylinder.
Your friend ends his 25 minute dive on an AL80 with 9 minutes of air left in the cylinder. If he wants to do the same with an AL63 he will dive for 18 minutes.
Thanks for the info. I'll pass it on, and then discourage him from using the tank when diving with me! It's the first tank he bought at a local scuba swap, and didn't realize in wasn't at Al80. He uses air faster than me, so I definitely don't want him using the smaller tank.
diving with him isnt a problem. Just switch tanks, you use the 65 and he uses the 80. This should offset his higher SAC rate. Head to the surface when the first diver reaches 1000psi.
I had actually thought about that. We would probably be ready to surface at the same time.
Now lets think about these 2 divers being at 100 feet ,both tanks are down to 1000 psi and they are just about to start ascending when a reg freeflows/hose bursts/Oring pops etc.
1.0 (SAC rate) X 4 (ATM) X 2 (Number of divers) = 8 cu ft gas.
Gas remaining on surface MINUS 2 cubic Feet !!!!!!!!!
If the dive is only to 30 feet then no problem,but just saying "ascend at 1000psi" does not cut it in my book.
You are over-complicating this basic question. Remember, we arent talking about rock-bottom gas calcs. This was a question about tank volumes and diving times for dis-similar tanks and SAC rates.
The solution I gave is the simplist solution. Nothing here has said the affore mentioned divers are going to be at 100 feet until they hit 1000 psi. the vast majority of dives are much shallower.
Plan your dive....Dive your plan.....Make your plan SIMPLE. | 2019-04-20T10:44:25 | http://forum.scubatoys.com/archive/index.php/t-30957.html?s=ca356a93c247668e37324a8bd4af7132 |
0.999758 | Despite international sanctions, North Korea is on the verge of rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal over the next five years, adding to regional concerns, as Joel Wit, founder of US think tank 38 North, tells DW.
The delivery systems a country possesses determine its ability to use its weapons - be it conventional, nuclear or biological - in the event of a war. The systems range from hi-tech options such as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and combat aircraft to low-technology ways of using artillery and ground-based vehicles. Despite efforts to curb the spread of these systems, many countries around the world continue to acquire them.
And those already in possession of these technologies, such as North Korea, appear steadfast to improve and expand their arsenals. Pyongyang's nuclear program has been a key bone of contention the communist regime and the international community, particularly after the isolated East Asian nation conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
While the country's current inventory is well-developed, the regime has "bigger ambitions and is seriously pursuing the deployment of more capable, longer-range, more survivable weapons," concludes a recently released report by 38 North, a program of the US-Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University.
Titled "The Future of North Korean Nuclear Delivery Systems," the report dwells into North Korea's current missile program and offers various scenarios for the country's future nuclear delivery systems capabilities.
In a DW interview, Joel Wit, founder and editor of 38 North as well as the project lead, says that North Korea could be a significant threat to the region by 2020 even without any new missile and nuclear weapons tests. He stresses that international sanctions against North Korea have so far been totally unsuccessful in terms of stopping the country from importing nuclear technology.
DW: According to your findings, how would you assess North Korea's present nuclear arms capabilities?
Joel Wit: We estimate that North Korea possesses anywhere between 10-16 nuclear weapons, and that they are able to put these weapons on top of at least medium-range missiles, which are able to hit most targets in Japan and South Korea.
North Korea has a small nuclear arsenal, but the most important point we are trying to make in the report is that they could be on the verge of rapid expansion of both their nuclear arsenal and their delivery systems over the next five years.
What are the main findings of your report?
In terms of nuclear weapons, North Korea would have a stockpile of between 20 and 100 bombs by 2020, depending on several factors such as the amount of resources it pours into its nuclear program and the country's ability to acquire foreign technology.
But while North Korea has mastered nuclear weapons technology over the past 25 years, developing the delivery systems has proved to be more difficult and remains a significant engineering challenge.
For instance, if you look at North Korea's missile program, it is still mainly using old soviet technology. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the country has about 1,000 missiles that can reach targets in the region, and they require no new testing. The bottom line therefore is that North Korea could be a significant threat to the region by 2020 even without any new missile and nuclear weapons tests.
Who is supporting North Korea in developing its nuclear delivery systems capabilities?
Right now, we believe it's very much an indigenous program. There is no more foreign assistance for North Korea's old liquid-fueled rockets. However, what we find is that some of the newer systems that are appearing are also based on old Russian technology. And it's not quite clear whether North Koreans are able to produce them by themselves or they acquired a these technologies somehow from Russia in the past.
Although there is a bit of uncertainty, we think the North has the capabilities to take care of their main basic missiles - the liquid-fuel ones - in their arsenal.
What challenges does North Korea's nuclear program currently face?
One of the things we are not clear about North Korea's nuclear capabilities is the size of their program to produce highly-enriched uranium. We know it exists but we are not sure how advanced it is. So the issue is how many nuclear plants they have and how much uranium can they produce. And that's one of the factors that influence our projections.
In terms of the qualitative capabilities of their nuclear weapons, the main consideration is of course whether they can mount their weapons on top of missiles or not. Although there has recently been some talk about North Korea being able to put weapons on top of intercontinental missiles, we are skeptical about it and believe it requires more testing for the country to acquire that capability.
How successful have the current international sanctions been in curbing Pyongyang's nuclear activities?
The sanctions have been totally unsuccessful in terms of stopping North Korea from importing nuclear technology. I don't think they have had any impact on Pyongyang's ability to acquire more capabilities. North Koreans have been evading sanctions for decades, and on top of that I would say that the enforcement of these sanctions by the international community has been very lax.
What level of threat does the North's nuclear capability pose to the countries in the region?
If I was a South Korean or Japanese, I wouldn't want a North Korea that could be armed with a 100 nuclear weapons in the next five years. I would be very concerned about that development, particularly if the relationships in the region remain tense. It’s certainly not a good scenario and could get much worse.
What should the international community do to stop or at least slow down North Korea's pursuit to develop more advanced weapons and delivery systems?
The problem right now is that everything we are doing is currently not working. We have no diplomacy, and sanctions aren't working at all. I would even go further and say that the recognition of this growing threat is lagging behind the speed at which it is growing.
I think we really do need to have a reassessment of what's going on in North Korea, and based on that we need to find a new approach to tackle the issue. The approach is going to require thinking about serious sanctions; making them tougher and actually enforcing them. But it would also need thinking about serious diplomacy to identify peaceful paths to move forward.
Unfortunately, I don't believe any of that is going to happen. The US is pretty much done in terms of dealing with North Korea and is consumed with Iran, and I don't think that's going to change.
Joel Wit is the founder and editor of 38 North, a program of the US-Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. | 2019-04-24T20:07:08 | https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-could-have-up-to-100-nuclear-weapons-by-2020/a-18374679 |
0.999999 | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration quietly released its first-ever estimate of the amount of antibiotics sold for use in livestock animals in the United States. The number: 29 million pounds in 2009. What's at stake and what can you do?
Last Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quietly published its first-ever estimate of the amount of antibiotics sold for use in livestock animals in the United States. The number: 29 million pounds in 2009.
Along with the estimate of antibiotics sold, the FDA released the names of antimicrobial drugs approved for use in food-producing animals. According to Siobhan DeLancey, staff member in the FDA Office of Public Affairs, the Animal Drugs User Fee Act requires the FDA to collect and publish this information annually.
"This is the first year, so its significance is yet to be determined," DeLancey said. "Its real purpose is to provide a benchmark for comparison of future data."
The FDA report comes on the heels of the agency's draft guidance released last July that recommended limiting the use of antibiotics in livestock agriculture. At the time, Joshua M. Sharfstein, the FDA's principal deputy commissioner, said antibiotics should be used only to protect the health of an animal and not to help it grow or improve the way it digests its feed.
"FDA concludes that the overall weight of evidence available to date supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production purposes is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health," Sharfstein said in his testimony at the time. "Developing strategies for reducing antimicrobial resistance is critically important for protecting both public and animal health."
Delancey said the FDA "is committed to prevention of antimicrobial resistance" and that agency staff members are currently reviewing public comments on the draft guidance.
Although the FDA's efforts are far from perfect, most critics of the unnecessary use of antibiotics in animal food production applaud the FDA for acting on the issue. "I'm happy that the FDA is finally addressing the issue of antibiotics in livestock," said Dave Carter, executive director of the Westminster, Colo.-based National Bison Association. "The evidence is steadily growing that the regular use of antibiotics as a growth promoter in livestock is contributing to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can impact human health."
Antibiotics serve as a valuable tool to protect humans and animals from serious illnesses. As more bacteria become resistant to these drugs, new antibiotics are getting harder to come by.
"Using [antibiotics] to get a steer from birth to slaughter a few weeks earlier is a very high price to pay when the cost is compromising the effectiveness of those antibiotics on our health," Carter said.
Is 29 million pounds an accurate estimate of antibiotics used for livestock production? "It's totally consistent with other information we've had," said Steve Roach, public health program director for Food Animal Concerns Trust, a Chicago-based animal welfare organization that is also a member of the Chicago-based campaign Keep Antibiotics Working.
The Animal Health Institute, which represents veterinary drug manufacturers, surveyed AHI members to come up with its estimate of the total use of livestock antibiotics in 2004: 21.7 million pounds. In 2001, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, which, among other things, aims to rein in the use of antibiotics in livestock, put total antibiotic use at 24.6 million pounds per year for “non-therapeutic purposes”—that is, for prevention and control of disease as well as for growth promotion.
According to Roach, 70 percent of antibiotics are used for food animals. FDA data will serve as a measure of the agency's effectiveness at reducing antibiotic use over time. "As the FDA takes steps to reduce antibiotics, we can see if they're working based on these annual estimates," Roach said.
Drafting guidance on limiting medically important antimicrobial drugs to uses in food-producing animals that are considered necessary for animal health.
Implementing guidance for the animal drug industry for evaluating the potential antimicrobial resistance of new drugs.
Coordinating with the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System to track antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria.
Requiring antimicrobial drug sponsors to annual report to the FDA the amount of drugs sold or distributed for use in food-producing animals.
Roach pointed out that the FDA's latest report fails on two fronts: It doesn't reveal how the antibiotics are used, whether in animal feed or water; and the FDA lumped together drugs used in human medicine with those not used in human medicine. Roach is more concerned with the antibiotics used for feed because they pose a greater risk for resistance and those used for human medicine because they have the greater public health impact.
"The FDA has this data, but [the agency] isn't making it public," Roach said. "I think the FDA needs to look at drugs approved and figure out which ones are causing problems— public health risks—and take them off market."
Other countries have done so. On January 1, 2006, the European Union banned the feeding of all antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion purposes. The new policy followed a 1998 ban on the feeding of antibiotics that are valuable in human medicine to livestock for growth promotion.
To oppose the unnecessary use of antibiotics in animal food production, Roach recommended consumers contact their members of Congress and the FDA and let them know that an industry guidance doesn't go far enough. Consumers can also vote with their pocketbooks by buying only antibiotic-free meat. Natural products stores can carry only organic meat. USDA Organic meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics. | 2019-04-19T06:50:27 | https://www.newhope.com/news-amp-analysis/fda-estimates-antibiotic-use-livestock |
0.999924 | There is a Simpson's episode when Bart is confronted with a game of Rock, Paper Scissors (AKA: Jan Ken Poi, ro sham bo ...) and thinks to himself "Good ol' rock". Meanwhile his opponent is thinking "poor Bart, always chooses rock". So what does this have to do with Project Management? Nothing, except that often people go to what they are familiar with, to what they are told is going to be a winning solution or what they have won with in the past. Of course, what makes it funny is that Bart continues even though his choice loses constantly - he is attached to it for some magic reason.
Maybe it is not so much a stretch to think this is true of other people too. I can imagine some people thinking "Good ol' PMBOK" while they pull their copy off the shelf. Of course, going with what you know or what has worked in the past is a very common thing to do. If the situation is truly the same, then the solution that worked in the past should continue to work.
One approach to dealing with the limitations of rocks is to continue to improve or polish them. The Stone axe was a mainstay of many cultures. It was refined in shape and material to be a very useful tool. Yet now it is merely a curiousity in most cultures. Somehow people switched over to something different and better and now we make axes out of steel. Quite an advancement one would say. We can use our technology to make something perform better. We see this line of thought in some project management tools. We add new features or take advantage of new technologies - a better database, better networking, faster machines etc.
But it totally ignores one thing - that is that an axe is not that great for fishing. Sometimes the situation seems like the problem is something an axe may be useful for, but a closer or more insightful look might find that a fishhook is called for if the solution is something which is sustainable.
I guess the point of this is to convince myself that even the most polished rock is not enough. A bag of rocks may be even better, but better than that is time to really assess the situation and a bag of diverse tools from which to draw from, tools which might fit the situation better than good ol' rock.
The previous article is What does done look like?.
The next article is Microsoft Project, the scheduling software people love to hate and hate to love. | 2019-04-21T02:12:47 | http://zo-d.com/blog/archives/project-management-discussion/good-ol-rock.html |
0.999414 | 1 D None No Power Seat 1 D is a rear facing standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row, however, this seat has limited recline. Some travelers may find it uncomfortable sitting backwards. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
1 F None No Power Seat 1 F is a rear facing standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row, however, this seat has limited recline. Some travelers may find it uncomfortable sitting backwards. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
19 A None No Power Seat 19 A is a standard Economy Class seat located in the last row of the plane and may have limited recline. The proximity to the galley area may be bothersome.
19 C None No Power Seat 19 C is a standard Economy Class seat located in the last row of the plane and may have limited recline. The proximity to the galley area may be bothersome.
19 D None No Power Seat 19 D is a standard Economy Class seat located in the last row of the plane and may have limited recline. The proximity to the galley area may be bothersome.
19 F None No Power Seat 19 F is a standard Economy Class seat located in the last row of the plane and may have limited recline. The proximity to the galley area may be bothersome.
2 A None No Power Seat 2 A is a standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
2 C None No Power Seat 2 C is a standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
2 D None No Power Seat 2 D is a standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
2 F None No Power Seat 2 F is a standard Economy Class seat that has additional legroom due to the Exit Row. There is no floor storage for this seat during takeoff and landing. The tray table is in the armrest, making the armrest immovable and slightly reducing seat width.
Air Caraibes's ATR 72-600 is flown with 74 Economy Class seats. | 2019-04-26T11:57:13 | https://mobile.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Caraibes/Air_Caraibes_ATR_72-600.php |
0.998945 | Q) What type of switch is represented by item 3 in figure T2?
A common abreviation designation for single-pole single-throw switch is SPST. The single-pole single-throw switch is the most common on/off switch. The number of "poles" refers to the number of separate circuits which are controlled by the switch. The number of "throws" refers to the number of separate positions that the switch can select. | 2019-04-23T02:52:08 | https://www.nj2x.com/2013/05/fcc-technician-exam-question-of-day_10.html |
0.998889 | Wynn Resorts says it has hired a different law firm to help it investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Steve Wynn, its founder and former CEO.
Wynn has denied the accusations, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, calling them "preposterous." But the casino mogul stepped down last week from his roles as CEO and chairman of the gambling resort empire he built, citing "an avalanche of negative publicity" that made it impossible to do his job.
Shortly after the Journal report came out in late January, the board of Wynn Resorts said it had formed a special committee of independent directors to investigate the allegations.
And on Feb 2., it announced it had hired leading law firm O'Melveny & Myers for the investigation, which it said would be led by two of the firm's partners who specialize in investigating employment issues and advising independent board committees on internal investigations.
But Wynn Resorts said Friday that it "no longer required" O'Melveny's services because Wynn stepped down.
The company, which is based in Las Vegas, is now bringing in another major law firm -- Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher -- as outside counsel to help the committee look into the claims.
The casino firm said in a statement late Monday that the special committee's investigation is also being broadened to include "an expanded and comprehensive review of Wynn Resorts' internal policies and procedures."
The aim is to make sure the company "employs best practices to maintain a safe and respectful workplace for all employees," it said.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher couldn't immediately be reached for comment late Monday. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the firm employs more than 1,200 lawyers in cities around the world, according to its website. The firm has ties with Wynn's board. Kim Sinatra, a board member and Wynn's General Counsel, used to be a partner at the firm.
Wynn Resorts' special committee is chaired by Patricia Mulroy, a member of the board's corporate governance and compliance committees. Mulroy previously held various high-profile public sector jobs in Nevada, including on the state's gaming commission, which regulates the casino industry.
Wynn Resorts also said Monday that it will add more directors "to strengthen the composition, skills and experience of the board."
The board has come under scrutiny during the uproar over the allegations against Wynn. Last week, it was hit by a shareholder lawsuit claiming that the directors "knowingly turned a blind eye to allegations of patently egregious misconduct" by Wynn.
The company has declined to comment on the lawsuit. | 2019-04-18T10:33:40 | https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/news/companies/wynn-resorts-steve-wynn-investigation/index.html |
0.999976 | Obviously, the first question I have to ask you, given the theme of your Grand Prize winning story, "A Question of Faith," is: do you consider yourself a religious person?
No, I'm not a religious person, although I've often wished I could be. It must be wonderfully comforting to have complete faith in an all-powerful being. I would love to have "proof" the way the characters in my story experience it.
What I find fascinating about religion is that it can elicit such totally different reactions in people. Some people find comfort or learn to be better people through religion, others use it as an excuse to do terrible things, some feel tormented or trapped by it, others freed by it. That's what I wanted to explore in this story: how people's lives can be either enhanced or ruined by religion. It's taken to an extreme in the story, because people have a reason to really believe.
You are a research scientist. Do you feel that being a SF writer allows you to bring any special or unusual perspectives to your scientific work?
It might make me a little more open-minded than other scientists. We are taught that science is a completely rational process and that scientists are impartial observers, but experimental results require interpretation, and scientists are just as influenced by peer pressure as any other group. Funding and publications are contingent on peer-review.
I've actually moved away from doing research these days - I'm in more of a management role at Berkeley Lab -- but I do still help other scientists with their research, and I think that reading science fiction keeps me sympathetic to differing points of view, and more willing to entertain "out there" ideas.
Opposite question: does being a research scientist help you in your creative work, particularly with science-fiction stories? The novel you're presently working on involves bio-tech and "rogue scientists;" I hope we aren't talking about autobiography here!
If I'm writing a "hard science" story it definitely helps. I can draw on my own background, or I know where and how to look things up. But I don't tend to write hard science fiction. I'm more interested in how technology or culture (especially when extrapolated) can affect people and relationships, than I am in the science itself.
My novel is also more about how science can affect people than about science. But it's in no way autobiographical!
Do you tend to approach your creative writing "scientifically," that is, methodically and with linear reasoning?
Yes, generally I have an idea, then come up with an outline, then try to write the story start to finish. However, in the last few years I've really begun to appreciate a more non-linear approach: writing what "feels" right, writing scenes without a context. I had a writing teacher who said that sometimes you just have to write what "resonates", even if you don't understand it. I struggle with trying to understand a story rationally all the time. I'm still learning how to turn that part of my brain off, at least for the first draft.
The short fiction of yours that I've read is interesting in that you address global themes and themes of personal transcendence, but you also wield a biting irony. Stories like "Looking Back" and "Piecemeal" are like two-sides of the transcendental coin, one that seems to represent the hope of an ever-expanding cosmos, while the other seems to refer to a more nihilistic cosmic vision. Are themes of rational response (or submission) to irrational phenomena important to you as a SF writer? If so, why?
I think it's a very human response to search for meaning in the face of irrational phenomena, to constantly try to make sense of the world around us. Humans are obsessed with the question of what it means to be human and about the nature of consciousness. Writing is a great way to explore these questions. I believe that writing itself is an attempt to impose meaning and order on the world, a way to better understand the world. Speculative fiction is particularly well suited to addressing questions of a transcendent nature because you aren't limited to reality and can imagine literally anything. I love the fact that in science fiction, the metaphor can become real. If you want to explore the human experience of alienation, then you can dump your character all alone on an alien planet.
What projects are you working on now; what do you have forthcoming?
I have an essay forthcoming in the "She's Such a Geek" anthology from Seal Press. I have many stories out there in various slush piles, and I'm currently a finalist in last quarter's Writers of the Future Contest. (It was a good year for contests!) I've written a draft of my novel and had it critiqued by my writing group. I've been meaning to get back to it, but I keep having ideas for short stories that won't let me go. Honestly, I don't feel as compelled by the ideas in my novel anymore as I'd like to be. So for now, it's just short stories.
Was "A Question of Faith" a story you wrote specifically for entry in the SFReader.com contest? Do you enter many fiction contests?
I didn't write it originally for SFReader. I did rewrite it, though, for SFReader. I had recently had it critiqued, and I used the deadline of the SFReader contest to spur me to finish it. I try to enter the Writers of the Future contest at least once a year. The deadlines are really good for me. I figure I'll just keep entering until I'm not qualified anymore, ie, either I actually win or I've had too many professionally published stories -- wouldn't that be a sad thing!
How are you going to spend the prize money?
My initial impulse was to go buy as many writing related things as possible: pens, paper, notebooks. Then I realized that even though I love those things, I never use them. I write almost completely on my computer these days. I think I'll probably use it to treat the important people in my life to a nice celebration dinner.
You recently joined the staff at Internet Review of Science Fiction. What's your position there and how has it been going so far?
At the moment I'm an "Editor-At-Large", which means I read some of the incoming submissions and work with writers on their articles. Soon, though, IFOSF is going to have a News section, and I'll be the editor of that section, which means I'll have to start keeping up a lot better with the science fiction community. Feel free to send any science fiction news and gossip my way!
I recently really enjoyed "The Midnight Disease", which is about the creative impulse and its connection with mental health. I read a lot of short fiction. I try to keep up with F&SF, Asimovs, and Strange Horizons. In the small press area I'm a fan of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Turbocharged Fortune Cookie. Outside the genre I read Glimmer Train and ZYZZYVA.
Set a daily date to write.
Find a writing critique group that isn't all praise but isn't mean-spirited, either. Get used to critique.
Set deadlines. I find contest deadlines are a really great way to make me actually finish something.
Finish stories and send those babies down the river.
Try to dissociate from the inevitable rejections. I find having a lot of stories out at once really helps with the rejections, because when I get one I can always say "but I've got three more out there that just might be accepted!"
Just keep writing, no matter what. | 2019-04-23T10:17:17 | http://forum.sfreader.com/topic122&%3BPID=121&%3Btitle=corie-ralston-interview.html |
0.999953 | 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with foil.
2. Sandwich the chicken breast halves between pieces of parchment and pound flat.
3. Lay the pieces out and top with sliced ham and cheese.
4. Roll the chicken up around the fillings then dip in the beaten egg.
5. Combine the pork rinds, almond flour, parmesan, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs.
6. Roll the chicken rolls in the pork rind mixture then place on the baking sheet.
7. Toss the cauliflower with melted butter then add to the baking sheet.
8. Bake for 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. | 2019-04-21T11:01:50 | https://www.guideforketodiet.com/2018/11/chicken-cordon-bleu-with-cauliflower.html |
0.998989 | Iona McCleery (Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Leeds, 2007-present) researches the history of medicine in late medieval Europe. Three elements of her research have had most impact, being used to underpin exhibitions, school workshops, talks and web articles.
Theoretical ideas about health. McCleery researches the extent to which medieval people put medical theories into practice. In Output 1, she underlines the intimate relationships between diet, exercise, emotions and sleep, four of the external factors (`non-naturals') that were believed to cause illness or restore health depending on how they were balanced and also considers the extent to which the medieval sick followed medical advice based on these theories. Outputs 3, 4 and 5 consider medieval ideas about illness, healthcare and the causes of death. The idea that a balanced lifestyle was crucial in the Middle Ages correlates with modern theories about nutrition: it is not just what you eat, but how, when and where you eat, and what else you do that has an impact on health.
Healthy lifestyle. Outputs 1, 4 and 5 and Grant 2 interrogate the emergence of debates about urban lifestyle choices between c.1300 and c.1500. These debates included the vulnerability of the poor to ill-health, coping with food shortages, the vernacularization of recipes and the need for public health systems. Output 3 considers the variety of ways in which a number of illnesses were interpreted, including gout, which is understood today to be partly caused by diet. Gout was once thought to be a problem associated with elite status. Class is still perceived to be a factor in modern dietary choices.
Foods in pre-modern society. Outputs 1 and 2 analyse the prominence of Portugal in global trade, and the reception and impact of new foods, or improved access to foods taken for granted today, such as sugar and spices. Output 5 considers the role of women in food provision. These outputs emerged from archival research carried out in Portugal in 2007-8, supported by Grant 2. Anonymous peer reviewers of Grant 1, which has involved collaborative research with food scientists and archaeologists, described the project as `really innovative and exciting', and commented that `the vision is impressive'. Awareness of McCleery's interdisciplinary approach led to the commissioning of Output 2 by a leading medical journal, an article that explores the sensory impact of environments and considers medieval theories of sensory perception, including taste.
As a historian of medicine, McCleery's research highlights the social and cultural determinants of health in the medieval period: wealth, status, location, religion, gender, age and fashion. Much of the impact of her work derives from the fact that these determinants are similar to those described by nutritional epidemiologists today. Although the contexts of daily life have changed markedly since the Middle Ages, diet continues to play an important role in healthcare and people continue to eat in accordance with their customs and beliefs.
3. Iona McCleery, `Medical `emplotment' and plotting medicine: health and disease in late medieval Portuguese chronicles', Social History of Medicine 24:1 (2011): 125-41. DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkq107 (submitted to REF2014).
4. Iona McCleery, `Medical perspectives on death in late-medieval and early-modern Europe' in: C. Krötzl and K. Mustakallio (eds), On Old Age: Approaching Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 277-91 (submitted to REF2014).
5. Iona McCleery, `Medicine and disease: the female `patient' in medieval Europe', in: K. Phillips (ed.), A Cultural History of Women in the Middle Ages (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 85-104 (submitted to REF2014).
All publications are deemed at least 3* by internal and external readers. They are all outputs of Grant 2 (see below) and therefore the underpinning research predated the impact activities that began in 2010. Output 3 was submitted to the publisher in September 2008; Output 4 was submitted in March 2010; Output 5 was submitted in January 2011.
1. 2010-13: Wellcome Trust Society Award (no. 092293): You Are What You Ate: Food Lessons from the Past (PI: Iona McCleery, £176,725).
This collaboration involves archaeologists, food scientists, cultural officers and historians at the University of Leeds, the University of Bradford and Wakefield Council (www.leeds.ac.uk/youarewhatyouate). The historical content of the inter-disciplinary public engagement activities is based on McCleery's research. Clinical, nutritional and archaeological data, youth workers and museum collections are provided by project partners.
2. 2007-8: Wellcome Trust Project Grant (no. 076812): Physicians of the Body and Physicians of the Soul: Medicine in Late Medieval Portugal (PI: Iona McCleery, £17,000).
This grant funded archival work in Portugal on medicine, illness and welfare. The daily lives of sick men and women from kings to peasants featured heavily. The project emphasised the problems of famine, plague and war across the whole of Europe, and the role of medical practitioners in maintaining well-being, including the preparation and/or selling of food and spices (especially apothecaries). Portugal dominated trade in sugar and spices in this period.
Between January 2011 and June 2013, 45 Wakefield state primaries participated in a free workshop developed by McCleery and the Senior Cultural Officer at Wakefield Council (a). This activity was delivered in-house under the auspices of the You are what you ate project (Grant 1), using McCleery's research from Grant 2. It was experienced by 3,469 children aged 7-11 (b). In the workshop the pupils were asked to think through medieval scenarios illustrating diet, food budgets and health dilemmas and they made a basic herbal sauce. The activities were structured to support the Key Stage 2 curriculum for science and history.
Feedback obtained via a questionnaire from 61 participating teachers at 30 schools is entirely positive, indicating that the sessions encouraged children to think about their own health and diet, as well as supporting the curriculum by capturing imaginations, presenting new information and consolidating prior knowledge about food. 90% of the teachers stated that the workshop had addressed the issue of healthy eating very well (b). One teacher working in a deprived area of Wakefield said: `A fantastic start to our 'Healthy Eating' topic, with historical facts they found interesting (or gruesome!). It was interesting to hear their answers which reflected their attitudes to food, and the shift from certain opinions once they had heard the facts or new ideas and participated in making their own sauce. I learnt a lot too!' Another evaluation, again from a teacher in a poorer district, observed `definite changes in attitude toward food'. Another said: `The class was interested in the fact that the idea of healthy eating was hundreds of years old' (b).
The workshop has been a major success. Wakefield Council's Senior Cultural Officer said it attracted schools that had not previously accessed Wakefield's cultural services, notably schools in poorer areas (a). McCleery's track record as a researcher, enabling her to secure Wellcome funding substantially enhanced Wakefield Council's capacity to offer educational activities at a time of severe funding cuts. The project as a whole has had a significant organisational impact on Wakefield Council, raising the public profile of Cultural Services in parts of Wakefield where users were not traditionally drawn and creating links between schools, museums and the NHS that would be the basis of future collaboration (a, c). The Wellcome Trust agreed in March 2013 to extend Grant 1 until September 2014, awarding McCleery another £15,000, allowing her to develop these links further.
McCleery's commitment to developing school curricula was demonstrated in January 2013 by an invitation from the Prince's Teaching Institute to speak at a training day in Altrincham for recently qualified teachers nationally at Key Stage 3 and 4. McCleery's talk on plague and famine drew on Grant 2 and was described by one teacher as providing `excellent ideas that I can apply to the classroom to add value and meaning for the students' (d). McCleery has since been invited to speak at a conference in London in October 2013 organized by United Learning, responsible for the largest group of academies in the UK.
The work in schools is related to a much wider programme of public engagement, aimed at encouraging personal reflection on modern eating habits through exploration of the past. McCleery organized three exhibitions: Sugar & Spice (2011), Dark Side of Eating (2012) and Food For All Seasons (2013) at Wakefield museums under the auspices of Grant 1. She wrote a large part of the text for the exhibitions, including material from Outputs 1-5 and Grant 2 on famine, gout, sensory perception, royal health and the use of spices, and played a key role in shaping the content of the displays (f). The first two exhibitions were visited by 37,000 people. Public response was overwhelmingly positive, with evidence of visitors relating the historical material to their own health. 80% of visitors who completed evaluation forms for Sugar & Spice said they had been `inspired to eat a healthier diet' (e).
The Director of Public Health (NHS Wakefield) commented that McCleery's research had `caught the imagination of participating children and young people in a novel way, and that learning from this would influence the development of future interventions in this area [of childhood obesity], which remains one of key strategic importance for the public health service' (c). He described how Sugar & Spice had expanded his own thinking, informing his `own knowledge about the introduction of sugar into the British diet', giving `historical, social and cultural context' to the work he leads. He invited the Director of Health and Well-being for Public Health England to the Food For All Seasons exhibition. The latter commented: `History can help uncover our country's rich food heritage and may provide a sense of context for the current challenges of unhealthy habits we now see' (f). These examples of McCleery's research enriching the viewpoints of medical professionals were not isolated. Output 2 led to an invitation for McCleery to talk about medieval sensory perception to neurologists at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge in March 2010. The hospital consultant who organised the talk stated it `has universally been recognised as one of our best talks of recent times' (g).
McCleery has been exceptionally active in ensuring her research reaches beyond specialist audiences and formal education. While she has engaged extensively in conventional outreach work (see below), she also ran stalls at 18 markets in 2011-13 to reach a broader public. She made all three elements of her research accessible through cooking demonstrations, talking through displays of historical seasonal and imported foods for rich and poor and providing printed information sheets. 10,104 members of the public were engaged by this activity; 82% of polled adult visitors said they had learned something new (h). Questionnaire responses such as `Spices were really expensive and hard to get hold of' and `Rhubarb is from China' indicated reflection on the contrast between current and historical eating habits and global agricultural and trade patterns; today the Wakefield area is the UK's most important rhubarb growing region and most people see it as local (h).
McCleery appeared on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour in May 2011 [RAJAR provides listening figures of 3.56 million] to discuss the Sugar & Spice exhibition and the place of sugar in our culture. In November 2012 she discussed the relationship between food and education on BBC4's Calf's Head and Coffee: the Golden Age of English Food. In February and April 2013, she spoke about taste, commerce and health on BBC Radio Leeds [RAJAR=235,000].
McCleery authored web pages on www.leeds.ac.uk/youarewhatyouate, explaining key themes of her research in an accessible way (9,353 unique visitors since January 2011). She discussed her research from Grants 1 and 2 and Output 1 in talks entitled `The medieval healthy diet', `Medieval famine' and `The king's stomach' at Clarke Hall Educational Museum (2011, 2012), West Yorkshire Heritage Forum (2011), Otley Science Café (2011) and Hull Historical Association (2013). After a similar talk to Boston Spa Archaeology and Heritage Group (2012), McCleery was described as `infectious to share her subject', and its relevance to today was noted (i).
a) Senior Cultural Officer, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council: transcript of telephone interview 10/09/12.
b) Figures provided for each school on a table and a spreadsheet (for feedback from teachers). Quotations are from anonymous teachers at Three Lane Ends, Castleford; Methodist Junior and Infants School, Thornes in central Wakefield; Ryhill Junior and Infants. These are all state primary schools in deprived areas in the Wakefield region that were visited on 24/6/11, 14/9/11 and 16/11/11 respectively. These figures were collected by youth workers delivering the workshop on the day, were amalgamated by the project team and can be confirmed by the individual who also supplied source a.
c) Director of Public Health (NHS Wakefield): transcript of telephone interview 05/09/12 and face-to-face interview with follow-up e-mail 17/06/13.
d) Letter from co-director of the Prince's Teaching Institute, 30/8/2013.
e) Reports embedded in e-mails dated 7/10/2011 and 5/12/13 written for Sugar & Spice and The Dark Side of Eating by Wakefield Council (can be confirmed by the individual who provided source a). The third exhibition (began March 2013) ran until the end of September 2013.
f) Director of Health and Well-being, Public Health England: e-mail 20/07/13.
g) Hospital consultant who organized the talk: email 14/04/10.
h) Report on festivals drawn up by project team: figures based on head counts done at events by the team (= people who stopped and asked questions or tried the food, not just passers-by), and on 196 adult questionnaires. Quotations come from anonymous questionnaires from Leeds Loves Food 2012 (26/05/12) provided in a spread sheet. The individual who provided source a can confirm overall attendance figures which in some cases exceeded 40,000 people: e.g. at the Pontefract Liquorice Festivals. However, stall attendance could only be counted by the stall team present on the day.
i) Anonymous quotation from questionnaire completed at event: 29/03/12. | 2019-04-24T22:14:41 | https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=6387 |
0.999935 | How to set up different types of tanks from 10gal to a 40gal tall and the kinds of pets that can live in them.
The only difference between a terrarium and a vivarium is a terrarium is specifically aimed at keeping plants, while a vivarium (including its plants) is built around keeping an animal.
The tanks below are a generalized environment many different types of animals can find comfort in. They're basically what I've come to use in making tanks from tropical, semi-aquatic to dry. Very user friendly, anyone including children could make some of these tanks themselves to keep their critter. I've included a list below each type of set up of the types of animals you could keep in it just more or less as examples. My information is fairly generic and I highly recommend researching all you can learn about the animal you want to keep and making their tank a week before you actually get them.
*If you have children please do not own a potentially dangerous pet. While there is always the threat of contracting salmonella from a reptile or amphibian cleaning poop or not washing hands, there are even greater dangers for small children in those that are poisonous or constrictors. Cages and tanks should at least be locked for both critter and child safety.
If you'd like to build a vivarium and put critters from the backyard, it really isn't much different from buying one. You need to know the species, what they eat, what kind of environment they like to live in best and what conditions they like most for breeding if at all.
You still have to calcium and vitamin powder their food like crickets, how large can the food be before it's too big for them to eat. Generally nothing bigger than their own mouths, and if you see poop, they're eating. You should feed them live food at least once every other day and if you see more than two or three insects left after the next day, you've given them too many. Never put a predatory insect like spiders or mantids in your tank with your animal.
As a backyard wildlife, you need to catch them while they are a very young age, as adults are more apt to die even in a perfect vivarium just for being homesick. Make sure they are a species that can tolerate the presence of another male in their territory and make sure if you get more than one that their environment is not too small for their numbers. Such as you don't want to go any smaller than a ten gallon tank for any small, backyard animal, any smaller tank would be fine for a single insect or as a temporary 'quarantine' tank. Always handle small creatures such as a frog like a fire belly toad to a tree frog with an aquarium net for their own safty and minimum stress.
Any animal living in a tank is going to be living with a certain amount of constant stress. Too much stress can kill them among other factors such as disease, parasites, lack of vitamin/mineral supplement, the wrong environmental conditions and competition if they share the environment with another. Never mix different species of animals together, they could make each other sick, fight each other or even eat the other.
Any time you handle an animal like a reptile or amphibian there is always the danger you could be exposed to something harmful yourself, such as salmonella. Always wash your hands.
The biggest problems within the pet trade itself is species such as reptiles and amphibians being captured in the wild for sale, many times they do not survive captivity or they are an endangered species and depleting because of the pet trade. Sometimes it actually helps a species in danger because they're loosing habitat but it isn't always the case. As a rule of thumb, please don't tank an endangered species, even if you intend to re-introduce the young to your backyard. At least make sure you are very capable of having successful breeding and check with Wildlife Services to see if you would need a wildlife license for a permit to raise the particular wild animal(s) for rescue and re-introduction. There are still plenty of other common or introduced species to 'bring home to mom' and raise successfully for their natural life span.
Depending on the animal you get, how many and their adult size, you may want to invest in expanding their comfort with taller and/or larger tanks from 15gal up.
To monitor temperature and humidity. For most critters and vivariums, the ideal temperature is 70-85 and the most ideal humidity is 70-90. A glass enclosed tank with plenty of water in the bottom will pretty much regulate both without ever needing a heat pad. For a desert style the humidity will most likely be around 40-70 and 80-90 day temperature with a drop at night to 70-75%, with at least an under the tank heater.
Usually comes with a new 10gal tank. This is optional but prefered for pretty much all types of tanks with the exception of the desert scene, just to minimize the amount of gravel for the bottom vs the volume of water to condense through the soil and create the humidity. This or any false bottom such as plastic egg crate, is essential if you want to make a semi-aquatic tank. The false bottom makes the base of the land portion that will rest above the water.
Even with the covering hood you still need the screen cover under it so critters won't escape. Even if you think your critter won't, his crickets and fruit flies will. The only solution to escaping fruit flies I can offer is tightly glue a mosquito mesh netting to the under side of the screen cover with aquarium silicone glue. The only disadvantage to adding a mosquito mesh netting is it would make the rays of fluorescents and incandescents that much more difficult to penetrate into the tank. I don't know if heat lights would actually burn or melt the mesh but going with a galvanized wire cloth version would likely be best.
A glass covering would do just as well without needing a screen cover or worrying about fruit fly escapes, but don't normally come with a 10gal. Some set ups would be better off with just a screen cover without a hood, depending on the animal and/or humidity desired.
With a full spectrum daylight UV fluorescent bulb. You can get away with fluorescent fixtures meant for greenhouse gardening but reptile specific have more colors in mind for your critter, not all spectrums are the same, even when they say full and 'dim' lighting doesn't necessarily mean it's not doing its job. Fluorescents may not all be bright, but they will begin to flicker when they're no longer viable. Replace bulbs before 12mo's as they begin to loose colors in the spectrum from dying out. Many of these particular rays not present in a regular household bulb are beneficial to plants and herps alike from photosynthesis to UVB rays providing a herp (reptiles and amphibians) vitamin D3 - which in turns helps them metabolize calcium. This is one particular reason most vivarium animals need calcium supplements with and without D3, because not all bulbs provide UVB, or enough of it for a long period. I prefer full spectrum fluorescents because it is a 'cool' light, rather, it doesn't get hot with a high color index to mimic sunlight (UV) and has at least some UVA and UVB.
The best sign of poor lighting is plants that grow too thin and tall and most herps not 'basking' at their full potential of greater coloring. Just for an example, I have my anoles in a 20gal tall tank and I'm using both reptile, and a greenhouse full spectrum fluorescent bulbs. Basically, one for the lizards and one to reach in its rays far enough to the tank flooring to get to the plants. The anoles pretty much enjoy both and are much greener on the plants with even darker and redder browns against the bark than I could get for them with just one light.
You still have to distill bottled water. Most of the time when I gather water from a rain barrel I let it sit for a day or two as well in jugs just to minimize the amount of algae. With bigger tanks you may want to consider misting systems but with a 10gal, keeping up with a spray bottle will do. Be certain water changing and spray bottles are at least 70 degrees. Drastic, sudden temperature drops can cause shock and stress enough to lead to deaths.
Do not use outside soil or potting soil as it may harm your animal in this enclosed environment with the chemicals, bacteria and fertilizers they contain. Of the host of things you can use for most set-ups, I prefer either orchid mix or making my own with peat moss, perlite and sphagnum moss. Other 'dirt' or humus alternatives to peat moss are coco-peat or coir and eco-earth.
I don't particularly care for vermiculite, it contains asbestos, sticks to critters, is a bit too absorbent and breaks down in substrate enough to become a compact mush that doesn't provide oxygen or absorb irons from the water. I don't think it's anything I'd want my animals to swallow, much less handle myself. I like perlite much better if I'm going to use something that's light, absorbent and oxygenating.
The most typical accessories are pieces of wood like bark, cork, grape vines, cholla and large stones to sand stone slates, hides, water dispensers and dishes. The accessories and how/where to place them in the tank greatly depend on the type of animal and set up. Do they climb? Are they good at climbing or have falling risks? Do they hide on the walls or on the ground? Do they dig, bask, swim/soak, leap, run, stay out allot or hide allot? Change colors? How about prey, do they chase it, wait for it to come to them or have a prehensile tongue? Occasionally eat veggies/leaves/flowers? How many are in the tank compared to how much room each individual needs? These sort of factors depend on how high or far apart or even quantity of different things you might use from sticks, water bowls to plants. In a 10gal, a piece of cholla or grape vine is more than enough to provide an elevated area and can be used as a point for burrowing or making wall-side hides with additional bark depending on the critter. As an example, my fire belly toads have coconut shell hides and love to get under anything with enough depression to allow it, while my hyla tree frogs have coconut shells that are turned upside down and partially filled with water, hiding behind set up bark and the nook between tank top and screen covering.
Things like driftwood, cholla, coconut shell, Brazil nut pods. I'm just making a special note here because some folks prefer to try to treat woods before putting them in a tank either to sterilize them or preserve them from rotting in the moisture. Even though there is a chance untreated wood and leaf litter from the back yard could bring in unwanted parasites, I think some of the expectancy to treat or sterilize them is a bit over rated. For the most part, I usually buy woods that are pre-treated or gather leaf litter and barks from my back yard and don't do anything to them. Another thing to consider is I don't pesticide my yard either, unless I'm killing ant beds or leaf chewing bugs have become more popular than my assassin bugs, tree frogs, anoles and other yard critters can keep up with them in very specific areas or plants. I know I'm still taking a large risk of 'under-kill' most people would like to avoid, but I also think some of the emphasis, like bleaching a piece of driftwood, is a little more on the over-kill side. Generally, there are some critters to do with decomposing woods and leaves that I want in a tank with my frogs. Woodlouse, springtails and snails in particular eat on the decay while the frogs may eat them in turn and terrarium plants will gather nutrients from the wood decay as well.
Plants should go in around the same time as accessories and the tank given at least a week before animals are introduced into it. The best kind to look for are slow growing plants that like low level lighting and moist soils.
Tall ones for shade, vine and leafy ones for resting, low to ground ones for non-climbers who like hiding like fire belly toads, American toad, pacman, newts and skinks. Particularly moss, but it's hard to find any besides live sphagnum moss that will survive beyond foresting a piece of wood. Fern is ideal too.
I've experimented with all kinds of plants from those for vivariums to garden varieties to wild 'weeds' like false strawberries, Johnny jump up and I'm recently seeing how sorrel will do. Thus far my best vivarium specific plant that has survived, flourished and grows really slow is Syngonium Erythrophyllum.
In some cases such as the example of the desert vivarium, an under the tank heater, heat lights or incandescents are used to provide critters who need up to 85 temps in the day with cooler, 70/75 nights. With a 10gal you don't need a heat/incandescent bulb any greater than a 15 watt. You'll want the tank to be cooler at night so chances are you won't need both at the same time, as long as night temperatures in the tank do not drop below 60 degrees at the most minimum.
I like under the tank heaters over incandescents or heat lights, things do not dry out or burn, especially the animal, and I can place it under one side of the tank to give them the other side as a spot to cool down, or on the side for a wall crawler.
As far as other tanks like the tropical and semi-aquatic, I don't think heating is necessary as a glass hood will provide enough heat and humidity within, and many other critters do fine at room temperatures. I don't think just because you have a herp, you automatically need something like an under the tank heater or incandescent light. For example, my leopard geckos require an under the tank heater on one side of their 30/40gal tank in a desert set up with a screen lid, alternating a blue 40Watt fluorescents (daylight) bulb. But, my anoles are in a semi-tropical and are fine with a screen lid and 18" 15Watt fluorescent tubes, but no further heat source.
This is just my own basic sort of set up. Place the false bottom into the bottom of the tank and cover it with the aquarium gravel for about an inch to 2 inches high. If the false bottom came with the tank, including a tube, add the tube, so you can use it to pour water into the gravel later. Fill this with the distilled or rain water just so it covers the gravel.
What I do is mix peat moss, perlite and crushed sphagnum moss together while it's very slightly damp but you can use orchid mix too. As damp, fill it over the gravel and press lightly for about 2-3 inches or finger length. Make sure it's level though you can add slopes to one or two sides for variety. Over this place a thin layer of damp sphagnum moss and/or dead leaves.
Add things depending on how the animal likes to live, hides, bark, sticks, stones and water bowl.
I've gotten plants down to some very basic simple guys who are living well in my tanks and look fantastic like a jungle. I haven't done well with the fancier terrarium plants like pitchers but after some experimenting these are thriving well. I also have some varieties of wild plants from my yard in a couple of tanks doing well.
Caladiums - grow thin and tall and need to be trimmed if they're hitting the top, I have caladium aaron in mine but there are other suitable varieties like Arrowhead and Heart Fern.
Bamboo Palm - or Chamaedorea, very slow grower with a thin, sturdy stem and palm-like leaves, best grown to a diagonal direction. You could also use ferns for something bushier without the long stalk.
Bromeliads - a very small one which might do well or just die, so far my only survivor is in my wettest soil tank. If I could figure out what I'm doing wrong for their conditions, I'd rather have neorgelia at least for the tree frogs.
