proba
float64 0.5
1
| text
stringlengths 16
174k
|
|---|---|
0.999997 |
Today we are in the midst of a trend towards populism, where the concerns of ordinary folk are preferenced over the privileged elite. There have been numerous examples of this recently: the occupy Wall Street movement (the 99% against the 1%), the shock "Brexit" result (which saw the UK leave the European Union), and the rise of the anti-establishmentism sentiment in politics, such as the anti-immigration movement in many Western countries and the rise of the American president Donald Trump. Why has this happened?
The indebtedness of the West - debt is the easier option over tax increases, but debt becomes a vicious cycle as interest payments take up a larger and larger component of personal, business and government incomes.
The change of consumer preferences - the digital economy requires less human labor, for example consuming movies and music via streaming services and many other on-demand digital platforms.
The rise of automation - the demand for human labor will fall as we use technology to work efficiently and do more with less resources.
The rise of social welfare - A noble goal of helping the less fortunate; however as the number of people depending on these programs grow the burden on state finance grows and dependency breeds complacency.
Falling living standards - The simple and repetitive jobs are being automated, causing the poor to become poorer. As machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities increase more people's jobs will be at risk.
Rising inequality - The taxation system has not been able to keep pace with the digital revolution, allowing those to own capital to become wealthy at the expense of people and businesses who are displaced by the technology revolution.
Globalization - The West is becoming deindustrialized as the emerging countries go through the developing cycle of industrialization. The West's competitive advantages are less pronounce as emerging countries catch up.
With all these things in mind it should be clear to you by now that the 2008 financial crisis was simply a microcosm for things to come. Peter Schiff's book "The Real Crash" published in 2014 is subtitled "America's Coming Bankruptcy - How to Save Yourself and Your Country", which I think will be prophetic and poignant for things to come.
Peter Schiff was born in 1963 and is a financial commentator and businessman . In my opinion, Peter Schiff is a free-market evangelist who is not afraid to speak his mind. He comes across a little brash at times but he has logical and well-researched arguments so he has a sense of credibility. Schiff has a major in finance and accounting from Berkeley, and had worked at Shearson Lehman Brothers before purchasing and renaming his brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital . He regularly publishes videos on his Youtube channel, which also includes his regular podcast. One of the reasons that Schiff has risen to notoriety recently is because of his accurate prediction of the American housing bubble bursting.
The central problem that America has, according to the book, is the indebtedness of the people and government. The fact that the American dollar is the quasi-World reserve currency means that there is global demand for American dollars for global trade and investment. This status artificially raises the purchasing power of this currency, relative to other national currencies. Also, America has a reputation of "always paying its bills" means that its borrowing costs from abroad is relatively low. So in essence, Americans have a currency which they can borrow cheaply from and is has a relatively high purchasing power. Hence, the American consumer and government are inclined to over-borrow and overspend, which is the predicament that it finds itself in today. Schiff argues that it would be prudent to admit level of indebtedness is excessive and go through an orderly default. However, "the real crash" will come about if this warning is not heeded, where creditors lose faith in repayment of debts and interest rates rise to compensate for additional risk to creditors. Therein lies a viscous cycle which presumably likely be solved by excessive money printing and hyperinflation.
America is synonymous with free-market capitalism. However, as Schiff sees it, America was capitalist during previous, more prosperous times but it has gradually turned its back on capitalism. Therefore, peoples discontent with the current state of affairs in America is misplaced. Savings and investment in America has been replaced with borrowing and consumption. Schiff says this consumerism is unsustainable and that government policy encourages this behavior.
Schiff believes that government intervention is the source of many economic problems with America. In the late 90s, early 2000s, we had an Asian financial crisis, a tech bubble in the 2000s, and September 11. In order to stimulate the economy the government the government intervened to try to prop up the economy. Firstly, the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates too low. The government through its policies encouraged a housing bubble to develop. In both cases, the results were disastrous, as evidence by the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent bailouts. Since the crisis, Schiff argues we have learnt nothing from the crisis and simply kicked the can down the road.
Schiff is particularly scathing of government job creation as the cost per job is very high and the productivity is very low, relative to the private sector. The government has policies, such as the "hiring penalty" of federal and state laws and regulations and the "hiring tax" (the payroll tax). Schiff argues that unemployment would not be as high as it is if wages were allowed to fall. For some people, the government should abolish the minimum wage, as he argues some entry level jobs would not make it worthwhile for the employer to hire at the minimum wage.
In response to the 2008 financial crisis, the financial industry became more regulated. This was in essence because private sector did not identify nor manage risk well enough to withstand the housing bubble popping. However, Schiff argues deposit the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the deposit insurance creates moral hazard, as people do not take personal responsibility on researching the solvency of the bank they have their saving account with. Schiff provides some personal experiences of regulations which he argues "don't actually improve consumer experience or financial security" .
The current monetary system relies on a central bank to set interest rates and endlessly inflate the currency. The fiat currency gives advantages to those who create new currency, the banks and governments. They get to spend the newly minted currency before it has had a chance to devalue the money supply. Schiff argues that the gold standard would bring back stability to the value of currency.
People think of it as an alternative to gold because it supposedly liberates its users from the whims of government and central banks.
Schiff's tax reform ideas make a lot of sense. Firstly, he believes that a consumption tax would be better as this would not be taxing savings, investment or productive labor. Next, he thinks revenue raising tariffs could be a easy source of revenue, with the caveat it does not target specific goods or countries. This is quite the back flip for someone who is in support of free-markets. He is particularly passionate about abolishing the income tax, and if it had to stay then a simple flat income tax rate would be preferable to a progressive tax rate. By simplifying the tax system the administration burden from the Internal Revenue Service will also be diminished.
In the coming years the revenue on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will be dwarfed by the cost. This unsustainable expenditure means that people should not rely on it into the future.
Lots of jobs these days require a "piece of paper", indicating that the employee is suitably qualified. However, Schiff thinks that their are cultural biases (pushed by schools and parents) and employer biases (who demand college educated employees as part of a screening process) that pressure people into college education. Schiff believes this is a waste of time and money, particularly for dubious qualifications which are unlikely to make economic sense. The government subsidizing higher education has made it so expensive requiring large student loans that people should think twice about whether it will be worth it to go to college. Also the opportunity cost of not just getting a job and learning practical skills also should be considered.
The health insurance system in America is tax deductible. This encourages people to overspend on health insurance which in turn makes them price insensitive to costs. Since the health insurance company picks up the tab for health costs, this means doctors are inclined to overspend on diagnoses and treatment (to avoid litigation).
Why do you care what fees I'm charging you? Someone else is picking up the tab!
Paradoxically Schiff is in favor of localizing government arguing that this gives citizens a choice to move between jurisdictions if they are unhappy with local regulations. I say this because this is in stark contrast to him complaining about regulatory burden of financial regulation between states. He believes that many federal government agencies and departments could be abolished. He thinks that military spending is one of the few legitimate expenditures of federal government, however the budget is excessive and they have too many bases around the World. He seems to be supporting legalizing things like gambling, drugs and prostitution, not on the absence of moral grounds but because prohibition has unintended consequences.
The book is broken into two parts and concludes with an epilogue .
The Problem 2.0: We've Learned Nothing and Things Are Getting Worse.
Fixing Higher Ed: Time to Drop out of College?
Overall, I though Peter Schiff's book The Real Crash was an warning about the economic implications of the falling American empire. He covers a diverse range of topics which means that each topic is fairly light which keeps things interesting and therein have broad appeal. I particularly enjoyed reading the historical inferences of government policy and the corruption of the free-market in America. This book would appeal more to Americans, as it solely references America; however, not living in America, I did enjoy comparing and contrasting the book against the country I live in. This book revolves around two central themes. The first theme is that America (and the West in general) cannot sustain this level of consumption and debt. Without reform, the country will likely suffer from one of two evils: one, a serious economic recession, or two a rapidly depreciating currency (hyperinflation). The second theme is that government has grown too big relative to the size of the economy. Government policy often has unintended consequences which have either been neglected altogether or poorly perceiving them. Often the government policy is noble and altruistic and works sufficiently well in the beginning. However, over time the economic distortions that they create mean that industry become reliant on this policy and therein they become less efficient. Classic examples of this are college education and healthcare, both of which became accessible to the masses but extremely expensive. One reason for this is because private enterprise is much faster at reacting to government policy than government is at enacting it. Therefore there is always a cat and mouse going on between government and private enterprise. In other words, sometimes it is better for government to not try to solve all problems and give the private sector time to sort out its own issues. Today it is 2017, and the book was published in 2014, we have not seen a economic crash yet, however it is never too early heed Schiff's warning and hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
P.D.Schiff, The Real Crash - America's Coming Bankruptcy - How to Save Yourself and Your Country. 2014.
Wikipedia.com, Peter Schiff. 2017. Available on-line.
|
0.967075 |
Did any Triassic period dinosaurs fly?
No. There were flying and gliding reptiles throughout the entire Mesozoic era—but never any flying dinosaurs.
|
0.9918 |
Malaisant: Qui cause un malaise.
C’est grave #malaisant quand tu regardes un film avec ta mère et que d’un coup y’a des meufs qui baisent.
C'est grave #malaisant quand tu regardes un film avec ta mère et que d'un coup y'a des meufs qui baisent.
Un snap malaisant à regarder, un tweet malaisant à lire, et mon sujet préféré : Les vidéos malaisantes à regarder.
La vidéo malaisante c’est le petit cousin français du cringe US, le malaise à l’état pur, qui est censé faire grincer des dents lorsqu’on en regarde une vidéo.
Sur ce graphe, on peut voir que le terme malaisant à réellement fait son apparition en France en 2016, et c’est sans doute lié aux vidéos de Squeezie, comme cette vidéo « ESSAYEZ DE NE PAS ÊTRE MAL À L’AISE » publiée le 23 août 2016, que cette nouvelle mode du cringe français à démarrée.
Rien d’étonnant quand on connait Squeezie, qui est un copycat français de PewDiePie.
Si vous avez un très bon example de vidéo malaisante pour illustrer cette définition, n’hésitez pas à la poster dans les commentaires !
One important thing is that while you are searching for a student loan you may find that you will want a co-signer. There are many cases where this is true because you may find that you do not use a past credit rating so the loan company will require you have someone cosign the money for you. Thanks for your post.
I wanted to compose you a very small observation to help give many thanks once again relating to the stunning information you’ve provided on this page. This is certainly surprisingly open-handed with people like you in giving openly all that numerous people could possibly have advertised as an e book to get some cash for their own end, most importantly considering the fact that you could possibly have done it in case you considered necessary. The principles in addition served to be a good way to be sure that many people have a similar fervor much like my own to find out whole lot more with respect to this issue. I’m certain there are numerous more pleasurable occasions ahead for those who take a look at your website.
Buy Least expensive USA Elite Private Proxies – Exclusively In ProxyBig.com – Best Proxies Price ranges!
Good answers in return of this query with solid arguments and explaining all about that.
I for all time emailed this weblog post page to all my associates, for the reason that if like to read it next my friends will too.
justification appeared to be at the net the simplest factor to take into accout of.
I say to you, I definitely get annoyed at the same time as people think about issues that they plainly don’t realize about.
You controlled to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal.
I have been browsing online more than 3 hours nowadays, but I by no means found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty value sufficient for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made just right content as you did, the internet will probably be much more helpful than ever before.
I am not real superb with English but I get hold this really leisurely to understand.
I’ve no knowledge of coding but I was hoping to start my own blog soon.
articles. Keep up the great work! You know, lots of people are looking round for this info, you can help them greatly.
I might never understand. It seems too complicated and extremely vast for me.
able to truly get useful information regarding my study and knowledge.
It’s awesome to visit this website and reading the views of all colleagues about this post, while I am also zealous of getting knowledge.
This is the job description can i use voltaren gel while pregnant The idea for the product was conceived after one of the company’s female buyers spotted a similar item and thought it was a “great idea”, Baker said. At the time, other products in the market were pricey or had limited distribution, so the company created its own design.
if you could write a litte more on this topic? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
web page as a most excellent site for most up-to-date updates.
In my opinion that a property foreclosure can have a significant effect on the borrower’s life. Mortgage foreclosures can have a 7 to a decade negative effects on a borrower’s credit report. Any borrower who has applied for a home loan or any loans as an example, knows that the particular worse credit rating is definitely, the more hard it is to get a decent bank loan. In addition, it might affect a borrower’s capability to find a good place to let or rent, if that gets to be the alternative property solution. Thanks for your blog post.
Thanks to my father who stated to me concerning this weblog, this website is genuinely awesome.
that I really loved the usual information an individual provide to your visitors?
Virtually all of what you point out is astonishingly legitimate and that makes me ponder why I hadn’t looked at this with this light previously. This particular article truly did switch the light on for me personally as far as this particular subject matter goes. But there is one particular factor I am not really too comfy with and while I make an effort to reconcile that with the central theme of the position, let me see what the rest of the subscribers have to say.Nicely done.
the quantity of robux so as to add into your account.
I pay a quick visit day-to-day some web pages and blogs to read content, but thios weblog presents feature based posts.
Hey, I stumbled on your blog and I like this post particularly. You make some compelling arguments. Where can I learn more?
I am curioius to find outt whaqt blog platform ʏou һave bеen utilizing?
latеst website and І woulⅾ like to find somethіng mоｒe risk-free.
You deliver some good points-however I believe you are in need of detail. I would like to see you clear up some misconceptions, because you are an excellent author and I enjoy reading your posts.
I enjoy your work, thankyou for all the good blog posts.
There are additional points that support this. Should I go ahead?
The root of your writing whilst appearing agreeable initially, did not sit well with me after some time. Someplace throughout the sentences you actually managed to make me a believer unfortunately only for a while. I still have a problem with your leaps in assumptions and you might do nicely to help fill in all those breaks. In the event that you actually can accomplish that, I will certainly be impressed.
Adult Date Finder Sites – Hooking Up and Online Dating..Deep within ourselves, we want to spend the rest of our lives with that single individual that can make a great impact on our lives. We hope to meet that person someday, but with billions of people out there in this world, this can be difficult and could take years before we actually stumble upon « the one ».You would ask yourself, « Where exactly do you begin searching and how will you know if you’re looking for this person in the right places? » This is where adult date finder sites come in, and believe it or not, these sites are rampant all over the World Wide Web, especially for hooking up. Through these online adult finder sites, you’ll discover that there is a massive community of singles out there waiting for you to post your profile and start interacting with them. If you haven’t begun your online dating journey just yet, right now think about how you can take full advantage of your resources and opportunities.This is going to be a great benefit for you because now, you don’t have to browse through newspapers and useless infomercials when you have easy-to-use adult dating sites that’ll make finding compatible partners a whole lot easier for you.Today, in this kind of society, the age of online dating has begun and is sweeping through the entire world population like wildfire. There are literally hundreds of adult date finder websites which you can easily sign up for and begin skimming through thousands of personals and profiles of different people with different backgrounds, interests, hobbies, and beliefs.What’s more, you have the power to narrow down your options and potential partners depending on your personal preferences. The end result lies in your hands as well as Fate’s, so use these adult dating websites wisely and with all honesty.
I’d have to verify with you here. Which is not something I normally do! I get pleasure from studying a submit that can make folks think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
oѵer your webb paցe again.
Hi everyone, it’s my first visit at this web site, and post is genuinelyfruitful designed for me, keep up posting these articles.
You will see that in a few months you will be able to use all your appliances and still save money on your electricity bill to fulfill some of your dreams.
My name is Aly and I would like to know if you would have any interest to have your website here at malaisant.fr promoted as a resource on our blog alychidesign.com ?
Very efficiently written story. It will be supportive to everyone who usess it, as well as myself. Keep up the good work – can’r wait to read more posts.
Very instructive and wonderful body structure of content, now that’s user friendly (:.
keep up the ɡood wߋrk!
I was looking at some of your articles on this site and I think this internet site is real informative! Retain putting up.
I do accept as true with all the ideas you’ve presented on your post. They’re very convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are too brief for novices. Could you please prolong them a bit from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.
I was just looking for this info for a while. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, at last I got it in your site. I wonder what is the lack of Google strategy that do not rank this type of informative web sites in top of the list. Normally the top sites are full of garbage.
I just checked out your website malaisant.fr and wanted to find out if you need help for SEO Link Building ?
Very excellent info can be found on web site. « Every artist was first an amateur. » by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I really wanted to make a simple note so as to say thanks to you for the stunning tactics you are placing at this site. My rather long internet research has at the end of the day been honored with wonderful facts and strategies to talk about with my close friends. I ‘d state that that most of us site visitors actually are rather endowed to exist in a fabulous network with many brilliant people with good opinions. I feel quite grateful to have seen the web pages and look forward to plenty of more amazing moments reading here. Thanks once more for everything.
This is very fascinating, You are an excessively professional blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look forward to looking for more of your magnificent post. Additionally, I’ve shared your website in my social networks!
I like this post, enjoyed this one regards for posting. « I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest. » by John Keats.
I used to be more than happy to seek out this internet-site.I wanted to thanks to your time for this glorious learn!! I undoubtedly having fun with every little little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you blog post.
My name is George, and I was wondering if you would like to have your website malaisant.fr promoted as a resource on my blog georgemartjr.com ?
One thing I’d prefer to say is the fact before buying more pc memory, have a look at the machine into which it will be installed. In case the machine can be running Windows XP, for instance, the memory ceiling is 3.25GB. Adding a lot more than this would merely constitute a waste. Be sure that one’s motherboard can handle the upgrade quantity, as well. Great blog post.
I enjoy what you guys are usually up too. Such clever work and exposure! Keep up the excellent works guys I’ve you guys to blogroll.
wonderful submit, very informative. I’m wondering why the other experts of this sector don’t understand this. You must proceed your writing. I am confident, you’ve a great readers’ base already!
Interesting blog post. Some tips i would like to make contributions about is that laptop or computer memory must be purchased in case your computer is unable to cope with everything you do with it. One can install two RAM memory boards with 1GB each, by way of example, but not certainly one of 1GB and one of 2GB. One should make sure the company’s documentation for one’s PC to be certain what type of storage is necessary.
I’d must verify with you here. Which is not something I usually do! I take pleasure in studying a submit that will make folks think. Also, thanks for allowing me to remark!
Thanks for sharing excellent informations. Your web site is very cool. I’m impressed by the details that you have on this blog. It reveals how nicely you perceive this subject. Bookmarked this web page, will come back for more articles. You, my pal, ROCK! I found just the information I already searched everywhere and simply could not come across. What a great website.
One thing I’d prefer to say is the fact that before getting more personal computer memory, look at the machine within which it would be installed. In the event the machine is usually running Windows XP, for instance, the particular memory limit is 3.25GB. Putting in greater than this would merely constitute a waste. Make certain that one’s motherboard can handle the particular upgrade amount, as well. Interesting blog post.
I definitely liked every little bit of it and i also have you bookmarked to check out new information in your website.
this this web page conations genuinely pleasant funny stuff too.
with images and clips, this website could certainly be one of the best in its field.
You should be a part of a contest for one of the best sites online. I will highly recommend this site!
Things i have seen in terms of computer system memory is that often there are requirements such as SDRAM, DDR and the like, that must go with the specific features of the mother board. If the personal computer’s motherboard is reasonably current while there are no main system issues, updating the ram literally normally takes under an hour. It’s among the easiest pc upgrade techniques one can imagine. Thanks for expressing your ideas.
Thanks for finally writing about >Définition de malaisant – Malaisant <Loved it!
It¦s in reality a nice and helpful piece of information. I¦m satisfied that you just shared this helpful information with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
time I will be back to read a great deal more, Please do keep up the great b.
Hi there, I discovered your site by means of Google while searching for a comparable subject, your website came up, it seems to be great.
Thanks for the guidelines you have provided here. One more thing I would like to convey is that laptop or computer memory requirements generally increase along with other developments in the know-how. For instance, whenever new generations of processors are made in the market, there’s usually a matching increase in the type calls for of all laptop or computer memory plus hard drive space. This is because the program operated by these processors will inevitably surge in power to benefit from the new technology.
as well as cravings for fatty foods.
Extremely helpful info specifically the closing section 🙂 I handle such information a lot.
Hello, I think your web site could be having browser compatibility problems. Whenever I look at your blog in Safari, it looks fine however, if opening in IE, it’s got some overlapping issues. I simply wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, wonderful blog!
I was extremely pleased to find this website. I need to to thank you for ones time for this fantastic read!!
I definitely loved every little bit of it and i also have you saved to fav to check out new information in your website.
whoah this blog is wonderful i like reading your posts. Stay up the great paintings! You know, many people are searching around for this information, you could help them greatly.
Utterly composed articles, appreciate it for entropy. « No human thing is of serious importance. » by Plato.
Thank you for some other informative site. The place else could I am getting that kind of info written in such a perfect manner? I’ve a mission that I’m just now working on, and I’ve been on the glance out for such info.
I would like to thnkx for the efforts you have put in writing this website. I’m hoping the same high-grade website post from you in the upcoming as well. Actually your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own website now. Actually the blogging is spreading its wings quickly. Your write up is a great example of it.
Regards for helping out, superb info. « Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained. » by William Blake.
It’s really a cool and useful piece of information. I’m happy that you just shared this helpful info with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to inform the reality on the other hand I’ll certainly come again again.
You have noted very interesting points! ps decent site. « Justice is the truth in action. » by Jeseph Joubert.
There are actually a number of particulars like that to take into consideration. That could be a nice point to carry up. I offer the ideas above as common inspiration however clearly there are questions just like the one you deliver up the place crucial thing might be working in trustworthy good faith. I don?t know if finest practices have emerged round issues like that, however I am sure that your job is clearly recognized as a fair game. Each boys and girls really feel the impact of just a moment’s pleasure, for the rest of their lives.
I?¦m not positive where you are getting your information, however good topic. I needs to spend a while studying more or figuring out more. Thanks for fantastic information I was searching for this info for my mission.
Hiya, I’m really glad I’ve found this info. Nowadays bloggers publish just about gossips and internet and this is really frustrating. A good website with interesting content, that’s what I need. Thanks for keeping this website, I will be visiting it. Do you do newsletters? Can not find it.
Magnificent website. Lots of useful info here. I am sending it to a few buddies ans also sharing in delicious. And of course, thank you on your sweat!
I’m really loving the theme/design of your website. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility issues? A couple of my blog readers have complained about my site not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Firefox. Do you have any recommendations to help fix this issue?
Excellent items from you, man. I’ve have in mind your stuff prior to and you’re simply extremely fantastic. I actually like what you have bought here, really like what you’re stating and the best way through which you assert it. You’re making it enjoyable and you continue to care for to keep it smart. I cant wait to learn far more from you. This is really a wonderful website.
I didn’t go to university levitra So, Obama did the only thing he could. He tried to get health reform through Congress with just Democratic votes. And boy, did he have to compromise on this and that…in fact, he had to bribe two Democratic senators from conservative states just to get their votes.
Aw, this was a really nice post. In concept I want to put in writing like this additionally – taking time and precise effort to make an excellent article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and on no account seem to get one thing done.
I believe other website owners should take this website as an model, very clean and great user pleasant layout.
Hello my family member! I wish to say that this article is amazing, great written and come with approximately all vital infos. I would like to see more posts like this.
Thank you for every other informative blog. Where else could I get that kind of info written in such an ideal way? I’ve a venture that I’m just now working on, and I have been at the look out for such info.
Thank you for sharing excellent informations. Your web-site is so cool. I am impressed by the details that you’ve on this blog. It reveals how nicely you perceive this subject. Bookmarked this website page, will come back for more articles. You, my pal, ROCK! I found simply the information I already searched all over the place and just couldn’t come across. What an ideal web site.
|
0.996203 |
Interested in picking up new photography techniques, but unsure about what to try out first? Here is a shortlist of what techniques to try out depending on the camera you own.
PANORAMAS: Stitching the panoramas in unconventional ways, like this “planet” panorama here, is just one of the many panorama options.
FORCED PERSPECTIVE: dramatic for people appearing as smaller than or larger than common objects and structures. Alignment is paramount.
LIGHT PAINTING: Many prosumer cameras offer minutes of exposure time allowing for photographs of light trails. Photographing traffic is a common.
FOCUS STACKING: All the dew drops in this photo would not normally be in focus. Multiple exposures with different points of focus are merged together.
SPEED PHOTOGRAPHY: This technique needs a cheap trigger mechanism, that can be purchased from enthusiast or professional shops.
HDR: HDR imaging is similar to focus bracketing, a number of photos are taken to bring out the nuanced shades of each area of an image.
MOTION BLUR: Vehicles, pedestrians and children are all great subjects. When necessary, the phone itself can be moved to induce a controlled blur.
PANOGRAPHY: Generally, arranging images in a collage of some kind is a good idea for presentation when the images are low-res.
SKY PHOTOGRAPHY: SLRs have no limit on the shutter speed. Long exposures (minutes to hours) allow for great photos of star trails, or lightning.
BLACK AND WHITE: The graininess of the fi lm often adds interesting textural details to the images. Getting hold of black and white fi lm can be difficult.
COMPACT: Compacts are maneuverable and versatile allowing for blind and “from the hip” photography.
PROSUMER: Also bridge cameras, these offer the ease of use of a compact along with the features of a dSLR.
DSLR: Investing in filters (UV/ IR etc.) and accessories (triggers, mounts etc.) allow for a range of techniques.
CAMERAPHONE: Composition, subject matter and timeliness can compensate for lack of quality.
SLR: There is still plenty of magic that SLRs can pull off, that digital cameras can only dream of.
|
0.944916 |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average /ˌdaʊ ˈdʒoʊnz/, also called DJIA, the Industrial Average, the Dow Jones, the Dow Jones Industrial, ^DJI, the Dow 30 or simply the Dow, is a stock market index, and one of several indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow. The industrial average was first calculated on May 26, 1896. Currently owned by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is majority owned by S&P Global, it is the most notable of the Dow Averages, of which the first was first published on February 16, 1885. The averages are named after Dow and one of his business associates, statistician Edward Jones. It is an index that shows how 30 large publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a standard trading session in the stock market. It is the second-oldest U.S. market index after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which was also created by Dow. The Industrial portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with traditional heavy industry. The average is price-weighted, and to compensate for the effects of stock splits and other adjustments, it is currently a scaled average. The value of the Dow is not the actual average of the prices of its component stocks, but rather the sum of the component prices divided by a divisor, which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, so as to generate a consistent value for the index. Since the divisor is currently less than one, the value of the index is larger than the sum of the component prices. Although the Dow is compiled to gauge the performance of the industrial sector within the American economy, the index's performance continues to be influenced by not only corporate and economic reports, but also by domestic and foreign political events such as war and terrorism, as well as by natural disasters that could potentially lead to economic harm.
Historical logarithmic graph of the DJIA from 1896 to July 2011.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average /ˌdaʊ ˈdʒoʊnz/, also called DJIA, the Industrial Average, the Dow Jones, the Dow Jones Industrial, ^DJI, the Dow 30 or simply the Dow, is a stock market index, and one of several indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow. The industrial average was first calculated on May 26, 1896. Currently owned by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is majority owned by S&P Global, it is the most notable of the Dow Averages, of which the first (non-industrial) was first published on February 16, 1885. The averages are named after Dow and one of his business associates, statistician Edward Jones. It is an index that shows how 30 large publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a standard trading session in the stock market. It is the second-oldest U.S. market index after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which was also created by Dow.
The Industrial portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with traditional heavy industry. The average is price-weighted, and to compensate for the effects of stock splits and other adjustments, it is currently a scaled average. The value of the Dow is not the actual average of the prices of its component stocks, but rather the sum of the component prices divided by a divisor, which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, so as to generate a consistent value for the index. Since the divisor is currently less than one, the value of the index is larger than the sum of the component prices. Although the Dow is compiled to gauge the performance of the industrial sector within the American economy, the index's performance continues to be influenced by not only corporate and economic reports, but also by domestic and foreign political events such as war and terrorism, as well as by natural disasters that could potentially lead to economic harm.
Don't be fooled by the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
|
0.971997 |
Is there a way to point to a specific element (scaler value) using a variation of this command line?
You'll have to type: my_result = (cp[nx - 1].Report("concentration elements fluid Cupper", "moles")).
Looking at the output text now, it makes sense to spell out the element since it is printed as such. Most of the literature provides examples of aqueous solutions (H+, Fe++) and I was just using Cu and Fe as the element name. Thank you for clarifying the syntax.
|
0.999997 |
What is the difference between international relief and development?
The way we help those in need often falls into one of two main categories: relief and development. Within these categories, there are dozens, if not hundreds of different areas of focus, like maternal health, water, microfinance, hunger, literacy, nutrition, and education. Each of these needs can be addressed in a way that focuses on either international relief or development, and so it is critical to understand the difference between the two.
Relief may be defined as the “urgent provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering during a crisis.” Following natural or environmental disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and droughts, or human disasters such as political instability and wars, individuals and communities are often incapable of meeting their immediate needs and require help as soon as possible. The solutions used in relief work need to be deployed quickly and address the immediate problems as thoroughly as possible. Relief work might look like sending food and blankets after an earthquake. They are a response to a temporary calamity, helping to stop death and suffering and bring people from disaster mode to recovery mode.
Although these efforts sometimes last longer, most relief work is done in weeks or months. Relief work is essential to meet the immediate needs of individuals and communities. In the WASH context, relief work would look like installing water wells and building latrine blocks in refugee camps in order to help displaced people get safe water and inhibit the spread of diseases among people living in close quarters. In time, these people would return to their homes and communities, where they still need safe water and sanitation, but must seek solutions that don’t depend on ongoing outside assistance.
Development focuses on the long-term process whereby individuals and communities sustainably improve their quality of life. It is the work to meet the anticipated needs of an identified community far into the future. “Development is not done to people or for people but with people. The key dynamic in development is promoting an empowering process.” The solutions employed in development work must work with people that are being served in order to become sustainable solutions that will permanently change the situation of a community. These solutions almost always include training, education, participation, and long-term planning for maintenance of resources as a part of development efforts.
Rather than focusing on quick responses to crises, development programs last years and gains often take years to see. This work is essential to sustainably transforming a community. In WASH, development looks like working with communities and regional actors to ensure universal access to water, sanitation, and hygiene education for generations.
International relief and development are both necessary, but each at their own time. When relief methods are applied in development situations, the change rarely lasts far beyond the project, returning a community back to the original situation. And when development methods are applied in relief situations, help often comes too late and fails to meet very urgent needs. Many organizations serve people with WASH through either relief or development work, but it’s important to be sure the organization is using the right methods at the right time in order to serve others best. For more information about common standards in international relief and development work, visit the Accord Network website. Lifewater’s Program Director, Dr. Pamela Crane-Hoover, currently serves on the Accord WASH Alliance steering committee.
Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 104.
|
0.999985 |
Is the mortgage interest and property tax on a second residence deductible?
The mortgage interest on a second home which you use as a residence for some portion of the taxable year, is generally deductible if the interest satisfies the same requirements for deductibility as interest on a primary residence. Real estate taxes paid on your primary and second residence are, generally, deductible. Deductible real estate taxes include any state, local, or foreign taxes on real property levied for the general public welfare. Deductible real estate taxes do not include taxes charged for local benefits and improvements that increase the value of the property. For more information, refer to Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax for Individuals, Chapter 24; Tax Topic 503, Deductible Taxes; and Publication 530, Tax Information for First-Time Home Owners.
|
0.993954 |
Two common mechanisms of gene duplication.
alleles particular forms of genes organism has two copies of each gene. A point mutation in one of these creates a new form of the gene. Different forms of the same gene are called alleles. Creation of alleles is one of the most common forms of gene evolution. The existence of diploidy allows a greater tolerance of new alleles, since a mutation to one allele still leaves the other one functioning, and in many cases this may be sufficient for survival. The existence of alleles allows greater genetic diversity in a population, which may increase that population's ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
|
0.999968 |
I don't want to get too far into the minutiae of financial operations, but it is worth remarking that the derivative economy has a complex structure. Clearinghouses are composed of clearing firms, each one representing a pool of mutualized risk. Many clearing firms are members of multiple clearinghouses, whereas others are relatively tiny operations and work only with a single clearinghouse. If you enter into a public futures contract, you will post margin with a futures commission merchant (FCM). That entity will aggregate your margin and your trades with those of its other customers, and deposit some of the margin with the clearinghouse. As long as everyone does their job properly and no contract prices move farther than the required margin amount in a day, everything gets paid off in full, like a sound bank.
|
0.912593 |
The Côte d'Azur (English: Azure Coast) is the narrow coastal part of the department of Alpes-Maritimes in PROVENCE, southeastern France. Strictly defined, it stretches from CANNES to Menton at the Italian border, but the term is often used synonymously with the RIVIERA (or French Riviera). It begins where the granitic and metamorphic rocks of the Massif de l'Esterel end at the Golfe de la Napoule and the limestone Alps reach the sea. Thus, the white cliffs and headlands of the rugged, indented coast contrast with the often clear, blue sky and sea amid the lush subtropical vegetation of palm and mimosa. The tourist industry has resulted in the Côte d'Azur having an almost continuous string of resorts, the most important being Monte Carlo in Monaco, Cannes, Antibes, and Menton, each with a different character. Fishing is important, and olives, grapes, citrus fruits, and flowers (for making perfumes) are grown. The eastern part of the Côte d'Azur, the county of Nice, was ceded to France by Italy in 1860.
