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Unreleased Bruce Springsteen Song Highlights Movie Soundtrack
'Blinded by the Light' LP includes a dozen Boss tracks, including new "I'll Stand by You."
Listen to Bruce Springsteen's New Song, 'There Goes My Miracle'
Second single issued from upcoming 'Western Stars' album.
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The Boss offers advance peek into his first new album in five years.
How Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young Completed 'Philadelphia'
Music played a key role in the ground-breaking Jonathan Demme film's emotional journey.
Bruce Springsteen Reveals 2019 Album, Tour Plans
Bruce Springsteen plans to get back to his "day job" soon, with a new singer-songwriter album and an E Street Band tour on the horizon.
Debra Filcman
Bruce Springsteen's Broadway Show Coming to Netflix
'Springsteen on Broadway' will debut on Netflix the same day it ends a 236-performance run on stage.
Bruce Springsteen Releases Oft-Bootlegged 1978 Roxy Concert
One day shy of its 40th anniversary, the Boss has officially released one of his most famous concerts.
'Darkness on the Edge of Town' at 40
Bruce Springsteen's fourth LP celebrates 40 years. Our writers answer five important questions in a new roundtable.
Bruce Springsteen Inspired a Plot in 'Solo: A Star Wars Story'
"Never once gave thought to landing ... "
Bruce Springsteen's Broadway Show Earns Special Tony Award
Bruce Springsteen will inch a little closer to an EGOT at this year's Tony Awards.
Bruce Springsteen to Release 'The Album Collection Vol. 2'
Bruce Springsteen's output from the decade after 'Born in the U.S.A.' made him a superstar will be packaged together in a new vinyl box set.
Bruce Springsteen Adds 81 'Springsteen on Broadway' Performances
Following nearly 50 years of touring the world, Bruce Springsteen has made himself cozy in the intimate Walter Kerr Theatre.
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Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s high-profile US visit is very important in political, economic and security terms. Saudi Arabia and the United States are longstanding allies. They have not always seen eye to eye. Few allies do.
But the strength of their alliance has always seen these differences overcome.
There have been differences over Washington’s rapprochement with Iran which the US did without taking into account Tehran’s foul play in the region.
The move emboldened Iran which continues to meddle in the affairs of its neighboring countries. Saudi Arabia also urged Obama’s early intervention in Syria.
The US administration chose to ignore the advice. The resultant ruin of Syria has destroyed the lives of millions.It has flooded neighboring states with refugees. It has built a comfortable nest for Daesh terrorists.
In Yemen, the Kingdom had to act to check the Iranian-backed Houthi insurgency and restore the legitimate government through Operation Decisive Storm.Unfortunately, Washington has wanted to believe the government in Tehran is part of the regional solution. The fact is, Iran is, along with Israel, the core regional problem.
Despite these differences, the Saudi-US ties remain robust and the visit of the deputy crown prince for the third time testifies to that.
Rapproachment – an establishment or resumption of harmonious relation
Emboldened – the courage or confidence to do something or to behave in a certain way
Meddle – interfere in or busy oneself unduly with something that is not one’s concern
Resultant – occurring or produced as a result or consequence of something
Insurgency – a usually violent attempt to take control of a government : a rebellion or uprising
1.What are the importance of Saudi Arabia and U.S.A longstanding alliance in these aspects?
1.1National politics of U.S.A and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
1.2 International politics
1.3.Domestic Economy of U.S.A and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
1.4.Security terms of U.S.A and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2. The alliance of U.S.A and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia surely motivate threat to other countries.
2.1 What are the direct threats to both countries?
2.2 What are the indirect threats to both countries?
3.What are the causes of insurgency in Syria, Yemen, Tunisia and Libya?
4.Meddling or spying into country’s both internal and external affairs is one of the arranged-dispute against Great kingdoms of Arab Nations.
How could the Great Kingdom of Arab Nations send away all foreign meddlers or foreign spies?
065 Angelina Jolie has double mastectomy due to cancer gene
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer. ...
368 5 interview questions employers in Japan are no longer allowed to ask
Interviews can be nerve-wracking for even the most experienced candidates, but Japanese companies don’t always ask t...
076 Mexican Drug War’s Next Victims: Tarahumara Indian Runners
Tarahumara Indian tribe, renowned for their agility and bare foot running endurance, most of the kids grew up up co...
232 Mistakes managers need to avoid when dealing with newly hired employees
TOKYO ? This past week, fresh-faced newcomers started working at companies throughout Japan. According to two articl...
412 Ten Things The Driverless Generation Will Never Experience
Like it or not, the driverless car is coming. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mercedes-...
Every Danish student receives about $900 (5,839 Danish krones) per month under a scheme known as SU (Statens Uddanne...
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Analysis of ‘Blade Runner’
Mawr Gorshin capitalism, film analysis, gaslighting, imperialism, leftism, literature, literature analysis, Marxism, philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, science fiction June 20, 2019 June 20, 2019 35 Minutes
I: Introduction
Blade Runner is a 1982 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, with Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, M. Emmet Walsh, and Edward James Olmos. It’s loosely based on Philip K. Dick‘s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which I will also be analyzing, as I will the film’s 2017 sequel, Blade Runner 2049.
Neither Blade Runner nor its sequel fared as well as they should have at the box office, though both have been well-received critically, the first film now regarded as a cult classic, and one of the best science-fiction films of all time.
The stories’ notion of androids–“andys” in the novel, and “replicants,” or pejoratively, “skinjobs” in the movies–raises questions of what it means to be authentically human; for the androids are virtually indistinguishable from real humans. Since these androids are used as slave labour on other planets, they can be seen as symbolic of victims of racism and class conflict.
II: Quotes
From Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
‘I’m not a cop.’ He felt irritable now, although he hadn’t dialed for it.
‘You’re worse,’ his wife said, her eyes still shut. ‘You’re a murderer hired by the cops.’
‘I’ve never killed a human being in my life.’ His irritability had risen, now; had become outright hostility.
Iran said, ‘Just those poor andys.’ —Dick, page 1
The saying currently blabbed by posters, TV ads, and government junk mail, ran: ‘Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!’ –page 5
“Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday’s homeopape. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there’s twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.”
“I see.” The girl regarded him uncertainly, not knowing whether to believe him. Not sure if he meant it seriously.
“There’s the First Law of Kipple,” he said. “‘Kipple drives out nonkipple.’ Like Gresham’s law about bad money. And in these apartments there’s been nobody here to fight the kipple.” –page 52
Thinking this, he wondered if Mozart had any intuition that the future did not exist, that he had already used up his little time. Maybe I have too, Rick thought as he watched the rehearsal move along. This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name “Mozart” will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I will get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I’m part of the form-destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association creates and I unmake. Or anyhow so it must seem to them.” pages 77-78
At an oil painting Phil Resch halted, gazed intently. The painting showed a hairless, oppressed creature with a head like an inverted pear, its hands clapped in horror to its ears, its mouth open in a vast, soundless scream. Twisted ripples of the creature’s torment, echoes of its cry, flooded out into the air surrounding it; the man or woman, whichever it was, had become contained by its own howl. It had covered its ears against its own sound. The creature stood on a bridge and no one else was present; the creature screamed in isolation. Cut off by – or despite – its outcry. –page 104
Luba Luft…stood absorbed in the picture before her: a drawing of a young girl, hands clasped together, seated on the edge of a bed, an expression of bewildered wonder and new, groping awe imprinted on the face. –page 104
Resch…burrowed a narrow hole, silently, into her stomach. She began to scream; she lay crouched against the wall of the elevator, screaming. Like the picture, Rick thought to himself, and, with his own laser tube, killed her. Luba Luft’s body fell forward, face down, in a heap. It did not even tremble. –page 107
So much for the distinction between authentic living humans and humanoid constructs. –page 113
‘The whole idea in bounty hunting is to work as fast as hell. That’s where the profit comes’ –page 125
…bounty hunters…something merciless that carried a printed list and a gun, that moved machine-like through the flat, bureaucratic job of killing. A thing without emotions, or even a face; a thing that if killed got replaced immediately by another resembling it. And so on, until everyone real and alive had been shot. –page 125
‘You’re androids,’ Isidore said…’But what does it matter to me? I mean, I’m a special; they don’t treat me very well either, like for instance I can’t emigrate.’ –page 129
The old man said, ‘You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe. –page 141
Roy Baty…had probably been a manual laborer, a field hand, with aspirations for something better. Do androids dream? Rick asked himself. Evidently; that’s why they occasionally kill their employers and flee here. A better life, without servitude. Like Luba Luft; singing Don Giovanni and Le Nozze instead of toiling across the face of a barren rock-strewn field. On a fundamentally uninhabitable colony world. –page 145
‘That goat,’ Rachael said. ‘You love the goat more than me. More than you love your wife, probably. First the goat, then your wife, then last of all–‘ –pages 158-159
‘Mercerism is a swindle!’ –page 165
‘The whole experience of empathy is a swindle.’ –pages 165-166
What a job to have to do, Rick thought. I’m a scourge, like famine or plague. Where I go the ancient curse follows. As Mercer said, I am required to do wrong. Everything I’ve done has been wrong from the start. –page 178
For Mercer everything is easy, he thought, because Mercer accepts everything. Nothing is alien to him. But what I’ve done, he thought; that’s become alien to me. In fact everything about me has become unnatural; I’ve become an unnatural self. –page 182
The hunger and heat combined, a poisonous taste resembling defeat; yes, he thought, that’s what it is: I’ve been defeated in some obscure way. By having killed the androids? By Rachael’s murder of my goat? He did not know, but as he plodded along a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind; he found himself at one point, with no notion of how it could be, a step from an almost certain fatal cliffside fall—falling humiliatingly and helplessly, he thought; on and on, with no one even to witness it. Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else’s degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves. –page 183
‘They’re saying now that Mercer is a fake.’
‘Mercer isn’t a fake,’ he said. ‘Unless reality is a fake.’ –page 186
‘The spider Mercer gave the chickenhead, Isidore; it probably was artificial, too. But it doesn’t matter. The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.’ –page 191
From Blade Runner
“Replicants are like any other machine. They’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem.” –Deckard (Ford)
“Skin jobs”. That’s what Bryant called Replicants. In history books he’s the kind of cop who used to call black men “niggers”. –Deckard (voiceover)
“Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. ‘More human than human’ is our motto.” –Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel)
“Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” –Rachael (Young)
“Is this testing whether I’m a Replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?” –Rachael
“You know that Voight-Kampff test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?” –Rachael
“Painful to live in fear, isn’t it?” –Leon
“I want more life, fucker (father).” –Batty, to Tyrell
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy.” –Tyrell
“Proud of yourself, little man?” –Roy Batty (Hauer)
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” –Batty, before dying
“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” –Gaff (Olmos)
From Blade Runner 2049
“You newer models are happy scraping the shit… because you’ve never seen a miracle.” –Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista)
Interviewer: Officer K-D-six-dash-three-dot-seven, let’s begin. Ready?’
K: Yes, sir.
Interviewer: Recite your baseline.
‘K’: And blood-black nothingness began to spin… A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem… And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
Luv: I’m here for Mr. Wallace. I’m Luv.
‘K’: He named you. You must be special.
Rick Deckard: I had your job once. I was good at it.
‘K’: Things were simpler then.
“Sometimes to love someone, you got to be a stranger.” –Deckard
“Dying for the right cause. It’s the most human thing we can do.” –Freysa
III: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
One of the things that are supposed to distinguish humans from “andys” is our capacity for empathy. Rick Deckard’s wife, Iran, however, is avid about using an “empathy box” to experience climbing a rocky hill and enduring being pelted with rocks, a shared experience called “fusion” with Wilbur Mercer, the hill climber and eponym of “Mercerism,” the new religion of those living after “World War Terminus” (in the year 1992, or 2021, in later editions of the novel), a nuclear war that has made life on Earth difficult, if not unliveable.
The empathy box allows her, and all other adherents to Mercerism, to experience Mercer’s climb as if they were he. Hence, she can empathize with him and all others sharing in the fusion, and thus grow spiritually in accordance with the religion. Yet, since empathy is, at least normally, an innate human trait, why does one need to use the box? Why not pray or meditate instead, using one’s religious faith to share the experience intuitively? Why use a machine to feel empathy?
The people of this world also have a device called a “mood organ” that they can set at whatever number to provide any emotional state they wish to have, including negative emotions. But again, since these are actual humans who use the mood organ, why can’t they just try to feel these feelings naturally? Devices like this one and the empathy box give us the impression that real people in this dystopia are as machine-like as the androids (who also have emotions, incidentally).
Empathy is the basis of the morality of Mercerism, which has replaced Christianity since the nuclear destruction of the world as we’ve known it. Few animals have survived, and as an expression of empathy, people are expected to own and take care of an animal–preferably a real one, but mechanical animals (e.g., Deckard’s electric sheep) are owned by those who can’t afford the expensive real ones.
The ‘better’ an animal one has (i.e, a real one), the more social status one has, since taking care of a ‘better’ animal implies that the owner has more empathy. We can see in this commodification of animals, bought and sold, real and fake, how the new religion is as corrupt as those of the past.