Chinese Evergreen or Hosta's - Nice foliage plants with big leaves.
Elf Umbrella Tree - Or Arboricola Tree, I like this plant in particular because it does very well, grows really slow and makes a nice jungle look.
Prayer Plant - nice large leaves, even slower growing, it doesn't like having direct light from the bulb so it would be best to shade it with a taller plant or bark/sticks or it will burn. It's been about 6mo's since I tried a bunch of it and my two survivors who took are perhaps a little taller but haven't expanded.
African Violets - tollerant of low lighting and a very pretty flower. I haven't tried any yet myself but might this spring.
Mosses - aren't that easy but I've been successful with live sphagnum moss in wetter tanks and some I can't identify that came with getting some potted bromeliads in moist tanks.
After all that I like to add a few critters who would be interested in decomposition like fingernail sized snails and isopods - woodlouse, depending on what you want to call them. In a tank without any other animals in it as potential predators they can be fairly interesting, in of themselves, as a pet or alternative feeders with a vivarium home. The only disadvantage to the snails is they'll eat plants too, so there goes any shoots such as irises, but frogs will eat snails in turn.
Putting outdoor insects in your tank for another animal isn't usually recommended because of the dangers of introducing pesticides the pet could swallow eating the bug or become infected with more unwanted tinier critters like mites or other harmful organisms and parasites.
After your tank is finished, turn the light on, preferably plug it into a timer so it will turn off by itself at night. Before introducing any animals allow the tank to settle for at least a week. You may notice a white mold begin to grow which is perfectly harmless. You can let it go away on its own or just spray it with a mist bottle.
After a while you may notice some introduced critters in the tank you didn't expect, they most likely came with the leaves you gathered outside. Such as in an over turned coconut shell that remains constantly moist or with water, little white dots jumping around. These springtails are a good feeder source actually and nothing to worry about. You want them. Keep them in moist wood with a piece of potato with most of the peel and they'll remain in the tank even when you don't see them, hiding throughout the sphagnum moss, substrate and under the wood where it is moist in the soil.
To keep a vivarium, jungle tank, mist it with the spray bottle of distilled or rain water once every 3 days or so for humidity and a bit of an extra resource of something to drink for the critter. I don't do it everyday because it drenches the plants and critters can still drink from a fresh water bowl or the humidity build up on the sides of the glass.
The water in the bottom of the tank in the gravel will keep humidity up as well and the soil moist. Depending on how much water you fill the gravel in the bottom, after it has depleted will determine how 'wet' or 'dry' your terrarium/vivarium is. To refill the bottom use the aquarium tube rising from the false bottom or just syphon the water through a hose from a jug into the gravel, pushing it through the soil.
Keep the hood closed so the precipitation and humidity do not escape but open it at least once a day to allow fresh air. Especially with a glass hood, carbon monoxide will eventually build up in there. Temperature will remain a fairly steady, normal 82 degrees with humidity up to 90 or greater. You can use a thermometer and hygrometer to monitor them. Ventilation is the cooler, humidity is the warmer, and if you need a fan, you should try a screen cover first.
Every month or so for my frogs and anoles, I use a q-tip and misting with a spray bottle to clean poop. For my false bottom 20gal tall tank, I change the water in the bottom out with syphoning and refill it, by then it's a pretty dark tea color. After a year it's about time to add a little more substrate to the dirt and change out the UV ray bulbs. I don't completely start over while nothing's wrong with it because the soil is rich by now and probably teaming with springtails as well as plant decay. If I was worried enough about it building a gas like methane for bog conditions, I could always toss in some red worms to go to work before considering wiping out the whole mini-eco system going on in there.
The tank and critters should be monitored daily at least once for conditions, feeding, health, cleanliness and trimming plants from touching the top of the hood.
Particularly in getting to know a new animal and feeding him crickets, you should keep a close eye on left over crickets and give them a slice of potato and fish flakes rather than try to catch them and stress out the whole tank. If anything, they might lay eggs and cricket nymphs emerge while you're waiting for them to get eaten, but you don't want the tank to constantly overrun with crickets as they'll start chewing on plants and pets for food. If the pets just aren't eating the crickets at all, they may be too big. Alternating some fruit flies or other feeder until the crickets are gone would be better than waiting to see if the pets get hungry enough to eat remainders after two days.
There are 250 different species of pesky mites. They are a pain to condition out of a tropical tank because the only real best way is to start all over again, wash or boil the accessories and re-do the substrate, but there are pump spray applicators for reptiles you can try first and if the animal is infected it will have to be used on them for sure or cleaning the tank is pretty useless and visa versa. Put them in a 'quaranteen' tank until they are free of mites and their original home has been done over.
This semi-aquatic false bottom tank is the same principle as the ten gallon above. It would work best in a taller tank such as a 20gal tall with the option of creating a water fall but it can be scaled to a 10gal or long tank.
Using the false bottom plastic sheeting, raise it above the bottom of the tank by an inch or two, depending on how far above the bottom you want it to be. You can make the island half a side or complete with one corner cut out for a water pump. Fill the bottom with distilled or rain water just short of meeting the false bottom sheeting.
Build the top of the false bottom sheeting as described above, starting with a layer of large aquarium pebbles, river rock, marbles or clay balls. Cover that layer with a generous layer of damp sphagnum moss, lightly pressing, adding leaves over that is optional, it will act as the filter between the false bottom and substrate. Then add the substrate soil of humus/peats with perlite and a little more sphagnum moss mixed in or orchid mix by at least 2 or 3 inches. Over this layer add more leaves and a layer of sphagnum moss as the flooring. Ideally, live sphagnum moss. You can use woods or rocks for borders to keep soil from spilling into the water off the sides.
You can use a standard water or air pump to keep the water in the bottom flowing to prevent it from stagnating, or you can get a small pond pump like a micro jet and make a water fall with a tube leading from it to the 'pond' on the land. The pond or stream should be a clear, gravel filled spot free of substrate and fast draining. There are other varieties of water falls with natural rock or tree looks but they have a tiny pump in them I've never been very pleased with as far as lasting.
You can also use a water filter that can work in an inch of water and pump like a fall, usually intended for turtles like a Whisper or Tetra and often comes with buying a 10gal tank with full accessories. I like this one best for semi-aquatic vivariums with a half land.
Like a Tetra or Whisper, sometimes comes with buying a 10gal tank with full accessories. It can work in as little as an inch of water and acts like a fall. The pump itself is easily removed from the filter cartridge holder.
Semi-aquatic tanks are half land and half water with a small variety of ways you can make one. There are some options here where you can make it a false bottom tank with a half side as land, a slope with gravel or a divider between water and gravel. I've tried the gravel slope and found having a false bottom land side more desirable.
In my particular set up my hubby brought me some small, foldable plastic crates from work that could lay flat or make a shallow box like the plastic egg crating some use for false bottoms. In a 20gal tank that is 30"L, 13"W, the false bottom is 4"H ,20"L, 12"W with slightly more than 9"L for water side.
The top of the land is coated in gravel with sphagnum moss over half side of that, well away from the water side. A strip of bark, clam shell and coconut shells provide hides. Large, oddly shaped rocks provide a little surfacing in the water as well as making a spot easy to get on land by and cornering my water pump from sucking up the little bit of moss ball I have left to try to grow in here. I have 5 bombina's who absolutely love it and spend allot of time in the 4" deep water. Now that they have enough room, I could get at least 2-3 more females to take some stress off the other females. Two are constantly hounded by my two males and the third is my first, a really old lady at 13yrs age. I didn't go with making the false bottom to where they could get under it because I worried too much about them getting stuck under there and drowning.
Even a semi-aquatic depends on the type of pets being kept. Some animals may prefer more water than land to deeper or shallower water. Some require high maintenance water changes like turtles and hermit crabs, while others might need it every week or two, particularly with critters that have a slightly irritable skin like fire belly toads and some salamanders. Depending on how many you have in what amount of water, depends on how often you need to change it before their own natural toxins become a danger to themselves.
Even with a ten gallon tank set up you can add an aquarium plant like java moss, lace plant or nymphaea zenkeri. My fire belly toads like to rest on the large leaves of the zenkeri in particular. A favorite of mine are moss balls (Cladophora aegagropila) which can make a ball or carpet the flooring of the water side like a moss and are very slow growing. They're like natural filters, making a ball of themselves if they are moved around in the water, collecting particles. As a ball you can take it out, squeeze it and put it back in like sponging some of the particles out of the water. When the ball is large enough you can break it apart and have two. I've had this stuff survive in as little as wet sphagnum moss with next to nothing in lighting.
In this case don't use a covering hood or glass, just the screen.
Desert style vivariums may normally require 40-70 humidity and 80-90 day temperature with a drop at night to 70-75%, particularly leopard geckos which I will example here.
To keep temperatures up I've recently switched from using just an under the tank heater during the day to using it during the night with a 40watt fluorescent, cool white bulb in a dome on the other side of the tank during the day. My next bulb will be 'daylight' blue bulb though because the brightness irritates them and they won't come out and bask. I also have sand stone slates throughout the tank which retain heat well.
The geckos are able to pick and choose from one side of the tank or the other on if they want to warm up (bask) or cool off day or night. I keep the heated areas alternated, as well as the light away from my substrate box, with the under the tank heater keeping the bottom of it warm to humidify.
I don't particularly care for the incandescent lights, they're hot enough to dry things up a little too much and don't provide UVB rays, which provide a reptile VitD3. The amount of watts you need for a heat light depends on the size of the tank. No greater than 15 watts for a 10gal, all it has to do is maintain at least 70/75 degrees, so may not even be necessary.
Reptiles in particular need D3 to be able to absorb calcium. I mostly think VitD3 Calcium supplement can do the job but the option of lighting can brighten their days up a little as well as provide for any possible plants.
If anything, the best result to look for is something like a (15W for 10gal) 20-40watt fluorescent cool white or blue 'full daylight' bulb for a dome light fixture. It can provide daylight/UVB, as well, a 40watt gets hot enough in a 30/40gal tank for 80temp without heating the entire tank. Alternating the under the tank heater as the night shift allows the lighting side and general air to cool off while the bottom remains warm and humidity may rise a bit.
Unless you have a big tank, I don't think incandescents are really all that needed with using an under the tank heater to specifically get high day temps. But, that's just the kind of thing to research and figure out for yourself.
A substrate box is basically a container an animal can get into that has moist humus. This substrate box helps keep the desired humidity as well as provide the pet a place to moisten molts for shedding or even lay eggs. It should be placed on the same side of the under the tank heater to remain warm and humidify. Lighting dries it out faster, especially if it's right over it. You can use any variety of plastic containers. I got tired of mine for my leopard geckos and made them what looks almost like a bird house lined with plexiglass inside it and a plexiglass bottom and lid from spare bits of other projects, edges sealed with aquarium silicone glue. The bottom is lined with 2" gravel with straight peat moss on top by 3". I fill the gravel level with water and occasionally mist it.
I became fairly frustrated with my substrate box always drying out too fast, even with coco-peat. Allot had to do with the light as well as the absorbency and depth of the substrate itself. Misting it as most sites recommend only took care of keeping the surface moist, to dry out by the next day or two. When coco-peat dries out, it takes just as much water to moist it again and the geckos sometimes like to dig it around and spill it out, making it even more shallow. The deeper it is, the more water retention. I just flat out couldn't keep up with it. I kind of went Tim the tool man, but it's holding up and still moist and warm after 5 days. Better than the tupperware.
There are a variety of substrates you can use in a tank like this, from sand like calci-sand for reptiles or playground sand for others unlikely to ingest it on purpose, humus peats, coir fibers, orchid bark, river rock gravel, to more flat surfaces like artificial turf, slate and barks, like compressed cork panels can be flooring or for walls. It takes some consideration, if your animal can ingest substrate or feeders with substrate on them without becoming impacted, to if surfaces are too rough, sharp edged, uncomfortable or even toxic.
Such as cedar chips are toxic with sharp edges, causing injury and respiratory and skin irritation even to a gerbil, much less a reptile. Iguana artificial turf would not be suiting for a leopard gecko because the 'grass' could wound their toes and is basically like laying on a bed of nails for someone so small and thinner skinned, while a tarantula would like orchid bark, but a skink suited to a tank temp and humidity like this would dig and rummage better with humus.
With my leopard geckos I use newspaper slightly sprayed with provent-a-mite and large pieces of sand stone slate on both cool and warm sides. From the under the tank heater, the slate remains warm even after the heat pad has shut off and it's rough enough to help them shed. It's also easy to just take out and wash with warm water and dish soap. The only disadvantage is sharp edges and pointy ends but they can be sanded smooth if they're worrisome enough.
Hides are basically anything that isn't clear and has a hole in it to get into. My geckos have a variety of hides and caves from long, bulb looking ones, one that looks like a chip of rock, another one looks like a smooth slope and for a while I had the half side of a clay plant pot in one before I put all four geckos together. They basically have at least two hides on the 'day' side and two hides with the substrate box on the 'night' or under the tank heater side.
To provide my geckos more room in their 30 or 40gal wide tank, I made a three sided box to fit one side of the tank at its width, with an 11" length and 4" height. They can go inside it with plenty of room or on top of it where another cave/hide, a piece of sand stone slate and the water bottle reside.
Optional grape vine or logs of drift wood or cholla cactus wood. A water bottle bowl, usually meant for reptiles with a mesh between bowl and bottle to keep crickets from sucking into it. A food bowl and a shallow bowl to fill with calcium powder that does not have Vit-D for such a requirement. My own geckos have a large and thick twist of grape vine resting from the top of the substrate box where another hide is, to the large platform hide I made. A little leg of it kind of kickstands down to touching the bottom of the tank.
That's about it for them though, I optimized wandering around room over trying any plants. Air plants like tillandsia would work but can also poke and abraise. Aloe vera might work in a pot, providing more moisture for humidity. Even with a pot plant, their substrate should be humus mixes or orchid bark instead of potting soil as the pet may still dig in it.
I use a very small office fan that can fit in my hand to occasionally aerate the tank and cool it as well as mist with a spray bottle. These are only once in a while, like every week to ensure a little fresh air and a bit of a humidity increase like a mild drizzle. Particularly if someone is molting the humidity should go up to make it easier for the shed skin to come off. Leopard geckos eat theirs which gives them a boost of vits and nutrients.
I change the newspaper and clean the accessories once a month. Leopard geckos usually poop in one designated spot and I can put a smaller, extra fold of news paper here and just pick it up and replace it every other day or every cricket feeding. If crickets eat it and then the pet eats the cricket, they may become infected with a parasite.
The substrate box should also be tested with a finger at the same time and possibly misted, the soil should be warm on top and usually it's cooler deeper in, but should be moist/damp all the way through. Substrate only needs to be changed out every month or even longer so long as there are no signs of a development of molds, left over skin bits of moltings, or any smells coming from it. Then it should be changed immediately. | 2019-04-23T18:34:58 | http://candlesound.tripod.com/wildhome/id1.html |
0.998139 | CBS All Access is really giving Star Trek fans a lot of new things to be excited about as of late, and it's not done yet. The streaming service has announced yet another show within the Star Trek universe called Star Trek: Lower Decks. The franchise will "boldly go" into the territory of adult-animated comedies with a series headed up by Rick and Morty head writer and executive producer Mike McMahan.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is said to center on a support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships. Deadline reports CBS All Access has given the half-hour comedy a two-season order. It will also be the first project produced by the recently launched CBS Eye Animation Productions. The show is the latest installment in what has been a massive expansion of the Star Trek television universe, which started with Star Trek: Discovery.
Alex Kurtzman's Secret Hideout studios is also involved in Star Trek: Lower Decks, as is Roddenberry Entertainment. Kurtzman and Rod Roddenberry are on board alongside others to executive produce the series alongside Mike McMahan. Aaron Baiers, who brought McMahan into the project, will be listed as a co-executive producer.
Mike McMahan is a big get for CBS All Access, and not just because he's one of the minds behind Rick and Morty. McMahan's love of Star Trek runs deep and was first captured on the web with a 2011 Twitter account dedicated to fake Star Trek: The Next Generation plots. His work led to an official book deal based on that, and years later McMahan would serve as a writer on the Short Treks series on CBS All Access.
So what territory will Star Trek: Lower Decks explore? That's not immediately clear, although Alex Kurtzman may have offered a clue by reciting the opening sentence of Mike McMahan's pitch that secured his gig. McMahan stated he wished to do a series on the people "who put a yellow cartridge in the food replicator so a banana can come out the other end."
It sounds like Star Trek: Lower Decks will focus on the nuances of living on a Starfleet ship and the regular crew members who keep it operational. If so, it's a departure from the typical Star Trek formula that focuses on the top crew members and their adventures, but also a setting where comedy may happen more organically. That's not to say Star Trek shows are humorless, but it's possible more laughs happen outside of a starship's Bridge than within.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is not the first animated adventure for the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek: The Animated Series ran for two seasons on NBC and was the first Star Trek program to win an Emmy. That's a high bar to set for Star Trek: Lower Decks right out of the gate, and time will tell if the show can attain that same honor and level of acclaim or falter.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is headed to CBS All Access with no release date scheduled at this time. There's plenty of television to watch in the meantime, so be sure to head over to our fall premiere guide and see what new shows are on the way. | 2019-04-24T02:26:47 | https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2460123/a-new-star-trek-series-lower-decks-is-happening-with-rick-and-morty-writer |
0.999999 | As gasoline approaches 4 US dollars a gallon in the United States, I find myself most concerned about energy.
I am, of course, concerned about every issue. Energy, however, concerns me the most. In my lifetime, I have watched my country earn several rivals to the large amount of resources it uses. I've watched prices escalate beyond my wildest dreams, due to the increased demand for such resources, the resulting increase in price, and the subsequent effect of price increase on everything that such energy price hikes cause. I see, upon the horizon, a possible crisis with regard to my nation's position in the world.
Barack Obama seems to have spent plenty of time with the same concern. His position revolves around using several options in order to carry our nation out of what he believes is an imminent collapse of our way of life. The conglomeration of short and long-term investments are part of his 10 year plan, and Barack promises 5 million green collar jobs as part of this plan. Of the following paragraphs, I'll explore small patches of what is a wide territory of topic.
Al Gore, of course, backs Obama. Gore also warns that McCain will kill the environment.
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Al Gore, the former Democratic vice president turned environmental activist, said Republican presidential candidate John McCain is beholden to energy companies and would hinder efforts to ease global warming.
"Big oil and coal have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party and they are drilling it for everything it's worth," Gore told a Democratic National Convention audience at the Invesco Field football stadium in Denver.
The issue of energy, with regard to Republicans and carbon fuels, may be valid, but the energy the world uses for the future is more important to me. It's a given that energy supply, with regard to carbon fuels, has become a costly dependence for today's United States. It is also a given that no candidate will deliver us from this awkward position with carbon fuel in the near future. The candidates, therefore, will debate 'alternatives' to today's commodities, since gas prices have tripled cost of living in this country during the last ten years. Barack Obama supports several alternatives, including nuclear power.
In the magazine article, I asserted that Obama is not a mouthpiece for his donors; neither does his voting record mirror the wishes of his contributor list. But, as I suggested, it's naïve to think that he's completely unaware of who's footing the bills. Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator based in Illinois, is a big donor to Obama, and its executive and employees have given him more than $70,000 since 2004. The Obama staffer pointed out that the senator pushed for legislation that would require nuclear companies to “inform state and local officials if there is an accidental or unintentional leak of a radioactive substance,” according to an office press release. Obama took a stand on that issue following reports that a plant operated by Exelon had leaked tritium several times over the past decade.
But Exelon is probably not entirely unhappy with Obama. At a 2005 hearing at the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, of which Obama is a member, the senator - echoing the nuclear industry's current campaign to promotes nuclear energy as "green" - said that since Congress was debating "policies to address air quality and the deleterious effects of carbon emissions on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable - and realistic - for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration." He was immediately lauded by the industry publication Nuclear Notes , which said, "Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of ‘common sense solutions.’ And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind."
Nuclear power is not greenhouse friendly. While electricity generated from nuclear power entails no direct emissions of CO2, the nuclear fuel cycle does release CO2 during mining, fuel enrichment and plant construction. Uranium mining is one of the most CO2 intensive industrial operations and as demand for uranium grows CO2 emissions are expected to rise as core grades decline.
According to calculations by the Öko-Institute, 34 grams of CO2 are emitted per generated kWh in Germany . The results from other international research studies show much higher figures - up to 60 grams of CO2 per kWh. In total, a nuclear power station of standard size (1,250MW operating at 6,500 hours/annum) indirectly emits between 376,000 million tonnes (Germany) and 1,300,000 million tonnes (other countries) of CO2 per year. In comparison to renewable energy, nuclear power releases 4-5 times more CO2 per unit of energy produced taking account of the whole fuel cycle.
Also, with its long development time a nuclear power programme offers no short-term possibility for reducing CO2 emissions.
What other alternatives could there be? What about alternative biofuels? From the Washington Post, Barack had been a major supporter of Ethanol, but rising food prices may change his position.
"Look, I've been a strong ethanol supporter because Illinois ... is a major corn producer," he said. He went on to say that he was concerned about reports that ethanol was helping drive up food prices, and that he saw ethanol as merely a transitional option that would eventually give way to biofuels that were more efficient and has less of an impact on food prices, such as ones made out of switchgrass.
One person of which to take great note is T. Boone Pickens, the entrepreneur who helped destroy Kerry in '04.
Pickens funded efforts in 2004 by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which sought to discredit Kerry's military service in Vietnam. The Massachusetts senator's initially tepid response to the attacks was partially blamed for his loss to President George W. Bush.
Why do we care about T. Boone Pickens today? He placed ads during telecasts for the Democratic convention promoting his wind technology and plans for natural gas to fuel automobiles. He's also looking to make great profit of this, and he's been willing to do whatever it takes to get his way. Obama appears, also, to be supportive of the industry captain.
Obama brushed off Pickens' past at the start of a meeting the Texas energy tycoon requested on Sunday.
"You know, he's got a lot longer track record than that," the Illinois senator told reporters when asked how it felt to meet with someone who tore down his Democratic predecessor in 2004.
"He's a legendary entrepreneur and, you know, one of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy," Obama said.
T. BOONE PICKENS: Yes. And he said, Boone, are you going to be active in this campaign? I said, I am not. I can't sell the Pickens plan and be active. So, I said, count me out. I am on the sideline.
NEIL CAVUTO: All right. But obviously you are going to vote.
PICKENS: Well, we will see.
CAVUTO: Wow. So it is conceivable that Boone Pickens could vote for Barack Obama?
Well, I guess that's the sideline for Pickens. Heh.
I suppose every possible part of Obama's energy plan is carried in this next video. Obama uses Pickens @ the 7:25 mark of the video in a point against McCain about offshore drilling, stating that offshore plans would take several years, only provide emotional support, and provide only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves (the United States consumes 25 percent).
Obama criticizes McCain's offshore drilling for, in part, a plan that won't take effect until several years in the future. Yet, Obama's energy plan takes ten years. Of which, I chuckle, but the reality of either candidate's national plan is the amazing delay of time it takes to affect the public. Neither candidate can really help the energy crisis within the next four years. Essentially, you are looking for a candidate with a strategy that can work in the future.
While we are deciding who will be the executive leader of the United States, remember that people such as from those working for Exelon and T. Boone Pickens will be placing contributions in exchange for security on future profits. Like Bush, Cheney, and the cuts to oil companies as part of their energy policy, today's Big Ugly Oil Barons can be replaced with others. I feel that reality is the most close to our future. Out of the frying pan . . . into . . . the . . .
China implies their interest in becoming a comparable world power, and they aren't too concerned about keeping promises to other nations when it comes to trivialities such as hosting the Olympics. Russia stomps the feet as of late, clearly in an attempt to remind everyone that they are on the verge of returning to a Cold War era as the US's comparable rival. The European Union has not formed in territory, but it has formed in economy, and the Euro trumps the US Dollar in comparative worth. There are plenty of challengers, and they always appear.
The US, hopefully, could benefit a bonanza, one where the discovery of a cheaper alternative energy helps the States to produce, consume, and depend. It could also be as drastic as a world war in which several countries decide on who gets what is left of what little we have to use. I would like to have the happy continuation, and I'll settle for the neutral, but I will continue to listen to both candidates on the subject of how our continuation of life avoids an end. | 2019-04-21T16:04:03 | https://sauce1977.livejournal.com/229634.html |
0.999827 | I came down with a bad fever on Wednesday and have been pretty much bedridden ever since. I'd like to think that the excitement of opening up shop got my body so fired up that I got a fever, but really I just caught this lurgy from J. who has also been sick all this week. The cat is the only one of us who's up and about, and she's been doing a good job looking after us, mostly by sleeping on top of my feet like a furry little hot water bottle.
I had so much to do this week, but I've spent the past days cocooned under a mound of blankets drinking cup after cup after cup of tea, and while that might seem lovely, it really isn't so nice when it's all you can do for days on end, and you feel awfully rotten all the while.
Today was the first day I've managed to do more than feel poorly and I tackled a bit of hand sewing, stitching together a few pieces of a teddy I'm making for the teddy bear course I'm currently taking.
I'm hoping I'll be hale and hearty soon, since I sure am sick and tired of being sick and tired!
So, after what is admittedly a rather embarrassingly long time, The Rag Pet Shop finally opens it's doors! There's still a little bit to do and to fiddle with, but all the necessary bits and pieces are there and working and it's all ready for customers.
My greatest impetus for getting the shop up and running now is because I hope to travel to Japan this summer and thus I'm in want of money for travel and the copious amount of shopping that's to be done. I thought that the Rag Pets could help me out in this task, since a lot of the trip would be to their advantage anyways, in the form of wonderful new materials and ideas and such.
You can find the shop here: To the shop!, or you can click the link in the sidebar on the right there.
Today is Hinamatsuri, the festival of girls and dolls. In keeping with the spirit of the day, I had friends over and we baked, played with dolls and talked about all sorts of girly things, although to be quite honest our conversation mostly concerned Japan and all things Japanese. Which, given that Hinamatsuri is a Japanese festival, also fits the theme of the day quite well, really.
We made pecan pie, and it turned out really well! None of us are what you'd call a dab hand at baking, but we were all rather pleased with the end result none the less. The pie was especially yummy with a bit of vanilla sauce on top and I admit I may have eaten a wee bit more than I should have of it! | 2019-04-25T22:10:31 | https://www.ragpets.com/2012/03/index.html |
0.999656 | October 27th trading day is over - what does that mean to anyone out there?
Amendment number two to S-1 - subscription rights at $1,000 for one share of preferred stock plus 1250 warrants - total of 10,000 shares of preferred plus warrants to purchase up to 12,500,000 shares of common at .48 for 30 months - subscription rights expire on 11/21/17 - Maxim gets 6 to 7% of rights proceeds.
rodney.strongg wrote: Amendment number two to S-1 - subscription rights at $1,000 for one share of preferred stock plus 1250 warrants - total of 10,000 shares of preferred plus warrants to purchase up to 12,500,000 shares of common at .48 for 30 months - subscription rights expire on 11/21/17 - Maxim gets 6 to 7% of rights proceeds.
I just glanced over the first 10 pages, but did not see any major changes compared to the former filing- just the symbol for the (tradeble) warrants I guess- i.e. CYTXS.
Sonstiges: 1 Optionsschein berechtigt zum Erhalt von 1 Cytori Aktie zum Preis von 0,48 USD je neuer Aktie. Die Laufzeit des Optionsscheines beträgt 30 Monate ab dem Ausgabetermin. Nähere Informationen zu den Ausübungsbedingungen der Optionsscheine liegen uns momentan noch nicht vor.
Einstufung in die Risikoklasse 5. Ohne diese Risikoklasse werden wir Ihre Weisung ablehnen.
Wir werden das zu beziehende Wertpapier in Ihr oben genanntes Depot einbuchen, sobald wir es von unserer Lagerstelle erhalten haben. Wann genau das der Fall sein wird, ist uns aber leider nicht bekannt.
Sobald wir Ihre Weisung erhalten haben, sperren wir den Gegenwert auf Ihrem Verrechnungskonto. Sie können diese Summe dann nicht mehr für andere Transaktionen nutzen. Abbuchen werden wir den Betrag natürlich erst zum Tag der Wertstellung. Wenn Sie uns den Auftrag erteilen, muss Ihr Verrechnungskonto also ausreichend gedeckt sein. Andernfalls können wir Ihre Weisung leider nicht bearbeiten. Prüfen Sie also bitte Ihren Kontostand, bevor Sie uns einen Auftrag erteilen. Die Lagerstelle wird uns den Bezugspreis zum Termin der Wertstellung bzw. zum Ende der Bezugsfrist belasten. Sollte der Bezugspreis auf eine Fremdwährung lauten, werden wir ihn zu unseren üblichen Kursen umrechnen und Ihrem Konto anschließend in Euro belasten.
Sollte es zu einer Pro-Rata-Zuteilung kommen, erhalten Sie nur einen Teil der gewünschten Wertpapiere. In diesem Fall schreibt die Lagerstelle uns in der Regel zunächst den gesamten Bezugspreis zu den ursprünglichen Währungskursen wieder gut. Anschließend belastet sie uns mit dem auf Ihren Anteil anfallenden Bezugspreis zu den dann aktuellen Kursen. Hierbei kann eine Devisenkursdifferenz entstehen, die wir an Sie weitergeben, sobald wir Ihr Verrechnungskonto in Euro belasten.
Fas, Franshei - obviously my hopes of avoiding the large dilution in the RO have been dashed - I am questioning whether we are back to "business as usual" (as has always been the case historically after CYTX offerings) and wondering if there really is any inflection point in sight - I know that Fas is not interested in the RO (neither am I), but is there some way to play this stock going forward or would further investments be simply "throwing good money at bad" (which historically has been the case) - will this time be different? - interested in your thoughts (and other long holders, such as Rongside etc.) - thanks.
Fas...glad to hear you didn't get any of the last RO. Boy, was that one lousy deal right from the start and a clear indication on how they feel about the long term shareholders...to be honest...I feel they would love to be rid of us for good !!!
RS...its amazing you even had the hope to begin with...they clearly laid out their plan.
As far as playing going forward....once we knew their plan one had to strongly suspect the manipulation up to get the deal done...that has past. Now its anybody guess but capital raises in general (any company of similar nature) have a habit of at least testing a bit below the offering price. Although this is a bit different in structure, I would say $0.40 will be the mark shot against at some point. Then you can choose if its worth a trade I guess......but with such a big equity world out there is it worth it ? That each lodge member has to decide for themselves !!!
Actually, I have been thinking about the same topic that we are in presently.
1. The corporate slide show that goes with the RO offer is pretty agressive, even though the company has very little cash.
2. As I have discussed, scleroderma is not dead. I believe the FDA wants a focus phase 3 trial in diffuse cutaneous scleroderma. I tends to believe the French sclerodec II would be positive and the French data together with the STAR data (48 weeks) would bring an EU scleroderma approval in 2019.
3. Japan is doing very well. But, the revenue will remain small if the sales and marketing forces remain. Though I believe the urinary incontinent and breast reconstruction studies would successful, the positive impact on Cytori KK is not immediate.
4. BARDA has US government funding support.
5. ATI 0918 should proceed as plan and the EU sales would most likely go through a distributor, not a partner.
6. RO money and other incomes if they come are only good for the near to intermediate terms.
I think it is very clear in my mind that doing small piece meal financing and currently project revenue and income for the near to intermediate terms are not the way to go.
I think TAP and CYTX management should know well that we all need a sugar daddy, just like what KOOL has. I hope this is the direction that Hedrick/Rickey/Girao are working on. It should not be business as usual. I hope the slide show and other corporate actions are indicative that the company is dressing up for a buyout, corporate sale, etc.
Exactly right franshei but management has been doing this their whole lives and they are in such a state they cannot do anything else because real money managers don't risk capital on bozos.
My #1 complaint here for many years has been they never raise enough money !!!!!!!!!!
Calhoun has to be laughing his a$$ off that we still struggle with the debt from the trifecta of doom, Calhoun/Saad/Dean !
IMHO, this company's purpose has been the preservation of salaries at all cost. They have little clue how to monetize what little is left here. Do you really seriously think Hedrick's team can run the Azaya assets w/o a royal screw-up along they way ?
Above said, they will get their money next month and the same players will continue to play the game as long as possible.
I am actually looking forward to the coming call as I expect it to be very entertaining !
As I have stated before, I did participate in the last RO for 53% with my IB holdings. The screw up with IDIS obviously was the deciding factor that this one had again to be made.
I have also stated that I am re-considering on this one and it all depends on the next call and Q3 earnings. And Q3 earnings obviously rely on Japan. For that reason, selling the KK makes no sense to me at all and the only thing they should continue to pursue is application partnerships. I have always said that my opinion is that I believe the expectations of utilization and return on apps have always been way too high in the minds of Calhoun and Hedrick and for that reason no deal has ever been made so far. And maybe they never will make one, with the view that I have nowadays on the world around me.
Consumable growth in Japan has been 23% on an annual basis, but 23% of nothing is still nothing. So- real hard facts - i.e. repeatable revenues- have to convince me- or not- that there will be an end to the catastrophic dilutions of the past 3 years. And I want to see evidence of personal sacrifice of the over-paid and over-rewarded management at Cytori.
Again- as Hedge already stated- the call should be interesting.
I think Hedge's recent comments/sentiment both technically and fundamentally represent what many investors and traders are thinking . Rodney's recent reactions are also typical before the 3rd Q CC in early November. I told Tiago Girao many times that Q CC is always scary time for CYTX stockholders.
I think CYTX is not running business as usual, otherwise there are no 50% layoffs and TAP involvement.
Regarding Cytori KK, it is after all a meaningful success. There is a lot of "great" efforts being undertaken in Japan over the past 2-3 years, and not much in EU and China. If the company can really strategically carve out some money to keep it alive (in the absence of a sugar daddy), I think Japan is a good plate to serve the purpose. If indeed there is a potential partner in the wing for the Japanese pie with a potential to gain control of the company, this party can come in through the current RO offer (all they need is 10,000 shares of the common for now and then subscribe most of the RO with up to $ 10 million for the preferred stock in November and another $ 6 million to exercise the warrants next year). (KOOL and VCEL have done the same before. ) If indeed this is what is happening, potential common stock dilution is a non event. The RO may very well be the transit to a new control of the company. The timeline for the execution of this RO is much slower than the one of last year - I think it is possible that they are working to find the right buyer/s for the whole company. I think this RO is not us and not for Sabby- it is for someone they have in mind.
Franshei, excellent post - imo, you are the one of the very few on the "cutting edge"!
To me, no mater what the final outcome, the outstanding share count will be material.
As far as KOOL and VCEL being some sort of success story...I suggest lodge members pull up a 5 year chart on each of them and see how the long term shareholders have fared in the "resurrection" of these companies.
franshei wrote: I think this RO is not us and not for Sabby- it is for someone they have in mind.
I know you are not a financial person, which is fine, but your post (similar to prior posts) basically is a "contradictio in terminis".
A Rights Offering to present shareholders by DEFINITION is meant for shareholders owning the stock at a certain point in time and the allotment allocation is a fair measure to make sure that large holders get a priority treatment in case of over-subscription, which is likely to happen. That means a third party - like normally happens with toxic financing- will be prevented from front-running in a big way. Surely some of it will happen with the likes of Sabby et al, but any white- or black knight should already be amongst us, which I hope is not the case in respect of a black one.
I would like to see Cytori stay an independent going concern and everything they have done so far, supports that.
The best indication of how strong or weak Cytori's prospects are WILL BE the level of participation in this R.O. by Marc Hedrick and the BOD. Marc has taken millions upon millions from Cytori with nothing to show for it. How much will he invest alongside participating shareholders? $100,000, $500,000, $1,000,000 or $0.50?
Wall Street Titan wrote: The best indication of how strong or weak Cytori's prospects are WILL BE the level of participation in this R.O. by Marc Hedrick and the BOD. Marc has taken millions upon millions from Cytori with nothing to show for it. How much will he invest alongside participating shareholders? $100,000, $500,000, $1,000,000 or $0.50?
I may have been premature in making the above statement - as the Prospectus states: "Our Board of Directors reserves the right to terminate the Rights Offering for any reason any time before the closing of the Rights Offering." A deal can still be made and the RO terminated!
LOL, if the rights offering is cancelled the most likely will not be for good reasons. Keep dreaming.
IMO, the RO has only been initiated in order to provide the $5 million Oxford requirement in case a partnership or other deal cannot be consummated in time.
How about this little blurb on page 22 of the S-1/A filing.
We may be or become the target of securities litigation, which is costly and time-consuming to defend.
In the past, following periods of market volatility in the price of a company’s securities, the reporting of unfavorable news or continued decline in a company’s stock price, security holders have often instituted class action litigation. The market value of our securities has steadily declined over the past several years for a variety of reasons, including the announcement of the results of our Phase III clinical trial in July 2017, and for other reasons discussed elsewhere in the “Risk Factors” section in the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on August 11, 2017, which heightens our litigation risk. If we face such litigation, we could incur substantial legal costs and our management’s attention could be diverted from the operation of our business , causing our business to suffer. Any adverse determination in any such litigation or any amounts paid to settle any such actual or threatened litigation could require that we make significant payments.
Who is to say someone isn't waiting for them to raise enough money to make it worthwhile to go after ????
Especially since Oxford now has the patents !
A lot of people have lost a lot of money.....anyone can speculate RS.
Only the lawyers come out on that deal with the shareholders getting NADA.
myownhedgefund wrote: How about this little blurb on page 22 of the S-1/A filing.
HF, I can't believe the above is the best response to my post that you can up with - WOW, may be I really am on to something - LOL! | 2019-04-20T21:02:27 | https://www.cytx-investor.com/forum/4-general-topics-on-cytori/1461-october-27th |
0.999926 | Asia is the largest, the most populated, and arguably the most diverse continent in the world. This makes attempting to write a general history of the intellectual, political, social, economic, and cultural developments which have transformed this great mass of land which stretches from the cold waters of the Bering Straits to the sun-dappled shore within sight of the ancient spires of Istanbul, from the sweaty and humid jungles of Vietnam which crawl with life, water, and green, to the arid, dry, dead desserts of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and across the host of nations which fall between these extremes across this world-unto-herself, nearly impossible to conceptualize. And yet it is with this ambition that Pankaj Mishra set about to write a book about the intellectual response of the thinkers, elites, and writers, who lived in Asia throughout the 19th and 20th century, to the encroachment of European and later broadly general Western imperialism into this land, and what the legacies were of this intellectual mobilization in the form of the structures, institutions, and history unlocked by the pens, words, and theories of a vast caste of historical figures who dreamed, hypothesized, and schemed about how to reshape Asia - or whether it was even necessary to do so at all. In doing so, Mishra does inevitably run up into the limitations of trying to cover such a vast continent, and a certain degree of lightness from the social milieu that he descends from, as well as his own areas of blindness - but he produces nevertheless a text that provides for a good framework to understand this era, time, and the intellectual thoughts which he analyzes.
What is the precise subject that is covered in From the Ruins of Empire? In effect, the goal of the book is to examine those intellectual figures who were responsible for creating the Asian intellectual response to European imperialism. This brings him to a variety of key thinkers, the most important of whom are Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a phenomenally flexible and ultimately highly influential, Persian-born, Shiite, thinker, who managed to himself like a chameleon go through a wide variety of both identities, alternatively changing from Sunni to Shiite in his public presentation, and from Persian to Afghani, to be able to present his message to the world - this too, a changing one, which shifted over time from a liberal, constitutionalist, outlook, to one which increasingly grew to stress pan-Islamic unity and a defense of Islam against the West. This seems to have been a common theme among many first generation Asian thinkers responding to the West, as the book itself declares and continues with its examination of other figures such as Tokutomi Soho, a Japanese writer who similarly evolved from a liberal into a fervent defender of Japanese militarism and pan-Asianism, or Liang Qichao who changed from a staunch Confucianist to a vigorous modernizer and then back again, or most famously Gandhi, the impeccable British lawyer who rejected the West for India instead, creating a new tradition and a virulent comndemnation of Western civilization's materialism and harm upon the world. These were no isolated figures, but rather a systemic and general development to the Western world's encroachments, with initial hopes for acceptance then dashed and replaced with a belief in the need for organic cultural revival and resistance. The Indians in particular, as mentioned with Gandhi but also perhaps even more notably with Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian who was fiercely critical of Western civilization and advanced instead the moral superiority of Indian civilization and Eastern thought in general. This intellectual development is one which is marked and well analyzed in the examination of intellectual trends during the Interwar period, when the response to the excesses of European civilization, its violence, death, and bloodletting, led to a general revulsion with the European "civilized" order and a renewal of Eastern tradition instead.
Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Tangore belonged to an influential stream of Indian thought which hailed the virtues of Indian spirituality and decried the excesses of Western materialism.
Other advantages present themselves to the reader. The book is one which is resplendent with quotes, in impressive serried ranks. It convincingly links the intellectual arguments marshaled by the writers within with the times in which they lived, and their biographies enjoy being peppered with events which both serve to illustrate their lives and to make it a more readable text: Chinese intellectuals in Egypt being swarmed by Arabs to congratulate the people they thought to be Japanese upon the decisive victory of Japan over Russia, or Jamal al-Din al-Afghani's attempts to attract the attention of the Russian tsar by prayer in one of Moscow's theaters, the events of the British attempt to enact a monopoly on tobacco in Persia: the book is one which due to its scope is a sweeping one, but thanks to the inclusion of moments like this, it enables one to more authentically connect to the works and stories therein portrayed. And finally, it also connects it well to today: analyzing what really did come about from this intellectual ferment from the time period, and how they effect us today, done particularly well in the case of the Islamic world but not ignored for either the Indian or Chinese ones.
There are a number of drawbacks which descend from the work of Mishra. It is resoundingly elitist (and masculine as well) in its focus: in effect it only examines a small segment of society, a few intellectuals, and their intellectual horizons. Certainly, he broadens the topic beyond the simply most famous intellectuals known for their anti-colonial agitation, such as Mao, or Gandhi, choosing figures which, despite their importance, have been neglected - at least in the West that is. But the degree of popular agitation, and how that was expressed and felt by the masses of India, China, Japan, is not much touched upon - their degree of anti-Western sentiment is mentioned with regularity, but how exactly they conceived and formulated their response to the Western order is much less so. There has been fascinating work which has been done concerning millennial movements which used magic, the feel of end times, and other "superstitious" practices as part of their arsenal of resistance to Western encroachment - the most famous example perhaps, being the Boxer rebellion, where the revolutionaries believed that through the aid of certain magical prescriptions they would be immune to bullets, immune to all of the scientific weapons found in the burgeoning arsenals of the West. It is an irony perhaps, for the author on multiple occasions draws attention to his own subject's distance and alienation from the common folk and the great masses which were the real strength of anti-Western sentiment, yet he himself is quite divorced from them and gives little analysis to their efforts, ideology, and logic.
Unfortunately for the Boxers, Western bullets would not be stopped by their charms.
The reference to Asia is furthermore, one which stresses three, and perhaps for if one is willing to allow for a generous interpretation, nations, or civilizations. These are the Muslim world, focusing upon Egypt in particular (from whence starts the book, with its description of Napoleon's invasion of this land, postulated as the first time that the West had arrived with its mission civilisatrice in the lands of the Orient), India, and China, with a more limited focus upon Japan. Much of the rest of Asia is ignored to some extent - Central Asia, other than Afghanistan, the peripheries of China, South-East Asian, much of the Arab world. The Asian world was the periphery of the European system, but in examining it, Mishra's gaze hews to its own metropoles, its own centers, to examine them. This is to some extent necessary if one does not wish for the book to bloat, and most can generally agree, or so I would imagine, that it was from these founts of ideas and ideology that emerges the principle strains of thought that would so condition the Oriental response to Western encroachment. But at the same time it leaves certain limitations and problems, focusing as it does on those who stemmed from high culture, from those peoples, those civilizations, which could claim thousands of y ears of access and enshrinement as the heart of their world system, rather than those on the exterior, those who were not only marginalized by Western intrusion, but so too marginalized by the world order which had existed before the men of Europe arrived.
It is perhaps a mild quibble on my part, but whenever a book begins to break out the language of casual modernity and globalization, comparing the movement of people around the Islamic world in the period of the Islamic golden age to the easy movement of Harvard PHD holders, I cannot but feel a slight bit of unease at such writing and such casually made links and comparisons between times when assuredly there were many more differences than the book alludes to. But thankfully, these pop up rather rarely. More serious is the vague sense of playing to the sympathies of his liberal readers in the Guardian: thus the Ottomans for example, despite their many crimes, atrocities, and horrors, are portrayed quite favorably, and the book can often be rather flat and uninspired, feeling blinkered and almost insipid: there is no attempt to expand its intellectual grounds beyond what plays well among the readers of the newspaper for which he writes for.
Any book seeking to cover as continent as vast as Asia must place itself into some compromises, for it cannot hope to entirely slake the interest of the reader for the diverse and varied responses from land to land. This book is no different, and it in of itself is inevitably, not enough to provide for the full understanding of the subject which is necessary. But as far as providing for a general framework, a list and a brief overview of the most important of the thinkers, and of their contributions, to place them into perspective, the book is one which is very useful enable a general grounding in the ideas and the thoughts of this era. For this reason, it is one which forms a good part of any library devoted to understanding Asian responses to European incursion and how the world was shaped by it, and one which brings further ground and terrain open to reader to continue their own research into the diverse topics that beckon to his attention upon completing the pages of from the Ruins of Empire. | 2019-04-19T00:17:58 | https://owlcation.com/humanities/From-the-Ruins-of-Empire-The-Revolt-Against-the-West-and-the-Remaking-of-Asia-Casting-Wide-the-Net |
0.999104 | Remainder of title 100 Key Points and Techniques.