Corsica (French: Corse) is the fourth largest island (8,680 sq km/ 3,352 sq mi) in the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated 170 km (105 mi) southeast of France, 97 km (60 mi) west of the Italian mainland, and is separated from Sardinia by the Strait of Bonifacio. A region of France with its own elected assembly, Corsica is divided into the departments of Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud. An independence movement is active.
Most of the island is a crystalline massif carved by the major rivers (Golo, Gravone, Tavignano), with frequent gorges in the mountains. Maquis, a dense, nearly impenetrable scrub brush, is the most common vegetative cover at low and medium altitudes. Forests of pine, beech, birch, and chestnut are found at higher altitudes. Sheep are raised on the rugged Niolo plateau in the north, and cheese from their milk is an important Corsican export. The economy is based on agriculture (citrus fruit, tobacco, grapes), although tourism is becoming important. A third of the population of 251,300 (1992 est.) live in the two largest towns, AJACCIO, the capital, and Bastia, both of which are on the coast. Most inhabitants speak both French (the official language) and Corsican, which is an Italian dialect.
The Romans conquered Corsica in the 3d century BC and established agricultural colonies along the coasts. These were destroyed during the Vandal, Lombard, and Saracen invasions between about AD 450 and 1050. Pisa and Genoa (until 1284) and Genoa and Aragon (until 1434) battled for control of the island. Genoa remained dominant from the 15th to the 18th century, when the Corsicans rebelled (1729) and established (1755) their own government under Pasquale PAOLI. The French conquered Corsica in 1769. During the French Revolution, Paoli returned to power and allied himself with the British, who occupied the island in 1794. Napoleon Bonaparte (a native Corsican) restored French rule in 1796.
Bibliography: Wilson, Stephen, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry in 19th-Century Corsica (1989).
|
0.999942 |
Will Quantum Physics Ever Replace the Theory of Relativity?
The quantum theory and relativity theory are not in conflict.
Is it possible that one day, quantum physics will subsume the theory of relativity? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.
Is it possible that one day, quantum physics will subsume the theory of relativity?
I think this question was triggered by a common misunderstanding about quantum physics and relativity theory, promoted by popular science media.
So let me begin with an important statement: The quantum theory and relativity theory are not in conflict.
In fact, the very first attempt to formulate a modern quantum theory, which later became known as the Klein—Gordon equation, was relativistic. Erwin Schrödinger first formulated the theory in this form, but its prediction of negative probabilities deterred him; instead, he opted to publish a nonrelativistic version, which became known as the Schrödinger equation.
Dirac took the next step, then, when (using astonishing mathematical insight) he constructed another equation, the Dirac equation, which we now know as the equation that describes a relativistic fermion. The insights offered by the Dirac equation led us to understand the Klein—Gordon equation as well, reinterpreting negative probabilities as antiparticles.
And then, in the 1940s, quantum field theory was born, addressing the main shortcomings of quantum particle theories, such as their inability to account for particle creation and annihilation, and the subtle violations of causality. Quantum field theory has been fully relativistic from the onset. It is, in fact, possible to formulate quantum field theory on the curved spacetime background of general relativity.
You might wonder, then, why you keep hearing about a presumed “conflict” between quantum physics and relativity. The reason is simple: gravity.
The usual route of turning a classical field theory (like electromagnetism) into a quantum theory involves some formal steps of replacing dynamical quantities with corresponding quantum operators, working out the interactions of the theory, and last but not least, applying mathematical procedures to get rid of unwanted infinities.
It is this last step that fails for gravity. We understand why… but we have not been able to devise a convincing scheme to get around this problem.
But then, here is something interesting: the theory almost works. That is to say, it is possible to formulate a hybrid theory, so-called semiclassical gravity, in which the gravitational field itself is treated classically, but everything else is treated as quantum fields. This hybrid theory works very well, a little too well, perhaps: in every regime accessible to us through observation, its predictions are accurate. Which means that there are no experiments, no observations to offer insight, or to validate or refute new, quantum theories of gravity. So we are a little bit stuck here, with a theory that works but is rather inelegant and feels “unfinished”.
But “subsume” relativity? What for? Apart from the gravity issue, quantum field theory and relativity theory happily go hand-in-hand, together describing accurately just about every physical phenomena that we can observe. There is no conflict, no tension between the two, hence no need to “subsume” anything.
* Gravity: If time is an illusion, how does gravity bend it?
|
0.998814 |
To keep your money safe while traveling, you should not put all your money in one place, put only very minimal local currency in your pocket, use security pouches for your money, bring your fanny pack along instead of your tote or purse, leave some of your money in the hotel safe, and keep a list of bank phone numbers and other important details with you.
First, it is advisable not to put all your money in one place. If your wallet gets lost or stolen, you will have nothing left. It is always wise to break up your money and put it in different pouches. You can put a small amount in your wallet, some in your pocket, and some in other pouches.
You need to put some money in your pocket to pay for transportation, as well as other little things you will need. The idea is to always keep it to a minimum so that if you lose it or a pickpocket steals your money, it will not paralyze you on your journey. Use a money clamp to avoid dropping your bills and keep them organized in your pocket.
Security pouches, such as money belts, are very important in keeping your money hidden from burglars. You can place your larger sum of money in your money belt, as well as your credit cards and even very minimal jewelry you might use for a party. If you have already used the money in your pocket, take some from your security pouch discreetly in a private place, such as in a restroom. Money belts can be worn under your clothing to keep them undetected by thieves. Other security pouches also come in waterproof materials to keep your money and other valuables safe even if you go swimming or get soaked in the rain.
If you are torn between using a tote or purse and keeping your money safe, consider using a fanny pack. Fanny packs are less attractive to thieves than purses and totes. A fanny pack or belt bag comes in handy especially when walking around the streets. To keep your belongings more secure, wear your pack in front of you to keep your valuables visible at all times.
Should you go shopping at the mall or have dinner at fine restaurants, considering leaving some of your money and other valuables inside the safe in your hotel room. Just bring enough money for your transportation and other minimal expenses, as well as a little extra, and bring your credit card along for other spending needs.
Not only the money in your pocket is at stake when traveling. Your credit cards, debit cards, and traveler's checks may also be at risk for theft and loss, so keep a list of your bank's phone numbers, as well as your traveler's check numbers. Just in case the unfortunate happens, you can immediately report the incident to your bank and prevent the thieves from accessing your money.
With these simple tips, you can enjoy traveling more than before. Whether on a business trip or a vacation, these suggestions can lessen your anxiety and keep your plans intact.
|
0.949045 |
Why are some BGP routes not installed in the IP routing table?
Some BGP routes are not installed in the IP routing table.
BGP routes were not installed in the routing table because the next hop is only reachable via LDP. According to the Netiron command reference, the next-hop-mpls command configures BGP shortcuts which force BGP to use an MPLS tunnel as the preferred route to a destination network when an MPLS tunnel is available.
|
0.978914 |
Is it possible to rebuild the Jersey Shore so that it is more resilient to extreme storms like Hurricane Sandy?
That issue could qualify as Topic No. 1 for many local and state officials as they struggle to decide where and what to do about rebuilding a coast devastated by what most call the worst storm to hit New Jersey.
It was also Topic No. 1 when Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight's cofounder and energy and environment writer, sat down and talked with WHYY/NewsWorks about the plans and policies that are being considered -- particularly a comprehensive dune system that will reshape the Shore and remake its communities.
|
0.847727 |
How does one change between project windows in OS X? I don't even see a menu option. Right now, I have to move one project window to see the other so that I can switch. Keystrokes? Menu?
>> other so that I can switch. Keystrokes? Menu?
An IDEA feature has been filed (#10301) regarding this issue.
True. Apple refers to it as Command-~ though, don't they?
While I agree that it would be nice that IDEA provide a keybinding to switch between frames, I view the lack of command-` implementation for Java applications as a problem for Apple if their ambition is to make Java applications feel as native as possible. So my bug report was more a feature request (for UI consistence across Java and native applications) than a real bug report.
The problem is that windows are conceptually different on Mac OS than on Windows. On Windows, a window is more or less an application by itself: there is a confusion between the notions of windows, documents and applications. The result is that you can switch between windows and applications indifferently using alt-tab.
On Mac OS, applications don't have windows per se. You opened a document that happens to be shown in a window but the application is NOT the window. For example, you can have a running application which doesn't have any opened window. Mac OS provides a way to switch between open applications using the command-tab (meta-tab) shortcut. If an application has several opened (several documents and/or toolbars), you cannot switch between them using command-tab. OS X provides a recommended shortcut to switch between windows in the context of a given application. This shortcut is command-~ (it's really command-`). However, this shortcut is NOT official AFAIK (I don't think it is in Apple's HIG but I might be wrong).
Gordon's point (if I understand it correctly) is that not providing a keybinding switch between frames assumes a Windows-centric point of view that a window can live by itself independtly of the application it is tied to. This view breaks, for the reasons outlined above, on Mac OS.
While I tend to agree that it should be Apple's responsibility to provide a clearly defined shortcut to switch between windows in the context of a given application and implement this for Java applications, the fact remains that IDEA made an assumption that is not platform-independent. A shortcut should be provided and it would default to alt-tab in the default keymap (for Windows users) and to command-` (meta-`) in the OS X default keymap.
A shortcut should be provided and it would default to alt-tab in the default keymap (for Windows users) and to command-` (meta-`) in the OS X default keymap.
would be overridden by the OS and never actually work.
That was my point exactly. This shortcut should be transparent on all platforms. That's why it would default to alt-tab on Windows (and Linux) so that users are not bewildered by alt-tab not working anymore to switch windows. And it would default to meta-` on OS X for the same reason.
The idea would be that people would rarely want to change the default binding because it would just do what's expected on their favorite platform.
windows of that particular application.
|
0.999999 |
Našli jsme další záznamy k osobě אסתר וילנר.
אסתר וילנר je pohřben(a) na hřbitově New Kiryat Shmona Cemetery v místě zobrazeném na níže uvedené mapě. Tyto informace o GPS jsou k dispozici POUZE na stránkách BillionGraves. Naše technologie vám pomůže najít umístění hrobu a také další členy rodiny, pohřbené poblíž.
אסתר וילנר was 16 years old when Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, "Plane Crazy". Walter Elias Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
אסתר וילנר was 27 years old when Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people. Adolf Hitler was a German politician, demagogue, and Pan-German revolutionary, who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("Leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator, Hitler initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and was central to the Holocaust.
אסתר וילנר was 28 years old when The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma and "incurably sick", as well as ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses, resulting in up to 17 million deaths overall.
אסתר וילנר was 45 years old when Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. The Space Race refers to the 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for dominance in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, aided by captured German missile technology and personnel from the Aggregat program. The technological superiority required for such dominance was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, uncrewed space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon.
אסתר וילנר was 57 years old when During the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two people on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21.5 hours on the lunar surface before rejoining Columbia in lunar orbit.
אסתר וילנר was 66 years old when Jim Jones led more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple to mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after some of its members assassinated U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan (pictured). James Warren Jones was an American religious cult leader who initiated and was responsible for a mass suicide and mass murder in Jonestown, Guyana. He considered Jesus Christ as being in compliance with an overarching belief in socialism as the correct social order. Jones was ordained as a Disciples of Christ pastor, and he achieved notoriety as the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple cult.
אסתר וילנר was 77 years old when The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million US gallons (260,000 bbl; 41,000 m3) of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made maritime environmental disasters. A tanker is a ship designed to transport or store liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and gas carrier. Tankers also carry commodities such as vegetable oils, molasses and wine. In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, a tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler but many other navies use the terms tanker and replenishment tanker.
|
0.961205 |
The text of the bill below is as of Jan 30, 2013 (Introduced).
To establish an employment-based immigrant visa for alien entrepreneurs who have received significant capital from investors to establish a business in the United States.
This Act may be cited as the StartUp Visa Act of 2013 .
generate not less than $100,000 in revenue.
will be subject to removal proceedings under section 240 if the alien does not depart from the United States not later than 6 months after receiving such notification.
has made at least 2 equity investments of not less than $50,000 in each of the previous 3 years.
has made at least 2 investments of not less than $500,000 during each of the most recent 2 years.
the entrepreneur failed to meet the job creation, capital investment, or revenue generation requirements under section 203(b)(6)(A)(ii).
The term sponsored entrepreneur means an alien who obtains the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence under section 203(b)(6).
Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall submit a report to Congress on the StartUp Visa Program, authorized under section 203(b)(6) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as added by section 2.
the types and number of jobs created by such immigrant entrepreneurs.
|
0.998652 |
The Black-vented Shearwater is a seabird that occurs in the Pacific Ocean from central California south to southern Mexico. It only nests on six islands off the coast of Mexico, especially the islands of Isla de Guadalupe, and the Islas San Benito and Isla Natividad. In winter months, this species may migrate short distances to the coasts of central and southern California. The estimated population of this species is 200,000-250,000 total individuals. Although this colonial nesting species is threatened by feral cats and being caught as bycatch, predators have been eradicated from some nesting areas. The conservation rating for this species is Near Threatened.
Black-vented Shearwater: This species breeds on islands off the coast of Baja California. It is a year-round visitor off the coast of southern California, but is most commonly found there in late fall and winter. Mostly winters along the Pacific coast of Mexico and areas south. Lives on open ocean, only comes ashore to breed.
It flies close to the waves, its flight more fluttery than that of other shearwaters. It rarely follows ships, but feeds by snatching food from the water's surface and sometimes by diving. It also swims beneath the surface, aided by its wings.
The Black-vented Shearwater is frequently seen from shore. They are only found in the waters off southern and Baja California, where it nests on isolated islands in the California Current. Natividad Island may host as much as 30-40% of the global population of this species.
The form that visits California waters has dark under tail coverts and was formerly considered a race of the Manx Shearwater, a resident of the North Atlantic.
|
0.986196 |
A Belief agent that follows a specified policy.
The policy that the agent will follow.
policy - the policy the agent will follow.
|
0.995391 |
You may think you've found the best daycare for your child, but are you sure? It's important to know what to look for in a quality daycare center, as well as signs that may indicate a potential problem. After all, if you can't be with your child during the day, don't you want to provide her with the best care possible?
Any issues or requests you have about your child's care should be addressed directly with the staff and manager of the center. If your concerns are dismissed or ignored, or if the staff becomes defensive or rude, it is a red flag that your child's care may be compromised while you are not there. Do not feel that you are being too picky or overprotective if you have questions for the staff. Your questions should be answered in an attentive and helpful manner.
Frequent staff changes could be a sign that workers are unhappy and there are problems with the program. Take notice how the staff reacts if you make an unexpected visit, such as during your lunch break. If you are discouraged from doing this, or are asked to call before dropping in unannounced, it may be a sign of inadequate care.
Ideally, daycare staff should be trained in early childhood education in order to nurture your child's skills and development. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends one staff person for every three to five small children, and one staff member for every seven to ten older children. If training in early childhood education is not required of the staff at your child's daycare, or the center is understaffed, it's time to look elsewhere.
In addition, the center's director should be available and easily accessible for parents, staff, and children. If your center's director isn't around during the day and is hard to reach, it's a good indication the supervision at your daycare is not sufficient.
Are emergency phone numbers, such as poison control and the hospital, visible and posted for easy reference? Does the staff hold fire drills? Is the playground safe and secure from strangers? Are children prevented from climbing on the counters or other high places? It may seem like common sense to you, but childproofing and stranger safety should be of utmost importance to the center, too. If the staff is unaware of an emergency procedure that should be followed, or the playground is not fenced in, making it easy for a little one to wander off or be lured away, then it is not the place for your child. After all, you should be able to trust these individuals with your child's safety.
The cleanliness of the center should be high on your priority list, too. The staff should enforce hand-washing rules, and toys and any surfaces should be cleaned on a regular basis. The last thing you need is your child getting sick at daycare because of dirty toys and unsanitary conditions.
A good daycare will encourage parents to be as involved as possible with the center and their child's care. Family meetings with the staff are an important way to stay connected and to know what is going on when you are not there. If your center does not hold regular meetings for parents and discourages you from visiting with staff or staying involved, you need to find a new center or talk to your center about making improvements. The center should also provide you with regular reports and updates on your child's progress and activities.
It's also important to connect with your child by asking him how the day was. Simple conversations like this can help alert you to any problems the center may be having, or if you child is unhappy.
Not only should your daycare center have specific policies regarding discipline, your child's goals, and the center's finances, but they should be in writing and thoroughly gone over with you before you make a commitment. If your center does not have their policies documented in writing, you should be wary.
In addition, the center's certificate of compliance from the Department of Public Welfare should be prominently displayed. A center cannot legally operate if it does not possess this license.
|
0.989095 |
Even with modern technology and the laws that keep people safe, life continues to be a struggle for many. In ancient times, it was much more difficult. People died young, their lives were often filled with poverty, and food could be scarce due to drought or storm damage. There was little medical knowledge, no weather forecasting, and barbarism was as close as the yard in front of every house. It should come as no surprise that the majority of the religions that have survived more than a thousand years promise that good behavior in this life will provide a paradise in the next life.
Those who survived long enough in ancient times were told that there was another life awaiting them, and the choice of how they would get to it was tied to how they behaved in this life. The afterlife would be a paradise for those who adhered strictly to their religion, but those who committed crimes, known as sins, would suffer greatly after death.
|
0.977461 |
The video (YouTube) [at the 2013 Eastern Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, held at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (LBTS), Dr. Dan Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary — Oops, the Liberty Baptist (LU), Ergun and Emir Caner hoaxers are now busy hoaxing the validity of the fraudulent Occult version Codex Sinaiticus — Note: the video is mostly harmless and actually inadvertently does more to reveal Sinaiticus as a hoax — Also Note: the Reformed Theologians (i.e. Dr. James White) have their hair on fire, because their favorite occult bible version ‘Sinaiticus’ is being revealed as a modern day hoax and are busy trying to ‘Cook the Books’ in a scholarly manner of course, as they strive to validate any bible version other than the generally accepted and trusted 1611 KJV Bible] below was posted on James White’s Alpha & Omega ministry website, as an alleged refutation of the claims of Constantine Simonides. The headline for the article appears thus: “Evangelical Textual Scholar Debunks Chris Pinto’s Conspiracy Claim that Codex Sinaiticus was a Forgery.” It is worth noting that the scholar in question (Dr. Daniel Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary) does not mention Chris Pinto, or the film Tares Among the Wheat. Had Dr. Wallace actually seen the film, his comments would most likely have been orchestrated differently, and he might have even been convinced to change his mind.
Dr. Wallace is obviously unfamiliar with certain particulars surrounding the Simonides affair, and we believe this is not entirely his fault, since this history has been largely buried for more than a century. The purpose of Tares is to show the untold history surrounding the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus, and to draw attention to the fact that this single manuscript has been used to destroy confidence in the Bible as the inspired Word of God. As such, whether or not this codex is genuine becomes very significant.
A few things: Dr. Wallace says that Tischendorf had “exposed” Simonides as a forger years earlier, which is untrue. In 1856, Simonides presented the only known copy of the Shepherd of Hermas in Greek [actually it was from the Codex Fredrico-Augustanus that was later renamed and presented as the newly discovered Codex Sinaiticus] at the University of Leipzig and it was originally embraced by the scholars there as authentic. Several of the scholars published the MS. (known as Codex Lipsiensis) and were very excited about it. According to Simonides, this provoked jealousy from Tischendorf, who then declared the work to be a forgery that had been created in the Middle Ages, and taken from a corrupted Latin text. But Tischendorf did not declare that Simonides himself had created the forgery. Tischendorf believed it had been created by someone else hundreds of years before. Then, three years later, the only other known copy of the Shepherd of Hermas was revealed as part of the Codex Sinaiticus. It turns out that it matched the one presented by Simonides in 1856. This compelled Tischendorf to retract his former assertion. Why? Because if he continued to denounce Simonides’ MS. he would, by default, have denounced his own discovery.
Furthermore, Henry Bradshaw (as we show in Tares Among the Wheat) had no scholarly reasons for embracing Codex Sinaiticus. His argument was that he didn’t know why he believed it, but that his “senses” told him it was real. That’s it. There was no deep scientific argument. Just his senses. This becomes very significant once you realize that Bradshaw was said to be one of the key reasons why the MS. was eventually embraced.
The Shepherd of Hermas [Satan] – The Enigma Of The Shepherd Of Hermas – Even though it is said [unsubstantiated] of the Shepherd of Hermas that it was “…the most popular books, if not the most popular book, in the Christian Church during the second, third, and fourth centuries…”, the fact of the matter is that it is impossible for the modern believer, biblical expert or scholar, or critic, to in any manner understand the message that it bears. And what this means is that [the Bible if read in context with The Occult Shepherd of Hermas writings] it is virtually impossible for the modern congregations of believers and their critics alike, to understand the original teachings of Jesus and the religion of [the original Christian Church] TheWay. Why? How can I make such a statement that on the surface would seem patiently absurd? The answer is that because our culture and thinking has been build upon a defective Paradigm of Thought that is foundational to all our modern ideas about self and the life that man is living, everything that has been built upon that foundation – i.e., our philosophies, our religions, and even our ideas about self, has all been severely limited because of the defective foundational Paradigm of Thought upon which the whole of our structure of mind has been built. In the example of the scripture that was the most widely used among the earliest of Gentile Christians, the fact that “…some [Christians] have doubted whether the work should even be considered as Christian” [then there] is [the occult contrived] proof [opinion] that modern Christianity has absolutely nothing in common with the original teachings of Jesus and TheWay.
Westcott and Hort founded several occult societies, two of which were The Hermes [Satan] Club and The Ghostly Guild. These were not merely school-boy projects. They were created at one of the highest learning institutions in the world’s largest imperial world-power at that time – Great Britain. Members of these clubs and the occult associations that they went on to found, such as The Society for Psychical Research started the modern New Age movement, became and were prominent members of British Royalty and politics, as well as occupied the highest positions in the Anglican Church including that which is equivalent to that of the Pope in the RCC, the Archbishop of Canterbury. To say that Westcott and Hort were well connected is an understatement.
Doing searches on some of the names, organizations and movements listed in the essay below are real eye-openers if you really want to know what was going on with the occult movement in the latter half of the 1800’s and the connection that Wescott and Hort had to it.
The elimination of [alleged] “Byzantine (KJV Bible) corruptions” [i.e. this is a direct attempt to discredit and alter the 1611 KJV Bible] would be the substitution [insertion] of minority (1%) Alexandrian [Egyptian] manuscripts for [into] the [Byzantine] Textus Receptus, the Received Text which had been recognized for nearly two millennia of church history and which agrees with the majority (99%) of manuscripts extant. Karl Lachmann (1793-1851) was professor of Classical and German Philology in Berlin, and also a German rationalist and textual critic who produced modern editions of the New Testament in Germany in 1842 and 1850.
|
0.999798 |
Despite great obstacles, Jews throughout occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans and their Axis partners. They faced overwhelming odds and desperate scenarios, including lack of weapons and training, operating in hostile zones, parting from family members, and facing an ever-present Nazi terror. Yet thousands resisted by joining or forming partisan units.
Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists. Despite great obstacles (such as lack of armaments and training, conducting operations in a hostile zone, reluctance to leave families behind, and the ever-present Nazi terror), many Jews throughout German-occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans. As individuals and in groups, Jews engaged in opposition to the Germans and their Axis partners. Jewish resistance units operated in France, Belgium, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Poland. Jews also fought in general French, Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, and Soviet resistance organizations.
In eastern Europe, Jewish units fought the Germans in city ghettos and behind the front lines in the forests. While most Jewish armed resistance began in 1943, it should be noted that the general resistance movements in the region, operating under more favorable circumstances and with a more sympathetic local population, also did not start until 1943.
Despite minimal support and even antisemitic hostility from the surrounding population, thousands of Jews battled the Germans in eastern Europe. Resistance units emerged in over 100 ghettos in Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Jews resisted when the Germans attempted to establish ghettos in a number of small towns in eastern Poland in 1942. Revolts took place in Starodubsk, Kletsk, Lachva, Mir, Tuchin, and several other towns. As the Germans liquidated the major ghettos in 1943, they met with armed Jewish resistance in Krakow (Cracow), Bialystok, Czestochowa, Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, as well as a major uprising in Warsaw. Thousands of Jews escaped from the ghettos and joined partisan units in nearby forests. Jews from Minsk, for example, established seven partisan fighting units. Jews from Vilna, Riga, and Kovno also formed resistance units.
In western Belorussia, the western Ukraine, and eastern Poland, family camps were established in which Jewish civilians repaired weapons, made clothing, cooked for the fighters, and assisted Soviet partisan operations. As many as 10,000 Jews survived the war by taking refuge with Jewish partisan units. The camp established by Tuvia Bielski in the Naliboki Forest in 1942, for example, gave refuge to more than 1,200 Jews.
There were even uprisings in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz during 1943-1944.
In France, the "Armée Juive" (Jewish Army), a French Jewish partisan group, was founded in Toulouse in January 1942. Composed of members of Zionist youth movements, the Jewish Army operated in and around Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, and Paris. Its members smuggled money from Switzerland into France to assist Jews in hiding, smuggled at least 500 Jews and non-Jews into neutral Spain, and took part in the 1944 uprisings against the Germans in Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse. "Solidarité," a Jewish Communist unit, also carried out attacks on German personnel in Paris. Many Jews joined the general French resistance as well.
In Belgium, a combined Jewish and non-Jewish resistance unit (also named "Solidarité") derailed a deportation train in April 1943. On July 25, 1942, Jewish resisters attacked and burned the files of the organization that the Nazis had forced on the Jews of Belgium. Jews were also active in the Dutch and Italian underground movements.
The impact of armed Jewish resistance should not be exaggerated. It did little to stop the Nazi apparatus from implementing the mass murder of the Jews. Most Jewish resistance to the Nazis focused on rescue, escape, aid to those in hiding, and spiritual resistance. Nevertheless, organized armed resistance was the most direct form of Jewish opposition to the Nazis.
What obstacles and limitations did Jews face when considering resistance?
What resources and abilities might resisters need to fight back against a regime? Consider how filling these needs was often challenging for Jews during the Holocaust.
|
0.999711 |
See America's Strangest Serial on youtube.
See Conferência com Eduardo Viveir on youtube.
See Bible Questions and Answers Su on youtube.
See Three Studies for Figures at t on youtube.
See 1983-0316 Sahaja Yoga Part II on youtube.
See Yang 3 in 2D on youtube.
See Jane Goodall on youtube.
See Law & Order: Criminal Inte on youtube.
See Never Sleep Again: The Elm Str on youtube.
Mother's Meat and Freud's Flesh similar movies given below. Rate each movie or TV Series, add your own reviews and suggest new title as related. See big list of best top movies that are like Mother's Meat and Freud's Flesh film.
Top movies like Mother's Meat and Freud's Flesh complete list given below.
Description: After one burned dinner too many, a husband divorces his wife. She decides to return to acting and goes to France. There she meats a forgotten one-hit wonder director who's also looking for a possibility to create a comeback.
Description: El Fin is comedy about the end of the world. Depressed by the newest death of his parents and losing his job, Nico; an ordinary 26 year old, decides to take refuge in his house for six months. Until that feared day when the media announces the end of the globe is later coming, caused by a large meteorite.
Description: Kindness & Exuberance is the first solo present performed by Josie Long. It was originally performed during the Edinburgh Fringe 2006, where Long won the greatest newcomer award for it. It a present about tiny things Long likes & her love of DIY culture and DIY standup clubs. You can search it as an additional on the "Trying Is Good" DVD.
Description: This comedy follows Sam, as her life is turned upside down on a large night out. When reunited with her old college friends, Sam is forced to re-evaluate her life and constructs an elaborate façade in order to convince herself and her mates that she has it all. But once her dysfunctional yet devoted trio of greatest friends intervene, her carefully crafted charade starts to crumble amidst the shots, cigarettes, ciders and toilet transgressions. Faced with some very harsh realities, Sam gotta struggle to remain real to herself and reassess exactly what she wants from life.
Description: After losing her job and learning that her husband has been unfaithful, a girl hits the street with her profane, hard-drinking grandmother.
Description: Colin Murphy, star of The Panel and The Blame Minigame takes to Cork’s Everyman Theatre scene for a blistering night of razor-sharp comedy that will have you crying with laughter.
Description: Universal cowboy star Rod Cameron plays Geoffrey, conductor of a high-toned symphony orchestra. Secretly harboring the desire to become a swingin' jazz trumpeter, Geoffrey takes a job at a "hot" Broadway nightclub. Here he meets and falls in love with café songstress Donna (Frances Raeburn), who has led her family to trust that she's studying for a classical-music career. Meanwhile, a comedy-relief romance develops between Geoffrey's snooty valet Chumley (Arthur Treacher) and Donna's greatest pal Pat (Jacqueline De Wit). For those not interested in the plot (what there is of it), Swing Out, Sister contains specialty numbers by organist Selika Pettiford and the Lou Diamond Quintet.
Description: A high school rock band on the verge of breaking up gets locked in their garage for a day.
Description: A short film by Jesús Plaza.
Description: Marc Maron returns to his old stomping grounds for an intimate unique in which he takes stock of himself. More than ever, Maron is raw and hilariously honest as he dissects his own neuroses and self-loathing while providing outrageous anecdotes from his private life, in which he begins to realize the harm isn't real, it's just "Thinky Pain."
Description: A singer pretends to be younger so she can enter a melody school.
Description: A woman in find of a rich husband mistakes a millionaire for a male model.
Description: Two beach combing-shutterbugs accidentally capture a murder on film. Actually detectives, the men set out to capture a murderess shot only from behind, with a rose tattoo on her behind. Fun in the sun turns risky when they end up shooting bullets instead of film.
Description: A hitman by the name of Mr. Great Guy is about to be married and his fiancee doesn't know his real profession. On top of that, his future father-in-law has a contract out on him. A zany mafia comedy!
Description: Sylvester Cat discovers that his son, Junior, has a fresh greatest mate - a bird called Spike. Aghast, Sylvester decides to teach his son the facts of feline life and goes with him on a bird hunt, which, as usual, isn't Sylvester's forte. He is hit with a badminton racket after he mistakenly shoots a badminton birdie and then is blown up when he sends a model plane after Spike and is himself shot at by the out-of-control plane and forced to take refuge in an explosives shop shed, with the plane slipping in behind him and firing at the TNT.
Description: Maximum and his friend, who came to visit him in Paris both fall in love with his fresh maid. The woman is very friendly, and while one plays the piano, she dances with the another - and they are so satisfied that even the decor dances at the rhythm.
Description: When Claire Owen was 14, they place her on television.
Description: In the near-future, a girl whose robotic husband fails to meet her standards returns and updates him for a better ver with standards that she actually fails to meet.
Description: A ne'er-do-well who's married to a millionnaire realizes his financial problem might be solved if his wife was dead - and sets out a plot to achieve just that. A makeover of Dino Risi's "il vedovo".
Description: Amalia is a 1914 Argentine silent movie directed by Enrique García Velloso and written by Eugenio Py. It was based on the novel by José Mármol. The movie starred Dora Huergo and Lola Marcó del Pont. It is the first full length movie ever produced in Argentine cinema history.
I saw this movie in Montreal when it came out at some underground venue. I was in CEGEP Dawson College (New School) and a Greek girl in my circle of friend's brother was the filmmaker.The Trio soundtrack was the excellent accompaniment to this bizarre movie about an unusual relationship between mother and son. It had camp and style and I think did touch on true problems albeit in an unusual way. It had this flavour of discomfort and embarrassment, like What's eating Gilbert Grape...and the campiness of a B-flick.I still remember specific scenes and was just saying my partner about one of them after he revealed a weird genital flesh eating dream. What happened to Demitri?
Back in 1984 when I was attending CEGEP at Dawson Collage in Montreal,I had the pleasure of taking a course titled Movie Nouveau taught by Mr. Kazoom.It was there that I got to view Mother's meat and meet with the director.The movie itself at first viewing was not that impressive and I found that it was evident that this was an art movie by a first time director who was eager to display all his known filming techniques.Now 16 years soon it has occurred to me that the film,unlike so many another movies that I have seen is still quite memorable,the scenes where the fish is placed on the table and the dining room stage are still new in my mind today.If you are the type of person who enjoys art movies then I suggest this movie to you;there are many parts of the movie that escape my memory,but the fact that many scenes are still crisp in my mind that one has to admit that the director did indeed make art on movie and for this he could be proud.I hope to see this movie again if the occasion ever arises again.
|
0.8279 |
POSTAL SYSTEMS. The communications revolution of the early modern period was the result of the first reliable infrastructure of communication introduced at the beginning of the sixteenth century in central Europe. Postal systems were basically systems of portioning the space to create reliable channels of communication. In Renaissance Italy, where messenger systems were developed further than anywhere else in Europe in the late Middle Ages, some princes started experimenting with a division of labor known only from ancient literature or from Marco Polo's (1254–1324) report on China: couriers on horses that changed at regular intervals at fixed points, the posts, and followed fixed courses. However, postal lines were expensive and remained unstable. The most frequent data comes from the wealthier territory of Italy, the duchy of Milan under the Visconti. Milanese corrieri seem to have spread the art of effectively transporting information, first throughout Italy (Venice, the papal states) and subsequently throughout Europe. The lingua franca of European communications remained Italian well into the seventeenth century, and some Italian terms (posta, paccheto, franco, porto) survive in many languages in the twenty-first century.