Rick Deckard’s ambition is to get enough money to buy a real animal. He sees his neighbour, Bill Barbour, with his horse (pages 6-10). He envies Barbour because all he has is that electric sheep. The opportunity to “retire” (that is, kill) a group of androids who have escaped the off-world colonies and come to Earth can give him the money for a better animal.
What is emphasized in the novel and both movies, though in different ways, is that the distinction between humans and androids is meaningless. Similarly, in our world it has been scientifically established that there are no such things as races, yet racists keep insisting on making those distinctions; just as the humans in Dick’s novel use the Voigt-Kampff empathy test to maintain a sense that “andys” are not truly human, and therefore aren’t deserving of basic rights.
Humans create androids to be slaves on the off-world colonies. Capitalists created, if you will, the proletariat through, for example, the enclosures of the Commons in England and forcing the peasant workers into the cities to sell their labour for a meagre wage. White slaveowners created the ‘nigger’ by taking him from Africa, scorning his original culture, and creating a disparaging one for him in the US. The histories of these oppressed peoples were replaced with the new ideology of the oppressor, to justify his ‘superiority’ over his victims.
Mercerism’s moral notion of human empathy, something that androids apparently lack, is used to justify notions of human superiority over “andys”; just as the ‘superior’ morality of Christianity has been used to justify ‘superior’ Western culture in its lording itself over ‘uncivilized’ and ‘heathen’ societies, thus legitimizing imperialist conquests of Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America with no pangs of bad conscience.
In comparing bigotry against androids with bigotry against people of colour, though, we note an ironic contrast. The difference between man and android is invisible, whereas the visual difference between whites and non-whites is obvious. We don’t deny the biology and personalities of non-whites as genuine, yet we treat them as subhuman just because of their darker skin colour. “Skinjobs” (as they’re derogatorily called in the movies) have no skin colour distinct from that of humans, yet biologically, they’re synthetic, and thus are regarded as non-human.
Deckard’s willingness to retire the androids, just to rise in social status by owning a real animal, illustrates perfectly how this dystopian world is symbolic of how dehumanizing capitalism and class conflict are. Subjugate and/or kill off the lower classes and people of colour, and rise in class status by having done so. Religion justifies this class structure, since the upper classes apparently are more moral, have more empathy, and therefore deserve a better life.
Protestantism justifies letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, since God rewards the hardworking with more money and, by implication, punishes the ‘lazy’ with poverty. The Hindu caste system in India has also justified privileged ruling classes of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, and the Vaishyas, rewarding their good karma from previous lives, as against the lowest-level Shudras, who are kept in poverty because of bad karma:
“The fundamental social ideal is that of the four-fold division of society…In the accounts of the division of society into four classes (varna) in the sacred texts it is emphasized that the origin of the class structure is divine, not human, the implication being that the right ordering of society is ultimately a religious, not a secular, concern.” (The Hindu Tradition, page 75)
The ’empathic’ caring for an animal (usually a synthetic one) in Mercerism parallels the phoniness of charity promoted in typical manifestations of organized religion. We socialists see through the pretence of using charity to help the poor, since we know that throwing a bit of money at them from time to time does nothing to solve their problems. Giving to the poor is about giving oneself face, and little more.
Alongside the contempt shown to androids is a similar attitude shown to humans adversely affected by the toxic environment after the nuclear war. One common affliction is against the intellect, causing such people to be unfit to live on a colonized planet off-world. Such people are referred to by the slur, “chickenhead.” A gentler term for “chickenhead,” however, is “special.”
John Isidore is a “special,” living alone in a filthy, abandoned building, until he meets Pris Stratton, one of the renegade androids that Deckard has to retire. Isidore’s relationship with her, Roy and Irmgard Baty (whom he later meets) is one of a mutual understanding of each other’s outsider status, with an added measure of android contempt for servile Isidore.
So while the androids are comparable to the scorned working class and people of colour, Isidore is rather like mentally disabled people; so “chickenhead” might remind us of the slur ‘retard.’ While we’re on the subject of people discriminated against and looked down on, consider Rachael’s remark when given the Voigt-Kampff test: “‘Is this testing whether I’m an android,’ Rachael asked tartly, ‘or whether I’m homosexual?'” (page 39–of course, in the movie the words android and homosexual are replaced with replicant and a lesbian)
Indeed, that very test is grating on one’s nerves, in how it probes and discriminates through its taunting questions. The very determination that Rachael Rosen, originally assumed to be human, is an android underscores the foggy distinction between human and android. There’s a recurring worry that these tests may be ineffective in spotting the difference between android and human, leading to the fear of accidentally killing a person.
Added to this confusion is Deckard’s growing empathy for androids like Rachael. After retiring Polokov, having originally thought he was a Soviet policeman, and after helping Phil Resch kill Luba Luft, an android opera singer whose voice he admired, Deckard is beginning to see the futility of distinguishing human from android. The incident at the fake police station (manned by androids, Chapters Ten and Eleven) reinforces Deckard’s confusion, since he’s been manipulated into thinking he could be an android.
Recall the end of Chapter Nine, when Officer Crams (an android pretending to be a policeman) has apprehended Deckard, and says this to him: “‘Maybe you’re an android,’ Officer Crams said. ‘With a false memory, like they give them. Had you thought of that?’ He grinned frigidly as he continued to drive south.” (page 88)
And later, an android, pretending to be a senior police official named Garland, says this to fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch about Deckard: “‘I don’t think you understand the situation,’ Garland said. ‘This man–or android–Rick Deckard comes to us from a phantom, hallucinatory, non-existent police agency allegedly operating out of the old departmental headquarters on Lombard. He’s never heard of us and we’ve never heard of him–yet ostensibly we’re both working the same side of the street. He employs a test we’ve never heard of. The list he carries around isn’t of androids; it’s a list of human beings. He’s already killed once–at least once. And if Miss Luft hadn’t gotten to a phone he probably would have killed her and then eventually he would have come sniffing around after me.’ (page 94)
So we see here a group of androids trying to beat the humans at their own game, by projecting the non-human, Untermensch status onto those who are always doing it to them, and–with respect to “Garland’s motives. Wanting to split [Deckard and Resch] up…” (page 112).
We learn that Garland et al are androids, and after he is killed by Resch’s laser tube, Resch asks Deckard about the “andys”: ‘Do you think of them as “it”?’ With Deckard’s growing empathy for androids, he replies to Resch by saying, ‘When my conscience occasionally bothered me about the work I had to do; I protected myself by thinking of them that way but now I no longer find it necessary.’ (page 99)
Because both Deckard and Resch have doubts as to whether they’re androids or human, they both do the Voigt-Kampff test (pages 111-113). This doubt of theirs again reinforces the unclear line between human and ‘non-human.’
In his shock and unease about realizing he’s empathizing with androids, Deckard buys a Nubian goat (a real one) with his reward money. After presenting it to Iran, he explains his feelings to her: ‘I took a test, one question, and verified it; I’ve begun to empathize with androids, and look what that means. You said it this morning yourself. “Those poor andys.” So you know what I’m talking about. That’s why I bought the goat. I never felt like that before. Maybe it could be a depression, like you get. I can understand now how you suffer when you’re depressed…But when you get that depressed you don’t care. Apathy, because you’ve lost a sense of worth.’ (pages 137-138)
His wife wants to have “fusion” with Mercer because of her husband’s purchase; he isn’t all that enthused about Mercerism, but he has a vision of Mercer during “fusion,” who tells him of the necessity sometimes to do what is or seems to be immoral, or contrary to one’s nature (page 141). This hearing of Mercer’s words must be an auditory hallucination brought on by his stress and confusion over the morality of his work, and his growing, troubling empathy for androids he has to kill.
He meets Rachael, who has agreed to help him with the remaining androids to be retired, in a hotel. They are developing feelings for each other, which is difficult for him, of course, since she’s an android. He tells her of his goat: ‘I bought a black Nubian goat,’ he said. ‘I have to retire the three more andys. I have to finish up my job and go home to my wife.’ (pages 150-151)
This revelation annoys her, since it seems to her that in his hierarchy of values, the goat comes first, Iran second, and Rachel last: ‘That goat,’ Rachael said. ‘You love the goat more than me. More than you love your wife, probably. First the goat, then your wife, then last of all–‘ She laughed merrily. ‘What can you do but laugh?’ (pages 158-159)
She seems to have it right, for Deckard’s whole motivation has been to retire “andys” so he can have a living animal as a status symbol. Middle class types like Deckard rise, retired andys fall; this is symbolic of the class contradictions between the middle and lower classes, or the racial contradictions between whites and blacks.
Deckard’s wife isn’t all that important to him, since he sleeps with Rachael without any pangs of conscience over his adultery. The only aspect of the immorality of his sexual encounter with Rachael is in how he’s broken the law by sleeping with an android; it reminds one of the KKK’s abhorrence of inter-racial sex.
Towards the end of the novel, Deckard reflects on his sexual transgression: “Bed rest, he thought. The last time I hit bed was with Rachael. A violation of a statute. Copulation with an android; absolutely against the law, here and on the colony worlds as well.” (page 186)
The retiring of Pris, Roy and Irmgard Baty is, in my opinion at least, disappointingly anticlimactic, especially as compared to Deckard’s and Roy’s confrontation in the film. Only Pris will be even remotely a challenge, since, firstly, she could be Rachael’s twin, both females being of the same model.
“Tonight sometime, he thought as he clicked off the bedside light, I will retire a Nexus-6 which looks exactly like this naked girl. My good god, he thought; I’ve wound up where Phil Resch said. Go to bed with her first, he remembered. Then kill her. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said, and backed away from the bed.” (page 153)
The second reason it will be difficult for Deckard to kill Pris is because she’s planning a surprise attack as she waits for him to look around Isidore’s building. Again, the stress of the moment causes Deckard to have a hallucination of Mercer, who warns him of Pris. (pages 174-175)
What’s interesting about Deckard’s growing faith in Mercer is how, for pretty much everyone else, the whole religion has been proven a fake. Mercer is dead: thus spoke Buster Friendly (pages 163-166). Still, it’s remarkable how people can cling to a discredited faith, especially one in its fundamentalist form.
Many fall prey to organized religion, not so much out of spiritual conviction as from an emotional crisis of some kind, as is the case with Deckard. The simple, black-and-white solution of fundamentalism for people’s problems has an immense appeal, in spite of the absurdity of the belief system.
Deckard’s original belief system, that of the ‘difference’ between man and “andy,” has been shaken. It’s been suggested that he’s an android, he’s been empathizing with a few androids (Rachael and Luba), he’s made love with one, and he’s killed, among other androids, one that looks exactly like his “andy” lover. All of this is more than enough to give him an emotional crisis needing quick relief.
The black-and-white solution of ‘Mercer’s guidance’ can give him that relief easily, so Deckard hallucinates about him. Similarly, Christians who have brutalized black people can comfort themselves with the visual illusion that black skin somehow makes blacks fundamentally different from whites; the spurious notion that blacks were descended from Ham, who disgraced himself before drunk, naked Noah, has been used, among other rationalizations, to scorn blacks.
Deckard, however, doesn’t have the convenience of a different skin colour to fool himself that androids are sub-human, and therefore unworthy of the same consideration and rights as humans. Ironically, as his empathy for “andys” grows, so does his faith in Mercerism. It is so bizarre that, in a post-apocalyptic world of nuclear annihilation, where androids are either enslaved or killed, and people like Isidore are scorned as “chickenheads,” one believes that the cultivation of empathy can be anything other than a case of ‘too little, too late.’ Indeed, the very idea of trying to cultivate empathy in such a dystopian world is a sick joke.
Deckard’s crisis grows when he learns that Rachael has thrown his goat off the roof of his apartment building, thus making it fall to its death. Recall how irked she was over his preference of the goat, and his wife, over her. On another level, her killing of the goat can be seen to symbolize an act of proletarian defiance against a system that prizes commodities and the bourgeoisie over the working class. Since it’s a real goat, its killing is a misguided defiance, but a defiance all the same.
The androids’ loathing of empathy, as a virtue assumed to be unique among the privileged–since “andys” rarely receive any of it–is also reflected in Pris’s clipping of the spider’s legs (pages 162-166), much to Isidore’s chagrin; this loathing is also seen in Roy Baty’s glee in knowing that empathy is fake, because Mercer is fake (pages 165-166). The loathing is comparable to how class-conscious workers realize that, as Marx observed, “religion is the opium of the people.” Rachael’s killing of the goat-commodity is like workers’ deliberate sabotaging of their bosses’ means of production.
Recall Irmgard’s words on empathy as a supposedly human-only virtue: ’empathy…Isn’t it a way of proving that humans can do something we can’t do? Because without the Mercer experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing…’ (page 165)
In Chapter Twenty-One, Deckard, in his growing emotional turmoil, flies his car up to an obliterated area of Oregon, where he climbs a rocky hill, is pelted by rocks, and thus finds himself acting like Mercer, but without one of those VR empathy boxes. His delusion that he is Mercer is the ultimate narcissistic defence against psychological fragmentation, the only thing keeping him from falling apart, from all of his accumulated guilt over having killed all those “andys.”