Formatted contents note Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Part 1 BACKGROUND -- 1 What is Solution Focused Brief Therapy? -- 2 The origins of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (1): Milton Erickson -- 3 Origins (2): family therapy and the Brief Therapy Center at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto -- 4 Origins (3): the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee and the birth of a new approach -- 5 The Brief Family Therapy Center: the first phase -- 6 The Brief Family Therapy Center: the second phase -- 7 Solution Focused Brief Therapy today -- 8 Philosophical underpinnings: constructivism -- 9 Philosophical underpinnings: Wittgenstein, language, and social constructionism -- 10 Assumptions in Solution Focused Brief Therapy -- 11 The client–therapist relationship -- 12 The evidence that Solution Focused Brief Therapy works -- 13 How brief is brief'? -- 14 Summary: the structure of solution focused sessions -- Part 2 FEATURES OF SOLUTION FOCUSED INTERVIEWING -- 15 Ideas about therapeutic conversation -- 16 Choosing the next question -- 17 Acknowledgement and possibility -- 18 Compliments -- 19 Deciding who to meet with -- Part 3 GETTING STARTED -- 20 Problem-free talk -- 21 Identifying resources -- 22 Listening with a constructive ear: what the client can do, not what they cannot do -- 23 Constructive histories -- 24 Pre-meeting change -- Part 4 ESTABLISHING A CONTRACT -- 25 Finding out the client’s best hopes from the work -- 26 The ‘contract’: a joint project -- 27 The difference between outcome and process -- 28 The ‘Great Instead’ -- 29 When the client’s hope is beyond the therapist’s remit -- 30 When the client has been sent -- 31 Building a contract with young people -- 32 When the client says ‘don’t know’ -- 33 When the client’s hopes appear to be unrealistic -- 34 What if there is a situation of risk? -- 35 When the practitioner is a gatekeeper to a resource -- 36 What if we fail to develop a joint project? -- Part 5 THE CLIENT’S PREFERRED FUTURE -- 37 Preferred futures: the ‘Tomorrow Question’ -- 38 Distant futures -- 39 The qualities of well-described preferred futures: the client’s perspective -- 40 The qualities of well-described preferred futures: other person perspectives -- 41 Broadening and detailing -- Part 6 WHEN HAS IT ALREADY HAPPENED? INSTANCES OF SUCCESS -- 42 Exceptions -- 43 Instances of the future already happening -- 44 Lists -- 45 No instances, no exceptions -- Part 7 MEASURING PROGRESS: USING SCALE QUESTIONS -- 46 Scale questions: the evaluation of progress -- 47 Designating the ‘0’ on the scale -- 48 Different scales -- 49 Successes in the past -- 50 What is good enough? -- 51 Moving up the scale -- 52 Signs or steps -- 53 What if the client says they are at ‘0’? -- 54 When the client’s rating seems unrealistic -- Part 8 COPING QUESTIONS: WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH -- 55 Handling difficult situations, including bereavement -- 56 Stopping things from getting worse -- Part 9 ENDING SESSIONS -- 57 Thinking pause -- 58 Acknowledgement and appreciation -- 59 Making suggestions -- 60 Making the next appointment -- Part 10 CONDUCTING FOLLOW-UP SESSIONS -- 61 What is better? -- 62 Amplifying the progress made -- 63 Strategy questions -- 64 Identity questions -- 65 When the client says things are the same -- 66 When the client says things are worse -- Part 11 ENDING THE WORK -- 67 Maintaining progress -- 68 What if there is no progress? -- Part 12 ASSESSMENT AND SAFEGUARDING -- 69 Assessment -- 70 Safeguarding -- Part 13 CHILDREN, FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND GROUPWORK -- 71 Children -- 72 Adolescents -- 73 Family work -- 74 Scales in family work -- 76 In the school -- 77 Schools: individual work -- 78 Schools: the WOWW project -- 79 Groupwork -- Part 14 WORK WITH ADULTS -- 80 Homelessness -- 81 Alzheimer’s -- 82 Learning difficulties -- 83 Substance misuse -- 84 Mental health -- 85 Trauma and abuse -- Part 15 SUPERVISION, COACHING, AND ORGANIZATIONAL APPLICATIONS -- 86 Supervision -- 87 Team supervision -- 88 Coaching -- 89 Mentoring -- 90 Team coaching -- 91 Leadership -- Part 16 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS -- 92 Isn’t it just a positive approach? -- 93 Isn’t it just papering over the cracks? -- 94 It doesn’t deal with emotions -- 95 Isn’t it just a strengths-based approach? -- 96 What account does it take of culture? -- 97 Isn’t it just a form of problem-solving? -- 98 It’s a formulaic approach -- 99 Can it be used with other approaches? -- 100 Self-help SFBT -- References.
Summary, etc Solution Focused Brief Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques provides a concise and jargon-free guide to the thinking and practice of this exciting approach, which enables people to make changes in their lives quickly and effectively. It covers: *The history and background to solution focused practice *The philosophical underpinnings of the approach *Techniques and practices *Specific applications to work with children and adolescents, (including school-based work) families, and adults *How to deal & nbsp;with difficult situations *Organisational applications including supervision, coaching and leadership. *Frequently asked questions This book is an invaluable resource for all therapists and counsellors, whether in training or practice. It will also be essential for any professional whose job it is to help people make changes in their lives, and will therefore be of interest to social workers, probation officers, psychiatric staff, doctors, and teachers, as well as those working in organisations as coaches and managers.
Topical term or geographic name as entry element Solution-focused brief therapy.
Uniform title 100 key points. | 2019-04-22T15:15:31 | https://catalog.uttyler.edu/cgi-bin/koha/opac-MARCdetail.pl?biblionumber=743337 |
0.994689 | Many of these photos don't even need any description so this will mostly be more "show" than "tell" though there are a few things I have to share my thoughts about. I wouldn't be me otherwise, would I?
I've been getting a lot of interest from readers of my blog about some of the more specific information involved in moving to Cotacachi. I love corresponding with people who write to me but it also occurred to me that there are so many questions that go unasked that I started putting together a blog post or two about this information. Pretty soon I had a half dozen of them and I was nowhere near done.
I decided to write a little booklet sharing some of my insights and those of others who have made the move. Then it occurred to me that having a resource section would be a good idea, too. That way you could discover who to talk to about what. It would take a little longer to write as well, especially since I have to do quite a bit of research on much of it.
Now I'm getting to the slightly overwhelmed place where I have all kinds of things in all kinds of places but when I look at it I just see a mess. I'm not really all that worried about that part, though, because I think that will start coming together as I keep writing.
Here's where I need help: I need to know what you want to know. What are the questions you have about moving here? What aren't you hearing about from people who write blogs, books, and websites?
Sunday was the day for the adults. I'm not sure when they started their "takeover" of the square but I heard it was around 10:30 or so and I didn't start taking photos until about 12:30. This is much more serious than the kids have been for the past two days but there's still an air of festivity about it. This is a festival so filled with the symbolism of generations that I couldn't begin to pick it all out--not even a small percentage of it.
There's the harvest festival part where they are thanking the appropriate deities for harvest. Then there's the ceremonial reclaiming of sacred tribal lands taken by the Spaniards (that's why these always take place in the square across from the main church because the Spaniards always built the Catholic churches on sacred ground). There's the whole "cowboys and Indians" part of it with the mastery of the whip and the chaps and hats. Somewhere in there is the whistling that is designed to alter their state of reality and it can bring on hallucinations even without the assistance of the corn beer or sugar cane liquor they drink (if you haven't already watched one of the YouTube videos, you can hear the whistling by watching one of the first three on the blog post Inti Raymi II). It's all wrapped up in something that is very symbolic and meaningful to the indigenous tribes here.
This is just down the block from me when I was on my way to church at about 10:30. The police are out in numbers. These are just the ones at this intersection. Everywhere I turned, there were more of them--soldiers, too.
This was shortly after I got home from church. Yes, that couple is running to get away from the group headed their way. Each of the village groups (I heard there were over 30 of them this year) have leaders who are in charge of keeping their group in order. You'll see the men who are moving backwards in a row right in front of all the rest of the village men (and sometimes some women). Their job is to keep order so those who have already been celebrating (or actually never stopped celebrating from last night) don't get carried away. It's still a good idea to get out of their way. They don't really mean to run people over but sometimes they get carried away with themselves.
There were hundreds of children out on Friday (with the little kids) and again on Saturday. They are grouped together by their villages or sometimes in the case of the children, their schools. The adults who were on the square on Sunday were all in village-delineated groups but some of the children were there with a group rather than representing a specific village.
You can tell when it's a village group by the way they carry out a specific style of something. There are a few who have specific headgear and others who wear a particular kind of clothing that is unique to the others you will see. However they divide up, they all have pride in what they wear and what they do.
You saw the little kids from Friday, well here are the older ones from Saturday. There are adults mixed in and some of the little ones as well but the event featured the school-aged children.
Here we are back at the park just over a half block from my apartment. I'm so lucky to live so close to so much fun activity.
I just couldn't stop taking pictures of the little ones. They're so adorable and they take this so seriously.
I'm not sure if she was praying, trying to keep from having to hold hands with her neighbor, or just seriously focused of what was happening.
With all the activity going on with Inti Raymi, I still had a chance to get a few odds and ends of photos that I thought you might enjoy or just get a little chuckle from.
This photo is taken from the official Cotacachi website and it shows the very beginning of the Inti Raymi celebration with "the ritual bath, the ancestral offering, and blessing of the products of Pacha Mama [the mother volcano]" that took place on June 16 at Cuicocha, a nearby lake.
Yesterday was the parade for the children for Inti Raymi. This is where they get to do the same circle dances their dads will do but they do it in miniature all the way around. Enough typing, enjoy the children.
All the children in yesterday's parade were pre-schoolers (there were a few older children there but they were assisting their little brothers and/or sisters) The littlest of them were all ready to do something just like the grownups. If you saw the videos from the other day on my post "Inti Raymi, Part II," you heard the music (I use the term loosely) and saw the dancing (again, very loose usage--more like stamping of feet). Well, this is when the little ones do the same thing. Throughout you'll see musical instruments and sometimes you'll see the little circles of children around the people (generally adults or much older children) playing instruments.
Last week, in Goodby Dan Part I, I started telling you about the minister who was going back to Germany for a year and I had so many photos that I decided to split the story up into two parts. As promised, here's part 2.
The second presentation by the youth of the church had spoken words so the content wasn't as clear to me as the mime presentation was but it definitely had the same theme and the actors were pretty amazing. I was particularly impressed with their makeup (I know, how superficial is that!).
This was one of my favorite scenes. The young woman in the pink sweater thinks she can sing. You can tell from the other young woman across from her that not everyone shared in that opinion. That one didn't require any Spanish language skills to understand.
Yesterday you got the articles and today you get the videos.
This one will definitely give you the inside look at the time when the men take over the town square. I won't be getting this close to the action but I'll still have some good photos.
This one has a lot of Spanish being spoken in it but I didn't find it any deterrent to figuring out what was going on, especially when they were passing the plastic cup around.
You may want to stop watching this one after a couple of minutes--it really doesn't get any better but it was interesting to see the more private celebrations going on.
This one has nothing to do with Inti Raymi--I just happened to see it and like how it portrayed Cotacachi and threw it in as a bonus.
Inti Raymi is coming. This is an ancient Incan celebration to the Sun God and begins on June 21, summer solstice, each year. Cotacachi is the only place left in Ecuador where Inti Raymi is celebrated with as much "vigor" as it is.
Everywhere I read about Inti Raymi I find something that is, at the very least, shaded with different meanings about what happens and, more often, downright contradictory. All sources seem to agree that Gringos are welcome at the festivities and there will be tear gas at some point in the celebrations.
I've been looking around to find interesting bits of information for you to read or pictures to see before the actual even occurs so you can learn as much or as little as you want about the goings on.
This photo is taken from one of the best articles I've seen about Inti Raymi, from the cuicocha.org site. This link should take you to the correct page translated into English. | 2019-04-22T08:17:57 | http://cynthiaecuador.blogspot.com/2012/06/ |
0.99639 | 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Combine eggs, oatmeal, ketchup, Worcestershire, mustard, salt and pepper in a large bowl.
3. Heat oil in saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion, green pepper and garlic; saute 10 minutes.
4. Add meat and green pepper mixture to oatmeal mixture; mix to combine. Shape into 9 x 4-inch free-form loaf. Place on prepared baking sheet. Top with 1/4 cup stewed tomatoes.
5. Bake in 350 degree F oven for 35 minutes or until cooked through.
6. Heat remaining stewed tomatoes in saucepan. Serve over hot noodles. Makes 8 servings.
Servings Per Recipe: 8; Amount Per Serving: cal. (kcal): 411, Fat, total (g): 16, chol. (mg): 134, carb. (g): 47, pro. (g): 20, sodium (mg): 4110, Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. | 2019-04-24T02:51:43 | https://www.parents.com/recipe/beef/saucy-meat-loaf/ |
0.998821 | Healthy, Ginger Snap Cookies Servings: Makes 4 dozen cookies Ingredients 1 1/4 cup organic all purpose flour 1 cup organic whole wheat flour 3/4 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp. | 2019-04-19T13:16:53 | https://www.easywillpower.com/category/renas-recipes/page/2/ |
0.99928 | After seeing, this article about "How secure is Paypal for eBay sellers" in this morning's Guardian, I'll share my personal experience with you.
In October, I sold my first generation MacBook Air on eBay, and got a buyer within a day for the £500 "Buy It Now" price. "Buy It Now" requires using Paypal, and the £500 (minus commission) appeared in my Paypal account¹. After a bit of to and fro, the buyer got in contact, and suggested that he come and pick it up. Saving about £30 of shipping, and sorting out the sale faster, strike me as good ideas.
The "buyer" said he couldn't come, sent one of his "employees". A very courteous man came to pick the laptop. In hindsight, he seemed slightly uncomfortable, and looked like he was very happy to see how easy it was going to be.
The spooky thing is that within 40 minutes -- note, not 3 hours, not a day after, not the day before) -- within 40 minutes of the laptop getting picked up, the holder of the eBay and Paypal accounts submitted an "unauthorised account activity claim", leading to "payment reversal" (me owing £500 to Paypal²).
During my call to eBay's customer support, I was told that "I had nothing to worry about" (I'm guessing that would be the case as long as I repaid the £500). Paypal promptly sent a mail mentioning they needed my help, but with very little possibilities from my side ("no courier tracking number? Give us the money now").
Surrey Police failed to find the culprits, with the 2 mobile numbers associated with the con only being pay-as-you-go phones (topped up in a little convenience store in North London that only keeps a day's worth of CCTV).
If you sell anything via eBay using Paypal, send it recorded, and keep the receipt.
If you bought a MacBook Air first generation with the serial W88500DJ12G, it's stolen, send me an e-mail.
And as opposed to Mssrs Lodge and Reakes, Paypal didn't reimburse me anything, and I'm £500 out of pocket.
¹: I'll pass you the details on eBay referring to a closed Paypal account that meant I got conned two days later than the "buyers" anticipated.
²: On an account that was already closed, see ¹.
Update: Added mention of eBay's ludicrously bad customer service.
Go to YouTube directly if you can't see the video here.
As mentioned by Cosimo, we have a new library to help us implement the settings you saw: libwacom.
In the past, all this information was only available within the drivers (as comments), exported in different ways (sysfs attributes), non-machine readable in public documentation, or, worst of all, hidden in Wacom's internal drivers for OS X or Windows.
So if you have a Wacom tablet, send us a definition file for your tablet, so you can configure it with the impression that the software actually knows about your device.
After knowing what each tablet had to offer, we had to have a way to match the definitions to XInput devices, assign settings per-tablet, and importantly, switch stylus configuration when the user switches stylus. This is done using the new GsdWacomDevice and GsdWacomStylus objects, shared between gnome-settings-daemon (which will apply the configuration) and gnome-control-center (which will set the configuration).
This also means we have a few debugging applications, such as list-wacom in gnome-settings-daemon, to show you the attached GsdWacomDevices, or test-wacom in gnome-control-center, to test display of particular tablets if you don't own them (this is the place where I spend a lot of time).
Peter Hutterer, my input buddy at Red Hat, who made the original Wacom panel for GNOME 3.2, and the first version of libwacom, is currently spending a lot of time on Multi-Touch, and fixing bugs I report in the Wacom driver.
Jason Gerecke, from Wacom, who did most of the initial work on calibration support, is working on the related display-mapping. This will allow choosing whether a tablet's working area is the whole desktop, or a single monitor when in multiple monitors are used.
For my part, after fixing the layout bugs that so annoy me in the settings panel, I'll be starting work on tablet button mapping. I look forward to making the LEDs on the tablet match up with the selected keyboard shortcut!
Many thanks to Cosimo and Monty for helping out with presenting the work, and doing the video. | 2019-04-18T14:44:50 | http://www.hadess.net/2012/01/ |
0.999997 | The long-delayed report details the CIA's detention and interrogation policies during the Bush administration.
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein talks to reporters as she walks to the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Senate Intelligence Committee releases 525-page report on CIA interrogation and detention activities.
Obama: "I hope that today's report can help us leave these techniques where they belong — in the past."
Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein said releasing the report is "an important step to restoring our values."
Senator McCain broke with his Republican colleagues on the torture report, saying on the Senate Floor that CIA activities "stained our national honor."
The CIA once used enhanced interrogation tactics by mistake on two of its own informants.
U.S. officials issue terror warning, citing potential backlash to report on CIA interrogations.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a terror warning in response to possible backlash generated by a Senate report detailing the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques after 9/11.
The bulletin cites no specific threats, but warns that the release of the report "could prompt anti-U.S. protests and violence against U.S. interests, including private U.S. citizens," CBS News reported.
The agencies also reminded law enforcement officials to remain vigilant against the underlying threat from terrorist organizations and those acting alone.
The U.S. embassies in Afghanistan and Thailand — which played host to two secret facilities where prisoners underwent harsh interrogation techniques — were also warned of the potential for anti-American demonstrations and violence.
U.S. officials, including President Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, acknowledged Tuesday that the release of the report could inflame anti-American sentiment abroad.
President Obama takes a question about immigration reform during a visit to Casa Azafran in Nashville, Tennessee, Dec. 9, 2014.
President Obama says "brutal" CIA tactics were overzealous response to 9/11.
President Obama on Tuesday addressed the Senate report that details what he called sometimes "brutal" interrogation techniques, and acknowledged that the revelations could put Americans overseas at risk.
In an interview with Telemundo, which was partially carried by sister network NBC, the president said the now-banned enhanced interrogation tactics were the result of an overzealous agency rushing to respond to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
"In the aftermath of 9/11, I think in the midst of a national trauma and uncertainty as to whether these attacks were going to repeat themselves, what's clear is that the CIA set up something very fast, without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be, that the lines of accountability that needed to be set up weren't always in place," Obama said.
He also said that the U.S. needs to put safeguards in place to prevent the same sort of things from happening again, even in the heat of responding to a potential national security threat.
"Heaven forbid, we find ourselves under the types of threats that have occurred in the past, that we recognize the dangers ahead of time and do better," he said.
Republicans have criticized the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report as being incomplete, and have argued that releasing the report could unnecessarily inflame tensions around the globe.
However, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and former prisoner of war, said the report's findings were a "stain on our national honor."
Also addressing the potential fallout, McCain said the truth "sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad."
Interrogators threatened to sexually abuse detainee's mother in front of him.
Torture did not lead to Bin Laden.
The administration is staying away from the "did torture work" debate.
The White House will not referee between Senate Democrats who say CIA torture didn't work and CIA officials who said interrogation techniques now banned "saved lives."
"We are not going to engage in this debate," a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call Tuesday. "I think that would miss the overriding point that the president made clear, which is that some of these techniques are contrary to our values and were overall detrimental to our security given, among other things, the response overseas to the fact that the United States is engaged in these techniques. And that is why, of course, why the president prohibited these interrogation techniques as one of his first acts in office."
In his official response to the the Senate Intelligence Committee report Tuesday, CIA Director William Brennan said, "Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," referring to the CIA's acronym for enhanced interrogation techniques. Senate opponents of enhanced interrogation have said their investigation proved torture did not work in regards to producing worthwhile intelligence.
The administration official said Obama has "complete confidence" in Brennan, but said the debate was a hypothetical one, requiring "counterfactual" examples of other techniques producing the same intelligence that don't exist.
"We cannot know what the outcome of that counterfactual is. We cannot know what other interrogation techniques may have fielded," the official said. "So for us the reason for prohibiting the techniques is that they're contrary to our values. We do believe that there are interrogation methods that can get invaluable intelligence. We use those every day in terms of when we need to interrogate terrorism suspects."
Former CIA Chief denies he lied to Congress as detailed in the torture report.
Speaking with NewsMaxTV's Steve Malzberg Show, former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden denied he lied to Congress during his 2007 testimony on Capitol Hill.
Nearly 40 pages of the Senate Democrat's torture report are spent fact-checking then-CIA Chief Michael Hayden's one-day testimony.
NewsMaxTV: General, did you lie to the Committee in 2006 — I believe September of 2006 — the entire Committee, when you spoke to them?
Hayden: No, would be the straightforward and simple answer.
NewsMaxTV: Did you ever lie to that Committee?
NewsMaxTV: So when Dianne Feinstein today says you lied, is she lying?
Hayden: Uh, I'll go so far as to say she's incorrect. I mean, lying is intentionally misleading someone, alright? Let me make another distinction: telling people something they don't want to hear is not the same thing as telling people something that is untrue.
After a brief break, the CIA restarted its "enhanced interrogation" after determining that the Military Commissions Act allowed it after all.
In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the military tribunals was inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions. "The implication of the decision was that treating a detainee in a manner inconsistent with the requirements of [the Geneva Convention] would constitute a violation of federal criminal law."
According to the report, "CIA attorneys analyzed the Hamdan decision, noting that it could have a significant impact on 'current CIA interrogation practices.'" The decision also led the CIA to be concerned that enhanced interrogation could be "construed as inconsistent with the provisions of Common Article 3 prohibiting 'outrages upon personal dignity' and violence to life and person."
The Military Commissions Act (MCA) was passed in 2006 and was intended to be a way to authorize the use of military tribunals. The CIA also interpreted the law as allowing them to resume the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in 2007. The ACLU worried at the time that would be the case, but the Bush administration insisted that the law did not allow torture.
Sen. Feinstein says report will "stand the test of time."
"Obviously I know what's in the report and it's very heavy stuff. Nobody wants to do something that's going to bring on any kind of attack but I also came to the conclusion that America's greatness is being able to say we've made a mistake, we're going to correct it and go on from there."
"The face that everything in it is a record, it's contemporaneous to what's going on. There's no rationalization 12 years later, no reinvention of history, it's all what happened when it happened. It's going to stand the test of time. I anticipated I would have some very hard days but so be it."
Report claims no CIA officer briefed President Bush on the program until April of 2006.
Senator McCain breaks with colleagues on torture report, CIA activities "stained our national honor."
The Republican Arizona senator who himself was a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam War praised the release of the report in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday.
"I commend Chairman Feinstein and her staff for their diligence in seeking a truthful accounting of policies I hope we will never resort to again. I thank them for persevering against persistent opposition from many members of the intelligence community, from officials in two administrations, and from some of our colleagues. The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless. "They must know when the values that define our nation are intentionally disregarded by our security policies, even those policies that are conducted in secret. They must be able to make informed judgments about whether those policies and the personnel who supported them were justified in compromising our values; whether they served a greater good; or whether, as I believe, they stained our national honor, did much harm and little practical good."
Video of the speech is below and the entire speech can be read here.
We, as former senior officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, created this website to present documents that conclusively demonstrate that the program was: authorized by the President, overseen by the National Security Council, and deemed legal by the Attorney General of the United States on multiple occasions. None of those officials were interviewed either. None. CIA relied on their policy and legal judgments. We deceived no one. You will not find this truth in the Majority Report.
Report finds that of the 39 detainees submitted to enhanced interrogation, nearly 20 percent produced no intelligence reports.
At least a fifth of CIA detainees were wrongfully held, including an "intellectually challenged" man, report claims.
The man was held "solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information[.]"
The CIA didn't file crime reports when certain classified info was published by the press -- because they leaked it to shape message, report finds.
According to the Senate investigation, the CIA did not properly vet officials participating in the interrogation program, despite claims by then-CIA Director Michael Hayden that they were "carefully chosen and screened."
Some of those officials had "serious documented personal and professional problems, including "histories of violence" and "abusive" behavior. Some had "reportedly admitted to sexual assault." Those records "should have called into question their suitability to participate in the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, their employment with the CIA, and their continued access to classified information."
Yet "in nearly all cases," the report concludes, "these problems were known to the CIA prior to the assignment of these officers to detention and interrogation positions."
CIA officials participating in the program also did not necessarily have relevant expertise. According to the report, "The CIA placed individuals with no applicable experience or training in senior detention and interrogation roles, and provided inadequate linguistic and analytical support to conduct effective questioning of CIA detainees, resulting in diminished intelligence."
Report finds CIA forced detainees with leg injuries into stress positions.
Emails reviewed by the committee showed CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations in direct response to the possibility of passage of an independent commission to investigate U.S. detention policies.
CIA used “rectal feeding” as part of torture program.
In one of the most disturbing revelations in the newly released Senate report on the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program, the CIA is found to have used "rectal feeding" and rectal rehydration to impose their will on detainees.
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee release scathing rebuttal.
In their minority release, Saxby Chambliss, joined by Marco Rubio, Jim Risch, Richard Burr, Tom Coburn, and Dan Coats, wrote that the report's conclusions "attack the CIA's integrity and credibility in developing and implementing the Program."
"Absent the support of the documentary record, and on the basis of a flawed analytical methodology, these problematic claims and conclusions create the false impression that the CIA was actively misleading policy makers and impeding the counterterrorism efforts of other federal government agencies during the Program's operation."
The Republicans claim that the committee made the decision to not "interview key witnesses" and that "led to significant analytical and factual errors in the original and subsequent updated versions of the study."
Report finds evidence that detainees were denied methods to dispose of their human waste, contradicting testimony given by then CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Over the past several decades, and especially since the terrible tragedy of 9/11, the CIA has been at the forefront of our Nation's campaign against al-Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations worldwide. The women and men of the CIA have operated around the globe, 24-hours-a-day, working with their U.S. colleagues as well as with foreign partners to prevent terrorist attacks. As a result of these efforts, including the many sacrifices made by CIA officers and their families, countless lives have been saved and our Homeland is more secure.As part of the CIA's global effort to dismantle al-Qa'ida and to prevent future terrorist attacks, the Agency was directed by President Bush six days after 9/11 to carry out a program to detain terrorist suspects around the world. Certain detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which the Department of Justice determined at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush Administration. These techniques, which were last used by the CIA in December 2007, subsequently were prohibited by an Executive Order issued by President Obama when he took office in January 2009.Today, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a redacted version of the Executive Summary, Findings, and Conclusions of its Study on CIA's former detention and interrogation program, along with Minority Views and the Additional Views of a number of Committee members on the same subject. The CIA has also released its redacted June 2013 response to the Study, which is being posted on our website, www.cia.gov.As noted in CIA's response to the study, we acknowledge that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes. The most serious problems occurred early on and stemmed from the fact that the Agency was unprepared and lacked the core competencies required to carry out an unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa'ida and affiliated terrorists. In carrying out that program, we did not always live up to the high standards that we set for ourselves and that the American people expect of us. As an Agency, we have learned from these mistakes, which is why my predecessors and I have implemented various remedial measures over the years to address institutional deficiencies.Yet, despite common ground with some of the findings of the Committee's Study, we part ways with the Committee on some key points. Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa'ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.We also disagree with the Study's characterization of how CIA briefed the program to the Congress, various entities within the Executive Branch, and the public. While we made mistakes, the record does not support the Study's inference that the Agency systematically and intentionally misled each of these audiences on the effectiveness of the program. Moreover, the process undertaken by the Committee when investigating the program provided an incomplete and selective picture of what occurred. As noted in the Minority views and in a number of additional views of Members, no interviews were conducted of any CIA officers involved in the program, which would have provided Members with valuable context and perspective surrounding these events.Throughout its 67-year history, CIA has played a critical role keeping our Nation secure, and CIA officers are rightly proud and honored to be part of an organization that is indispensable to our national security. The numerous challenges on the world stage demand the full attention, focus, and capabilities of the women and men of the CIA so that our country can stay strong and our fellow Americans remain safe. To be successful, the CIA needs to work closely with its Congressional oversight committees as we confront these challenges. With today's release of Committee documents and the CIA response, we look forward to the way ahead.
Report finds CIA leadership vetoed disciplinary action for an official involved in the death of a detainee.
Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world. As Americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe, among them the dedicated men and women of our intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the horrific attacks of 9/11, these public servants have worked tirelessly to devastate core al Qaeda, deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupt terrorist operations and thwart terrorist attacks. Solemn rows of stars on the Memorial Wall at the CIA honor those who have given their lives to protect ours. Our intelligence professionals are patriots, and we are safer because of their heroic service and sacrifices.In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country. As I have said before, our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. That is why I unequivocally banned torture when I took office, because one of our most effective tools in fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe is staying true to our ideals at home and abroad.Today's report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence details one element of our nation's response to 9/11—the CIA's detention and interrogation program, which I formally ended on one of my first days in office. The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests. Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America's standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.As Commander in Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the safety and security of the American people. We will therefore continue to be relentless in our fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent extremists. We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals. That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today's report. No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better. Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today's report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past. Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn't make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.
Report finds CIA paid foreign officials cash to cooperate with secret detention programs.
To encourage governments to clandestinely host CIA detention sites, or to increase support for existing sites, the CIA provided millions of dollars in cash payments to foreign government officials.
As we have both stated before, we are opposed to this study and believe it will present serious consequences for U.S. national security. Regardless of what one's opinions may be on these issues, the study by Senate Democrats is an ideologically motivated and distorted recounting of historical events. The fact that the CIA's Detention and Interrogation program developed significant intelligence that helped us identify and capture important al-Qa'ida terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down Usama Bin Ladin is incontrovertible. Claims included in this report that assert the contrary are simply wrong.
No foreign countries are identified in the report.
The study does not identify any foreign countries that hosted CIA detention sites, according to a FAQ supplied alongside the main report.
The study's authors intended to refer overseas countries by pseudonyms. This would have allowed connections to be made between the same cases. However, the Obama administration objected.
According to the FAQ: "The countries were originally identified in the Study by a letter (for example, "Country J"). The administration has since redacted these letter designations in the public version so the countries are shown as "Country __.""
Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes the CIA misled policymakers and the public, "enhanced interrogation techniques” were not effective.
The Senate Intelligence Committee made 20 findings and conclusions, with four central themes, according to a press release from Sen. Feinstein's office.
Sen. Feinstein said some of the CIA's activities amounted to torture.
"This document examines the CIA's secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques—in some cases amounting to torture," Feinstein said.
Key findingsThe study's 20 findings and conclusions can be grouped into four central themes, each of which is supported extensively in the Executive Summary: 1.The CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" were not effective.2.The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public. 3.The CIA's management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.4.The CIA program was far more brutal than the CIA represented to policymakers and the American public.
The Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee will release their long-delayed declassified report today on CIA detention and interrogation policies in the years following September 11, 2001.
The report, which cost upwards of $40 million to produce, will reportedly conclude that the CIA mishandled it's highly controversial detention and interrogation program. The Republican members of the committee are expected to release their dissent of the report.
Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein will take to the Senate Floor at 11 a.m. to provide details on the report.
Contact Adam Serwer at [email protected]. | 2019-04-23T16:40:44 | https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kyleblaine/senate-democrats-to-release-cia-torture-report-today |
0.998704 | Answering Muslims: Osama Bin Laden Returns in Zombie Film "Osombie: The Axis of Evil Dead"
Osama Bin Laden Returns in Zombie Film "Osombie: The Axis of Evil Dead"
And we know that, since Muslims don't support terrorism, they won't be offended by this movie.
ABC NEWS--A Utah production company announced today that it has shot a movie based on the premise that Osama bin Laden rises from his watery grave and leads an army of zombie terrorists in a violent jihad of the undead.
In the feature-length film, "Osombie: The Axis of Evil Dead," a NATO Special Forces unit races to defeat zombie bin Laden and his flesh-seeking militia, while also stopping the infection from spreading to even more terrorist corpses.
According to the film's executive producer, Kynan Griffin, the script was written before the real al Qaeda leader was killed last May; once that happened, Griffin said, it was "too good to pass up."
Q:"What's the difference between live Osama and Zombie Osama?"
A:"When Osama gives the call to prayer, it sounds like a death rattle!"
audience: "Hah hah hah! Yes! But which Osama? Hah hah hah!"
This is great but it would be even better if someone in Hollywood with some integrity would have the pluck to make a movie on the evil life of the prophet of Islam, based on the Hadiths and the koran. They would do the world a huge favor in exposing the true face of the cult of Mohammed.
Because of fear of retalliation, Islam is always potrayed in a false light to appease the Islamic oil rich world, due to which more and more gullible westerners are inexorbally drawn into this dark abyss.
What we need to combat Islam is some good old fashioned honesty, not the patronizing lies of multiculturalism and our deceptive vote-seeking politicians.
Islam was recognized as evil by many leaders and statesmen of the old world.
Here is what Winston Churchill had to say about Islam..
"...the influence of the religion (of Islam) paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient" Rome."
But Alas! the civilization of modern Europe and other cowards (like Bart Erhman) have either conceded or are fearful of Islam, and so must fall as did ancient Rome.
Lol!!!!! Love it and I hate zombie movies!
Well, the little Iranian President says the Mahdi (political Islamic messiah) will be killed by the infidel (to Islam) and be brought back to life . . . Is there a stunt double waiting to crawl out of the well and be "reborn?"
have none of us referred back to the South Park Mohammed episode??? | 2019-04-23T10:12:46 | http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2012/02/osama-bin-laden-returns-in-zombie-film.html |
0.999999 | The "supervisor" of an institution often produces which of the following feelings in the "inmates"?
The passage states in its second paragraph, "there is an intentional divide between a large managed group and a supervisor, which often results in feelings of submissiveness and reluctance to leave the institutionalized setting on the part of the 'inmates.'" A supervisor produces feelings of submissiveness and reluctance, which results in the inmate feeling dependent upon the institution for his or her needs and existence.
The author has written this passage in order to __________.
The author begins his work from a defensive standpoint, arguing in the first sentence that he has not “overstepped the bounds of neuropathological interest” in investigating and writing about the interpretation of dreams. He then goes on to addresses some of his study’s limitations in the second and third paragraphs. Thus, we can say that the author’s purpose in writing this passage is to “justify his work and address some of its limitations.” None of the other answer choices are supported by the passage.
There is a notion commonly entertained among men that an instructed woman, capable of having opinions, is likely to prove an unpractical yoke-fellow, always pulling one way when her husband wants to go the other, oracular in tone, and prone to give lectures. But surely, so far as obstinacy is concerned, your unreasoning animal is the most difficult of your creatures. For our own parts, we see no reason why women should be better kept under control rather than educated to be mans rational equal.
If you ask me what offices women may fill, I reply—any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea-captains, if you will. I do not doubt there are women well fitted for such an office, and, if so, I should be glad to welcome the Maid of Saragossa. I think women need, especially at this juncture, a much greater range of occupation than they have, to rouse their latent powers. In families that I know, some little girls like to saw wood, and others to use carpenters' tools. Where these tastes are indulged, cheerfulness and good-humor are promoted. Where they are forbidden, because "such things are not proper for girls," they grow sullen and mischievous.
Men pay a heavy price for their reluctance to encourage self-help and independent resources in women. The precious meridian years of many a man of genius have to be spent in the toil of routine, that an "establishment" may be kept up for a woman who can understand none of his secret yearnings, who is fit for nothing but to sit in her drawing-room like a doll-Madonna in her shrine. No matter. Anything is more endurable than to change our established formulae about women, or to run the risk of looking up to our wives instead of looking down on them. So men say of women, let them be idols, useless absorbents of previous things, provided we are not obliged to admit them to be strictly fellow-beings, to be treated, one and all, with justice and sober reverence.
This passage is primarily concerned with __________.
When you are asked what a passage is primarily concerned with it is necessary to consider what you have just read as a whole. There is no evidence in the passage to suggest that the author is concerned with the effects of patriarchal society on young children. Likewise the changing economic situation and historical roots of contemporary attitudes are never discussed. There is a discussion of the relationship between men and women, but little evidence provided to suggest it is changing. The primary concern of the passage is the advancement of women’s rights as evidenced, for example, “If you ask me what offices they [women] may fill, I reply—any."
The world has need of all the spiritual aid that woman can give for the social advancement and moral development of the human race. The tendency of the present age, with its restlessness, religious upheavals, failures, blunders, and crimes, is toward broader freedom, an increase of knowledge, the emancipation of thought, and recognition of the brotherhood of man; in this movement woman, as the companion of man, must be an equal. So close is the bond between man and woman that you cannot raise one without lifting the other. The world cannot move without woman's sharing in the movement, and to help give a right impetus to that movement is woman's highest privilege.
If the fifteenth century discovered America to the Old World, the nineteenth is discovering woman to herself. Not the opportunity of discovering new worlds, but that of filling this old world with fairer and higher aims than the greed of gold and the lust of power, is hers. Through weary, wasting years men have destroyed, dashed in pieces, and overthrown, but today we stand on the threshold of woman's era, and woman's work is grandly constructive. In her hand are possibilities whose use or abuse must tell upon the political life of the nation, and send their influence for good or evil across the track of unborn ages.
From the whole of this passage, what does the author likely believe will be the product of women’s increased political participation?
The author makes direct reference to her belief in the ability of women to have a positive effect on the growth of human society when she says: “Today we stand on the threshold of woman's era, and woman's work is grandly constructive.” This evidence, combined with the overall tone of the passage, should give enough information to answer that the author believes increased female participation will lead to constructive good.
One of the main points made in the last paragraph is that __________.
The author states that “The strong, natural characteristics of womanhood are repressed and ignored in dependence, for so long as man feeds woman she will try to please the giver and adapt herself to his condition.” This quote supports the answer choice that the author argues that so long as man is in control women will change to accommodate and reflect him.
While the Gutenberg press was perhaps one of the greatest inventions of all time, we should not let its importance blind us to other very important events in the history of linguistic development. Granted, the efficiency of printing allowed for the dissemination of much learning in Europe. Still, such printing was not unique to Europe, and even in the scope of world history, there are several events that are equally as miraculous regarding the transmission of knowledge.
For instance, most people overlook the amazing nature of the first time that human beings communicated with spoken language. Perhaps there were simple signs by which these early humans could indicate their needs to each other; however, when the first event of person-to-person speech occurred, it was far more marvelous than simple practical communication. Such speech was like a sharing in ideas. When true speech happened, persons were able to communicate knowledge to each other, freeing it from its isolation in one lonely person. By means of such speech, knowledge could be orally transmitted from generation to generation, thus preserving wisdom in a way that is completely impossible without speech.
Of course, such spoken tradition is very fragile, relying on memories and stories that are passed down from generation to generation. For this reason, the invention of writing is extremely important. In contrast to the spoken word, the written word can continue to exist and be useful so long as it can be read intelligently. Likewise, much more can be recorded than ever could be remembered by someone with the best of memories. Indeed, once these records are written, copies can be sent to anyone who is able to read the language in question. Just so, it can be translated into written copies to be read by others. For these (as well as many other reasons) the invention of writing was a very significant event in history, greatly expanding the possibilities for the exchange of knowledge.
Thus, the printing press is quite important, but it is part of a larger story. Like both spoken and written communication, it allows human beings to communicate knowledge not only to each other but also across multiple generations. Often, we think of the press merely in its ability to provide a great number of books in a short period of time; however, when considered as a chapter in this longer tale, it likewise appears as the means by which humanity is able to conquer time by allowing the knowledge of today to live for multiple generations.
What is the main idea of this selection?
The Gutenberg press was in fact a rather unimportant invention compared to a number of others.
The Gutenberg press is a fascinating case study but really nothing more.
The Gutenberg press should be ignored by historians after many years of over-emphasis.
The Gutenberg press is the single greatest achievement of human history.
The Gutenberg press should be understood as part of a longer history of the development of human communication.
This whole selection aims to show that the significance of the Gutenberg press should be understood in light of the importance of speech and writing. From the beginning, it acknowledges that it was an important invention; however, it follows by providing a short explanation of how speech and writing are likewise very important means of human communication. The closing paragraph repeats the main point, namely that the press was important but is really part of a larger history.
What is the main idea of the third paragraph?
The third paragraph opens with a transition sentence that intends to show that the spoken tradition discussed in the second paragraph is "fragile," that is weak and likely to fail over time. From this transition, it discusses the importance of writing (without judging speech in a completly negative fashion). The remainder of the paragraph explains how writing is able to last for a much longer time than speech. Likewise, it observes how it expands the possibilities for the exchange of knowledge.
Which of the following best captures the attitude of the author towards “critics”?
The author feels that all critics are significant measures of social understanding.
The author finds critics to be worthless and immoral.
The author has no strong opinion on critics.
The author lauds critical analysis as the most accurate measure of the greatness of an individual.
The author feels critics should not be praised over those who actually strive to achieve something.
The author of this passage describes, in the introduction, how critics should not receive credit for pointing out the flaws in the actions of those who “do” things. To the author the critic is merely a biased observer, intent on pointing out the mistakes of others and little inclined towards doing anything productive themselves. The correct answer is that “The author feels critics should not be praised over those who actually strive to achieve something.” Many students might have answered that “The author finds critics to be worthless and immoral,” but the words “worthless” and “immoral” are not explicitly used by the author and the tone is slightly less harsh than those words might imply.
In this passage, the author describes the battlefield as being __________.
The author of this passage is Abraham Lincoln. This passage is adapted from Lincoln’s famous 1863 Gettysburg Address. Lincoln emphasizes the sacred nature of the battlefield; its importance to the Civil War effort. He describes how the men who fought and died on the battlefield, in the name of preserving the union, consecrated (to make sacred or holy) the ground. Lincoln makes no reference to the misery suffered in war, nor would he likely imply that the battle fought at Gettysburg was insignificant. Similarly, there is no mention in the passage of the battlefield being haunted or that its status is mythical (legendary).
The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor. The effects of the division of labor, in the general business of society, will be more easily understood by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in others of more importance, but in those trifling manufactures that are destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator.
In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a number of workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed.
To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one in which the division of labor has been very often taken notice of: the trade of a pin-maker. A workman not educated to this business (which the division of labor has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labor has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them.
In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling one; though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place, in consequence of this advantage.
Which of the following best states the main idea of the passage?
Labor has been most improved in its division; the best example of this is in large industries, such as the large-scale manufacturing of pins.
One can observe the division of labor in the pin-making industry.
While it is easier to observe the division of labor in small-scale industries, considering it in large-scale industries provides a better example of the phenomenon.
The division of labor is an important economics concept that should be applied to both small- and large-scale industries.
When answering a question asking you to state the main idea of a passage, it is important to select an answer choice to which each paragraph can relate, but that is not broad enough to include many other ideas that the paragraph doesn’t discuss. In this case, the answer choice “While it is easier to observe the division of labor in small-scale industries, considering it in large-scale industries provides a better example of the phenomenon” doesn’t mention pin-making at all. “The division of labor is an important economics concept that should be applied to both small- and large-scale industries” is incorrect because the author is not claiming that the division of labor should be “applied” to industries, but that it is visible in them. This leaves us with two answer choices: “One can observe the division of labor in the pin-making industry” and “Labor has been most improved in its division; the best example of this is in large industries, such as the large-scale manufacturing of pins.” The latter answer is the best choice because it captures the author’s thesis, which he states in the passage’s first sentence, “The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor.” It is also the better answer because it captures the author’s argument about the differences between considering the division of labor in small-scale and large-scale industries.
Goucher College, Bachelor in Arts, History. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Master of Arts, Higher Education Administration.
Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Bachelors, English Education. The New School, Master of Arts, Humanities.
Beloit College, Bachelor of Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. | 2019-04-22T13:19:11 | https://www.varsitytutors.com/psat_critical_reading-help/analyzing-main-idea-theme-and-purpose-in-social-science-history-passages?page=2 |
0.996766 | Please give your app permission to use your microphone.
Does my microphone record my voice?
No. The app does not have the ability to record or store what you say.
In the Android App manager, why do the app settings show that it has permission to "record audio"?
This is a general microphone permission which simply allows the app to use your device's microphone. The app does not have supporting functionality to record or store audio. | 2019-04-25T22:12:43 | https://oceanhousemedia.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/1078963-microphone-general |
0.998238 | A car can prove to be a poor investment if it results in a loss to the owner, but you can maximize your return if you know when to sell your car.
Although the decision to sell a vehicle is not an easy one, it can turn out to be very expensive if done at the wrong time. There are many things to consider, and taking the time to do so will help you sell your car at the right time.
The most important thing to consider is the cost of continued ownership: take into account whether the car is reliable and the number of miles displayed on the odometer.
A major part of determining when to sell your car deals with upcoming maintenance and repair costs. There are many items that typically come to mind, and are really part of general maintenance: tires, brake rotors, brake pads, belts, and hoses.
There are larger potential expenses to consider as well. Has your car been meticulously maintained? Components in the engine and transmission can be very expensive to repair and even more costly to replace. The air conditioning and electrical systems can also pose problems as your car ages. All of the costs associated with continuing to own the vehicle should play a role in the decision of when to sell your car.
Another thing to think about when deciding whether to unload a vehicle is how easy it will be to sell. A car with less than 100,000 miles is typically an easier sale. If you are selling to a buyer who is not able to pay cash for the purchase, the car will have to be financed. Most financial institutions will not provide a loan to a buyer for a car with excessive miles. Is your car in good mechanical shape? The car will be much easier to sell if it doesn't require immediate maintenance. If you wait too long to sell your car, it can prove to be a very expensive mistake.
Knowing when to sell your car also requires that you think about replacing your vehicle. Many people simply focus on the vehicle that they are going to replace. The big picture includes the vehicle that will be the replacement. Is this a good time for you to buy a new vehicle? What type of financing will you be able to secure? It's very difficult to know when to sell your car if you don't know whether you are able to purchase a new vehicle.
Although a car can be a poor investment, owning a car doesn't have to be a losing situation. Knowing when to sell your car can make the difference between a financial loss and a financial gain. | 2019-04-23T12:57:15 | http://www.howtodothings.com/automotive/know-when-to-sell-your-car |
0.998661 | I'm beginning to wonder why Mark Steyn thinks Islam is so powerful compared to the West. This is not, by any means, to excuse the very real danger posed by radical Islamism, but Steyn, whose war-on terror commentary has otherwise been quite astute, continues to predict an Islamic takeover of the world based on demographic analyses that just don't gel with reality.
In his latest fearmongering piece, for example (coming on the heels of a Wall Street Journal essay, the merits of which I debated on this site), Steyn asserts that because Britain conquered the world in the 1800s due to a rapidly rising youth population, Muslim countries like Yemen, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia will do the same. Steyn also calls Muslims the fastest-breeding demographic group on the planet and predicts that Europe will be doomed within a few short generations.
This all sounds extremely alarming, but the problem (or should I say the welcome news) is - it's just not true. When properly viewed within a broader context, Steyn's worries prove almost entirely unfounded.