The decisive change came when Emperor Maximilian I (German king from 1486, Holy Roman emperor 1493–1519) commissioned the Taxis (or Tassis) family with establishing an effective communication system for the Habsburg dynasty. This proved to be a major challenge because of the far-flung Habsburg marriage associations. Maximilian married Mary of Burgundy (1457–1482), his son Philip I of Castile (ruled 1506) married the heiress of Castile and Aragón, and Maximilian's grandson Charles of Spain (king of Spain 1516–1556; emperor as Charles V 1519–1556) ruled over large parts of Europe from the Netherlands to Sicily with close links to the Austrian Habsburgs who had inherited Hungary and Bohemia.
Unlike in ancient Rome or China, no European ruler was able or willing to finance his or her own postal system. This tension between an obvious demand and a fragile budget was exploited by Francesco de Tassis (1459–1519), by then the head of the northern branch of the Taxis family from Cornello in Lombardy. This family had gained experience in the Milanese and Venetian courier business, the Roman branch actually running the papal messenger system. Francesco de Tassis managed to escape the control of the imperial administration by forging a link to Burgundy (1501) and turning the postal system into a private enterprise based upon a contract among the Taxis company and Burgundy (1505) and Spain (1516).
Unlike in France or England, from then on the postmasters—not the states—were in control of the channels of communication in central Europe and large parts of Italy. The decisive innovations took place there, most importantly that permanent post courses were established around 1510, the service was opened to the public, and periodical post riders were established in 1534 between Antwerp and Venice and three years later between Venice and Rome. The postal systems in Italy, Germany, France, England, and Spain were open to travel as soon as post houses, mostly existing taverns, were fixed. But only within the Holy Roman Empire was the postal system open to the general public. Everybody was entitled to use the post not by privilege but by paying a fee, the porto. The post houses, previously only places to change horses, were opened to the public as well and became post offices, where mail, checks, or samples could be dispatched and collected. The postal lines thus became the veins of early capitalism. William Harvey (1578–1657), discoverer of the circulation of the blood, was the son of a postmaster.
Public access to these channels of communication triggered a series of innovations. Within a few years it revolutionized the daily routines of the educated, whose habit it became to use the post, according to its set schedule, for regular correspondence. Public access changed the terms of trade, diplomacy, and politics. From the 1560s weekly written reports were commissioned by princes and leading trading companies, like the Fugger business (collecting, for example, the Fugger Newsletters ), and commercial newsagents and even news agencies emerged in the imperial city of Augsburg, which lay at the heart of the European postal system, midway between Antwerp and Venice. From the early 1580s these weekly reports were published as newsbooks for the book fairs in Frankfurt and Leipzig (in books called Messrelationen ). In 1597 a newsagent failed in publishing a monthly newspaper. But in September 1605 Johann Carolus, a newsagent who had become a printer in the imperial city of Strasbourg, succeeded in establishing a weekly newspaper. Both Carolus's Relation as well as the second newspaper, the Wolfenbüttel Aviso (1609), depended on news from Augsburg delivered by the ordinary post riders of the imperial post.
The invention of the periodical press, a media revolution of prime importance, was thus part of a more general communications revolution. From about 1615 the media revolution gathered momentum, and newspapers were established in a good number of towns within the Holy Roman Empire, some in fact edited by postmasters directly. In 1618, when three publishers were already competing in the imperial city of Frankfurt, this innovation was adopted in the Netherlands. In 1622, presumably not by chance the very year a reliable postal service between Brussels and London was established, the first newspaper attempts started in England, largely depending on news reports from the Continent. Austria and Switzerland followed in 1622, France in 1631, Italy (Florence) in 1636, Sweden in 1645, and Spain and Poland 1661. Only after the collapse of the Licensing Act in 1642 did London become a news capital.
During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) the postal systems of France and England were opened to the general public, and postal networks were introduced in Scandinavia. Around 1630 France succeeded in creating an advanced postal network. The introduction of mail coaches instead of postal riders on all post courses triggered a series of spinoff benefits, such as official printed timetables and the first map indicating existing travel facilities.
Nicolas Sanson's map of 1632 provided the cartographic prototype for scores of postal maps, which were replaced only in the nineteenth century by rail maps and road maps. By 1700 postal maps existed for all European countries and for Europe as a whole, and they offer important insights into the kinds of infrastructures established in different countries. Clearly the postal networks in Italy, Spain, Austria, and Poland had stagnated, whereas in England, France, Belgium, and Germany densely woven networks signaled continuous improvement.
By 1750 European travelers admired the communications system of Britain, although stagecoaches were still run by private haulers and mail coaches were only introduced in 1784. However, the trusts of haulers and innkeepers functioned in a manner not dissimilar to the postal systems of the Continent. Not hampered by the transport of mail, the velocity of British stagecoaches was indeed higher, and new types of coaches were developed, owing to the achievements of the turnpike system of road construction. In contrast to riders, coaches required artificial roads, and systematic road construction was a necessary consequence of the introduction of mail coaches. The post office usually negotiated the building of roads and bridges, and in many countries postmasters were indeed employed as overseers of the roads.
By 1800 the postal networks represented fairly well the progress of industrialization in western Europe, followed by the American East Coast. However, eastern Europe was still undeveloped, and southern Europe had fallen behind. Postal systems also mirrored political structures. The networks in Britain and France were rigorously centralized in the capitals, whereas Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland were characterized by a more evenly distributed network. Absolutist territories within the Holy Roman Empire, such as Prussia, reveal a centralized pattern also. At the end of the era, postal systems had reached the maximum of their capabilities in western Europe, with seven hundred mail coaches and thirty-three hundred stagecoaches serving in England alone. Clearly the subsequent railway networks were modeled after the postal networks and replaced coaches on the main routes in transporting mail and passengers. This, however, did not mean the end of the mail coaches. The number of mail coaches even rose, since all the rail lines needed reliable suppliers or shuttles. Railways and steamships became parts of the postal systems. However, the importance of the postal systems as institutions declined sharply. Once the universal means of communication, for travel as well as money and letters, the systems' functions disintegrated with the introduction of novel networks, such as telegraphy, railways, telephones, and later cars with motor engines. From about 1850 post offices merely bore the name of the formerly universal institution that had ceased to exist.
The early modern postal system was a reliable medium of communication that triggered a series of media revolutions. The scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the political revolutions in England, France, and America took place in the era of the early modern postal systems. The early modern period was a distinctive era in the history of communications molded by the particularities of its communications systems. If one adopts the notion of a communications revolution, one can explain the pattern of all subsequent changes in communication, even to the twenty-first century. The early modern postal systems represented a first universal Internet. Borrowing from Immanuel Wallerstein's description of a "European World System," the early modern postal system could be seen as the grandmother of the World Wide Web.
See also Communication and Transportation ; Industrial Revolution ; Industry ; Journalism, Newspapers, and Newssheets ; Scientific Revolution .
Albion, Robert G. "The Communication Revolution." American Historical Review 37 (1932): 718–720.
Arbellot, Guy. Autour des routes de poste: Les premières cartes routières de la France, XVIIe–XIXe siècle. Paris, 1992.
Beale, Philip. A History of the Post in England from the Romans to the Stuarts. London, 1998.
Behringer, Wolfgang. Im Zeichen des Merkur: Reichspost und Kommunikationsrevolution in der frühen Neuzeit. Göttingen, 2003.
——. Thurn und Taxis: Die Geschichte ihrer Post und ihrer Unternehmen. Munich, 1990.
John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, Mass., 1995.
"Postal Systems." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. . Encyclopedia.com. 9 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
The first regular postal routes in Russia (Moscow-Voronezh and later Moscow–St. Petersburg) were established at the start of the eighteenth century. In 1741 the service was expanded and intended to en-compass all provinces of the empire. In reality, postal services were largely concentrated in European Russia, and mail was only delivered to one central location in a town, often a tavern. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, it became possible to send parcels through the mail as well as letters. Between 1830 and 1840, larger urban centers began to create systems for mail delivery within their confines, and this development spurred an increase not only in the number of mail distribution points within a given city but also in the number of letters being sent. In 1848 the first prestamped envelopes appeared, and periodicals began to be distributed by mail. Postal services were gradually extended to some larger villages in Russia starting in the 1870s.
During the eighteenth century, postal affairs were in the hands of the Senate, but in 1809 they were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1830 a Main Postal Administration was established as a separate government organ, and it was superseded from 1865 to 1868 by a new Ministry of Post and Telegraph. After 1868 the postal system again became part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The turmoil of the Russian Revolutions and Civil War greatly affected the postal system. Services had to be reestablished gradually as outlying areas were subdued by the Bolsheviks. At the center, a new ministry, The People's Commissariat of Post and Telegraph (Narkompochtel) was established, but it was not until the mid-1920s that services were restored across the country. In 1924 the "circular-post" was set up, whereby horse-drawn carts were used to distribute mail and sell postal supplies along regular routes. Within a year, the network had 4,279 routes with more than 43,000 stopping points, and it covered 275,000 kilometers (170,900 miles). Permanent village postmen emerged in larger settlements as well in 1925, and they became responsible for home delivery when that aspect of the postal service was created in 1930.
In 2002 the postal system was divided administratively into ninety-three regional postal departments with 40,000 offices and 300,000 employees. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the postal system has declined dramatically. Letters routinely take weeks to arrive, and a sizeable number of customers are beginning to bypass the postal system in favor of private courier services. In order to remain profitable, many post offices have had to branch out into a wide array of services, including offering Internet access or renting some of their space to other retail outlets. The Russian government has also begun to consider the idea of merging the regional departments into a single joint-stock company to be called "Russian Post."
Rowley, Alison. (2002). "Miniature Propaganda: Self-Definition and Soviet Postage Stamps, 1917–1941." Slavonica 8:135–157.
Skipton, David, and Michalove, Peter. (1989). Postal Censorship in Imperial Russia. Urbana, IL: J. H. Otten.
"Postal System." Encyclopedia of Russian History. . Encyclopedia.com. 9 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Preindustrial Period Postal systems—networks of transportation dedicated to the dissemination of letters and written messages—have a long history. The ancient Greek, Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires each developed complex systems of runners and routes for the conveyance of messages. These complex systems atrophied in Europe and the Mediterranean during the medieval period, where the most important communication networks were run not by the state but rather by universities (such as the University of Paris), monastic orders (such as the Benedictines), and commercial communities (such as the Hanseatic League). In the early modern period, royal courts again assumed responsibility for the key networks of messengers, frequently opening them up to public use while at the same time keeping them under strict surveillance. In the late eighteenth century, postal networks within Europe expanded as increasingly complex road systems reached further into the countryside, and states were increasingly aware of the commercial and revenue benefits that resulted from postal communication. By the mid 1760s most towns in Britain received mail every day, and France had a similarly dense network of postal delivery (although in France every letter had to go through Paris, where it might be vetted). In the final two decades of the eighteenth century these road networks were extended, especially by Napoleon Bonaparte in Europe, and the surfaces of roads were greatly improved. These innovations allowed for the use of horse-drawn mail coaches instead of a solitary postboy, increasing both the volume of mail that was able to be carried and the speed with which it was transported: in 1780 postboys would travel at around three or four miles an hour, but by 1800 mail coaches were traveling at ten miles an hour, cutting long-distance postal times in half.
just under a month to arrive in 1870 rather than the six months that was common in 1830.
Reduced Charges The second major transformation that reshaped postal services in the nineteenth century was the simplification and reduction of postal charges. In the eighteenth century, European states prized postal communications because of the large amount of revenue generated by the taxes levied on letters. In the 1830s, however, a new generation of reformers argued that postal communications could be streamlined by introducing a standard basic charge and by reducing the bureaucratic machinery that registered every letter and used complex equations to calculate the charge for each piece of mail. Rowland Hill argued that any letter that was less than half an ounce in weight should cost one penny to send anywhere in the United Kingdom. Hill’s proposal was greeted with skepticism within the government and postal bureaucracy but won tremendous popular support. In 1839 this simplified system became law in Britain, and it soon became the model for the British colonies and other European nations. It made postal communications simple and affordable. The post was increasingly used by a large cross section of society, and the volume of mail rapidly increased. Between 1839 and 1840 the number of letters sent in Britain doubled, by 1850 the volume of post was four times greater than it had been in 1839, and by 1870 it was ten times greater.
Colonies European authorities also attempted to transplant this new standardized postal model to their colonies. In India, for example, the British encountered a society that had an elaborate preexisting messenger system, the dak. Under the emperor Akbar in the early seventeenth century, India had more than two thousand miles of post roads. The political instability that undercut Mughal authority in the eighteenth century weakened this system, and in the 1760s and 1770s the East India Company first infiltrated and then reformed the dak. Still heavily reliant on structures and personnel inherited from the dak, the East India Company opened its new postal service for public use in 1774. By the 1830s there were deep concerns about the efficiency and security of this system, and in response the Imperial Post was established in 1837. The Imperial Post exercised a monopoly over postal communications between Calcutta and principal provincial towns, while a variety of local services connected these provincial centers to their hinterlands. In 1850 these parallel systems were merged under a director general and, following the metropolitan example, a uniform postage rate was also introduced.
International Networks A drive to streamline and regularize postal communications between nations also occurred in the mid nineteenth century. International postage became increasingly efficient and popular in the 1870s as a result of two important changes. First, improvements in transport, especially the establishment of long-distance steamer routes and the construction of the Suez Canal, drastically reduced transportation times. Second, the formation of the Universal Postal Union in 1875 established a standard framework for international postage. Its members, who included almost all nation-states, agreed that the charges for items posted would not be shared, as the country in which the item was posted would collect the revenue while the nation where the mail was delivered received no payment. The foundation of the Universal Postal Union allowed the smooth and equitable administration of international postal communications, a vitally important innovation given the centrality of letter writing and postal communication in nineteenth-century commerce and culture.
C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge ’ New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
M. J. Daunton, Royal Mail: The Post Office since 1840 (London ’ Dover, N.H.: Athlone, 1985).
Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (Oxford ’c New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Mohini Lal Majumdar, Early History and Growth of Postal System in India (Calcutta: Rddhi-India, 1995).
Howard Robinson, The British Post Office: A History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970).
"Postal Systems." World Eras. . Encyclopedia.com. 9 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
|
0.999998 |
The lunar geological timescale (or selenological timescale) divides the history of Earth's Moon into five generally recognized periods: the Copernican, Eratosthenian, Imbrian (Late and Early epochs), Nectarian, and Pre-Nectarian. The boundaries of this time scale are related to large impact events that have modified the lunar surface, changes in crater form that occur through time, and the size-frequency distribution of craters superposed on geological units. The absolute ages for these periods have been constrained by radiometric dating of samples obtained from the lunar surface. However, there is still much debate concerning the ages of certain key events, because correlating lunar regolith samples with geological units on the Moon is difficult, and most lunar radiometric ages have been highly affected by an intense history of bombardment.Lunar stratigraphy The primary geological processes that have modified the lunar surface are impact cratering and volcanism, and by using standard stratigraphic principles (such as the law of superposition) it is possible to order these geological events in time. At one time, it was thought that the mare basalts might represent a single stratigraphic unit with a unique age, but it is now recognized that mare volcanism was an ongoing process, beginning as early as 4.2 Ga and continuing to perhaps as late as 1.2 Ga (1 Ga = 1 billion years ago). Impact events are by far the most useful for defining a lunar stratigraphy as they are numerous and form in a geological instant. The continued effects of impact cratering over long periods of time modify the morphology of lunar landforms in a quantitative way, and the state of erosion of a landform can also be used to assign a relative age. The lunar geological time scale has been divided into five periods (Pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Eratosthenian, and Copernican) with one of these (the Imbrian) being subdivided into two epochs. These divisions of geological time are based on the recognition of convenient geomorphological markers, and as such, they should not be taken to imply that any fundamental changes in geological processes have occurred at these boundaries. The Moon is unique in the solar system in that it is the only body (other than the Earth) for which we possess rock samples with a known geological context. By correlating the ages of samples obtained from the Apollo missions to known geological units, it has been possible to assign absolute ages to some of these geological periods. The timeline below represents one such attempt, but it is important to note (as is discussed below) that some of the ages are either uncertain, or disputed. In many lunar highland regions, it is not possible to distinguish between Nectarian and Pre-Nectarian materials, and these deposits are sometimes labeled as just Pre-Imbrian.The Pre-Nectarian period is defined from the point at which the lunar crust formed, to the time of the Nectaris impact event. Nectaris is a multi-ring impact basin that formed on the near side of the Moon, and its ejecta blanket serves as a useful stratigraphic marker. 30 impact basins from this period are recognized, the oldest of which is the South Pole–Aitken basin. This geological period has been informally subdivided into the Cryptic and Basin Groups 1-9, but these divisions are not used on any geological maps.
|
0.998493 |
Is the Liquid Mix EQ the same as The Liquid Channel EQ?
No. The Liquid Channel (TLC) uses a digital filter based EQ which is modelled upon Focusrite's legendary ISA 110, whereas the Liquid Mix EQ uses dynamic convolution to emulate the unique sonic qualities of 20 vintage equalizers. TLC provides one unique flavour of distinctly Focusrite style EQ, while the Liquid Mix provides 20 very different EQ flavours which emulate other vintage hardware units.
|
0.99993 |
Samuel Clemens (popularly referred to as Mark Twain) was a renowned literary writer and staunch unionist who live in the late 19th century born to John Clemens and Jane Lampton. His father was a practicing lawyer and storekeeper. During this period, the surest way of achieving status in society was to have material wealth. John Clemens was a busy and ambitious man who set his eyes on achieving the highest social status. Some of the indicators of wealth included owning slaves, large families and huge tracts of land. “To own more than twenty slaves was exceptional and a mark of high standing.”(pp3).For years, the Clemens family followed the Native American movement from town to town in search of wealth. In 1826, Clemens purchased seventy five thousand hectares of land in eastern Tennessee. This earned John Clemens the social title of squire. The economic downturn of 1830 affected the Clemens' family adversely and they had to move again, this time to Hannibal, Missouri. In this period slaves were owned like property. This can be illustrated by John Clemens' statements when he tried to sell one slave. “The highest price I had offered for him in New Orleans was $50...I expect to sell him for whatever he will bring.”(pp4). In his youth, Samuel accepted slavery as a part of life but he later came to understand and despise the slave trade.
After the death of his father, Samuel apprenticed himself as a printer. He later moved to New York and Philadelphia to try his luck in the search for fortune and wealth. One of the events that greatly influenced Samuel's life was the civil war of 1860's. He went from being a steamboat pilot, to a Marion ranger, an assistant to his older brother and back to his original calling, writing.
Explain Mark Twain’s feeling about the great Industrialist of the day, and discuss some of his own attempts to gain financial fortune.
From 1867 Samuel was the private secretary of Senator William Stewart of Nevada. This position gave him a chance to observe critically the national politics that resulted after the attainment of independence. Samuel was shocked by the staggering amounts of bribery, corruption and immorality in government. Like many other Americans of the gilded age, Samuel Clemens was highly critical of the modernization of the United States by machines and millionaires. Despite his criticism, Samuel delighted in a grandiose lifestyle funded by his writing and his wife's substantial inheritance. Twain's desire for wealth led him to make a number of bad investments that led him to bankruptcy. One such bad investment was in a typesetting and printing machine designed by James Paige.
Individuals like Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt did not need to work. Explain some of the factors that led to their choices of careers in public service.
Gifford Pinchot was born on August 11, 1865 to James Pinchot and Mary Jane Eno. His family had a firm position in the uppermost social and economic echelon of nineteenth century America. For people like Gifford, it was highly unlikely that they would dedicate their lives to serving the American Public. Gifford had the privilege of attending the best schools in the country (Philip's Exeter academy and Yale) in order to polish his brain and prepare him for financial success. In spite of his strong political connections and financial power, Gifford felt that his heart needed him to participate in public reformation. He chose one victim of capitalistic exploitation that was closest to his heart: the American forest. Since forestry as a course was not offered in United States colleges, Gifford went to Britain and France after his graduate studies to find out more about forestry. He later started a forestry consultancy service in New York City, which enjoyed a lot of success from advising state and private clients. “Despite these successes, Pinchot wanted more. He set his sights on changing the nation's attitude toward s wasteful consumption of forests.”(pp67).
How did the 1890 U.S Census Report, which declared there was no more frontier, help place Gifford Pinchot’s forestry ideas into practice?
The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 gave the president power to withdraw private sale and convert any land held by the federal government into forest reserve. Within a few months, this law brought positive changes to Gifford's campaign; more than thirteen million acres had been declared part of the forest reserve. In June 1897, the Forest management Act was passed due to lobbying by conservation groups led by Gifford and Muir.
What techniques did Henry ford incorporate to turn his small automobile company into giant motor company?
Henry Ford was a natural born mechanic. From an early age, was obsessed with taking apart toys and finding out how they worked. Henry's fascination and passion is illustrated by an incident from his childhood when he first saw a steam-driven train. His undying passion for engines led him to seek work in one of the many factories in Detroit. Here, he learned and absorbed a lot of knowledge about the mechanics of engines. In the 1890's there was a lot of competition brought by the industrial revolution. Henry Ford was among many other brilliant minds who sought to build a self-propelled vehicle. This dream was inspired by two major breakthroughs: designing of the bicycle and emergence of an efficient gasoline engine. Drawing inspiration from these two inventions, Ford immersed himself in his work trying to design a self-propelled vehicle. His efforts were rewarded in June of 1896 when he fired up his invention and sped off into the night. Using his invention, Ford looked for associates and financial backing. He achieved both goals when he was made chief engineer on Detroit automobile company.
With a few investors, Ford began the Ford Motor Company. The company was fueled to staggering success by Henry Ford's vision. His vision was to make inexpensive but honest cars that would be affordable to most Americans. The only way to achieve this vision was by devising a method to produce vehicles in bulk. This entailed being able to produce similar parts of a car using semi-skilled labor and then assemble all the parts later. Drawing heavily and by refining the principles of scientific management, Ford was able to manufacture vehicles for as low as $850. “This comparatively low price was the chief reason for the company's early record of sales and profit.” (pp98). The industrial revolutionists such as Ford faced a lot of problems from labor unions. There was constant pressure to reduce working hours, improve working conditions, and provide workman's compensation and other benefits. Furthermore, Henry Ford suffered adversely from the effects of high labor turnover and cost of training. Ford reacted to this by unveiling a brilliant policy that facilitated profit sharing between the company and its laborers. This new strategy led to quadrupling of sales. Furthermore, the Ford automobile company relied heavily on corporate financing and were able to expand faster than other competitors. Ford ensured that he passed on the benefits of mass production to the consumers in terms of lower prices for the vehicles. For instance, in the 1920's, the model T cost $290, which was very affordable to many consumers all over the world.
In what ways was Henry ford a symbol for the age of 1920s? How does ford optimise the ambivalence of many Americans regarding modernity?
Henry Ford was a household name in the 1920's. This is because his auto-mobiles were a symbol of the impeding and unstoppable changes in lifestyle for most Americans. In spite of all the fame and fortune, and being at the helm of the new era, Henry Ford still held on tight to his traditional American mentality. This gave many Americans the strength to ignore communism and stick to their search for wealth as capitalists. In many instances, as was the case with most Americans, Ford was unable to choose between the old and the new eras. Ford ended up having an intense repulsion for any thing that was un-American. The most common victims of his repulsion were immigrants.
What influences were most important in the development of king’s philosophy of non-violent resistance regarding civil rights?
By the 1960s, King’s non violent resistance was challenged by younger African Americans who believed his methods outmoded. Why did these militant individuals reject king? Does philosophy still have merit in the early twenty first century?
The line between violent and non-violent protests had always been very thin and in the early 1960's young blacks threatened to cross it. There developed feelings of tension since the civil rights movement had grown considerably in numbers and they were demanding for immediate abolishment of segregation. The leaders of the militant factions rejected King since, they felt that he was more of a peacemaker than a fighter for civil rights. Furthermore, they felt that his method of non-violence was too slow in achieving any tangible results. Martin Luther King's philosophy is, however, still very applicable in the twenty first century where people are assumed to be more civilised and understanding. King proved that riots and violence were not the only ways of solving disputes or getting the attention of the authorities.
|
0.952488 |
Comoros is in Southern Africa, group of islands at the northern mouth of the Mozambique Channel, about two-thirds of the way between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique .
What is the international telephone dialling code for Comoros ?
The International dialling code for Comoros is +269.
The official language of Comoros is Arabic.
|
0.975385 |
Consumer body demonstrates how easily they can be hacked.
UK consumer body Which? — the equivalent of Australia’s Choice – has called for a ban on insecure internet-connectable child’s toys, releasing a video showing how easy it is for some devices to be compromised and used to speak directly to a child.
To demonstrate the danger this poses Which? has created a short video in which a predator sees a child playing with the I-Que through the window of the child’s home. Using his phone he connects to the I-Que and types a message: “Hello, I have a surprise for you, come and open the door.” The I-Que speaks the message, and the child responds.
ContextIS demonstrated that the Furby Connect did not implement available Bluetooth security technologies such as requiring authentication for pairing or encrypting links between it and phones it connects with and was able to exploit these weaknesses to display custom graphics and animations on the toy’s eyes. It also found the toy does not require firmware updates to be digitally signed by the manufacturer, which could allow an attacker to install a malicious firmware update.
Which? has called on retailers to take smart toys off retail shelves if they have proven security or privacy issues. It notes that the FBI has published an advisory containing a lengthy list of what parents should do at a minimum prior to using internet-connected toys.
Mike Bell, Executive Vice President, IoT and devices at Canonical – the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution – said manufacturers should expect consumers to be increasingly wary of products sold with default passwords, unsecured connections, and other flaws that could bring cybercriminals into their homes.
“Findings such as these are likely to spark calls for new safety standards on cybersecurity for connected toys,” he said.
However, Phil Henrick, cofounder and CTO of Australian IT security consultancy CQR, does not believe it is practicable to make low cost, simple but potentially dangerous IoT devices in general more secure and patchable and has a more drastic solution.
He noted there was a precedent for this. Logitech recently announced that its Harmony Link hub, a plastic puck released in 2011 that gave smartphones and tablets the ability to act as universal remotes for thousands of devices, would cease to function after 16 March 2018.
However, so great was the customer backlash that Logitech later said it would provide all Harmony Link users with a free replacement.
|
0.999931 |
The Age of the Technocalypse as experienced in Solsys. The Interplanetary Dark Age, as usually defined, encompassed nearly all of Solsys starting from the end of the Great Expulsion in 641 AT to the founding of the First Federation in 933 AT, during an age commonly referred to as the Sundering. Reeling from the catastrophe that was the Technocalypse and the traumas that followed including the Last War and Great Expulsion, terragen civilization in Solsys turned inwards, fractured, and competed for scant resources and technology. While a number of expeditions launched from Solsys during the Dark Age, the nascent extrasolar colonies were isolated and left to largely fend for themselves.
It is important to note that historians often disagree about details regarding the Interplanetary Dark Age. This is due to the damaged caused by the malware plagues and disinformation campaigns of the time, and the subsequent millennia that have passed since the event. Nevertheless, some records of decent accuracy have survived which, supplemented by archeological research conducted by the likes of the Solar Organization and Fomalhaut Acquisition Society, can provide a general description of Solsys during this era of passable veracity.
While not as dangerous as during the proceeding Technocalypse, the Interplanetary Dark Age was racked by a plethora of maladies. Rogue swarms and infoplagues periodically flared up as dormant malware resurfaced and wreaked havoc. Furthermore, information archives were often corrupted, deleted, or maliciously edited by malefactors. Violence seems to have been commonplace, as suspicious and often desperate groups sought resources, information, and security.
As with other areas, fragmentation was the defining characteristic of Solsys's political sphere during the Dark Age. Fear of infection whether biological, robotic, or cyber coupled with the danger posed by the rogue protowars, plagues, and neumanns that still prowled swaths of the system drove many into hidding. The stability once enforced by the likes of Inner Council members such as the Council of Earth, Cis-lunar Alliance, and Martian Union had collapsed along with those organizations during the Technocalypse and Last War. Initially Mercury and Venus were rendered all but uninhabited with the exception of some small isolated settlements, such as the Mercurian Joh-Lau culture. However, over the next two centuries new colonists and refugeess arrived and began rebuilding. The exiled governments of the former terrestrial nations, then residing in Earth orbit, dissolved one by one as the new reality of their permanent expulsion set in. By the end of the seventh century AT, most of these once proud countries, some of which dated back to the Agricultural Age, had disbanded. In their place, new polities arose in the Bracelet Band including the Theocracy of Yshh, UpperBlossom, and Neomixecon to name just a few. On the Moon, the Lunar States provided a loose affiliation for a number of settlements especially after the final destruction of the Treaty Org remnants in 737 AT. Following the proclamation of a republic in 622 AT, the Martians began the laborious process of clearing and resettling the surface of their planet's ruined biosphere. Known as the Unification Wars, confrontations with other political groups, marauders, and occasionally interlopers from elsewhere in the system lasted until the early 9th century.
Comparatively the outer system fared better than the inner regions. During the start of the Dark Age, the Gengineer Republic in the Jovian system was the single greatest power in Solsys besides GAIA. However, the Gengineer Republic slowly slid into terminal decline as conflict amongst its tweak citizenry, principally between the Genomopher and Mutationist factions, sapped and ultimately undermined the polity's vitality. The downfall of the Gengineer Republic, accelerated by periodic swarm outbreaks such as the Great Shedding during the 680s, culminated in the polity's dissolution in 784 AT. Around Saturn various groups including the Han Hegemony, Warriors of the Western Stream, Children of Kronos, and the so-called Hidden Cities of Dropouts such as Laputa and Valinor remained highly suspicious of and quarreled with each other. While underdeveloped, the settlements of Uranus and Neptune were sparred the worst of the Technocalypse and steadily expanded throughout the Dark Age. As one may expect, habitats in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud remained very isolated throughout this period as detailed in the histories of such disparate places like Directory ruled Pluto, Haloist Mary, and the nomadic Spaceman's League.
The self-imposed isolation of most settlements during the Dark Age led to a splintering of social and ethnic groups. Seeking stability, communities, whether part of a larger polity or unaffiliated, commonly adhered to two paths. The first reverted to older constructs forged during Earth's past. The second fashioned new identities to cope with the harsh reality they now faced. A prominent feature during this time were the Trust Networks, formed to resist the malware and info plagues which could prove fatal to isolated habitats if contracted. These Trust Networks, often characterized as isolationist trading blocs, often operated around other security protocols used by the various polities. As with other periods of turmoil, the Dark Age produced its share of memorable poetry, art, virches and the like, some of which survive to the current era. The works of Luna's Tural Hashimoto being a prime example. However much has been lost over the millennia, and debates about authenticity surround most of the surviving artifacts.
Struggling in the deps of arguably the greatest crisis that humanity had faced since the Indonesian Toba super-eruption of 75,000 BT, many baseline and neb refugees from Earth sought solace in ethnic or religious identities. The Han Hegemony, Expulsos, Hindi Expansion, Natsiya, Bhr?tr?tba, and Swahili Combine are a few prominent examples of ethnic based groupings that arose in the wake of the Great Expulsion. Some of these or their descendant groups would eventually mount interplanetary missions. A number of historians have suggested that GAIA, out of some sense of altruism or historic preservation, aided these groups in their efforts. Unsurprisingly, this notion is not without its detractors and likely will never be verified. In addition, there existed a myriad of clad centric societies scattered throughout the system be they vec, tweak, cyborg, ai, or otherwise. More often than not, these groups were apt to shun nostalgia for pre-Technocalypse cultures and favored pressing ahead, redefining terragen civilization free from the influence of Earth.
Religion saw an impressive resurgence during the Dark Age after centuries of decline in favor of atheism and agnosticism. Various Christian organizations and churches operated in Solsys, ranging from tiny evangelical communes like Shiloh Station in the Kuiper Belt to the Restored Catholic Church on Nova Roma (formerly 532 Herculina). The Universal Church, while nearly destroyed during the Technocalypse, mounted an impressive comeback over the next few centuries. Islamic societies were split between such groups as Al Musafirin, the Shia Fellowship, and Al Hujaj fi al Faragh. Over the course of the Dark Age, theological differences diminished and a growing denomination styled the Islamic Unity gained traction throughout the solar system. While most of the other "classical" religions founded during the agricultural age such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion continued and diversified, followers of newer faiths such as Beneficence, Jobitarianism, Nuagism, Santism, Jovianism, and the Kabristaanis dramatically increased in Solsys during the Dark Age. It was also during this time period that the first Archaitheologist religion emerged with the nascent Cult of GAIA. Unsurprisingly, Gaianists were often persecuted and many of their activities were kept underground until the First Federation.
The chaos wrought by the Technocalypse and Great Expulsion and the resulting fear of higher toposophic beings and self-replicating nanotech led many to shun certain advanced technologies. Complex methods and supply chains were so disrupted that they were all but lost. Antimatter production in Solsys crashed after the destruction of its collection centers in the inner system, forcing most to revert to earlier fusion based energy and propulsion. A notable exception being those facilities operated by GAIA that supplied select interplanetary missions with antimatter. Manufacturers often spurned nano-assemblers instead preferring industrial bots or non-sentient printers. Previously banned or heavily regulated technologies such as destructive uploading or slaved ai proliferated where available, as authorities were unable or unwilling to intervene.