We see the lead-in to Deckard’s vision of Mercer in his conflicted reflections on what he’s done, his alienation from himself: “For Mercer everything is easy, he thought, because Mercer accepts everything. Nothing is alien to him. But what I’ve done, he thought; that’s become alien to me. In fact everything about me has become unnatural; I’ve become an unnatural self.” (page 182)
Then, as Deckard ascends the hill: “The hunger and heat combined, a poisonous taste resembling defeat; yes, he thought, that’s what it is: I’ve been defeated in some obscure way. By having killed the androids? By Rachael’s murder of my goat? He did not know, but as he plodded along a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind…” (page 183)
In his stress, Deckard has seen Mercer, a dark figure in the shadows, twice (excluding the VR “fusion” on page 141): once before confronting Pris (pages 174-175), and now this other time on the hill. This second time, he identifies with Mercer. The dark image of Mercer is rather like Lacan‘s mirror: an idealized version of spastic, hill-climbing Deckard looking back at him like a mirror reflection. He’s alienated from himself, just as that spectral image alienates him and, paradoxically, is identified with him.
“‘Mercer,’ he said, panting; he stopped, stood still. In front of him he distinguished a shadowy figure, motionless. ‘Wilbur Mercer! Is that you?’ My god, he realized; it’s my shadow. I have to get out of here, down off this hill!
“He scrambled back down. Once, he fell; clouds of dust obscured everything, and he ran from the dust–he hurried faster, sliding and tumbling on the loose pebbles…He plucked open the car door, squeezed inside. Who threw the stone at me? he asked himself. No one. But why does it bother me? I’ve undergone it before, during fusion. While using my empathy box, like everyone else. This isn’t new. But it was. Because, he thought, I did it alone.” (pages 183-184)
Deckard also finds a toad that is supposed to be extinct, yet he imagines, in his ‘divine’ self-delusion, that it’s real: “…to find the critter most sacred to Mercer. Jesus, he thought; it can’t be…Did Mercer arrange it? But I’m Mercer. I arranged it; I found the toad. Found it because I see through Mercer’s eyes.” (page 188) He takes it home, thinking it can replace the goat as the object of his ’empathy.’ Iran shows him it’s electric (page 191). “Crestfallen,” he, in all exhaustion, goes to bed, covered in dust (page 192).
This sleep of his is a sleep of sloth. His illusions have been peeled away, one by one: androids have no less a legitimate right to be empathized with than humans have; Mercerism is fake; the radioactivity and filth have probably infected his brain, causing his Mercer delusions as well as his inability to tell a fake animal from a real one, as he has begun to suspect, even during his Mercer delusions: “Maybe it’s due to brain damage on my part: exposure to radioactivity. I’m a special, he thought. Something has happened to me. Like the chickenhead Isidore and his spider, what happened to him is happening to me.” (page 188) Deckard is losing all purpose in life.
In his routine as a bounty hunter, using empathy boxes and mood organs to help him have feelings, he–as well as Iran and every other human on Earth–is more android than android.
Since I see androids as symbolic of proletarians and people of colour, this notion that humanity lives an android-like life indicates how we’re all victims of the alienating, hierarchical world of capitalism, regardless of whether we’re black or white, working class or petite bourgeois.
Deckard realizes his pitiful state, yet gets no edification from it: he just goes to bed and acquiesces to his mechanical life.
Perhaps he’ll dream of his electric sheep.
IV: Blade Runner
[I am basing this analysis on the Director’s Cut. I don’t have a DVD of the Final Cut; if, in the future, I get one and find elements in it that ought to be included in this analysis, I’ll update it accordingly then.]
It’s fitting that I should write this analysis in 2019, though I’m not in Los Angeles (as opposed to the novel’s San Francisco setting), and…why don’t we have flying cars by now?
Leon Kowalski (played by Brion James, and roughly equivalent to Polokov in the novel) is being given the Voight-Kampff test by Dave Holden (played by Morgan Paull). Replicant Leon is nervous, and comes off as not very intelligent. He often interrupts Holden with irrelevant questions and remarks.
Because the test is “designed to provoke an emotional response,” as Holden tells Leon, because replicants are emotionally immature due to their short life span (four years, not enough to develop the nuanced emotions we all take for granted), because the test’s purpose is to help in the discrimination between man and replicant, and because–as I’ve shown above–the oppression of replicants (or “andys”) is symbolic of the oppression of people of colour and of the working class, this test can be seen as a formalized kind of taunting.
Taunting is a tactic often used by bullies and racists against their victims. The provocative nature of the Voight-Kampff questions–especially in relation to my notion of replicants as symbolic of, among other oppressed groups, black people–is comparable to what happens to Marian in Angelica Gibbs‘s short story, “The Test,” published in 1940 and reflective of white racial prejudice against blacks.
Marian is an African-American woman doing a driving test, sitting next to a prejudiced white man who’s both testing and taunting her. He calls her “Mary-Lou” instead of her real name. When he learns she’s 27, he says, “Old enough to have quite a flock of pickaninnies, eh?” He whistles “Swanee River.” He pretends to be astonished to learn she’s from Pennsylvania, saying, “You-all ain’t Southern?…Well, dog my cats if I didn’t think you-all came from down yondah.” She endures him as best she can, until his slurs against her skin colour finally go too far, and she cries, “Damn you!” He loses “his joviality in an instant” and makes “four very black crosses at random in the squares on Marian’s application blank,” failing her, even though her driving has been impeccable the whole time.
The tension the replicants feel in Blade Runner when doing the Voight-Kampff test is similar to how Marian feels. When Holden asks Leon to talk about his good memories of his mother (of which he obviously has none), the replicant, holding a concealed pistol, shoots Holden and leaves him for dead (though we later learn that Holden survives). One endures the taunts and provocations as best one can, but sooner or later, everyone reaches his breaking point.
The notion of a replicant’s relationship with his ‘parents’ is symbolically interesting, from a psychoanalytic standpoint. The lack of a mother for Leon is tantamount to what the object relations theorists would call a ‘bad mother’; Roy Batty’s relationship with Eldon Tyrell is also like a son’s relationship with his ‘bad father’–Roy literally calls Tyrell “Father” (or “fucker,” depending on the version) when demanding a longer life…this shows us how much of a ‘bad father’ Tyrell really is.
The bad mother is derived from a part-object, the bad breast, a Kleinian concept that Wilfred Bion developed by saying the lack of a breast for an infant, frustrating the baby by not giving milk, is a bad breast (Bion, Chapter Twelve, pages 34-37). So by extension, Leon’s lack of a mother is a bad mother, causing a traumatic split in the replicant’s mind that Melanie Klein called the paranoid-schizoid position. Leon’s nervousness and agitation indicate the paranoid aspect, his persecutory anxiety; the splitting of people into absolutely good replicants and absolutely bad humans is the schizoid aspect.
For Roy, his begging Tyrell to find a way to lengthen replicants’ lives is an attempt at reparation with his ‘father’; but Tyrell the ‘bad father’ insists that lengthening a replicant’s life is impossible (or, maybe, Tyrell simply doesn’t want to lengthen the replicants’ lives, out of a wish to maintain power over them), so Roy kills him. Reparation with the father is impossible; Roy, like Leon, is doomed to being permanently in the paranoid-schizoid position.
The inability to connect with one’s parents, real or symbolic, as in the case of this movie, is the basis of social alienation, since the relationship with one’s parents, be it good or bad, becomes the blueprint for one’s later relationships with other people throughout life. Now replicants, as symbols of the wage slave global proletariat, experience alienation in a particularly stinging way. Taunting remarks from the Voight-Kampff tests, in particular as to whether one has a mother or not, are especially triggering for a replicant, hence Leon’s violent reaction.
In this connection, recall how Marx compared the bourgeois family with that of the proletariat: “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among proletarians, and in public prostitution…Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To that crime we [communists] plead guilty.” (Marx, page 52) Note the absence of the family among replicants like Leon, hence his shooting of Holden. Note also Roy’s exploitive ‘father.’
Some buildings in Blade Runner have a pyramidal structure, reminding us of those of the ruling class Pharaohs of Egypt, who had peasants build them through forced labour, or those of the imperialist Aztecs who invaded other Central American civilizations and killed their enemy captives in rites of human sacrifice on the tops of their temples (rather like a blade runner retiring replicants, isn’t it?). Other buildings shoot flames up in the air: these make one think of volcanoes, suggesting the fiery wrath of Mother Earth after all of man’s environmental damage to her.
Indeed, the film replaces Dick’s World War Terminus with the results of a more gradual ecocidal degradation that we’re inflicting on the Earth right now. We see a Coruscant-like cityscape of endless buildings and no nature; the electric animals that are so integral to Dick’s plot are of little more importance in the film than to develop theme.
Instead of being eagerly willing to retire Roy, Pris, et al in the hopes of buying a real animal to enhance his social status (as is the case in the novel), the Deckard in the film is dragged back into a bounty hunter life he wants to leave behind. He’s called a “blade runner,” an expression snatched from The Bladerunner, a novel with no other connection whatsoever with Dick’s, or the film’s, story.
The Tyrell Corporation boasts in its motto that its replicants are “more human than human,” and Deckard finds out just how accurate this motto is when he does the Voight-Kampff test on Rachael, who is assumed to be human. Indeed, when we first see her and watch her respond to Deckard’s questions, her mannerisms and facial expressions seem almost robotic; but after we learn that she’s a replicant, she shows the full range of human emotions and body language.
J.F. Sebastian (played by William Sanderson), who is loosely based on Isidore, isn’t afflicted mentally (actually, Sebastian is a genius), but rather physically: he isn’t allowed to live off-world because he suffers from “Methuselah Syndrome,” which makes him age faster, thus shortening his lifespan and making his predicament comparable to that of the replicants. No wonder Pris (played by Daryl Hannah) says to him, “We need you, Sebastian. You’re our best and only friend.” He is one of the few humans who can truly empathize with her and Roy…and he makes robotic toys, rather like what replicants are! The oppressed would naturally have mutual sympathy, even if they aren’t oppressed in the same way.
Roy: We’ve got a lot in common.
Sebastian: What do you mean?
Roy: Similar problems.
Pris: Accelerated decrepitude.
A major motif in the film is eyes. There’s the closeup eye reflecting the fire-shooting buildings at the beginning; there are Leon‘s and Rachael‘s eyes, with the “Fluctuation of the pupil…” and the “involuntary dilation of the iris,” as Tyrell says of the reaction to Voight-Kampff tests; there’s Hannibal Chew, the Asian eye-designer who is bullied by Leon and Roy; and there’s Roy playing with a pair of fake eyes in Sebastian’s home.
Here’s a relevant question: since replicants’ eyes are artificial, shall we associate that with seeing ‘fake’ things? Or, since replicants are “more human than human,” do their eyes–as ‘fake’ as they may be–see even better and grasp more complete truths than human eyes can? Do the oppressed see reality better than the privileged, though the latter gaslight the former into thinking their ‘fake’ eyes see a ‘fake’ reality?
Hannibal Chew: I just do eyes, ju-, ju-, just eyes… just genetic design, just eyes. You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Batty: Chew, if only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes!
Speaking of gaslighting, one should note the implications of giving replicants implanted memories, thereby tricking them into thinking they’re human, as has been done with Rachael and…Deckard? Giving people a fake past, then denying them the validation of the truth of their memories, is the essence of gaslighting; and as I’ve argued elsewhere, gaslighting has political manifestations as well as those in relationships involving, for example, narcissistic abuse; and abusive interpersonal relationships are the microcosm of the larger, geopolitical forms of abuse and manipulation.
Now, whether or not Deckard is a replicant (i.e., his unicorn dream and Gaff‘s unicorn origami, implying he knows of Deckard’s supposed memory implants) is irrelevant to me, since I see replicants as, to all practical purposes, as human as humans. If they can be more human, replicants can be equally human, too. They’re just told they’re non-human as a part of the oppression they suffer.
These replicant humans are deprived of life (the four-year lifespan), and thus are denied a childhood. They’re denied a decent stock of memories, hence they’re emotionally immature. Some are given false memories as a “cushion” to make it easier to control them (gaslighting). They’re slaves on the off-world colonies, conquests of Earth’s imperialism; and if they try to escape, they’re killed (or, “retired,” to use the human euphemism). Their experiences are denied validity because they don’t have natural, human eyes. Small wonder Deckard would never believe what Roy has seen: what the replicant could teach us, due to his short life, “will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
The empathy of film-Deckard won’t be lost as that of book-Deckard is, though; so instead of sleeping, he runs off with Rachael as a fellow fugitive.
V: Blade Runner 2049
The meaninglessness of the differentiation between human and replicant (or bioengineered human) is made even clearer through a new development: it has been discovered that Rachael has given birth. Now, if Deckard is a replicant–presumably an older model with memory implants and a long lifespan–this means that no human was involved at all with the baby’s conception.