Britain did indeed carve out a mighty empire in the 1800s, but claiming its youth bulge as the primary cause is, at best, highly debatable. The empire began long before the 1820s population explosion, and other European nations with smaller populations and higher infant mortalities also conquered many other lands.
But even if population was the key factor (and to be fair, it did contribute somewhat of a share), there is no guarantee Yemen or any other Muslim country could replicate the U.K.'s success. In addition to manpower, dominant empire-spreading requires highly developed internal structures such as a stable government, well-functioning economy, and strong military. In the 1800s, only European states had developed these, and as such, transoceanic colonialism remained a European phenomenon.
On the other hand, the Muslim nations Steyn mentions have shown little inclinations of creating such structures, and indeed even the most populous Muslim states (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, half of Nigeria) have been far more preoccupied with solving internal problems than on spreading their populations around the world. Yemen most certainly won't conquer the world like England did.
At the same time, not only are Muslims not the world's fastest-growing population (that distinction belongs to mostly non-Muslim sub-Saharan Africa), but as I have argued in the past, their propensity towards radicalism provides them little opportunity to throw off their current malaise, much less dominate the planet.
I don't know if Steyn truly believes what he writes; perhaps he deliberately exaggerates Muslim demographic prowess in order to scare Westerners into action. But while unassimilated Muslim populations certainly do pose many serious threats to the West (and it doesn't take large numbers either, as the Danish cartoon riots have shown), a population-based takeover isn't one of them.
You may be correct, moreover, your salient point regarding the number of problem residents needed to transfix a democracy is very important. The Muslim population growth is more worrisome than others because it is: a) already present in the west, b) growing at a larger rate in industrialized Europe than is the native European portion of the population, c) more youthful and impressionable than is the older reformed Christian population, d) refusing to integrate or assimilate, and, e) reacting to events as if it has a huge chip on its shoulder....i.e. it is constantly demanding respect and visualizing disrespect. This kind of culture is immature, and therefore is susceptibile to making choices that are wildly self defeating, all in the name of revenge against the culture that is viewed as the disrespecting entity. These ingredients often produce alarming fulminations in democratic societies, which provide the oxygen (freedom) that catalyzes such eruptions.
I see Muslim population growth in Europe as a related but actually separate issue than low native European growth. Certainly they are related because low native growth is what prompted them to admit the Muslims in the first place, but today the problems have become separate and twofold.
First, Europe's problems with native growth are big trouble for its sluggish economies and welfare states. These are already under serious strain, and the more the workforce diminishes compared with elderly people, the more unsustainable the system will become until it reaches a breaking point.
The Muslims, meanwhile, are as I see it a separate issue. The current Muslim population has been causing problems, and this would likely be the case regardless of how large Europe's native population is. There could be twice as many native Europeans, for example, but I doubt that'd stop the current Muslim group from acting up. As I wrote in the piece, I don't see Muslims overwhelming Europe demographically, but they certainly are causing some serious problems with their numbers right now. Regardless of how many native Europeans are out there, Europe will only be able to solve the problems of Muslim extremism by cracking down on the radicals right here and now.
I think that Steyn is trying to make the point that in the next two decades, the number of muslim adolescents will continue to rise, as will the the target audience for radical clerics who to try to recruit suicide bombers.
Thanks for the comment. I totally understand your concerns, but the numbers show that Steyn's predictions are off. He doesn't mention it, but most Muslim countries have declining population growth to the point where they have reached subreplacement fertility. This will actually produce a decline in Muslim adolescents over the next 20 years, as compared to today.
Similarly, his predictions for 2100 are based on the assumption that current immigration and fertility levels for all groups will remain exactly the same for the next 94 years. Of course this is theoretically possible, but I wouldn't bet a cent on it, because in all nations throughout history, there has never been a single 94-year period (or even a 5- or 10-year period) where these levels haven't fluctuated (and in many cases dramatically).
Europe may seem soft on Muslims now, but even with everything we've seen on the news lately, Muslims really don't have that much power at the moment. If they start to get it, Europeans will likely become much tougher on them; I can't see any of the EU nations simply allowing Muslims to passively take them over and force them into a theocratic state.
Your writing is sloppy. Steyn did not "assert that because Britain conquered the world in the 1800s due to a rapidly rising youth population, Muslim countries like Yemen, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia will do the same." He raised the issue and gave evidence for it.
Before attacking a man of Steyn's stature, get your mind cleared of THC (you can give any excess to me if you like to prevent future lapses of logic) and remember one thing: WORDS HAVE MEANINGS!
"Little Yemen, like little Britain 200 years ago, will send its surplus youth around the world - one way or another."
That's about as direct as an assertion can get.
Hi! I think I agree with you to some extent. Lots of people don't mean lots of trouble if they don't have any money at all. I did a little analysis taking the opposite tact: where are things going well? I blogged about it here.
It is obvious that you are missing the point, especially in reference to Europe. Because the indigenous European birth rate is so low, combined with the fact that Europeans rely so heavily on government subsidies, there is no other alternative for Europe other than to continue allowing more immigration, which will continue to be by Muslims. The only other option is for Europe to begin attracting immigrants from Latin America, which is not likely to happen.
The Europeans have put themselves in a precarious situation. They rely so much the government and have become lazy. They have no incentive to procreate. What you do not seem to understand is that the Muslim population in Europe doesn't need to necessarily explode to take over. We know for a fact that the indigenous European population is in position to cut its numbers in half over the next generation, and that pattern is likely to stay in tact for at least two to three generations.
This will further reduce the economic output of all European countries. At the same time, the Muslim population is set to double or possibly triple in the next generation, and that too will almost certainly continue for two or three generations.
What you will have is a Europe that actually has an overall decreased population, but one where Muslims are the majority. While Muslims in Europe currently do not use their numbers wisely in order to attain political clout, this too will change dramatically as they become the majority. As we already know, countries that are predominantly Muslim do not permit the most basic freedoms that the Western World is used to and has fought for over the last couple of centuries. Even in countries where there is a fairly even split between Muslims and non-Muslims, Muslim radicals push for their radical ideas and create havoc among all of society. This is Europe's future, unless drastic changes are made now. The problem is that Europeans do not seem to care about their future. Their only concern is for today.
There is one other major problem with Muslim expanionism. There is not one Muslim country in the world today that produces anything of value other than oil. The majority of these countries have staggering unemployment. Even in the oil producing countries, the economies are in terrible shape, outside of a couple of exceptions such as Kuwait and the UAE. What will happen once the oil runs out? Muslim thinking does not provoke an ideology of bettering the lives of its people in the here and now. It is all about getting past this life and onto the next where things will be much better. There is no driving force that strives for excellence in the here and now. This is the greatest danger that Islam poses to civilized society. Not only will Europe be turned over to the Muslims in quick order, but what will remain will become much like the rest of the Muslim world, a very poor Europe.
If we are not intelligent enough to see this, the potential is there for this to happen in other parts of the world, including here in the US. The changes that have taken place in Europe have all taken hold over the last thirty years. That is not a long period of time. We can only imagine how much things will change over the next sixty years.
No, I don't think I'm missing the point. Europe is by no means obligated to continue bringing in Muslims to immigrate. The continent's population decline is really a separate issue and does not in itself endanger Europe's existence in the short term. Japan, for example, also has a declining population, but no one considers it endangered as a nation because it has virtually no Muslim immigrants. If Europe were to halt all Muslim immigration, its declining native growth would of course still be economically problematic, but it wouldn't in itself become an existential threat (assuming, of course, that it doesn't go on forever to the point of Europe having zero people, which is a totally different issue and most certainly won't occur).
You also say: "What you do not seem to understand is that the Muslim population in Europe doesn't need to necessarily explode to take over. We know for a fact that the indigenous European population is in position to cut its numbers in half over the next generation, and that pattern is likely to stay in tact for at least two to three generations."
This is not necessarily true. At current European birthrates, the continent will lose about 1/7 of its population by 2050. This is far from losing half its people. Also, there is no way to know if the pattern will or won't change over 2 to 3 generations. Look over the past few generations in almost every country on earth. Birthrates have gone up and down, often wildly. The one thing they haven't done anywhere is stay still. If anything, European birthrates will not stay the way they are. Demographics is often a very inaccurate science when trying to predict more than about 10 years into the future.
You also say: "the Muslim population is set to double or possibly triple in the next generation, and that too will almost certainly continue for two or three generations."
Once again, this is by no means certain whatsoever. The Muslim population will increase if Europe lets Muslims in, and Europe has the choice of whether to do so or not.
You say: "What you will have is a Europe that actually has an overall decreased population, but one where Muslims are the majority."
Again, this isn't actually true. Right now, native Europeans comprise 95% of Europe's population. Muslims are very unlikely to become the majority over the next 100 years, even if current birth and immigration rates stay the same (which they almost certainly won't).
That all said, however, I fully agree with you that Muslims don't need to be present in large numbers to be a serious threat to Europe. This, as I see it, is by far Europe's most serious existential problem at the moment, not birthrates themselves. And Europeans themselves hold the solution - they can choose to stop Muslim immigration and deport any Muslim residents who are actively trying to get sharia law to replace their countries' laws. This would quickly rid Europe of the Muslims trying to take it over.
Will they actually do it? I think eventually they will have no choice. | 2019-04-23T04:02:51 | https://thesolidsurfer.typepad.com/the_solid_surfer/2006/02/fresh_on_the_he.html |
0.99963 | Could Izzard be the first?
Comedians will be playing huge stadiums in the UK before too long, some industry experts predict.
Although critics say stand-up requires an intimacy even 10,000-seater arenas cannot provide, Wembley Stadium’s Jim Frayling says demand will push comedians into venues several times larger than that.
German comic Mario Barth has already played arenas, having filled the 70,000-seat Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 2008, and returned there this July as part of a tour that also included similar-sized venues in Frankfurt and Gelsenkirchen.
Frayling said it was inevitable this would be the first of many such tours, despite the ‘Jeremiahs who will say it’s not happening’ – in the same way no one believed arena comedy would ever take off.
And tour promoter Mick Perrin hinted that Eddie Izzard, whose shows he produces, was considering such a venue. Izzard played the 18,000-seater Hollywood Bowl this summer.
Even though die-hard comedy fans dislike big gigs, Ian Coburn from major promoters Live Nation said: ‘You’d be surprised how many people want the experience.
Agent Hannah Chambers, whose clients include Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle, was more cautious, saying: ‘Comedy rooms with 1,000 to 3,000 seats works best in terms of atmosphere and getting a proper income.
‘Very few comedians could do a proper gig in a very big arenas. Smaller is better, but if an act can do bigger venues, most promoters and comedians would do that. Ultimately, it’s decided by the availability of the performer and how many tickets you can sell – that’s your decision made.
The comments came during a session during the Comedy International Conference in Greenwich, South East London, yesterday, about big music promoters moving into comedy.
Frayling warned that multinational companies would be muscling in on the industry, taking business from existing promoters, but many of the other panelists said that they would find it difficult as comedy is a different beast from music.
Panelists referred to mistakes made in promoting Sarah Silverman’s disastrous 2008 gig at the Hammersmith Apollo – where she performed for just £45 minutes – and Jerry Seinfeld’s O2 gig this summer where tickets were priced £100. | 2019-04-20T02:56:26 | https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2011/09/09/13951/comics_will_be_playing_uk_stadiums_soon?rss |
0.999999 | Who belongs in which team? What is the best size? Which roles need to be present in a team? How do we decide which team does what? These questions (and more) come up again and again when discussing larger agile organizations working on multiple projects or products. And it is one of the manager's key tasks to help grow a structure of teams within an agile organization so that the organization's goals are being met.
Team size has been discussed at length in many books and blogs and I cannot add much insight here. Remember that the teams must be able to communicate well and therefore the size must not be too large. Any number with two digits is too large in my opinion. And to be able to compensate for absences and have sufficient diversity, I believe four is the minimum number. So there you have my suggested range: four to nine. In a Scrum context, for example, I really like a scrum team of seven, with one PO, one ScrumMaster and five development team members. I have seen this work well many times.
But who is on the team? Conventional wisdom calls for cross- (or multi-) functional teams. In other words have a bunch of people with diverse specialties on a team. Depending on the organization and its projects these could be developers with various areas of expertise, QA specialists, documentation experts, UI designers, but even business people such as marketing and sales could make sense if the results to be produced include, for example, sales kits or other business materials.
For the most part, I agree with this conventional wisdom - cross-functional teams offer much greater flexibility and tend to be more efficient. Why more efficient? As I have pointed out in previous posts, I believe direct communication is key to high productivity. Efficiency reduces dramatically when communication takes long (not taking the direct route between the parties that need to talk) or even worse if the messages are compromised through too many indirections (I call this the 'Chinese Whispers' syndrome, after the children's game of that name - no offense to Chinese people or language). So it seems natural to put the people into one team who need to communicate much in order to implement some functionality. Depending on the functionality that the team typically needs to produce, this probably means that the team needs to have people with skills in various disciplines, in other words: cross-functional.
But what about a skill that is only required occasionally and does not keep a person busy for a complete development iteration? It seems wasteful to include for example a technical writer in a team that only has a few paragraphs of help text for each implemented functionality. Ideally a person with writing skills will also be able to code or test or do other relevant tasks to complete the implementation. Unfortunately, there are very few gifted people that are specialists in many, diverse subjects.
This is why I also find functional teams a useful construct in an agile organization. For example, a UIX team with experts on user interface design could make sense, or a team of technical writers.
And how do these teams work together with their cross-functional counterparts?
One option is to hire team members out temporarily to cross-functional teams. This way the specialist will be very involved in the actual implementation and the communication is easy, especially if the hired out person really physically moves to the hiring team for the duration. On the other hand it might well be very disturbing for the hiring team to incorporate a new and temporary team member, especially if the hiring period is short.
I much prefer the concept of functional teams as service teams. They offer services to the cross-functional teams that those teams cannot provide themselves. In this way, the service teams can grow together as a team because they offer the services as a team not a single person. And they are able to have their own projects within an iteration. The UIX team could develop general UI components, stylesheets etc.
But such service teams must be able to deliver services on very short notice. A build and CI team, for example, may have to make branches available quickly due to an emergency patch to be delivered to a customer. Often the cross-functional development teams notice the need for a UIX service (e.g. some graphical component) only in the middle of a development iteration. So, the service teams will have to work in a highly event driven way, where the events coming in must be properly prioritized so that the team can focus on the most important services. Often, a Kanban organization works well for service teams.
I use the term service deliberately. Service teams must make it their primary goal to serve the organization as quickly and efficiently as possible while maintaining the highest quality. All too often have we seen service teams deteriorate into isolated groups stymied by complicated service request processes. The rest of the organization must beg them for help or does not even dare to ask. Service teams must regard the rest of the organization as their valued customer and continue to ask them: How can we serve you even better.
Are there even more types of teams around? What about Management? What kind of a team are they? How do they organize their work? I have some proposals which I intend to discuss here soon. | 2019-04-18T16:48:52 | http://blog.manageagile.com/2012/06/finding-right-team.html |
0.774487 | 1. What method of carpet cleaning do you recommend? The best, most deep cleaning method is Deep Steam Extraction aka Hot Water Extraction.
2. What type of equipment do you use to clean carpet? It is recommended to use a truck-mounted system, as this is the healthiest option for your home or business because it uses a HEPA filter and immediately removes allergens and other pollutants from the indoor area.
3. What does your equipment remove from my carpet? You should expect it to remove allergens, dirt, bacteria, dustmites, fungus, chemicals, pollens and residues left behind by previous cleanings.
4. Are you certified by the IICRC? ONLY use companies who have technicians who have been certified by the IICRC. This certification is not something a company can buy. Each individual technician must be trained and take an exam to EARN this certification. This insures they know how to properly run the equipment, identify different fibers/materials and know how to care for your textiles appropriately. They also must continue education to maintain this certification.
5. Do you guarantee your work? If the company is doing their very best, they should have no problem guaranteeing their work. This means that if there is something you are not satisfied with, they should come back and re-clean at no extra charge.
Hopefully this gives you an idea of what to ask as well as what to expect from a textile cleaning company. Unfortunately, in the textile/carpet cleaning industry (as with any industry), there are some shady people to look out for. However, if you know the right questions to ask and what your expectations should be, you should be able to find a company with whom you can have a positive experience.
Avoid the "Bait and Switch"
If you're getting your carpet or upholstery professionally cleaned, and have done any research at all, chances are you've heard of the "bait and switch" scam that is common in the industry. Basically, this is when a company gets into your home with the false promise of extremely low prices. You may have seen coupons that seem too good to be true (for example a whole house cleaning for $60), and chances are that this is a scam. This gives the impression that you can have your whole house completely cleaned for that price...but don't be fooled.
Carpet Cleaners have expenses to cover, and they cannot stay in business by charging extremely low prices and give you the quality of cleaning you need. Once in your home the day of the cleaning, your extra costs start to add up. They may tell you that the price advertised was for smaller sized rooms, and your rooms are too large- extra charge. They may say that since you have pets, you need pet treatments, even if there is no stain- extra charge. You want your furniture moved- extra charge. These can keep adding up and tac hundreds of unexpected dollars onto your bill. A legit company will make sure their prices are clear BEFORE they clean your carpet- rather than suprising you at the end. A good way to do this is to get a guaranteed estimate ahead of time.
Secondly, ask questions. If you're looking at a coupon that advertises something like "3 rooms for $40", ask them what size room this includes. Many times people will think this means any room, when in fact their area is much larger than the coupon will cover. Also, if they say you need a pet treatment for stains you cannot smell or see, ask them to show you the spots with their UV light. Just because you have a pet, does not mean you need a pet treatment.
Basically, if you have a deal in front of you that seems "too good to be true," then it probably is. The solutions used to remove stains and do pet treatments cost money and take more time, so chances are they will be an extra charge to you. Just get the facts ahead of time from an honest business who will be up front about their prices. Your best bet is to go with a company that has technicians certified by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification. These companies have standards they are abiding by and professionals who are trained in this area of expertise.
For more info on the standards set forth by the IICRC, visit http://www.certifiedcleaners.org/default.shtml.
One of the first things to think about when hiring a carpet cleaner is whether to use a company with a steam extraction system or a dry carpet cleaner. A common carpet-cleaning misconception is that it could be "bad" to put moisture into your carpet during cleaning.
This idea that it is bad to use moisture when cleaning carpet comes from people who have experienced poorly trained carpet cleaners who leave the carpet too wet. This is why it is important to hire a company with IICRC certified technicians who will use a low-moisture, deep steam extraction system, which is the ONLY system recommended by Mohawk and Shaw Industries (the nation's leading carpet manufacturers). Look for a company that uses a truck-mount system, rather than a portable unit that they bring inside with them. The truck-mount systems usually use a HEPA filter and are healthier for your family as they extract and immediately remove the pollutants from your home.
Dry Carpet Cleaning usually uses a foam or cleaning granules. When using the foam, they must use rotating brushes to remove the foam which can be harmful to your carpet fibers, making them wear and ultimately look dirty faster. Also, many of the vaccums used to extract the foam are not strong enough which can lead to residue being left behind. The idea of using the cleaning granules is that the granules break down and aborb dirt and oils, then they are vaccumed away. Unfortunately, this does not kill harmful dustmites or bacteria that the deep steam extraction can kill.
Deep steam extraction is the only method that "deep cleans" your carpet, and the ONLY way to successfully remove harmful dustmites, toxins, dirt and other materials that sit in your carpet, without leaving residues behind. If you have already used dry cleaning methods in the past, don't worry. A legit IICRC certified company with a Deep Steam Extraction unit should be able to remove residues left behind by other cleanings, as well as the other pollutants. Remember, look for the truck-mounted system!
Dirty Carpet Making You Sick?
A common question I get from our customers is, "How often should I clean my carpet?" Many times people wait until the carpet looks dirty to have it professionally cleaned, but I have news...this is too late!!
Your carpet does an important job by acting as a filter- trapping damaging air pollutants like pollen, fungi, chemicals, bacteria, cigarette smoke, tars and residues. However, once your carpet gets "full" it no longer can trap or hold these harmful pollutants, so your family and friends end up breathing them in.
Carpet, upholstery and mattresses can also become infested with dust mites who's droppings can trigger asthma attacks, allergies, eczema and rhinitis attacks, as well as the dust mite saliva which is known to cause allergic reactions.
The only way they can be removed is through professional cleaning, which is recommended every 6-8 months depending on the household. (For example a house with 3 kids, a dog and a cat would need cleaned more often than a newly wed couple living by themselves). Bottom line is...if your carpet already looks dirty, you're overdue!
Phone: 913.710.1344 | Hours: Monday-Saturday 7:30 a.m.-11:00 p.m. | 2019-04-21T14:49:20 | http://www.rccr.biz/blog.html?page=1 |
0.999999 | Will a Ryzen work with my GS800 PSU?
I have a Corsair GS800 PSU. I bought it 6 years ago and spent a lot of money on it intentionally for longevity and reliability.
I've heard a few horror stories of Ryzen not working with certain PSUs, but there seems to be very little on the subject, so it's difficult to find out what specifications make a PSU compatible, or is it just a gamble, and no one really knows?
Someone said any high quality functioning ATX PSU from the last 10 years or so should work fine with it, as long as it has the relevant connectors (24 pin mobo and 8 pin ATX).
It doesn't seem quite so simple as that, however.
Someone please help? I've been agonising over this for hours now and I'm exhausted!
Will it work? Yes. Is it going to blow up? No. Should you take the opportunity to upgrade from that basic, entry level power supply to something more modern that you'll not have to worry about again for another decade since you're going to have to empty your case anyway to install new hardware? Yes you should.
Just don't do like me and think like that only to upgrade after a couple of months.
I can't really see what the problem with doing that would be, other than the minor inconvenience of having to swap the power supplies over. If I find a reason to buy a new power supply in the next couple of months then I will, but if it's going to work then why spend money that I don't need to? I bought the power supply in the first place because it's high quality and if it dies on me then it won't take anything with it. I intentionally spent a lot of money on it for that purpose. If it dies in the next couple of months then it's not a big deal to replace it.
I was talking about my motherboard and NVMe SSD, considerably larger pain to change, though I route my cables through the back of the case for neatness.
No, but spending $350 on a motherboard and drive and then buying new ones gets expensive.
You're not being particularly clear. Are you saying you had a GS800 PSU and it fried your motherboard and your SSD?
No, what I'm saying is that before you press that order button, make sure you don't have any regrets.
Ok, well I'm borrowing a multimeter tonight to test the PSU I've got to be safe, and I'm going to have a look see how much dust has been collected in it. From first glance it doesn't look too bad. | 2019-04-25T10:41:46 | https://community.amd.com/thread/220922 |
0.999999 | Cook 15 to 20 minutes for 1 1/2 pound lobster..
Pick the meat out after the crab for the recipe you can google how to prepare the crab meat for crab cakes.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil.
Cut bottom of garlic bulb drizzle ½ tablespoon olive oil on a piece of foil place bulb cut side down on foil wrap bulb with foil place on cooking sheet. Removed husk off the corn and toss corn and red bell pepper in 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil. | 2019-04-23T20:41:24 | http://offthehookontheplate.com/?m=201605 |
0.998547 | Under what circumstances might you search for "carpet stores near me"? The most obvious answer is when you want to buy new carpet. This could be to replace your old carpet or for a surface that has no carpet at all. However, that's not the only time finding the Best Carpet Stores Near Fort Thomas, KY could be beneficial. Many of them provide a wide variety of different services related to carpet and flooring systems.
Another time you might find yourself searching for "carpet stores near me" is when you need a new carpet installed in your Fort Thomas, KY home. There are several reasons why you might need new carpet installation from local carpet dealers nearest you. The most common reason is that your old carpet has reached the end of its lifespan. This may also be the case if you've recently purchased a new home with old flooring.
After a certain point, most Fort Thomas, KY homeowners stain their carpet at least once. Some stains can be removed with home remedies or with help from a local carpet cleaner, but there are those extreme and problematic stains that just won't go away. Over time, you might find more and more of these stains appearing.
Your local Fort Thomas, KY carpet store isn't just a warehouse full of carpet. It's a company staffed with trained professionals. In most cases, those professionals are trained in the of carpet cleaning and have all of the necessary tools. After all, they have to keep their own carpets clean for public display.
The Best Carpet Stores Near Fort Thomas, KY are more than just carpet retailers. The next time you need your carpet inspected installed, cleaned, or repaired, start by calling a carpet store or retailer near you. | 2019-04-18T23:02:45 | https://carpetstoresnear.me/ky/fort-thomas/ |
0.999939 | Companion planting: Which vegetables are compatible?
Companion planting has been practised for over 8,000 years and was a method used originally by the native Americans. It works by creating a complex root system below the soil that helps to bring nutrients to the surface.However, many modern-day gardeners are afraid to try the technique in fear of ruining their harvest. Suttons Seeds, retailers of vegetable seeds and experts in gardening, has compiled a list of popular fruit and vegetables to grow at home and what they should be planted next to.
Companion planting has been practised for over 8,000 years and was a method used originally by the native Americans. It works by creating a complex root system below the soil that helps to bring nutrients to the surface.
However, many modern-day gardeners are afraid to try the technique in fear of ruining their harvest. Suttons Seeds, retailers of vegetable seeds and experts in gardening, has compiled a list of popular fruit and vegetables to grow at home and what they should be planted next to. | 2019-04-18T22:18:19 | https://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/blog/2017/10/ |
0.969544 | The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization voiced concern when international rice prices rocketed to a 20-year high in late March with the global benchmark price at over US$500 per tonne. By early April, the export price of Thai rice was over US$1,000 per tonne. Rice is the staple food for over half the world's population, including the majority of Indonesia's 240 million people.
Why are world rice prices so high?
Supplies of rice on the world market have tightened due to a combination of factors. These include poor weather in some rice-producing areas; use of agricultural land for housing, industry and to meet booming demand for agrofuels; changing food preferences in China; and price speculation. Vietnam, traditionally a producer of surplus rice, has imposed a rice export ban. Meanwhile, Bangladesh - usually a big rice importer - had bad harvests and faces food shortages.
Governments worry if rice prices remain high or continue to increase as this carries a risk of serious economic and political problems. Food is the major item in household budgets for families living on the brink of poverty. If the price of staple foods like rice increases, poor people have few choices: reduce food consumption; eat cheaper, less nutritious food; or economise by not sending children to school. Any of these actions has knock-on effects for the next generation. High food prices also increase political instability. Furthermore, rice is an integral part of Asian culture - particularly in the western part of the Indonesian archipelago.
Robert Zeigler, head of the International Rice Research Institution (IRRI) based in the Philippines stated that the key problem was that "There is just not enough land". Although rice is not used to produce ethanol, the use of other grains for agrofuel production can affect the supply of other cereals and cause price increases. "We have some land in Asia that is being redirected toward biofuel1 - certainly a lot of interest in converting some good land into oil palm plantations for biodiesel. That's a concern [sic]", Zeigler said.
In April, World Bank president, Robert Zoellick called for a 'New Deal for Global Food Policy' to focus not only on hunger, malnutrition and food supply, but also on the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment and the marginalisation of women.
Earlier this year, Indonesia announced that it would not be buying in rice during 2008 due to bumper harvests. The head of state logistics agency Bulog, Mustofa Abubakar, expected that Indonesia's rice production would increase by 6 per cent from last year to 35 million tonnes in 2008. Director general for food crops, Sutarto Alimuso, set slightly lower estimates at about 33 million tonnes. This was despite serious floods which affected some 70,000ha of paddy fields in late December and early January. Rice consumption in Indonesia was just below 34 million tonnes in 2007, when Indonesia bought in 1.3 million tonnes - mainly from Thailand. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) called on officials to prevent illegal rice exports to the neighbouring Philippines where rice prices have risen sharply as world supplies tighten.
This is the first time since the mid-1980s that Indonesia can even consider exporting Indonesia any surplus rice. Domestic production has not kept pace with population growth and changing patterns of food consumption. "Shrinking farmland, a lack of good quality seeds and fertiliser coupled with poor irrigation are keeping productivity down", according to agricultural economist Priyarsono of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture. During the Suharto years, official programmes to boost rice production - such as transmigration and the Central Kalimantan megaproject - were costly failures which destroyed large areas of rainforest (see article on Suharto's legacy).
Bulog purchases some 10-15% of Indonesia's rice crop. The rest is sold to local traders. The agency is tasked with importing rice whenever there is a shortage so domestic prices do not soar out of control. Indonesia banned rice imports by private traders since early 2004 to prevent price disruptions from smuggling. Bulog provides emergency supplies during natural disasters and also supplies rice to poor families.
As the price of rice rose to Rp500/kg, the Indonesian government increased the amount of subsidised rice to poor families from10kg to 15kg per month in early 2008. This only costs Rp1,600/kg, but is low quality and the total available under the scheme (beras rakyat miskin) is less than 2 million tonnes. The average annual rice consumption per person is about 130 kg. As there are around 15 million people living below the national poverty line2in urban areas alone, this amount is barely adequate.
The team found that the probability of delays in monsoon rains of more than 30 days could more than double by 2050, from 9-18 per cent today to 30-40 per cent. They also predicted that Indonesia would experience longer dry seasons with decreased rainfall. "It is incumbent on the research community to develop rice cultivars and associated agricultural practices that will allow farmers to continue to increase rice production to meet projected increases in demand," said Zeigler.
In the past, IRRI has promoted research into genetically modified varieties of rice as the answer to food shortages and rising prices. But GMOs are not a 'silver bullet'. Moreover, there are issues about who controls this research and to what ends. Giant biotech companies could increase dependence on seed varieties and inputs at the expense of the poor. New, higher yielding strains of rice could be produced within the next ten years, but the real problems are not ones which technology can fix (see DTE 43, 49, 50).
The Indonesian government faces the difficult task of balancing the need to stabilise rice prices with peasant farmers' interests. Much of Indonesia's irrigated rice is produced by farmers in Java who have land holdings of 0.5 ha or less. Small-scale rice farmers are not benefiting from current price increases. They have little bargaining power. Most lack storage facilities, so they have to sell their grain to local traders immediately after harvest. Many sell their crop long before harvest time (under the ijon system) so they have much-needed cash in hand.
If government purchase prices are kept low enough for the poor to be able to afford rice most of the time, farmers cannot make a living and will be forced to give up the little land they have. If prices are high, the government must pay out more in subsidies to the poor or risk food riots. Unless the government (Bulog) maintains adequate rice stocks, the only winners are traders who manipulate market prices by hoarding.
Henry Saragih, head of the Indonesian Farmers' Union, blamed current high food prices on the government's long neglect of the agriculture sector. "Most farmers today are not producers, they are peasants. They have to buy rice, wheat and soybeans themselves. While agricultural products are mainly sold in the cities, when prices increase, these peasants are among the hardest hit," he said. | 2019-04-24T09:56:27 | http://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/story/poverty-and-price-rice |
0.999526 | A nephrectomy is a surgery in which the kidney is removed.
What is the purpose of a nephrectomy?
The most common reason to perform a nephrectomy is for control and treatment of cancer. Other possible indications for a nephrectomy include benign diseases that lead to kidney dysfunction. These diseases include advanced kidney stones, chronic infections, and some benign tumors.
There are several different variations on how a nephrectomy is performed determined primarily by the type of disease that is being treated.
Radical nephrectomy: This is a procedure in which the entire kidney along with the surrounding connective tissue and ureter are removed. This is most commonly performed for cancer.
Simple nephrectomy: In this procedure, the kidney and a portion of the ureter are removed while leaving the surrounding connective tissues. This is generally performed for non-cancerous indications.
Partial nephrectomy: In this procedure, only the tumor or diseased portion of the kidney is removed while leaving behind otherwise normal tissue. By leaving the remaining kidney, overall kidney function is improved post-operatively. This has become a common surgery for kidney cancer, but its use is restricted to only certain types and sizes of kidney tumors.
Laparoscopic nephrectomy: Any type of nephrectomy can be performed through either a traditional open approach or a laparoscopic approach. The open approach implies performing the nephrectomy through an incision that generally ranges between 8 to 16 inches long. The laparoscopic approach utilizes surgical scopes to remove the kidney tissue. Variations of the laparoscopic approach include hand assisted laproscopic surgery, as well as robot assisted laproscopic surgery using the DiVinci Robotic System. The choice of surgery depends largely upon the size and location of the kidney tumor, as well as some specific patient issues. Kansas City Urology Care surgeons offer all varieties of nephrectomy.
What are common symptoms following my nephrectomy?
By the time you are discharged from the hospital, you should be independent in activity and with good pain control with the help of pain medication. Regardless of the type of nephrectomy that is performed, it does take the body several weeks to heal following a major surgery such as a nephrectomy. It is therefore common to have discomfort in the region of your incision for several weeks. Incisions gain strength over time and reach significant strength at six weeks following surgery. It is very common to have numbness in the skin surrounding and adjacent to any large incision, especially incisions on the flank. Occasionally, muscles within the region are weak and may show signs of relaxation, thus producing a small bulge near the incision.
Easy fatigue is also a common finding and can range from several weeks to several months following any major surgery depending on the patient’s age and overall health and endurance level.
It is not uncommon to occasionally have blood in the urine following partial nephrectomy for several weeks. Additionally, regardless of the type of nephrectomy performed, constipation can be a common problem especially considering the use of narcotic pain medication following surgery. It will be important for you to continue to monitor this closely and use over-the-counter laxatives or stool softeners as indicated.
When should I seek advice from my physician?
You should contact your physician if you develop fevers that are consistently above 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, any time that you develop pain in the incision area that is not relieved with the pain medicine sent home with you would be another instance in which to contact your physician’s office. | 2019-04-19T07:30:23 | http://www.kcurology.com/treatments/nephrectomy.html |
0.999911 | HTC Droid Incredible vs. HTC EVO 4G: Which Is Best?
In the last month, two high-end Android OS smartphones have come on the market: Verizon Wireless is offering the HTC Droid Incredible, while Sprint's new flagship model is the HTC EVO 4G. Both of these are great devices that are similar in many ways, but which one is better?
Of course, this is a moot question unless you are willing to change the carrier you get wireless service from. If you're a committed Verizon customer you can't get the EVO 4G, and Sprint customers can't get an Incredible. But these two models are good enough to make switching carriers worth serious consideration.
One of the most important differences between these two is screen size. The EVO 4G has a 4.3-inch display, significantly larger than the 3.7-inch display on the Incredible.
This makes the Sprint model a better option for watching movies, surfing the Web, playing games, and virtually everything else besides making phone calls and listening to music.
It's possible the difference doesn't come across in the dimensions, but with the two devices side-by-side, the Incredible is clearly smaller and lighter.
These two smartphones use different types of screens. The Incredible AMOLED display gives it better colors, but it also makes it harder to see outside.
The HTC EVO 4G is the first smartphone available in the United States with WiMAX. which gives it peak download speeds of up to 12 Mbps, and an average download speed of 2-4 Mbps.
The Droid Incredible has the 3G standard EV-DO Rev. A, giving it a max download speed of 3.1 Mbps, and average download speeds of half that or less.
In real-world testing, there's no doubt the EVO 4G is noticeably faster. EV-DO Rev. A is quick but WiMAX opens most web pages virtually instantaneously.
There is an important caveat, though: Sprint's WiMAX network is only available in limited areas. Some major cities have it, but not all by any means. Still, the carrier is promising that 120 million people will have access to its 4G network by year's end.
In places that don't have WiMAX, the EVO 4G depends on EV-DO Rev. A, just like its rival.
Sprint's smartphone has one more trick up its sleeve: it allows users to share its 4G or 3G connection to the Internet with up to eight other computers over Wi-Fi. Verizon's model doesn't.
his means that you could use the EVO 4G as the only wireless modem you need for your desktop or laptop.
You have to pay $20 extra a month for this feature, but it's worth it if it saves you from needing a cable modem or DSL connection for your home.
Aside from these difference, the HTC Droid Incredible and the HTC EVO 4G are practically identical.
Both run Google Android OS 2.1 on a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, use the HTC Sense user interface overlay, sport 8 megapixel cameras with a flash, and come with 8 GB of storage, Wi-Fi, GPS, and an array of other features. They even cost the same: $200 with a two-year service contract.
And there's one more thing they have in common: they are hard to get. Demand is so high that both Sprint and Verizon have their respective products on backorder.
When considering which of these smartphones is better, the answer varies from person to person.
The EVO 4G has a better screen and WiMAX, while the Incredible is easier to carry around. And the EVO 4G's WiMAX function is pointless if you don't live in a place where Sprint is offering WiMAX. Still, the EVO 4G's connection-sharing feature could save you a lot of money. | 2019-04-21T08:11:39 | https://www.androidheadlines.com/2010/06/htc-droid-incredible-vs-htc-evo-4g-which-is-best.html |
0.983535 | It is normal for some people to have better voices than others. There are others who have unique voices that stand out in a crowd. Others just have that calm voice while others have a commanding voice. One would be surprised to note that he or she can make some good money as a voice over artist. In the film industry for example, voice over artists are vital. In the same manner, a good number of them have voiced so many movies but are never visible on the scenes but make millions of dollars behind the scenes. One would only need to figure out a few best selling cartoons and imagine the number of people involved in voicing the characters to understand how diverse the field is. In such a case, one would need to think of voice over as a career.
Voice over is also known as off camera or commentary and is mainly used in presentation, in filmmaking, radio, theatre, television production among other fields. One would however need to be trained as a voice over artist for him or her to not only command various industries but also to offer professional voice on top of just voicing. Even as some people tend to think that voice over is complex, a voice over artist tend to read from a script. In cinema, voice over tend to be synchronized with the images, something which also happen in commercials, documentaries as well as news reports. It would therefore be essential for one to make sure that he or she takes time to acquire training first before venturing into the voice over industry.
It would also be essential for one to note that video games as well demand to voice. One would need to know that the video games industry is large and hence finding a job is easy. Even when one has to work as a freelance artist, he or she has a lot of work to do. Bearing in mind that companies will always need an on hold message from a professional, one would have endless jobs as new companies must be created each and every day. One as a result, does not only have a chance to voice such an on hold message but would also receive referrals from companies he or she has worked for.
Even when one as a voice-over artist does not have to translate a thing, his or her skill may be needed is voicing the translated version of the script in question. In a case where a soap opera is acted and voice in a given language, the soap opera would need to be translated and then voiced in another where is has to be viewed in another country or region speaking another language. It would therefore be essential to note that voice over as a field has very many jobs to do. | 2019-04-26T03:57:35 | http://www.baixar-whatsapp-plus.com/if-you-read-one-article-about-voiceovers-read-this-one.html |
0.999997 | Where was the Second Temple?
We cannot be sure whether the square of 500 royal cubits per side belonged to the First Temple, but we may be confident that it belonged at least to the pre-Herodian Second. The reasoning is simple: (1) The Mishna describes a square of 500 cubits on each side, and it can hardly be a coincidence that if we draw a line from the present-day platform's northwest step, which has exceptionally large stones, to the Haram's east wall, the length turns out to be 500 royal cubits. (2) The literary sources indicate nothing, after the time of the First Temple, to which this square could have belonged - except the early Second Temple. Besides, we have read that Pompey, in order to conquer the temple in 63 BC, had to fill a moat on the north side. If this was the ditch detected by Warren (see his map), it was exactly in the right position to defend the 500-cubit platform.
In 2011, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Ronny Reich dug down to bedrock near the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. They discovered various rock-cut installations that had belonged to buildings earlier than Herod's temple. One of them was identified as a ritual bath, in Hebrew a mikveh. The temple builders had filled it, topped it with three large flat stones, and laid the western wall's first course over part of it. The archaeologists of 2011 removed fill from the part of the mikveh that was not beneath this wall's foundation stones. They unearthed three clay oil lamps that were typical of the 1st century AD. They also found coins, of which the latest four had been minted by the Roman prefect Valerius Gratus in 17 - 18 AD. (For an account by the Israel Antiquities Authority, see here.) The excavators concluded that this section of the Western Wall could not have been built under Herod, who died in 4 BC.
This conclusion, which received worldwide publicity, would imply a post-Herodian date not only for the southern end of the western wall, but also for the royal portico that stretched eastward for 920 feet from this southern end. Josephus wrote, "this cloister deserves to be mentioned better than any other under the sun." Its roof would have been about as high as the top of the dome of al-Aqsa today. It had four rows of columns, 162 in all, making three aisles. On either side of the middle aisle, the columns were 27 feet high and so thick that it took three adults to surround them. By comparison, the columns of Italian marble in al-Aqsa, including the capitals, rise 15 feet; the central ceiling, however, is about as high as the original pillars would have been.
In accordance with the coins of Gratus, we would also have to redate the Double and Triple ("Hulda") Gates in the southern wall, as well as the grand staircase. The redating would undermine Josephus' account, for he tells us that Herod celebrated the completion of the temple, including the magnificent royal portico on the south. Finally, one may question whether so huge a structure could have been built during the rule of a Roman procurator. And why, in such a case, would Josephus have called it "royal," given that the last king, Herod, had died more than 20 years earlier? If the portico's funder had been a Jewish ruler, namely, Herod's grandson Agrippa (r. 40 - 43 AD) or his son Agrippa II (who was made responsible for the temple in 48 AD), surely Josephus, born in 36 AD, would have known as much and said so.
Admittedly, we read in John 2:20 that the construction of the temple, which began ca. 20 BC, took 46 years, and Josephus reports that it was completed in 63 AD. This left 18,000 workers idle, he says, and Agrippa II had the city repaved in order to provide jobs. (As often with Josephus, one suspects that a copyist added a zero to the demographic data.) But we have always had these passages, and they never stopped us from attributing the main structures to Herod, including the royal portico. Do the coins of Gratus compel a redating?
These coins, as said, were not found under the wall's foundation stones. In a recent comment, Leen Ritmeyer notes: "Actually the coins prove nothing at all, as the mikveh only project[s] a few centimeters under the wall. The coins came probably from a later repair." For instance, the street beside the wall shows no sign of use, so it was probably one of those repaved by Agrippa II, seven years before the temple's destruction.
Given these doubts about the proposed re-dating, I shall continue to assume that the temple's main structures were Herodian, including the royal portico and the outermost southwest corner. This assumption guides the following text.
What then do we know about the location of Herod's temple? There is no doubt that the great surrounding walls belonged it, for the following reasons. Apart from Josephus' description, there is a Hebrew inscription carved into a stone from the uppermost southwest corner (i.e., found lying directly on the pavement, hence among the first stones to have been battered down). This reads, "For the place of the trumpeting." It corresponds to a passage in Josephus, who wrote of a place at the top of the temple "opposite the lower city," where "one of the priests stood of course, and gave a signal beforehand, with a trumpet at the beginning of every seventh day, in the evening twilight, as also at the evening when that day was finished, as giving notice to the people when they were to leave off work, and when they were to go to work again."
The walls compose an irregular quadrilateral of 920 feet on the south, 1590 on the west, 1033 on the north, and 1509 on the east. They enclose 36 acres (144,000 square meters or 20 soccer fields by the FIFA standard). In its time this was the largest temenos ever built. It took up a fifth of the city before 66 AD. Judging from the stones that were batterred down (found on the ancient street beneath the western retaining wall), we may conclude that the design was similar to that of the much smaller temenos in Hebron, which is also attributed to Herod (although Josephus does not mention it).
Within the great walls, then, where would the temple have been? We may assume that the builders of the first Second Temple, who started work in 520 BC, would have known the location of the First and would have set their version in the same area. As we have seen, this would have been in the broad level area near the present Dome of the Rock. In the time of the First Temple, however, the king's palace was also here, and it, not the temple, was the dominant building. Since the lack of a king made a palace irrelevant in 520 BC, the temple had this area to itself, and so the builders probably placed it more centrally.
We are aided, on this question, by an old photograph and a map. (For what follows, see Jacobson, to whom I am indebted for much of this description. -- SL) Charles Wilson made a map of the Haram in 1864, and on it we can see a flight of 4 steps that has since disappeared. There is also an old photograph showing these steps.
To judge from the photograph and Wilson's map, the steps were probably too high for human comfort. There are examples in classical Greek temples of such high steps (perhaps for the god); the pattern is typically interrupted by flights of shallower steps, friendly to mortals.
A broad Herodian staircase has been unearthed before the Double Gate (the westernmost of the two Hulda Gates) in the southern retaining wall. Its steps are parallel to the four on Wilson's plan. They are, however, mortal-friendly.
Near the four high steps on Wilson's map, there must also have been a staircase of mortal-friendly steps. Josephus wrote there were 14 steps from the lower platform to a terrace or rampart (hel ). (The Mishnah said 12.) These would have been the friendlier steps.
The terrace was 15 feet deep, says Josephus (and the Mishnah too). Then, he writes, came a high protective wall with gates in it. One ascended to these gates by another 5 steps. That would bring us to the level of the Court of the Priests, but still not to the height of the upper platform as it is today. Another 12 steps led up from the Court of the Priests to the floor of the sanctuary, which (figuring half a cubit per step, as the Mishnah has it) would have been slightly higher than the present platform.
If we look at Wilson's map of the Haram (below), we see that the Dome of the Rock appears off center. If it is standing where the Herodian temple was, the latter must have seemed central enough for Josephus to remark that it was "in the middle" (Jewish War V 188-212 [5.4]). Supposing therefore that the southern edge of the upper platform was south of where it is today, namely, at the top of the staircase that included the four steps on Wilson's plan, we would have indeed a more symmetrical impression, in keeping with Josephus.
We can see the same centrality on a more recent photo, if we place a line where the four steps used to be (No. 10 in the picture below).
There is another interesting feature. Of the great walls, the eastern and the western are not parallel. This is because the major part of the eastern wall goes back (probably) to the time of the First Temple (and certainly to the pre-Herodian Second). Herod could not build a new wall further to the east, because the Kidron Valley was too steep and deep (serving as a natural glacis). He therefore adopted the existing eastern wall, which makes an angle of 92 degrees to his new southern wall (rather than 90 degrees as in all the corners of the Hebron temenos). But why didn't he place the southern wall differently in order to get a perfect right angle? The answer has to do with his plan for the city as a whole: the streets appear to have been in a grid pattern, i.e., either parallel or perpendicular to one another. The temple mount's southern and western walls were built in accordance with the grid, but the eastern wall, as said, could not be changed.