Lasting nearly three hundred years and affecting a sizable portion of sophonts then alive, the Interplanetary Dark Age is a seminal event in the history of terragen civilization. The pervasive danger and uncertainty that characterized the period eventual gave way to the stabilizing First Federation during the 10th century AT. Unsurprisingly, the Dark Age has remained a popular setting for retro-nauts, authors, and virch users. Interplanetary Dark Age studies is a well-trodden academic discipline with untold amounts of research, archeological investigations, and revaluations amassed in the subsequent 9,000 years. However, the inherent ambiguity surrounding the facts will undoubtedly never be fully dispelled.
|
0.938759 |
In 1943 I volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps and was accepted as an air cadet. Only 18 years old, I understood what war meant and felt I might not survive.
Today I live and welcome each day but today I am not proud to be a Jew. I also am not proud to be an American. I see our country and the Jewish state of Israel, whom we blindly support, murdering women and children as remorselessly as the Germans did in the war I served in. They had their rationale, and we and Israel have ours. The two are not entirely dissimilar. We are supplying the munitions and equipment and the Israelis are supplying the propaganda and the delivery systems.
I was once proud to be a Jew and an American. Being Jewish meant that our history of oppression made us understand and feel sympathy for all of humanity. Today I see Jewish Americans who have never suffered themselves, except for minor problems, blindly believing US-Israeli propaganda that makes Israel with the seventh largest military capability in the world the victim while Hamas in Gaza is pictured as the aggressor.
I have always felt that the three years of my youth in World War II were spent in a necessary cause. In three years we changed the world for the better. Not perfect but certainly better. And at home it was a great time for our country and for our citizens. Progressive ideas and legislation flourished in both political parties that enhanced the common good of the citizens. Now we live in a country that is not only dedicated to perpetual war with the world but in contravention to the good of its own people. It is a country that suppresses public protests with militarized police forces that look like the German SS when in their military gear.
Please identify author of this powerful piece.
I am a very ordinary guy. I have read Voltaire and I follow the advice to Candide to “tend your own garden.” I have also read Ecclesiastes that “all is vanity and vexation,” which is pretty much what Buddha also said.
I have a very good life now that I can appreciate because I had a very hard life as a youth. I never want to forget my suffering and that of all people.
I firmly believe that one learns more from failures and suffering than from success. One can only learn to have ‘hubris’ from success. That is something that younger Americans don’t seem to understand. It isn’t their fault that they don’t understand. My generation’s war and the political policies of the “New Deal” of FDR gave us a fairer and peaceful world that has led those who grew up later to believe that the ‘good life’ is part of the natural order.
The politicians and their moneyed masters have worked for the last 60 years to destroy that special American social contract that worked so well for our people. Can we go back?
A powerful and moving article. Thanks for posting this.
Thank you for this brave post. To be upfront about my own perspective: I call myself a quasi-Jew. My paternal grandfather was Jewish; he fled Romania in the late 19th or early 20th Century. I strongly suspect I therefore have distant relatives who perished in the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, though I’ll never know their names. I, myself, was raised to be a freethinker on matters of religion and I reject the Judaic/Christian/Islamic tradition.
I think it needs to be added that while you were in the US military, American Jews were excluded from, or given quota-based access to, American institutions, including country clubs and some (most?) of the top universities. The utterly WASP-dominated Establishment discouraged Jews trying to flee the Holocaust from immigrating to these shores. This was certainly an element in US support for establishing a “Jewish homeland” in the region of Palestine, then being “benignly governed” by Britain. That regime was set up by force of arms and Arab resentment started simmering. And look where the region stands almost 70 years later. Under the slogan “Never again!” Israel now, with involuntary assistance from US taxpayers, operates as a rogue, pariah nation. It was Apartheid South Africa’s only open supporter in the UN. Jews, how can you explain that disgrace away?!?!? How did the horrific wrong of the European Holocaust come to “justify” the brutal repression of the Palestinians? Two huge wrongs suddenly equal a right? A system of Apartheid has essentially been established for Palestinians. “Your papers, please!” As happened eventually in the Warsaw Ghetto, oppression breeds resistance.
As I have commented before, the American politicians who are the loudest public supporters of Israeli policies are precisely those most likely, behind closed doors, to complain about “Those lousy k*kes, they control all the money, the media” and on and on. Hopefully we’ve progressed to the point where only a minority of them still believe that Jews have tails and horns and drink the blood of freshly abducted and slaughtered Christian children!! But perhaps I’m giving them too much credit! This too, I would think, should give pause for consideration. American Jews, do you really want to be the bedfellows of these cretins?? Since this is starting to sound dangerously like a manifesto (!), I will stop right here.
It’s hard to believe that someone made it to college and yet that person still believes that a Jewish person has horns. The persistence of negative stereotypes is a bane of human existence. That, and intolerance driven by ignorance and prejudice.
“I have always felt that the three years of my youth in World War II were spent in a necessary cause. In three years we changed the world for the better. Not perfect but certainly better. And at home it was a great time for our country and for our citizens. Progressive ideas and legislation flourished in both political parties that enhanced the common good of the citizens. Now we live in a country that is not only dedicated to perpetual war with the world but in contravention to the good of its own people. It is a country that suppresses public protests with militarized police forces that look like the German SS when in their military gear.” – A World War II Veteran.
Thank you for sharing your profound wisdom acquired through your long life experience, and making a real, good difference by sharing your truth. There is a sense that unassailable solutions to the decades-old Israel-Palestine issue will be included in your future writing; a sense of anticipation that is likely shared by the many who greatly appreciate your wisdom.
Jerry. Thank you for your kind comments. I have no “solution” for the Israeli-Palestinian situation other than to say that it is not “our” problem. I have relatives in Israel and I feel that Israeli citizens, just as our citizens must control their own government.
We and the Israeli citizenry should, by now, be able to see how much damage the US has done in the Middle East by allowing the Saudi and Israeli governments to influence our mid east interventionist policies aimed at protecting those two sovereign states. The area is in shambles because of American intervention stretching from Libya through Egypt to Iraq, Syria and Iran. Everything we touch turns into death and destruction and having not learned by our Middle East catastrophes we are doing it it again in Ukraine. You, I , and all Americans must turn our eyes inward and taking our country back from the ideologues intent on empire building under the pretext of helping these countries.
Thank you for your thoughtful anger. Sometimes anger is valuable as energy that fuels creative problem solving, otherwise it’s just a destructive waste. Tragically there is a higher proportion of the latter at the moment. It’s easy to rail against what is — much harder to get focused and work at making the world a better place.
|
0.954615 |
Remember Which Country Music Legend Ran for Tennessee Governor?
Remember Which Country Music Legend Ran for Governor in Tennessee?
Tennessee has been inextricably associated with country music ever since the commercial roots of the genre, but do you remember which country icon actually ran for governor in his home state?
It's not terribly unusual for country stars to be involved in local and state politics in Nashville and in Tennessee, but Roy Acuff took it a step further when he announced he would run for governor in 1948 on the Republican ticket.
The Maynardville, Tenn., native was one of the biggest stars in country music at the time following the success of records including "The Great Speckled Bird" and "The Wabash Cannonball," and with his quick wit, he eventually became the host of the Grand Ole Opry, which included a national radio show. Acuff also founded the world's largest country music publisher, Acuff-Rose Publishing Company, with songwriter Fred Rose in 1942.
The New York Times reports Acuff actually first appeared on a Tennessee gubernatorial ballot in 1943, when he was entered on both the Democratic and Republican ballots as a protest candidate after then-Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper said country music was "disgracing the state."
Acuff chose not to run at that time, but according to Time magazine, he "was so popular in Tennessee that the Republican Party begged him to run for the governorship in 1948."
He announced he was entering the race as a Republican on July 24, 1948, and he ran on a platform based on the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, saying, "If they don't work in the Capitol, then I don't want to be Governor."
The book Roy Acuff, The Smoky Mountain Boy reports that Acuff was against a poll tax and a tax on churches, but was also pro-union and staunchly in favor of states' rights. Though his campaign was marred by his attempt to lengthen his stump speech from 15 to 30 minutes, as well as an incident in which he was struck by a grapefruit thrown by someone attending a campaign event, Acuff's popularity actually won him the Republican nomination. Tennessee was still squarely a Democratic state at that time, and though he won more votes than any recent Republican had, he was still soundly defeated in the general election by a 2-1 margin, whereupon he happily resumed his country music career.
|
0.999844 |
The full strategic plan document is provided here. The following text has been extracted from the document's Executive Summary.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R) led the preparation of the RD&T Strategic Plan, relying heavily on input from the Department's Operating Administrations. The Strategic Plan also includes feedback from external stakeholders through a period of public comment in the spring of 2016 and a two-day workshop with transportation experts representing the various sectors and disciplines in the transportation research enterprise. Input from all of these sources has been incorporated into the development of this strategic plan.
Promoting Safety relates to safety issues affecting all modes and the development and deployment of countermeasures designed to address these issues. U.S. DOT's goal is to improve public health and safety by reducing transportation-related fatalities and injuries.
Improving Mobility refers to demographic, economic, geographic, cultural, and technological trends affecting travel demand, personal and commercial mobility across all transportation modes, and the effects of those trends on quality of life and access to economic and educational opportunities. U.S. DOT's goal is to improve the mobility of people and goods, reduce congestion, and increase access to opportunities for all.
Improving Infrastructure covers issues relating to the condition, costs, funding, and delivery of the transportation infrastructure, as well as the methods and technologies to increase its durability and resilience. U.S. DOT's goal is to improve the durability and extend the life of the transportation infrastructure, preserve the existing transportation system, and ensure that the U.S. proactively maintains the critical transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair.
Preserving the Environment covers the effects of transportation activities on climate change and the environment as a whole (including water, noise, and air pollution, and habitat degradation) and discusses approaches to avoid or mitigate those effects. U.S.DOT's goal is to advance environmentally sustainable policies and investments that reduce carbon and other harmful emissions from transportation sources.
The Strategic Plan describes the current and planned Research and Development (R&D) strategies used by the U.S. DOT Operating Administrations to address the research needs within each critical transportation topic area. Cross-modal research areas and collaborative initiatives are also highlighted.
The Strategic Plan also describes four overarching research themes identified during the stakeholder engagement process that cut across all of the critical transportation topic areas. These are Policy Research, Emerging Technology, Strengthening Research Coordination, and Big Data.
The Strategic Plan strongly emphasizes U.S. DOT efforts to promote the deployment and adoption of research results by integrating technology transfer throughout the research and development process. It describes how the Department's Technology Transfer Program and each Operating Administration's Technology Deployment strategies address the FAST Act requirement to specify how research findings will be used to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of transportation systems.
Implementation of the Strategic Plan will take place on two levels. First, there are a range of FAST Act requirements that dictate how the Strategic Plan will be used to guide and report the Department's RD&T activities over the next five years, including the submission of Annual Modal Research Plans by each Operating Administration for review by OST-R. Second, each Operating Administration is responsible for tracking and evaluating the performance of their RD&T strategies. These processes are described in the final chapter of this Strategic Plan.
As mandated in the FAST Act, the Strategic Plan also includes program-level information about expected Department research findings by the end of FY2021, and the annual funding levels anticipated by each Operating Administration during the period covered by the Strategic Plan (FY2017-21). This information is provided in Appendices A and B.
|
0.987883 |
Make a delicious tender cookie!
Grind almonds very finely in a food processor. Combine ground almonds with flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl until well blended; set aside.
Beat sugars, oil, eggs, orange peel and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer for 1 minute, until well combined and pale in color. Add dry ingredients and mix until dough forms.
Divide dough in half and shape into two (2-inch diameter) logs. Wrap logs in parchment or waxed paper and freeze for at least 2 hours or up to 1 month.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut dough into 1/4-inch thick slices and place 1-inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until bottom edges appear light golden brown.
Cool cookies for 1 to 2 minutes on baking sheet and then transfer to cooling rack. Store in closed container for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 weeks.
Recipe Suggestion: To garnish, sprinkle cookies with coarse sugar and top with almond slivers; lightly press into the surface just prior to baking.
|
0.997322 |
I saw the beginning and end of this white streak across the sky. I was looking up at the nearly full moon when I just happened to see this event.
I saw a white line streaking across the sky and disappearing mid air. Not sure if I saw an explosion. Lasted less than a second but there was definitely a white streak that I saw appear mid air, travel a short distance, and then disappeared mid air.
|
0.933805 |
Find a Boat trip that explores Banff National Park. There are 7 tours to choose from, that range in length from 17 days up to 26 days. The most popular month for these tours is June, which has the most tour departures.
|
0.98788 |
Gasoline Magazine | Rik Hoving | Custom Car Photo Archive | Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.
For this article I wrote the text and took the photo's. The Lay-out was done at Gasoline Magazine.
|
0.999998 |
Try to change font size from 10 to say, 14. Press select.
Try to type in chat and see fonts haven't changed.
Go back to font selector and see that nothing has actually changed.
Font size should change when changed.
Font size stays the same even when you try to change it.
## Versions - OS: Windows 10 x64 - Gajim version: 1.1.2 - GTK version: 3.24.1 - Python-nbxmpp version: 0.6.9 ## Steps to reproduce the problem 1. Try to change font size from 10 to say, 14. Press select. 1. Try to type in chat and see fonts haven't changed. 1. Go back to font selector and see that nothing has actually changed. ## Expected behavior Font size should change when changed. ## Actual behavior Font size stays the same even when you try to change it.
|
0.997599 |
Mystic rangers follow the same basic path as the ranger, though they gain their power from mysticism rather than the divine power of the gods. They are at home in the forest and the wilds. He is a skilled hunter and stalker, knowing the woods as if they were his home (and often they are). He draws his power from the mystic sphere of animism, taking a different spiritual approach to nature.
Adventures: A mystic ranger can be a protector through the wilderness or as a scout. He can also adventure for the same reasons that a fighter can.
Characteristics: A mystic ranger can use a variety of weapons in combat, often specializing in two-weapon or archery. His skills allow him to survive within the wilderness, to track his prey, and to avoid detection. He is able to draw upon the mystic power of animism to fuel his spells.
Alignment: Mystic rangers can be of any alignment, though most are chaotic in alignment. Good mystic rangers are protectors of the lands and those who travel through them. Neutral mystic rangers protect the land for the sake of nature. Evil mystic rangers bend nature to their will, and emulate the cruelty of predators.
Religion: Mystic rangers do not follow the ways of any deity, though most pay respect the gods of nature. Rather, they follow the mystic path of animism, using their inner power to connect with nature. Some mystic rangers feel that even though some gods have a tie to nature, that nature is independent of the gods.
Background: Most mystic rangers learned their craft from masters who accepted them as students. Some are students at the Citadel of Light, studying at the Animism Lyceum.
Races: Mystic rangers mainly emerge from those races with close ties to nature, such as Kagonesti elves, centaurs, and human nomads.
Other Classes: Mystic rangers get along well with other nature-based classes, such as barbarians, druids, and rangers, even though rangers and druids don't see eye-to-eye with the mystic ranger on where the power of nature is drawn from. Like rangers, they bicker with paladins, not only on different styles, tactics, and approaches, but also on religious beliefs in terms of divine magic. They share a certain kinship with sorcerers, as they both draw on ambient magic. They're indifferent to most other classes, though they don't get along as well with structured classes such as monks and wizards.
Role: The mystic ranger's best role is that of a scout and secondary combatant.
Mystic Rangers have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Dexterity and Strength are important to the mystic ranger for the same reasons they are important to the ranger. Several mystic ranger skills are based on Wisdom, and a Wisdom score of 14 or higher is required to get access to the most powerful mystic ranger spells. A Wisdom score of 11 or higher is requires to cast any mystic ranger spells at all. One of the ranger's trademark skills, his ability to track foes, is based on Wisdom.
The mystic ranger's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).
All of the following are class features of the Mystic Ranger.
Armor and Weapon Proficiency: A mystic ranger is proficient with all simple weapons, martial ranged weapons, and light armor. A mystic ranger is not proficient with martial melee weapons or shields.
Spells: Beginning at 5th level, the mystic ranger gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, drawn from the ranger spell list (p. 191 of the Player's Handbook). He can cast any spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time, the way a ranger must.
Wisdom determines how powerful a spell a Mystic Ranger can cast, how many spells a Mystic Ranger can cast per day, and how hard those spells are to resist. To cast a spell, a Mystic Ranger must have a Wisdom score of 10 + the spell's level. A Mystic Ranger gets bonus spells based on Wisdom. The Difficulty Class of a saving throw against a Mystic Ranger's spell is 10 + the spell's level + the Mystic Ranger's Wisdom modifier.
Ranger Abilities: Per the ranger in the Player's Handbook.
* = Provided the ranger has a high enough Wisdom to have a bonus spell of this level.
Acknowledgements: This article draws some inspiration from Erik Seligman's article on the Mystic Ranger in Dragon #336. Thanks to Cam Banks for the suggestion on the spellcasting advancement.
|
0.955818 |
Being able to identify parts of speech in paragraphs is an important tool that can help a student to better understand what he reads. Knowing which words are which parts of speech and which parts of speech should modify those words will also help a student to write clearly and correctly. There are eight parts of speech: verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. The parts of speech are the foundation for all writing and reading, so it will benefit a student greatly to gain a strong grasp of the parts of speech.
Identify the verbs in the paragraph. Every sentence requires at least one verb. A verb is a word that expresses action, occurrence or being. Verbs have different tenses such as past, present and future. Verbs include "run," "see," "is," "bought," "came," and "drove." It is important to know that many words that are verbs can also be other parts of speech such as adverbs and nouns. The word "exit," for instance, can be a verb or a noun depending on its usage within the sentence: In the sentence, "Please exit through the back," "exit" is a verb. In the sentence, "We couldn't find the exit," "exit" is a noun.
Identify the nouns in the paragraph. A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. A noun usually acts as the subject of the sentence, but it can also act as a direct object, indirect object, appositive or complement. Some examples of nouns include "Peter," "China," "table," and "happiness." Nouns can be singular or plural. Note that every sentence will contain at least one noun because every sentence must have a subject.
Identify the pronouns in the paragraph. Pronouns take the place of nouns and function just as nouns do. Examples of pronouns include "her," "I," "we," and "him." Note that "his" or "your" are considered possessive adjectives.
Identify the adjectives in the paragraph. Adjectives modify, qualify or describe nouns and pronouns in the sentence. Adjectives will answer the questions, "Which one?", "What kind?", and "How many?". Some examples of adjectives include "that," "blue" and "seven."
Identify the adverbs in the paragraph. Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. In the sentence, "She ran quickly," "quickly" is the adverb that modifies "ran." Note that not all sentences will contain an adverb. Other words that act as adverbs include "unfortunately," "therefore" and generally any word that ends in "-ly."
Identify the prepositions in the paragraph. A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in the sentence. Examples of prepositions include "of," "in," "at," "from," "to," "since," "up" and "with." Prepositions generally indicate a spatial, temporal or logical relationship between the prepositional phrase and an object in the sentence. Note that not all sentences will contain prepositions.
Identify the conjunctions in the paragraph. Conjunctions are words that connect other words, phrases and clauses. The words "and," "but," "or," "for," "nor," "yet" and "so" are conjunctions. Note that not all sentences will contain conjunctions.
Identify the interjections in the paragraph. Interjections are words that make an exclamation. Words like "Wow!", "Please!", and "What!" are interjections. Note that some words, such as "What!", are interjections only when they are used to make an exclamation.
Mack, John. "How to Identify Parts of Speech in Paragraphs." , https://penandthepad.com/identify-parts-speech-paragraphs-8286905.html. Accessed 23 April 2019.
|
0.937065 |
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba has made official what had been rumoured for weeks: It is legalising real estate and car sales and enacting other major changes.
But the Communist Party's newly released economic guidelines give few specifics, meaning islanders must wait for the fine print when the strategy becomes law.
The guidelines published today say the state ought to "establish the buying and selling of homes" for citizens. There is no mention of how the system will work, what restrictions will be imposed or taxes levied. The Parliament must still approve the changes.
The guidelines also call for legalising the sale of cars. They make clear, however, that the state is not yet in a position to sell most Cubans new cars through state-owned businesses.
With the Cuban Communist Party meeting over and new ideas and reforms coming into play, things should be interesting.
I have been reading what I can of what is coming but there does not seem to be much hard news out on the reforms and changes.
The Cubans who write on havanatimes.org seem skeptical of the changes. They feel that many of their beefs have been blown off or not accorded the discussions or changes the people think they should get.
It is a bit early to say one way or the other but what does seem clear is that despite the hopes of the United States, Cuba is not getting on that slippery slope back to capitalism. Individual enterprises within the centralized socialist economy is what we can expect . They are not about to go capitalist and especially not while the U.S is waging an economic war on them to bring down Cuban socialism. They have too much pride to surrender to the enemy of mankind after 50 years of struggle and a life that they know is made difficult by the capitalist bullies to the north.
an apologist for murder .
Yeah, right.....keep spinning and spinning. You can dress this pig up any way you like, but when you remove it's disguise, it's still a pig......Holding on by your finger nails?
Cuba eventually will be communist by name only.
Better to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect that you are as ill-informed as you are than to post something and have those suspicions confirmed.
II will try again to explain that Cuba is not communist. There was never a communist country. Communism is a future utopian state which communist parties are SUPPOSED to be working towards .
The interim step between capitalism and communism is socialism .
Cuba is a SOCIALIST state with government control of most of the economy.
Were I you I'd spend more time looking at the demise of capitalism.
How's THIS country doing economically?
How's the EU doing ?
How are most Third World countries doing with capitalism.
How is globalization of corporate control of societies doing?
And if you think Cuba is a dictatorship what do you think corporate control of your life is?
I love your tripple talk!!!!
I love your double "p" in tripple.
Why not try to answer the questions instead of making empty criticisms ?
That grammer/spelling distraction? Focus on content. Only a fool focuses on how things are said instead of what was said. In all cases, such people are trying to deflect from the issue. Wornout. It points to intellectual exhaustion on your point. AKA....pulling at straws.
I have no need to answer questions. You do.
You support a system that admits its principles are complete failures.
I love to watch you dance around and try your wornout tactics. I do.
Show me who when and where in Cuba said that its socialist principles are complete failures.
That is an American fiction that you have chosen to swallow because it is convenient for you.
Were Cuba's system a failure, the 50 year embargo/war would not be necessary to try to make it a failure.
You're in deep and blind denial unaffected by inconvenient facts as all our previous exchanges have shown..
Show me where socialists demand that capitalist hire 500,000 fired socialist employees?
Why do you do this? I am not tired but I tired of your stupidity.
Do you work for the CIA? Everything you say undermines your point.
What gave you the mistaken idea that Cuba's reforms are capitalist in nature?
People working for themselves or with a few employees is not considered capitalism except perhaps by people with no real knowledge of economic or even the meaning of the terms socialism or capitalism.
The WISHFUL thought that Cuba is going backwards into capitalism is held only by the very old Cubans who came to this country with their boy Batista AND those stupid enough to believe right wing blather.
I find it amazing that people who KNOW that the government and the media lie like rugs on things like this choose to believe this obvious nonsense.
I'll write in Archie on his shirt.
Joncalvin, please take this back. YOUR IGNORANCE IS STUNNING. The speak of these things without any knowledge?
As your proof read, the matters of import escape you.
Retard, I want you to search for two words. Did you read that...two words.
How can you be so ignorant? How can you advocate socialism without knowing what socialism advocates?
Last week a rig arrived in cuba. Repsol the operator was able to sell participation in a convoluted manner shares in the project. This was allowable. So all the cuban goverment did was allow their citzens to do what transnationals do in cuba.
In 2002, i pointed out that the cuban goverment had begun to close mum and pop resturants. I was told that these enterprises were capitalism. and this was me supporting prostitution. Personal initative was not an economic driver. That to suggest this was contatary to socialism. That the cubans would never allow this.
I was insulted called stupid and a pimp. And any support of private buisness was murder. Guess what every thing i advocated has been put in place. The cuban goverment agreed with each of my reccomendations.
again with 10 % 0f the arable land devoted to vegtable farming private initive produces 50 % of the vegtables?
Next it will be the split in the communist party. Some wlll stick with this model based on centralised control. The other part will support wahallaism. Unless parties are legalised there will be mass arresst by the dominant part. So the onway forward is independent trade unions, multiple parties, private buusness.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So the onway forward is independent trade unions, multiple parties, private buusness.
I agree, it's either change with the times or get left behind. The powers that be know if they don't change another revolution would eventually occur.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So the onway forward is independent trade unions, multiple parties, private buusness.
If the Cubans were stupid enough to adopt those things which they are not, they'd have the economic failure that we have.
Since neither of you read Hvanatimes.org you really don't know how the Cuban people feel about things reading and relying on information and wishful thinking from the capitalist press which parrots the talk and thinking of the States Department.
Independent trade unions are necessary under capitalism in order to get working conditions etc forced out of the bosses whose primary interest is keeping all the money.
Corporate power and the media have pretty much destroyed the unions in the United States.
Multiple parties ? LOL BOADWL and all of the things people use here to indicate sarcasm and ridicule.
Multi-party systems are what we have in the United States and Jamaica .
They are not only no more democratic than is the Cuban system but they are not reformable. The U.S/ Jamaican systems are ossified, rigid, unchangeable.
The Cuban system is constantly undergoing change since it's beginning not that long ago.
Private business? Sure. The Cubans also want to lose their houses, have their pensions lost, have massive and constant unemployment, lousy healthcare and education.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Since neither of you read <span style="font-weight: bold">Hvanatimes.org</span> you really don't know how the Cuban people feel about things reading and relying on information and wishful thinking from the capitalist press which parrots the talk and thinking of the States Department.
It's a government controlled newspaper. Everything that is in print in Cuba is government controlled Even more so than our own media sources in the US. You vehemently oppose US news sources as unreliable, but you don't have any problem believing a Cuban news source? Why? Since you have not visted Cuba in your life time and have not spoken to the Cuban people personally, means you know nothing more than anyone else that has not visited the country. All information that you gather is sought and obtained from sights that agree with your agenda or what you want to perceive as truth. That's fine, we all have a tendancy to gravitate to sources of information that we want to beleive as the truth, but you put an absolute on every bit of your opinion.
Why can't you put your personal agenda aside and seek what is real rather than what you want to perceive as the truth? Your opinion is no better or worse than anyone else's opinion..... I must remind you that Wahalla has actually been to Cuba.
He may have an advantage at this point in time.
You have made a point that I have been trying to make for about a year.
That point is that it is a given that when I present an article or a website that runs counter to the thinking of people who accept the U.S. government position on things and notably right wingers but also those who are just opposed to any position I hold because of my often unpleasant tone and my unpopular political and moral positions, those articles and websites are rarely read or visited by those people.
In this case it's the Havanatimes.
It is not a newspaper, it is a website.
It is not government controlled, but rather is TOLERATED by the government now headed by Raul Castro.
Had you actually read anything about the website or on the website including the many many articles/ diary entries extremely critical of Cuba''s economic and political system those facts would have been obvious.
All of the articles and entries are by regular Cubans, none of whom can be considered to be publishing for the benefit of the government but rather to freely express their opinions.
Here's what you might have discovered had you actually looked at the website.
Jamaicans.com has about ten times the readership as the Havanatimes.org site. I bet less than 100 people IN Cuba ever read at the site. And it isn't edited in Cuba. Cubans don't have the internet... or very few Cubans have the internet I should say.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Jamaicans.com has about ten times the readership as the Havanatimes.org site. I bet less than 100 people IN Cuba ever read at the site. And it isn't edited in Cuba. Cubans don't have the internet... or very few Cubans have the internet I should say.
I read the interview with Circles Robinson months ago and he and I have exchanged e-mails.
He has to run the site from his home country, Nicaragua since he lost his translating job in Cuba and couldn't stay without employment there.
Havanatimes.org is about two years old and I'm more concerned with its readership OUTSIDE Cuba that inside Cuba since ALL Cubans know everything the writers at Havanatimes have to say and the uninformed, misinformed and DISINFORMED people in the States and Jamaica do not.
The Cubans like most Third Worlders do not have the hundreds of dollars it costs to own a computer but the Venezuelans have run an undersea cable to Cuba to enable wideband service they were unable to get from the United States which seeks to destroy the revolution.
If and when the USA ends the embargo we will be able to send our unused and somewhat outdated computers to Cuba as we ourselves update our own equipment.
It is good to see that at least you have the intellectual curiosity and courage to read what the Havanatimes website has to offer.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">Can you tell us if there exists any workplace democracy? Are Cuban workers involved in planning and decision-making? And what rights do workers have when in dispute with the company leadership?
The Cuban electoral system looks far better on paper than it does in practice. Virtually no campaigning is permitted: the posting of candidate résumés is as far as it goes. Moreover, candidates have to go through an initial party screening process that is seldom discussed.
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #CC0000">How much influence do the elected candidates have over government policies?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> That is a difficult one to answer, since there is no real investigative journalism allowed in Cuba.
So what, it's not in print on a piece of paper. It's still a digital press. The word "press" in reference to the pressing of ink on to paper. It's still a news source, and as you say yourself it's "tolerated" by the government. This means the information is tempered or controlled by the staff of the paper, excuse me, the "digital press", for fear of being forbidin to publish. That is not freedom of the press Fear of having to watch what you publish is still censorship..
CENSORS? NOT GOVERMENT CONTROLLED? Yeah, right. I'm not convinced.
We long ago agreed that you would never be convinced that the Cuban revolution is a good thing.
You blew off the charge that you did not, do not and have no intention of reading the Havanatimes and did not refute it.
They are not government controlled and you confirmed this.
Censors ARE government officials and the censors in Cuba do not touch Havanatimes.org or the Cuban people who write for the website.
As long as what is published is approved by the censors(government). The censors are still watching the site. The few Cuban people that have internet have censored internet. Government approves or disaproves of what is allowed for view. It's obvious that Havanatimes knows what they can get away with and what they can't.
It's cut and dry. Censorship is censorship.
Good argument. They're censored but they're not censored.
1) none of the writers at havanatimes.org work for the U.S government as the jailed "journalists" did.
2) Their criticisms are valid and recognized as such. Very few of the writers are against the not-quite democratic socialism they have and want ONLY to fix what's wrong much as those in love with capitalism and the two-party system want to do here.
and.....how would you know anything about Cuba given those joke websites you look at and given your avoidance of objective and scholarly sources. You cannot speak effectively on havanatimes since you don't read it.
1. You are a CIA plant.
|
0.999977 |
Workers clear the wreckage of the Rajdhani Express which derailed over a bridge last September.
(CNN) -- India's massive rail network is hit by an average of 300 accidents a year. With more than 11,000 services running daily carrying more than 11 million passengers on more than 100,000 kilometers of track, observers and railway officials say the safety record is relatively good.
May 15, 2003 -- A fire breaks out in a rear car of the Golden Temple Express. At least 36 people die from the blaze.
January 3, 2003 -- Three cars from an express passenger train in south-central Maharashtra state derail. At least 18 people are killed and the accident is blamed on human error.
December 21, 2002 -- A sabotaged sheared rail was behind the derailment of the Bangalore Express. Nine cars ran off the tracks, killing 19 and injuring almost 100.
September 10, 2002 -- A car plunges into the River Dhave after the Kolkata-to-New Delhi Rajdhani Express derails over a colonial-era bridge in northeastern Bihar state. Two other cars are left dangling precariously. Over 120 people are killed and the accident is blamed on poor maintenance and lax enforcement of safety standards.
|
0.953206 |
How did we get Qantas so wrong?
A terrible business is a terrible business, regardless of whether it goes through an up-cycle. A missed opportunity is not a mistake if no capital has been committed - in my opinion.
I agree, there are some companies that just shouldn't be listed on the stockmarket. Airliners are one example. There are so many external factors that can adversely impact these companies I don't know how investors in the sector get any sleep at night.
|
0.997264 |
The makers of hit animated sitcom South Park have been back on Broadway for a while with their musical, The Book of Mormon, which is a religious satire telling the story of two missionaries preaching the Book of Mormon to unreceptive locals in a remote Ugandan village who have other things like war, AIDS and disease on their minds.
The show, created by the Emmy-Award winning team of Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone showcase the creators' fascination with Mormonism and musicals that is also evident in the South Park episode 'All About Mormons'. Presented in two acts, the show's musical numbers played by a nine-piece orchestra bagged the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album in 2012. The show has also won nine Tony Awards since opening night, one of them for Best Musical.
During its first year of running, the show remained consistent as one of the top 5 best-selling Broadway shows. For the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, it set 22 new records for weekly sales.
Since May 2011 an original cast recording has been made available to preserve for posterity. The cast album reached the third position on the Billboard Charts. It has been 4 decades since a Broadway cast album reached so high on the charts.
The show was in development for nearly seven years before it opened in Broadway on March 24, 2011 and caused quite a stir. The Book of Mormon New York edition was first shown at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York, NY, having previewed earlier on February 24.
It went on to become an instant phenomenon winning excellent critical response, 5 Drama Desk Awards and 3 Outer Circle Critics' Awards. The original production started out with Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells as the two leads. For the currently-running production, Matt Doyle plays the role of Elder Price and Jon Bass plays the role of Elder Cunningham.
The production is choreographed by Casey Nicholaw. It is co-directed by Nicholaw and Trey Parker. Producer Scott Rudin (having produced South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut with the creative team earlier) had initially planned to stage the show off Broadway at a New York Theater Workshop in 2010. Production costs were below the budgeted $11 million, at $9 million. 28 actors were cast of the hundreds that auditioned.