Whether or not Deckard is a replicant, the fact that K (Ryan Gosling) is a replicant blade runner working for Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) is itself established proof of a symbolic class collaboration, given my equation of replicants with the proletariat and oppressed racial minorities.
One of the ways we keep the male proletariat in line is with fantasies of beautiful, submissive, and supportive women, as we can see in K’s purchase of Joi (Ana de Armas), a holographic image of, essentially, the perfect housewife. She’s sweet, loving, and willing to do anything K wants, to please him. That she’s not even a replicant, but rather an ideal image of woman emphasizes how unreal she is; for no woman can (or should ever have to) be so perfectly pleasing to a man. That her name is spelled with an i instead of a y adds to the symbolic unreality of the happiness she provides.
When Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a female replicant who is a ruthless killer for Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) and thus another example of a class collaborator, meets K and asks if he’s satisfied with the company’s product (Joi), we see not only the commodification of the housewife ideal, but also how women under capitalism, provided they’re in the upper echelons, will often strive to maintain the system as it is, just as much as their male counterparts will. Just look at Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Gina Haspel to see my point. Both Luv and Lt. Joshi represent this ugly reality in the film.
Wallace himself is wicked and cruel on a whole different level. As the creator of so many replicants, he seems to have a God complex: he certainly likes to incorporate Biblical concepts in his speech. “And God remembered Rachael, heeded her, and opened her womb,” he quotes from Genesis 30:22 when he meets Deckard.
Wallace covets the newly-discovered ability Rachael had to bear children. A newly-created female replicant stands nude before him in his first scene. Like a newborn baby, the naked woman is as vulnerable and helpless as any member of the possessionless proletariat; he touches her belly and contemplates how he wishes he could make her conceive, while Luv watches with restrained emotion. He stabs the replicant where her reproductive anatomy is…if only it worked; she falls down dead. Luv’s shock is again suppressed, for Wallace’s replicants are totally obedient (class collaboration). He, like Tyrell to his creations, is the bad father, kissing his newborn ‘daughter’ the way the ‘prodigal son’ Roy kissed Tyrell before killing him.
Recall the eye motif from the previous film. Niander Wallace is blind, using cybernetic implants in his neck to interact with various computers and “see” through flying miniature camera units. He’s symbolically blind to the suffering of the oppressed. Do his fake “eyes” make him see a false reality that flatters his megalomania, or do they allow him to see the elite’s privileged version of reality? Again, the distinction between real and artificial is blurred.
K, for the great majority of the film, shows little, if any, emotion. As a good, obedient blade runner working for the system, he lives a soulless existence, as all proletarians are forced to do. Indeed, Lt. Joshi notes that he’s “been getting on fine without…a soul.”
After investigating who Rachael’s child could be, though, he learns that his memory of a small toy horse isn’t synthetic, as they usually are for replicants–those emotional cushions implanted in their brains in order to control them; this particular memory is real, so he comes to believe that he is Rachael’s son. His whole enslaved life has been a lie, regardless of whether he is her son or not, though he realizes this only through imagining he’s her son. He does have a soul, it seems. So finally, he shows emotion, in the form of an explosion: he shouts, “God…damnit!”
The Voight-Kampff test has been replaced by a new one called a “Baseline” test. K is required to recite five lines from a poem from Vladimir Nabokov‘s Pale Fire. The section of the poem that K quotes involves a near-death experience of fictional poet John Shade:
And blood-black nothingness began to spin
A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct
Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
Since the fear of death is a major preoccupation of replicants, it’s significant that K is required to recite what, for him or any replicant, must be quite a triggering passage, and to do so without hesitation or emotion. The repetition of the words cells and interlinked, in the context of the film rather than that of Nabokov’s novel, is noteworthy in how replicants’ lives seem trapped in metaphorical prison cells, and replicants aren’t supposed to be interlinked by any sense of mutual empathy.
As for K, though, he’s realized what cells he and his kind are trapped in, and only by being interlinked in mutual love will they ever be free.
His recitation of the baseline is with mechanical precision the first time; but his next recitation, after coming to believe he’s Rachael’s son, is shaky and hesitant, making him fail the baseline and causing him to be regarded as having gone rogue.
K finds Deckard in an abandoned building that was once a Las Vegas night club. Holographic images of Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and young women dancing in a 1960s style can be seen; like Joi, they represent an idealized older world that has no basis in reality now. Elsewhere, and earlier in the film, a huge holographic image of a Soviet [!] ballet dancer is also seen…another idealization no longer possible in the dystopia of 2049.
Instead, this dystopia shows us the ugly reality of such things as prostitution. Some feminists have criticized the film for presenting women either in this degrading way or as the housewife ideal in Joi; they forget that, as with American Psycho, the intention is not to recommend such portrayals of women, but rather to comment of these ugly realities. The first step in ridding our society of such ugliness is to acknowledge its reality.
In a noteworthy scene, Joi hires one of the prostitutes seen earlier to merge with her as a body that K can have sex with. Two forms of female fantasy are thus combined: the “nice girl”/”bad girl” opposition; also, the ideal and material forms. It should be seen as a sad comment on alienation in a capitalist society, that a woman has to be a man’s fantasy, rather than be herself, to make love with him.
In Deckard’s and Rachael’s case, however, we can see real love, and it has resulted in a child. That people, replicant or not, can connect and have families, is a threat to the dystopia that Lt. Joshi’s police department, on the one hand, is trying to keep ordered and stable, and that Wallace, on the other hand, is trying to profit from and rule over as its ‘God.’
Lieutenant Joshi: The world is built in a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there’s no wall, you’ve bought a war. Or a slaughter.
Niander Wallace: Every leap of civilization was built on the back of a disposable workforce,…but I can only make so many.
Normally, capitalists and the state work together in harmony. In this case, the LAPD’s agenda to have the replicant offspring killed is in contradiction with Wallace’s agenda to find the offspring, then learn how to use replicant reproduction to expand interstellar colonization, symbolically a manifestation of capitalist imperialism. Because of this contradiction, Luv must kill Joshi, though one suspects that Luv, as a replicant, has her own personal reasons to find the replicant child, feelings that are suppressed and just under her surface obedience to Wallace.
Now, the prostitute who was with K and Joi is secretly part of a replicant resistance movement. Their leader, Freysa (Hiam Abbass), hopes K will kill Deckard before he can tell Wallace where…as it turns out…his and Rachael’s daughter is. Though K now knows he isn’t their son, he’s been humanized enough, through all his traumatic experiences, to want to help Deckard reunite with her. It’s the most human thing he can do, after all.
To protect his daughter (Dr. Ana Stelline, played by Carla Juri), Deckard has had to keep away from her all these years, making him a kind of ‘bad father’ through his absence from her life, yet also a good father for sacrificing the relationship to keep her safe. K recognizes the need to prevent Wallace from finding her, for the sake of the coming replicant revolution; but K also realizes that the liberation of the oppressed must come through the establishment of human relationships, to end alienation. Hence his arrangement to have Deckard reunited with Ana.
A system of cells interlinked.
What’s it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked.
To be freed from our cells, we must all be…interlinked.
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Orion Publishing Group, London, 1968
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Published by Mawr Gorshin
I'm merging the variety of topics I've blogged about--which include literary and film analyses, anarchism, socialism, libertarian-leaning Marxism, narcissistic abuse, and psychoanalysis--into a coherent philosophy centred on dialectical materialism, dialectical monism, and object relations theory. Now, one dialectical opposition is that between the erotic and the ascetic, so accordingly, my writing encompasses the sexual as well as the philosophical; the former can be found in my publications on the Literotica website, as well as my self-published (erotic) horror writing on Amazon. View all posts by Mawr Gorshin
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Gemella: A genus that has been reclassified into BACILLALES incertae sedis because of its ambiguous taxonomy. Previously it was considered part of the Staphylococcaceae family.Staphylococcaceae: Family of gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic bacteria, in the order Bacillales. Genera include Gemella, Macrococcus, Salinicoccus, and STAPHYLOCOCCUS.Gram-Positive Cocci: Coccus-shaped bacteria that retain the crystal violet stain when treated by Gram's method.Carnobacteriaceae: A family of gram-positive, lactic acid-producing bacteria in the order Lactobacillales. It includes both high-pressure-loving species (piezophiles) found in the deep ocean, and Antarctic species.Abiotrophia: A genus of gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic bacteria in the family Aerococcaceae.Brain Abscess: A circumscribed collection of purulent exudate in the brain, due to bacterial and other infections. The majority are caused by spread of infected material from a focus of suppuration elsewhere in the body, notably the PARANASAL SINUSES, middle ear (see EAR, MIDDLE); HEART (see also ENDOCARDITIS, BACTERIAL), and LUNG. Penetrating CRANIOCEREBRAL TRAUMA and NEUROSURGICAL PROCEDURES may also be associated with this condition. Clinical manifestations include HEADACHE; SEIZURES; focal neurologic deficits; and alterations of consciousness. (Adams et al., Principles of Neurology, 6th ed, pp712-6)Streptococcaceae: A family of gram-positive non-sporing bacteria including many parasitic, pathogenic, and saprophytic forms.RNA, Ribosomal, 16S: Constituent of 30S subunit prokaryotic ribosomes containing 1600 nucleotides and 21 proteins. 16S rRNA is involved in initiation of polypeptide synthesis.Endocarditis, Bacterial: Inflammation of the ENDOCARDIUM caused by BACTERIA that entered the bloodstream. The strains of bacteria vary with predisposing factors, such as CONGENITAL HEART DEFECTS; HEART VALVE DISEASES; HEART VALVE PROSTHESIS IMPLANTATION; or intravenous drug use.Mouth: The oval-shaped oral cavity located at the apex of the digestive tract and consisting of two parts: the vestibule and the oral cavity proper.DNA, Ribosomal: DNA sequences encoding RIBOSOMAL RNA and the segments of DNA separating the individual ribosomal RNA genes, referred to as RIBOSOMAL SPACER DNA.Genes, rRNA: Genes, found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, which are transcribed to produce the RNA which is incorporated into RIBOSOMES. Prokaryotic rRNA genes are usually found in OPERONS dispersed throughout the GENOME, whereas eukaryotic rRNA genes are clustered, multicistronic transcriptional units.Abscess: Accumulation of purulent material in tissues, organs, or circumscribed spaces, usually associated with signs of infection.Phylogeny: The relationships of groups of organisms as reflected by their genetic makeup.
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EEB graduate student Jen-Pan Huang is this year's recipient of the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship from the U-M Museum of Zoology.
by Gail Kuhnlein
Jen-Pan Huang on a collection trip in Ecuador with the first sample of his target species and the first beetle of his U-M collection, Giant Hercules beetle (Dynastes lichyi), from the cloud forest habitat on the eastern slope of the Ecuadorian Andes.
UMMZ's most prestigious student award is given on the basis of outstanding performance as a doctoral student.
“My research focuses on how to quantitatively and objectively define species, the effect of different taxonomic decisions on biodiversity studies, and how biodiversity is generated and structured geographically and ecologically," said Huang.
He studies the rhinoceros beetles (genus Dynastes and Xylotrupes), which appear in many different forms by region. “By using both molecular and morphological data, I show that current taxonomic species and subspecies designation can be very inconsistent. For example, species and subspecies can be statistically equivalent based on results analyzed by newly developed mathematical modeling.” In an upcoming paper in Systematic Biology (Huang and Knowles 2016*), Huang addressed the conundrum of subspecies versus species designations. The use of such designations varies systematically among taxa from different regions, suggesting the difference between species versus subspecies reflects different taxonomic practices, as opposed to actual biological differences.
“With these results, and specimens from museum collections, I also completed a taxonomic revision of the Dynastes beetles. Together, these projects demonstrate how the findings from modern statistical species designation can be applied in practice such that they have direct and lasting impacts on biodiversity studies.
“As a complement to this work, I have also tested the effects of ecological and geographic difference on species diversification. This research shows that in the Dynastes beetles, the importance of habitat reformation in Amazonia outweighs the importance of the famous geological event – the rise of the Isthmus of Panama – in promoting species diversification in the Americas. Moreover, this increase in diversification rates would have gone undetected with the conventional taxonomic treatment (i.e., regional differences in taxonomic practices obscured the actual macroevolutionary dynamics in the beetles).”**
In other research, Huang has focused on the theme of macroevolutionary dynamics, with a study of the Asian Xylotrupes beetle, to test if population subdivision and species diversification are results of different geographic isolation mechanisms. “This research shows that oceanic barriers in the Malaysian Archipelago can promote population subdivision, but the speciation rate is correlated with the predicted level of habitat fragmentation, suggesting that population genetic structure and species diversification pattern are the results of different isolation mechanisms,” Huang explained.
“With the combination of JP’s scholarship (he has an impressive publication and funding record, including a NSF DIG), outreach, and work in the museum, he embodies the multiple dimensions that the Tinkle Scholarship honors,” said Professor Lacey Knowles, Huang’s advisor.