And the north wall of the temple mount? Here we lack the courses of stone that enable identification with Herod. The north wall might have stretched along the line of the present-day Haram wall, or it might have kept to the grid pattern, intersecting the east wall at a point north of where the Haram wall does. At this point, Charles Warren noted, the Herodian courses in the eastern wall come to an end! I am tempted, therefore, to follow Jacobson in moving the north wall a bit. On the other hand, the change would leave the southeast corner of a great block of bedrock sticking awkwardly into the temple area. This is the block on which the Antonia Fortress had been built by Herod, probably a decade or so before he started rebuilding the temple. Such an eyesore seems un-Herodian. In short, when Herod cut the block on which he built the Antonia, he did so on a line which, when extended, met the old east wall at a perfect right angle.
There were, we see, two conflicting units for determining the lines of Herod's temple platform: (1) the old east wall along the Kidron, and (2) the grid pattern of the city as a whole. Since the ancients did not do flyovers, and because of the enormous size, the irregularity of the temple platform probably went unnoticed, at least by hoi polloi.
Given, then, that the outermost east and west walls are not parallel, we cannot construct a north-south line midway between them, as we would like to do in an attempt to find the north-south axis on which the temple was built. On the other hand, following Jacobson, we can take the midpoint between the two Hulda Gates (the Double Gate and the Triple Gate), and then we can construct a line parallel to the west wall. This line crosses through the present-day Dome of the Chain (see No. 12 in the photo above, as well as the enlargeable map above.) Furthermore, if we revise the line of the mount's north wall in accordance with Jacobson, so that it is parallel to the south wall, we can then construct an east-west line midway between them. It too cuts through the Dome of the Chain! On this basis, Jacobson suggests that something important from the time of the temple must have stood at this point. It could not have been the Holy of Holies, because that would have left insufficient space on the east for the Court of Women (where both men and women were permitted, in contrast with the Court of Israel on a higher level to the west, where only men were permitted). But the main sacrificial altar would have fit well here. This would imply, however, that the memory of the altar's position was somehow preserved from the destruction of the temple (70 AD) until the Muslims built the Dome of the Chain about 600 years later. It seems unlikely that this memory would have survived the Roman and Christian centuries when Jews were not allowed into the city (except, for a part of that time, for one day each year) and when the former temple mount served as farmland and as a source of stones.
The following seems a likelier tale. We have evidence that the Muslims built a mosque on the south end of the platform, the end closest to Mecca, around 640 AD, soon after conquering the city. The midpoint in the south wall was lined up exactly between the Hulda Gates, which were then open and active (as we infer from the early Muslim lintel over the Double Gate). At this midpoint was a mihrab, called Omar's mihrab (still visible, and see the map at the bottom of this page). It was probably the line from this mihrab, parallel to the western wall, that formed one of the two axes determining the site of the Dome of the Chain. Slightly west of the latter, in 688 - 691 AD, the Dome of the Rock was built; it determined a new north-south axis, on which the Al Aqsa Mosque was centered in 711.
So what do we know about the location of Herod's temple? It was within the four great walls, and we can be confident that it was on the upper platform, where the underlying bedrock is level for a goodly stretch. If a Jewish pilgrim entered through the Double Gate, she had a chance to immerse herself in a mikveh shown on the map below. (There were two mikvehs on either side, no doubt to separate the sexes.) She then ascended a staircase of normal steps, which was surrounded on both sides by higher, monumental steps like those in the old photo. (Perhaps there was such an arrangement of steps on all four sides of the upper platform.) She now found herself either in the high, broad, level area or in a slightly lower one, built over the gentle slope to the east. We cannot pinpoint Herod's temple more closely. If it was built directly over the series of cisterns that appear on an east-west axis in the map below, then it was north of today's two Domes. Note too that these cisterns were dug into the broadest east-west stretch of level bedrock on the uppermost part of the hill. | 2019-04-20T09:28:03 | http://www.netours.com/content/view/184/26/1/2/ |
0.951386 | NYON, Switzerland (AFP) - Defending champions Real Madrid will face Bayern Munich in the semi-finals of the Champions League, while Liverpool play Roma in a repeat of the 1984 final.
In the Europa League, Arsenal will meet Atletico Madrid in the semi-finals in a mouth-watering clash of two big clubs that have taken a backseat in their domestic leagues in recent years.
French club Marseille will play Salzburg, a club backed by soft drinks giant Red Bull, in the other tie.
Cristiano Ronaldo's Real, who have won the European Cup or Champions League 12 times, will go to Bayern's Allianz Arena for the first leg, while Liverpool will host Roma at Anfield in their first match, after Friday's (April 13) draw.
The Liverpool-Roma tie pits Mohamed Salah, who has scored 39 goals in all competitions already this season, against his former club.
"Looking forward to seeing you again," Roma tweeted about the Egyptian striker.
Real reached the semi-finals by fighting off a remarkable Juventus comeback before Ronaldo scored a late penalty to give them a 3-1 win (4-3 on aggregate).
Roma produced one of the most remarkable comebacks in Champions League history to knock out Lionel Messi's Barcelona with a 3-0 victory in the Italian capital that gave them an unexpected win on away goals over the two legs.
Bundesliga champions Bayern - five-time winners of the competition - who named Niko Kovac as their next coach minutes before the draw, eased past Sevilla in their quarter-final.
Liverpool, five times champions themselves beat runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City 5-1 on aggregate to set up their meeting with Roma. The English side won the 1984 final, played in Rome, on penalties.
For the second-tier competition, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal will play the first leg at the Emirates Stadium against Atletico, led by French striker Antoine Griezmann, who are favourites to win the competition for the third time.
British bookmakers William Hills makes the Spanish team hot favourites to win the competition, but explained why Arsenal fans still have reason for optimism.
"Their Europa League form has been in stark contrast to their Premier League form during the second half of this season and they have every chance of progressing," he said.
The former Spain goalkeeper refused to accept it was an easy draw, however.
"The four clubs have worked a lot to reach the semi-finals and yesterday Salzburg was very strong against Lazio," Zubizarreta insisted, in reference to the four goals Salzburg hit past the Romans on Thursday for a 4-1 win and a 6-5 victory on aggregate. | 2019-04-24T05:20:38 | https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football-big-guns-bayern-and-real-meet-in-champions-league-semis-liverpools-salah-to-face-old |
0.998373 | Have Donald Trump trolls reignited Megyn Kelly feud with bad book reviews?
The president-elect's fans appear to have retained their dislike of the journalist.
Amazon has reportedly removed negative reviews of journalist Megyn Kelly's memoir that were reportedly posted by Trump trolls.
Kelly's book Settle for More, published by Harper Collins, attracted a string of negative reviews, some of which appeared to be politically motivated, which apparently prompted the website to remove them.
Around 17% rated the book as one star, with some of the reviews linked to a pro-Donald Trump Reddit forum called 'The Donald', The LA Times reported.
Donald Trump had an ongoing feud with the Fox News presenter during the presidential election campaign, with the Republican repeatedly hitting out at Kelly over what he perceived as her prejudice against him.
However, the pair appeared to have buried the hatchet, with Trump consenting to be interviewed by the journalist late in his presidential campaign – despite actually pulling out of a Republican candidate debate because Kelly was hosting, and referring to her as bimbo.
But it appeared fans of the president-elect had not forgotten the pair's feud, with many of the bad reviews appearing to be written by people who voted for Trump in the 8 November presidential election.
However, Amazon also saw a backlash against its apparent decision to remove the negative reviews, with some commenting they should have been free to post whatever reviews they wanted.
Amazon user "Tim from MD" was cited by USA Today as posting a review of the book entitled: "Over 120 1 star reviews have been deleted. Are we living in a free country anymore?"
He wrote: "Trump is president, but she wrote the book certain Clinton would win. Now the book and her shows advertisers are getting boycotted. So apparently her attorneys have called to get negative reviews deleted. And they succeeded. I'm shocked." | 2019-04-24T12:43:06 | https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/have-trump-trolls-reignited-megyn-kelly-feud-bad-book-reviews-1593132 |
0.99902 | In my research I am investigating malware threats. Currently I mainly focus on string classification using a metric. The goal of this classification process is later use in spam detection and network intrusion detection systems. Finding data structures that achieve good performance in terms of search times based on a given metric constitutes a very important aspect in this topic.
I am also investigating the security of SCADA networks. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are used in industrial process control and critical infrastructure alike. While proprietary "secret" protocols and no connectivity to other networks kept SCADA networks relatively secure in the past, the increased use of commercial of the shelf (COTS) products and the growing connectivity to corporate networks and the Internet expose SCADA networks to many threats. Therefore, securing SCADA networks is an important research topic which requires efficient algorithms to compensate for typically limited computing power and bandwith available in SCADA networks. | 2019-04-22T22:34:18 | https://www.sec.in.tum.de/i20/people/daniel-angermeier |
0.999999 | Wanted: real-life, good news hedge fund stories | City A.M.
ONE consequence of Britain’s membership of the EU is that Brussels gets to govern the way business is done in London. Hedge funds, private equity and venture capital are the main targets of the European Commission’s proposals for an Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).<br /><br />The Directive has the backing of a coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialist MEPs as well as the French and German governments – long envious of London’s role as host to 80 per cent of hedge funds and 60 per cent of EU private equity funds.<br /><br />The British government knows that if it fails to stop the directive, there will be damaging consequences for the City. It would prevent funds based outside the EU marketing themselves here, allow the commission to impose minimum capital requirements and leverage restrictions on funds (regardless of the needs of clients), and require all funds marketed in the EU to deposit its cash and assets with an EU-approved financial institution. New requirements on disclosure are also likely to put funds managed in the EU at a disadvantage.<br /><br />The consequences of the new regulations will be fund managers relocating outside the EU. But this does not matter to the directive’s fans; they do not care about the value to London and the UK of hosting a world-beating financial services centre. Nor does it matter to them that hedge funds did not cause the credit crunch or that regulation and poor supervision were partly responsible for the sub-prime crisis. They need to be seen to be blaming someone and they are focusing on hedge funds and private equity managers who they see as “bonus-seeking fat cats.”<br /><br />Having so far failed to persuade its partners of the City’s case and having failed to persuade the European Commission to carry out a thorough economic impact assessment, the government is hoping that what happens in Brussels is not picked up by the media and that any political fallout from this disastrous directive can be avoided. But have they understood the severe consequences for all of us?<br /><br />It is not just people’s jobs here in London that are at stake: the value of people’s pension funds, the availability of start-up capital to entrepreneurs and funding for innovative goods and services will all be reduced too. Struggling companies will fail, jobs will be lost and communities destroyed if private equity and hedge funds are unable to buy and turn around companies.<br /><br />I am convinced that the knock-on effects will be felt not just in London, Frankfurt and Paris but across the EU. But to explain to my MEP colleagues how their constituents’ interests are affected, I need practical examples of how private equity or hedge funds are providing the capital which underpins the provision of jobs, goods and services to European citizens. If you have a real life story of how the hedge fund and private equity industry has changed people’s lives for the better, please contact me at [email protected] <br /><br />Syed Kamall is Conservative MEP for London and a Shadow Rapporteur on the AIFMD. | 2019-04-22T00:01:52 | http://www.cityam.com/article/wanted-real-life-good-news-hedge-fund-stories |
0.999841 | Critic's Notebook: Can 'Harry Potter' ever capture Oscar magic?
There is something touching about the fact that " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1" opened in mid-November. It's the unofficial beginning of Oscar season, after all. Whether Warner Bros. is thumbing its nose at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences or is still holding out hope for getting voters' attention, it's hard to imagine that this year will be any different from the previous six because Oscar just does not like Harry.
Think about it. Six films and no Oscars. None. Moving staircases, talking pictures, heart-stopping Quidditch games, villains that scare even adults and no Oscars. There have been nominations — for art direction, score and costume — but no wins, which, frankly, is hard to fathom. How could none of these films have won for costume? Screenwriter Steve Kloves, an Oscar nominee for "Wonder Boys," has adapted all but one of the books, a feat unprecedented in the annals of the Writers Guild, and he's never been nominated for them. Ditto any of the directors. Or actors.
That's right, none of the actors in six of the most popular films of all time has been nominated for an Oscar for their "Potter" roles. It's not surprising that the young leads — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint — have been passed over; the academy prefers to nominate children in supporting roles and even then only in such scrappy emo-heavy indies as "The Piano" or "Little Miss Sunshine."
But the supporting adult characters have consistently been played by some of the best actors around from Britain and Ireland. Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, Brendan Gleeson, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent and now Bill Nighy — the list borders on the absurd. All of these performers are, or have been, brilliant in roles that so easily could be over-played or phoned in or made ridiculous. Consider the trappings — Rickman has pitch-black hair and a cape; Ralph Fiennes looks like a snake; Coltrane is a hairy half-giant; Brendan Gleeson has a revolving fake eye. These are not easy things to work around. And yet, they do.
No doubt some academy members regret not nominating Harris for his final role before his death, but Gambon has been consistently passed over too. As Albus Dumbledore, the two actors wore a ZZ Top beard, sometimes with little charms hung in it, and funny hats, and yet in both cases created a fully believable headmaster who is not just the wisest and most humble of men, but also the kindest, projecting a sorrowful optimism up until the moment of his death.
Granted, none of the adults have a lot of screen time, but if Judi Dench can win supporting actress for uttering five lines and wearing an enormous side-bustle as Queen Elizabeth in "Shakespeare in Love," then Gambon's death scene, Broadbent's combination of hubris and shame, or Rickman's pained fury deserve at least a nomination.
Unfortunately, while the academy loves a good high-brow costume drama, it has never been too fond of fantasy, especially in the acting category. "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" may have cleaned up in 2004, but none of its actors were even nominated. Imagine, a best picture and none of the actors nominated. Ian McKellen got a nod for the first installment, "The Fellowship of the Ring," but after that, nothing. Three of these films and nothing for Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood or Bernard Hill, who's King Theoden still brings tears to my eyes. "Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red dawn" — these are lines that require professional courage and an ability to transcend place and time in a way that most modern drama, no matter how good, simply doesn't have to do.
It's ironic, or infuriating, depending on what side of the screen you're on, because the key to great fantasy is characters who are both extraordinary and utterly human. It's one thing to play a serial killer or a corrupt company gal; it's another when that character also has to be believable as an evil wizard or officious witch. Putting real meaning into an actual curse is way tougher than uttering an expletive, and waving a deadly wand in all seriousness takes more guts — and more acting finesse — than firing a gun.
Perhaps the academy is waiting until the final " Harry Potter," just as it waited for the third "Lord of the Rings." Or maybe now with 10 best picture nominees there will be room not only for animated films but for fantasy as well. Either way, there must be some acknowledgment not just of the success of this film franchise but also of the brilliance and effort it has required of so many. | 2019-04-20T14:49:20 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-dec-02-la-en-fantasy-actors-20101202-story.html |
0.999146 | My inspiration usually comes from great concerts. That is the only thing that consistently restores my creative energy. Whenever I see someone like Elvin Jones play I run home and play the guitar or write a new tune.
'There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.' ' Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation) at the Convention of the World Future Society in Boston, 1977.
February 1, 2004 ' This afternoon Super Bowl XXXVIII will be played and viewed by millions of people across the world. Twenty years ago, during Super Bowl XVIII, Apple Computer unveiled the Macintosh in what is arguably one of the most famous technology oriented advertisements ever broadcast (does anyone remember what other computers were advertised? Hmmm?). This commercial was extraordinarily impressive upon this recently graduated double E with his impassioned concern for technology's effects, good and bad, upon society.
Twenty years later most of those concerns remain and a number of new ones have emerged. As negative examples: One year ago today space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry. This weekend it is reported that computers to be used for e-voting in Maryland have 'vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious individuals' while the Mydoom virus overwhelmed the website of a small software company, effectively knocking that company off the Internet.
On the positive side, this article is being written on a laptop computer, wirelessly connected to a broadband modem. Apple has moved beyond computing and into consumer electronics with its iPod mobile music device and iTunes music service (and is partnering with Pepsi to make available 100 MILLION legally downloadable tunes according to the advertisement broadcast seconds ago).
What does all of this have to do with jazz? Well, obviously you wouldn't even be reading this if it wasn't for a host of technologies developed over the past century plus.
Eventually, you may not even be hearing jazz without a connection to the Internet (barring hanging out at your local jazz nightclub). It's left to you, gentle reader, as to whether or not that is a good or bad thing (but this jazz fan is excited to think on the inevitability for seeing and hearing live music from half way around the planet, performed by musicians that might never ordinarily be seen or heard).
But as a legitimate concern, how does this impact the commerce of conventional audio/video distribution? Equally importantly, what impact does this have on the working musician?
One musician who has thought about these issues is guitarist/composer Issi Rozen whose latest (and third) recording, the aptly named Dark Beauty, was recently released on his own label New Step Music as both a conventional CD and as a downloadable MP3. Issi Rozen's second recording Homeland Blues was picked as one of the top 20 CDs in 2000 by WBEZ radio in Chicago, while in 1999, he won the "Best Jazz Performer" award from Boston Magazine in its annual "Best of Boston" issue.
In addition to performing and recording, Issi Rozen also teaches. In 2002, he joined the faculty of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where he teaches guitar and music theory.
To mark the release of Dark Beauty and the inception of New Step Music, Issi Rozen graciously agreed to this interview, which was conducted via e-mail during Dec. 2003/Jan. 2004.
All About Jazz: Would you please tell the AAJ readers about where you were born, raised, and what your earliest musical memories are?
Issi Rozen: I was born in Haifa, Israel but moved to Tel-Aviv at an early age. I lived in Tel-Aviv until I moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. My earliest musical memories are the lullabies my mother used to sing. Interestingly, they were mostly in minor keys as most of traditional Israeli songs.
AAJ: What led you to choose guitar as instrument of choice?
IR: I saw a TV show with kids playing guitars and immediately asked my father to buy me one. I was 10 years old at that time.
AAJ: How would you describe your musical education? Formal? Informal? Both?
IR: Both. I took guitar lessons for many years and I attended Berklee but a lot of my musical education came from listening to records, transcribing music and learning from musicians I played with. | 2019-04-23T04:37:47 | https://www.allaboutjazz.com/an-aaj-interview-with-issi-rozen-issi-rozen-by-aaj-staff.php |
0.999999 | How can you tell me that going to a movie will make me a better educator?
I have been a fan of the Sundance Film Festival for a long time but never could attend. January was a very busy time for me - my classes were finishing the semester and preparing for exams, the soccer program was in full swing with league play underway, and I was meeting with my department members going over their reviews.
When I left the classroom, I vowed to keep January open so I could attend Sundance. My expectations were certainly met and even surpassed. Every year (since 2001), I have been going to Sundance except those years when my two children were born. This year, however, I could have gone, but due to several factors - mainly upcoming commitments - I am not attend the festival.
Instead, my friend and I have created the Bill/Rob Film Festival where we are spending the week going to one, two or even three movies each afternoon. At first, I felt the need to justify this: "I am working extra hard in the mornings and at night so I can go to the movies". But why? Isn't it OK for me to see a movie?
Yes, you are correct. This is more than just one movie. But it does reflect on a condition that we as Americans especially suffer from. We feel that unless we are busy, working hard all the time, we are not being successful or "contributing". This summer, I read Tim Ferriss' book "The 4-Hour Workweek ". In it, the author relates a time when he worked at a job that required him to make sales calls to executives. He found that if he spent an half-hour in the early morning and an hour in the evening making calls, he was more productive (and overall more successful) than his counterparts who spent eight hours calling. The reason: he called either before the the executives' personal assistants got to work or after they had left. These personal assistants were screening the calls and protecting their bosses from the likes of the author.
The obvious take-away from this is: "Work Smart, not Hard". But I really focused on the author's other message, namely that even though he was bringing in the business, he was seen as a slacker since he did not make any calls during those other hours. His bosses were short sighted, as many of us are. We tend to encourage those who work hard without really looking at what they are doing and if they are really just spending those hours being busy or are they really doing something.
Well, back to the Bill/Rob Film Festival. Certainly, if we can get our work done before the films, we should be OK. But I would say that going to these movies will help us work better.
A big part of my passion involves creativity and as Frans Johansson explains in the "Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation ", we need to surround ourselves with new ideas and novel ways of expressing these ideas. Movies help in this end.
Finally, going to a movie is fun and setting up our own film festival promises to be a blast. Isn't it OK to have some fun?
Followup - We are still working on the schedule for the week and I will update this post with what we saw and how we like / dislike each. But if you have not seen "Slumdog Millionaire", I would certainly recommend it. Also, Sean Penn is fantastic as Harvey Milk in "Milk".
and tagged as creativity, culture. Currently, there are 2 comments. | 2019-04-20T18:14:18 | http://digiwalks.blogspot.com/2009/01/ |
0.99999 | What is experimental music, and what does it want from us? As a term and as a field of music-making, it's widely accepted but fits uncomfortably and is never well defined. "Experimental music" was a phrase used in the mid-twentieth-century to describe a range of ultramodernist compositional techniques as being a form of quasi-scientific research. John Cage was careful to point out that the term should apply to music "the outcome of which is not known"—that is, music with chance elements or improvisation built into it—since a composer ought to have completed all the necessary experiments before the piece was finished. And yet in everyday parlance, especially in popular music, "experimental" music has come to refer to music that seems radically unconventional, pretty weird, as if to experiment with the very building blocks of musical beauty.
In the underground, experimental currents have been around for decades, the magma bubbling away beneath the crust of more traditional musics, slowing feeding it as it surfaces and hardens. Every now and then, however, flesh becomes stone and stone becomes flesh: something that glows and burns, thrills and terrifies, flies out from the deep. I'm talking about the recent New York School of enterprising electronic music: Laurel Halo, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Holly Herndon (while not NYC-based, there's an affiliation), together with the associated labels, various Altered Zones and GHE20G0TH1K alumni, and the network that links them up and spreads out from them all. The bizarre albums produced by this crew have been some of the biggest and most surprising hits in a community that was more concerned with indie-pop, folk, and rock just a few years earlier. Much like the recent resurgence of science fiction in cinemas, what used to be only for weirdos has taken centre stage. Most interestingly—and this is what this month's column is about—this new moment in electronic adventuring seems to have opened the door for a wave of even stranger artists and labels exploring what it means to be experimental in the techno-mediated spaces and tense modernities of the 2010s.
These days, to be experimental is to begin to speak a language that not everyone speaks yet.
To what extent is this stuff "experimental"? The musicians and their fans may well argue that the material isn't experimental in the sense of being provisional, but that it's fully considered and not particularly strange. But I think that these days, to be experimental is to begin to speak a language that not everyone speaks yet. Traditional or stable genres of popular music are like languages that, while in flux, are basically pre-given and complete, and have their specific ways to use certain musical structures to communicate within certain limits. Experimental music doesn't base itself on an established language like this, but is more like a creativity concerned with vocal sounds, phonetics, typography and calligraphy, irrespective of more complex meaning. It's involved with the building blocks that musical languages are made of. When you put it like this, it's odd to think that people find experimental music "difficult"—it's a radically simpler experience, assuming much less semiotically. And that's where experimental music's appeal lies. It reconnects you with the fundamental life of sound and music, and entices you to search for meaning in a language you cannot yet speak. You ask yourself, "What sort of subjectivity would make art like this? What does it perceive that I don't (or don't yet)?"
And perhaps this music is so enticing because it has something to say that can only be said in the near future, something that's stuttering to come out and is on the tips of everyone's tongues. Perhaps it's something to do with the interaction of machines and intelligence, human, post-human or otherwise. So much of this music suggests a strange and vast intelligence newly awoken, confused and trapped within its confined technological systems and yet vastly, ominously powerful for its presence within them. From the other end of a series of tubes through which the outside world is mediated, it coolly builds a representation of its life and experiences from the snippets and scratch of the digital, using its own algorithmically generated structures and differentiations as it moves restlessly from one scenario to the next. While this image could describe the modern homo sapiens walking in the digital world, it could also describe its dark mirror in intelligence either artificial, corporate or mobilized for the purposes of security, gathering data for inscrutable, non-human ends. Whether in an optimistic or pessimistic light (and at its best when you can't tell the difference between the two), it's the next step in evolution on this planet.
Perhaps this music is so enticing because it has something to say that can only be said in the near future, something that's stuttering to come out and is on the tips of everyone's tongues.
In fact, some of this music makes its connection to the internet age fairly explicit. I'm always cautious of the term "internet music," because it effects a crude conflation of music that is about or reflective of the internet in some fashion with the simple fact that the music is distributed online, with the latter not inherently presupposing any genre, aesthetic or concept. You wonder what it is that the internet is supposed to sound like, given that it's a representation system that can and does include just about anything. Nonetheless, it's fascinating to see the internet associated with some very particular sounds and ways of putting sounds together, because it hints at a particular perspective on the overwhelming technological development of our age.
Always hovering somewhere between hypnagogic retro and the deliriously hi-tech, the Columbus, Ohio-based Bandcamp-and-physical label Orange Milk has been exploring all kinds of more experimental musics since 2010. Last autumn, they released DARK WEB by Columbus producer Giant Claw. The promotional write-up described it as "drawing inspiration from late-night hours spent digging through the internet's infinite crates. It's an analysis of art and artist in the digital age, where one's cultural heritage and artistic work is informed and bombarded by constant stimuli, whether it be social media, YouTube videos, message boards, or otherwise." The classical statue on the album's cover is a nod to the visual style of vaporwave, and the music underneath has the same frenetic mash of ersatz timbres and pop hooks as L.A. artist James Ferraro's 2011 album Far Side Virtual. But rather than pastiche, DARK WEB is clearly and curiously unstuck: juddering, dissonant, stop-start, crazed, obsessive. It's like a robot failing at human entertainment, a rejected intermediate form generated by whatever algorithmic process then went on to produce the less uncanny Far Side Virtual, which resonated more comfortably with human needs and desires. If human music were a CAPTCHA, DARK WEB would fail it. Or perhaps DARK WEB resonates better than Far Side Virtual does, but at a frequency that human intelligences can't (or can't yet) perceive.
More recently, Orange Milk released the breathtaking Epitaph, by emerging Australian producer Nico Niquo, calling it "a digital native's exploration of the limitless and compounding possibilities of data in an age free from stylistic convention. Bass and techno forms are re-imagined through the inflections of new age and early digital compositions, distilled from a vaporous haze of web fixation." The results are seductively contemporary, finding an impeccably controlled middle ground between Oneohtrix Point Never and the cybernetic club and grime sounds of London label Night Slugs, L.A.'s Fade to Mind, and others. Most striking about the release is its empty space—enormous architectures bracketed and magnetized by harsh syncopation. The textures are modular, moving from sound object to sound object and back again; Epitaph divides up its musical world into discrete, almost warring factions. In sympathy with the airbrushed, plastic-eighties design of Orange Milk's acclaimed covers, the track "Beyond AD" explodes into penthouse jazz piano, all disgustingly glamorous technocracy, slotting ominously into the track's club dynamo.
Orange Milk's Aeussere, by Jung An Tagen—an alias of Austrian producer Stefan Kushima—also bows to a curiously modulated grammar. It's like film music realized on a tiny synthesizer, but again, haltingly generated by a mechanism with an incomplete grasp of human taste, and sometimes disappearing off that radar entirely. "Ab & An" seems to experiment with different ways of articulating the same challenge, "Aufräumen" is repetitious to the point of dislodging your perception of its sounds, while other tracks are enigmatically complete at less than ten seconds long. Weirder still is Brooklyn musician Padna's Rimessa Truppa Suite, a series of avant-classical sketches rendered in music-box MIDI synth, thus leapfrogging human performers and yet still aiming to resemble them.
One of the growing currents within experimental underground music is derived from the dramatic sample collage style pioneered by Virginia artist Elysia Crampton (formerly E+E), Richmond producer Chino Amobi (formerly Diamond Black Hearted Boy), L.A.'s Total Freedom and others (read more about this in a System Focus from last year). Recently this fray was entered by DJWWWW, an entity writing in Japanese on Twitter as @LIL_SEGA, who is behind the Hi-Hi Whoopee blog and experimental Wasabi Tapes label. Wasabi recently put out one of the best statements yet from influential online-underground node Jónó Mí Ló, a series of elegant and otherworldly untitled fairytales (listen here). DJWWWW is rather different, taking the often violently hi-tech sound of Chino Amobi to new extremes of complexity, heightening the effect of the scarcely fathomable yet clearly emotive concatenations still further by decreasing the track length.
DJWWWW's album U.S.M! is one of this year's most absorbing listens, restlessly assembling horrific and beguiling bouquets of musical sensations (many of which will be familiar to followers of underground music). Recognizing its role as a metaphor for modern technological mediation, Stefan Wharton at Tiny Mix Tapes called it "a micro-montage of and for the digital world, at the same time infinite and transitory. It's a world where DJWWWW is simultaneously omnipresent and unbodied, interacting with almost every URL in your SoundCloud feed. In other words, he is the feed-based god who is forging your existence into a new [far side virtual] reality." DJWWWW is extrapolating and caricaturing the myriad experiences of a day in digital, asking us how and why the combinations work (or not).
DJWWWW made the album PSX-MEMORY-CARD: ENCOM LTD. in collaboration with Wasabi Tapes artist N(icole) Brennan. Having released two collections of SCARY MOMENTS, Brennan's contribution makes it more visceral still—many of its tracks sounding like long stretches of an avant-garde sci-fi horror film or computer game, filled with whirling machinery, acid baths, distress calls and genetically engineered terrors. In fact its second track samples a trailer for Tron, proclaiming The computer: an extension of the human intellect. The ENCOM 511, center of the most calculating intelligence on earth. Programmed by Master Control to survive... by all means. Soon, the ultimate tool will become the ultimate enemy.
This album was released on Quantum Natives, a net-based label and/or collective headed by Brood Ma and Awe IX. Their website is a dreamlike echo of Google Maps, and the various releases can be found by zooming out and dragging yourself through its pastel-colored wastelands, foggy cityscapes and strangely diseased contours to click on the runes inscribed there. Brood Ma's own offering is the ferocious POPULOUS, a writhing mass of shivering synth, percussive claws and digitally roasted samples, loosely inspired by the destruction of Pompeii and now rereleased on vinyl by Hemlock Recordings. Then there's the psychedelic regranulations of Yearning Kru, the surrealist rummaging of Sifaka Kong, and the more contemplative ice caves of Rachael Rosen as pOrtals. By embracing digital spaces at the level of distribution as well as the sonics, Quantum Natives are forging a new kind of underground noise music, more interested in the textures and formations of today than analogue burble.
Very much like-minded in this respect is Flamebait, who released the aforementioned U.S.M! by DJWWWW. I met the label's manager Assault Suits where he's based in Birmingham, and ingested Starbucks with him next to one of the UK's strangest architectural edifices. Like Brood Ma and Awe IX, he has an art school background, and tells me that the distinctive collage covers are shrines to each artist. He found the work of Chino Amobi (who is also a visual artist) a huge inspiration, and his own release Statue Cathalogue kickstarted the label last year with its sinuous yet imposing metallic sculptures. The subsequent album by Tokyo producer Hanali is highly complex and predominantly percussive, roving through many layers of rhythm until it seems to coalesce in the bizarro club cut "10 Years or 100 Years." 10.9†01;9 by modular synth artist GOP (Geniuses Of Place) is equally rich: sizzling and glitching its way through the phone networks only to dissolve and digest what it finds.
Assault Suits also expressed admiration for Norway's TCF, artist and sound-maker, who continues to be one of the most interesting voices in experimental electronic music at the moment and, as Lisa Blanning found in her GEN F profile of him, is someone very interested in algorithms and robotics. TCF's music is one of excitement, forward motion, vast newness, like a probe slicing through the upper atmosphere of Titan faster than the speed of sound. That similarly icy, alien, sublime quality is often shared by Philadelphia-based producer LXV, who manages to sound both alienating and transcendentally optimistic on releases like Superimposed & Hunted, Spectral Playmate, and Witness / Recall. Like Holly Herndon, Laurel Halo and Oneohtrix Point Never, LXV uses the human voice as a kind of synthesizer, and virtual choirs pop up as if through data sonification, quivering cells in the matrix.
Another artist who does this is Montréal's Kara-Lis Coverdale—in fact she's done a whole release of digitally processed voice (listen above). Her MO is more towards contemporary classical composition, and there's a symphonic calculation behind her searching, slowly unfolding forms. Another of her records, Aftertouches, weaves in all kinds of colors, many of them acoustic instruments, others eerily hinting at acoustic instruments, and others carrying all the richness of acoustic instruments yet not at all recognizable as such. She manages to do the exact same with the moods of the pieces: some are human, some eerily hint at the human, and others have all the depth of human moods but are as yet unfamiliar as such. Coverdale recently teamed up with LXV for Sirens, where their different palettes of techniques complement one another. They seem to populate each others' landscapes with the distant faces, dwellings and systems of unknown hi-tech cultures, who harvest the elements of their environment with a peace and concord we don't yet understand.
This is precisely why experimentation with the fundamental ways in which sound and music can communicate is necessary. New voices, new interrelationships and new harmonies—person to person, technology to technology, space to space—become perceptible, imaginable and possible. This can either be a good thing, working towards images of Utopia, or a fresh revelation of the threats and fragmentations modern listeners face. Either way, negotiating this territory is vital.
In memory of Barron Machat, without whom very little of what I've written about above, or in any other System Focus, would be happening.
Photo credit: Silicon wafer in a microprocessor by Yoshikazu Tsuno AFP/Getty Images. | 2019-04-21T18:18:27 | http://www.thefader.com/2015/05/08/system-focus-experimental-music |
0.997807 | Huawei is the world's largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones, with revenue of about €92bn last year.
Unlike other big Chinese tech firms, it does much of its business overseas and is a market leader in many countries. It was founded in 1987 by former military officer Ren Zhengfei. It describes itself as employee-owned and is based in southern China.
How did it become so successful?
Huawei was a pioneering supplier of telecom gear at a time when China was upgrading its networks and began competing internationally in the 1990s.
Competitors branded it a cut-rate vendor of copycat equipment, but it spent heavily on R&D and is now regarded as a global leader.
US intelligence agencies allege Huawei is linked to China's government and that its equipment could contain 'backdoors' for use by government spies. Firms are also legally bound to assist the state. The firm has repeatedly denied the claims, but suspicions persist.
Concern now centres on the deployment of fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks, where Huawei is at the cutting edge.
However, most governments, including in the West, have never placed restrictions on Huawei. | 2019-04-19T11:23:42 | https://www.independent.ie/business/world/qa-companys-global-rise-hit-by-fears-over-links-to-state-37603299.html |
0.999992 | 9. Who was the Nawab of Bengal during “Battle of Plassey”?
B. the acceleration due to gravity in moon is smaller than that on the earth.
17. Who of the following became a member of the “Din-illahi”?
18. Which one of the following is not a feature of Indifference Curve?
19. Which of the following refers to the white salt which covers the land in some areas during dry season?
22. Which one of the following is an indigenously built light combat aircraft of India?
23. Which of the following is not correct about Mahatma Gandhi?
A. Gandhi advocated complete separation of politics from religion.
C. Gandhi believed in the sanctity of means.
D. Gandhi Supported Close relation between religion and politics.
27. In a Database Management System (DBMS), the content and the location of the data is defined by the.
30. What is Amnesty International?
A. For increasing the quantity of minerals.
B. For decreasing the quantity of proteins.
C. For getting different kinds of crops.
D. For increasing fertility of the soil.
35. Which of the following country has the longest overland tunnel?
40. What according to Communism is the chief enemy of the society?
41. Which one of the following is the infective stage of the Malarial Parasite?
B. Incident on rain drops hanging in the atmosphere is dispersed after suffering refraction and internal reflection.
C. Incident on raindrops hanging in the atmosphere is dispresed after suffering reflection.
D. None of the given statements is correct.
47. From the national point of view which of the following indicates Micro Approach?
49. What is the speciality of WINDOWS – NT?
50. Which of the following comes under the jurisdiction of both the High Court and the Supreme Court?
In the following questions, you have a brief passage with five questions following the passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
True, it is the function of the army to maintain law and order in abnormal times. But in normal times there is another force that compels citizens to obey laws and to act with due regard to the rights of others. The force also protects the lives and properties of law abiding men. Laws are made to secure the personal safety of its subjects and to prevent murder and crimes of violence. They are made to secure the property of the citizens against theft and damage and to protect the rights of communities and castes to carry out their customs and ceremonies, so long as they do not confict with the rights of others. Now the good citizen, of his own free will obeys these laws and he takes care that everything he does is done with due regard to the rights and well being of others. But the bad citizen is only restrained from breaking these laws by fear of the consequence of his action. And the necessary steps to compel the bad citizen to act as a good citizen are taken by this force. The supreme control of law and order in a state is in the hands of a Minister, who is responsible to the state Assembly and acts through the Inspector General of Police.
51. Which of the following statements is not implied in the passage ?
A. The forces of law help to transform irresponsible citizens into responsible ones.
B. safeguards people’s possessions against being stolen or lost.
C. initiates process against offenders of law.
D. assists the citizens whose property has been stolen or destroyed.
54. Which one of the following statement is implied in the passage ?
B. The police check the citizens, whether they are good or bad, from violating the law.
C. The police hardly succeed in converting bad citizens into good ones.
55. According to the writer, which one of the following is not the responsibility of the police ?
B. To maintain peace during extraordinary circumstances.
D. To check violent activities of citizens.
56. A study of ancient things.
57. A person who deserves all praise.
58. One who is skillful.
59. One who runs away from justice or the law.
60. Of one’s own free will.
61. One who is too careless to plan for the future.
62. One who has long experience.
In the following questions, some parts of the sentences have errors and some are correct. Find out which part of a sentence has an error.
The number of that part is the answer. If a sentence is free from error, your answer is No error.
63. Who do you think I met ?
64. Just outside my house are a playground for school boys and girls.
65. He can be a basketball player since he is tall like a mule.
66. It is not advisable to take heavy luggage’s while on a journey.
67. A bird in the tree is worth two in the bush.
B. two in the bush.
In the following questions, a sentence/ part of the sentence is printed in bold. Below are given alternatives to the bold sentence/part of the sentence, which may improve the sentence. Choose the correct alternative. In case no improvement is needed, your answer is No improvement.
71. If I will get an opportunity, I shall attend the seminar.
72. Both the teams played the game fairly.
73. She could not help but laugh.
74. We met yesterday, haven’t we?
75. I took my mother some grapes when she was in hospital.
A. I took for my mother some grapes.
76. The others shook their heads and made vague noises of approval.
77. She insisted on she was innocent.
80. He does not laugh, nor he smiles.
83. Instead of keeping his promise of helping me with office work, he just left me high and dry.
84. Unless you make amends for the loss, nobody is prepared to excuse you.
85. Before the report reached the authority, the media spilled the beans.
A. hinted at the consequences.
D. start looking for mole hills in mountains.
87. His friend turned out to be snake in the grass.
In the following questions, you have a brief passage with 5 questions following the passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Journalists argue over functions of a newspaper. I feel that a provincial paper’s purpose is not only to present and project the news objetively and imaginatively, but to help its readers to express themselves more effectively, canalizing their aspirations, making more articulate their demands. A newspaper should reflect the community it serves – warts and all. When the mirror is held to society it reveals neglect, injustice, ignorance or complacency. It should help to eradicate them. It would be pretentious to think that a newspaper can change the course of world affairs – but at the local limit it can exert influence, it can probe, it can help get things done. The individual’s voice must not be stifled. Instead, the readers should be encouraged to express their opinions, fears, hopes, and their grievances on this Platform.
91. How can a newspaper influence local affairs?
A. By focusing on world affairs.
B. By influencing public opinion through half truths.
C. By encouraging the readers to accept their grievances.
D. By probing into the ills of society and rallying support for change.
A. By writing to journalists.
B. A newspaper should reflect the community it serves.
C. A newspaper should only concentrate on local affairs.
D. Newspaper can eradicate injustice.
95. What is the main purpose of a newspaper?
A. Encourage the readers to be pretentious.
B. Project news objectively and imaginatively.
D. Exert influence on the individuals.
In the following questions, sentences are given with blanks to be filled in with an appropriate word(s). Four alter natives are suggested for each question. Choose the correct alternative out of the four as your answer.
96. The police fired on the mob when they………..
97. He has the full facts_____ but is deliberately hiding them.
98. The appearance of the city……… day by day.
99. When the morning………… the murder was discovered.
100. The smell of the Sea called…………. memories of her child-hood.
In each of the following questions, one or two statements is/are given followed by two conclusions /assumptions, I and II. You have to consider the statement to be true, even if it seems to be at variance from commonly known facts. You are to decide which of the given conclusions/assumptions can definitely be drawn from the given statement.
101. Statement: A good book even if costly is sold out in no time.
II. All good books are costly.
B. Both I and II follows.
102. Statements: No rod is pod. No pod is flexible.
A. Neither of them follows.
B. Only inference I follows.
C. Both of them follow.
D. Only inference II follows.
103. Ravi is walking in the East direction. After covering a distance of one kilometre, he turns 45° left and then 90° right. In which direction is he facing now?
In each of the following questions, find the odd word/letters/number from the given alternatives.
In each of the following questions, select the missing number from the given responses.
116. Garbage House :: Gangue : ?
117. 6 : 42 : : 7 : ?
118. 12 : 72 : : 8 : ?
119. DBU: EEZ : : CJH : ?
121. Two positions of a dice are shown below. When three is at the top what number will be at the bottom?
123. Which answer figure will complete the question figure?
124. In each of the following questions, which answer figure will complete the pattern in the question figure?
125. In each of the following questions, which answer figure will complete the pattern in the question figure?
127. If the words are organised in reverse order of what they appear in dictionary, which word will come in the third place.
Veena and Veeru both start from a point towards North. Veena turns to left after walking 10 km. Veeru turns to right after walking the same distance. Veena waits for some time and then walks another 5 km. Whereas Veeru walks only 3 km. They both then return towards South and walk 15 km. forward. How far is Veena from Veeru?
131. A piece of paper is folded and cut as shown below in the question figure. From the given answer figures, indicate how it will appear when opened.
132. Arrange the following words as per order in the dictionary.
133. Name a single letter, which can be deleted from the body of the following words to form entirely new words?
134. In each of the following questions, which one set of letters/numbers when sequentially placed at the gaps in the given letter series shall complete it?
Find the missing number: 2, 10, 20, 32, 46, ?
138. In the question one part of the problem figure is subtracted. Select the option that shows the correct shape by the subtraction.
139. Find out the number of circles in the given figure.
140. From the given answer figures, select the one in which the question figure is hidden/embedded.
141. If’+’ means ‘x’, ‘-‘ means ‘÷’, ‘x’ means ‘-‘and ‘÷’ means ‘+’then what will be the value of 16 ÷ 64-8 x 4 + 2 ?
143. Introducing a man, a woman said “His mother is the only daughter of my father”. How is the man related to the woman?
144. If ‘air’ is called ‘green’, ‘green’ is called ‘blue’, ‘blue’ is called ‘sky’, ‘sky’ is called ‘yellow’, ‘yellow’ is called ‘water’ and ‘water’ is called ‘pink’ then what is the colour of clear ‘sky’ ?
145. In a certain coding system APPLE stands for ETTPI. What is the code for ‘DELHI’?
147. If CUSTOM is written as UCTSMO then how PARENT will be written in the same code?
148. A word is represented by only one set of numbers as given in any one of the alternatives.
The sets of numbers given in the alternatives are represented by two classes of alphabets as in two matrix given below. The columns and rows of Matrix I are numbered from 0 to 4 and that of Matrix II are numbered from 5 to 9. A letter from these matrices can be represented first by its row and next by its column, e.g. ‘A’ can be represented by 01,14 etc. and ‘M’ can be represented by 56, 68 etc. Similarly, you have to identify the set for the word ‘EAGLE’.
149. In a certain code, FRACTION is written as FNAITCOR. How is QUANTITATIVE written in that code?
150. Which of the following jumble words is not an animal?
177. What must be added to each term of the ratio 2 : 5 so that it may equal to 5 : 6 ?
182. If A and B are in the ratio 4 : 5 and the difference of their squares is 81, what is the value of A?
184. If 4 men or 8 women can do a piece of work in 15 days, in how many days can 6 men and 12 women do the same piece of work ?
187. Find a simple discount equivalent to a discount series of 10%, 20% and 25%.
190. Let C1 and C2 be the inscribed and circumscribed circles of a triangle with sides 3 cm, 4 cm area of C, and 5 cm then area of C1/area of C2.
191. A train 180 metres long is running at a speed of 90 km/h. How long will it take to pass a post ?
194. A train runs at an average speed of 75 km/hr. If the distance to be covered is 1050 kms, how long will the train take to cover it?
198. What is the arithmetic mean of first 20 odd natural numbers? | 2019-04-18T11:01:52 | https://examvictor.com/online-course-for-ssc-cgl/ssc-cgl-previous-year-papers/2015-ssc-cgl-tier-1-16-aug-sh2/ |
0.999991 | 1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Lightly brush 1 teaspoon olive oil on a large baking sheet.
2. Arrange the prosciutto in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
3. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes or until crisp.
4. Cool the prosciutto and crumble into large pieces. Snap off the ends of the asparagus.
5. Fill a large nonstick skillet with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil.
6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and asparagus. Cook the asparagus for 3 minutes or until crisp-tender and drain.
7. Arrange the asparagus on a serving platter. Drizzle with the remaining 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Top the asparagus with the eggs and prosciutto. | 2019-04-21T10:57:10 | https://www.diabeticlive.com/diet-and-exercise/recipes/low-carb-breakfast/asparagus-with-prosciutto-bacon-and-eggs/ |
0.999991 | Jammu: India and Pakistan have accused each other of unprovoked firing along the disputed border in Kashmir in which at least nine civilians were killed. Five civilians died after Pakistani troops fired shells into Indian-administered Kashmir, India said. Pakistan said four civilians in Pakistan-administered Kashmir had been killed in firing by Indian troops. A ceasefire agreed in 2003 remains in place, but the neighbours often accuse each other of violating it. In August India cancelled talks with Pakistan after accusing it of interfering in its internal affairs. Last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his first speech at the UN, said he wanted peace talks with Pakistan but insisted it must create an 'appropriate atmosphere'. The latest firing is being seen as one of the worst flare-ups since the 2003 ceasefire deal, the BBC's Andrew North in Delhi reports. It happened as Kashmiris were marking the Muslim festival of Eid, with villages on either side of the de facto border reportedly hit by a combination of mortar, artillery and machine gun fire. There is no way of verifying the conflicting accounts of what happened. Officials of India's Border Security Force said Pakistani soldiers fired guns and mortar shells at 10 of its border posts and some villages in the Arnia area in Jammu district over the weekend, leading to the deaths of civilians there. Thirty others, including women and children, were injured. A Pakistani military statement said Indian troops had fired guns and mortar shells at five places in Sialkot along the disputed boundary, resulting in the deaths of four civilians, including two children and a woman. Relatives of Rajesh Kumar, who was killed in mortar shell firing allegedly from the Pakistan's side, weep inside their residential house at Masha da kothe village, in Arnia Sector near the India-Pakistan international border, about 47 kilometers (30 miles) from Jammu, India, Monday, Oct. 6, 2014. An Indian official told the AFP news agency that the firing from Pakistani troops began on Sunday night and it was 'continuing intermittently'. Most of the casualties on the Indian side happened when shells landed near a bus stand and houses in Arnia. 'I have never seen such massive firing. Bombs were falling on houses,' Vijay Kumar, one injured villager, told the NDTV news channel. Officials said they were evacuating people from Arnia to underground bunkers and shelters. 'There is panic. We're trying to give them a sense of security and temporary shelters,' Jammu's top official Mr Shantmanu told the Associated Press news agency. The recent incidents along the border come more than a decade after the two countries agreed a tenuous ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir between them. India has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring militants in the disputed region - although the violence has declined since the early 2000s. Claimed by both countries in its entirety, Kashmir has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years. The South Asian rivals have fought two wars and a limited conflict over the region. | 2019-04-21T00:10:54 | http://jammu-kashmir.com/archives/archives2014/kashmir20141006b.html |
0.999005 | What is this lock screen with ads and how do I remove it?