Following 4 weeks of rigorous rehearsals, and a 2-week stint of meticulous technical rehearsals, the show went into previews. The first full-orchestra preview of the show that the producers heard was only six days before the first public viewing.
The Book of Mormon New York plays at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York with 2 shows every day of the year. Tickets are available online at telecharge.com, by phone or at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Box Office window. Since reports of some cases of fraudulent tickets have come to light, its' recommended that you purchase your tickets only from the above official sources. Since shows can get sold-out fast, it's a good idea to book early. There are also Premium and American Express seats available for the best viewing locations. This is one Broadway show that should not be given a miss.
|
0.963542 |
Properties of Radiation What`s this?
Solar irradiance (also Insolation, from Latin insolare, to expose to the sun) is the power per unit area produced by the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Irradiance may be measured in space or at the Earth's surface after atmospheric absorption and scattering. Total solar irradiance (TSI), is a measure of the solar radiative power per unit area normal to the rays, incident on the Earth's upper atmosphere. The solar constant is a conventional measure of mean TSI at a distance of one Astronomical Unit (AU). Irradiance is a function of distance from the Sun, the solar cycle, and cross-cycle changes. Irradiance on Earth is most intense at points directly facing (normal to) the Sun.
|
0.941894 |
Our planet is somewhat resilient to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels because atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. During recent decades, the oceans have taken up approximately 25 per cent of the annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. However, the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2 appears to be limited, because the absorbed CO2 is making our oceans more acidic, with consequent environmental impacts.
The lag in the system is significant. Modelled projections show that, if CO2 levels are ramped down to pre-industrial concentrations, surface air temperature and sea level change exhibit a substantial timelag relative to atmospheric CO2—in models, even 900 years after CO2 was restored to pre-industrial levels, surface air temperature and sea level were considerably higher than under pre-industrial conditions.
The palaeorecord confirms this modelling. In the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum era (56 million years ago), CO2 was being released to the atmosphere at one-tenth of the rate of today. The era resulted in a rapid onset of 6 °C global warming, followed by a gradual recovery during 150,000 years. Although many species ultimately survived, the perturbations to the environment of this warming persisted for tens of thousands of years.
The interaction between the environment and society means that resilience of the physical environment and human societies must be considered together.
Resilience of a society to climate change is dependent on the sensitivity of the society to change and its capacity to adapt to change. Climate-resilient pathways may involve significant transformations in political, economic and socio-technical systems. The success of climate-resilient pathways is linked to the success of climate change mitigation (i.e. as problems become unmanageable, future options for climate-resilient pathways may be reduced).
Climate change will result in location-specific vulnerabilities, and people who are disadvantaged are most sensitive to climate change. However, some regions may benefit from climate change (e.g. warmer temperatures will result in reduced energy demand for winter heating and reduced winter mortality in cooler climates, including southern Australia).
Within Australia, Indigenous communities may be particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, particularly those people who live in remote interior or low-lying coastal areas, or who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods. However, adaptation and mitigation to climate change may offer opportunities for Indigenous communities through engagement with environmental management.
It is important that vulnerabilities in social resilience are reflected in national and international policies aimed at adapting to climate change.
Resilience is the capacity of the environment to retain or recover the same structure and functions after experiencing shocks or disturbances. The interaction between the environment and society means that resilience of the physical environment and human societies cannot be considered separately. Hence, in this section, we consider the resilience of our climate system itself, and the resilience of our environment and society to climate change.
The resilience of a society is dependent on the sensitivity of the society to change and its capacity to adapt to change.
|
0.999998 |
What is a Third-Party Administrator (TPA)?
A Third-Party Administrator (TPA) is when a company contracts with a second organization to provide administrative tasks for employee benefit plans. Insurance companies sometimes use TPAs as well to manage claims or processing. Employee benefit plans for insurance, retirement, or special accounts can be complicated and time consuming to process. Hiring a TPA can outsource these tasks to a specialist for better management or to reduce risks in offering employee benefits, and can also lower the cost of providing these plans.
|
0.999943 |
What is the valence shell of electrons?
Electrons fill up orbitals in “shells.” The innermost shell consists of just one s-type orbital and can hold just two electrons. The next shell consists of one s-type and three p-type orbitals, and can hold eight electrons. Higher shells consist of more and more orbitals and can thus hold more and more electrons. The valence shell of electrons is the highest occupied, or partially occupied, set of orbitals.
|
0.999997 |
Base on the story is about the king of England King George VI who has the problem of speaking directly and speaking to many people, noting that he has no self-esteem and is ashamed of the people he judges in front of many people. Because of his situation his wife Queen Elizabeth hired him a speech therapist and he met Lionel Logue, at the first meeting of King George and Lionel became complicated because king george had no confidence in himself to speak straight. But not allowed the lionel that he could not cure the King by speaking directly but one day he went to the king in their home but a man of king george told him that he was busy. After that one day his father, King George V, had passed away, until the day came when King George and Queen Elizabeth arrived at the celebration of his brother King edward VIII when King George VI arrived He talked to his brother King George VIII but his brother insulted him because of his problem talking directly. and one day, King George went to Lionel’s home to speak speech therapy because he wanted to prove to his brother and to other people that he could, some days when speech therapy king george was lacking in self-esteem because of my concern he was afraid of those who would judge him. The next day, king george and Lionel went to the palace where the king would speak when he was just as Lionel had just chastised the king george and made his way to king george to get used to it he was still straightforward. Until the day he came to speak with many people and live on the radio, it became successful because Lionel was guided and fortified by the king of George VI.
|
0.999999 |
Herein, monastics, what are the four bases of spiritual power?
Herein, monastics, a monastic cultivates the basis of spiritual power that is concentration of desire accompanied by the volition of striving, depending on solitude, depending on dispassion, depending on cessation, maturing in relinquishment, and his desire will not be too slack, nor too grasping.
He cultivates the basis of spiritual power that is concentration of energy accompanied by the volition of striving, depending on solitude, depending on dispassion, depending on cessation, maturing in relinquishment, and his energy will not be too slack, nor too grasping.
He cultivates the basis of spiritual power that is concentration of thought accompanied by the volition of striving, depending on solitude, depending on dispassion, depending on cessation, maturing in relinquishment, and his thought will not be too slack, nor too grasping.
He cultivates the basis of spiritual power that is concentration of investigation accompanied by the volition of striving, depending on solitude, depending on dispassion, depending on cessation, maturing in relinquishment, and his investigation will not be too slack, nor too grasping.
These, monastics, are the four bases of spiritual power.
|
0.99997 |
After we left New York City and Coney Island, we spent a couple of nights in Philadelphia. I'm not sure why this picture of us with the Liberty Bell has black lines on it. We saw the bell, crack and all.
While we went to Philadelphia under the cover of "education" and "historic landmarks", but visiting the birthplace of cheesesteaks was a real plus. HOWEVER...we didn't like any of them. Seriously. We tried four (FOUR!) different places. We went to the three most famous, and one that wasn't as well known. Talk about a let down!
Then we went (literally) right across the street to Geno's. Both of these are very well-known.
In between all of our cheesesteak eating, we managed to tour the city and see more historic places. The Betsy Ross house was really interesting. It was a paid tour, but the kids really wanted to do it. I'm glad we did.
We also took a tour of the Mint to learn about and see money being made.
Brian wanted to try the Roast Pork sandwich from another famous place called Dinic's. It was in Reading Terminal Market. Wow! That market was a crazy place full of vendor after vendor. I wish we had more time in there! Brian thought this sandwich was pretty good.
In the meantime, Parker and I shared a cheesesteak from a place in Reading Terminal Market called Spataro's. It was the least well known place, but it was the best. Not great...but better than the rest.
We took a tour of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.
Of course, we had to go by and visit the Rocky steps and take our picture with the Rocky statue.
Then one last cheesesteak hurrah at Tony Luke's. Better than the other two famous ones, but still just ok.
So as you can tell, the cheesesteak situation was a real disappointment. The meat is just very bland, and there was never enough cheese. The bread wasn't that great either. I'm sorry to be so negative, but I want to save you all the heartache that we have endured. I'm a little bit dramatic.
The moral of the story is this: Go to Philadelphia for the history, but not the food. The end.
I always look forward to going out. A good tip would be to look out for those places with interesting concepts. This place is pretty amazing. I came up here with a friend to rent a space for an event. The place was spacious and food was great.
|
0.99992 |
Nemegtosaurus was a plant-eater (herbivore) that lived in Mongolia during late Cretaceous period between about 72 and 68 million years ago.
Nemegtosaurus is believed to have been upto 43 feet (12 meters) long.
Nemegtosaurus is named for the Nemegt basin in the Gobi desert of Mongolia where the first fossils of the animal were found.
Asian Dinosaurs - Nemegtosaurus lived in Mongolia.
Nemegtosaurus was a genus of dinosaur.
"Nemegtosaurus" means "Nemegt lizard" (after the Nemegt Basin in Mongolia).
Nemegtosaurus was a member of the Saurischia ("lizard-hipped") order of dinosaurs. What this means, is that although Nemegtosaurus was not closely related to lizards, it did have similarly shaped pelvic bones.
Nemegtosaurus was a Sauropod - a member of a group of related large quadrupedal herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur with long necks.
Nemegtosaurus lived between about 72 million years ago and 68 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period.
Nemegtosaurus was a herbivore (plant-eater).
Nemegtosaurus was upto 43 feet (12 meters) long.
Nemegtosaurus weighed about 20 tons.
|
0.999999 |
Context: Weak lensing is one of the most readily available diagnostic tools to measure the total density profiles of distant clusters of galaxies. Unfortunately, it suffers from the well-known mass-sheet degeneracy, so that weak lensing analyses cannot lead to fully reliable determinations of the total mass of the clusters. One possible way to set the relevant scale of the density profile would be to make a direct measurement of the magnification produced by the clusters as gravitational lenses; in the past, this objective has been addressed in a number of ways, but with no significant success.
Aims: We revisit a suggestion made a few years ago for this general purpose, based on the use of the fundamental plane as a standard rod for early-type galaxies. Here we move one step further, beyond the simple outline of the idea given earlier, and quantify some statistical properties of this innovative diagnostic tool, with the final goal of identifying clear guidelines for a future observational test of concrete cases, which turns out to be well within the current instrument capabilities.
Methods: The study is carried out by discussing the statistical properties of fundamental plane measurements for a sample of early-type source galaxies behind a massive cluster, for which a weak lensing analysis is assumed to be available. Some general results are first obtained analytically and then tested and extended by means of dedicated simulations.
Results: We proceed with determining the optimal way of using fundamental plane measurements to determine the mass scale of a given cluster, which we find to be the study of a sample of early-type galaxies behind the cluster distributed approximately uniformly on the sky. We discuss the role of the redshift distribution of the source galaxies, in relation to the redshift of the lensing cluster and to the limitations of fundamental plane measurements. Simple simulations are carried out for clusters with intrinsic properties similar to those of the Coma cluster. We also show that, within a realistic cosmological scenario, substructures do not contribute much to the magnification signal that we are looking for, but add only a modest amount of scatter.
Conclusions: We find that for a massive cluster (M200 > 1015 Mȯ) located at redshift 0.3 ± 0.1, a set of about 20 fundamental plane measurements, combined with a robust weak lensing analysis, should be able to lead to a mass determination with a precision of 20% or better.
absence of lensing, viewed edge-on.
Contour plot of the difference between the true and the reconstructed dimensionless mass density from a weak-lensing analysis. In the central region the reconstructed profile underestimates the surface mass density, while in a significant region of the image plane the opposite case occurs.
|
0.999998 |
What are the charges for sending money to a bank account?
Charges for sending money to a bank account will be 2.95% of the transaction amount (Incl. of taxes).
|
0.750638 |
James Lawrence Pugh (1820-1907) served in the U.S. House of Representatives on the eve of the Civil War and in the U.S. Senate after the Reconstruction era. Pugh is remembered in Alabama history for staunchly defending the South and states' rights and for serving in the Confederate Army and Confederate Congress while also being more willing to compromise during his service in the Senate. He was a self-made man who rose from poverty to become wealthy and influential.
in Creek Indian territory. Robert Pugh was reportedly killed in 1830 by Creek Indians, leaving Pugh penniless. He went to live with relatives in Barbour County and supported himself in his teen years by carrying mail and clerking in a dry goods store; he also studied law at this time. In 1836 he joined the Eufaula Rifles and fought against Creek Indians who were resisting removal in the Second Creek War; he resumed his study of law when hostilities ended. By 1841, he had been admitted to the Alabama bar and formed a partnership with Jefferson Buford in Eufaula, Barbour County. He would practice law there for nearly 40 years and engage in farming, owning a small number of slaves. Pugh was married in 1847 or 1848 to Sara Sarena Hunter of a prosperous Eufaula family. The couple would have nine children, three of whom died in infancy.
Pugh enjoyed antebellum politics, engaging in lengthy discussions on the great sectional issues of the day, favoring the South and states' rights. As a Whig, he had been a member of the "Eufaula Regency," a powerful group composed of disaffected Whigs and Democrats who espoused secession. It counted among its members William L. Yancey and future governor William Oates. In a spirited 1848 congressional campaign known as the "War of the Roses," Pugh was narrowly defeated by a leading Alabama Whig, Henry W. Hilliard, whom Pugh claimed was not supportive enough of the South. The intensity of the campaign between the two hastened Pugh's exit from the party, and in 1850, he switched to the Democrats whom he found more sympathetic to his position on state sovereignty.
Pugh's rise within Alabama's Democratic Party hierarchy was quick. He was selected as an elector at large for Pres. James Buchanan in 1856 and used the position to build close personal ties and political support. By 1859, his political base was so secure that he easily defeated his opposition when he ran for Congress. He resigned his seat, however, following Alabama's secession from the Union in January 1861 and returned to Alabama with other members of the delegation.
Pugh maintained a high profile in Montgomery that February when southern delegates gathered to form the new Confederate government. He and a small group met President-elect Jefferson Davis at the Union Railroad Station on the night of February 16 and escorted the statesman in a torchlight parade to the Exchange Hotel. Pugh rejoined the Eufaula Rifles and served one year in 1861 as a private in the First Alabama Infantry at Fort Barrancas near Pensacola, Florida. He was elected to the Confederate Congress in 1861 and again in 1863. After the war, he was president of the Democratic State Convention in 1874, a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1875, and a presidential elector for Samuel Tilden in 1876.
After the death of Sen. George S. Houston in 1879, Pugh was elected by the state legislature to complete the four years remaining in Houston's term, beginning in 1880. In his acceptance speech to legislators, he reaffirmed his dedication to Democratic principles and pledged that in the Senate he would defend the South against the Republican Party; he was generally a trusted colleague of Sen. John Tyler Morgan. Pugh won reelection in 1884 and in 1890, defeating challenger Gov. Thomas Seay in the Democratic primary. During his terms, Pugh served on the Education and Labor Committee and as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Fifty-third Congress. He reportedly became more sensitive to workers's issues while a member of a special committee investigating the cause of labor strikes. Some the panel's work led to the creation of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
He fought for free coinage of silver, tariff reductions, restrictions of the privileges granted national banks, clearing the Tennessee River for navigation, and building a larger merchant marine. An intense party loyalist, he strongly defended Pres. Grover Cleveland against an effort in the Senate to inspect his private records. On one occasion, Cleveland offered Pugh a seat on the Supreme Court, but he declined because of his age. Interestingly, during his 16 years in the Senate, Pugh rarely spoke on the Senate floor, though a notable exception was a speech in favor of a bill increasing federal education funding to reduce illiteracy. The money would have been a boon to Alabama, where illiteracy was in excess of 30 percent among individuals 10 years or older, but the bill died in the House of Representatives. Pugh was, however, reportedly an aggressive questioner in committee hearings. In a three-way race in 1896 against Edmund W. Pettus, a noted attorney and former Confederate general, and Gov. William Oates, Pugh suffered defeat in the Democratic primary. This loss embittered him, and he spent most of his remaining years in Washington, D.C., railing against many of the policies that he previously had endorsed. He died there on March 9, 1907; his body was returned to Eufaula, where he was buried in the Fairview Cemetery.
Davidson, Mary Jane. "James Lawrence Pugh: A Half Century in Politics." Master's thesis, Auburn University, 1971.
|
0.968231 |
In which I proselytize about yoga and life.
Last Saturday morning, I made my way to the Upper East Side for a yoga workshop with the incomparable Kerri Verna. I last took a workshop with her in February (if you recall), and wouldn’t have passed up an opportunity to practice with her again. Admittedly this workshop was not quite as evocative, physically nor emotionally, as the February one, but I think some of that was my own fault: I set my expectations very high, now that my inversions are nine months more practiced and advanced, and like all good lessons learned from the mat, my expectations were shattered, as the majority of workshop attendees were super new to any inversions, so we spent more time on fundamentals than the mid-room inversion practice I’d been hoping for. When we did finally start reviewing handstands, Kerri said the above line to the room, and I felt my face go beet red, because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing at home to practice handstands.
I walked away from the class slightly disappointed: it ran way over and I had to leave early to catch a train, leading me to miss savasana and the chance to spend time with her one-on-one, and my ego was a little frustrated that we hadn’t worked on the more advanced postures, despite taking valuable lessons in fundamentals away from the session. On the long train ride back to Connecticut, I decided to pull out the tiny notebook I keep in my purse for emergency inspiration and began writing. I journaled a stream-of-consciousness more than anything, trying to keep my handwriting steady as the train rocked left, right, but when I stepped back after 30 minutes of furious scribbling, the words from Kerri above are what stood out the most.
As the thought rolled around in my head, I started to relate it to a lot that’s been happening lately in life, and not just my own but in the lives around me as well. I see it in everyone that’s gotten married or will get married this year, and I see it in the sad moments, like walking into my childhood home on Saturday, only to run upstairs and burst into tears, because for the first time in eight years, the half-golden, half-Rottweiler welcome committee wasn’t there to guide me in the house before tackling me in slobbery kisses. There are these waves of life, new beginnings with endings, sad stories with a happy ending, which can all come back to something as simple as a handstand against a wall: the wall is for strength, not balance. What you choose to fall back on in life is for strength, but not for balance. The people in our lives that support us are for strength so we can pull ourselves out, but balance is something only we can achieve.
Balance is such an interesting and fragile concept, like balancing a needle on a thread, as someone important once told me. There’s the physical aspect of balancing, but on a higher level, balance is something we’re all desperately seeking in our lives. There’s the ever-difficult quest for a work-life balance and learning how to juggle responsibilities at home and to yourself, with the constant pull for happy hours and 4am nights in the city. As I thought this weekend about balance, and the walls I’ve been using to keep me upright, I thought about how the biggest balancing act I’ve had to manage in the past six months is between the strength I’ve gained from being on my own for two years, and the balance I’m chasing between the many selves, from the 23 year old party girl, to the brokenhearted 25 year old, to the 27 year old almost-yogi I can feel still present in the LB typing this entry now.
Probably the biggest thing I took away from the class on Saturday was the ability to reassess my life right now, and decide to take a step back from handstand practice. I may have the strength to hold myself up, but in the past two weeks things have felt so off balance, it’s no wonder I’d been leaning on the wall to keep me grounded. I walked away from a workshop feeling disappointed I couldn’t push myself into a pose, but in that disappointment I’ve found a calm peace of mind. We forget sometimes that the mind and body are intrinsically connected in ways we’ll never understand. Sometimes it takes a few weeks of getting back to the fundamentals before we can push ourselves away from our support systems, and find a balance on our own two feet – or in my case, hands.
|
0.999885 |
If you are in need of some very fast cash and you don't have the best credit score, then there are some ways you can make that cash quickly and without a lot of hassle. Here are some things you may want to consider doing if you need money right away: Make use of your truck If you own a truck, then you may find it very easy to go out and make the money you need, starting today.
Quality tires are expensive and maintaining the tires properly is important for your safety. Therefore, you want to take good care of your new tires and not abuse them so they have a long life and keep you safe on the road. Maintaining your tires involves frequent checks to make sure they aren't wearing out and having them serviced by a mechanic when needed. Here are some tire maintenance tasks you can do to keep your tires in good shape.
If you have bad credit but are looking for a way to turn your situation around, you might be wondering if it is possible to lease a semi-truck so that you can become an owner-operator. This can be a wonderful career opportunity that can help you make a good living, but if you aren't able to secure a truck to drive, then it isn't going to be an option for you.
Your car's suspension does more than just providing you and your passengers with a smooth ride. Without a good, working suspension system, your vehicle will be more difficult to control because your suspension helps keep your vehicle from jumping around on the road and your wheels in contact with the pavement. This will also reduce damage to other parts of the car by reducing jarring and jostling. To help you understand when you need to have the suspension repaired, here are a few things to look for.
Driving a Diesel? What Happens When Your Filter Becomes Clogged?
If you're a first-time diesel owner -- or have simply never logged enough miles on a single diesel vehicle to contemplate cleaning or replacing your diesel particulate filter (DPF) -- you may be dismayed at the sight of a warning light on your vehicle's dashboard indicating your DPF has begun to malfunction. While continuing to drive your vehicle even short distances without ensuring that your DPF is serviced can cause irreparable damage to your engine, you may not feel you have the cost of repair (or replacement) in your current budget.
About six months ago, I realized the car that I had been driving for years was about to die. One system after another was failing, and I knew I needed to start shopping around for a different vehicle. After finding the car of my dreams, I decided I needed to take better care of my new car. I started cleaning out the cabin regularly and paying attention to the cleanliness of the exterior, and the difference was amazing. My car looked and smelled better, and I could tell that I was helping to maintain the value. This blog is all about taking care of your new car.
|
0.999999 |
France is a western European country, made up of metropolitan France and overseas France, belonging to the European Union.
Where is France located? France is bordered on the north-east by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany; to the east by Germany, Switzerland and Italy; in the south-east by the Mediterranean Sea (Gulf of Lion) and the Principality of Monaco; south-west by Spain, the Principality of Andorra and the Bay of Biscay; to the west by the Atlantic Ocean; and to the north-west by the Channel and the Strait of Calais, which separates France from the United Kingdom and connects the Channel to the North Sea.
The capital and the largest city in France is Paris, which had a population of 11,101,000 in 2010. Together with London, it is the largest metropolis in Western Europe and has an international reputation. The other major French cities are Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Nice, Nantes, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Lille, Rennes, Reims, Le Havre, Saint Etienne and Toulon.
Country of moderate altitude (342 m on average), France presents varied and contrasted reliefs. While bordered, on its eastern and southern peripheries, by high mountain barriers, a set of medium mountains occupies the center and the north-east of the country, as well as Corsica, while vast regions of plains, hills and low plateaus stretch from the north to the southwest.
The highest and most rugged part of the territory is located east of a Bayonne (southwest) -Thionville (northeastern) line. In the mountainous France of the East and the South, with the strong topographic contrasts and the compartmentalised reliefs, France is opposed to the basins and worn basements (Armorican Massif, Ardenne) of the North and the West, whose plains and Low plateaus extend to an altitude most often less than 250 m.
Tourism in France is an economic sector of this country. This is an important activity, both for the French who choose to spend their holidays, and for foreigners who come to stay there. According to figures from the World Tourism Organization, France has become the leading tourist destination in the world (84 million international tourist arrivals in 2014) since the 1990s, but remained in third place (behind the States United States and Spain) in terms of revenues from international tourism until 2015, the year that sees it fall to fourth place behind China.
The tourist appeal of France is explained by the large number and variety of points of interest, the diversity of the landscapes, the richness of the enogastronomic heritage, historical, cultural and artistic, the temperate climate and the facilities of access and of transport infrastructures, but also by the important and varied equipment of the country in structures of reception (hotel trade, restoration, parks of attractions …). Thus, each French department is a tourist department with several points of interest.
← Where Is NASA Located? What Is NASA?
|
0.998355 |
The radiation exposure of man is the ionizing waves, which have a negative impact on health. In this process, the person may experience radiation sickness. Its manifestations depend on the dose of radiation and location.
External exposure. These include the impact of cosmic rays, solar radiation, radioactive energy, which secrete rocks, etc Getting large doses of radiation possible with the weapons testing nuclear type accidents and other emergency situations occurring in nuclear power plants. In this case, the radiation enters the body with the inhaled air and through the skin.
Internal exposure. This person receives a dose of radiation from radioactive substances that enter the body through the gastrointestinal tract, blood or skin damage.
External irradiation from radioactive substances entering the body through the skin straight into the bloodstream. Thereafter, while circulating with the blood through the body, they accumulate in target organs. In them the concentration of radiation will be the biggest. If radioactive particles enter the body with air, which is inhaled, a part of them is removed with the air that is exhaled.
Internal and external radiation are dangerous to humans. This is because the radioactive rays are no barriers in the body and, accordingly, they pass through all the cells. As a result, there are different pathological processes. Namely, the cells of the body become irritated and go into a state of excitement. Such processes lead to the disturbance of their functioning and even death.
Exposure to radiation can trigger biochemical shifts in nature, degeneration of cells and genetic disorders. This is because ionizing radiation affects protein and fat structures in the cells. They are necessary for normal functioning of tissues. Quite often these injuries are microscopic and the manifestation of the effects of radiation begin to be noticeable after some time. Often such damage is manifested in the form of cancers and genetic mutations in the offspring.
If the radiation exposure was minimal, the consequences to the human body will be visible for decades.
What type of radiation is more dangerous: internal or external? Internal radiation is most dangerous to humans, as subsequently manifested severe conditions and diseases. In this type of radiation radioactive atom directly affects the fabric. Thus only limited time of stay of the atom in the body. But despite this, the local action of ionizing radiation is enhanced in some organs.
A negative factor for foreign investment is that no methods of decontamination are not effective.
External radiation is dangerous to humans until such time as he is in the zone of radioactive status. It is especially dangerous if the rays are neurons. They can easily penetrate into the nuclei of atoms and cause changes in them, as it does not conduct electrical impulses. This creates new atoms. This process is called secondary. In this external exposure develop serious pathology.
The impact of external radiation on the organism provokes burns of the skin and mucous membranes. The severity of these wounds depends on the dosage of radiation. Internal irradiation provokes the manifestation of malignant tumors and various leukemias.
For genetic injuries from radiation are manifestations of the descendants of down syndrome, epilepsy, and other developmental defects a physical or mental nature.
The human body is able to regenerate cells that are damaged by radiation, but only if they are not a critical number. If a lot of them, then the pathological process is irreversible.
There is a short-term high dose is much more dangerous than a systemic effect on the organism of small doses.
Is the concept of natural background radiation, it is present in nature. An indication of this external radiation must not exceed 0.2 MKZ/hour is the norm for humans. The permissible level of radiation is considered to 0.5 MKZ/hour. In microrentgen is 50 units per hour.
If the person is in a dangerous radioactive zone, the normal rate of radiation is considered to be 10 MKZ/hour. In this particular harm will not be. This dosage is equivalent to obtained by the procedure of fluoroscopy or other x-ray studies. When x-rays of the tooth, the person receives 0,2 MKZ/hour. It is important that no medical examination of tool-type will not provoke radiation sickness.
The threshold radiation 100-700 MKZ should not be exceeded, so as to be dangerous consequences. Death will be caused by the dose received in the onetime Star size 6-7. Note that radioactive substances can accumulate in the body and add up.
|
0.999999 |
Who is the Canadian-born master spy to whom Winston Churchill gave the code name 'INTREPID'?
This Canadian soldier, airman, inventor, industrialist and spymaster is none other than Sir William Samuel Stephenson, C.C., M.C., D.F.C. (23 January 1897 - 31 January 1989). Born in Winnipeg as William Samuel Clouston Stanger, his mother was from Iceland and his father was from the Orkney Islands. He was adopted by the Stephenson family when he was four years old after his parents could no longer care for him. He left school at a young age and worked as a telegrapher for a railway company. On 12 January 1916, he volunteered for military service and joined on enlistment the 101st Overseas Battalion (Winnipeg Light Infantry), Canadian Expeditionary Force. Shortly after arriving in England in July 1916, his battalion was broken up and he was initially transferred to the 17th Reserve Battalion and shortly after to the Canadian Engineer Training Depot, attached to the Sub Staff, Canadian Training Depot Headquarters in Shorncliffe. Stephenson progressed rapidly through the ranks: in March 2016 he was appointed acting corporal, in September of the same year he was appointed acting sergeant with pay of clerk and his rank of sergeant became substantive in May 1917. As of 6 June 1917 he was "on command" to the Cadet Wing of the Royal Flying Corps at Denham Barracks, Buckinghamshire and remained with them until 15 August 1917 when he was discharged in London, England, from the Canadian Expeditionary Force. As published in the London Gazette of 11 September 1917, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant with the Royal Flying Corps effective 16 September 1917. He was posted to 73 Squadron in February 1918 where he flew the Sopwith Camel - a British single-seat biplanefighter - and was credited with downing more than a dozen enemy aircraft, earning him the coveted title of 'Ace'. He was shot down in France on 28 July 1918, captured by the Germans and was held as a prisoner of war until he escaped in October of that year. By the end of the Great War, Stephenson had achieved the rank of captain and earned Britain's Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross as well as the French Croix de Guerre for his conspicuous gallantry. During the 1920s, he patented a number of inventions including a wireless system for transmitting photographic images that earned him significant royalties and amassed a fortune. Stephenson diversified as a leading industrialist and by the mid-1930s, he was operating on five continents. His contacts in high places and his skilled ability to gather information enabled him the opportunity to develop a close rapport with Winston Churchill and provided him with confidential information about the emerging Nazi threat. When Churchill became prime minister in 1940, he hand-picked Stephenson to covertly establish and run the office of British Security Coordination in the Western Hemisphere, with headquarters in New York City - where the telegraphic address was 'INTREPID' and hence, became the intelligence codename for Stephenson. He was also a major influence in re-establishing a working relationship between the British Secret Intelligence Service and the American Federal Bureau of Investigation. He lived a life of seclusion and continued to be involved in numerous covert and espionage events post Second World War. He died in 1989 and is buried in Bermuda along with his wife Mary.
William Stephenson received numerous honours and recognition after the Second World War, including a Knight Bachelor from the United Kingdom, the U.S. Presidential Medal for Merit, officier de la Légion d’honneur from France and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. There are also scholarships established in his name. One was created to facilitate entry at the Bermuda College as he was committed to investing in the development of Bermudians to ensure a qualified workforce for the future. The other is an undergraduate scholarship at the University of Winnipeg for students who demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities and the potential to make a valuable contribution to Canada. There is also a street named after Winnipeg's eminent native son, whereby on 15 November 2009, a ceremony was held to officially rename 'Water Avenue' to 'William Stephenson Way'. As shown in the photograph, a larger-than-life bronze statue of Sir William, in the image of him in his aviator's military clothes, was unveiled on 24 July 1999 by The Princess Royal, H.R.H. Princess Anne, in the presence of the artist, world renowned sculptor Leo Mol (15 January 1915 - 4 July 2009) and members of the Intrepid Society. The statue is located in Memorial Park overlooking Manitoba's Legislative Building.
On this day, 23 January 2019, we commemorate the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Sir William Stephenson - the man called 'INTREPID' - and recognize his lifetime of distinguished service.
|
0.997721 |
What Are Your Bicep & Tricep Muscles?
Your biceps and triceps are the two muscle groups of your upper arm. Don't confuse the biceps brachii, the formal name for the biceps muscles in the arm, with the biceps femoris, which is part of the hamstring muscle that runs up the back of the thigh. Biceps brachii in the arm has two muscles as part of its structure. As the name implies, the triceps brachii has three muscles as part of the structure of its muscle group.
The biceps cross both the shoulder and the elbow. The muscles are at the front of the upper arm, starting at the front of the shoulder and ending at the elbow. You can feel the biceps by flexing your arm. The triceps sit at the back of the arm. They start at the back, lower part of the shoulder and end at the elbow, where the ulna, one of the two bones of the forearm, begins.
The biceps flex the arm, such as when you lift a child or box. They also help rotate your forearm, such as when you hit a forehand in tennis or turn a doorknob. The triceps work with your back muscles, the latissimus dorsi, to extend your shoulder, such as when you do a pushup or push a door closed.
Exercising these two muscles together is a common workout. Focus on the upper arm to increase your muscle definition. This not only improves the appearance of your upper body, but also maintains your ability to lift and push things. A typical exercise for the biceps involves isolation, such a biceps curl with a dumbbell or barbell. Triceps are also worked in isolation, such as when you lift a weight over your head for an overhead triceps extension.
Avoid a common exercise mistake when working the upper arms by focusing too much on the biceps. These muscles are the ones that bulk up in men and provide a sleek upper-arm appearance. You need to balance biceps exercises with a triceps workout to maintain function in your arm and proper posture. Focusing on just one muscle group leads to an imbalance, which increases the potential for injury.
|
0.999324 |
It's time to go camping, either alone, with a friend or your family. You may be in an organized campground or just on your own, but you don't have a camper. How do you set up a tent camp to be efficient, clean and comfortable? Let's look at the basic steps.
Choose your site carefully. In an organized camp, look for such features as access to water or the restrooms, level parking, trees for shade, nearby streams, southern or northern exposure.
Choose an unorganized site according to the jurisdiction's regulations. On most federal land, you must be a certain distance from roads, trails, streams, and other recreational features.
Arrange sleeping and eating areas separately. Keep animals away from your tent or sleeping gear by locating it far from the table, stove, and food storage and preparation areas.