“What makes JP a standout is the combination of his talent with the generation and analysis of data using a quantitative framework, but perhaps most importantly, his unending enthusiasm and love of insects – and in particular beetles. Specifically, it is only because of his tremendous knowledge of the beetles that he studies that he is able to address questions in which the insight extends far beyond the taxonomic group. His work makes significant contributions to the broader field of evolution and systematics. Moreover, with the success of his field collections, JP will be accessioning over 700 specimens he has curated to the Insect Division at the University of Michigan.”
The scholarship was endowed by the family and friends of Dr. Tinkle, who joined U-M in 1965 as professor and curator of reptiles and amphibians. Tinkle became director of the Museum of Zoology in 1975 and served until his death in 1980. He was a systematist, an evolutionary biologist, an evolutionary ecologist and an exceptional teacher whose most important legacy is the group of students he inspired. In the field, especially, he was known for his enthusiasm, endurance and sense of humor. It is entirely appropriate that a scholarship awarded to an outstanding student in the Museum of Zoology each year is in his name. The award is for $5,000.
* Huang J-P, Knowles LL (2016) The species versus subspecies conundrum: quantitative delimitation from integrating multiple data types within a single Bayesian approach in Hercules beetles. Syst. Biol., in press.
**Huang J.-P. (2016) The Great American Biotic Interchange and diversification history in Dynastes beetles (Scarabaeidae; Dynastinae). Zoological Journal of Linnean Society, accepted.
Jen-Pan Huang and Mark O’Brien entertain and inform at the insect station, where the Hercules Beetles were a big hit.
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Home > Research & Education& > Participant Summaries& > 2011 Participant Summaries
2011 Participant Summaries
Evaluation of Health Map: a patient centred web based service for supporting HIV infected patients
Gamage DG, Sidat M, Read T, Cummings R, Bradshaw CS, Howley K, Fehler GF, Chen MY and Fairley CK
Sexual Health 2011; 8 194 - 198
Our aim was to describe the use of and responses to a self-management website, ‘Health Map’, established to address the key chronic health issues of HIV-positive people. Health Map assessed health issues against current commendations for: treatment adherence, monitoring CD4 counts and viral load, psychological health and physical activity, vaccination, cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, blood pressure, alcohol consumption, smoking, body mass index, and cervical screening for women and sexually transmissible infection (STI) screening for men who have sex with men (MSM). A total of 552 people, with a mean age of 37 years, completed the full ‘Health Map’ program, of whom 536 (97%) were Australian, 425 (77%) were male, including 268 (63%) MSM. Online responses to several health indices were of concern: 49% missed at least one dose of antiretroviral therapy per month and only 41% had had an HIV viral load test in the 4 months prior. Only 43% reported regular physical activity, and 49% and 61% reported vaccination for hepatitis A and B. The proportion tested within the recommended periods for fasting cholesterol (40%), fasting blood sugar (35%) and cervical screening (43%) in women or STI screening for MSM (53%) were low. A substantial proportion of individuals completing the online survey reported information that would suggest their HIV and more general health care is suboptimal. These data are consistent with community surveys and indicate the need for improvement in the chronic management of HIV.
Effects of periodic presumptive treatment (PPT) on three bacteria sexually transmitted infections and HIV among female sex workers in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Bruce E, Bauai L, Masta A, Rooney PJ, Paniu M, Sapuri M, Keogh L, Kaldor J, and Fairley CK
Sexual Health 2011; 8: 222- 228
To determine if 3-monthly periodic presumptive treatments (PPT) would reduce the prevalence of STIs in female sex workers (FSW) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea between November 2003 and September 2004. FSW were enrolled, counselled and interviewed. Informed consent was obtained. Testing for Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) and Trichomonas vaginalis (Tv) and serology for HIV were performed at baseline and final follow-up visits. Each FSW received 3-monthly oral amoxicillin, probenecid, a combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid, and azithromycin on 4 occasions. Tinidazole was administered once. The cohort consisted of 129 FSW at baseline and 71 at final follow-up visit. There was a significant decline in the proportion with positive Ct from 38% to 16% (P = 0.001), Ng from 56% to 23% (P = <0.001) and Tv from 62% to 30% (P = <0.001) between baseline and the final follow-up visit. HIV prevalence increased from 15% to 21% (P = 0.125). PPT was effective in reducing STI but rates rebounded rapidly. Several new HIV infections occurred. If PPT is to be effective in FSW where the prevalence of STIs is so high, then 100% condom use with clients and regular sexual partners (RSP) and high rates of notification of RSP are required to reduce incidence and prevalence of STIs.
Maximising retention in a longitudinal study of genital Chlamydia trachomatis among young women in Australia
Walker J, Fairley CK, Urban E, Chen MY, Bradshaw CS Walker S, Donovan B, Tabrizi SN, McNamee K, Currie M, Pirotta M, Kaldor JK, Gurrin LC, Birden H, Harindra V, Bowden F, Garland SM, Gunn J, Hocking JS
BMC Public Health; 2011: 11:56
The Chlamydia Incidence and Re-infection Rates Study (CIRIS) was a longitudinal study of Australian women aged 16 to 25 years recruited from primary health care clinics. They were followed up via the post at three-monthly intervals and required to return questionnaires and self collected vaginal swabs for chlamydia testing. The protocol was designed to maximise retention in the study and included using recruiting staff independent of the clinic staff, recruiting in private, regular communication with study staff, making the follow up as straightforward as possible and providing incentives and small gifts to engender good will. The study recruited 66% of eligible women. Despite the nature of the study (sexual health) and the mobility of the women (35% moved address at least once), 79% of the women completed the final stage of the study after 12 months. Loss to follow up was associated with a lower education level, recruitment from a sexual health centre as opposed to a general practice clinic and previously testing positive for chlamydia. No other factors such as age, numbers of sexual partners were associated with loss to follow up. The methods used were considered effective for recruiting and retaining women in the study.
The difference in determinants of Chlamydia trachomatis and Mycoplasma genitalium in a sample of young Australian women
Walker J, Fairley CK, Bradshaw CS, Tabrizi SN, Chen MY, Twin J, Taylor N, Donovan B, Kaldor JK, McNamee K, Urban E, Walker S, Currie M, Birden H, Bowden F, Gunn J, Pirotta M, Gurrin L, Harindra V, Garland S and Hocking JS
BMC Infectious Diseases; 2011: 11:35
A cohort of 16 to 25 year old Australian women were recruited from primary health care clinics to determine chlamydia and MG prevalence and incidence using vaginal swabs collected at recruitment. Among 1116 participants, chlamydia prevalence was 4.9% and MG prevalence was 2.4%. Younger women were more likely to have a chlamydia infection, and younger age was not associated with MG infection. MG was associated with vaginal discharge, but chlamydia showed no associations with any reported symptoms. Having two or more partners in the last 12 months was more strongly associated with chlamydia than MG. Unprotected sex with three or more partners was less strongly associated with chlamydia than MG These results demonstrate significant chlamydia and MG prevalence in Australian women. The differences in strengths of association between numbers of sexual partners and unprotected sex for infection with chlamydia and MG may be due to differences in the transmission dynamics between these infections.
HIV knowledge, risk perception and safer sex practices among female sex workers in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Bruce EA, Bauai L, Sapuri M, Kaldor JM, Fairley CK, Keogh LA
International Journal of Women’s Health; 2011:3: 53–61
The study explored the extent to which knowledge of HIV and perception of risk influence safer sex practices among female sex workers (FSWs) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. FSWs. Qualitative data were collected using semistructured interviews with 142 FSWs through focus group discussions and 32 individual interviews. Despite some common misperceptions, most FSWs were basically aware of the risks of HIV and informed about transmission and prevention. Most reported using condoms ‘sometimes’ (79%), and 15% ‘never’ used condoms. Only 6% always used condoms with clients, and none used condoms with their regular sexual partners (RSPs). Among these FSWs, being knowledgeable about the risks, transmission and prevention of HIV did not translate into safe sex. The findings suggest that there are barriers to safer sex practices that could heighten HIV vulnerability and possibly be responsible for infection in FSWs. Specific interventions that focus on improving condom self-efficacy in FSWs and simultaneously target clients and RSPs with safer sex messages are recommended.
Low Incidence of bacterial vaginosis in cohort of young Australian women
Fethers KA, Fairley CK, Morton A, Hocking JS, Fehler G, Kennedy LJ, Bradshaw CS.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases 2011; 38(2): 124-126
The study was conducted in women aged between 17 and 21 years attending the University of Melbourne. This population has a low prevalence of BV of 4.7%. Women with no previous history of BV could participate in the 12-month cohort study. A questionnaire and study kit to self collect vaginal samples was posted to participants every 3 months for 12 months. Women who developed incident BV during the 12 month study period were no longer included in the cohort. The study showed that incident BV was uncommon in young women from a low prevalence population who had low numbers of sexual partners, and importantly, was absent in women reporting no sexual activity. These data should provoke further interest in the association between BV and sexual activity and inform the debate about possible sexual transmission of BV.
The job satisfaction of female sex workers working in licensed brothels in Victoria, Australia
Bilardi JE, Miller A, Hocking JS, Keogh L, Cummings R, Chen MY, Bradshaw CS and Fairley CK
J Sex Med 2011; 8:116–122
The job satisfaction levels and standards of living of sex workers in licensed brothels in Victoria were compared with Australian women. Survey data was compared with identical questions from the Households, Income and Labour Dynamics, Australia Survey. A structured survey was undertaken with sex workers attending sexual health services at Melbourne Sexual Health Centre. Of 112 sex workers who agreed to participate in the study, 85 (76%) completed the survey. The average number of years women had been working as sex workers was three (range 1 month – 18y). The main reasons women started sex work was because “they needed the money” (69%), 44% were attracted to the flexible hours and 43% had a particular goal in mind. The two biggest concerns women had about sex work were their safety (65%) and the risk of sexually transmitted infections (65%). Women reported that they primarily do sex work for financial gain although a significant minority preferred sex work to other work that they would be likely to do.
Participant Studies:
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Gigs Mumford News Mumford Sighting Tour 2016
Mumford and Sons Live in Birmingham, Alabama – April 2016
Over 100 photos of Mumford and Sons live at The Legacy Arena at the BJCC in Birmingham, Alabama on April 10th, 2016.
Gigs Mumford News
Mumford and Sons Austin 5000 Presale Code Ticket Information
Get Presale Codes and Information about the new Mumford and Sons Austin 5000 Tour.
Gigs Mumford News Tour 2016
Mumford and Sons to play Hyde Park in London July 2016
Mumford and Sons just announced they will be playing Hyde Park in London on July 8th, 2016! More details inside.
Mumford and Sons European May 2016 Dates Announced
Mumford and Sons announce a May 2016 tour in Europe. The dates and a quote from Winnie inside.
Gigs Tour 2015
Mumford and Sons at The Commons in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
This page is part of our 2015 concert series which you can find here.
Were you at this show? Please submit any pictures or reviews you’d like to here. We’d love to post them!
[foogallery id=”15227″]
View more images here and here.
Ghosts That We Knew
Dust Bowl Dance
Little Lion Man
Contests Gigs Giveaway Tour 2015
Enter to WIN 2 Tickets to see Mumford and Sons in Edmonton, Alberta!
You read right! We are giving away 2 tickets to see Mumford and Sons at Rexall Place in Edmonton, Alberta on August 11th, 2015!
Contest runs from August 2nd, 2015 12am EST to August 7th, 2015 12am EST. The winner will be notified via email, twitter, and/or Facebook (if applicable). The winner will also be announced on this page once the contest ends.
One winner will receive 2 tickets to the Mumford and Sons show at Rexall Place in Edmonton, Alberta on August 11th, 2015. Tickets will be delivered via a PDF file that the winner must print out in order to attend the show.
You can enter as many times as the app will allow (2 possibilities for daily entry) in the contest time period.
Seats for the show are section 203, Row 34, Seats 3 and 4.
No purchase necessary. Must be at least 13 years of age to enter.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Good luck!
Mumford and Sons at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre in Raleigh, NC
View the entire show playlist here.
Mumford and Sons at Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusettes
This article is a part of our concert series. Click here to view the entire series.
Thistle and Weeds
Awake My Soul
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Course Rules & Plans
Why study the Master of Philosophy at UNE?
The University of New England is committed to maintaining its strong research culture, underpinned by high research training standards. The Master of Philosophy Rules provide the framework for one of the University's AQF Level 9 awards. They provide the rigorous processes that are essential for the maintenance of academic quality and integrity in the University's operations, and that reflect the University's values of providing a formative, respectful, inclusive, flexible and innovative environment for the delivery of high quality research training for its students.
Eligible Australian and New Zealand students who meet the criteria for entry to this course will not incur fees and will be funded under the Australian Government's Research Training Program (RTP) for the normal duration of the course. International Students incur tuition fees.
Research pathway which may lead directly into Doctoral programs.