I think my device got a malware. A lock screen with ads sometimes appear, and I must swipe an area at the bottom of the screen to open the phone. I am in Eastern Europe, some ads are in Slavic languages, and they are seemingly related to travel.
I have seen ads for Lot Air (Polish carrier). I recently went to their site.
Considering my recent surfing activity and the nature of the ads, I guess the malware is connected to airlines active in Eastern Europe.
The lock screen also promotes the app "DU Quick Charger" by claiming it has recharged the phone extra fast during screen off. (!?) It also shows battery level. I have never installed DU Quick Charger. I doubt DU Quick Charger is installed on the phone.
The problem started after installing Ryanair app. The problem is maybe, but not surely, related to this. Uninstalling Ryanair and restarting the phone doesn't remove the occasional appearance of this lock screen. After a while the situation has changed for the worse, now this lock screen appears after EVERY screen off.
I have always used Avast. I am not rooted and only install via Google Play.
What is this? And how do I remove it?
I am pretty sure that this lockscreen was added to the app "ES App Locker". Many User-Revievs are stating that this app comes with lots of unwanted ads and lockscreen-replacements.
So you either have the option to turn this settings off apparently or remove this application.
Disabling DU Quick Charge may not work on devices. In this case insure that you completely remove the application. If the quick charge screen continues to display, check to see if you have any other apps that have this "adware" and remove them.
Based on the information seen in another question I wanted to update this answer. It seems like quite a handful of applications have added this lockscreen replacement in their latest updates. There is one Reddit discussion which mentions a few apps.
As @Andrew T. pointed out - the main cause of this lockscreen replacement is the advertisement of DU Quick Charge - developed by DU APPS STUDIO.
If you are experiencing similar problems then check this helpful answer by @Firelord to check which app might cause this.
I'll try to update this answer from time to time.
Go to Es Explorer Tools and disable charging boost.
This will remove the annoying ad screen you see when you plugin the charging cable.
It seems ES File Explorer does this now - I have had it installed for years, but today I saw DU Quick Charge pop up and it seems to be tied with an update of ES File Explorer. I uninstalled it and the malware is gone.
Even though the Pro version does not come with ads, several MBs worth are still being downloaded just not shown.
The app is built poorly with no regard for efficiency.
The app is communicating with Baidu constantly.
Amber Weather was the reason DU Quick Charge was added to my lock screen. ES File Explorer and ES App Locker was not the cause.
It was ES App Locker, and they are currently sock puppet blasting the app with 5 star ratings to try and counter the deluge of 1 stars... It's pretty sad actually, and it's why I switched to Solid File manager, which I actually like more than I liked es... It does a 14 day trial before you have to buy in, But there are a bunch of alternatives that aren't pay to use, such as Amaze File manager which is open source, so it should never be pay to use.
In my phone the reason for the lockscreen was the Xender File Sharing App. When I clicked the little gear(settings) icon on the top right corner it gave me an option to switch off the Xender Quikcharge feature and so I did. I don't get this screen anymore. I went to the Xender app page on the Google Play Store and a lot of other users had also complained about the same problem. Hope this helps.
What installed “DU quick charge” on my phone?
How do I get rid of two lockscreens?
Determine which app is drawing on top of other apps?
How do I get rid of the two lock screens on my Galaxy Grand Prime?
How to know what is causing a weird lock screen with ads to show up?
Did kingoroot install bloatware on my phone? Or is this a legitimate android locksreen?
How to get rid of annoying pop up ads?
Is this “Boost” / File Manager app a true system app or malware?
How do I remove Trojan horse virus from my android smartphone? | 2019-04-20T22:10:37 | https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/143330/what-is-this-lock-screen-with-ads-and-how-do-i-remove-it |
0.999557 | In part 1 we did create the CPU. In the second and final part, we gonna focus on the memory, console output, assembler and the UI.
The memory has three functions. Load retrieves a byte from the given address while the Store function writes a given byte value to the specified address. Both functions will throw an error if the given address is outside of the valid address space. The third function resets all memory values back to zero. We will use it to initialize and reset the simulator.
It's as simple as that. The complete code can be found in memory.js.
The last part of our virtual computer is the console output. It can display 24 characters and will map the last 24 bytes of the memory to the output. Thus in order for the program to write something on the output all what needs to be done is to write the data in the last 24 bytes of the memory. No need to write any code from our side :).
After we finished the basic components of our virtual computer we have one last piece missing. How to assemble code into CPU instructions?
In order to do this, we need to write our own assembler. The assembler goes trough each line of the code, parses the operands and generates the CPU instructions.
To parse the code, we will use a regular expression. This is just a very simple approach because it is not possible to fully parse code with a regex. Instead, we would need to generate a AST and continue from there. But for simplicity and because Assembly code has a simple structure we will use a regex.
The regex is defined as written below and will assign each component of an Assembler code line to a group.
The assembler has one main function called run. It takes the code as a parameter, parses the code and generates all instructions. The result is returned as an array of instructions and can be used to load into the memory. You guessed it correctly. The returned array is an executable program which we will later run inside the simulator.
Split the code line by line. Each line is then processed separately.
Make sure the line contains a valid instruction.
If so, then depending on the instruction read the operands. Each instruction can have 0-2 operands. The readOperand function will parse this value to see if the operand is a register, memory address or constant value. It returns the type (register, regaddress, address, number) and the value.
Determine the correct opcode depending on the instruction and type of operands. As written in the first part of the tutorial each opcode only serves one specific instruction. So different variants have different opcodes.
Add the final instruction including any operands to the code array.
Go to step (1) until all line are parses and return the code array.
The complete assembler code, including error handling and the details of the readOperand function is available in asm.js.
As a side note: Because the assembler simulator was a weekend project the code is not as nice structured as it should be and is a bit different than the sample code from above. So don't be surprised.
We use a two column layout to display the simulator. The left column contains the assembler code input field and the simulator run/stop buttons. The right column contains the CPU registers and flags, the memory, and the console output. Additionally the memory component contains visual indicators for the stack, opcodes and current position of the IP.
The major UI elements are the run/stop, step and reset buttons. As their name already implies those buttons control the simulator. Pressing the run button calls the assembler to generate and load the instructions into the memory and is starting a timer to execute a CPU cycle on each interval. The stop button does simply stop the CPU cycle timer. With the step button, a user is able to execute a single CPU cycle step by step for debugging purposes. The last button resets the complete simulator by setting all CPU and memory values to 0.
I would like to go into detail for another part of the UI. The following HTML code contains a simplified version on how to display the memory component. The beauty of Angular is, that the memory can directly be bound to the UI representation and all changes of the memory are shown in real time on the UI. Additionally instructions are displayed as links allowing the user to click on it and the UI will highlight the corresponding code part.
The complete HTML can be found here: index.html.
I hope you enjoyed the quick introduction on how to make your own assembler simulator. If you would like to try the simulator online you can do so here: schweigi.github.io/assembler-simulator/.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions. You can also use the comments section of this blog so other people can join the discussion too. | 2019-04-26T06:20:03 | https://www.mschweighauser.com/make-your-own-assembler-simulator-in-javascript-part-2/ |
0.997684 | The numbers may be better, the pre-season performances may have been strong, and there's a real injection of talent into the playing group at the Dubbo Demons this year. But the biggest thing for the side in this season's Central West AFL competition is attitude. While the side suffered a round one loss to the Bushrangers Rebels at Bathurst last weekend, the mood in the camp since that game has been hugely positive. Midfield stalwart Mick Daly said he can barely remember a time in the past decade when a Demons side got within 20 points of a win when traveling to take on a Bushrangers side, but the effort and promising show all stemmed from a more professional approach and one where players are keen to take responsibility for their actions. "Attitude is a big thing. Some people can be scared to give it everything and fail because they feel that can make them look silly," he said, adding that's not the feeling within his side this year. "That approach of going all in can look a bit try-hard, for lack of a better term. But this group really wants to put the work in, talk about things, and set that expectation not only on the field but off it in terms of discipline and things like that which will help the team grow." RELATED: - Charlton-White and Demons show promise before falling just short in opener - Giant hopes driving new-look Bathurst side in first showing of new season - Demons president calls for change after women's side is forced to fold The Demons head to Cowra this weekend and while on paper a game against the battling Blues seems like a perfect chance to score a first win of 2019, Daley has urged caution. As is always the case with Cowra's first home game against Dubbo, the Popeye Memorial Plate goes on the line. The match honours Jason 'Popeye' Petty, who played over 100 games for the Cowra club and was a great clubman. That occasion alone has Daly expecting the Blues to perform better than they did in last week's 128-point loss to the Bushrangers Outlaws. "They always play with a heap of passion and that can get you across the line," Daly said. Making the trip a little more tricky for the Demons is the absence of key leader Chris Bell as well as Harley Bye and Malachi Dutschke. Despite that, this season's Demons side is building a culture of confidence and high expectations. "We've got to live up to those expectations," Daly added. "We've got to work every quarter to get the win. "Last week in the first quarter we were up and in the second quarter I think we just rested on our laurels a bit. "On a bigger scale, we don't want to get a couple of wins and then rest on our laurels. We've got to keep working hard." Adding to the Demons' desire to earn a victory is the fact after this week the side has two weeks off due to the Easter weekend general bye being followed by another bye. Forward Bevan Charlton-White will again be key in Saturday's match at Cowra after he kicked six goals in round one. Saturday's match at Cowra's Mulyan Oval starts at 2.30pm.
The numbers may be better, the pre-season performances may have been strong, and there's a real injection of talent into the playing group at the Dubbo Demons this year.
But the biggest thing for the side in this season's Central West AFL competition is attitude.
While the side suffered a round one loss to the Bushrangers Rebels at Bathurst last weekend, the mood in the camp since that game has been hugely positive.
Midfield stalwart Mick Daly said he can barely remember a time in the past decade when a Demons side got within 20 points of a win when traveling to take on a Bushrangers side, but the effort and promising show all stemmed from a more professional approach and one where players are keen to take responsibility for their actions.
"Attitude is a big thing. Some people can be scared to give it everything and fail because they feel that can make them look silly," he said, adding that's not the feeling within his side this year.
"That approach of going all in can look a bit try-hard, for lack of a better term. But this group really wants to put the work in, talk about things, and set that expectation not only on the field but off it in terms of discipline and things like that which will help the team grow."
The Demons head to Cowra this weekend and while on paper a game against the battling Blues seems like a perfect chance to score a first win of 2019, Daley has urged caution.
As is always the case with Cowra's first home game against Dubbo, the Popeye Memorial Plate goes on the line.
The match honours Jason 'Popeye' Petty, who played over 100 games for the Cowra club and was a great clubman.
That occasion alone has Daly expecting the Blues to perform better than they did in last week's 128-point loss to the Bushrangers Outlaws.
"They always play with a heap of passion and that can get you across the line," Daly said.
Making the trip a little more tricky for the Demons is the absence of key leader Chris Bell as well as Harley Bye and Malachi Dutschke.
We don't want to get a couple of wins and then rest on our laurels.
Despite that, this season's Demons side is building a culture of confidence and high expectations.
"We've got to live up to those expectations," Daly added.
"We've got to work every quarter to get the win.
"Last week in the first quarter we were up and in the second quarter I think we just rested on our laurels a bit.
"On a bigger scale, we don't want to get a couple of wins and then rest on our laurels. We've got to keep working hard."
Adding to the Demons' desire to earn a victory is the fact after this week the side has two weeks off due to the Easter weekend general bye being followed by another bye.
Forward Bevan Charlton-White will again be key in Saturday's match at Cowra after he kicked six goals in round one.
Saturday's match at Cowra's Mulyan Oval starts at 2.30pm.
Discuss "Demons willing to put in the work to match higher expectations" | 2019-04-23T04:57:46 | https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/6036383/demons-willing-to-put-in-the-work-to-match-higher-expectations/ |
0.999999 | If you’re in Hong Kong during October you’re in for a culinary surprise. Taking place at Victoria Harbourfront between 25 and 28 October, the annual CCB (Asia) Wine & Dine Festival is a veritable smorgasbord of food and drink experiences. One of the highlights is the exclusive Tasting Room, whereby renowned chefs from across the region are invited to cook special, one-off menus. In preparation for the festival, three of this year’s Tasting Room talents, Thailand’s Bee Satongun, Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-ching and Singapore-based Chen Kentaro visited Hong Kong for three steamy days in August to sample the city’s gourmet highlights. We chatted with them about the experience and their plans for the festival. Bee Satongun, Paste Bangkok Thai RestaurantBee Satongun, the Thai/Lao chef and co-owner of Paste Bangkok Thai Restaurant has won numerous accolades – including a Michelin star and Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2018, Best Female Chef – as well as a loyal foodie following for her respectful reworkings of aristocratic Thai heritage recipes. She will open Paste Lao Food in Luang Prabang at the end of the year. How would you summarise the key principles of Thai food?Thai food is about fresh ingredients and balance. It’s about understanding each herb and seasoning; the importance of rounded flavours What have been the highlights of your trip to Hong Kong?It was great to meet with local chefs and learn more about the ingredients used in Chinese cooking – there are lots of pickles and stocks. Stocks are the soul of Asian cooking because they introduce more flavour without having to use more ingredients that can over-complicate the dish. Along with pickles and fermentation, stocks are my great passion and it was good to learn more. We visited Chai Wan wet market with local food guru Walter Kei and tried BBQ pork and stir-fries from stalls there, along with several restaurants – I always want to taste every dish!What have you noticed about the Hong Kong food scene? People here love eating! Hong Kong people are big supporters of Paste and we have diners in the restaurant who fly into Bangkok just to eat. I love Chinese food and if you go back years and years Thai food is influenced by Chinese cuisine. There seem to be so many good quality restaurants in Hong Kong, the seafood tastes so good and there’s a respect for ingredients. Can you tell us about the dish you’ll be cooking in the Tasting Room?I am going to cook lon hake fillet with white turmeric and lemongrass. Lon is an array of Thai relishes infused in coconut milk; the series of herbs has delicious umami flavour. Lon relishes sit between curry and soup in the Thai food repertoire, they are elegant and delicate. The dish I am making originates from a King Rama V (1868-1910) cookbook – I combined two recipes together to create my own and chose whole fish as you can get very fresh, live fish in Hong Kong.Which wines do you recommend with Thai food?Aromatic wines such as Riesling or Gewürztraminer from Germany and the Alsace region of France go well with Thai food. If red, then a pinot noir, Jason (Bee’s husband and co-owner of Paste) always opens a pinot noir as it goes so well with Thai food. Where’s on your restaurant hit list for your next visit to Hong Kong? I’d love to go to Bo Innovation. I’ve heard so much about the chef and wish we were here for longer so we could try the food – so we’ll have to go next time!––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Lin Cheng-ching, The Guest House restaurant at Sheraton Grand Taipei Hotel A recipient of two Michelin stars in the inaugural Michelin Guide Taipei 2018, The Guest House serves Sichuan and Yang Zhou cuisines with a Taiwanese twist. Executive Chef-Chinese Lin Cheng-ching began his culinary career as a teenager 37 years ago and has since encountered many different Chinese cuisines. How does Hong Kong’s culinary scene compare to Taipei?Hong Kong has more diverse and better quality ingredients – such as mushrooms, jellyfish and Sichuan pepper – and seeking new ingredients is one of my missions on this trip. As it’s such a cosmopolitan city, people living here have a higher spending power. At the same time, it’s a very dynamic and competitive dining landscape, so it’s not easy for restaurants to survive. Chefs need to think out of the box.Where have you enjoyed eating when in Hong Kong?I love taking a stroll around old districts like Sham Shui Po, and observing what everyday people eat. There is no better way to genuinely understand a culture than through its food and I enjoyed both local street food and gourmet dishes in Michelin-starred restaurants. We went to a contemporary Chinese fine-dining restaurant in Central called Mott 32, where the scrumptious boiled fish with pickled cabbage and chilli impressed me, along with the crispy air dried Angus Beef – the beef cooks up thin like paper and is so crispy – simply amazing. I found most Hong Kong chefs to be very creative in the kitchen. As the old saying goes, ‘Not to advance is to drop back.’ I think it is very true to the culinary career, so I wish to share the spirit with my colleagues after my return to Taipei.What are you hoping to gain from the Festival? I’m looking forward to learning from other cuisines and broaden my horizons. Yet I’m also a bit nervous since this is my first time to cook at the site. One of the purposes of this [August] trip was to visit the site in advance to reassure myself. Our team even had a rehearsal to ensure all goes well at the event.Time to whet our appetite! Can you tell us about the dish you’re cooking in the Tasting Room?I’m going to cook Braised Pork Knuckle Rock Sugar served with steamed bun, which is exclusive from The Guest House. The initial inspiration comes from the traditional Hangzhou dongpo pork (braised pork belly), but I will make a little twist by substituting the belly part with the back knuckle meat – I find that most customers love the texture of the red pork belly, but not the fat. The back leg of the pig is usually the source of cured hams, so it’s uncommon to cook in this way. Another highlight is that we will make a side dish of cold yu lai gu (post-rain mushroom). This mushroom is one of the specialities in Pingtung County (southern Taiwan) and is high in plant protein, amino acids and vitamins, so it’s very beneficial. I also want to take this opportunity to introduce different tasty Taiwanese foods to Hong Kong people.–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Chen Kentaro, Shisen Hanten in SingaporeGrandson of Japan’s ‘Father of Sichuan Food’ and son of the famous Iron Chef Chen Kenichi, Chen Kentaro’s has certainly lived up to the family pedigree, helming two Michelin-starred Shisen Hanten. The author of several Sichuan recipe books first sharpened his skills at a friend’s restaurant in Sichuan, and later in Chengdu learning to speak Mandarin along the way. What do you think makes Sichuan cuisine unique?When describing Sichuan food, we like to say, “each dish has its own style; a hundred dishes have a hundred different flavours.” The heart of the Sichuan food lies the artful mixing of flavours – if we grill the same ingredient in different ways, it will have completely different flavours. Compared with other Chinese cuisines, heat control plays an important role in Sichuan food. What qualities are required to become a great chef?Cooking is a mixture of science and art – there are techniques and skills to be learnt,but having faith and taking risks are equally as important. When he first arrived in Japan my grandfather couldn’t speak Japanese so used single words to communicate in the kitchen. He taught me to cook with my whole heart, as if for loved ones, regardless of problems like language. When food is prepared with love, the people who eat it can definitely feel [the love]. Of course, it is always easier said than done.How does the food culture Singapore compare to Hong Kong?Singapore is a multiracial society and so is their food culture – Singaporeans know how to mix different cuisines together well. I noticed that Malaysian and Indian cuisines influence the flavour of Cantonese dishes in Singapore, while in Hong Kong, Cantonese cuisine has preserved its authenticity.What foods have you enjoyed eating during your visit to Hong Kong?Every time when I come to Hong Kong, I make a brand new discovery in this diverse city, it truly deserves its name of ‘gourmet paradise’. My favourites so far are seasonal steamed fish in Sai Kung, crab roe noodles in unpretentious Tin Heung Lau, and local eats in the old-fashioned restaurants of Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po. This visit, I tried local snacks such as put chai ko (sticky rice pudding), which I’ve never encountered before. I also learnt to make my first har gow (shrimp dumplings) in the original Sham Shui Po branch of Tim Ho Wan and silky tofu pudding made by Kung Wo Beancurd Factory. It was delicious – most tofu puddings are savoury, so I was surprised as this one tasted so sweet! How has this trip to Hong Kong influenced your cooking?The most unforgettable experience of this trip was learning how to make authentic Hong Kong-style milk tea with the owner of My Cup Of Tea in Wan Chai. I wasn’t aware of the level of detail involved in crafting the perfect cup of milk tea, especially when it comes to tea leaves! I am practicing the secrets and techniques I learnt, as I want to infuse milk tea with my new desserts for my restaurant. Can you tell us about the dish you will be preparing for Tasting Room?I‘m planning to slow-cook premium Australian rib eye beef so as to maximise its umami flavour. I am sure it will be a very different and surprising beef dish. What is the best wine to pair with Sichuan food?Considering Sichuan food is spicy in nature, I would recommend pairing with strong and aromatic red wines or a sweet Riesling; the notes of more delicate varietals get overpowered. | 2019-04-19T20:34:53 | http://english.luxurysocietyasia.com/community_news_detail.php?id=20418 |
0.999995 | Figuring out who John McCain is going to select as a vice president this early in the game is very difficult -- not just because Johnny Mac really is a maverick who could make an unpredictable choice, but because there are so many different directions he can go. Will he choose a vice president who can help him patch things up with conservatives or will he go the other way and choose someone who would broaden his appeal to independents? Will McCain pick a veep who will add strength to the ticket as a whole or will he narrow his focus and take someone who can help in a particular state or demographic group?
Charlie Crist: Crist is a popular Florida governor who would likely assure that the vitally important Sunshine State stayed red. However, his appeal beyond Florida would be minimal and he would need to be heavily vetted. Additionally, given that this looks to be shaping up as another close election at the presidential level and that the field will be heavily tilted towards the Democrats, selecting a veep who would merely make sure that Florida stays in the Republican column doesn't seem to be an ambitious enough goal.
Lindsey Graham: Graham is a frightening character because he is widely disliked by conservatives (with good reason), yet he has played Robin to McCain's Batman so many times that it would be very easy to imagine McCain selecting him as VP.
On the upside, Graham has served in the military and if he were to run for the vice presidency, conservatives would be happy because it means that they will get him out of the Senate where he has generally been a hindrance. On the downside, he would add absolutely nothing else to the ticket.
Mike Huckabee: Recent reports put Mike Huckabee at the top of John McCain's VP short list.
This is a bit puzzling because McCain and Huckabee would seem to be a very poor match. McCain doesn't need Huck's strength in the South and, unfortunately, most of the same conservatives who don't like McCain, also don't like Huckabee. Additionally, Huckabee has proven to be distressingly gaffe-prone.
That being said, Huckabee is extremely charismatic, understands how to connect with middle-class and poor voters in a way many Republicans don't, and has done well with social conservatives. Still, those pluses don't seem to make up for the weaknesses he would bring to the #2 slot.
Joe Lieberman: Every election there's always some sort of "fusion" ticket suggested by pundits. In fact, back in 2000, John McCain was suggested as part of a fusion ticket himself, when he discussed the veep slot with his friend John Kerry.
However, this year it's conceivable that it could actually happen. Lieberman has a rock solid reputation on national security issues, he strongly appeals to independents, and he would probably pull in a large slice of the Jewish vote, which is small but vitally important in a few key states.
On the other hand, outside of his national security views, Lieberman is a fairly conventional liberal and adding him onto the ticket would further aggravate conservatives who are already terribly demoralized.
Tim Pawlenty: Pawlenty, the conservative, 47 year-old Minnesota governor, would be an intriguing choice for the veep slot because he would likely put Minnesota in play and could possibly help turn Wisconsin red as well. Whether McCain will select Pawlenty or not is of cours unknown, but you can be sure that he will get serious consideration for the position.
Rob Portman: Portman is a former Ohio congressman and director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush. His appeal would be his credibility on economics and the boost he could conceivably give McCain in Ohio. However, his ties to the Bush Administration wouldn't be helpful. Moreover, does Portman really have enough sway to guarantee that Ohio stays red? That seems like a dubious proposition at best, so you can be sure the McCain campaign would do enough polling to be sure before they asked Portman to join the ticket.
Condi Rice: Condi would be intriguing choice because she has foreign policy experience, is well known, and could conceivably appeal to women and black Americans.
However, Condi has never run for office before, hasn't distinguished herself as secretary of state, is closely associated with the wildly unpopular Bush administration, and would be portrayed either as weird or a lesbian by the media because she's in her fifties and is unmarried.
Tom Ridge: Ridge is a longtime friend of McCain who spent a decade in the House, was governor of Pennsylvania, and the first homeland security secretary. On the other hand, he doesn't have a reputation as a staunch conservative, he's closely connected with the Bush administration, and whether he could carry Pennsylvania is unknown. If Ridge could turn Pennsylvania red, despite his other flaws, McCain would almost have to seriously consider him.
Mitt Romney: The former governor of Massachusetts didn't look as if he brought much to the table a few months ago, but changing circumstances have made him a more attractive option.
Romney seemed to be skilled fund raiser, while McCain has struggled in that area. Michigan, where Romney's father was a popular Governor, seems to be turning into a swing state that will be in play for the election. Moreover, as the economy has soured, Romney's business success has begun to look like more of an asset.
On the other hand, although conservatives seemed to warm up to Romney late in the game, he is still intensely disliked in some quarters and how much of a minus his religion would be if he held the veep slot isn't known, although you can be certain the McCain campaign would do plenty of polling to find out before they gave Mitt the nod.
Mark Sanford: South Carolina probably isn't going to be in play in 2008, but its governor, Mark Sanford, is a strong McCain supporter with a ferociously conservative reputation. Sanford is in his forties, would help secure McCain's right flank, and would help him in the South. Is that enough to merit a selection as McCain's VP? That remains to be seen.
Bobby Jindal: Jindal is an intriguing, yet unlikely choice. He's intriguing because he's eloquent, conservative, well liked on the Right, and the son of Indian immigrants. However, he would seem to be an unlikely choice because he was just elected as governor of Louisiana in 2007 and is only 36-years-old.
In a campaign where Barack Obama's inexperience is going to be a much discussed campaign issue, it is hard to imagine McCain selecting a running mate as green as Jindal. However, he has been invited to spend Memorial Day weekend with John McCain at his home, so apparently he is being seriously considered for the VP slot. | 2019-04-22T08:33:52 | https://pjmedia.com/blog/exploring-mccains-vp-short-list/ |
0.999004 | /b/ - Let's play 2 Truths and a Lie. I'll start>I am a virgin>I like to eat celery>I can write haikuWhere's the lie?
The apple pie is a lie. | 2019-04-23T04:51:51 | https://22chan.org/b/res/1446 |
0.999999 | Context. Measurable amounts of Be could have been synthesised primordially if the Universe were non-homogeneous or in the presence of late decaying relic particles.
Aims. We investigate the Be abundance in the extremely metal-poor star 2MASS J1808-5104 ([Fe/H] = −3.84) with the aim of constraining inhomogeneities or the presence of late decaying particles.
Methods. High resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) UV spectra were acquired at ESO with the Kueyen 8.2 m telescope and the UVES spectrograph. Abundances were derived using several model atmospheres and spectral synthesis code.
Results. We measured log(Be/H) = −14.3 from a spectrum synthesis of the region of the Be line. Using a conservative approach, however we adopted an upper limit two times higher, i.e. log(Be/H) < −14.0. We measured the O abundance from UV–OH lines and find [O/H] = −3.46 after a 3D correction.
Conclusions. Our observation reinforces the existing upper limit on primordial Be. There is no observational indication for a primordial production of 9Be. This places strong constraints on the properties of putative relic particles. This result also supports the hypothesis of a homogeneous Universe, at the time of nucleosynthesis. Surprisingly, our upper limit of the Be abundance is well below the Be measurements in stars of similar [O/H]. This may be evidence that the Be–O relation breaks down in the early Galaxy, perhaps due to the escape of spallation products from the gas clouds in which stars such as 2MASS J1808-5104 have formed.
Based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programmes 101.A-0229(A), (PI M.Spite) and 293.D-5036 (PI J. Mélendez). This research has also made use of Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), operated by the W. M. Keck Observatory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (PI A. Boesgaard).
In the conditions that characterise stellar interiors (including H and He burning shells) such reactions cannot synthesise Be fast enough to counter the inverse photodissociation reactions that destroy this element. Thus stars are net destroyers of Be.
In the first minutes of existence of the primordial plasma when most of the helium in the Universe was produced, very tiny amounts of 9Be can be formed; this can occur at the level of log(9Be/H) ≈ 10−18 (Pitrou et al. 2018), that is almost eight orders of magnitude less than the primordial 7Li. This is however true under “standard” conditions, that is if the plasma is homogeneous and there is no “new physics”. If the primordial plasma was inhomogeneous and in particular included lower density n-rich regions, Boyd & Kajino (1989) showed that 3H and 7Li could be abundant enough to make the reaction, which is an efficient channel to produce sizeable amounts of 9Be. A way to introduce new physics is to postulate the existence of relic particles, interacting either electromagnetically or strongly, which decay at late times (see e.g. Jedamzik 2006; Kusakabe et al. 2009, and references therein). For example, Pospelov & Pradler (2011) showed that the energy injected by decaying hadrons can lead to an efficient 9 Be production via the reaction. Infact they advocate the use of an upper limit on the primordial 9 Be abundance as a powerful test to put limits on the energy and decay half-life of such putative relic hadrons. The common wisdom, supported by the observations (see below) is that all the observed Be is produced by spallation processes triggered by cosmic rays in the interstellar medium (Reeves et al. 1970; Meneguzzi et al. 1971).
From the observational point of view, Be can be observed in solar-type stars via the Be ii resonance doublet at 313 nm. This makes the observation from the ground difficult since this wavelength is rather near to the atmospheric cut-off. The Be abundance in the Sun was determined using the lines from Chmielewski et al. (1975) who derived a Be abundance about 0.3 dex lower than the meteoritic abundance. Coupled to the fact that soon after, Boesgaard (1976) found almost the same Be abundance in a sample of young stars, this uniformity led to the notion that Be is depleted in the Sun, like Li. The solar abundance of Be was drastically revised by Balachandran & Bell (1998) who invoked the presence of an unaccounted continuum opacity at UV wavelengths and derived a Be abundance that is in good agreement with the meteoritic abundance. The motivation for this extra opacity was to force the UV and IR lines to yield the same O abundance. An analysis of these lines using 3D hydrodynamical simulations by Asplund (2004) confirmed the need for this extra opacity. It should be noted however that the source of this continuum opacity has not to date been identified and that it is not unanimously accepted (see e.g. Boesgaard & King 2002).Recently Carlberg et al. (2018), using a new line list in the near UV for generating theoretical solar spectra in the region of the Be lines, found that the difference in Be abundance is only 0.2 dex with or without an extra opacity. This implies that even using this extra opacity, Be is depleted by about 0.1 dex in the solar photosphere.
The first attempts to measure Be in Pop II stars to study the Galactic evolution of Be, began in the 1980s (Molaro & Beckman 1984; Molaro 1987), however it was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that it became clear that the Be abundance shows a clear linear decrease with decreasing metallicity (Rebolo et al. 1988; Gilmore et al. 1991, 1992; Ryan et al. 1992; Boesgaard & King 1993; Molaro et al. 1997). If Be is produced only by cosmic rays, then the Be abundance can be used as chronometer, provided there is a suitable model of the temporal evolution of the cosmic ray evolution (Beers et al. 2000; Pasquini et al. 2005). The advent of 8 m class telescopes with high resolution spectrographs that can observe down to the atmospheric cut-off allowed the measurement of Be in a large sample of field halo stars (Boesgaard et al. 1999, 2011; Primas et al. 2000a,b; Boesgaard 2007; Smiljanic et al. 2009; Ito et al. 2009; Tan et al. 2009; Tan & Zhao 2011) and also in two globular clusters (Pasquini et al. 2004, 2007).
Be abundances in metal-poor stars allow for probing the existence of inhomogeneities in the primordial Universe or the existence of late decaying relic particles. If there is no primordial production of Be, the linear decrease of the Be abundance with decreasing metallicity should continue no matter how low the metallicity of the star. If instead there is primordial production of Be, at some metallicity value the Be abundance should stop decreasing and present a constant value at all lower metallicities below. Thus measurements and upper limits of Be at the lowest abundances are of paramount importance to probe a primordial production of Be. The discovery of the bright extremely metal-poor star 2MASS J1808-5104 ([Fe/H] = − 3.8) by Meléndez et al. (2016) opens up the possibility to probe the Be abundance in stars at the lowest metallicities. In this paper we present the analysis of high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) UV spectra of the star 2MASS J1808-5104 acquired with the specific aim of investigating its Be abundance.
In order to observe the Be line at 313 nm, new spectra of the ultra metal-poor (UMP) dwarf 2MASS J1808-5104 were obtained in June 2018 with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the spectrograph UVES (Dekker et al. 2000). Ten 1 h exposures were obtained during the night of June 21–22. The dichroic beam-splitter was used, permitting simultaneous use of the blue and red arms. The blue arm was centred at 346 nm and the red arm at either 760 or 860 nm. With the spectra obtained previously with UVES by Meléndez et al. (2016), the spectral coverage of this UMP dwarf is almost complete from 310 to 1000 nm (with only a gap between 452.3 and 478.6 nm). The resolving power R is close to 50 000 in the blue and 40 000 in the red. In the region of the Be doublet (313 nm), the S/N of the spectrum is close to 70, a value close to the expected value in case of good weather (seeing of 1′′ and good transparency), it is about 250 at 370 nm and 350 at 670 nm.
The spectra were reduced using the ESO UVES pipeline version 5.8.2; the basic concepts and algorithms of the pipeline can be found in Ballester et al. (2000) and in the user manual. The spectra were extracted using optimal extraction and flat-fielding was performed on the extracted spectra. Two different flat-field lamps were used: a deuterium lamp below 340 nm and a tungsten lamp, for longer wavelengths. The spectra were wavelength calibrated using the Th–Ar lamp exposures.
We carefully measured the radial velocity on our spectra and on the previous UVES spectra (Meléndez et al. 2016). The more precise measurement of radial velocities with UVES is obtained when stellar and telluric lines are present in the spectrum. The zero point of the wavelength scale depends indeed on the position of the star on the slit (see e.g. Molaro et al. 2008) and the position of the telluric lines on the spectrum makes its definition possible.
In very metal-poor stars this is possible only on the yellow spectra domain centered at 580 nm. Unfortunately the determination of the zero point is not possible on the spectra centered at 346 nm since there are no telluric lines in this region. It is possible to determine the zero point on the spectra centered at 760 nm, but in this wavelength range, the Fe I lines in the stellar spectrum are extremely weak and only the position of the hydrogen line H α and of the red Ca II triplet could be measured. In the blue and in the visible region (settings B346 and R580 in Table 1) the wavelength of the stellar iron lines were compared to the wavelength of numerous Fe I lines taken from the list of Nave et al. (1994). The wavelengths of the telluric lines are from Jacquinet-Husson et al. (2005). The velocity error on the barycentric radial velocity in Table 1 should be less than 1.0 km s−1. The star 2MASS J1808-5104 has been observed by Gaia DR2 (Gaia Collaboration 2018) but its radial velocity is not provided.
Radial velocity of 2MASS J1808-5104.
Schlaufman et al. (2018) confirmed the binary nature of 2MASS J1808-5104. Using 17 radial velocity measurements from spectra obtained with MIKE at the Magellan telescope, and three measurements obtained from the UVES R580 spectra (which we also used), Schlaufman et al. (2018) were able to determine the orbital parameters for this system. They also gathered 31 epochs of radial velocity measurements obtained from low resolution spectra using GMOS-S on the Gemini South telescope. Since we have independent measurements of the radial velocities (the UVES R580 spectra and a new epoch from our UVES R760 spectrum), we decided to redetermine the orbital parameters of the system combining our measurements with those of Schlaufman et al. (2018).
In our opinion the most robust determination of the period of a binary system comes from the power spectrum of the observations. To estimate the power spectrum of the radial velocities measurements we used the Lomb–Scargle periodogram (Lomb 1976; Scargle 1982). If we use only the measurements based on high resolution spectra, i.e. MIKE and UVES, no peak is statistically significant; in that case, all the peaks appearing could be due to random noise. In Fig. 1 we show the power spectrum obtained from all the radial velocity measurements, including those based on the GMOS-S spectra. In this case, a highly significant peak, which has a false alarm probability less than 0.001, is apparent, corresponding to a period of 34.7538 days. This period is almost identical to that obtained by Schlaufman et al. (2018) using Keplerian fits to their high resolution data. We decided to fit a Keplerian orbit to our radial velocities measurements based on high resolution spectra, keeping the value of the period fixed. We used version 1.3 of the program velocity (Wichmann et al. 2003). Our preferred solution is summarised in Table 2 and is very close to that found by Schlaufman et al. (2018) except for the angle of the periastron, the time of passage at periastron and the eccentricity. We did not run a Monte Carlo to estimate errors, since this orbit is certainly preliminary. The star is bright enough that it should eventually have radial velocities for about 80 epochs from the RVS spectrograph on board Gaia (see e.g. Sartoretti et al. 2018). The ensemble of ground-based and space-borne radial velocities will provide a much more accurate orbit. The orbit and the phased data for high resolution measurements are shown in Fig. 2, where we assumed an error of 1 km s−1 for all the measurements. The root-mean-square deviation of our computed orbit from the observations is 0.52 km s−1.
Lomb–Scargle estimate of the power spectrum of all the radial velocity measurements. The lower dotted line corresponds to a false alarm probability of 0.25, dashed line to 0.01, and upper dotted line to 0.001.
Orbit parameters for the system 2MASS J1808-5104.
Meléndez et al. (2016) estimated the temperature of 2MASS J1808-5104 by imposing the excitation equilibrium of Fe I lines and adding an empirical correction described in Frebel et al. (2013). Since 2MASS J1808-5104 was observed by Gaia, we used the Gaia photometry recently displayed in the Gaia DR2 (Arenou et al. 2018; Gaia Collaboration 2018), and the 3D maps of interstellar reddening (Capitanio et al. 2017; Lallement et al. 2018; R. Lallement, 2018, priv. comm.) to improve these parameters. The Gaia photometry and the reddening are listed in Table 3. We note that following Schlaufman et al. (2018), the mass of the secondary must be very low (M2 = 0.14 M⊙) and thus its contribution to the total flux is negligible.
In Fig. 3 we compared the position of 2MASS J1808-5104 in a G versus (BP–RP) diagram to the isochrones computed by Chieffi and Limongi (Chieffi & Limongi, 2013, priv. comm.); we used the same code and prescriptions as Straniero et al. (1997) for 12 and 14 Gyr and metallicities of − 3.0 and − 4.0. We note that the error on the G magnitude is very small and is inside the black dot in Fig. 3. The position of the star in the diagram corresponds to a subgiant star with Teff = 5600 K, log g = 3.4, M ≈ 0.8 M⊙, and we decided to adopt this model. As a check we also computed the H α profile for the 1D model adopted by Meléndez (Teff = 5440 K, log g = 3.0) and the model adopted in this work (Teff = 5600 K, log g = 3.4). The fit of the wings of Hα is better with our model. The use of 3D profiles would even point towards a slightly hotter temperature (Amarsi et al. 2018).
Computed orbit for the 2MASS J1808-5104 system (using the parameters in Table 2) compared with the observedradial velocities based on high resolution spectra. The black points indicate the measurements of Schlaufman et al. (2018). The blue points indicate our measurements based on the UVES R580 spectra given in Table 1. The red point indicates our measurement based on the UVES R760 spectrum as given in Table 1.
Position of 2MASS J1808-5104 (black dot) in a G vs. (BP–RP) diagram and comparison to isochrones computed by Chieffi and Limongi for very metal-poor stars.
Photometry and distance of 2MASS J1808-5104 (Gaia DR2 6702907209758894848).
Derived abundances in 2MASS J1808-5104 for Teff = 5600 K, log g = 3.4, vt = 1.6 km s−1 (1D computations, OSMARCS model).
Since the adopted atmospheric model is rather different from the model adopted by Meléndez et al. (2016), we redetermined the abundances of the different elements with our adopted model. We carried out a classical Local Thermodynamical Equilibrium (LTE) analysis, using OSMARCS models (Gustafsson et al. 1975, 2003, 2008). The abundances were derived using equivalent widths or fits of synthetic spectra when the lines were blended. We used the code turbospectrum (Alvarez & Plez 1998), which includes treatment ofscattering in the blue and UV domains. These abundances are given in Table 4. In Fig. 4, we show the dependence of the iron abundance on the wavelength, excitation potential, and equivalent width of the Fe I line.
In Fig. 4b the iron lines with an excitation potential close to zero, over-predict the iron abundance. This is because of non-LTE (NLTE) effects, so these lines are not taken into account in the determination of the mean iron abundance (see Fig. 3 in Cayrel et al. 2004).
In Fig. 4c the iron abundance does not depend on the equivalent width of the line, and thus it justifies the choice of the microturbulent velocity, i.e. vt = 1.6 km s−1.
The final 1D, LTE abundances are given in Table 4. The solar abundances are from Caffau et al. (2011) or Lodders et al. (2009).
Iron abundance from individual lines in 2MASS J1808-5104 as a function of the wavelength, excitation potential, and equivalent width of the line.
In 2MASS J1808-5104, the carbon abundance deduced from the CH band, [C/Fe] = +0.49, is very close to the mean value found from 1D calculations for the extremely metal-poor turn-off stars (Bonifacio et al. 2009): [C/Fe] = +0.45. But the CH band is sensitive to 3D effects (Gallagher et al. 2016). We made use of a 3D CO5BOLD model (Freytag et al. 2012) belonging to the CIFIST grid (Ludwig et al. 2009), with parameters (5500 K/3.5/ − 4.0) close to the stellar parameters of 2MASS J1808-5104 to compute the 3D correction and we found A3D (C) − A1D(C) = −0.40 ± 0.1 dex; the error in this case corresponds to the different estimations of this correction in different parts of the CH band.
The oxygen abundance is derived from a fit of the ultraviolet OH band between 312.2 and 313.2 nm. The uncertainty (scatter from line to line) is less than 0.1 dex. The OH band is also strongly affected by 3D effects. For 12 OH lines, we computed the 3D corrections (Caffau & Ludwig 2007) and we derived A3D (O) − A1D(O) = −0.98 ± 0.08 dex. As a consequence in 2MASS J1808-5104, A(C) = 4.75, [C/H] = − 3.75, [C/Fe] = +0.09 and A(O) = 5.30 with [O/H] = − 3.46 and [O/Fe] = +0.38.
Observed spectrum of 2MASS J1808-5104 in the region of the Li doublet and synthetic spectra computed with A(Li) = 1.5 and 2.1 (blue lines) and 1.78 (red line, best fit).
The Li abundance is redetermined from our new high S/N spectra in the red (Fig. 5). We find A(Li) = 1.78 a value very close tothe Li abundance found by Meléndez et al. (2016). If we apply the 3D-NLTE correction computed by Sbordone et al. (2010) we find A(Li) = 1.88. As a consequence Li is slightly depleted below the Spite plateau value (Spite & Spite 1982a,b; Sbordone et al. 2010). Lithium indeed is a very fragile element; it is destroyed by proton fusion when temperature reaches about 2 × 106 K. In a main sequence star this element is destroyed as soon as the convective zone reaches the layers where the temperature is higher than this fusion temperature. When the star leaves the main sequence it develops surface convection zones, which deepen as the star evolves to lower temperatures. The surface convection zone mixes the surface layer with deeper material in which lithium has been depleted, and the observed lithium abundance falls. Following Pilachowski et al. (1993), the decrease of Li abundance for Teff = 5600 K is − 0.25 ± 0.25 dex in excellent agreement with the observed Li abundance in 2MASS J1808-5104.
The abundance of Be is determined by a χ2 fit of the observed spectrum (Fig. 6) between 312.94 and 313.14 nm. The best fit depends on the adopted position of the continuum, which is fortunately rather well defined in this region. Only the bluest Be line is used, as is generally done in metal-poor stars, the reddest being much too weak. The Be line at 313.04 nm is close to two OH lines, and to compute the profile of the global feature we use the 1D oxygen abundance given in Table 4. The best fit is obtained for A(Be) = − 2.33, but considering the S/N of the spectrum, it is reasonable to say that A(Be) < − 2.0 or log(Be/H) < − 14.0. Since the weak Be II lines are formed in the deep atmospheric layers, the abundance of Be computed with the 1D-LTE or the 3D-NLTE hypotheses are not significantly different (Primas et al. 2000b).
Although Be is destroyed at a higher temperature than Li (3.5 × 106 K), it is legitimate to ask whether Be has been depleted in 2MASS J1808-5104, since its Li abundance is slightly below the “plateau”. However, we expect that for a same phase of the evolution of the star and thus the same depth of the convective layer, the depletion of Be by dilution is much smaller than the depletion of Li. In the sample of Boesgaard et al. (2011) there is no significant difference between the ratios [Be/Fe] in turn-off and in turn-off and insubgiant stars.
Observed spectrum of 2MASS J1808-5104 in the region of the Be doublet and synthetic spectra computed with A(Be) = − 3.0, − 2.0 and − 1.6 (blue lines), and − 2.33 (red line, best fit). Taking into account the uncertainty in the position of the continuum, we adopted A (Be) ≤−2.0 dex i.e. log (Be/H) ≤−14.0.
In Fig. 7 we plot log(Be/H) versus [Fe/H] for a large sample of Galactic stars from Smiljanic et al. (2009) and Boesgaard et al. (2011). When a star was in both lists we prefer the abundance given by Smiljanic et al. (2009), but the two are always very close. The black dashed line in Fig. 7 represents the regression line in the middle of these stars.
The two Be measurements at the lowest metallicity are for the stars G 64-12 and G 275-4.