Clean any existing tables, cabinets, fire rings or stoves. Use a small broom to sweep tables and cabinets. Shovel out old ashes and dispose in the bins. Clear out old trash and dispose in bins also.
Store food according to regulations. Many places require bear-proof storage in provided metal or wooden boxes. Keep foods cool in the shade or partly immersed in running water.
Set up places for sitting and children playing. Mark them with guide ropes, flags, chairs, blankets, etc.
Hang up a clothes line for wet dirty clothes and towels.
Gather wood only as prescribed and place it near the fire ring or stove. Set a bucket of water nearby.
For unorganized camps, locate a toilet area away from the camp, downhill, and away from any water source. Place shovels for individual use along with a bucket of water for hand washing. Hang a towel on a tree branch or rope. Or dig a narrow trench 6 inches (15.2 cm) deep and up to three feet long and place the extra soil at the side. A shovel is used to replace the extra soil as the trench is used. Place a bag for tissue collection.
Dress in layers for warmth. Start with synthetic fabric or silk, then wool, fleece, and nylon. Do not wear normal cotton as it is hard to dry and gets very cold and heavy when wet. Be ready to wear two to six layers, along with hat, scarf and gloves. If it's very hot, wear a hat and protect skin from sunburn.
Depending on the season and weather, place your sleeping area facing south (for heat) or north (for shade), out of low areas where sudden water flows may collect, away from a road, on ground with soft leaf cover or overhanging branches for shade, against a rock face for cooler summers, out of snow-damp ground, away from a steep drop where winds may pick up.
Do not deface the local area by cutting live trees, carving into trunks, dragging logs to a new place, picking flowers, sweeping dirt clean, building fences, etc. Leave the place as you found it.
Do not try to burn cans, diapers, and other non-burnable items or use the fire ring as a dump site.
Be careful with food preparation and waste. Don't pollute the area or draw animals by simply dumping peelings, etc. around the area. Collect and dispose, not by burning.
Bring books and things to read, card for playing, board games, puzzles for children, nature guides for birds or flowers, a knitting project, or other handicraft.
Follow regulations of the jurisdiction including keeping pets under control, not driving off roads, observing quiet hours at night, not gathering unauthorized firewood, not bathing with soap in a water source.
Don't expect to have the comforts of home when tent camping. Relax and enjoy a simplified style and menu, don't worry about being dirty, and try to observe the nature around you, even at night.
Ensure you have at least one liter of water per day per person just for drinking. Cooking and washing water is extra. Do not think sodas, tea, etc. are substitutes for pure water.
Bring your own wood or charcoal if you want to make sure you will have a cooking or campfire.
If you camp alone far from developed places, have emergency gear, and tools for your vehicle. If you hike, leave a note on the dashboard giving date and time, approximate destination, and ETA.
Do not drink open water sources without purifying it by boiling 3 minutes or adding a couple drops of bleach in a gallon of water, then leave it for several hours.
You are criminally liable for fires. Ensure no fire is left uncontrolled or unwatched. Do not allow children to take burning materials away from the fireplace.
Protect food from bears and other animals. Do not feed wildlife or get caught without something to eat.
Getting cold and wet can be a life-threatening situation. Have a change of clothes, a way to keep dry or get warm.
Camping in a prohibited area may get you removed suddenly. You must be aware of all regulations in the jurisdiction.
Polluting water sources is prohibited. Washing, bathing or human waste may not occur within 500 feet (152.4 m) of a river or lake.
eating: stove, wood, charcoal or other fuel, set of plastic dishes, cooler for food storage, simple pot and pan, can opener, utensils, extra plastic storage containers, foil and plastic wrap, water containers.
wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 13 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has also been viewed 31,407 times.
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 31,407 times.
|
0.980079 |
Help answer a question about the fingerband episode, please.
In the middle of "Something You Can do with Your Finger," Stan's dad, Randy, screams at Stan, "No! NOOOoooo!" before smashing his own head into the china cabinet. Randy does this in response to Stan's wish to join a boyband.
To me it sounds like a movie clip or something has been sampled when Randy yells "No! NOOOoooo!" I love that part of the episode because he's so clearly unglued at that moment, and we've never heard him THAT pissed before.
Question: is "No! NOOOoooo!" from some movie?
Some believe it's a reference to Star Trek: First Contact, but I don't remember if that's been confirmed or not.
|
0.902324 |
Do you know Shuji Terayama (or Terayama Shuji in the Japanese way)? He died more than 20 years ago at the age of 47. Many Japanese people remember him as an avant-garde playwright or as a songwriter of some hit songs in the 1960s. I heard him talk occasionally on the radio when I was young. I don't remember what he was talking about, but I do remember his heavily accented Japanese. He had an Aomori accent, and many people liked it. I didn't know at that time that he was a tanka poet when he was younger.
When I started writing tanka (in Japanese), I read Terayama's tanka for the first time and liked his modern, lyrical expressions. He is still one of my favorite Japanese tanka poets. I included some of Terayama's tanka in Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (trans. with A. Fielden). By reading book reviews of Ferris Wheel, I noticed that many reviewers quoted Terayama's tanka. This encouraged me to translate some more tanka from Terayama's collections.
I read all the tanka he produced, but didn't know much about Terayama himself. It is well known that Terayama wrote many of his tanka as fiction, but I didn't know why and how he fictionalized his tanka. So, I read several books and articles about Terayama, including his mother's memoirs. What I found is that Terayama wrote many tanka as fiction in order to express his complex feelings of being "abandoned" by his mother using his extraordinary imagination.
He started writing haiku, tanka, and free verse when he was a junior high school student. He debuted to the tanka world winning a very prestigious tanka prize when he was only 18 years old. However, Terayama quit writing tanka at the age of 28 (in 1964) after publishing his third collection of tanka. By this time, he was already well known as an award-winning playwright, director, and essayist nationally and internationally.
For my translation project with Amelia Fielden, I selected about 200 tanka from his whole collection, and translated for publication. (Our manuscript has been accepted by the Hokuseido Press. The tentative title is "Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama".) As you will find in his tanka quoted below, he writes tanka as if it is a scene from a movie, stage play, or novel. He himself plays a role of a Korean boy, mixed blood boy, P.O.W., actress, factory worker, etc. His mother dies many times in his tanka.
His complex feelings of "being abandoned" by his mother, longing for his dead father and the siblings he did not have, and longing to be freed from reality are expressed in the form of fiction. Terayama's father, who was a policeman, died in the war when Terayama was nine. Terayama's mother started working in the US military base in Misawa, Aomori, in order to make a living, and when Terayama was in junior high, she left home and moved to Fukuoka, Kyushu, with her "boss" in order to work in the US base there. Terayama lived with his uncle until he moved to Tokyo to attend Waseda University. Many of his well-known tanka were written in his high school and university days.
For this article, I selected some of Terayama's fiction tanka from our manuscript and wrote some notes.
I can dedicate myself to?
I introduced some of Terayama's "fiction" tanka here. I hope English tanka poets could expand their horizon by reading Terayama's tanka. We don't need to use "nature" in each tanka we write. We don't need to write biographical tanka all the time. We may be able to express our true emotion/feeling when we write tanka as fiction.
Note: To read more about Terayama's tanka poetics, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, Shuji Terayama's Tanka Poetics, "Fiction of Possibility"
|
0.999999 |
PSNR is now an option. More consistent -m/-s option handling.
-m option that required only a bool.
I could say in french "ma stupidité dans toute sa grandeur".
|
0.983953 |
What are the procedures for snack and lunch?
For the morning snack, on a rotating basis, parents provide a peanut-free snack for the class (approximately twice a month). Lunch is brought from home. A pizza lunch is offered each month.The afternoon snack is peanut-free and is provided by the school.
|
0.98198 |
The first non glamourous hero in malayalam..
Bharath Gopi is a Malayalam language film actor and winner of India's National Film Award for Best Actor (known as Bharath award at that time) for Kodiyettam.
He was born in 1937 in Chirayankil, Thiruvananthapuram(Trivandrum), Kerala, India. His real name is V. Gopinathan Nair.
His first movie was Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Swayamvaram in 1972. He has also acted in two Hindi movies, Aghat and Satah se udta admi. Gopi is a film director and producer as well. His Yamanam was awarded Best Film on Social Issues by the National Award Jury in 1991. Gopi was paralyzed by a stroke in 1986, at the peak of his career. He was awarded the Padmasri in 1991.
Recipient of several regional, national and international awards, the thespian wrote "Abhinayam Anubhvam", for which he got the national award for the best book on cinema. He is considered one of the greatest film actors of India.
|
0.999998 |
What is the E-number for aspartame?
The E-number for aspartame is E-951. The 'E' before the number indicates that an ingredient has been approved for use within the European Union and the number itself denotes the specific ingredient. An E-number is confirmation that a food ingredient is safe. Rigorous tests must be carried out before an ingredient is granted an E-number and, following their acceptance, ingredients can be reviewed at any time.
Aspartame is one of the most thoroughly tested ingredients in our food supply. It has been approved by health and regulatory authorities in 100 countries. Numerous organisations, including experts of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have approved the use of aspartame in food and drinks. Aspartame is safe for the general population, including pregnant women and nursing mothers, children, diabetics and slimmers.
|
0.967486 |
If I were to ask you what was probably the most important factor that has helped make high quality Australian wine so competitively priced in the world market. What would you say? Winery technology perhaps? Highly trained and skilled winemakers, maybe? The answer in part, and it is probably a major part at that, is…. machine harvesting. That's it. It is not widely known that well over 90% of Australia's grape crop is harvested by a machine, and that for most wineries, having teams of pickers slaving in the mid-day sun is a distant memory.
Machine harvesting fruit substantially brings down the cost of getting the grapes from the vineyard to the winery. The exact saving depends on a number of factors, but 60-70% savings are a pretty average result. However, does this practice lower the quality of the grapes and the finished wine? The ill-informed purist would say yes (as most of the great French vineyards are harvested by hand), but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Let's look at the process. Machine harvesters essentially remove the fruit from the vine by either slapping it using paddles or by shaking the vine. The kinetic energy imparted to the grape bunch by the harvester causes the bunches or (more typically) individual grapes to fly off the grape bunches, to be caught by the machine as it passes down the row. Machine harvesting is rather 'rough' in that it causes a fair amount of juicing of the grapes and may also collect other material such as leaves, shoots, the odd lizard etc., collectively known as MOG (material other than grape).
Juicing causes the grape juice to come in contact with the skins resulting in juices that are higher in phenolics. This occurs because grape phenolics are located primarily in the skins of grapes. Therefore the rupturing of the grape berry results in the skin phenolics leaching into the juice as it sloshes around in the back of the picking bins prior to them reaching the winery. Phenolic pickup is not an issue with red grapes (they are fermented on their skins anyway), but with white wines, skin contact can result in a loss of delicacy as a result of the pick-up of a hard bitter (phenolic) characters in the finished wine. White wines high in phenolics also age much faster as oxidative browning relies on the presence of phenolic substances.
Different grape varieties are more prone to juicing than others due to the toughness of their skin, and turgor of their flesh. For example, Semillon is a variety that heavily juices when machine harvested. The grapes of some varieties are also simply more difficult to shake off the bunch than others. Grenache and Zinfandel are two varieties whos grapes need more 'persuasion' to separate themselves from their bunches. It's just a physiological thing.
However, machine harvesting has one major quality advantage over hand harvesting. Machine harvesting is nearly always done at night. As a result, the fruit will arrive at the winery 10-20OC cooler than hand harvested fruit, that was picked during the day. The rate of juice browning and oxidation in general are temperature dependent. The higher the temperature, the faster it happens. So although the machine harvested fruit will on average have a higher phenolic load than hand harvested fruit, the rate of oxidation is slowed due to the fruit being cooler. Incidentally, cooler fruit also improves the efficiency of wineries, as having to cool the fruit down using refrigeration prior to fermentation slows down the grape through-put, not to mention increasing the winery's power bill.
It is worth noting that machine harvested fruit is not suitable for the production of all styles of wine For example, some winemakers produce fine delicate Rieslings by gently squeezing whole bunches using certain types of presses. Their aim is to minimise the degree of phenolic pickup in the juice as much as possible. Obviously this rules out machine harvesting as the majority of machine harvested fruit comes in as individual and partly juiced grapes. Carbonic maceration wines are made from intact berries, or more typically, intact bunches that are placed in a carbon dioxide rich environment. These conditions result in a special yeast free fermentation inside the grape berry which results in wines that display a distinct fresh 'cherry like' fruitiness. However if damaged berries are used, then the carbonic maceration fermentation will not occur and the resultant wine will in all likelihood have a high level of vinegar like volatility.
However despite these few limitations, most Australian winemakers have little option to work with machine harvested fruit. The economics and a lack of available labour demand that they do. However most winemakers do insist that they receive high quality machine harvested fruit from their growers or their vineyard managers. This has resulted in cooler fruit, with less juicing and much less MOG (something for which the lizards are eternally grateful).
|
0.999865 |
My clients often express that they feel that their busy lives require them to juggle the responsibilities of work, family and life in general - and they are left feeling like they do not have much time to dedicate to exercise! This is ok! We are able to design effective programs that suit your lifestyle. In order to ensure that time spent in the studio is effective and efficient, our weight training programs include compound movements.
A compound exercise is simply an exercise that trains more than one muscle group at a time. Examples include exercises such as Squats, Deadlifts, Leg Press - any exercise which works multiple muscle groups at once. The opposite of this would be an isolation exercise which primarily focuses on training one muscle group, for example a bicep curl to train the bicep brachii.
Help you do more in less time: By working several muscle groups at the same time, you can perform fewer exercises and reduce the total amount of time you spend in the gym.
|
0.999999 |
Employ network access control tools and programs. There are many open source tools as well as paid services that you can install in order to manage the authority and amount of accessibility of users at particular times of day. These kinds of tools also enable administrators to keep unwanted devices and users from accessing the network.
There are also other network access control tools that can help you filter content as well as the types of websites that people can have access to. Not only does this result in good bandwidth allocation, it also helps prevent other security risks like phishing and malware infection. Most network access control programs also allow you to monitor network usage and keep tabs on exactly the type of content users are accessing online, so you can act accordingly.
Finally, you can prevent bottle necks from surges of data due to accessing video streaming sites by controlling streaming video traffic. There are many ways to do this, among which are banning video sites outright and controlling bandwidth allocations so employees can still access these websites, but at a reduced connection speeds, so these kinds of activities won’t interfere with business priorities.
|
0.997519 |
"Do not rely upon what you have heard proclaimed, or upon custom, or upon rumour, or upon scripture, or inference or established principles, or clever reasoning, or favouring a pet theory. Do not be convinced by someone else's apparent intelligence, nor out of respect for a teacher .... When you yourself know what is wrong, foolish and unworthy, and what leads to harm and discontent, abandon it .... And when you yourself know what is right, develop it."
A great variety of forms of religious practice are associated with the word 'Buddhism'. However, they all take Siddhattha Gotama, who lived and taught in northern India some 2,500 years ago, as their source or inspiration. It was he who in historical times became known as the 'Buddha'- that is 'the Awakened One', one who has attained great wisdom through their own efforts. The Buddha did not write anything down, but left a remarkable legacy in the form of a teaching (the Dhamma) that was at first orally- transmitted by the religious Order (the Sangha) that he founded and personally guided for forty-five years.
This Order has survived the centuries, preserving the wisdom of the Buddha in lifestyle as well as in words. To this day, these three elements, the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, are known and respected by all Buddhists as 'The Three Refuges' or 'The Triple Gem'. They have also come to symbolise Wisdom, Truth and Virtue - qualities that we can develop in ourselves.
After the Buddha's time, his teaching was carried from India throughout Asia, and even further. As it spread, it was affected by its encounters with local cultures, and several 'schools' of Buddhism eventually emerged, Broadly speaking, there are three such schools: Theravada ('The Teaching of the Elders'), which still thrives in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand; Mahayana ('The great vehicle'), which embraces the various traditions within China, Korea and Japan; and Vajrayana ('The diamond vehicle'), which is associated primarily with Tibet. Teachers from all schools have made their way to the West. Some preserve their lineages as found in the country of origin, while others have adopted less traditional approaches. The approach and the quotations used below are from the Theravada.
The Buddha taught a path of spiritual awakening, a way of 'practice', that we can use in our daily lives. This 'Path of Practice' can be divided into three mutually supportive aspects - Virtue, Meditation and Wisdom.
and where there is wisdom, uprightness is there.
and wisdom and goodness are declared to be the best things in the world."
Someone living in this way develops the self-discipline and sensitivity necessary to cultivate meditation, the second aspect of the Path.
Meditation, as the term is used in common parlance, is the repeated focusing of attention upon an image, a word or a theme in order to calm the mind and consider the meaning of that image or word. In the Buddhist practice of insight meditation, this focusing of attention also has another purpose - to more fully understand the nature of the mind. This can be done by using the meditation object as a still reference point to help in revealing the attitudes that are otherwise buried beneath the mind's surface activity. The Buddha encouraged his disciples to use their own bodies and minds as objects of meditation. A common object, for example, is the sensation associated with the breath during the process of normal breathing. If one sits still, closes the eyes and focuses on the breath, in due time clarity and calm will arise. In this state of mind, tensions, expectations and habitual moods can be more clearly discerned and, through the practice of gentle but penetrative enquiry, resolved.
The Buddha taught that it was possible to maintain meditation in the course of daily activity as well as while sitting still in one place. One can focus attention on the movement of the body, the physical feelings that arise, or the thoughts and moods that flow through the mind. This mobile attentiveness is called ‘mindfulness’.
The Buddha explained that through mindfulness one realises an attention that is serene. Although it is centred on the body and mind it is dispassionate and not bound up with any- particular physical or mental experience. This detachment is a foretaste of what Buddhists call Nibbana (or Nirvana) - a state of peace and happiness independent of circumstances. Nibbana is a ‘natural’ state, that is, it is not something we have to add to our true nature, it is the way the mind is when it is free from pressure and confused habits. Just as waking up dispels the dream state naturally, the mind that has become clear through mindfulness is no longer over-shadowed by obsessive thoughts, doubts and worries.
However, although mindfulness is the basic tool to use, we generally need some pointers as to how to establish the right objectivity about ourselves and how to assess what mindfulness reveals. This is the function of the wisdom-teachings of the Buddha.
The most generally used wisdom-teachings of the Buddha are not statements about God or Ultimate Truth. The Buddha felt that such statements could lead to disagreement, controversy and even violence. Instead, Buddhist wisdom describes what we can all notice about life without having to adopt a belief. The teachings are to be tested against one's experience. Different people may find different ways of expressing Truth; what really counts is the validity of the experience and whether it leads to a wiser and more compassionate way of living. The teachings then serve as tools to clear the mind of misunderstanding. When the mind is clear, Ultimate Truth, in whatever way one finds to express it, becomes apparent.
In order to help people realise that the normal understanding of life is inadequate, he Buddha talked about ‘dukkha’, translated as dissatisfaction or unsatisfactoriness. He often summarised his teaching as the Truth about ‘dukkha’, its origin, its ending, and the path to its ending. These core teachings, to be measured against one's experience and used for guidance, are known as the Four Noble Truths.
Life as we normally know it must always have a proportion of disagreeable experiences - sickness, pain and distress are obvious examples. Even in relatively affluent societies people suffer from anxiety, stress or a loss of purpose; or they feel incapable of dealing with life's challenges. Moreover, agreeable experiences are limited and transient for instance, 'dukkha' can be brought on by the loss of a loved one, or being badly let down by a friend. What also becomes apparent is that these feelings cannot be relieved for long by our usual responses, such as seeking pleasure, greater success or a different relationship. This is because 'dukkha' stems from an inner need. You could call it a longing of the heart - for understanding, peace and harmony. Because it's an inner or spiritual need, no matter how we try to alleviate such feelings by adding something pleasant to our life, it never quite succeeds. As long as we are motivated to seek fulfilment in what is transient and vulnerable and it doesn't take much introspection to recognise how vulnerable our bodies and feelings are - we will always suffer disappointment and a sense of loss.
not getting what you want is dukkha.
In brief, the compulsive habits of body and mind are dukkha."
The Buddha's experience was that this wrong motivation was in essence the origin of dissatisfaction. How is this? By always seeking fulfilment in what is transient, we miss out on what life could be offering if we were more attentive and spiritually attuned. Not using (through not knowing) our spiritual potential, we are motivated by feelings and moods. However, when mindfulness reveals that this is a habit rather than our true nature, we realise that we can change it.
Once we've understood the Second Truth, the Third follows on, if we're capable of ‘letting go’ of our conscious and unconscious self-centred habits. When we are no longer defensive or aggressive, whenever we respond to life without prejudice or fixed views, the mind rests in an inner harmony. The habits and viewpoints that make life appear hostile or inadequate are checked.
This involves the practical guidelines for bringing a spiritual focus to bear on life as we are living it. We can't 'let go' until we become capable of that through cultivation of our spiritual nature. But if there is proper cultivation, the mind will naturally, incline towards Nibbana. All that is needed is the wisdom to know that there is a way and the means to accomplish that way.
The 'Way' is defined as the Noble Eightfold Path. The 'wheel' symbol that is often used in Buddhist iconography is a depiction of this Eightfold Path in which each factor supports and is supported by all the others. Buddhist practice consists of cultivating these factors: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.
The 'Right-ness' of them is that they entail living in accordance with virtue, meditation and wisdom rather than from any self-centred position. Such a Way is therefore 'Right' for others as well as oneself.
nor of harming both alike.
and of the welfare of the whole world."
nor do they brood over the future.
Someone who has fully cultivated this way finds serenity and patience in themselves in times of difficulty and the wish to share good fortune when things go well. They live a life free from guilt, and, rather than having violent mood swings, the mind and heart stay steady and buoyant through the circumstances of life.
These are the fruits; but like most fruit, they have to be cultivated slowly and persistently with good-heartedness. For this reason, the guidance, or simply the companionship, of like-minded people is almost indispensable. The Refuge of Sangha is a reflection on this. Most generally, 'Sangha' refers to all spiritual companions, but this spiritual companionship is highlighted by the religious order of alms-mendicants who live under a detailed code of conduct that unambiguously presents the values of the Buddhist path.
Buddhist monks and nuns are not preachers -being specifically prohibited from teaching unless asked to do so - they are spiritual companions, and their relationship with the general Buddhist public is one of mutual support. They are prohibited from growing food or having money; they have to keep in touch with society and be worthy of support. Buddhist monasteries are not escape-hatches, but places where others can stay, receive teachings and most important - feel that their act of service and support is appreciated. In this way, the monks and nuns provide more than companionship and guidance - they also present the opportunity for others to gain confidence and self-respect.
a little at a time."
|
0.99997 |
While the positive relationship between traffic crashes and extreme summer conditions is certainly not unheard of, it is rarely used in practice when designing policies or issuing roadway safety warnings.
A recent study in Accident Analysis and Prevention shows that heat waves have a significant effect on the frequency of traffic crash fatalities. The study examined fatal traffic crash reports obtained from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System provided by NHTSA in the continental U.S. for May-September of 2001-2011. The geospatial information from the crash reports were linked to North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2) grid cells to determine whether the crash dates were in a heat wave day or not.
The research not only studied the relationship between fatal traffic crash frequency and heat wave, it also stratified the result by driver gender, age, and BMI, as well as day of the week, time of day, speed limit, rural/urban roadways, and meteorological factors like solar radiation and precipitation. The study found that there was a 3.4 percent increase in fatal traffic crashes on heat wave days versus non-heat wave days for all drivers, and the effect was stronger in females (5 percent) than male drivers (3 percent). The association was found highest for the age group 56-65 (8.2 percent increase) and as per BMI, obese drivers were found to have a 3 percent higher risk. Regarding roadway characteristics, the study shows that on a heat wave day rural roadways (6.1 percent increase) with speed limits between 30 and 55 miles per hour (4.8 percent increase) show the highest positive association.
In a nutshell, this study indicates that extreme high temperatures, accompanied by low precipitation and high solar radiation, can result in certain groups being at higher risk of fatal traffic crash and that certain roadway characteristics are less favorable for driving.
Many studies in the past have also shown a decrease in driver performance due to extreme weather conditions. In a similar study in Spain in 2015 examining the association between traffic crashes and high ambient temperature, the authors concluded that traffic crashes involving driver performance–associated factors increased by 7.7 percent in association with heat waves and increasing temperature. In 2017, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety published an article saying that traffic accident numbers in the U.S. are highest in the months of July, August, and September.
With climate change resulting in extreme temperatures all around the world, these studies highlight a pressing need for policy and safety interventions to adapt to changing conditions. While there is definitely a need for more in-depth research to understand what kind of mitigation measures would be most useful, it is something cities and DOTs could look into for improving roadway safety.
|
0.999998 |
New York (CNN Business)Uber now lets women drivers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia opt to pick up women passengers.
The company announced the new feature, called Women Preferred View, this week after months of local research into the preferences and concerns of women drivers in the region, according to the company. The effort is part of a broader push by Uber to cater to women drivers in the region. Saudi Arabia ended its ban on all women driving in the region last June.Saudi Arabia places many restrictions on women and bans the mixing of sexes at public events, but some of its constraints have been eased in recent years. In June, Uber rolled out a registration portal for Saudi women to learn more about its initiatives for women in the country.
Uber warns investors about upcoming safety report as it preps to go publicUber said it conducted a recent study that found the majority of prospective women drivers were only interested in driving women riders. “This newly introduced feature will open new doors and opportunities for women as Uber driver-partners, while being conscientious of local cultural norms,” said Abdellatif Waked, general manager of Uber Middle East and North Africa, in the company’s announcement about the feature.Read MoreThe company said it has no intention of rolling out the feature to other markets as of now.”The women’s preferred feature was designed specifically for Saudi Arabia based on extensive research done to understand the needs of women in a country going through a significant cultural transformation,” Shaden Abdellatif, Uber spokesperson for the Middle East, said in a statement to CNN Business.In the US, customers and lawmakers are urging ridehailing companies to roll out more features to address safety issues for Uber and its chief US competitor, Lyft in light of safety-related incidents. The South Carolina House recently passed a bill that would require rideshare vehicles to display illuminated signs in the wake of the death of a college student who got into a vehicle she believed was her Uber in late March.Another effort, a MoveOn.org petition, called for the ability for riders to select women drivers only.
Uber files to go public after a long, bumpy roadIn August, when the petition first circulated, safety advocate Cindy Southworth, executive vice president at National Network to End Domestic Violence and safety board member at Uber, told CNN Business that this would be difficult to execute. Although rideshare companies can confirm the identities of their drivers based on their applications, it’s difficult to do the same with passengers, Southworth said. For example, a man, in theory, could use the feature to prey on female drivers.”Conceptually, the idea of being able to pick the gender of your driver is appealing,” she said, likening it to her preference for female doctors when given the choice.In its filing to go public last week, Uber addressed safety incidents and people impersonating drivers. Uber warned investors about a safety-transparency report it expects to release this year, which will include data on claims of sexual assaults and other incidents on its platform. Uber pledged to release this report nearly a year ago in response to a CNN investigation that found at least 103 Uber drivers in the United States had been accused of sexually assaulting or abusing their passengers in recent years.
|
0.933632 |
What ancient secrets are hidden in the massive stone relic discovered in a Roman fort in northern England? The figure on the altar represents a favored deity among Roman soldiers. Read on, but don’t do as the Roman did.
According to news sources, the fort of Vindolanda was built across the north of Britain from Carlisle to Newcastle-on-Tyne under orders of the Emperor Hadrian between 122-30 A.D to ward off invaders from modern-day Scotland.Weighing 1.5 tons, the four-foot high ornately carved stone relic depicts on one side a jar and a shallow dish, and on the opposite side, a god-like figure standing on a bull, holding a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle axe in the other. It is believed that this figure represents the Anatolian god, Juppiter of Doliche.
This particular god had several manifestations. Known to the Romans as Juppiter Dolichenus, it was originally an ancient weather god the peoples of the Middle East called Hadad and the Hitites referred to as Teshab. Roman soldiers favored the god’s war-like interpretation.
Excavators have also discovered an inscription that indicates that the altar was dedicated to the Dolichenus god by "Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls.
Birley believes that Sulpicius Pudens, who was the known commanding officer of the Roman regiment based at Vindolanda in the third century, may have dedicated the expensive stone to the god in thanks for fulfilling a vow. This was a common practice at the time.
The shrine at Vindolanda represents just one of thousands of artifacts discovered at the ancient fort. Home to the Romans from 85 A.D. until about 410 A.D., the fort contains the largest early archive of Latin documents (more than 1,500 documents known as "Vindolanda tablets") related to military movements. Other discoveries that give insight into the daily lives of Roman soldiers include letters, written in ink on wood, asking for warm clothing and socks.
It is estimated that it may take as long as a decade to unravel the many mysteries of the fort at Vindolanda and all of its treasures.
|
0.999964 |
I'm not sure whether I've understood the question correctly.
Based on the generated number, be able to output the string alphabet of the "index"
There are several issues with the code you have.
You should not assign a value to the input variable, it's something that will be sent in to the function and your code needs to handle it in general terms. That is, get a random number between 0 and the length of input(whatever its value is, you shouldn't care), and use that random number as an index to return an item from the input variable.
The important part is to return the item, not print it, which is the other issue with your code.
Thank you. You've definitely pointed me in the right direction.
|
0.982397 |
10 copies, 32 people are on the wait list.
The first explosive book about Javanka and their infamous rise to powerJared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump's White House is unprecedented, unconstitutional, and dangerous. In Kushner Inc., investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created that depicts themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers, they are, like him, disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world, and threatens the democracy of the United States.
Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where the couple's many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued a personal agenda that is making them very rich while their actions have mostly gone unchecked. In Kushner Inc., Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's secret self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump's White House is unprecedented, unconstitutional, and dangerous. In Kushner Inc., investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created that depicts themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers, they are, like him, disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world, and threatens the democracy of the United States.
|
0.999969 |
Was Joseph Smith truly a prophet of God? Although there are several ways of seeking an answer to this question, an obvious one is to test Joseph Smith’s accuracy in prophecies that were predictive of events to come. If Joseph, speaking in his capacity as a prophet, claimed to say on God’s behalf that something humanly unpredictable was going to happen, and if it did, that would be impressive evidence that he was supernaturally inspired—and would count as evidence that his claim to be a prophet was true. On the other hand, if such predictive prophecies failed to happen as stated, this failure would be evidence against his claim to be a prophet of God.
|
0.884382 |
Are you hitting a lot of golf shots that curve to the right during the flight of the ball? If you are a right-handed golfer you are slicing the ball or hitting a slice. If you are a left-handed golfer you are hooking the ball or hitting a hook.
Here, golf instructor Roger Gunn gives us a checklist of possible causes for these types of mishits, but the faults and fixes differ depending on the golfer's handedness. Gunn has experience as a player on the PGA Tour, made a popular series of golf instruction videos called Golf Levels, and has been a teaching pro at several top California golf clubs.
Grip: Your hand or hands, especially your left hand, may be turned too far to the left. The "V's" formed between the knuckle and thumb on both hands should point between your right shoulder and right ear.
Set-up: Make sure your shoulders and/or feet are not aimed too far to the left.
Ball position: Check to make sure you aren't setting up with the ball to far forward in your stance.
Backswing: It's possible you are taking the club back too far to the outside, pushing the club away from you. This often goes along with the club "laying off," or pointing left, at the top. Additionally, there can be a clockwise twisting of the club during the backswing.
Downswing: Right shoulder goes too much out and not enough down. The arms are often pushed away from you at the transition, causing the club to approach the ball from outside the target line. There can also be a "blocking" of the wrists through impact, preventing the club from turning over.
To go more in-depth, read the article Diagnosing and Fixing a Slice. You can also find many videos on YouTube explaining how to correct golf shots that curve right.
Grip: Your hand or hands, especially your left hand, may be turned too far to the right. The "V" formed between the knuckle and thumb on both hands should point between toward your back shoulder.
Set-up: Make sure you aren't setting up with your shoulders and/or feet in a closed position.
Ball Position: You might have the ball too far back in your stance.
Backswing: You might be talking the club back too far inside, pulling away from the target line too quickly. This often goes along with the club going across the line at the top. Additionally, there can be a counter-clockwise twisting of the club during the backswing.
Downswing: Your back shoulder might be going too much down, often with a sliding of the hips toward the target. This causes the club to swing too much to the left through impact.
To go more in-depth, read the article Diagnosing and Fixing a Hook. You can also find many videos on YouTube explaining how to correct a hook shot in golf..
|
0.999643 |
10-2-2-d-2: The basic spot for running plays when the runs ends in the end zone after a change of team possession (not on a try). [b] goal line, when a foul occurs after a change of team possession in the field of play and the related run ends in the end zone (Exception: Rule 8-5-1-Exceptions).
B44 recovers A88's fumble on B's 4 and voluntarily retreats into B's end zone where he is downed. After B44's recovery, Team A commits a personal foul.
B 1/10 B15. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The basic spot is B's goal line. The result of the play is a safety.
B44 catches A8's free kick on B's 4 and his momentum carries him into B's end zone where he is downed. After B44's catch, Team A commits a personal foul.
B 1/10 B19. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The basic spot is B's 4.
B44 intercepts A14's legal forward pass on B's 4 and voluntarily retreats into B's end zone where he is downed. After B44's catch, Team B commits a personal foul on B's 8.
Safety. B f/k B20. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The basic spot is B's goal line. Safety if penalty is accepted or declined.