Degree Snapshot
1.5 or 2 Years Full-time
Up to 4 years Part-time
2019 STUDY OPTIONS
Research Period 1, Online
Research Period 1, On Campus
Official Abbreviation MPhil
Course Type Postgraduate Research
CRICOS Code Approved
Commencing
Admission Period
Armidale Research Period 1 Online
Armidale Research Period 1 On Campus
Fees RTP / International
For fee information, click here
All students apply directly to Research Services at UNE using Research Services admission form(s)
All applicants must meet the requirements for all Higher Degrees by Research as stated in the English Language Requirements Higher than the University Minimum Requirements Annex to the University's English Language Requirements for Admission Rule.
1. Admission to candidature in the degree of Master of Philosophy (Mphil) may be approved by the Committee only when the Head of School has:
(a) certified that the necessary facilities and appropriate support for the applicant undertaking the proposed MPhil program are available; and
(b) nominated an appropriate Principal Supervisor and Co-supervisor(s) in accordance with Rule 4.
2. The Committee may, on the recommendation of the relevant Head of School, admit to candidature into the course for the degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) an applicant who:
(a) has a degree of Bachelor with at least second class honurs (AQF Level 8) or equivalent in an appropriate field of study; or
(b) has a degree at AQF Level 7 or equivalent and has adequate relevant preparation since graduation. Adequate relevant preparation may be gained by an approved academic course, professional training, during an occupation or through peer reviewed publications; and
(c) has completed and had approved by the Committee a MPhil research proposal.
3. All applicants must meet the University's English Language Requirements for Admission Rule.
Please contact Research Services on (02) 6773 3715 or for online information go to AskUNE
These course rules & plans are ONLY to be used if you commenced, transferred or changed versions in the Master of Philosophy in 2019.
1. Admission to Candidature
1.1. Admission to candidature in the degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) may be approved by the Committee only when the Head of School has:
1.2. The Committee may, on the recommendation of the relevant Head of School, admit to candidature into the course for the degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) an applicant who:
(a) has a degree of Bachelor with at least second class Honours (AQF Level 8) or equivalent in an appropriate field of study; or
1.3. All applicants must meet the University’s English Language Requirements for Admission Rule.
Master of Philosophy is available in
2. Period of Candidature
2.1. The minimum period of candidature is one year (two years for part-time candidates), unless otherwise approved by the Committee.
2.2. The maximum period of candidature is normally two years (four years for part-time candidates), extensions may be granted by the Committee in recognition of exceptional circumstances.
2.3. For applicants upgrading from another course the maximum period of candidature is reduced by the period of enrolment in the course from which the candidate has changed.
2.4. For applicants transferring from an equivalent course in another institution the maximum period of candidature permitted to be completed at that institution is half of the maximum period specified in Rule 2.2.
3. Conditions of Candidature
3.1. Each MPhil candidate is required to consult regularly with his or her supervisors. This may be either in person or using ICT, including video. The supervisors and the Head of School will determine the nature and extent of such consultation after consultation with the candidate.
3.2. The candidate is required to complete an academic progress report every 6 months.
3.3. The Committee, on the advice of the Head of School, may grant leave of absence from the course of study and research in special cases. The period of such leave shall not be counted as part of the prescribed term of candidature.
3.4. The candidate is required to pursue the course wholly under the control of the University.
3.5. Research may be undertaken away from the University, on the recommendation of the Head of School if the Committee is satisfied that:
(a) the candidate will have access to the required facilities; and
(b) an appropriate supervisor at the away location will be appointed, unless the Head of School recommends otherwise; and
(c) the nature and extent of the consultation between the candidate and University supervisor(s) will be appropriate.
3.6. The candidate may enrol in specified coursework units concurrently with the MPhil if the units are considered by the Committee, on the recommendation of the Head of School, to be necessary for successful completion of the MPhil.
3.7. The Committee, on the recommendation and rationale from the Head of School, may approve enrolment in another course concurrently with enrolment in the MPhil.
3.8. A candidate may be required to show cause in relation to their performance in the program, consistent with the Higher Degree Research Show Cause Policy and Procedures.
4. Supervisors - Nomination, Appointment and Responsibilities
4.1. The Head of School must nominate at least two supervisors of the candidate, for appointment by the Committee. This will be varied only under exceptional circumstances as deemed by the Head of School.
4.2. One supervisor shall be nominated as Principal Supervisor and the remaining as Co-supervisors.
4.3. Principal and Co-supervisors must comply with the Registration of Research Higher Degree Supervisors Policy and Procedures.
4.4. The nomination of supervisor will include an estimate of the expected percentage input from each supervisor.
4.5. For external candidates, a suitable supervisor at the external location, who has agreed to act as such, shall be nominated, where appropriate, as a Co-supervisor.
4.6. The Committee, on the recommendation of the Head of School, may recommend termination of candidature, if it is satisfied that the University can no longer provide appropriate supervision. In such circumstance, the University will provide any necessary administrative assistance to the candidate to facilitate the transfer to another institution.
4.7. The candidate has the right to request a change of supervisor. Such a request must be submitted to the Head of School, who after consultation will provide the Committee with a recommendation and nomination of alternative supervisor for approval.
5. Examination Process
5.1. Submission Requirements
5.1.1. The candidate shall present for examination a thesis in a format approved by the Committee embodying the results of the MPhil work.
5.1.2. The thesis, exclusive of appendices, shall not exceed 30,000 words. In special cases these limits may be exceeded on the recommendation of the Principal Supervisor and Head of School and approval of the Committee.
5.1.3. A thesis must be in English unless the Committee has approved otherwise.
5.1.4. The sources from which the information is derived, the extent to which the work of others has been used and to which the assistance of individuals, associations or institutions has been obtained, must be acknowledged generally in a preface or introduction, specifically in notes, a bibliography or appendices, and must be, throughout the thesis, shown clearly and fully by appropriate references.
5.1.5. The candidate may not present as the thesis any work that has been the basis of the award of a degree at this or another university but, if clearly indicated may be incorporated in the thesis.
5.1.6. The candidate and supervisors will ensure compliance with the Management and Storage of Research Data and Materials Policy.
5.1.7. The candidate shall submit to the Committee the thesis in digital format and three hard copies. If the thesis has multi-media components, four copies of such components must also be submitted along with clear instructions as to their usage as well as a listing of computer hardware, software and other requirements needed by examiners and other readers of the work. All multimedia components must be accessible by examiners.
5.1.8. At the time of thesis submission, the Principal Supervisor shall submit certification to the Committee that the supervisors and Head of School consider the form and content of the thesis suitable for examination.
5.1.9. The Committee may, in exceptional circumstances, accept for examination a thesis without the certification of the Principal Supervisor and/or the Head of School. The examiners will not be advised that the thesis was submitted without School support.
5.2. Thesis Examination Process
5.2.1. Prior to the submission of a thesis the Head of School and Principal Supervisor must recommend to the Committee the names of two examiners and a reserve third examiner, selected from a pool of at least four potential examiners, assembled through consultation between the Principal Supervisor, the candidate and all current supervisors. The Committee makes the final appointment. The candidate will not be given any indication of the final set of examiners that have been recommended and appointed.
5.2.2. At least two of the examiners must be independent experts of international standing in the field of research, with one of the two being external to the University and to any collaborating institution involved in the work. The Committee must be advised on both potential conflicts of interest (Conflict of Interest Policy), provide evidence of international standing and indicate whether each examiner has experience examining higher-degree research theses. The Head of School or Principal Supervisor, as appropriate, will obtain written or email consent from each examiner excepting the reserve, to examine the thesis within 6 weeks of receipt.
5.2.3. Additional examiners, if required during the examination process will be made from the original pool of examiners, unless otherwise instructed by the Committee.
5.2.4. Each examiner shall make a separate written report on the merits of the thesis, but thereafter may be required to consult with the other examiners and report to the Committee. Each examiner will be requested to provide his or her report within six weeks of receipt of the thesis. If an examiner fails to provide his or her report, after appropriate reminders, within a maximum of two months, the Committee, after consultation with the relevant Head of School, may notify the examiner that his or her services are no longer required and the reserve examiner may then be activated as a replacement.
5.3. Thesis Examination Outcomes
5.3.1. Taking into account the recommendations of the examiners, the Committee may:
(a) recommend that the degree be awarded;
(b) recommend that the degree be awarded conditional upon the making of such amendments as the Committee deems appropriate;
(c) request the examiners to consult and report to the Committee;
(d)appoint an additional examiner or examiners;
(e) appoint an external adjudicator who shall consider the examiners’ reports in light of the thesis and recommend a resolution to the Committee;
(f) require the candidate to sit for such written, oral or practical examinations as the Committee may prescribe;
(g) permit a candidate to revise the thesis for re-examination if, in the opinion of the Committee the work is of sufficient merit to warrant this concession;
(h) recommend that the degree be not awarded.
5.3.2. A candidate awarded the degree in terms of Rule 5.3.1(b) shall complete the amendments within three months for minor amendments and six months for major amendments. These will be made to the satisfaction of the Principal Supervisor and the relevant Head of School.
5.3.3. A candidate permitted to revise a thesis for re-examination in terms of Rule 5.3.1(g) shall complete the revision within 9 months under the supervision of a Principal Supervisor or supervisors endorsed by the Committee.
5.3.4. A candidate who has revised a thesis in terms of Rule 5.3.1(g) and the outcome is that the degree not be awarded shall only be eligible for a further examination through an appeal under the Academic Assessment Appeals Policy.
5.3.5. An external adjudicator will only be appointed by the Committee if the two examiners are unable to come to a consensus recommendation. The adjudicator will be required to consider the examiners’ reports and the thesis and recommend a resolution. If the adjudicator recommends that the candidate’s thesis be revised and resubmitted, then the adjudicator will serve as the sole examiner for the resubmitted thesis.
5.4. Process Upon Recommendation of 'Degree Not Be Awarded'
5.4.1. Where any examination, adjudication or consultation report is received by the Committee, on which basis the Committee is considering recommending that the candidate not be awarded the degree pursuant to 5.3.1(h), the Candidate and their Principal Supervisor shall be notified in writing of the content of that report and may within eight weeks lodge a response limited to the academic and substantive matters raised therein.
5.4.2. The Principal Supervisor and candidate’s responses may then be sent to the examiners who shall be invited to provide a comment on the impact of those responses on their original recommendations.
5.4.3. The Committee shall take into account the submissions of the Principal Supervisor and/or candidate, and any comments on these from the examiners, in determining whether the degree be awarded.
5.5. Appeals against decisions of the Committee concerning academic assessment of MPhil candidates
Candidates have the right of appeal against an unfavourable examination outcome described in Rule 5.3.1 and may appeal under Section 1.8(g) of the Academic Assessment Appeals Policy and Section 10 of the Academic Assessment Appeals Procedures.
Course Aims
The Master of Philosophy course aims are to provide a program of independent, supervised research for high calibre graduates that make an advanced contribution to scholarship and mastery of a scientific field of knowledge.
Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
exhibit a mastery of a field of knowledge within arts, health science, economics or business by: (a) having systematically acquired intellectual skill and experience that is grounded in contemporary developments in the field; (b) creating and communicating scholarship of a quality to satisfy peer review, extending the frontier of the field of knowledge and potentially meriting publication; (c) demonstrating knowledge of research principles and methods applicable in advanced academic inquiry;
conduct research independently and systematically by: (a) conceptualising, designing and implementing a project which will increase knowledge that is applicable or contributes new insights to the field; (b) evaluating ideas and making informed judgements on complex issues or challenges in the field of specialisation; (c) communicating ideas, methodologies and conclusions clearly and effectively to specialist and non-specialist audiences; and
be accountable for their own learning and professional training by: (a) demonstrating the capacity to undertake further learning and/or a further career in or around research at an advanced level, and contributing substantially to the development or dissemination of new techniques, ideas or approaches: (b) displaying the qualities and attributes necessary to exercise personal responsibility and autonomous initiative in complex and unpredictable situations, whether in professional environments or in the public domain.
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‘We must remain united’ says Palestinian student
Monday, October 1. 2007
Up to 100 Palestinian students in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem have launched a campaign to collect stationery and satchels for their peers in the isolated Gaza Strip ahead of the new academic year, which starts next month.
“It’s a duty not a favour,” asserted Mohammad Abdel Aziz, a 15-year-old student.
“We must remain united and proffer a helpful hand to our schoolmates in the besieged Gaza Strip,” added Abdel Aziz.
The generosity of stationers in the West Bank gave the student’s donation drive a much-needed boost.
The students visited several West Bank cities to raise as much as they can from school items for the Gaza students.
They dressed in white T-shirt carrying the campaign’s motto: “Gaza and West Bank…One Homeland.”
“In launching this campaign, we declare our rejection of the inter-Palestinian conflict and underline the unity of the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Naser Lahham, the director of the World Movement for Defending Children, one of three NGOs who organised the campaign.
“We want to keep children away from the Hamas-Fatah infighting,” he added, noting that the campaign is aimed at collecting 10,000 satchels and another 10,000 stationery.
“Even token donations stresses the message of a Palestine united,” said one organiser.
“Our goal is to get the Gaza students pursue their studies away from the stray bullets and trigger-happy militants,” he added.
“We might succeed in what the politicians have failed, who knows.”