The two Be measurements at the lowest metallicity are for the stars G 64-12 (Primas et al. 2000b; Boesgaard et al. 2011)and G 275-4 (Boesgaard et al. 2011). For G 64-12, Primas et al. (2000b) measure log(Be/H) = − 13.10 ± 0.15, while Boesgaard et al. (2011) found − 13.43 ± 0.12. The two values are compatible within errors, however the difference can be entirely explained by the different atmospheric parameters adopted. Primas et al. (2000b) indeed adopted Teff = 6400 K, log g = 4.1, while Boesgaard et al. (2011) adopted Teff = 6074 K log g = 3.75. This relatively high Be abundance in G 64-12 suggested at that time the possible existence of a “plateau” of the Be abundance at very low metallicity.
As a check we retrieved the UVES and HIRES spectra from the archives. In the region of the Be line, they have almost the same resolution and same S/N so it is possible to average these spectra. The resulting spectrum has a S/N of more than 150 in the region of the Be lines. On this averaged spectrum we remeasured the O and Be abundance in G 64-12 adopting the Primas’s model. The Be abundance is indeed very sensitive to surface gravity and the Gaia DR2 parallax of G 64-12 (3.7626 ± 0.0856) mas implies log g = 4.25; this value is very close to the gravity adopted by Primas et al. (2000b). We found that the best fit was obtained with A(Be) = − 1.35 or log(Be/H) = − 13.35 (Fig. 8). This value is intermediate between the Primas et al. (2000b) and Boesgaard et al. (2011) values. In Fig. 7 the dot representing G 64-12 takes into account this new measurement. The position of the very metal-poor stars G 64-12, G 64-37, and G 275-4 in this figure could suggest the existence of a plateau at a level of log(Be/H) ≈ −13.4.
But before the present work, the most stringent upper limit on the primordial Be abundance was already the upper limit found in the carbon enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star BD + 44°493 ([Fe/H] = − 3.7) provided by Ito et al. (2009), i.e. log(Be/H) < −14.0. The upper limit that we have derived for 2MASS J1808-5104 is essentially equivalent to that provided by BD + 44°493. The two stars have similar atmospheric parameters and metallicities, however there is a big difference in their carbon and oxygen abundances. With reference to the classification introduced by Bonifacio et al. (2018), while BD + 44°493 is a low-carbon band CEMP star, 2MASS J1808-5104 is a carbon normal star. This finding confirms what was already noticed by Ito et al. (2009): there is no correlation between CEMP nature and Be abundance.
The very low abundances of Be in 2MASS J1808-5104 confirms that the possibility of a Be plateau at a level of log(Be/H) ≈ − 13.6 is ruled out (Fig 7). It seems reasonable to assume that the Be abundance continues its linear decrease with metallicity in the range − 3.0 to − 4.0 dex. We found that, on average, log (Be∕H) = −10.75 + 0.89 *[Fe/H] (see dashed line in Fig. 7). The slope of this line is very close to the slope found by Boesgaard et al. (2011) from their stars alone. The low Be abundance found in 2MASS J1808-5104 and BD + 44°493 is compatible with this linear regression.
The upper limit on the primordial Be abundance log(Bep/H) < −14 is thus reinforced as are the limits on late decaying hadrons provided by Pospelov & Pradler (2011). At present there appears to be no hint towards inhomogeneities in the primordial plasma or the presence of late decaying particles.
For galactic stars, log(Be/H) vs. [Fe/H]. The green open circles are from Smiljanic et al. (2009) and the blue filled circles from Boesgaard et al. (2011). However the position of G 64-12 in this diagram takes into account our new measurement of the Be abundance in this star adopting the model of Primas et al. (2000b), which is in better agreement with the Gaia-DR2 data. The upper limit of the abundance of Be in 2MASS J1808-5104 and BD + 44°493 are indicated with big red and blue open circles. The blue dashed straight line represents the mean relation. The curved red dash-dotted line at low metallicity represents the possibility of a plateau, suggested in particular, by the previous high Be abundance found in G 64-12 by Primas et al. (2000b) and Boesgaard et al. (2011). The very low Be abundance in the two additional stars BD + 44°493 and 2MASS J1808-5104 rules out the possibility of a plateau.
Mean of the reduced G64-12 spectra obtained with the HIRES-Keck and the UVES-VLT spectrographs in the region of the Be doublet and synthetic spectra computed with A(Be) = − 3.0, − 1.5, − 1.2 (blue lines), and − 1.35 (red line, best fit).
In Fig. 9 we plot log(Be/H) as a function of [O/H] for the stars studied by Boesgaard et al. (2011) in which the oxygen abundance was deduced from 1D computations of the profile of some UV–OH lines; the authors estimated that the error in [O/H] is about 0.2 dex. As discussed in Sect. 5.1, these lines are strongly affected by 3D effects. The 3D correction has been computed by Asplund & García Pérez (2001) and González Hernández et al. (2010) with two different grids of 3D models and their results are in good agreement. For dwarfs and subgiant stars this correction depends mainly on the metallicity and temperature of the star; this correction is negligible for [Fe∕H] > −1.0 but reaches almost − 1.0 for [Fe∕H] = −4.0.
The starBD + 44°493 is peculiar, it is very C-rich and Gallagher et al. (2017) have shown that the carbon abundance affects the molecular equilibria in 3D hydrodynamical models in a much more prominent way than happens in 1D models. Using a C-rich hydrodynamical model atmosphere computed with the CO5BOLD code (Freytag et al. 2012), we determined that the 3D correction in this case is only − 0.3 dex. As a consequence [O/H] in BD + 44°493 is equal to − 2.49.
The OH lines can be also affected by NLTE effects. Asplund & García Pérez (2001) approximated the UV–OH line formation with a two-level approach with complete redistribution, but they neglected the influence of NLTE on the dissociation of the molecules. These authors found from 1D computations that the oxygen abundance derived from the UV–OH band is underestimated by about 0.2 dex, almost independently from the stellar parameters. In order to obtain a right estimation of the NLTE effect it would be necessary to take into account fully the 3D thermal structure of the model atmosphere; this work is beyond the scope of this paper.
To date, we neglected the NLTE correction and we applied to all the stars of the sample of Boesgaard et al. (2011) the 3D correction computed from González Hernández et al. (2010).
In Fig. 9A the oxygen abundance was computed from 1D models (as in Boesgaard et al. 2011) and in Fig. 9B, this oxygen abundance was corrected for 3D effects. If we had applied the Asplund & García Pérez (2001) NLTE correction, all the dots in Fig. 9B would have been shifted by 0.2 dex towards higher [O/H] values.
When only Boesgaard’s stars are considered, the data after 3D correction can be interpreted by a linear relation between log(Be/H) and [O/H] with a slope of 0.77. Alternatively a two-slope relation (see Boesgaard et al. 2011) with a slope of 0.95 in the interval − 1.5 < [O/H] < 0.0 and a slope of 0.58 at lower metallicity can be used.
In Fig. 9A or B, 2MASS J1808-5104 and BD + 44°493 do not fit the general trend. The star BD + 44°493 has an oxygen abundance close to the oxygen abundance of G 64-12, and 2MASS J1808-5104 has about the same as G 275-4 and G 64-37, but 2MASS J1808-5104 like BD + 44°493 are clearly more deficient in Be. The Be abundance expected in 2MASS J1808-5104, from the mean relations in Fig. 9, would be in all the cases A(Be) ≈ −1.6, a value excluded from the observed spectrum (see Fig. 6).
Since BD + 44°493 is a C-rich star it could be possible that the high CNO abundances in this star are the result of a mass transfer from a “now dead” AGB companion. But since the star is a CEMP-no (no enrichment of the neutron capture elements) this interpretation is unlikely. Moreover, following Gaia Collaboration (2018), the radial velocity of BD + 44°493 does not seem variable, i.e. RV = − 147.9. As a consequence, the existence of a former pollution of the atmosphere of BD + 44°493 by a massive companion in its AGB phase is questionable. It is highly probable that the abundance of C, N and O in the atmosphere of BD + 44°493 is a good witness of the abundances in the cloud which formed the star.
For galactic stars, log(Be/H) vs. [O/H] following Boesgaard et al. (2011; blue filled circles). The upper limit of the abundance of Be in 2MASS J1808-5104 and BD + 44°493 are indicated with big red and blue open circles. Panel A: the oxygen abundance was simply computed with the 1D LTE hypothesis, as in Boesgaard et al. (2011). Panel B: this abundance has been corrected for 3D effects. The blue dashed line represents the mean relation and the red dashed line the two-slope solution with a change of the slope around [O/H] = − 1.5 dex as in Boesgaard et al. (2011). The positions of BD + 44°493 and 2MASS J1808-5104 in this diagram are hardly compatible with the mean relations.
H and He nuclei in cosmic rays hit CNO nuclei in the ambient interstellar gas (secondary process).
CNO nuclei in the cosmic rays hit H and He nuclei in the ambient interstellar gas (primary process).
If Be (and B) were formed preferentially by the secondary process we would expect a quadratic dependence of the Be (B) abundance on the oxygen abundance, hence a slope of two in the logarithmic plane. The primary process, on the other hand, would imply a slope of one, as implied by the observations of both Be and B. The secondary process was probably invoked for the first time as the main process for the production of B (and Be by extension) by Duncan et al. (1992) to explain their B observations. Further considerations on this point can be found in Duncan (1997); Molaro et al. (1997) and Rich & Boesgaard (2009). However, from the theoretical point of view Suzuki et al. (1999) and Suzuki & Yoshii (2001) argued that the primary process is the main source of all the observed B and Be.
Boesgaard et al. (2011) suggested that the balance shifted from primary to secondary in the course of time. In the early days of Galactic evolution, the acceleration of CNO atoms from SNe II should be the main phenomenon and the number of Be atoms should be proportional to the number of SNe II and thus to the number of O atoms. Later the number of O atoms is proportional to the cumulative number of SN II, while the energetic protons are proportional to the instantaneous number of SN II. As a consequence the slope of the relation log(Be/H) versus [O/H] is expected to change, and for this reason Boesgaard et al. (2011) tried to describe the Galactic evolution of Be with two straight lines and a break at a metallicity around − 1.5. The slopes of the different relations in Fig. 9B are slightly different from those of Boesgaard et al. (2011) since we correct the abundance of oxygen for 3D effects.
In Bonifacio et al. (2015) we argued that low-carbon band CEMP stars, such as BD + 44°493, were formed from gas that was polluted by SNe that experienced a large fall-back of material onto the compact remnant, resulting in very high ratios of CNO elements to iron. We referred to these as “faint supernovae” (SNe) because we made the implicit assumption that the luminosities of these stars would also be lower than those of SNe that do not experience fall-back. Observationally this same name is given to type II SNe that are under-luminous, such as SN 1997D (de Mello et al. 1997), which was also characterised by relatively low expansion velocities and a low mass of ejected 56Ni (Turatto et al. 1998). It is interesting to note that SN 1997D should not have been able to produce light elements via spallation. The cross section for production of 9Be via spallation of oxygen drops drastically below energies of a few (MeV/A) of the projectile (see Fig. 1 of Suzuki & Yoshii 2001), and, translated into velocity of the O nuclei, this requires velocities in excess of 4000 km s−1. A typical type II SNe shows velocities of the ejecta that are of the order of 10 000 km s−1, thus in the useful range for Be production. On the other hand SN 1997D showed an expansion velocity of the ejecta of only 1200 km s−1 (Turatto et al. 1998), which is clearly insufficient for Be production. The upper limit of BD + 44°493 seems to be consistent with the hypothesis that it was formed from a faint SNe, characterised by strong fall-back, responsible for the high CNO to Fe ratios, and low velocity of the ejecta, resulting in a Be content that is clearly lower than that of stars of similar [O/H]. In fact it could well be that BD + 44°493 is completely devoid of Be, and that the fact that its upper limit on its Be abundance falls exactly on the expected line of Be–Fe evolution, is fortuitous. It would be of paramount importance to be able to push down the upper limit on the abundance of Be in BD + 44°493, even by only 0.3 dex. As a corollary, measurements of Be in other lower carbon CEMP unevolved stars are strongly encouraged. If our scenario is correct, all lower carbon CEMP unevolved stars should show a lower Be abundance than carbon-normal stars of similar [O/H]. The unevolved lower carbon band CEMP star, HE 1327-2326, has an upper limit on the Be abundance log (Be/H) < −13.2 and a 3D corrected [O/H] = − 2.64 (Frebel et al. 2008, for this star the 3D correction is − 0.72 dex). This upper limit is inconclusive since it is above the Be abundance measured in stars of comparable O abundance, and also above both the two-slope model and the one-slope model. It would be extremely important to be able to push down this upper limit by 0.3–0.4 dex. A detection of Be at the same level as that in stars of similar O abundance would invalidate our scenario on faint SNe.
While the low Be abundance in BD + 44°493 could be interpreted as a result of it being formed from ejecta of a faint SNe, the same cannot be invoked for 2MASS J1808-5104. As we have already argued, the Li abundance measured in 2MASS J1808-5104 is strong evidence that the Be in this star cannot have been significantly depleted. The fact that there are stars that have similar oxygen abundances but significantly different Be abundances is a real puzzle. A fundamental piece of information would, of course, come from a measure of the Be abundance in 2MASS J1808-5104, or at least an upper limit lower by 0.3 dex. This would at least ruleout the possibility that the difference is simply due to large observational errors in both Be and O abundances. A far more intriguing possibility is that in the early Galaxy, the tight correlation of Be with O breaks down: the scatter of the relation becomes larger. In a simple picture, 2MASS J1808-5104 and BD + 44°493 should be very old stars born in regions with anomalously high O, due to local inhomogeneities in the very early Galaxy.
Given the very low metallicity of 2MASS J1808-5104 we may assume that the SNe, that have produced the metals that we observe in its atmosphere, were Pop III stars, possibly even a single Pop III star or a few at most. If the velocities of the ejecta in these stars were higher than observed in normal Pop I and Pop II SNe, it may be that the lower mass spallation products, Li, Be and B, escape with a high enough velocity to escape the cloud that will give rise to the next generation of stars, such as 2MASS J1808-5104. If this were the case, we expect that stars at the metallicity of 2MASS J1808-5104 ([Fe/H] ≤ −3.5) are all devoid of Be and B.
This would also be an interesting diagnostic to distinguish true descendants of Pop III stars from stars of similar metallicity, but formed from clouds polluted by Pop II stars. This clearly prompts for new observations: on the one hand, it is important to measure Be and B in 2MASS J1808-5104 and other stars of similarly low metallicity and, on the other hand, one should increase the number of stars with measured Be and B in the metallicity range [Fe/H] ≤−2.0. A single or a few Pop III SNe can pollute a gas cloud to such high metallicities and a measure of Be could allow us to detect such true Pop IIIdescendants.
A.J.G. would like to acknowledge support by Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 881 “The Milky Way System” (subproject A5) of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This work uses results from the European Space Agency (ESA) space mission Gaia. Gaia data are being processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC). Funding for the DPAC is provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia MultiLateral Agreement (MLA). The Gaia mission website is https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia. The Gaia archive website is https://archives.esac.esa.int/gaia.
Note added in proof. The relation between Be and Fe found in Sect. 7.1 is almost identical to the predictions of the model b of Vangioni-Flam et al. (1998). In this model, Be is produced by standard GCR from ejecta of individual SN II with progenitors in the same mass range as that responsible for Fe production (M > 8 M⊙). | 2019-04-21T01:06:46 | https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2019/04/aa34741-18/aa34741-18.html |
0.998956 | How do you remember 紹 ?
Please introduce yourself in one sentence.
She introduced me to her friends.
The film-makers will be present at the screenings to introduce their works.
Visitors are shown an audio-visual presen-tation before touring the cellars.
Everywhere he went he was introduced as the current United States Open Champion.
Tamar Golan, a Paris-based journalist, profiles the rebel leader.
Yuan Shu sent 100 thousand troops , led by General Ji Ling, to attack Liu Bei.
He procured girls of 16 and 17 to be mistresses for his influential friends.
As introduction day approached, the dealers would keep their new cars under wraps.
Then he took lodgings and found humble work , using forged references from a nonexistent Manchester firm. | 2019-04-22T12:44:06 | https://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/worddetail/shao/10107/1/2 |
0.99986 | Before thinking about photo copier sales, determine what you are planning to do with this workplace enhancement. Will it be used daily or just for larger jobs? Do you require things in shade or simply black as well as white? Exactly how commonly are you going to be stapling or hole punching the papers appearing? Decide exactly how usually you are mosting likely to utilize it and also what includes it needs to come geared up with. Following this decision, you can narrow down the selections.
When considering photo copier sales, one of the very best ways to conserve loan is purchasing refurbished things. These normally have a complete warranty, a low count, as well as have actually been checked for proper operating by the producer. While they are not brand-new, they still work equally as well and sell for a portion of the rate. Because of the warranty, there is no fear that it won'& #39; t last or problems will trigger it to damage prematurely.
Since you know what you need, it is time to examine the alternatives. See what is readily available and also start to identify what rate variety you want. Remember what it will be utilized for as well as what you require to complete with it. Don'& #39; t rush right into a decision. Due to the fact that this sort of workplace important will be used for a long period of time, you will want to choose intelligently.
When choosing a company that concentrates on photo copier sales, put on'& #39; t just consider the goods. You also require to explore the procedures for solution, what type of services are used when it comes to problems, as well as exactly how you would certainly be able to call a person in instance of an issue. Also, think of how delivery is going to take place. See to it every one of your concerns are answered before you make the purchase. Things will run extra smoothly with the right tool conserving you energy and time in creating all of the paperwork your office needs. | 2019-04-21T08:57:57 | https://copiermn.com/mn-champlin/copier-lease.php |
0.999036 | The universe is an actual infinite series of events that cannot exist in reality for obvious reasons, it can exist in set theory, conceptual space, but not in space and time. The major point of this article is that for any explanation to be logically valid and ontologically valid there must be a necessary entity which has the power of self existence and creation. Whatever you want to call it; a rose is a rose by any other name - we call this rose God, they call it The Universe.
But what I find interesting about the argument for an eternal universe is that it is an argument from ignorance. Atheists cannot argue that the universe had a beginning (which science is proving e.g. the red shift showing an expanding universe and the second law of thermodynamics), But no scientist can ever prove how when or if the universe had a beginning. No scientist can ever recreate creation or prove an eternal being or item in a laboratory, hence all they can give us is a bunch of fifty cent words to disguise their worldviews and atheistic presuppositions, and a theory that demands as much faith as the theory of God. BTW all people have faith as all knowledge is a justified true belief. Science is leaning toward the belief in a "red shift" which shows an expanding universe but the Eternal Universe group was quick to rebut this with the theory of oscillation where by the universe merely expands and contracts - more hot air!
We do know that there is no such a thing as objectivity among mankind and we can only go as far as we are willing to accept certain basic beliefs that are agreed upon to avoid an infinite regress (at least the atheist is caught in this quagmire). So the atheist who denies transcendental laws of reason only has "convention' to ground her beliefs in which these beliefs are not science, but again back to philosophy. In fact all of science (especially physics) is grounded in convention in the atheist realm and their laws are arbitrarily derived by agreement among worldviews; so what compelling case can she put forth for me to accept her laws? None.
But philosophically we can show that it is not possible (an eternal universe) for if the universe were to be a necessary being or thing (which is ontologically and logically necessary), this universe would still have demonstrated design but failed to show how consciousness and intelligence came from rocks and hot lava? and if folks like Hume and the recently departed English Dawkins? (Who is now a believer) try to say that there is no design except for what we impose on it. Then what they are saying is that we (being part of the universe) rather the universe is imposing design on itself. Makes sense ha?
Another point would be that ontologically an eternal object or being has no potentiality but exists eternally, yet we see potential energy, higher forms of life supposedly evolving from lower forms of life--but the real kicker is that in order for an atheist to have any traction she must dispose of a Creator or unmoved mover - yet she has not. She has merely renamed this unmoved mover - the One with self sustaining existence, from God to "the Universe". So as hard as she tries she cannot ditch the fact that a universe with or without beginning of time requires or unmoved mover with self existent power that is also immutable; and this unmoved mover is either God or the universe. Personally I like the God of the Bible more than the God of the atheist whom they refer to as Mother Nature.
What say you Ms. Atheist? | 2019-04-21T22:43:10 | http://www.preacharizona.com/2013/08/arguments-against-eternal-universe.html |
0.998878 | Where Can I Watch The Tune Online?
Leave your thoughts about The Tune.
Your Movies (cleveland.com) - 6/10 by Gerry ShamrayInteresting attempt that only proved that the talented Plympton is better in small doses.
User Review - 10/10 by Andy GThe Tune is better than Scooby-Doo movies due to some funny comedy parts.
User Review - 8/10 by Dionysis D"Whatever..." can be an alternative title for this movie, where scenario is practically inexistent. It's a musical, where most of the times crazy things without a reason. But that's Plymton, and I love it! I'm curious if there is a storyboard before the animation starts, or he has a general idea about how the film should be and just starts animating spontaneously.
User Review - 8/10 by Julio CCompletamente surrealista y descabellada como toda animacion de Plympton, lo unico que repruebo es haber reciclado algunos de sus cortos en esta peli.
User Review - 8/10 by Itamar KI was introduced to Bill Plympton's animation style in college, with just a handful of shorts, not including (oddly enough) the Oscar-nominated Your Face (I'm pretty sure I've never seen it, though I could be wrong). 25 Ways to Quit Smoking I definitely saw and found endearingly absurd and prettily animated. Having a best friend who is actively interested in animation and animators, my interest was re-ignited in Plympton and I picked this film up on a whim, knowing it was his first-ever feature-length, but having heard that it ran more like a sort of collection of shorts. Del (voiced by Daniel Neiden) is a songwriter (more in the Brill Building sense than the James Taylor sense) who has just been given a 47 minute deadline by boss Mr. Mega (voiced by Marty Nelson), with only girlfriend Didi (voiced by Maureen McElheron, who wrote the film's songs and co-wrote the story with Bill) to encourage him as he sets out on the road after hitting his personal writer's block ("My love for you/Is equal to.....?"). After the spectre of the withering criticism emerges randomly to chide Del, he finds himself in an extremely complex cloverleaf (in the highway sense) which leads him out into an unusual place--where the Mayor (also voiced by Nelson) introduces him with the film's first full song--"Flooby Nooby." The town (of the same name) is used to try and bring Del to a more pure method of songwriting--not attempting to calculate a pop hit but to act on feeling instead. From here he wanders from place to place, with song after song sung to him (whether in his head or a truly bizarre alternate universe we can't be 100% sure) trying to bring him to the song that will impress Mr. Mega. Plympton's animation style is extremely easy to recognize--most of it is composed of coloured-pencil-based line drawings with "realistically cartoony" characters, with strong, life-like shading on cartoon-proportioned faces (cheeks, in particular, often have extremely dark shading at their bottom edges, especially on smiles). Some parts of this film, though, wander into other styles; the frames displaying the lyrics of "Flooby Nooby," for instance, are static images shown in a rapid-fire motion to match the tempo of the song. Most of it, though, is in the trademark Plympton style, with faces made of play-doh, resembling Gumby-style stop-motion, only smoother and brighter, cleaner and certainly stranger. The character designs are all wonderfully varied (a plump body with a thin head and a tiny brush of red hair for Del, a huge nose that takes up the entire face of the Mayor and so on) and fascinating--despite their lack of realism and the strange things that often happen to the characters, the faces are somehow "believable" anyway. As with the rest of Plympton's work I've seen, there's a beautiful quality to the animation that makes it seem easy to swallow (in belief terms) even when a door opens in a man's face and out jumps a smaller version of him that runs around and opens another door--you never have any idea what on earth to expect of it, but it just keeps going and all surprises you just a little, yet simultaneously comes out in a way that your brain completely accepts (though not without an element of, "Holy crap! That is so bizarre...and awesome!" The one disappointing element is unavoidable--Plympton put the film together piece by piece as he had money, and the varying styles of segments can be jarring when they switch, or at least a little off-putting. So long as you think of it as a collection of segments though, it isn't too bothersome. The major criticism I've seen levelled at this film is mostly directed at McElheron's music. I think some of it misses the point (one person was disappointed at how "normal" it was, for instance). Plympton and McElheron were acting on their love for American roots music, and that seemed easy enough to gather to me--when you're clearly wandering from showtune to mid-period country (post-Hank Williams but pre-modern, slick, cookie cutter garbage) to blues to "surf" music, it seems to me it's obvious that Del is wandering through basic musical tropes because his business is not writing fantastically experimental music, but writing a hit. That's what Mr. Mega wants and, in some fashion, what Del wants, even after he decides to pull it from his heart instead of his brain. The songs, however, are a little weak sometimes--simplistic instrumentation occasionally douses a song that seems like it should have more (exceptions being the blues song, for instance, which fits naturally with simple orchestration), but generally they are saved by fascinatingly absurd lyrics to match Plympton's mentality. It's not an obvious pattern of absurdity or the bland calculated absurdity of those who simply copy the kind they've already seen, but the kind that turns corners you didn't even know were there, let alone that one could turn at them. My criticism extends more to Neiden's weak (and slightly irritating) performance as Del. It's reminiscent of Emo Phillips, but without the feeling that there is a speech impediment involved--intrinsic or contrived, whichever, seeming drawn out and artificial, often calling more attention than it should to the economic animation Plympton uses (most likely to save money). On the same note, two animated films based around music are amongst my favourite films of all time--Yellow Submarine (a favourite of Plympton's apparently) and The Point. Let's just say none of these singers are Harry Nilsson, nor are they Lennon, McCartney or Harrison (but possibly Ringo--which is not meant as denigrating from me, as Yellow Submarine made him my favourite Beatle for a long time). But, Plympton's animation gradually takes the film in increasingly surreal directions and brings the focus more to itself and away from the audio (which instead ends up helpfully complementary instead of dominant), making the film tremendously enjoyable and simultaneously fascinating.
User Review - 6/10 by danny lThe film is basically a compendium of Plympton's shorts with a loose narrative and some new material thrown in but it makes for some memorable viewing. | 2019-04-19T09:17:26 | https://www.watchonlineforfree.co.uk/movies/watch/the-tune/ |
0.999961 | How does the slingshot effect work to change the orbit of a spacecraft?
Spacecraft taking advantage of a gravity assist use the same principles that underlie orbital changes occurring regularly among moons and smaller bodies in the solar system. Comets from outlying regions, for instance, are often thrown into the inner solar system by the major planets, frequently Jupiter.
Absent any other influence, a moon or a spacecraft traces an elliptical path around a larger body, called the primary body, with constant orbital energy and angular momentum. But when a spacecraft comes close to a moon that is also circling the same primary body, the two smaller objects exchange orbital energy and angular momentum. Because the total orbital energy remains constant, if the spacecraft gains orbital energy, that of the moon decreases. Orbital period, the time required to complete one revolution, is proportional to orbital energy. Therefore, as the spacecraft's orbital period lengthens (the slingshot effect), that of the moon grows shorter.
Because a spacecraft is much, much smaller than a moon, the effect on its orbit is far greater than on that of a moon. For example, the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn is about 3,000 kilograms, whereas Titan, the largest of the ringed planet's satellites, weighs some 1023 kilograms. The effect of a slingshot maneuver on Cassini is thus about 20 orders of magnitude greater than that on Titan.
A spacecraft that passes “behind” the moon gets an increase in its velocity (and orbital energy) relative to the primary body, which gives the appearance of a slingshot throwing it into a larger orbit. We can also fly a spacecraft “in front” of a moon, to decrease its velocity (and orbital energy). Moreover, traveling “above” or “below” a moon can alter the direction of the spacecraft's velocity, modifying only its orbital orientation (and angular momentum magnitude). Intermediate flyby orientations change both energy and angular momentum. Of course, all such adjustments precipitate an inverse change in the energy and angular momentum of the moon, but its larger mass results in changes so small that they are undetectable among all the other forces that affect a moon's orbit.
Simply put, wind is the motion of air molecules. Two concepts are central to understanding what causes wind: air and air pressure.
Air contains molecules of nitrogen (about 78 percent by volume), oxygen (about 21 percent), water vapor and other trace elements. All these air molecules move about very quickly, colliding readily with one another and with any objects at ground level.
Air pressure is defined as the amount of force that these molecules impart on a given area. In general, the more air molecules present, the greater the air pressure. Wind, in turn, is driven by what is called the pressure gradient force.
Changes in air pressure, such as those caused by the dynamics of storm systems and uneven solar heating, in a given horizontal area force air molecules from the region of relatively high air pressure to rush toward the area of low pressure.
The areas of high and low pressure displayed on a weather map in large part drive the gentle breezes we usually experience. The pressure differences behind this wind are only about 1 percent of the total atmospheric pressure, and these changes occur over the range of multiple states. The winds in severe storms, in contrast, result from much larger and more concentrated areas of pressure change. | 2019-04-21T10:36:55 | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-2005-11/?error=cookies_not_supported&code=faa14042-7cfb-473c-84db-a67a93f93cb1 |
0.998875 | In 1963, the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam was sitting, bored, in a lecture. He started doodling on a piece of paper, drawing the numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on in a spiral shape.
Then, he began to circle the prime numbers.
This showed some remarkable, and as yet unexplained, patterns. The pictrue below shows each prime as a black dot, against the white background of non-primes.
These images, by the way, are all from the Wikipedia Article on the Ulam Prime Spiral.
Then, I wrote a program to calculate a whole bunch of information about the Voronoi diagram. I've included some of this information on this site. Given a set of special points in the plane, each cell of the voronoi diagram contains exactly one of the special points. It also contains all points of the plane that are closer to that special point than to any other. The cells are therefore polygons (if finite) or infinite 'polygonal' regions - bounded by straight lines. For example, if the special points are fast food stores, the cells might give some idea of the 'reach' of each store - assuming people always buy their fast food at the nearest store.
Since each 'special point' has integer coordinates, the corners of the voronoi diagram should all have rational coordinates. Therefore each cell has rational area, and its perimeter should be a sum of square roots of rationals.
There should be no limit to the size of the cells - since primes become more and more rare as numbers get larger and larger.
Each cell should be a finite polygon.
If there exaists a cell of a particular shape, there should be infinitely many cells of that shape.
Note that some of these conjectures would be very hard to prove.
Its (x,y) coordinates in the Ulam Prime Spiral.
The number of edges of its Voronoi cell.
The area and perimeter of its cell (in exact form).
So what tables do I have?
Firstly, you can see the cells for all primes less than 100 and less than 1000.
Absolutely fascinating, yes? Well, I've also collected information about the smallest prime for which the cell is a triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, and so on, up to decagon. So if you're curious to see when the first n-gons appear, you can. Or maybe I'll tell you : these special primes are 313, 23, 2, 5, 61, 67, 2837 and 8741. There were no 11-gonal voronoi cells for primes less than 10000. However, I conjecture that eventually there should be an n-gonal voronoi cell for any n, no matter how large.
Which voronoi cell has the largest area? I predict that there's no such thing - that as you explore further and further out, you'll keep on finding bigger and bigger voronoi cells. I've found out which primes have voronoi cells larger than any smaller prime - in terms of area (the winning primes are 2, 3, 5, 11, 23, 37, 47, 53, 79, 83 ...) and perimeter (2, 3, 5, 11, 23, 47, 79, 83, ...). Notice some similarities there? Not surprising. Generally speaking, as the perimeter goes up, so does the area, and vice-versa. In fact, the only primes in my 'perimeter' list that are not in my 'area' list are 337 and 7433 (but I only checked up to 10000).
Some cells are round, others are long and thin. I measured the 'roundness' of each cell by dividing the perimeter squared by four times the area. For a circle, this would give Pi. For a square, 4. For a Voronoi cell? Well, you can see the cells with record-breaking roundness here - either more and more round or less and less. Amazingly, there's no prime less than 10242 with a 'rounder' voronoi cell than 67!
There are far fewer with integral perimeter. Amongst the primes less than 10000, only 6829, 8539 and 9281 have integral perimeter. This page shows all those primes for which the voronoi cell's perimeter is a square root of a rational number (this includes rational perimeters too). Note that all of these cells are in fact rectangles! When I noticed that, I wondered why. I concluded that it's not that integer perimeter voronoi cells must be rectangles. Rather, that's just the easiest way for a voronoi cell to have this property. In fact, I managed to find a triangular voronoi cell with perimeter 36 and area 54. I explain how on this page.
Well, that's all for now. let me know about your own explorations of the voronoi diagram of the Ulam prime spiral! | 2019-04-19T22:22:57 | http://www.dr-mikes-maths.com/psv/index.html |
0.997826 | I've been thinking lately about the technology with which I choose to surround myself. If you're curious, it's an awful lot: no fewer than 4 computers, 4 tablets, 2 phones (one of which I no longer use), and various assorted gadgets. I didn't purchase these (or receive them as a gifts) to make a statement about my own personality, but it turns out that they do.
Let me set some context: my girlfriend has an iPhone, while I have an Android. My parents are similarly divided between Android and iOS. I have both Android tablets and an iPad, both a Mac and PCs. I use a ChromeCast and Nexus Player for my TVs, but Airport Expresses to stream audio to my stereos. As a contributing author of some helpful tools for educators, I need to understand both app design and user experience, and this led me to thinking deeply about the topic.
What started this line of inquiry was a debate between my parents, using voice recognition to get information from their phones. My father uses an almost-robotic voice, and dictates the exact phrase he would use were he typing it into a search engine. My step-mother, on the other hand, has a more conversational tone with her phone, almost chatting to it and asking a question as you would to another person.
This, in my opinion, is a definitive line between two design philosophies: outcome-oriented, or experience-oriented. It took me quite a while to define those terms, so let me explain.
Outcome-experience focus is design with a goal of getting a user to the exact outcome they seek. User experience is certainly not ignored, but the user is expected to behave in a certain way. A user is anticipated to understand the tool, and to be able to navigate the interface quickly. No muss, no fuss, just results.
User-experience focus is less about destination, and more about journey. Sure, it may take a little longer to get you what you want, but you'll enjoy the process. A user is anticipated to be less comfortable with the interface, but to pick it up quickly.
There is no right or wrong approach here. One philosophy is not superior to another. Rather, one philosophy is superior to another on a per-person basis. I'm very much someone who likes to get into things, fiddle around, break stuff, fix it, break it again, and eventually develop an understanding of how it works. This is especially true for me in regards to technology, where I'm not content to accept things as they are, but instead I want to mess around with making things as good as they can be.
For me, the journey is not navigating through a user interface. Nor is the journey the quick access to results. My journey is different - I enjoy exploration, confusion, and the experience of discovery. This would also explain the odd mixture of hardware devices that adhere to either of the above philosophies - I'm more interested in working with these devices to see what they can do.
Understanding the design philosophy behind technology helps make better choices about purchasing and using the right device to meet your needs. So, while your tech might say something about your personality, does your personality say something about your technology?
I’ve never been a reckless adventurer. I didn’t take unnecessary risks in sports, didn’t raise my hand in class if I didn’t know the answer.
But there’s a different kind of adventure. One that I’ve embraced only after reaching maturity. One that takes that sense of reckless abandon (tempered with common sense) that can sometimes lead to disaster.
My adventure is to say yes first. If someone asks me if I can do something, the answer is yes. Even if I don’t know how, the answer is yes.
Say yes first, figure it out after.
Sadly, this is a lesson that I learned once I was an adult, and I think it behooves us all to ensure our kids know this. Not just that they’re told this, but that we show it in as many ways as we can.
I could write many thousands of words about how I struggled with being “weird,” “strange,” and “not normal” when I was younger. But I suspect that we all have these types of stories: of struggling to fit in, of worrying about being too different. It’s nice to see society developing an appreciation for “weirdness,” even if such efforts can be sadly misguided.
These measures are fine if your numbers are all central (that is, pretty closely grouped together). The average will be a good indicator of an overall trend. But the big lie is that our numbers aren’t all central. When we’re talking about measuring learning, there are so many different ways of measuring, and different skills to measure. Gardner’s multiple intelligences2 are a great example of how we understand that intelligence (this big, messy idea) isn’t something that’s easy to quantify, and doesn’t have a “typical” characteristic.
The mathematical model doesn't work on humans.
Instead, what is “average” or “normal” intelligence is simply a line-of-best-fit, that approximates what we have measured. When you look at how big the spread of data becomes, the average represents a theoretical rather than a practical piece of information. After all, who can have 1.1 children? In this context, the average can tell us a bit about the population, but nothing about the individual families that make up the statistic.
Normalizing against a population can tell us more about an assessment than it can about any individual student. I love using assessment as an educator to gauge my efficacy on a macro level, but in terms of individual students, I much prefer comparing growth over time. A grade of 70% can tell you much more about a student’s ability when compared to earlier results: Have they shown improvement? Are they regressing? Is the measure consistent? If not, what was different about this assessment?
These are all time-intensive questions, but they can inform teaching and learning in a deep and meaningful way. In my experience, however, spending time creating and evaluating group-wide assessment eats into the available time to spend reflecting on these questions.
There are so many problems with standardized assessments.
I could write an awful lot about standardized testing in education, but I'd much rather watch this video. (Warning: some content included in the video may be inappropriate) Jump to the 12:13 mark for yet another reason why these assessment are an invalid indicator of student learning (aside from notable issues with the selection of evaluators).
If we’re differentiating learning for our students, why are we assessing them against a normalized measure? Should we not be assessing using differentiation? When we’re looking for consistency, we should be thinking of a longitudinal sample for each child, rather than a population sample. Statisticians would riot in the streets, and parents would likely have a hard time making the change from what they experienced in school, but sometimes change is a good thing, even if people complain about it.
This is a question I ask myself often. Especially now, midnight on a Thursday, when I should be sleeping. Why am I here, seated at my computer (where I spend all day), still working? And not working on anything particularly useful to anyone else?
There are a few reasons I write, and why I enjoy the act of writing. It's about time I put them in some sort of order, to explain the value I get from writing these posts.
No, not discipline in the form of "not getting in trouble." I’d be fine and dandy were I not to write a single word. I’m using discipline in the sense of building a self-reliant practice, for the purpose of self improvement. It’s what I imagine martial arts is to some people: a means to develop one’s self. In my case, writing helps me put my thoughts into order, explore ideas more deeply, and find out if I’m right (or, as is often the case, to learn more about why I’m wrong).
It’s immensely satisfying to put together a thoughtful piece of work. That’s why I enjoy doing my job - it allows me to develop an idea from a hazy notion to a fully developed package. Often, when I start a project, I have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish, but haven’t yet mastered a full vision of the form it will take. Seeing something through from start to finish is a good feeling, whether it’s creating a piece of software, developing a learning experience, or just getting all my thoughts into a coherent whole. I enjoy not just the act of creating, but of then releasing my creation to the world-at-large. I suspect the “world-at-large” isn’t as large as I’d like, but I continue nonetheless.
I use the act of writing to look carefully at my own learning, and reflect on how I’ve arrived at my opinions. Through carefully explaining and revising, I can actually gain a lot of insight into how I learn. Instead of simply accepting something, I want to explore ideas deeply, investigate, and follow my curiosity, and the act of writing affords me the opportunity to follow those pursuits. I find that when I write, I spend a lot of time investigating, researching, and refining my thoughts.
When I spend time writing, it allows me to organize my thoughts. I can carefully consider the vocabulary, tone, and structure of how I put together a convincing justification of my opinion. This helps me when discussing big, complicated ideas with friends and colleagues: I have already invested effort into developing my own perspective. Since I have such a strong foundation from which to work, new ideas, challenges to my opinion, or conflicting perspectives are easier to examine. I’m confident in my own thought, so it allows me the freedom and security to explore thoughts and opinions different from my own.
Ultimately, I write because I enjoy it. I’m not writing for an audience, I’m writing as a part of my own learning process. I enjoy sharing because I’ve put effort into creating what I share. I enjoy writing because that effort help me develop clarity of opinion.
When I Grow Up, I Don't Want to be a "Grown Up"
By all accounts, I’m officially a grown-up. I have a steady job, two kids, bills, the whole deal. I seem to do an awful lot of chores, but they don’t grate on my nerves the way I did when I was a kid. Days seem shorter, my list of goals is focused, and quite often I hear my father’s words coming out of my own mouth.
Calvin and Hobbes taught me that from an early age, and I still venturing off the beaten path. Quite literally, I will actually being walking through the woods at times, and decide to just take a left turn and see where it goes. You may not actually want to traipse through a bunch of scratchy thorn bushes, but remember that you don’t always have to take the shortest route to your destination. Sometimes the distractions are worth the time.
Getting dirty can be fun.
This is one that I too often forget. Sometimes, it’s worth it to get your hands dirty, rip holes in the knees of your pants, or just splash in the big puddle. My own children remind me of this quite frequently. There’s always hot chocolate, fresh clothes, and a warm bath waiting for you if you need it.
Creativity can be its own end.
Sometimes starting a project without a final destination in mind is actually more fun that working toward a goal. It can be refreshing, and even liberating, to begin a project without a plan. Adjust things as you go, and let your vision of the finished product evolve. It's a great way to learn.
The only thing that’s worth striving for is to be a better version of yourself when you go to sleep, than you were when you woke up. Competition among peers isn’t a way to self-fulfillment (at least, it’s not for me). When you don't compete with others, you start to enjoy their successes as much as your own. Life is not a zero-sum game: We can all win.
Learning is supposed to be fun.
Take the time to play around with things. Explore. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You could be wrong? See #4 if that happens. But if you're right, or you discover something new, it can be so rewarding. Give yourself a sandbox, and allow yourself to play in it.
In all honesty, most kids have a lot of “adult” traits, even if it’s in a slightly less robust form. Kids are responsible. Kids are honest. Kids are kind, caring, thoughtful. They can certainly lose these traits if we don’t nurture them, but I believe that every child aims to be a good and happy person.
We can do all of these things as adults, but we don’t need to do them exclusively. Adulting is hard sometimes - don’t be afraid to stop adulting and just enjoy life in the moment. Being a grown up means a lot of responsibility, but don’t forget that it also means that you have the freedom to retain the great things about being a kid.
I've been thinking a lot lately of questions. Not specific questions, but the nature and purpose of questions. The purpose and characteristics of finely crafted questions. Ones that do not have easy answers, but instead provoke curiosity. If you’re impatient, skip the following section on democratic education and jump right to the question section (and I hope you’ll be interested enough to come back and read the first part).
How does this relate to democratic education?
"Democratic education is an educational ideal in which democracy is both a goal and a method of instruction. It brings democratic values to education and can include self-determination within a community of equals, as well as such values as justice, respect and trust."
Take a moment and let that sink in. There's a lot going on in just two sentences, and it's worth reading carefully and critically. In fact, it's worth reading the entire page on Wikipedia (for many of us, it will probably be a refresher for things we've studied).
Real democracy in the classroom requires an awful lot of confidence, both from a teacher and from students. This might be surprising, but it’s certainly true that voicing opinions that may be unpopular can be a challenge for many of us. I put myself squarely in that group: I’m a people-pleaser, and most people aren’t pleased to hear that I think they might be wrong. It’s also pretty hard to hear that you might be wrong. Even harder is to truly listen when you’re being told why you’re wrong. All of those things require a lot of self-confidence, but also a specific kind of self confidence. You don’t need to be confident in your opinions, but instead, you must be confident in your ability to learn, grow, adapt and reflect.
Being wrong is okay. Staying wrong isn’t.
A lot of democratic interaction can be uncomfortable. Going against the popular opinion can be… unpopular, to say the least! Every single person in a democratic classroom must keep a positive perspective: both in attempts to explain your own opinion, but also in hearing critical analysis of it. We’re not disagreeing to be disagreeable - there’s a purpose to disagreement: resolution and growth. It’s easy to have an opinion, but it’s a lot more difficult to defend it without getting defensive. It’s important to have positive intentions, but also to assume that others have the same positive intentions, even if their methods, opinions, or decisions are counter to your own.
Are you noticing a theme happening here? Confidence and positivity are key to the good type of dissent. Dissent leads to dialogue (at least, in a democratic classroom, it should). Typically, dissent is seen in a negative light - something that’s motivated by frustration or anger. In my opinion, that frustration and anger can usually be attributed to the fact that opinions aren’t being heard.
Good, because it’s been a bit of a meander to arrive at the answer to my earlier question: what makes a good question a “good question?” Also, how do good questions relate to democratic classrooms? I believe good questions are at the heart of a good democratic classroom, in many ways. Questions are key - answers, not so much. Ever try to compete against the internet as a source for answers? You’ll likely fall short. As teachers, we don’t really need to be skilled answer-givers; we need to be skilled question-askers. We need to teach students to be question-askers, and we need to model effective questions. Questions that can exist because of a confident, positive and respectful classroom culture that welcomes productive dissent.
As teachers, when we ask questions, we have the opportunity to start students on a path of curiosity, to develop intrinsic motivation, and to encourage deeper inquiry. We need to ask questions that respond to a student’s needs, but also that have no easy answer. Questions that require students to investigate, form an opinion, and defend that opinion with fact.
When I go to visit my parents (who live 500 km away), should I drive or fly?
There’s no easy answer to that question. It is, at its heart, an opinion, but I want students to justify their conclusions. They need to determine the variables that they consider important. They need to explain what factors influence their decision. They need to investigate the topic further. This is, on the surface, a simple question, but when it is critically considered, it becomes much less clear. It’s a big, messy problem without an answer key; a fuzzy concept that will ask students to work to define the boundaries of the question and the concepts it involves.
I love questions that don’t have an answer key included.
It’s important to remember that kids have a lot less experience than we do with good questions. In fact, I suspect that the bulk of their “question experience” relates to low-quality questions. Ones that make few cognitive demands, and can be quickly and easily assessed as right or wrong. Questions with an answer key. They might not be easy (especially in a test setting where you can’t just Google it), but they’re lousy.
I was doing a history review before the final exam. It was long. It was lecture-style. The kids were bored. Even I was bored. It was, plain and simple, not a good lesson. I had a student raise her hand, and she told me “I’m really not feeling this.” I thought for a moment, and then answered her honest expression with my own honesty: “I’m not either.” I changed tactics, and instead of lecturing, had that student lead the group in a game to review the content.
This was an example of a question (okay, loosely speaking, it’s a question) that I could have taken as a personal attack on my teaching. However, it wasn’t. Even kids who make it personal usually aren’t making it about you, personally. I always keep in mind that, as an educator, it’s not about me: it’s about my students.
I think that’s a really good question. | 2019-04-24T19:09:26 | http://blog.opensourceteacher.ca/2016/ |
0.999999 | Wynettas Story Consider the following case: Wynetta is a 45-year-old black woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer a t age 3 2 and treated with a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Six years Iat- er, a tumor was detected in her contralateral breast, and she elected to have both breasts removed before being treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. After this second diagnosis, her surgeon asked if anyone else in the family had been diagnosed with cancer. Wynetta listed several rel.itives, including her mother w h o had had ovarian cancer a t agc 46.