B44 recovers A88's fumble on B's 4 and his momentum carries him into B's end zone where he is downed. After B44's recovery, Team B commits a personal foul on B's 8.
B 1/10 B2. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The basic spot is B's 4.
B44 catches A6's punt on B's 4, voluntarily retreats into B's end zone and fumbles. The ball rolls out of bounds on B's 3. After B44 catches the punt, Team A commits a personal foul.
B 1/10 B15. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The ball is returned to the spot of the fumble. The basic spot is B's goal line. The result of the play is a safety.
B44 recovers A7's free kick on B's 4 and voluntarily retreats into B's end zone where he fumbles. B94 recovers on B's 2 while grounded. After B44's recovery, Team A commits a personal foul.
B 1/10 B15. B44's run ends in B's end zone. The basic spot is B's goal line. The result of the play is B 1/10 B2.
B44 intercepts A17's legal forward pass and advances to A's 5 where he fumbles. A67 recovers on A's 4 and voluntarily retreats into A's end zone where he is downed. After A67's recovery, Team B commits a personal foul anywhere.
A 1/10 A15. A67's run ends in A's end zone. The basic spot is A's goal line. The result of the play is a safety.
B44 recovers A88's fumble on B's 4, voluntarily retreats into B's end zone and then advances to B's 3 where he fumbles. B95 recovers in B's end zone and is downed in B's end zone without the ball returning to the field of play. During B95's run, Team A commits a personal foul.
B 1/10 B15. Although the related run for penalty enforcement ended in B's end zone, it did not follow an immediate change of team possession in the field of play. The basic spot is B's goal line. 10-2-2-d-1-c applies. The result of the play is a safety.
|
0.84452 |
John Kenley (February 20, 1906 – October 23, 2009) was an American theatrical producer who pioneered the use of television stars in summer stock productions. In 1950, he was the first producer to desegregate live theater in Washington, DC. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Life Member of Actors' Equity for his contributions to American theater. His Kenley Players company was described by Variety as "the largest network of theaters on the straw-hat circuit."
Kenley was born John Kremchek to Ana Machuga and John Kremchek Zyanskovsky in Denver, Colorado. His father, a Slovakian saloon owner, baptized him as Russian Orthodox. Kenley made his stage debut singing in church in both Russian and English, and was given a solo part at age 4. His family had moved several times ahead of the spread of prohibition, finally settling in Erie, Pennsylvania.
After graduating high school at 16, he moved to Cleveland and landed a job as a choreographer for a burlesque show despite his lack of training. "I taught the girls silly simple routines," he later recalled, "As I taught them, I got pretty good."
Three years later he moved to New York and landed a part as an acrobat in John Murray Anderson's Greenwich Village Follies. With the signing of his first performance contract John Kremchek became known as John Kenley. Throughout the 1920s he played the vaudeville circuit, singing, dancing, and doing impersonations of Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Beatrice Lillie and Ethel Barrymore.
From 1928 to 1940 Kenley worked as producer Lee Shubert's assistant. Amidst the approximately 1000 scripts he read in that decade, he discovered such hits as Lillian Hellman's first play, The Children's Hour, and William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life.
During World War II he joined the Merchant Marines and served aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth. Purser-Pharmacist's mate Kremchek participated in a number of harrowing exploits including the support of Allied landings in Southern France. When a convoy of 30 ships came under attack, he was aboard one of only eight that remained afloat. His practical jokes and quirky humor aboard ship earned him the nickname, "The Storm Petrel of the Merchant Marines".
Unable to find stage work in New York after the war, Kenley would come to earn his greatest fame not as a performer, but as a producer; not on Broadway, but in the entertainment-deprived towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. It began with a summer stock theater that he converted from a Greek Byzantine church in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania., and later in a new theatre in Barnesville, Pennsylvania. A memorable production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street played at the latter theatre in 1950. It starred Susan Peters as the invalid Elizabeth Barrett. Peters was a former MGM starlet who had been paralyzed from the waist down in a hunting accident. Peters delivered her lines from a sofa which was repositioned in every act to give the illusion of movement.
Over the course of the next half-century, Kenley's summer stock productions blossomed into what Variety called the "largest network of theaters on the straw hat circuit". His Kenley Players company brought the great shows of the era to the stages of Ohio, in Akron, Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, Cleveland and Warren. Many of the shows would also travel to an associated theatre in Flint, Michigan. Kenley would often be seen riding his bike backstage in these giant old theaters. And when bored, he enjoyed putting make-up on his dog, Sadie. If a gimmick was needed to keep a company alive that long in a state 500 miles from Broadway, well Kenley came up with a winner. He gathered the great film and TV actors of the time to appear in his productions. While this type of star casting is commonplace today, Kenley was one of the first to embrace the concept. Not only were the shows wildly successful, it made for some intriguing cast lists. There was Jayne Mansfield in Bus Stop, Bobby Rydell in West Side Story, Merv Griffin in Come Blow Your Horn, Rock Hudson in Camelot, Karla DeVito and Robert Ozn (billed as Robert M. Rosen) in Pirates of Penzance and Robby Benson in Evita, to name just a few. During the run of the TV version of The Odd Couple (1970 TV series), stars Jack Klugman and Tony Randall recreated their TV roles in Neil Simon's original play. More traditional Broadway stars also appeared regularly, such as John Raitt in Man of La Mancha, Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam and Tommy Tune in Pippin.
Kenley died on October 23, 2009 of pneumonia at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kenley was intersex, according to Griffin:75 and Barbara Eden. Eden recalled him confiding in her that his parents had concluded "it would be easier for him to go through life as a male rather than as a female," and that he spent the theater season in Ohio and the off season living in Palm Springs as a woman named Joan. In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, "People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny is overrated."
Kenley is credited with introducing professional live theater to the Midwest, laying the groundwork for national tours of Broadway productions. Dorothy Kilgallen in 1964 devoted a The Voice of Broadway column to the Kenley Players, writing that Broadway producers should spend "a few pleasant days in Warren, Ohio. … There is a man out there who knows how to get people into the theater—and in show business, that's Trick 1." He "pioneered the notion of putting TV stars in summer stock years before everyone started doing it." In 1950, he broke the color line in Washington DC, bringing a production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street to Washington and advertising that all seats were "available to any paying customer, without regard for race." Washington was at the time "without professional theater because, in response to segregationist seating policies, the Actors Equity union would not allow its members to perform there," and police showed up on opening night expecting a riot. After a sold-out, trouble-free two-week engagement, Kenley was "feted in the local media, with civil-rights pundits lauding the nobility of his groundbreaking production."
In 2004, Actors' Equity awarded Kenley an Honorary Life Membership, calling out his "extraordinary contribution to the American theater" and describing him as having "refined and ultimately defined the golden days of Equity Summer Stock."
^ a b "Summer Theater Producer John Kenley Dies at 103". Backstage. October 30, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ a b c Brown, Tony (October 29, 2009). "John Kenley, legendary Ohio impresario, dead at 103: Obituary". Plain Dealer. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ a b c Tonguette, Peter (July 2015). "Those Summer Nights: The Rollicking Good Times of the Kenley Players". Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ "Producer John Kenley dies at 103". Variety.com. Variety. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
^ a b c d e f g h Gill, Michael (April 2003). "Most Valuable Players". Cleveland Magazine. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ Grossberg, M. (2004-04-18). "The Echoes of Applause". The Columbus Dispatch.
^ McPhearson, Tina. "John Kenley". Daytonys.org. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
^ a b Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (October 30, 2009). "John Kenley, Who Took Big Stars to Small-Town Stages, Dies at 103". New York Times. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ Morris, T. (1995-07-14). "John Kenley; On With the Show". Dayton Daily News.
^ Griffin, Merv (1980). Merv: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671227645.
^ Eden, Barbara; Leigh, Wendy (2011). Jeannie: Out of the Bottle. Random House. ISBN 9780307886958.
^ a b "Actors' Equity Award Honorary Life Membership to John Kenley". Theatre News. February 19, 2004. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
Variety: 5/13/1964; 9/9/1981; 6/13/1984, p. 89; 8/15/1984, p. 90; 8/13/1986; 9/10/1986, p. 101.
Hirsch, Foster. (1998). The Boys from Syracuse: The Schuberts' Theatrical Empire. Southern Illinois University Press.
Morris, T. "Stage Left: Losses Knock Kenley Players Back on the Sidelines". The Dayton Daily News, March 24, 1996.
Musarra, R. "Packed House Helps Kenley Mark Birthday". The Akron Beacon Journal, February 23, 1995.
Nichols, J. "Kenley Players Returning After 12-Year Absence". The Dayton Daily News,March 10, 1995.
|
0.999999 |
Founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great, St. Petersburg was the Russian imperial capital for 2 centuries.
Embellished with topaz, blue lazurite (Lapis Lazuli) and other semi-precious stones, the Church on Spilled Blood was built on the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded. The walls and ceilings inside are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics of biblical scenes, and at night, it resembles something out of a fairy tale.
Robert Sepehr is an author, producer, and anthropologist specializing in linguistics, archeology, and paleobiology.
In antiquity Sappho was referred to as "the Poetess," just as Homer was called "the Poet." Plato hailed her as "the tenth Muse," and she was honored on coins and with civic statuary. Robert Sepehr is an author, producer and anthropologist specializing in archeology, linguistics, and paleobiology (archeogenetics).
What has recently been discovered by the Land Down Under? Robert Sepehr is an author, producer, and anthropologist specializing in linguistics, archeology, and paleobiology (archeogenetics).
Aphrodite is often depicted with dolphins, riding them or being accompanied by them. In one myth about Poseidon, dolphin messengers were sent to bring him a nymph he loved, who he later married. As a reward, he set the dolphin in the sky as a constellation.
China's landscape is not only littered with enormous pyramids, but hundreds of ancient mummies, like the 4,000-year-old ”Beauty of Loulan”. Chinese researchers say they have found a strange pyramid-shaped chamber while surveying the massive underground tomb of China's first emperor. Remote sensing equipment has revealed what appears to be a 100-foot-high room above Emperor Qin Shi-huang's tomb, has not been excavated.
Tobacco and various hallucinogenic drugs were smoked all over the Americas as early as 5000 BC, in shamanistic rituals. Traces of cocaine and tobacco, plants only to have existed in the Americas prior to Columbus, were found in some Egyptian mummies.
Walter Bower wrote his compendium of Scottish history, Scotichronicon, in the 1440s. He referenced his chronicle from ancient texts and oral history, and what he recorded was astounding. According to Bower, the Scottish people were not an amalgam of Picts, Scots and other European peoples, but were in fact Egyptians, who could trace their ancestry directly back to a pharaoh's daughter and her husband, a Greek king.The queen's name was Scota – from where comes the name Scotland. The Greek king was Gaythelos – hence Gaelic, and their son was known as Hiber – which gives us Hibernia.
The story goes back further and was even included in The Declaration of Arbroath. This seminal document - written in 1320 by the Barons and noblemen of Scotland - was a letter imploring the Pope to intervene on their behalf during the Wars of Independence. The text refers to "the ancients" who "journeyed from Greater Scythia … and the Pillars of Hercules … to their home in the west where they still live today".
According to tradition, this royal family was expelled from Egypt during a time of great uprising. They sailed west, settling initially in Spain before travelling to Ireland and then on to the west coast of Scotland.
This same race of people eventually battled and triumphed over the Picts to become the Scots – the people who united this country. Scota, Egyptian Queen of the Scots, by Ralph Ellis, claims to prove that this origin myth was no made-up story but the actual recording of an Egyptian exodus that did indeed conclude in Scotland. Using Manetho's text, Ellis establishes that Scota was really Ankhesenamun, daughter of Akhenaton and Nefertiti, and wife of Tutankhamen. He also finds that far from being a Greek king, Gaythelos was a pharaoh himself – Aye.
Ellis in not alone, anthropologist Robert Sepehr puts forth a powerful argument involving genetics, linguistics, and archeology which refutes the obsolete notion put forth by academia and the controlled media.
|
0.999998 |
As a licensed certified public accountant and a former auditor at one of the Big Four accounting firms, David A. Smith, CEO of PSS/World Medical, thought he understood a basic axiom of auditing: The more rigorous a company’s financial controls, the less likely that an employee is cooking the books.
That’s why Smith thought that his company’s auditing costs would begin to decline in June 2004, when a major new auditing standard governing public companies was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He figured the fees that PSS/ World Medical’s auditor, KPMG, charged for verifying the company’s internal controls€¦quot;work required under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act€¦quot;would be offset by the fact that the auditors wouldn’t have to do as many traditional audit tasks at the medical supply company’s 50 distribution centers.
KPMG, like the rest of the Big Four firms, does not publicly comment on its work with individual clients.
Nearly three years after passage of the most far-reaching corporate governance legislation in U.S. history€¦quot;driven by accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom€¦quot;the world’s biggest auditing firms are realizing large increases in revenue. The surge in business is being enjoyed particularly by the Big Four, which in addition to KPMG includes PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche and Ernst & Young. A recent survey by the Corporate Executive Board, a consulting firm, found that the Big Four raised their audit fees during 2004 by an average of between 78 percent and 134 percent.
Leaders at some of the Big Four firms say rising auditing costs are the result of market forces and that CEOs, of all people, should understand. “Fees are market-driven€¦quot;based on competition, our costs, our efforts and the cost of recruiting the best people,” says Bob Lipstein, a KPMG partner who heads the firm’s Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 services. How would Lipstein respond to chief executives who decry the current situation? “CEOs,” he says, “have to start getting value out of the information that’s coming out of the controls work.” Another basic reality, say the auditors, is that the government forced Arthur Andersen out of business because of its role at Enron and that dramatically reduced competition in the marketplace.
The rise in audit fees is a sensitive issue for the Big Four. Two of the firms, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, declined requests to be interviewed for this article.
The Big Four’s revenues are likely to climb even faster in 2005, as the firms attest to their clients’ compliance with Section 404 of Sarbox, which requires public companies to certify to the SEC that their financial controls are sound. In a July 2004 survey of 224 public companies with average revenues of $2.5 billion, conducted by the trade association Financial Executives International (FEI), executives predicted a 40 percent increase in the total fees their companies would be charged by external auditors. Recent interviews with several CEOs and third-party experts found that many of them expect even higher rates of growth for auditing costs.
June 2000 SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt proposes rules barring auditing firms from providing most kinds of consulting services to their audit clients.
November 2000 The SEC approves a watered-down version of Levitt’s proposal, including a provision mandating that companies annually disclose audit and consulting fees.
October 2001 Enron announces a $638 million third-quarter loss and a $1.2 billion reduction in shareholder equity.
December 2001 Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
March 2002 Arthur Andersen is indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, based on shredding documents related to its Enron audit.
July 2002 President Bush signs the Sarbanes-Oxley Act into law.
June 2004 SEC approves Auditing Standard No. 2, establishing guidelines on auditing public companies’ internal controls.
That’s because the Financial Executives survey was done prior to the July 2004 release of the final version of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) Auditing Standard No. 2, a broad, open-ended directive regarding Section 404-related audits. Among the increased responsibilities auditors face under the standard is a mandate to evaluate all financial controls designed to prevent material fraud. As public companies scramble to include their internal controls certifications in their annual reports to the SEC, auditors are spending enormous amounts of time applying the new standard. Colleen Sayther, president and CEO of FEI, estimates that average total fee increases from 2003 to 2004 will be somewhere between 100 and 200 percent.
In addition to the soaring costs, another problem public companies face is their auditors’ inability to accurately predict how many hours will be involved. Bill Zollars, CEO of Yellow Roadway, a $3 billion trucking company based in Overland Park, Kan., ran into this issue with KPMG. First, it was difficult for his management team to obtain a forecast of the hours KPMG would need to complete its 2004 audit, because the accounting firm was reluctant to make any forecast before Standard No. 2 was released. The number of hours KPMG eventually projected turned out to be too low by roughly half. “It’s hard to tell what value you’re getting for all that money spent, and it was hard to tell how much effort on their part was required,” says Zollars. “Nobody likes surprises. And I think a lot of companies are surprised at how much it costs.” KPMG declined to comment on its work for Yellow Trucking.
How did it reach this point? Recent shocks to the accounting industry have prompted the firms to try to squeeze fees out of lucrative clients while jettisoning risky and nonprofitable ones. First, Andersen’s demise in 2002 threw thousands of public companies onto the auditing market, stretching the auditing staffs of the Big Four perilously thin and driving up hourly rates. Then, the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley barred accounting firms from providing most consulting services to their audit clients, eliminating a big revenue stream for the firms and placing a premium on audit fees. Now looms the specter of the PCAOB, which conducts annual inspections of all the major accounting firms and wields unprecedented power to discipline them.
Some CEOs believe the power of the oversight board, together with the risks of doing a bad audit€¦quot;embodied by the implosion of Andersen€¦quot;has forced the Big Four into a highly expensive conservativeness. “One of the few firms was put out of business, so they’re running scared,” says Donald Nigbor, chairman of the board of Benchmark Electronics, a $1.8 billion manufacturer in Angleton, Tex.
Audit Fees: Art or Science?
What’s especially maddening about audit fees for many companies is that the accounting firms sometimes seem to employ as much art as science in setting their fees. Projected annual fees depend on the complexity of a company’s accounting and are rarely fixed, meaning that if auditors spot a weakness or an extra process to check, they go ahead and do it and bill for it later.
Jeff Rodek, chairman of the Santa Clara, Calif., software maker Hyperion, likens the effort to comply with Section 404 to “running the high hurdles in the dark.” Steep audit fees, he says, is one of those hurdles. “We expected fees to go up,” Rodek says, “but the initial request was more than we expected. You have higher fees, less choice and switching auditors implies that something is wrong.” Rodek believes that his company’s audit fees will be 50 percent higher than they were last year.
According to several CEOs, the Big Four are factoring the risk of a wayward audit into their fees. Al Fasola, chairman of RCN, a Princeton, N.J.-based telecommunications company that recently parted ways with PricewaterhouseCoopers to go to a second-tier firm, estimated that what the Big Four calls “practice protection,” or insurance and legal costs, comes to about $250,000 per partner. That’s a substantial percentage of the annual revenues that the average partner brings in.
Despite the prestige of a Big Four audit, no firms have a stranglehold on the auditing business at the largest U.S. companies. Partly because of the Big Four’s tarnished reputation in light of the accounting scandals, a national or even a regional firm is now a viable option for many companies. In fact, second- and third-tier accounting firms are seeing significant increases in business. According to the research firm Audit Analytics, in two-thirds of the cases in which a Big Four firm and its client parted ways between from January through August 2004, it was the client that broke off the relationship.
The issue may be one of quality as well as cost. “Over the long term, our fees are probably a little less than the Big Four’s,” says Ed Nusbaum, CEO of Grant Thornton, a leading second-tier firm. “But the Big Four’s real problem isn’t that their fees are going up. It’s that their fees are going up and their service is getting worse.” RCN’s Fasola believes a company is “better off” being a high-priority client of a second-tier firm than a low-priority client of a Big Four firm.
For smaller and non-U.S. companies, some relief on the regulatory front may be on the way. The SEC announced in early February that it would consider allowing “appropriate delay” for such companies to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. Their current deadline for compliance is this summer. However, large U.S.-based companies have no such leeway.
What’s more, for a truly global audit€¦quot;and that’s what most major companies need€¦quot;the international reach of the Big Four is a must. The bad news is that it appears fees won’t be going down anytime soon. “The rates will likely have some increases, based on our cost increases,” says O’Connor.
While the Big Four talk of becoming more efficient as they get up to speed on internal controls, some observers remain skeptical. “The Big Four love Sarbanes-Oxley,” says Ron Baker, author of Firm of the Future, a book that argues that accounting and law firms should bill not by the hour but by the value they add. Baker suggests that the public auditing franchise be taken away from CPAs to trigger greater competition and, in turn, lower prices.
But for the foreseeable future, that isn’t going to happen. The PCAOB, which sets audit standards in the United States, and the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, which sets standards for the rest of the world, appear committed to maintaining exacting audit standards, meaning upward pressure on fees.
From the point of view of overall public policy, the question is whether the cost and time involved in complying with ever-tightening standards is making boards more conservative and risk-averse, and therefore acting as a constraint on the ability of chief executives to take risks and increase sales. A majority of CEOs probably believe that the answer to that question is, “Of course.” But unless they can communicate that message to Washington, without sounding like cry babies, there’s little on the horizon but even more auditor hours, higher audit fees and greater CEO frustration.
Mike Brewster is author of Unaccountable: How the Accounting Profession Forfeited a Public Trust (Wiley & Sons, 2003).
Lynn Turner, an industry insider, offers a historical perspective.
|
0.999921 |
The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively feral in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London 4 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 4 reviews.
My Book Review Book title and author: Call of the Wild by Jack London Title of review: best book ever Number of stars (1 to 5):5 Introduction The “Call of the Wild” is a great book. Jack London’s wrote the book the book to describe the harshness he saw in the Klondike. The book makes you truly wonder about the harshness of the Klondike. With this book anybody can see what the Klondike is like. Description and summary of content I believe this was Jack London’s masterpiece. It truly does so the harshness of the Klondike but it also shows it through the eyes of a dog. The dog named Buck was a Saint Bernard that had a good like at a mansion with plenty of land in San Francisco. The dog was stolen and put with a bunch of dogs and sold as a sled dog. When London wrote about the dog living in San Francisco it was describing the luxurious life people in the lower 48 have. When Buck was stolen and sent to be a sled dog it showed all the things that happened to him. The dog suffered from almost starving to being frozen to death. That represents the harshness. The dog also eventually found a good caring owner. That represents a little bit of the good that can come from the harshness. Evaluation When reading the book you see all the good and the bad of the Klondike. Relating to Buck the good for him was finally getting a good owner, but for London it was finally finding gold. The bad for Buck was the starving and almost freezing, for London It was leaving everything and taking so long to find gold and watching all the harshness of people failing and of the conditions killing people. Conclusion In conclusion this book is a great read. The book is a more serious book, but in the entire best book I have ever read. I would suggest the book to anyone.
|
0.982778 |
The Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake is the largest venomous snake in North America and the largest rattlesnake in the world.
With over 100 venomous snakes Australia is well known for its dangerous snakes, but how dangerous are Australia's most venomous snakes?
Lepidoptera of Latvia consist of both the Butterflies and Moths recorded from Latvia.According to a recent estimate, there are a total of 2,448 Lepidoptera species present in Latvia.
|
0.999997 |
What is a Handgun Light?
A handgun light or pistol light is a tactical flashlight that is mounted to your handgun. Many pistols these days are coming with rails on them that are specifically used to connect accessories like pistol lights and lasers. There are two types of rail systems that are used on pistols: The Picatinny rail and the Weaver rail. The best pistol light manufacturers make their rail mounted flashlights to fit on either type of rail, which are called universal rail mounts. For handguns that do not have a dedicated rail, there are companies that have made add-on rails that connect to the trigger guard. A good handgun light needs to be durable and be able to withstand the shock of bullets being fired and then you need it to have all of the features that you want.
Some features that you may want on your pistol light are an offset flashlight mount, a quick release pistol light, tactical pistol light laser combos, or a pistol light with a pressure switch.
Offset Pistol Light Mount: An offset pistol light mount is a mount that holds the flashlight off to the side of the handgun rather than directly below the barrel. An offset mount allows you to have your thumb right near the on/off switch and frees up space underneath the barrel.
Quick Release Pistol Light: A quick release pistol light are for those users that will be taking their lights on and off of their handguns frequently.
Tactical Pistol Light Laser Combo: A tactical pistol light laser combo are for people that really feel that they need both on their gun, a pistol light for illumination, and a laser for aiming.
Pistol Light Pressure Switch: A pistol light pressure switch allows you to move the on/off switch on the light wherever you feel is the most comfortable. You replace the tail cap switch with a pressure switch that you can locate anywhere on your gun.
The way that you use a tactical handgun light is very very important. You need to know that wherever you are pointing that flashlight, you are also pointing a deadly weapon. You should only use a pistol mounted light in a situation that you would already have a pistol out. You should only be using a handgun light when you are identifying threats when you are using your gun or searching a building in a situation that you know is a possible tactical situation. Many want to use a pistol lights for home defense, but a home defense handgun light should only be used if you are certain that there is an intruder and you are ready to fully defend your home.
This is a question that I hear all of the time: Should I have a pistol mounted light or a handheld flashlight? The answer is that you need both. There are pros and cons to both: The biggest pro is that when you identify a threat, you have it at gunpoint. The biggest con is that when you are looking for a threat, everything you point at is at gunpoint. This is a serious safety problem!
You need to have both of these flashlight available since you would never want to use a handgun light in a situation where you only need a flashlight like writing a ticket – A penlight or small AAA light would be much better. It is nice to have an extra flashlight on your gun when you are in a combat situation, but you are still better off using a handheld flashlight with an FBI technique hold that puts the light away from your body and head. Switching to the pistol light once you have found your target so you can keep both hands on your pistol is a good technique.
When you are talking about the best pistol light, Surefire lights are definitely going to be at the top of the list because their lights are almost impossible to beat. Every Surefire light we have ever examined has the highest build quality, which when your life is on the line you want nothing less than the best. The Surefire X300 is like many other Surefire lights, it is quite powerful and pretty much indestructible. The light itself is made from high-strength aerospace aluminum with Mil-Spec anodizing and is O-ring and gasket sealed to make it weatherproof.
The X300 Ultra features a new mounting system that allows you to quickly and securely mount the light to a handgun or long gun. The new mounting system is a T-slot mounting system with a tightening screw and a T-slot mounting rail. Both Picatinny and Universal crossbar wedges come with the pistol flashlight to make securing the light pretty much foolproof.
The X300 comes with two high-energy CR123A batteries that will last for one and a half hours before needing to be replaced. The batteries that come with the light have a 10 year shelf life. These two batteries are strong enough to emit 600 lumens with the high performance LED. The LED provides a white light that is focused by a TIR lens. The TIR lens provides a high intensity beam that gives users an extended range, as well as enough surround light so you can keep your peripheral vision in close quarters.
Activation is done via a new and improved ambidextrous switch, which is now wider and shorter than before. The switch is located at the rear of the light’s body and requires one finger for operation. The X300 Ultra can also be activated remotely via the optional DG grip for handguns and the XT tape switches for long guns. Read our full Surefire X300 Ultra Review.
Streamlight comes in at a close second to Surefire when it comes to manufacturing the best glock light, between the two there is almost a monopoly in the handgun lights division. A perfect example of their top quality pistol light is the Streamlight TLR-1 HL that is made from machined aluminum with a black anodized finish. It is also sealed, which allows it to obtain an IPX7, so it can be used in all types of weather. The light comes in flat dark earth brown, flat dark earth, and black and is constructed to fit in all light bearing holsters.
The TLR-1 HL is designed to mount directly to any handgun that comes equipped with Glock-style rails. The light can also be mounted to Picatinny rails. The pistol light attaches easily and securely to the rails with no need for tools or putting your hand in front of the muzzle. If you wish to mount the TLR-1 HL to a long gun Streamlight does make a mounting kit, but it must be purchased separately. The kit includes a thumb screw, mounting clips, remote pressure switch, and a “safe off” door switch in addition to two CR123A batteries.
The TLR-1 HL uses two CR123A batteries to power the C4 LED for up to 1.75 hours. The C4 Led can emit up to 800 lumens that has a peak beam intensity of 15,000 candelas. The beam can reach up to 800 feet, plus with the use of a TIR lens the concentrated beam also provides perfect peripheral illumination. The TLR-1 HL features an ambidextrous switch that is used to provide power to the light, as well as enable and disable the programmable strobe.
If you look at our table of the best pistol flashlights, you can’t help but notice that majority of the lights are SureFire or Streamlight. The reason for this is that these two companies manufacture the highest quality pistol flashlights in the market. When your life is on the line, you don’t want an inferior product that might fail. The only exception that we have found in our search for the best pistol lights is the Inforce APL, which we have to say is considered to be of very high quality.
The Inforce APL requires a single CR123A battery to emit 200 lumens of white light from its LED for a period of one and a half hours. For users who prefer paddle style switches versus toggle switches, the Inforce APL offers ambidextrous paddle switches that provides you total control using the pointing motion of your finger. The integrated mounting system is compatible with Universal and Picatinny rails and the new screw is more secure than the old flip lever mount. The light also comes with a shut-off feature that allows you to deactivate the switches for transporting purposes.
If you are looking for the best pistol flashlight that provides white light for illumination as well as a red laser light for aiming purposes, the SureFire X400 Ultra Red is the perfect light for you. The combination of white light and laser aiming capabilities makes this light the perfect choice for close to medium range activities, plus being made by SureFire you know you can depend on the light to work when you need it the most. Like many other SureFire models, the X400 Ultra is made from high strength aerospace aluminum with a Mil-Spec hard anodized coating and is O-ring and gasket sealed to keep out moisture and dust.
The five milliwatt laser sight is located just below the primary light on the X400 Ultra. In this model the laser emits a high-visibility red laser beam. The beam can be adjusted and features Nylock screws that are made to withstand various strengths of recoil. What this means for you is you won’t have to re-zero the laser every time you fire a round. The LED emits up to 600 lumens of white light using a TIR lens to provide a tight beam with enough surrounding light for your peripheral vision. The 500 lumens are plenty bright enough to blind a potential attacker and will last for 1.75 hours using two CR123A batteries.
The X400 Ultra is activated via an ambidextrous switch that is located towards the rear of the light. The switch is operated using a single finger. Simply press the switch to turn on momentary activation or flip the switch for constant on. The light features a separate switch at the back of the light that allows you to choose between white light only, laser light only, combination of lights, or to deactivate the light entirely.
The X400 Ultra can be attached to either a handgun or long gun with Universal or Picatinny rails quickly and securely thanks to its T-Lock mounting system. Adapter mounts can also be purchased separately for handguns that are non-railed.
Before we get too far into our review of the Streamlight TLR-2 HL, I want to take a minute to mention something about the pricing. We have included the TLR-2 HL as a budget option but that doesn’t mean that it is a cheap pistol light. The Streamlight TLR-2 HL is cheaper than the SureFire models, but it is still a bit pricey. The thing is when it comes to a life or death situation, you do not want to purchase a light that is offered at a super budgeted price because you don’t want to risk it failing when you need it most.
The TLR-2 HL emits up to 800 lumens of bright white light using a C4 LED for a period of 1.75 hours with two CR123A batteries. The 800 lumens provides plenty of light for temporarily blinding attackers or searching through dark rooms, plus its wide beam pattern lights up wide areas for a more efficient search. The red laser is used for aiming purposes and can be used with the LED or on its own. Run time for just the red laser function is 45 hours off of two CR123A batteries.
The light will mount to any handgun that is equipped with Glock-style or Picatinny rails with a rail grip clamp system. The system can be securely attached and detached with no tools, plus the want the light mounts to the gun your hand will never go in front of the muzzle. The ambidextrous switch is a toggle switch that allows for one finger operation for constant and momentary on. The strobe feature is also controlled via a double tap to the left side switch.
If you are looking for a lightweight pistol light that fits compact and subcompact handguns, the Streamlight TLR-4 is the perfect choice. Made from an impact resistant polymer with an anodized aluminum face cap and a Borofloat high temperature glass lens, the TLR-4 is one of the more durable lights on the market. The TLR-4 might not be one of the newer lights on the market, but it uses C4 LED technology to emit up to 125 lumens with a single CR2 lithium battery. The TLR-4 also features a 640-660 nM red laser for aiming accuracy.
The TLR-4 comes with a key kit to fit a variety of different weapons, including full sized handguns as long as they have rails. The rail clamp is used to quickly and safely attach and detach the pistol light from the side of the weapon. The design allows you to snap the light one with one hand without ever having to put your hands in the front of the muzzle even if you are tighten it.
The light is controlled via an ambidextrous switch that provides you with the ability to select between momentary and constant on. The TLR-4 also features a mode selector switch that allows you to choose LED only, laser only, or both laser and LED. The laser can be zeroed in via a windage and elevation adjustment screw to ensure proper aim is achieved. Read our full Streamlight TLR-4 Review.
With the SureFire X400 Ultra Green pistol light, I am not going to go into a lot of detail about the lights features because it offers the same thing as the SureFire X400 Ultra Red. The only difference between the two lights is the five milliwatt laser sight. With this light, the laser is a 505 nM high visibility green laser beam rather than the red. Both lights offer the Nylock screws to help with adjustments, both offer 600 lumens of white light illumination, and both lights offer the ambidextrous switch that requires one finger operation. Like the X400 Ultra Red, the Ultra Green can fit on both handguns and long guns, its T-mounting system fits Picatinny and Universal rails, plus adapter kits are sold separately for non-railed guns.
The first thing that I want to mention in regards to the Streamlight TLR-2 HL G is that just like the original TLR-2 HL model it is listed as a budget light, but the price is not going to be as low as you expected. We include the TLR-2 HL G as a budget model because it is quite a bit cheaper than the SureFire models, but it is still a pricey light when you compare it to other brands. As we mentioned before we stick with the SureFire and Streamlight brands as the best pistol lights because they are the highest quality pistol lights available in the industry today. Time and time again Streamlight, along with SureFire have proven that their lights can be counted on not to fail in a life or death situation.