The Gaza Strip has been under a crippling economic boycott after the West cut its aid in March of last year when Hamas was voted to power.
The deteriorating economic conditions, which worsened over the past two months, forced many students to drop out and join the labour market to eke out a living and help support for their families in the impoverished territory where unemployment rates towered to more than 60 per cent.
« Israelis bulldoze Palestinian teen
Support Khaled Mudallal’s Right to Education »
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narrativesculptures
Automated Process as art: Authorship from Mathematics to Visual Arts (Part 3)
Posted on 13 January 2016 13 January 2016 by narrativesculptures
The epitome of art as resulting from automated process can be find in fractals. We will discuss two examples to underline two major components of the automated process; the structure, or skeleton, implied by the automata, and the theoretically possible infiniteness of its application in time and space. Fractals are geometrical figures defined by Mandelbrot in Les objets fractals (1975) in an attempt to describe the geometry of nature. These objects are often use by iterated processes and are self-similar for certain scale factors. Similar to the comments by Mandelbrot in his article Fractals and an Art for the Sake of Science, we can distinguished between two types of fractals, the organic and inorganic ones. The organic fractals identifies by and obvious similarity with nature whereas inorganic share the structural quality of independence of scale but keep evident traces of man’s hands.
Inorganic fractals usually results from a defined automated iterated process. For instance, the Koch curve is obtained by infinitely adding triangles on the middle thirds of each segments of its constitution. Surprises arise when one realises the same figure can be obtained from different automated processes. The Thue-Morse sequence is a sequence of zeros and ones built iteratively in such a way to avoid any triplet repetitions. It is constructed by the infinite concatenation of the complement of a binery sequence. The sequence is constructed as follow: 01, 0110, 01101001, 0110100110010110 etc.
It has been shown it was intrinsically related to the Koch curve: by assigning directions values to the digits of the sequence, it is possible to obtain the iterations of the Koch curve (Ma and Holdener, 2005). In a similar fashion, by assigning another set of instruction to the digits it has been demonstrated that the same Thue-Morse sequence can serve to obtain a tamil kolam (types of ritual figure drawn with sand or rice powder) (Allouche, Allouche and Shallit, 2006). The three entities, the Thue-Morse sequence, the Koch curve and this particular kolam are simply different interpretation of a common genetic code hidden in their automated iterative processes. (Figure 8) An automated process could, therefore, generate three or more different objects that we, from a visual point of view, consider distinct.
Figure 8: A Kolam and its equivalence as Koch curve and Thue-Morse sequence
Finally, we present a set of fractals named Julia sets and the Mandelbrot set. Again, it all roots back to the idea of representing complex numbers in a plane. Complex numbers are have two components, and real part on which we add an imaginary part, or equivalently a multiple of the square root of -1, denoted i. We usually write them a+bi. To reprensent them on the plane, we give the real component value to the x-axis and the imaginary part to the y-axis. Therefore the point (3,4) represent the complex number 3+4i. This representation helped understanding the way complex numbers multiply themselves and led to studies of conformal mappings as previously seen.
With this coordinate equivalence for a complex number, we can represent complex numbers on the plane as vectors with a length and a direction. The new vectors obtained from the multiplication has an angle equals to the sum of the previous vectors and a length equals to the product of their length. As a result, a number bigger than one will spiral out to infinity if multiplied by itself an infinite number of times. At the end of the First World War, the Academy of Science of Paris promised a prize for the better paper on complex numbers’ dynamic[1]. From his hospital room where he cured his injuries, Gaston Julia wrote many important papers on the topic. He defined his set by the set of complex numbers not diverging to infinity when iterated in rational functions. For C a nonzero complex constant, the Julia set of quadratic forms f(z) = z² + C forms a fractal. Indeed, at the time, Julia did not have the tools to visualize the complexity of these sets. When the computer entered universities in the 60’s and 70’s, researchers started to code programs that would automatically generates Julia sets. The results started to evoke, even if only slightly, how rich wew the images Julia was trying to draw decades ago.
Figure 8: Julia Set
Nowadays, colors are added to these figures to produce marvelous pictures. On top of having to compute a great number of points in the complex plane in order to obtain a single picture, by a step by step focusing figures on the border of these sets we can obtain fractal zooms. In theory, these zooms could produce infinitely many different forms and could last forever, such is the complexity of Julia sets. (Figure 9)[1] A French mathematician, decided two classify the Julia sets into connected and disconnected ones. His classification led him to another infinitely complex set now dubbed the Mandelbrot set on which infinite zooms are also possible. The exploration of fractals led mathematicians into trying to define three dimensional versions of Julia sets and the Mandelbrot set. Difficulty arises and multiplication for complex numbers are to be represented. Since the complex numbers are defined on two dimensions, the real and imaginary one, the complex multiplication can be visualised in the plane, the representation of two complex numbers would need four dimensions. Fortunately, Paul Nylander have found a way to represent such mapping in three dimensions and three dimensional fractals based on this operation have arised, as for example the Mandelbox and the Mandelbulb. (Figure 10) As for the planar versions of these fractals, three dimensional fractals are never fully seen since they are infinitely intricate. Although, with the arrival of 3D printers, there’s been many attempt the represent some fractals such as the Sierpinski triangle. As well, it worths mentioning Tom Beddard’s work with fractal sculptures with lasers[2].
Figure 9: Inside of the Mandelbox, image by Krzysztof Marczak
Fractals apply naturally to arts, but they can also find specific technical application. For instance, there are many attempt to construct virtual landscapes based on fractal oriented programs. This tradition find its roots in the work of Voss who was developing programs to generate infinite maps, which has been done as well by Mandelbrot.
Again, the question of author seems problematic. The multi-level architecture behind these zooms starts with the definition of complex numbers, the idea of the complex plane, the studies of Julia, the long story behind computers and their programs, and then gigantic calculations made by the computers to generate a fractal zoom. The choice of the zoom’s point and the applications of specific colors is what is left to the last person involved in line, the artist. In that case, what is the fractal, where does it stands between discovery, invention and piece of art. Mandelbrot put it in these words: ‘’ Thus fractal art seems to fall outside the usual categories of ‘invention’, ‘discovery’ and ‘creativity’.’’ (Mandelbrot 1993, 14)
If again, no simple solution can be drawn from these various examples, they can still be linked to the idea of author. The idea of authorship is not only to refer to the existence of a creative process, but as well to contain a certain mark, a certain signature proper to the author. Of course, in the previous examples, elements of signature could be grasp at different level, in the choice of topic for a conformal mapping photograph, in the program’s style of coding lines, in the idea behind the proofs a the different theorems leading to these constructions. Since traces of authorship could be found at all these level, it shows that the notion transcend the simple binary separation between what is art and what is patentable. I urges as well that research centers such like universities to allow more permeability between areas of sciences and arts and include more classes on cross-disciplinary classes where students and researchers from both groups can meet and work together not only to solve problems, but to propose new ones as well.
Félix Lambert (First ideas presented at Harvard in 2013, first draft for this paper finished may 2015)
[1] For the detailed history, the reader is referred to Michèle Audin’s work: Fatou, Julia, Montel: The Great Prize of Mathematical Science of 1918.Springer, 2011.
[1] http://social-biz.org/2010/03/28/generating-chaos/
[2] http://www.visualnews.com/2013/06/23/faberge-fractals-by-tom-beddard/
Mediagraphy :
Allouche, Gabrielle, Jean-Paul Allouche et Jeffrey Shallit. 2006. « Kolam indiens, dessins sur le sable aux îles Vanatu, courbe de Sierpinski et morphismes de monoïde ». En Ligne : Annales de L’Institut Fourier, Tome 56, n°7, p. 2115-2130. Consulté le 07/02/12. http://aif.cedram.org/item?id=AIF_2006_56_7_2115_0
Arnold, Douglas N. and Johnathan Rogness. 2008. « Möbius Transforms Revealed ». Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 55, Nu. 10, p. 1226-1231.
Audin, Michèle. 2011. Fatou, Julia, Montel : The Great Prize of Mathematical Sciences of 1918, and Beyond. New York: Springer, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 2014, History of Mathematics Subseries.
Bouton, Charles. 1902. « Nim, a Game with a Complete Mathematical Theory ». Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, Vol. 3, no. 1. P. 35-39.
Calaprice, Alice, Ed. 2000. The Expandable Quotable Einstein. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Frampton, Hollis. 1970. Zorns Lemma. In A Hollis Frampton Odyssey, DVD 1, 59 min. Criterion Collection 2012.
Ma, Jun and Judy Holdener. 2005. « When Thue-Morse Meets Koch ». Fractals: Complex Geometry, Patterns, and Scaling in Nature and Society, vol. 13. n°3, p. 191-206.
Mandelbrot, Benoît. Les Objets Fractals : Formes Hasard et Dimension, 4th Ed. Paris: Flammarion, 1995.
Mandelbrot, Benoït. 1993. ‘’Fractals and an Art for the Sake of Sciences’’. In Michel Emmer Ed. The Visual Mind: Art and Mathematics. Cambridge: MIT Press, p.11-14.
Munkres, James R. Topology. 2nd Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2000.
Schattschneider, Doris. 1992 (1990). Visions de la Symétrie: Les Cahiers, les Dessins Périodiques et les Oeuvres Corrélatives de M.C. Escher. Traduit de l’américain par Marie Bouazzi. Paris : Éditions du Seuil.
Smit, B. de and H.W. Lenstra Jr. 2003. « Artful Mathematics: The Heritage of M.C. Escher». Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Volume 50, nu 4, p. 446-451.
Stillwell, John. Geometry of Surfaces. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992.
Posted in Automated Process as art: Authorship from Mathematics to Visual Arts (Part 3)Tagged Authorship, automata, Complex numers, Creativity, Faberge fractals, Fatou, fractals, Geometry, Julia Sets, kolam, Mandelbox, Mandelbrot, Mandelbulb, Mappings, Mathematics, Paul Nylander, projections, Tamil, Thue-Morse Sequence, Tom Beddard, Vectors, Visual Arts, von Koch
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Fractal zooms and infinite spaces: the Unbearable Quest for the Sublime
Images in Distortions: From Anamorphosis to Conformal Mappings
L’image retrouvée : de l’anamorphose à la transformation conforme (Partie 1)
Les fondements de l’écriture procédurale : images, espaces et algorithmie musicale de l’algèbre aux fractals. (Chapitre 1)
Les fondements de l’écriture procédurale : images, espaces et algorithmie musicale de l’algèbre aux fractals. (Chapitre 2.1-2.2)
Les fondements de l’écriture procédurale : images, espaces et algorithmie musicale de l’algèbre aux fractals. (Chapitre 3 et Médiagraphie)
Narration et mathématiques: L'utilisation des graphes au cinéma et en bande dessinée (Chapitre 1)
Narration et mathématiques: l’utilisation des graphes au cinéma et dans la bande dessinée (Chapitre 3)
Narration et mathématiques: L’utilisation des graphes au cinéma et en bande dessinée (Chapitre 2)
Narrative sculptures: graph theory
Sharing Paradoxes: Impossible Spaces, Impossible Times and Impossible Facts. The Function of Self-Contradictory Structures in Arts, Sciences and Philosophy. (Part 1)
Alan Moore Algorithme Algèbre Anamorphoses Anamorphosis Art séquentiel Avalon bande dessinée Benoit Peeters Bijection Camil Jordan Cantor Christopher Smith Chris Ware Cinéma Complex Numbers Conformal Contemporary Art courbe paramétrée David Cronenberg Duret-Lutz Escher Existenz Fractal fractals Geometry Graphe Géométrie Gérard Genette Illusion Infinite canvas Jos Leys Julius Corentin Acquefaque Kandinsky Kunzel Lens Literature Looper Mandelbrot Mapping Marc-Antoine Mathieu Mathematics Mathématiques Modern arts Moebius Music Musique Möbius narratologie Narratology Optical Oubapo Palindrome Paradox Perception Philosophy Photography Plane Primer Projection Scott McCloud Sculptures narratives Shane Carruth space-filling curves Stereographic Terminator Time travel Topologie topology Torus Transformation Triangle Understanding comics Visual Arts von Koch
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City Council discusses changes to garbage/recycling services, increasing efforts to keep Natchitoches clean
June 12, 2018 June 12, 2018 / NPJ
Most of Monday night’s City Council meeting, June 11, was housekeeping items as the City enters its new fiscal year. However, Mayor Lee Posey did bring up a few issues before the meeting officially started.
The City’s 5-year contract with Waste Connections for recycling and garbage pickup in the City limits is up on Dec. 31. If everything were to stay the way it is, rates would have to be increased.
“That’s how big the difference is,” said Posey, referring to the difference between what they’re paying now and the figures they’re receiving during contract negotiations. They can’t reveal any figures during these negotiations, but Posey said if the City retains recycling, it’s going to be very expensive.
The City is looking at doing away with recycling and/or back door garbage pick up services. Currently they’re looking over four different options on the bid package. A public hearing will be held before one of the July Council meetings (date TBA) and the Council will vote on the matter at its first meeting in August.