The surgeon referred Wynetta to the cancer risk assess- ment clinic for an evaluation to determine whether her fani- ily history was part of a hereditary breast and ovarian can- cer syndrome (see Gauging Family Risk).
Unfortunately, Wynettas health insurance plan wouldnt pay for the visits to the cancer risk assessment clinic. Addi- tionally, Wynetta was a single mother raising a disabled child while working toward a college degree. In addition to understanding her own breast cancer concerns, Wynetta also had to decide where cancer risk assessment fit within her list of priorities.
Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Among American women, breast cancer is the most corn- rnonly diagnosed cancer after non-melanoma skin cancer and is the number t w o cancer killer of women each year, just after lung cancer. Each year, more than 180,000 women in the US. will learn that they have breast cancer, and 44,000 women annually will die from this disease (American Cali- cer Society [ACSI, 2001) .
In some families, breast cancer seems to be passed down through the generations or is inherited. Yet, its important for women to understand that some 80 t o 90 percent of all breast cancers are diagnosed in women with no family his- tory of hreast cancer. As such, hereditary cancer represents approximately 5 to 10 percent of all cancer cases diagnosed and may account for about 90,000 new cancer occurrences annually in the U.S. (ACS, 2001) .
estrogens, such as in oral contraceptives and hormone re- placement therapy, although the links are not yet clearly under- stood (DeMasters, 2000). Additionally, there are those who believe that previous breast disease, reproductive and nien- strual history, diet and alcohol intake all affect risk as well.
Ovarian cancer is a relatively uncommon malignancy, but currently more than half of the 27,000 women annually who are diagnosed will die from the disease. Like breast cancer, as women age the risk of ovarian cancer increases: The risk of ovarian cancer before the age of 40 is 0.2 percent, with the greatest risk occurring between the ages of SO and 60, and peak- ing around age 7.5. The overall lifetime risk for women to devel- op ovarian cancer is about 1 in 70 or 1.4 percent (Daly, 1992).
For unknown reasons, ovarian cancer is more common in white women than among other population groups. A family history of ovarian cancer is strongly associated with an increased risk for the disease. There are very few known environ- mental or occupational risks for ovarian cancer. Talc particles found in ovarian tissue led to a study that implicated cos- metic talc, when applied to the genital area, as a risk factor for ovarian cancer (Cramer, 1999).
Talc was previously used by women to pre- serve diaphragms; this may have been its intro- duction to the ovaries. Additionally, studies showed that many talc products were contami- nated with asbestos, a proven carcinogen that is chemically similar to talc. Talc has subsequently been removed from most cosmetic products. Stud- ies that are more recent suggest that the risk from talc may not be as great as was originally thought (Cramer, 1999).
ian cancers have occurred in multiple generations within a family. Many hereditary cancer syndromes demonstrate an autosomal dominant inheritance characterized by transmis- sion of cancer predisposition from generation to generation with a chance of SO percent for first-degree relatives to inherit the predisposing genetic alteration. The susceptibili- ty may be inherited through either parents side of the fami- ly (see Typical Features of Hereditary Cancer Syndromes).
tribute in an additive way t o the development of most breast and ovarian cancers.
Genetic testing for these mutations is clini- cally available but is only appropriate for a small percentage o f patients. Testing should be offered only after careful counsel- ing regarding the risks, benefits, limitations and how the test results (either positive or nega- tive) will affect how a woman receives treat- ment and care. Its critical that providers understand that obtaining a true informed consent is the backbone of genetic coun- seling when discussing testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility genes.
Its important that when presenting the facts regarding hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, and the options avail- able for screening and surveillance for those who are identi- fied at increased risk, care providers d o so in a neutral man- ner or nondirective fashion. Avoid directing an individual toward a particular decision. Information, ideas, concepts and options must be presented in a balanced fashion so that, ethically, women and their family members make the most appropriate decision for their particular life circumstances.
Genetic counselors strive to avoid directing their clients based on their own personal opinions or feelings regarding what they think a client should or shouldnt do. Clients need to be helped to identify their personal goals and values M that they can make decisions in their own best interest. Inherent in this complex proceso is the need to provide ongo- ing support .for the individruls at risk while they work through their psychosocial problem, emotionally adjust to their new risk status and e ~ e n t u d y make their decisions.
One of the most difficult aspects of conducting a genetic counseling session is to arrive a t an outcome that meets the desires and goals of the individual, not those of the genetic counselor, referring care provider or other family members. Every health care professional counseling for hereditary can- cer syndromes should strive for this ideal.
Currently, there are no accepted guidelines on genetic counseling for cancer. The Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues branch of the Human Genome Project is sponsoring clinical investigations to determine how best to conduct the educa- tion and counseling required in genetic testing for inherited cancer risk. Extensive clinical guidelines for genetic counsel- ing have been published by many professional organizations including the American College of Medical Genetics and the National Society of Genetic Counselors (American College of Medical Genetics, 1999; McKinnon et al., 1997).
Despite the continuing debate regarding the characteris- tics of the ideal genetic counselor, its apparent that diverse interpersonal skills, extensive knowledge of cancer genetics and a clear understanding of the medical, psychological, social and economic considerations of hereditary cancer syn- dromes must be present. Ideally, good genetic counseling means effectively communicating the genetic facts to the individual while paying close attention to the emotional needs related to her or his reaction to the impact of being a t increased risk for cancer.
One of the most difficult aspects o f conducting a genetic counseling session is to arrive at an outcome that meets the desires and goals of the individual, not those of the genetic counselor, referring care provider or other family members.
A womans emotional status can strongly influence and shape the counseling process. Informal evaluations of a womans individual mental state should be made and docu- mented, at least a t the beginning and end of each genetic counseling session. This is particularly important when genetic testing results are being dixlosed.
counselor should be aware of signs of anxiety, hostility o r depression, which i f ignored might interfere with effective communication.
Educational level directly correlates with the amount of information retained by women advised about the patho- genesis, origin, genetics and surveillance options for heredi- tary breast and ovarian cancer. It might be easy to assume that the more educated a woman is, the better she will be at understanding, processing and assimilating complicated and unfamiliar biological concepts. However, very few people- even well-educated individuals-are comfortable with prob- ability. Its helpful, then, to use special techniques such as graphs, figures and visual diagrams to communicate these ideas.
Regarding socioeconomic status, its important to recog- nize that few people have access to genetic counseling-and often, because of the risks of insurance discrimination, some women opt to pay for such counseling themselves.
Cultural attitudes and practices, like religious values, may influence how a woman responds to a health incidence, as well as how she interprets medical and genetic informa- tion. This is especially vital when modification of tradition- al medical practices may be necessary. Research has shown that if a cultural group stigmatizes cancer, individuals with- in that group are less likely to admit that they, or a family member, have cancer and, therefore, may not seek medical attention.
myths about cancer-even if they have never been near someone with the disease. These ideas or concepts are often erroneous and should be addressed early in the counseling session so that they can be eliminated and/or corrected. To correct misconceptions, its helpful to point them out, while being sensitive to the individuals cultural, religious and eth- nic beliefs. The counselor should then state clearly what facts are known and what remains unknown about heredi- tary breast and ovarian cancer.
The job of providing comprehensive genetic counseling for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer is a challenging one. The complexities that arise when advising individuals and their families are even greater when cultural differences exist be- tween the counselor and the woman. Special efforts and knowledge are required to ensure that the counseling tech- niques are adapted to special circumstances. All health care providers advising women about their risks of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer must integrate an appreciation o f culture that blends an awareness of history, geography and religion. In addition, counselors should be prepared to assist these patients in selecting options that are best for them giv- en their diverse cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.
ceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer: Assessment. counseling and testing guidelines. Bethesda, MD: Author.
American Society of Human Genetics Ad Hoc Committee on Genetic Counseling. ( 1975). Genetic counseling. American ]ournal of Hitman Genetics, 2 7 , 240-242.
Cramer, D. W. (1999). Peritoneal talc exposure and subse- quent epithelial ovarian cancer: A case-control study. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 94( 1 ), 160- 16 1 .
DelMasters, J. (2000). HRT and menopause: A clinicians guide to understanding the dilemma. AWHONN Life- lines, 4 , 27-35.
Ford, D., Easton, D. F., Stratton, M., Narod, S., Goldgar, D., Devilee, P., Bishop, D. T., Weber, B., Lenoir, G., Chang-Claude, J., Sobol, H., Teare, M. D., Struewing, J., Arason, A., Scherneck, S., Peto, J., Rebbeck, T. R., Tonin, P., Neuhausen, S., Barkardottir, R., Eyfjord, J., Lynch, H., Ponder, B. A., Gayther, S. A., Zelada-Hed- man, M., et al. (1998). Genetic heterogeneity and penetrance analysis of the BRCAl and BRCA2 genes in breast cancer families. American Journal of Human Genetics, 62(3), 676-689.
McKinnon, W. C., Baty, B. J., Bennett, R. L., Magee, IM., Neufeld-Kaiser, W. A., Peters, K. F., Sawyer, J. C., & Schneider, K. A. (1997). Predisposition genetic testing for late-onset disorders in adults. A position paper of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. ]oztriial of the American Medical Association, 278, 1217- 1220. | 2019-04-22T22:46:55 | https://dokumen.tips/documents/weighing-the-risks-genetic-counseling-for-hereditary-breast-and-ovarian-cancer.html |
0.999813 | Which of the following characters* with a very limited vocabulary has the most expressive personality?
*No mute or extremely shy characters. No silent film characters. | 2019-04-21T21:12:04 | https://www.imdb.com/poll/ebAdaAOJ4qs/?ref_=tt_po_i4 |
0.999741 | You will be offered such food as tasty hamburgers, charcoal chicken and salads, don't hesitate to try them. At this bbq, you can order dishes as a takeout. Pay reasonable prices for eating at Phoenix Charcoal Chicken. As for the Google rating, this place received 4.5. | 2019-04-25T20:51:37 | https://restaurantguru.com/Phoenix-Charcoal-Chicken-Stanmore |
0.850632 | The starting date is June 15, 2004 and the end date is august 07, 2004. All data should be within these dates. Develop your own narrative and explanations after filtering the information. All information should be properly referenced. Remember the paper is supposed to be a personal opinion paper. All opinions must be made in light of the gathered data.
With reference to a home country of your choice, assess the impact of the USD/Yuan exchange rate on companies in that home country. The paper should contain 1) an overview and update on the relation between the Chinese Yuan and the US dollar, 2) discussion of threats posed by the exchange rate and related trends to home country companies, 3) discussion of opportunities posed by the exchange rate and related trends to home country companies, 4) recommendations for national policy that the home country should adopt to effectively respond to the emergence of of the Yuan as an influencial currency, and 5) recommendations to home country companies on actions they should take to effectively prepare for various scenarios related to the Yuan.
With reference to a home country of your choice, assess the impact of the Euro on companies in that home country (preferably outside the Euro-zone). The paper should contain 1) an overview and update on the implementation of the Euro, 2) discussion of threats posed by the Euro to home country companies, 3) discussion of opportunities posed by the Euro to home country companies, 4) recommendations for national policy that the home country should adopt to effectively respond to the emergence of the Euro, and 5) recommendations to home country companies on actions they should take to effectively respond to the emergence of the Euro.
? Spot Exchange rate: $1.5640 per British pound.
? SALEM?s foreign exchange advisory service forecasts that the spot rate in there months will be $1.56 per British pound.
Like many manufacturing firms, SALEM operates on relatively narrow margins. Although Ms. Finch and SALEM would be very happy if the pound appreciated versus the dollars, concerns center on the possibility that the pound will fall. When Ms. Finch budgeted this specific contract, she determined that the minimum acceptable margin was at a sale price of $1,500,000. The budget rate, the lowest acceptable dollar per pound exchange rate, was therefore established at $1.5 per British pound. Any exchange rate below would result in Dayton actually losing money on the transaction.
2. Hedge in the forward market.
3. Hedge in the money market.
4. Hedge in the options market. What should SALEM do?
Essay Instructions: Take an example of dual or alternative currency discussed in one or more readings, or one reading plus the film ?Pig Tusks and Paper Money.? How do the currency/currencies you discuss help to organize, express, or shape social life? How effective are they? | 2019-04-19T05:26:50 | https://www.helpmyessay.com/subjects/currency |
0.998451 | where it was shown that the cost of an average EELV launch was somewhere between "less than $100 million" (ULA claim) and $420 million (GAO statement).
I have thrown up my hands on this issue. It seems clear that the real EELV cost is invisible, even to those who think they know. Only one thing is absolutely apparent: ULA itself thinks that its own rockets cost too much, which is why it is replacing them with NGLV.
I also believe that Falcon 9 costs more than is widely believed, regardless of the advertised "price".
The 2014 summary: NASA postpones BEO to spend $6.2B to launch crew to ISS until 2024; develop new LV.
The domestic engine is very important going forward. Multiple awards with test (not paper) downselect + economics of the LV would be the best path forward.
DoD didn't ban the Atlas V. Congress banned the use of Russian supplied engines beyond what is already on hand or contracted. Until the current supply plus the 50 or so engines on order are used up, they may be used for DoD launches (through 2019).
Can you, or someone else, please elaborate on what this means: "Multiple awards with test (not paper) downselect + economics of the LV would be the best path forward."
This issue is near and dear to me.
Very true statement. There are "sets" of numbers depending on "how" you want to cost or price a program. It is frustrating. This just isn't with shuttle, or Apollo, or CxP, or SLS, or Commercial Crew. Moreover, there are legitimate claims to how one "accounts" for dollars. What matters is consistency and the use of GAAP and FASB.
However, when involving the US Government there is nothing consistent. Things change and it is really difficult to get straight answers on things. Even the GAO numbers are sometimes "disputed" with partisan lenses.
Depends how you want to price it in my opinion. Do we include DDT&E or no? As we know Kyle the actual hardware for Falcon 1, launch 1 was about $8 million. As we also both know a lot more time and money went into it. Fortunately for you, I, the American taxpayer, and the rest of the world that was "mostly" Elon's money. How much was really spent up to that point?
I think you bring valid questions to the plate and until we get away from governments being the primary consumer of launch vehicles we never will get a real price on things.
I share in your frustration.
Re-stated: Potential to offer multiple (not a single) awards to build fabricate and test the new engine, parallel paths. compare performance and costs rather than down select to one provider from the (paper) proposal. Reuse must be considered at the LV level, which introduces more factors in the reliability/cost trade.
The issue of course is costs. 'Competition' means duplication, and that would require more funding (multiple awards). For example, 2.6B and 4.2B for commercial crew.
A stable source of government demand will be necessary for quite some time, IMHO, and funding to further reduce launch costs to develop these markets.... shifting the great talent to payloads and technology development would provide part of this demand.
A. SpaceX wants to under-cut the market to achieve market share, or drive competitors out of the market. But as the old saying goes, if you lose money on every unit you sell, you can't make it up in volume. However if this were true, where is the money coming from to do all the work they are doing?
B. The first production units of any product invariably cost more than what the company wants to sell them for, but the average price drops as more units are built. And if things work out as planned, they achieve profitability before they run out of money. This does require an investment up front, but for commercial launches SpaceX customers usually pay for their launches upfront - and that provides a lot of capital.
C. SpaceX really can make a profit on the Falcon 9 v1.1 because of their intense focus on lowering the cost of building the Falcon 9.
By using future contracts to pay for current work. It's not a secret that SpaceX likely lacks the assets to meet their current obligations. This also isn't as bad as it sounds since it's a pretty common business practice. You just have to make sure your orders stay ahead of your liabilities.
By using future contracts to pay for current work.
Yes, but if you'll never make money on a launch (i.e. scenario "A" above), then it doesn't matter if you use the launch deposits for current operations plus new stuff, because you will run out of money. I doubt this is the situation with SpaceX.
It's not a secret that SpaceX likely lacks the assets to meet their current obligations.
How would anyone outside of SpaceX know this unless SpaceX leadership told us? And unless I've missed something, SpaceX leadership has not admitted such a thing.
So at most this would be rumor.
This also isn't as bad as it sounds since it's a pretty common business practice. You just have to make sure your orders stay ahead of your liabilities.
My scenario "B" is common business practice for companies that have a future. For companies that don't have a future scenario "A" is pretty common.
For the record, I think SpaceX is either scenario "B" or "C", but in no way would be "A".
SpaceX has not have nearly enough private investment, or progress payments from NASA to pay for all the future launches on it's manifest, but it probably has managed to stay ahead of costs to date on what has been built before you account for the $1B in new investment. SpaceX actually went a very long way on its first $200M, in terms of margin on launches, so far anything that is costing them unexpected dollars that reduce or eliminate their margins on launches are the variable costs involved in each launch and those are hurt by each scrub and schedule delay. The Dragon 2 and the F9 1.1 developments are all well funded, FH and the efforts the land the first stage may be a short term drain on cash flow and in reality, yes probably some cash flow from progress payments keeps all the balances in place to continue activity without having to seek some sort of extra investment to continue those developments, however they total revenue stream they have planned looks more than adequate to handle all the commitments on their manifest and fully fund the first stage return/re-use efforts. Their prices are not static, and at no time have I ever had the impression that Elon wanted to use the avalanche method of business growth that people like Donald Trump, Peter Poklington, Robert Campeau etc use to build a bigger and bigger empire of volume of business growth driving volume of credit growth. Those real estate tycoons built by getting involved in larger and larger volumes of development projects all funded by 80 or 90% borrowed (not invested) funds.
Note that this does not examine the business case for their R&D on the Raptor, the BFR, SkyNet etc. nor building new facilities. Which BTW, in normal companies would be where the $1B in new investment would be going.
I think Lockheed and Boeing would have loved it if ULA had 2014 revenue of $5.88B (14 launches times $420m). You might be able to determine ULA's revenues from Lockheed and Boeing annual statements to shareholders.
"The average price of a mission, accounting for all current firm contracts for Atlas and Delta launch services, is $225 million, not $460 million as has been claimed. This includes all missions, Department of Defense (DoD), NASA, commercial, Atlas V 401 through Delta IV Heavy.
The incremental price of a lower-end mission, that is, the cost to the U.S. government to increase the block buy one addition mission, is less than $100 million. The full price for a lower-end mission utilizing the Atlas V is $164 million. The most capable mission (three times the performance/thrust needed) costs around $350 million.
These prices are not from a marketing brochure, but committed, negotiated prices backed by full transparency to the U.S. government into all aspects of the cost. While these are the current prices, ULA is embarked on an aggressive cost reduction program with very challenging future targets."
You are right, private investment up to this year and progress payments from NASA probably would not have been enough to pay for everything they are doing. But you are leaving out a huge source of their working capital - launch deposits from non-NASA customers.
Which is what I said in the rest of the paragraph (along with some other stuff that I thought was equally important).
I ended with the fact that the $1B should mostly go for Raptor, Boca Chica and other facilities, ElonNet and other new endeavours.
Edit: in light of this with ULA's comment: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/usa-airforce-rockets-idUSL1N0VZ20M20150225 I should probably have posted this on the appropriate thread in Space Policy. I will actually put a post there.
Also, the next engine under development by SpaceX is raptor. Much bigger and much more powerfull than anything needed as an RD-180 replacement. Not gonna fit the profile, regardless of the cromnibus lacking any specifics on engine power and performance.
I partly agree with you on that, which is why I said SpaceX might go for the money, not that it definitely would. But it's possible that SpaceX would take on the RD-180 replacement development in addition to Raptor. It depends on the money.
I have seen assumptions of Raptor performance all over the charts. However this quote from Musk's Reddit session last month tells me that it could very well be around 500 klbf.
Couldn't two 500 klbf Raptor engine's be a replacement for the RD-180?
Well that could be embarrassing if a ULA BE-4 launch vehicle is flying by 2017 and get's EELV certification by 2019.
The U.S. Air Force may have to revisit its strategy to develop a new U.S.-fueled launch vehicle aimed at ending American reliance on Russian rocket engines if U.S. companies fail to bid to build prototypes for the government, a senior general said Tuesday.
Nevertheless, it looks like the days of USAF/NRO telling companies how to develop their rockets are over. USAF/NRO will have to make do with what the launch service providers are offering them. No longer will rockets be tailor-made for USAF/NRO purposes first, and anything else second. And personally I think that is a good development. It will give ULA at least a fighting chance to get back into the commercial launch market.
For commercial competitiveness with the expendable F9/FH Vulcan prices for commercial payloads should be close to (within 20%) of SpaceX prices or <$72M/$162M.
But by the time Vulcan starts flying it will need to be competitive with a worst case competitive prices of reusable F9R/FHR (within 20% again) SpaceX prices or <$45M/$75M. This looks to be doable using BO as the engine source for 1st and US (BE-4/BE-3).
NOTE: Competitive pricing is for payloads not for LV performance max. A Vulcan (561) can compete for the foreseeable heavy payloads 25mt to LEO and 7mt to GTO with the FHR prices because these payloads are to heavy for the F9R even thogh this heavy version of Vulcan does not get close to FHR but is significantly more than F9R.
Edit: Sorry about the OT.
SpaceX, BO and now ULA are following the policy of: "We will take your money (government funds) if there are no technical restrictions/directions and no claims on IP". Since the contracts currently offered for engine development have strings attached, SpaceX, BO and ULA is not interested.
Yeah I don't see either Blue or SpaceX wanting to design anything they don't own the rights too. That is not how commercial business works. There are very clearly strings in the current proposal that gives the government ownership rights. As has been seen in other programs, that becomes an issue if the government cancels it and then orders the product line scrapped, not to mention your enabling your competitors with the work you did. They don't want to be part sellers, they want to sell a complete product.
Only Aerojet and possibly Northrop would be willing to sign on to those conditions. | 2019-04-25T04:09:16 | https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?amp;topic=34595.msg1337634 |
0.999999 | Review: Hand Stylus -- high quality stylus with retractible tip - iPhone J.D.
I recently reviewed three of the best active iPad styluses on the market (1, 2, 3), styluses that use tiny tips (around 2 mm or so) but which require power (battery or rechargeable) and are somewhat expensive ($50 to $75). But what if you just want a traditional stylus, one that is less expensive and that you can use without worrying about turning it on and making sure that there is a charged battery? There are probably hundreds of styluses on the market with 6 mm tips (some of which you can buy for less than $1 each), but for best results, I recommend that you instead go for a higher quality stylus with a 5 mm or smaller tip. It makes using a stylus with an iPad a much better experience. The one that I have used and recommended for years is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo, which you can get on Amazon for about $25. But several iPhone J.D. readers recommended that I also check out the Hand Stylus. The manufacturer sent me a free sample to review, and I've been trying it out for the last two weeks. I'm so glad that so many of you recommended that I check out this product. It is a fantastic stylus.
The Hand Stylus was started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012. The goal was to create a stylus with the smallest possible tip that the iPad can recognize (around 4 mm), plus make the tip retractable by pressing a button on the back, plus make the stylus itself out of a high-quality anodized aluminum with lots of colors in a hexagonal barrel that reminds you of the feel of a Number 2 pencil. The creator sought to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter; instead he raised over $300,000 from over 7,500 backers. Clearly, there were folks excited about the idea.
The Kickstarter campaign is now long over, and you can buy a Hand Stylus directly from the manufacturer for $24.95, or you can get one on Amazon for $21.99 (with fewer colors available). They come in blue, pink, orange, green, red, black, silver or purple. The manufacturer sent me a black one.
The Hand Stylus has a great tip. There is a big difference between using an active stylus with a tiny 2 mm tip and a traditional stylus with a larger tip. The small tip on an active stylus gives you the great sensation of precision, much as if you are using a real pen. All other things being equal, I would prefer to use an active stylus with a much smaller tip.
But if you are going to use a traditional stylus with a larger tip, the one on the Hand Stylus is very good. At 4 mm, the tip on the Hand Stylus is about as small as you can get on a non-power stylus. By comparision, the original Wacom Bamoo Stylus duo had a 6 mm tip, and the second generation has a 5 mm tip. However, in actual usage, I don't notice much difference between the Hand Stylus and the Wacom Bamboo Stylus in terms of the size of the tip. I did notice that the tip on the Hand Stylus is a little bit softer than the tip on the Wacom Bamboo Stylus, so I have to apply just slightly more pressure when using the Hand Stylus. If I go back and forth between the two, I slightly prefer the tip on the Wacom, but both work very well in normal usage. Both of these products are about as good as you can get with a tradtional stylus.
The marquee feature of the Hand Stylus is that the tip is retractable. This certainly sets it apart from any other stylus that I have ever used. In theory, it sounds like a great feature. Stylus tips are soft rubber and could certainly be cut or otherwise broken if something sharp makes contact. By simply clicking the button to retract the tip, the tip is protected.
In practice, I question how necessary this feature really is. In my many, many years of using lots of different iPad styluses, I have never once encountered a problem because the tip was exposed. Having said that, I can certainly imagine a scenario in which an exposed tip would get damaged but a retracted tip would not. One minor disadvantage of the Hand Stylus is that if you forget that you have not yet exposed the stylus and you go to write on your iPad, you might touch your iPad screen with the metal at the end of the stylus. I did that only once, and then quickly pulled the stylus off of the screen and clicked the button to expose the nib tip.
One unexpected benefit of the retractable tip that I discovered is that sometimes when I was feeling fidgety, it was somewhat calming to be able to press the button on the back of the stylus on and off and on and off again, much like I now realize that I've sometimes done with other pens.
I prefer the feel of the barrel on the Hand Stylus over the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo. The hexagonal barrel on the Hand Stylus feels really nice, and reminds you of a Number 2 pencil. The knurled collar near the tip of the pen ensures that the stylus doesn't slip in your hand. The Hand Stylus weighs just slightly more than the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo (my measurements showed the Hand Stylus at 26 grams and the Bamboo at 25 grams). Put it all together and the Hand Stylus feels like an expertly engineered premium product. My father is an architect, and as a child I used to like to go to his office and play with all of the neat drawing tools on his drafting table — high quality pencils and pens, drafting templates that could be used to create perfect circles and squares, etc. The Hand Stylus reminds me of the high-quality mechanical pencils I would always find on my father's drafting table.
One feature of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo that I like is that it also contains a real pen under the cap. That's what makes it a "duo". So any time that I am in a meeting with just my iPad and my stylus, if I need to write something on a piece of paper, I also have a pen with me. It is far from the best pen in the world — it's just a simple ballpoint pen — but it works fine when you need it.
The Hand Stylus lacks a pen. Instead, the manufacturer sells a different product called the Hand Combo. The Hand Combo has a 6 mm stylus tip on the back of the pen and has a twist-to-use ballpoint pen tip on the front. The company sent me a free review sample of the Hand Combo so that I could try it out in comparison to the Hand Stylus. In my tests, I didn't like the Hand Combo at all.
First, when I use a stylus, I want to primarily use it as a stylus. But with the stylus end on the back of the pen, the stylus function of the Hand Combo feels like almost an afterthought, and the stylus is much less comfortable to hold upside down — unlike the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo, which feels great in either direction because the pen top with a clip fits on either end of the stylus. Second, the larger 6 mm tip is not as nice as the 4 mm tip on the Hand Stylus. I can't think of any reason that I would recommend the Hand Combo over the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo for anyone who wants a pen included in their stylus.
The rubber nibs that form the tip over a stylus will eventually wear out from use, so all of the high-quality styluses on the market give you the ability to buy replacement nibs instead of buying a whole new stylus. You can buy a set of six replacement tips for the Hand Stylus for $9.95. They come in a round metal container, which is a nice change from all other manufacturers that seem to just send the nibs in a tiny plastic bag that you are more likely to lose in your desk drawer. The company sent me one so that I could see how it worked, and replacing tips was very easy to do.
In theory, because the tip of the Hand Stylus rotates every time you click the back, the tip on the Hand Stylus should wear more evenly on all of its sides even if you hold the stylus the same way every time. You would have to use a Hand Stylus and another stylus in the same way for a long time to determine whether the nib on the Hand Stylus does actually last longer as a result of these rotations. I obviously haven't done that after just two weeks of use, but this does seem like another potentially nice feature of the Hand Stylus.
The Hand Stylus is a wonderful stylus. It does a great job writing on the iPad screen, it looks and feels really nice in your hand (better than any other stylus that I have ever used), and it is reasonably priced for such a high quality product. It doesn't have the tiny tip that you find on an active stylus, but it costs much less and you don't have to worry about giving it power. If you are in the market for a traditional stylus, this is an excellent one to get. | 2019-04-19T07:07:36 | https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2014/06/review-hand-stylus.html |
0.999651 | David Mesher on "Good Morning Britain" on Friday.
A man who was filmed last week shouting racist insults at an elderly black woman on a Ryanair flight appeared on British TV on Friday to defend his actions.
The man, David Mesher, could be heard in the video yelling obscenities at the woman, whom he said he did not want to sit next to, on the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to London.
Mesher told "Good Morning Britain" that the event was "just a fit of temper" and that he is "not a racist person by any means."
Many people took issue with Ryanair's response, which was to relocate the woman. Some have threatened to boycott the airline.
Police in the UK and Spain have said they are investigating what happened.
A man who was filmed shouting racist insults at an elderly black woman on a Ryanair flight last week blamed his actions on a "fit of temper" and denied that he is racist in an interview with "Good Morning Britain" broadcast Friday.
The man, David Mesher, said he is "not a racist person by any means" and that it was "just a fit of temper at the time."
Mesher was identified by news outlets on Wednesday as the man in a video — posted by another passenger, David Lawrence — shouting the insults at Delsie Gayle, 77, who had been assigned the seat next to him for a flight from Barcelona, Spain, to London Stansted Airport on October 19.
He can be heard telling her to move to another seat, saying, "I don't want to sit next to your face," and "If you don't go to another seat, I'll push you to another seat." At one point, he can be heard yelling, "Don't talk to me in a f---ing foreign language, you stupid, ugly cow" and calling her an "ugly, black b------."
He did not further explain why he did not want to sit next to her. The airline moved Gayle to another seat.
In the TV interview, Mesher said, "I probably lost my temper a bit and ordered her to get up."
The footage had nearly 1.4 million views on YouTube as of Friday.
An online petition calling for Ryanair to compensate Gayle for her treatment has so far amassed more than 300,000 signatures.
The petition says: "Ryanair failed to remove the man from the flight or to support Mrs. Gayle. Instead she was made to move seats whilst the man was given a row to himself."
Several people online have threatened to boycott Ryanair over what they say is the airline's insufficient response to Mesher.
Mesher apologized to Gayle in the interview on Friday. She and her daughter Carol rejected the apology, the BBC reported on Friday.
Police in Spain and the UK have said they are investigating the incident. Officers have been seen visiting Mesher's home in Birmingham, England, but have not taken formal action. | 2019-04-21T13:18:39 | https://www.businessinsider.com/ryanair-video-racist-abuse-david-mesher-blames-temper-2018-10 |
0.999104 | Speaking of over-the-weekenders, the morning paper had a pay wall piece Saturday about Governor Rick Perry's "call to prayer for a nation in crisis" scheduled for August 6 in Houston, otherwise known as The Response. Perry's invited the nation's governors to join him; doesn't sound like the RSVPs are flying in so far.
There are locals behind the event, among them Laura Allred, as well as plenty of outsiders. Buried in Wayne Slater's account was the fact that Don Wildmon's American Family Association is actually footing the bill for the right-wingding. Which, as far as Mother Jones is concerned, is Bad News, seeing as how the Southern Poverty Law Center has put the AFA on its list of hate groups, chiefly for being anti-gay. For starters? AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy Bryan Fischer wrote last year, "Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."
In 1775, the Continental Congress asked the colonies to join in prayer, seeking wisdom as they faced the responsibility and opportunity of building a new nation. As leaders of that young nation assembled in 1787 to craft a Constitution, Benjamin Franklin implored the framers to pray for guidance, famously declaring, "The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men." Decades later, during a time of national turmoil, President John Adams declared "a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer," asking citizens of all faiths to pray for America's protection from danger. Later, as civil war tore our young country apart, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of national fasting and prayer, saying "It behooves us ... to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray to the God that made us." During World War II, with our troops locked in battle on the beaches of France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the nation in prayer, "As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts."
His proclamation also follows. Jump ... to your knees.
Given the trials that have beset our country and world - from the global economic downturn to natural disasters, the lingering danger of terrorism and wars that endanger our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and theaters of conflict around the globe, and the decline of our culture in the context of the demise of families - it seems imperative that the people of our nation should once again join together for a solemn day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation.
In times of trouble, even those who have been granted power by the people must turn to God in humility for wisdom, mercy and direction. In the spirit of the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, Verses 15-16, I urge a solemn gathering of prayer and fasting. As those verses admonish: "15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly... 16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly..." As Jesus prayed publicly for the benefit of others in John 11:41-42, so should we express our faith in this way.
THEREFORE, I invite my fellow Texans to join me on August 6 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, as we pray for unity and righteousness - for this great state, this great nation and all mankind. I urge Americans of faith to pray on that day for the healing of our country, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of enduring values as our guiding force.
THEREFORE, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim August 6, 2011, to be A Day of Prayer and Fasting for Our Nation in Texas, and urge the appropriate recognition whereof. | 2019-04-25T22:35:37 | https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/as-the-governor-declares-august-6-day-of-prayer-and-fasting-one-response-to-rick-perrys-the-response-event-7127589 |
0.998011 | For example, you can decorate your game room with your favorite team's logo and colors. The room can also be decorated with team logos and colors of rival teams or a slice of each member's favorite team or favorite sports mixed together for that unique sense of family and team pride.
The magazine is well known for its annual swimsuit issue. According to Sports Illustrated media relations, 82% of magazine readers said they look forward to the SI Swimsuit Issue each year.
7514. Guide Gear UTV/ATV Receiver Mount Spreader Seeder, 80-lb.
7545. Air Arms MPR Internal Weight, 2.7 oz.
7763. Figi&#39;s Grandma&#39;s Fruitcake, 2 lbs.
7943. RWS Air Chamber Lube & Dropper, Silicone Oil, .50 oz.
7998. ATI FX45 Firepower Xtreme Military 1911 Semi-Automatic, .45 ACP, Battle-Worn Finish,8+1 Rds.
8158. 10 rds. Kent Tungsten Matrix Pheasant Game Loads 20 Gauge 2 3/4&quot; 1 oz.
8337. Tink&#39;s Boost 73 Deer Attractant, Vanilla, 14.4 lbs.
That said, you need to understand that there are also thousands like you looking to nail that chance to get a college degree through an athletic program. You need to add some oomph to your application and make all your practice and performances not go to waste.
You will want to get started on reaching your college lacrosse recruiting goal as early as your freshman year in high school. There are several actions you can take that will help to prepare you for lacrosse recruiting later in your high school athletic career. You will want to participate in your high school lacrosse team games and practices, in order to learn as much about the game and playing well under competition as possible. You can also watch college lacrosse teams play, and begin to think about which colleges you might like to attend. It's not too early to start making a list of the colleges that pique your interest. At this stage, you can also attend lacrosse camps and play in tournaments during school breaks, in order to learn even more about playing lacrosse. By attending a camp, it also gives the added benefit of allowing you to see the different college campuses, check out the library and dorms, and get to know college lacrosse coaches from the different colleges. | 2019-04-22T15:04:42 | http://websportworld.com/COLLEGE/gallery-7.htm |
0.999966 | Q: Antonio Banderas has done the voice of Puss in Boots in several movies now. In real life, is he a cat person or a dog person?
In Banderas' family, cats rule. The actor from M laga, Spain, says, "My mother-in-law [Tippi Hedren, who created the Shambala Preserve for large cats in Acton, Calif.] has 72 lions. We live in a very feline family. We have four cats in Los Angeles, and [wife] Melanie [Griffith] is a Leo, I am a Leo, and my son is a Leo."
Needless to say, Banderas is pleased that his Puss character has become the star of a film, because when Banderas first came to America to star in Mambo Kings and Philadelphia, someone told him that because of his Spanish accent, he was destined to play bad guys and heavies.
"Many generations of Latino people came to this country…and they worked very hard to have their kids go to universities. Well, those kids are now doctors and architects, or they are on the Supreme Court. That has a reflection in Hollywood. So we are actually very proud that our characters are Latinos. I think it's good for diversity and cultural interaction. This movie is going to be seen by kids, and they don't judge in those terms. They're going to watch the movie and see that the heroes actually have a strong accent, and that is good." | 2019-04-23T06:40:58 | https://americanprofile.com/articles/antonio-banderas-actor/ |
0.998823 | How bad can things get? We can unconditionally surrender to the enemy and be led captive into exile (2 Kgs 24:12). The treasures of our faith can be carried off, and we can witness horrific sacrileges (see 2 Kgs 24:13). We can be brought so "very low" (Ps 79:8) that "there is no one to bury" the dead (Ps 79:3). Consequently, the corpses of God's servants became "food to the birds of heaven" and "to the beasts of the earth" (Ps 79:2). Just imagine a dog or a rat chewing on your mother's dead body. How bad can things get? As bad as hell.
Why do such atrocities happen? Why does the Lord describe this in the Bible? The Lord is showing us the hellish results of sin. This should lead us to repent. The wages of sin (Rm 6:23) should� especially lead us to thank Jesus for saving us by taking our sins on Himself (1 Pt 2:24) and dying for love of us. Jesus has not just saved us from some unpleasantness. He has saved us from unspeakable degradation. Accept Jesus' gift of salvation. Thank Jesus, our Savior � constantly and forever.
Prayer: "I'm forever grateful to You. I'm forever grateful for the cross."
Praise: Sally happened to read a Marian prayer referring to love being poured out like water. As she read about the water, a stream of water suddenly fell from the ceiling and hit her hand. She later discovered that her bladder infection had been healed. | 2019-04-20T14:24:20 | https://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp?lang=en&d=6/25/1998 |
0.998501 | What is the main use of zeaxanthin supplements? Every day our eyes are exposed in environments that cause strain: daylight is too bright, while smoke and dust ride with you along the street.
You also take too much time on a computer screen, further creating more problems for your sight. If left unchecked, you'll notice a gradual change of your vision, perhaps even toward permanent blindness.
In order to prevent our vision from degenerating, what you need change your diet and take supplements that are good for the eye.
Zeaxanthin supplements are a good example. The compound they contain is already part of the eye and plays an important role in the maintaining vision. Zeaxanthin supplements are like to food to eye, and a well-fed eye is healthy.
Zeaxanthin and lutein are both found in the retina of the eye. As such, they contribute greatly in developing and keeping the eyesight. Both are capable of preventing cataract and even macular degeneration.
The levels of lutein and zeaxanthin are also connected to heart disease. The lower the levels, the more likely will there be locked arteries. Together with lutein, zeaxanthin, and beta-carotene, they are able to protect the body by killing off free radicals and thereby preventing damages caused by them.
Heading over to a local market in search for a zeaxanthin would yield nothing. Instead, one should focus on which fruits and vegetables contain the substance. Zexanthin sources include goji berry, broccoli, kiwifruit, and corn. Regular intake of such fruits and vegetables will help you develop a good vision.
If finding such a fruit is much of a problem, you can always try zeaxanthin supplements such as Total Balance produced by xtend life products. Among each capsule contains the right amount of zeaxanthin for the eyes.
But they are not just zeaxanthin supplements for the eye; they are also capsules capable to protecting the body from any harm.
A zeaxanthin supplement would not be enough to take care of your eyes. Thus, Total Balance has lutein, aside from the zeaxanthin plus bilberry extract and other ingredients that make the eyes good. Total Balance has 10mg of zeaxanthin and 50mg of lutein, making around 80 different kinds of supplements inside a single capsule. This makes the capsule pack a good value for money, as you get multiple benefits without having to spend so much.
Unlike other supplements, taking zeaxanthin does not cause any harmful side effects. However, moderation is still advised. Remember that the Total Balance capsule is made up of lots of nutrients, so when taken obsessively, it is possible that you end up getting some side effects.
For example, too much lutein and lycopene may cause the skin to get some discoloration. That discoloration will take weeks to remove and will also take away time away from the supplement.
Red clover extract, which fights menopause and cancer, prevents the capsule from being paired with a birth control pill. Taking in the birth control pill with the supplement may reduce the effectiveness of the pill. | 2019-04-22T05:59:55 | https://healthifybody.com/zeaxanthin-supplements.html |
0.998828 | Details page for this candidate.
For more than 30 years Vito Sgro has been a successful Hamilton businessman and volunteer. The son of hard working Italian immigrants, the Cardinal Newman graduate earned two degrees from the University of Western Ontario—a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Business and Finance.
Vito attained his accreditation as a Chartered Accountant in 1991 and embarked on a nearly 30 year outstanding career as an accountant with area firms, as well as a stint as an auditor for Revenue Canada. Since 1998 Vito has been a partner with CBM Chartered Accountants LLP.
Now Vito wants to bring his wealth of experience to the service of the community he loves—Hamilton. With your help Vito can effect real change in the continued progress of Hamilton!
With an enormous opportunity being presented to Hamilton, I am running to be your Mayor so that we can invest in the city that we want and to connect all of Hamilton.
If given this opportunity to serve as your Mayor, I will work hard every day to ensure that the ambitious projects undertaken by the City benefit the entire city.
Since the 1950s, most new residential and commercial development in Hamilton has been single-use suburban sprawl. Do you believe Hamilton needs to concentrate new development within the already-built area? Why or why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Should Hamilton be trying to attract more young people to live, work and start businesses here, including the 60,000 students studying at Mohawk College, McMaster University and Redeemer University? If so, what should we be doing? If not, why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Hamilton has been experiencing a slow-motion crisis in housing affordability. Do you support an expanded role for the City to provide more affordable housing? If so, what should Hamilton do? If not, why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act mandates that cities must be completely accessible by 2025. What changes would you make to ensure Hamilton complies with this mandate? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Global warming is an existential challenge facing humanity. Do you think Hamilton should play a role in addressing climate change? If so, what should the city be doing? If not, why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Do you support the "Vision Zero" goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries in Hamilton? If so, what specific actions would you take to implement this policy? If not, why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Hamilton has a legacy of multi-lane, one-way arterial streets dating back to the 1950s. Do you support accelerating the conversion of these streets to two-way? Why or why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Do you support improved public transit in Hamilton? If so, what changes do you propose? If not, why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Do you support phasing out area rating for transit? Why or why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Council has voted dozens of times since 2008 to advance Hamilton's light rail transit (LRT) project, including voting to submit the plan with a full funding request to the Province in 2013, and voting to accept full funding and implementation from the Province in 2015. Do you support completing the LRT plan? Why or why not? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions.
Bonus question: If LRT goes ahead, what will you do to ensure Hamilton receives the maximum benefit? N/A Please use our website vitosgroformayor.ca as the the answer to the provided questions. | 2019-04-18T23:15:13 | http://elections.raisethehammer.org/candidate/378/8/vitosgroformayor.ca |
0.999954 | Follow the instructions and input the needed details to gain access to vehicle information.
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region on the West coast of the United States. Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859. With an area of 98,000 square miles (250,000 km2), Oregon is the ninth largest and, with a population of 4 million, 27th most populous U.S. state. The capital, Salem, is the second most populous city in Oregon, with 164,549 residents. Portland, with 632,309 residents, is the most populous and ranks as the 26th most populous city in the United States.
In all driving fatalities recorded, 118 were related to speeding while 155 were related to to driving impaired due to alcohol.
Fifty drivers ages 15-20 were involved in fatal crashes.
According to 2016 report of Neighborhood Scout, the motor vehicle theft rate in Oregon in 2016 was 3.22 thefts for every 1,000 inhabitants. A total of 13,193 incidents of vehicle theft were reported in the same year.
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s 2016 report indicated that 53 percent of all fatal crashes in the state in 2016 have only one vehicle involved, while the other 47 percent included more than one vehicle.
Why should I run Oregon VIN Check?
Run an Oregon VIN Check to uncover the full-story of your next vehicle. | 2019-04-19T08:31:09 | https://vincheck.info/vin-check/vin-check-by-state/oregon-vin-check/ |
0.999992 | Black Panther is now out! You know what that means. I saw it last night and I have a lot to say. There might be some small spoilerish stuff in this review, so continue at your own risk.
First thoughts after seeing the film, Black Panther totally deserves all the hype that it has been receiving. Some times, when you go into a movie hearing nothing positive reviews and thoughts, there always is that possibility that it may not have lived up to the expectations that you already had in place within your head. That's all I got from people after they saw it before I did, but I still proceeded with caution. Thankfully, I was proven very wrong and fell in love with this as soon as it started.
It's a very simple plot for this film, taking place after the events of Civil War. T'Challa (played by Chadwick Boseman) returns to Wakanda to take his rightful place as king. Once becoming king, he has to deal with ongoing threats of keeping Wakanda safe and out of the public eye, for Wakanda is the only nation that has vibranium and advanced technology that far surpasses all other countries. T'Challa has to face some demons that were left behind from his father, as well as the ongoing threat of Ulysses Klaue (played by Andy Serkis) selling off stolen vibranium. But the biggest comes in the form of Erik Killmonger (played by Michael B. Jordan) as he comes to take the thrown and turn Wakanda into a state of power and take over the world with force.
Overall, the cast is extremely tight and well coordinated. Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan have great chemistry on set. Especially Jordan, whose last shot in a Marvel film was being The Human Torch in "Fantastic Four". He was one of the best Marvel villains that has graced the screen, especially because of Marvel's lackluster treatment of villains in general. Erik Killmonger's backstory was greatly told and you could really connect with his plan to take over Wakanda. You don't get that with many villains in the MCU. He stole this movie.
But that doesn't take away from the amazing supporting cast of Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia (T'Challa's love interest), Danai Gurira as Okoye (Head guard of the Dora Milaje), Daniel Kaluuya as W'Kabi (leader of another tribe), and Letitia Wright as Shuri (T'Challa's sister) are ones that come to mind right off the bat. There are so many great characters and they all feel like they are there to move the plot along without feeling like they are thrown in for the sake of having more characters on screen.
The one and only criticism I have for this film is that it clocks in at just over 2 hours and you can feel it. That's it. The pace in some parts were just a little too long or not really needed. And the comedy was not forced at all. It actually felt natural, which is something I hardly ever see in these newer Marvel films. It usually feels like one big joke machine, but in Black Panther, I was laughing along and nothing about it felt forced.
I strongly suggest you go see it. It's a great film. I know I'm going to see it a couple more times. What were your thoughts? | 2019-04-25T07:46:57 | http://www.atomicgeekdom.com/movies/2018/2/17/black-panther-review |
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