The Streamlight TLR-2 HL G is quite similar to the TLR-2 HL. The biggest difference between the two lights is the TLR-2 HL G comes with a 510-530 nM direct drive green laser. The other difference between the two is the runtime off the two CR123A batteries. The TLR-2 HL G has a shorter runtime because it only lasts for about one and a half hours when used in tactical situations. If you are using the green laser, you will see an average runtime of 17 hours. One of the great things about the green laser option is it gives you a highly visible green light that is ideal for long range targeting.
The TLR-2 HL 2 G is much like the TLR-2 HL models in the fact that it provides 800 lumens of white light in a wide beam pattern. They both feature ambidextrous switches for one finger operation, both have a user programmable strobe, and the rail clamp system is designed to make it safe and easy to attach or detach the light from your handgun.
The Streamlight TLR-4 G and the Streamlight TLR-4 are pretty close to being the same pistol light. They have more similarities than they do differences. Just like the TLR-4 the TLR-4 G offers users an ambidextrous switch for one finger operation. It also offers a rail clamp that allows it to be quickly and safely attached or detached from the side of the weapon rather than having to put your hands in front of the muzzle. The TLR-4 G has a Borofloat high-temperature glass lens and can be used on compact and sub-compact weapons.
Now let’s take a moment to look at how the TLR-4 G differs from the original TLR-4. The biggest difference is the high visible 510-530 nM green aiming laser. This laser is perfect for long range targeting. The other difference is the TLR-4 G only offers 115 lumens of white illumination, which is a little less than the original model but still plenty bright enough to enable you to safely clear a room. The TLR-4 G also comes equipped with a mode selector switch that allows users to choose between LED only, laser only, and laser and LED. Laser only mode runs for four hours, LED only runs for 1.75 hours, and the LED and laser mode runs for 1.25 hours off a single CR2 battery.
The Streamlight TLR-6 is one of the newest products being offered by Streamlight. The TLR-6 is the perfect pistol light for the smallest handguns, as well as sub-compact handguns. The TLR-6 comes with a universal kit that comes complete with six housings that are compatible with over 18 plus subcompact handguns. The kit also comes with a light/laser module. The housing is countered so that it safely and securely attaches to the trigger guard. The light also comes with a cover that is easy to attach or remove.
The light itself features a C4 LED that offers users 100 lumens of white light as well as a 640-660nM red laser light for long target aiming. The TLR-6 uses two CR1/3N batteries to provide 11 hours of laser only use and one hour of LED or laser and LED use. Unlike other lights, the light doesn’t have to be removed from the handgun to replace the batteries. Even better is the laser sight requires no adjustment after a battery change.
The ambidextrous switch is a push button style on both sides of the light. The switch can be used to access the three different modes available on this model. Each of the three modes also offer a 10-minute auto shut off feature to help conserve battery life. The laser/light module is made for backward and forward compatibility. The TLR-6 is made from high durable, impact resistant polymer allowing it to withstand impacts up to about three feet and an IPX-4 rating.
The most important thing you have to know about this pistol light is that it is not one you want to rely on if you are in a life or death situation. If you are purchasing a pistol light that you want to be assured won’t fail when you need it most, you want to go with one of the above mentioned lights. The Aimkon HiLight P5S should only be used on airsoft style guns, paintball guns, or if you are just doing a little target shooting at the range. In other words, this pistol light is the best one if you plan to use it more like a toy than a serious pistol light.
The Aimkon HiLight P5S is a subcompact pistol light that also offers a red laser for aiming purposes. The P5S offers users 400 lumens via a CREE XM-L2 LED. With this pistol light you can choose between constant on and strobe mode. This pistol light will fit majority of subcompact and full sized pistols with rails. The light uses a quick release mount to attach to the weapon. The P5S comes with a CR2 lithium battery and a one year warranty.
Olight is one of the top flashlight manufacturers in the industry. Their handheld lights are easily some of the highest quality lights in the industry. The Olight PL-1 Valkyrie is their first attempt into pistol lights. While we know their handheld lights match the quality of Surefire and Streamlight handheld lights, we don’t know is how their pistol lights are going to work out. With how important these pistol lights are in certain situations we want to wait and see how this light plays out.
We know current users are loving this light. They claim it has great balance of size, perfect brightness, and the price is just right. While we are excited to see what this light has to offer, including further revisions of the light, we don’t want to include it in the above categories because we want to see what happens when more people start using it. We want to wait and see if problems start coming out before making our final decision.
The PL-1 Valkyrie can be mounted to any handgun that comes equipped with a Picatinny rail. It uses a single CR123A battery to power its blue and white LED that is able to emit 400 lumens. The PL-1 features a side swing-bar mount to make attaching and detaching a breeze. The ambidextrous switch can be pressed or pushed to access different output settings. The blue LED is a navigational LED that emits two lumens while the main light is the white light.
Who makes the best pistol light? The market is dominated by SureFire and Streamlight but a few small producers are making some space for themselves in the industry. Here we only included lights that are dedicated weapon lights. There is a whole other segment of handheld lights that can be connected by 3rd party or manufacturer adapters. Learn more about other pistol lights is here. The main thing to remember is that you should never only carry a light on your pistol as your main light. You need to have some kind of flashlight that you carry everyday to provide light in most situations.
Thank you for reading our article on the best pistol light. If we have helped your search in any way please use one of the links above to go to Amazon and purchase your new pistol light. We are part of the Amazon Associates Affiliate program and we receive a small commission from Amazon with no extra cost to you for each purchase made through one of our links – this is how we keep this resource going. If you liked this article, we encourage you to check out our other articles about the best flashlights by type. In addition if you are new to flashlights read through our flashlight buyers guide to help you discover the best tactical flashlight for you.
|
0.999873 |
The female should be in front of the chair and lean forward with her hands on her knees.
The male should be on the chair with his hands on the back of the chair and his feet on the corner of the base.
The male is controlling the motion by moving his hips back and forth.
|
0.944688 |
Who is Mac McAnally? Mac is a singer, songwriter, producer, session player, publisher, band member, studio owner, comic, story teller, and obviously a man of tireless energy! Mac has recorded 10 studio albums all on major record labels. He's enjoyed success on the country charts as well as the pop charts. Mac has produced a number of artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Ricky Skaggs and Sawyer Brown. And, his guitar work and harmony vocals can be heard on albums by such luminaries as Hank Williams Jr., Vince Gill, Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett and numerous others. Of course, most Mailboat followers also know that Mac is a member of the Coral Reefers! Mac is truly a wonderful storyteller and a great talent. Mailboat is happy to release his new album, "Semi-True Stories."
|
0.641897 |
Edward John Dunn (1844-1937), geologist, was born on 1 November 1844 at Bedminster near Bristol, England, son of Edward Herbert Dunn, printer, of Cheltenham, and his wife Betsy, née Robinson. He migrated to New South Wales with his parents in 1849. At first they lived near Goulburn, but in 1856 moved to Beechworth in Victoria. Dunn was educated privately and at Beechworth Church of England Grammar School. From boyhood he was an ardent collector of minerals and rocks. In 1860 he joined the staff of the local Lands Survey Office, and four years later transferred to the Geological Survey of the Mines Department where he trained under A. R. C. Selwyn and G. H. F. Ulrich. He discovered curious specimens of chalcedony containing fluid near Beechworth; these specimens formed the subject of his first published scientific article. In 1869 he qualified as a mining surveyor.
In 1871 Dunn left Australia for South Africa, where he was appointed government geologist for Cape Colony. His pioneer geological work there included a part in the discovery of diamonds and the opening of the Kimberley diamond mines, and investigations of the goldfields of Transvaal and the coal deposits of Cape Colony. He became interested in anthropology and made extensive collections of the weapons and implements used by the tribes including those of the south-west African Bushman which he later donated to the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford. He also built up a valuable private collection of geological specimens, including gold and diamonds. Dunn had returned to England to study in 1873, and again in 1875, when on 7 July at St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, he married Elizabeth Julia Perchard.
Dunn returned to Australia in 1886 and, with Melbourne as his base, worked as a consulting geologist throughout Australasia and in New Caledonia. In 1886 near Heathcote he discovered and mapped the first rocks of Cambrian age to be found in Victoria. He also discovered very old (Permian) rocks of glacial origin and published the first of several scientific articles on them in 1888. Between 1889 and 1894 he carried out perhaps his best geological work in demonstrating the essential structures of the Bendigo goldfield.
In September 1904 Dunn was appointed director of the Geological Survey in the Victorian Department of Mines and Water Supply. He was closely connected with the discovery of black coal deposits in Gippsland, which led to the development of the State Coal Mine at Wonthaggi in 1909. He studied the geology and physiography of Mount Buffalo and helped to make it popular as a tourist resort; Mount Dunn is named after him. In 1911 his book, Pebbles, was published in Melbourne. Dunn's work in the Geological Survey was concerned mainly with economic geology, but other tasks included a study of australites; he donated his private collection of 120 of these to the British Museum.
After his retirement in 1912 from the Geological Survey Dunn worked for many years as a consulting geologist. His books, Geology of Gold and The Bushman, were published in London in 1929 and 1931. In 1884 he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London, which in 1905 awarded him its Murchison medal for his geological work in Australia and South Africa. Dunn was an excellent field geologist and administrator. He was a skilful and discerning collector and was meticulous as a curator. Most of the large private collections of minerals, rocks and ethnological artefacts that he had not disposed of during his lifetime are now in the National Museum of Victoria. He died at his home in Kew, Melbourne, on 20 April 1937 and was survived by his wife, one son and two daughters. He was buried in Kew cemetery.
Victorian Naturalist, 54 (1937-38), p 20.
A. W. Beasley, 'Dunn, Edward John (1844–1937)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dunn-edward-john-6050/text10347, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 26 April 2019.
|
0.999813 |
Why a British Virgin Islands luxury resort for a vacation? The answer is simple. Excellent small resorts, private islands, amazing coral reefs for snorkelling and scuba diving, have breakfast on one island, lunch on another and dinner on another in one day, lovely romantic resort spots, and great weather all through the year are just so great reasons that you can choose any of the lovely BVI resorts mentioned. When you speak about a Caribbean sailing vacation it is best you focus on the BVI and USIV. You can get your sun hat, suntan lotion and your binocular ready for fun at some amazing British Virgin Islands vacation spots in the brilliant sunshine.
The Peter Island Resort is one of the most awesome British Virgin Islands luxury resort for secluded private island holidays. This vacation spot is an excellent location for romance and honeymooning. Visitors have a private beach, excursions, windsurfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, fishing, beach soccer and volleyball that vacationers can enjoy. Of the many vacation resorts in the BVI this location offers one of the finest wedding and romantic experience with its staff complement which is larger than the number of visitors.
This is a resort will allow you to be pampered in luxury. Visitors to the island will have to travel to Tortola via any of other the islands such as Puerto Rico, St. Martin, St. Thomas in the United States Virgin islands. The Beef Island Airport in the BVI has an excellent facility that caters for visitors traveling to Peter Island Resort. This journey is about thirty minutes on a ferry.
The Rosewood Little Dix Bay is another top BVI luxury vacation resort. It is located Virgin Gorda a few miles from Tortola, which is the main island in the territory. One thing you will really love about the BVI is that it is less than an hour ride by boat or plane from the United States Virgin Islands. This makes traveling to the BVI extremely hassle free.
However, this luxury resort is all about romance, excellent water sports attractions and wonderful sailing and island hopping experiences. The resort has a number of excellent villas that makes it ideal for romantic BVI vacation. This destination is one of the spots you will want to choose for a small island wedding with its amazing wedding spots to choose.
The Scrub Island Resort and Spa and Marina is one of the leading sailing resort in the BVI. The resort offers luxury experience at its best. Visitors will get easy access to the marina and great opportunity to go island hopping on the different cays as well as exploring the various coral reefs in and around the British Virgin Islands.
Additionally, there are watersports activities like snorkeling, kayaking and diving that visitors can participate in. There is also hiking and a fitness facility that can be used for working out. The resort is a five star BVI vacation resort, so vacationers can expect luxury treatment at its best at the location. This location is excellent for weddings and romantic holiday. Additionally, the location also provides good child care facility which makes it an amazing British Virgin Islands luxury resort family vacation spot for visitors to enjoy.
The Bitter End Yacht Club is one of the finest locations in the Virgin Islands family vacation spot to relax and enjoy some wonderful small island experience. It is a great Caribbean sailing spots. This resort provides great opportunities for visitors to go island hopping as there are excellent yachts, and boats available for rent.
The hotel is located in Virgin Gorda just 35 minutes by ferry from the main island of Tortola. Also, the resort is equipped with fitness center, massage and beauty treatment facility as well as a facility to care for kids. Visitors will get a wonderful view of the marina from the location as well as enjoy some excellent Virgin Islands hospitality. This is one of the top BVI hotels that will allow you to enjoy sailing experiences at its best.
The Fort Recovery Beachfront Villa Suites is amongst the top BVI Resorts. This location is ideal for family and largest group vacation. One of the unique features of the resort is a library which caters for both adults and children alike.
Interestingly, the location also allows you to get breathtaking views of the ocean as well as excellent atmosphere to relax in seclusion as well. The resort is an ideal place of for a Caribbean sailing vacation as it gives easy access to the top BVI Yacht Charter companies on the island. Like most locations the hotel offers a spa treatment facility, fitness center, swimming pool and a wonderful private beach.
Temperate rage between constant 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year in the British Virgin Islands. The wind speed ranges from 10-25 knots throughout the year with the winter months being a little higher. One of the benefits of sailing in the British Virgin Islands is that the islands are in close to each other. This allows the water between each island to be calm as well as well protected. Additionally, the different attractions are close together which give visitors more opportunities to enjoy the features of the different small island.
When you are sailing in the BVI you will enjoy amazing tropical Caribbean vacation spots, excellent with sand beaches, and stunning marine attractions to name a few activities. British Virgin Islands are the leading Caribbean sailing spot because of the over 50 small islands with cays and under water cave that you can enjoy. The islands are west of the United Stated Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Moreover, you may be wondering how to enjoy these islands without a boat or yacht but, the island of Tortola have some of the largest yacht charter companies in the world.
One of the leading yacht charter companies in the BVI is the BVI Yacht Charters Company. This company is in Tortola. It caters for yacht chartering in the British and United Stated Virgin Islands. Its fleet is able to manage different traveling groups such as families, large groups and even couples. Some of the different places in the territory that the charter allows you to visit include Virgin Gorda, Beef Island, and Jost Van Dyke. Yachts are normally chartered for seven days. Another of the island top charter company is Virgin Island Sailing Ltd.
This charter company provides you with a captain and chef. The different place this company allows you to explore on its yachts are you starting from the United States Virgin Island of St. Thomas to St. John an island known of excellent snorkeling and hiking opportunities, visiting the small island of Josh Van Dyke and Peter Island Resorts, snorkeling in Great Harbor and sailing on Cane Garden Bay. There is also the opportunity to visiting a floating restaurant as well.
The islands of the British and United States Virgin Islands are some of the best Caribbean vacation spots for island hopping in the region. Both territories consist of some ninety small islands, islets and cays and cover an area of one hundred and thirty three square miles. These islands have some of the best yacht charter companies in the region and some of the best fleets of yachts. This has allowed the islands to rank amongst the top in the world for tropical sailing vacation adventures. In addition, you are not allowed to just go sailing through these islands, but they have some excellent marine attractions that will fascinate the imagination of those who can snorkel and scuba dive.
These island hopping opportunities are excellent for group, family and romantic vacations. Picture yourself having breakfast on one island, snorkel, jet skiing and scuba diving in another, then having dinner in another. Finally, retiring to bed in another island. This just a sample of what the two tropical vacation spots of the British and United States Virgin Islands provide you with on a Caribbean island hopping vacation adventure. Now you know a BVI vacation is all about amazing sailing adventures.
|
0.998511 |
Can I “double-dip” on rewards if the credit card I link has its own reward program as well?
Yes, using Fluz to earn cash back on a purchase will not prevent you from receiving additional rewards from your credit card as well. Your additional reward from the credit card company, whether it is gift points, additional cash back, or airline miles, will still be applicable to the purchase on top of the cash back you will receive from Fluz.
This “double-dipping” on rewards will also apply for both Fluzpay purchases as well as Easyswipe offers, so long as the correct bank card with the additional bonus was used to make the purchase.
|
0.997421 |
The investigator said anyone with further knowledge or intelligence about the murder should come forward and share it before the release of a report in June which will make recommendations on accountability. But following a series of contradictory statements, the kingdom admitted that a team of Saudi agents killed the writer inside the consulate.
After denying for weeks that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, Saudi Arabia late past year indicted 11 people in the killing, including members from the crown prince's entourage, and is seeking the death penalty against five of them. The request, made October 10 in a letter signed by 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators, required the administration to make a determination of responsibility for the killing, particularly including involvement by the Saudi royal family, and to act on it by imposing sanctions on responsible individuals.
What's the latest in the Khashoggi case?
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain.
|
0.982135 |
Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 80:4857-4866, 2018.
We present a novel convolutional neural network architecture for photometric stereo (Woodham, 1980), a problem of recovering 3D object surface normals from multiple images observed under varying illuminations. Despite its long history in computer vision, the problem still shows fundamental challenges for surfaces with unknown general reflectance properties (BRDFs). Leveraging deep neural networks to learn complicated reflectance models is promising, but studies in this direction are very limited due to difficulties in acquiring accurate ground truth for training and also in designing networks invariant to permutation of input images. In order to address these challenges, we propose a physics based unsupervised learning framework where surface normals and BRDFs are predicted by the network and fed into the rendering equation to synthesize observed images. The network weights are optimized during testing by minimizing reconstruction loss between observed and synthesized images. Thus, our learning process does not require ground truth normals or even pre-training on external images. Our method is shown to achieve the state-of-the-art performance on a challenging real-world scene benchmark.
%X We present a novel convolutional neural network architecture for photometric stereo (Woodham, 1980), a problem of recovering 3D object surface normals from multiple images observed under varying illuminations. Despite its long history in computer vision, the problem still shows fundamental challenges for surfaces with unknown general reflectance properties (BRDFs). Leveraging deep neural networks to learn complicated reflectance models is promising, but studies in this direction are very limited due to difficulties in acquiring accurate ground truth for training and also in designing networks invariant to permutation of input images. In order to address these challenges, we propose a physics based unsupervised learning framework where surface normals and BRDFs are predicted by the network and fed into the rendering equation to synthesize observed images. The network weights are optimized during testing by minimizing reconstruction loss between observed and synthesized images. Thus, our learning process does not require ground truth normals or even pre-training on external images. Our method is shown to achieve the state-of-the-art performance on a challenging real-world scene benchmark.
|
0.999993 |
You will be given an array of integers. All of the integers except one occur twice. That one is unique in the array.
Given an array of integers, find and print the unique element.
For example, , the unique element is .
Complete the lonelyinteger function in the editor below. It should return the integer which occurs only once in the input array.
The first line contains a single integer, , denoting the number of integers in the array.
The second line contains space-separated integers describing the values in .
It is guaranteed that is an odd number and that there is one unique element.
Print the unique integer in the array.
There is only one element in the array, thus it is unique.
We have two 's, and is unique.
We have two 's, two 's, and one . is unique.
|
0.97726 |
Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others.
Taken together, the revelations show Republicans – in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party – were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods.
The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day.
On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines.
What follows are excerpts from some of the affidavits for the election challenge.
- In Warren County, where election officers declared a homeland security emergency on Election Day, and barred reporters and others from watching the vote count, it now has been revealed that county employees were told the previous Thursday they should prepare for the Election Day lockdown. That disclosure suggests the lockdown was a political decision, not a true security risk. Moreover, statements also describe how ballots were left unguarded and unprotected in a warehouse on Election Day, and they were hastily moved after county officials received complaints.
- In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, the election director, Matt Damschroder, misinformed a federal court on Election Day when he testified the county had no additional voting machines – in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party that minority precincts were intentionally deprived of machines. It now appears as many as 81 voting machines were being held back, out of 2,866 available, according to recent statements by Damschroder and Bill Anthony, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections. The shortage of machines in Democratic-leaning districts lead to long lines and thousands of people leaving in frustration and not voting. Damschroder's contradictory statements raise the possibility of perjury.
- Also in Franklin County, a worker at the Holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The "Texas Strike Force" members paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters is across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing.
- In Knox County, students at Kenyon College, a liberal arts school, stood in line for up to 11 hours, because only one voting machine was in use. However, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, there were ample voting machines and no lines. This suggests the GOP shorting of voting machines was a more widespread tactic than just targeting inner-city neighborhoods.
- Reports in sworn affadavits affirm numerous instances of direct official interference with the right to vote. In Warren County, Democrats were being targeted and forced to use provisional ballots, even if they had proper identification. These ballots were then subjected to more rigorous standards to be counted than were other ballots. In a half-dozen precincts in Franklin County, people who were not inside polling places by 7:30 PM were told to leave - even if they had waited in line for hours. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Sworn affidavits also confirmed reports of old voter rolls being used, meaning that new voters were not on the list and would be given provisional ballots, if allowed to vote at all.
Affidavits were also filed in support of the election challenge suit raising questions about manipulating exit poll results and computer tabulation of county and statewide votes.
In one exit poll affidavit, Jonathan David Simon, an expert witness, notes that at 12:53 a.m. the exit polls altered the projected winner – even though the same number of votes had been cast. "Although each update reports the same number of respondents (872), the reported results differ significantly, with the latter (12:53 a.m.) exit poll results apparently having been brought into congruence with the tabulated vote results." In other words, the exit polls were made to conform to a political decision to declare Bush the victor.
Another exit poll affidavit, filed by Ron Paul Baiman, an economist and statistician at the University of Illinois and University of Chicago, said the swing in national exit poll results, recorded at 12:33 a.m., when Kerry was winning with 50.8 percent of the vote, to Bush winning with 51.2 percent, was, "in lay terms, impossible."
"This is more than a 100 percent swing in the other direction of the exit poll margin, he said. "There is less than a one in 25,000,000 (1/25,507,308) chance of this occurring."
Another affidavit by Richard Hayes Phillips, a geomorphology Ph.D. from University of Oregon with a special expertise in spotting anomalous data, found dramatic examples of erroneous voting patterns – with votes taken away from Kerry - that can only be explained by computer manipulation.
For instance, in 16 precincts in Cleveland, he found votes that were shifted from Kerry to other candidates. In at least 30 precincts, there was ultra-low voter turnout reported – as low as 7.1 percent or 13.05 percent – and seven entire wards where total turnout was below 50 percent. He writes, "Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27 percent of the vote to 15.88 percent for Bush. If voter turnout were really 60 percent of registered voters, as seems likely based on turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89 percent as reported, Kerry's margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes."
Phillips points to other counties where has says "there is compelling evidence of fraud." In Miami County early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes were counted, "Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92 percent, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03 percent from 65.80 to 65.77 percent. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scan machines. "
He cites many other examples, but summarizes his findings: "It is my professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont Counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are still 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots."
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, upcoming from www.freepress.org.
|
0.991167 |
An interesting point came up, which is the point of desires, and I see how I saw 'living in the system' and going to get a job and make money 'seriously' meaning to get a good career - I despised that in the sense of seeing it as the way of 'self-interest' but yet I desired it - in terms of what one can achieve through that, through having money. So instead of sorting myself out and seeing for myself that yes I can support myself to have a good career and take responsibility for myself as 'who I am'/what I have become - at the same time, instead I participated in 'Paranoia of Failure' to not take responsibility for myself and so that I can ultimately 'simply work for money', 'follow my desires' and not care about taking responsibility for myself but invest my life and money in living out my desires.
In a nutshell, and this one I give to myself, I did not "have the courage" to live out my desires/self-interest and suppressed it, but continued to not take responsibility for myself just in case 'I get to live that'. So I did not immediately go and live out the desire, but wait in hope that maybe possibly at some point in the future I can live them. All this was unnecessary. It is not a problem to have a good career - it is in fact useful to do something of worth in this life. The part that is a problem is the mind and sorting out this desires/suppression. The solution is to make and live the decision to change: to stop self-interest, and to change myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my desires yet want to hold onto them and so participate in 'Paranoia of Failure' so that maybe in the future I 'get to live out my desires' - in self-interest to entertain myself and not take responsibility for myself and change.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to make and walk the decision to stop self-interest and take responsibility for myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can entertain myself in this life through living out desires, not seeing, realizing and understanding that I can't avoid taking responsibility for myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value more desires than myself and what I can be and become if I take responsibility for me and my life.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live in self-interest of wanting to live out my desires, instead of evaluating them and see what is valid if any and what is not.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand the gift within 'Paranoia of Failure' as I have been able to see where I was deceiving myself and that I can create a life for myself walking the Principles I've committed myself to live by - instead of desires.
I commit myself to remind myself that I am not my desires.
I commit myself to plan my life, so that I am no longer controlled by desires but know in detail that I am walking within the principles I commited myself to live by.
Tags: Desteni EqualMoney. Powered by Blogger.
|
0.999931 |
Botanical medicine, while based on traditional medicines and alternative healing methods, is making a resurgence in modern medicine as a method of treating or preventing diseases.
Often used interchangeably with herbal medicine, botanical medicine is a more inclusive term, including parts of plants that aren’t herbs, such as bark, seeds, stems, and roots.
– Biomedicine: By using herbs and plant substances as an alternative to Western medicines, large doses of certain plant-based ingredients can be used alone or in combination with others to achieve specific results, such as anti-inflammatory solutions, painkillers, or antibacterial effects.
– Traditional Herbalism: Medicinal plants applied in smaller doses can help assist in reducing stress and helping restore weakened immune, gastrointestinal or other organ systems.
– Energy & Vitality: Natural ingredients can be utilized to stimulate the body’s innate ability to heal and bring itself into balance. This addresses the endocrine and nervous systems simultanously.
What can botanical medicine do for me?
If you suffere from chronic fatigue, chronic pain, or digestive problems or other concerns botanical medicines can be used with or without medications to aid you in your swift recovery by helping to kill gut infections found with advanced diagnostic testing, aid in balancing your over or under active immune system in autoimmune diseases, your underactive endocrine system increasing your energy, directing more oxygen to your brain for sharper focus, less brain fog, and more perfusion of the body tissues systemically, and removing wastes and toxins from the body.
It is used in conjunction with other natural medicines.
The following offers a comprehensive understanding of herbal medicine’s role in healthcare.
Allopathy: Also known as “conventional medicine” in Western societies. Allopathy focuses on treating the symptoms of diseases primarily through prescription medications and when these methods fail, surgery, or a combination of medications and surgery is often employed in more serious diseases. This approach utilizes a process of reductionism (focusing on the symptoms exhibited in one location or organ system of the organism rather than focusing on the complete organism as a whole.) Allopathic medicine is the dominant medicine in the United States and other Western countries today. It is best used for physical traumas, infectious diseases, and conditions needing surgical intervention when all other treatments fail.
Ayurvedic Medicine: It is a 5,000-year-old system of medicine that means the “science of life” in Sanskrit, which originated in the Vedic culture of ancient India. It combines natural therapies with a highly personalized, holistic approach to the treatment of disease. This includes herbal medicines, nutrition, and lifestyle, exercises based on your constitution. It is the natural system of medicine in India.
Naturopathy: Naturopathy originated in Germany and Austria, and the United States in the early 20th century. It is a holistic medical system that treats chronic health conditions by utilizing what is believed to be the body’s innate ability to heal, the vix medicatrix naturae. Naturopathic physicians aid healing processes by incorporating a variety of natural methods, including botanical medicine, hydrotherapy, orthomolecular medicine, nutritional medicine, spinal manipulation, all based on the patient’s individual needs.
Why Are Botanical Medicines Sometimes Referred to As Dietary Supplements?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies how certain substances are regulated and sold. The majority of botanical medicines are classified under the term with the exception of a few botanical medicines, which are classified as pharmaceutical drugs. Vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other natural ingredients are sold in the form of tablets, gel caps, liquids, capsules, and powders, but are regulated as food and not drugs. It is recommended that you look for natural products and herbal medicines with third party testing meeting the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards.
– Reduced risk of serious side effects: Due to their natural origin, herbal and botanical medicines are often much better tolerated by patients, resulting in fewer unintended side effects and consequences compared to pharmaceuticals and may be safer to longer-term use.
– Effective in combating chronic conditions: For conditions that do not respond well to long-term traditional treatments, botanical medicines can be a very effective alternative. In instances of chronic arthritis, alternative treatments have been shown to display very few side effects with minimal dietary changes.
– Lower costs: Herbal and botanical remedies often cost much less than prescription medications. Due to the cost of research, testing, and marketing, prescription medications carry a much heftier price tag compared to natural ingredients.
– Wider availability: Because so many natural ingredients are available world-wide without the need for prescriptions, it’s much easier for patients to get access to the medicines they need – especially if they prefer to grow them on their own.
Aromatherapy: This approach uses essential oils extracted from medicinal plants to treat various health conditions. The oils are generally diluted, then used topically, internally, or to stimulate olfactory senses – and induce greater memory. In France, currently physicians are using essential oils internally and externally with impressive results.
Flower Essences: In the 1930s, Dr. Edward Bach developed an approach to healing using “flower essences.” Flower essences are made by infusing flowers or other plant parts in spring water, and adding alcohol as a preservative (typically Brandy). The essences are used internally or topically to balance emotional states, and heal traumas and move patients through psycho-emotional states they are currently stuck in. The underlying philosophy focuses on stabilizing emotions in order to dissipate illness and stimulate internal healing processes.
Herbal Medicine: An approach to healing which uses plant or plant-derived preparations to treat, prevent, or cure various health conditions and ailments. This approach is incorporated into various medical systems – Naturopathy, Ayurvedic Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and others that have been in use for thousands of years around the world. Although herbal medicine does not have a specific point of conception, according to the World Health Organization, presently it is estimated 80% of the world’s population rely on medicinal plant preparations for their primary healthcare needs. Despite the extensive use, which can be attributed to the use of plants in traditional medical systems, our knowledge of the plants and their values remain largely unexplored.
Binomial: The two-part scientific Latin name used to identify plants botanically. The first name is the genus and is a general name that may be shared by a number of related plants. The second is the species name, which refers to the name that is specific to that individual plant (i.e., Mahonia auquifolium, Mahonia nervosa).
Drug: a pure substance or combination of pure substances. It is isolated from natural sources, or can be semi-sythenthic, or is purely chemical in origin, such as in the case of pharmaceutical medications. It is intended to mitigate, treat, cure or prevent a disease in humans (and other animals).
In commercial terms – herb generally refers to plants used for culinary purposes. Additionally the terminology differentiates Temperate Zone plants from tropical and sub-tropical plants (i.e., spices).
In horticultural terms – herb refers to “herbaceous,” which describes the appearance of the plant (i.e., a non-woody, vascular plant).
In taxonomic terms – herb generally refers to the aboveground parts or the aerial parts (i.e., the flower, leaf, and stem).
In terms of herbal medicine – herb refers to plants used in various forms or preparations, valued for their therapeutic benefits, and sold as dietary supplements in the U.S. marketplace.
Decoction: A tea made from boiling plant material, typically for at least 20 minutes with the lid on, usually the bark, rhizomes, roots or other woody parts, in water. It may be used therapeutically. This is how you make a tea from the woody parts of the herbs.
Infusion: A tea made by pouring water over plant material (usually dried flowers, fruit, leaves, and other parts, though fresh plant material may also be used), and allowed to steep. The water is usually boiling, however, cold infusions are also an option and indicated to get out more minerals from herbs such as, nettles cold infusion overnight. Infusions may be used therapeutically, as a hot tea is an excellent way to administer herbs.
Tincture: An extract of a plant made by soaking herbs in a dark place with a desired amount of either glycerine, alcohol, or vinegar anywhere from 2-6 weeks in a glass jar. The liquid is strained from the plant material and then may be used therapeutically. Dr. Madeira uses tinctures often with patients and sees the best results with tinctures and teas clinically.
Liniment: Extract of a plant added to either alcohol or vinegar and applied topically to employ the therapeutic benefits. Chinese medicine uses liniments often for muscle aches and pains.
Poultice: A therapeutic topical application of a soft moist mass of plant material (such as bruised fresh herbs), usually wrapped in a fine woven cloth. This can be used in superficial wound treatments, such as a yarrow poultice.
Essential Oils: Aromatic volatile oils extracted from the leaves, stems, flowers, and other parts of plants. Therapeutic use generally includes dilution of the highly concentrated oil. Making essential oils and using them internally and externally is an art and science. It’s best done by experts and often requires a carrier oil, such as olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil to prevent the essential oils from burning the skin.
Herbal Infused Oils: A process of extraction in which the volatile oils of a plant substance are obtained by soaking the plant in a carrier oil for approximately two weeks and then straining the oil. The resulting oil is used therapeutically and may contain the plant’s aromatic characteristic. This can be a great way to make massage oil, or topical herbal infused oils for treating muscle pains and aches, as an example.
Percolation: A process to extract the soluble constituents of a plant with the assistance of gravity. Percolation is often used in making coffee today in people’s kitchens. However it has been used in herbal medicine making for a long time. The material is moistened and evenly packed into a tall, slightly conical vessel; the liquid (menstruum) is then poured onto the material and allowed to steep for a several days. A small opening is then made in the bottom, which allows the extract to slowly flow out of the vessel. The remaining plant material (the marc) may be discarded. Many tinctures and liquid extracts are prepared using the percolation method.
|
0.99551 |
me: What did you have for dinner Zoe?
Zoe: I ate chicken and rice?
me: i thought you had pork?
Zoe: yes! and I have spoon.
John: Hi Zoe. What did you have for dinner son?
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.