Moving on to another garbage issue, Posey said he’s frustrated with the trashiness of Natchitoches and that the City and residents can do better. The issue includes litter, abandoned cars and vacant lots becoming overgrown. Posey suggested the Council look at the current fines they have set in place and consider increasing them to be more aggressive about keeping Natchitoches clean.
Littering is becoming a problem in Natchitoches, and Council members discussed the number of food containers that people throw out of vehicles. The fine for a first time offense is $300 and it increases to $500 for a third offense.
Currently the City uses a contract service to mow neutral areas, but according to City ordinances, these areas are the property owners’ responsibility. There’s abandoned cars left up on blocks in peoples’ yards and if there’s not an inspection sticker the City can tag them for removal. There are vacant lots around town that aren’t being kept up and it brings the whole neighborhood down.
“We’re a tourist attraction,” said Posey. “We can’t have people trashing up this town.”
In other business, Council member Don Mims presented a proclamation to Staff Sergeant Morgan Fuller declaring June 14, 2018 as US Army Day in commemoration of the Army’s 243rd birthday in Natchitoches.
Other agenda items included:
PLANNING & ZONING – INTRODUCTION:
Change Zoning Classification of Property at 1746 Texas Street from R-1 Residential to B-1 Commercial to Operate the Milestone Consulting Services Office
ORDINANCES – FINAL:
Enter into a Lease of the Hayfield Under Fence at the Natchitoches Waste Water Treatment Plant at End of Laird Fletcher Road for Hay Operations with Glenn Byles
Approve a Conveyance of a 2.09 Acre Tract of Land in Section 74, Township 9 North, Range 7 West, to TSTR Enterprises LLC for $62,700
RESOLUTIONS:
Fix Time, Day, Date and Place of City Council Meetings for the Next 12 Months.
Establish Meeting Times and Places of: Natchitoches Planning Commission, Historic District Commission, Airport Advisory Commission, and Waterworks District No.1.
Appoint Charles Whitehead III, Rev. Bobby Claiborne, Michael D. Lewis, Rickey McCalister, Jamie Flanagan, Issac Lewis, Jacob Cooper, and Ron Brown to the City Planning Commission
Appoint Jared Dunahoe, Dr. Virginia Crossno, Sharon Gahagan, Sr. Steve Horton, Melissa Robinson, and Marion Salter to the Natchitoches Historic District Commission
Appoint Stacy McQueary as Clerk of the Council
Appoint Ronald E. Corkern Jr. as the City Attorney and Daniel T. Murchison Jr., Cloyd Benjamin Jr., Steven D. Crews, J. Chris Guillet, and Lisa V. Johnson as Assistant City Attorneys
Appoint the firm of Johnson, Thomas and Cunningham as the City’s Auditor
Appoint MidSouth Bank as the City’s Fiscal Agent
Designate the Natchitoches Times as the Official Legal Journal for the City
Execute an Extension Agreement to a Claims Administration Service Contract Entered into Between Hammerman & Gainer, Inc. and the City to Extend the Term for a Period of 2-years Beginning on July 1, 2018 and Ending on June 30, 2020.
Enter into a Contract with Hub International Gulf South for the One Beacon Insurance Group Casualty Package Insurance Renewal Effective June 30, 2018 Through June 30, 2019.
Enter into a Maintenance Agreement, Including Mowing and Litter Pickup, with the State of Louisiana, Department of Transportation and Development, Office of Engineering Beginning July 1, 2018 Through June 30, 2019.
Appoint Michael Moulton, Don Mims, Lynn Stevens, Tom Matuschka, Michael Bridges, Lisa Wiggins, Josh Axsom, Monica Llorence, Brian Hicks, Johnny Barnes, Feamula Bradley, Carl Walters III, and Linda Queen to the Mayor’s Health And Fitness Council
Advertise for Bids for the 2017-2018 Street Rehabilitation Program, Phase 2 (Bid No. 0610)
Execute Change Order No. 5 to the Contract Between the City and Regional Construction, LLC For The 2017 Street Rehabilitation Program (Bid No. 0603)
Appoint Cloyd Benjamin Jr. to Fill the Unexpired Term of Andrew Vallien as a Member Of The Board Of Directors of The Industrial Development Board of the City
The next scheduled City Council meeting will be June 25, 2018.
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13 thoughts on “City Council discusses changes to garbage/recycling services, increasing efforts to keep Natchitoches clean”
Missey
What good does it do when you see all of the containers being dumped into the same truck? This has been happening since the beginning. Also is the city going to clean up the properties that it owns? Every summer I go through hell trying to get them to clean a property that is directly behind my house.
Need to look into the possibility of starting a program where an outside vendor picks up the recycled material from a centralized location and pays the City for the material. That would assist in the cost of the program or possibly pay for it. Have a central location where people can bring in their recycling on designated days (including Saturday) and have a couple of existing City employees there to organize and watch the drop-offs to make sure the area it doesn’t become a dump. I have seen this work in other cities….why not Natchitoches?
we should put our garbage on a big barge and send it a float in Cane
River.
Huge Barge
we should put all the garbage on a huge barge in middle of Cane River
and set it a float .
Mike Casey
Please don’t give them ideas,it’s bad enough already and they have no funds!
The citizens of the city of Natchitoches are to blame for recycling not working by refusing to sort their garbage. Not sure the cost benefit ever made sense to begin with the labor, trucks, fuel for picking up and hauling to the recycle center alone made this program a loss leader and probably a negative environmental impact to boot.
I believe we need to recycle for the health of our planet but the employees put both blue and black bins in the same truck. I have seen them pick up a blue bin and dump it into the black bin. If the company and employees are not going to keep the recycle items separate, why should we pay extra.
RhondaS
They dump it in same trash can.
They didn’t recycle anyways… I have seen them pick up the trash can AND the recycle can and dump into the same truck. I agree the trash needs to be picked up by everyone.
Agree. Very disappointing to read Natchitoches is considering ending recycling. Surely this can be resolved. Recycling is the right thing to do and needed in Louisiana
gotta clean up the city and soon.Christmas Festival is coming !
How disappointing that the City would consider ending recycling. There must be some way to lower costs without eliminating this service. It would be a shame for recyclable items to end up in the landfill.
Awesome! Love hearing that the City is aware of the trash issue and is starting the ball rolling on cleaning up the city!
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French Court: Monsanto Guilty of Chemical Poisoning
Appeal court says GMO giant is guilty
By Natural Society
In 2012, I told you about the court in southeast France that found Monsanto guilty of chemically-poisoning farmers. The court declared that Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller was responsible for devastating neurological problems, including memory loss. Now, after an appeal process by Monsanto that lasted years, a French appeal court has upheld the ruling in full.
This case is monumental for a number of reasons, including the fact that it is the first in French history to confirm the ‘chemical poisoning’ of Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller, which was banned in France back in 2007 (after already being pulled off the market by other nations). But this case wasn’t a matter of government policy change — it centered around a French farmer who had been exposed to Lasso.
A grain grower, Paul Francois, was the one responsible for originally taking Monsanto to court back in 2012, stating that he developed neurological problems such as memory loss and headaches after being exposed to Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller back in 2004. Francois said that Monsanto failed to provide proper warnings on the product label.
The court ordered an expert opinion to determine the sum of the damages, and to verify the link between Lasso and the reported illnesses. The case was extremely important, as previous legal action taken against Monsanto by farmers has failed due to the challenge of properly linking pesticide exposure with the experienced side effects.
“I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this,” Francois, 47, told Reuters
As IB Times reports:
“Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, was found guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer by a French court this week. The decision Thursday by an appeal court in Lyon in southeast France upheld a 2012 ruling in which the farmer claimed he suffered neurological problems after working with the U.S. company’s Lasso weedkiller, Reuters reported.”
Post written byNatural Society:
Natural Society staff contribution
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“It doesn’t look good” for Nash to play for Lakers Friday
By Kurt HelinNov 2, 2012, 3:12 PM EDT
Officially Steve Nash is still listed as doubtful and is a game-time decision for the Lakers when they take on the Clippers Friday night.
But if you just want to go ahead and move him into the “not going to play” column, go ahead. Nobody is going to blame you.
Here is what Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times tweeted from shootaround:
It “doesn’t look good” for Steve Nash playing tonight vs. Clippers, says Lakers Coach Mike Brown. Everybody ready for Steve Blake?
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) November 2, 2012
“More Steve Blake” is just not something you hear Lakers fans say. Ever.
Nash ended up with a pretty bad contusion on his shin from an incidental run in with Blazers point guard Damian Lillard. This is not something serious, but early in the season it’s not what you push your 38-year-old point guard to play through, either. Blake and Chris Duhon will get more run. Dwight Howard offered himself up for the job, tweets Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Dwight Howard joked he will start at point guard with Nash’s possible absence. Howard called himself “Tragic Johnson”
— Mark Medina (@MedinaLakersNBA) November 2, 2012
Dwight, that wasn’t not funny. Just so we’re clear.
Tags: Chris Duhon, Damian Lillard, Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, Steve Blake, Steve Nash
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41 Facts About Dogs - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.213)
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Hi I'm John Green, welcome to my salon, this is mental_floss on YouTube, and did you know that the Doberman Pinscher came about in the 1800s because a German guy named Louis Doberman decided that he needed some extra protection for his job? He was, it rather goes without saying, a tax collector. And that's the first of many facts about dogs I'm going to share with you today. Let's get started.
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2. So Snoop Dogg got that name from his mom, who compared him to Snoopy, Meredith, I told you facts about dogs not facts about Snoop Dogg.
OK actual dogs.
3. In 1942, William Randolph first wrote an elegy that was published in Time Magazine. It was for his toy Dachshund. Rest in peace Helen.
4. Pablo Picasso also had a Dachshund. His name was Lump and he made frequent appearances in Picasso's work
5. Speaking of which, Dachshund means "badger dog" in German, they were bred to help with hunting. They have a long body that was used to like get badgers and other animals from burrows.
5. Onto presidential dogs, Warren G. Harding's Airedale Laddie Boy had his own seat at cabinet meetings. He was also pretty famous. The New York Times ran many stories about him which had lines like 'Laddie Boy a News Boy' and 'Laddie Boy Gets Playmate' and 'we're running out of things to write about Laddie Boy'. Maybe instead you could have covered Harding's disastrous presidency.
7. FDR's Scottish Terrier Fala was an honorary private in the army. Speaking of Fala at a campaign dinner in 1944, Roosevelt went on a rant about how the republicans made up a story that he had left his dog in the Aleutian Islands and sent a navy destroyer to go pick him up and it cost tax payers 20 million dollars and Roosevelt referred to the story as libelous statements about my dog.
8. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once gave a dog to JFK's daughter Caroline. The dog was named Pushinka, Russian for Fluffy. Pushinka's mom was none other than Strelka, one of the first animals to orbit the Earth.
9. While George H.W. Bush was in office, his dog Milly had a litter of puppies at the White House and one of those puppies, Spot, would later move back into the White House when George W. Bush took office.
10. The Beatles were also dog lovers. In fact Paul McCartney once said "If you ever play Sgt. Pepper, watch your dog." The band put in a dog whistle sound during the song 'A Day in the Life' so you won't hear it, but your dog might.
11. The golden retriever that played Comet for a full six seasons on the great American television program Full House also played Buddy in Air Bud, one of the greatest movies ever made.
12. Terry the Cairn Terrier, who was Toto in The Wizard of Oz, got paid 125 dollars a week. Compare that with the 100 dollars a week that the Munchkins earned. Judy Garland got paid 500 dollars a week.
13. Moose, the Jack Russell terrier from Frasier, received more fan mail than any of the other actors. I bet Kelsey Grammar hated that!
14. At the height of Rin Tin Tin's fame for his work in silent films, a chef prepared him a daily steak lunch and while he ate, classical musicians played to aid his digestion. Cover Alex's ears, Mark, I do not want her to know about that.
15. Poodles have a reputation for being spoiled, but their haircuts are actually functional. So they were bred as hunting dogs to retrieve birds who fell in water and their coats were mostly shaved for swimming, except for strategic areas left for warmth. They do have famously warm coats. You are a very bad person, Cruella DeVil. Why did we put you next to Lincoln? He's an American hero. I'm moving you! You're going next to the troll face and Napoleon!
16. Speaking of dogs with jobs, not to be confused with the Disney channel program Dog with a Blog, Corgis were prized for the herding abilities. Despite their strange body type, they herded cattle, sheep, and even ducks and geese.
17. Pekingese dogs were bred to be the Emperor's body guards in ancient China. And miniature Pekingese were named Sleeve Pekingese for how they were carried; in the large sleeves of the robes worn by members of the Chinese imperial household.
18. Belgian Malinois Shepherd Dogs have historically been police dogs, sniffing out explosives, narcotics, and so on. But more recently, they've been trained to smell prostate cancer.
19. Dogs can also be trained to sniff out bootleg DVDs. Plus some are used to track down smuggled phones in prisons. Watch out Orange is the New Black people!
20. So how is that possible? Well because dogs have a sense of smell that is between 10 thousand and 100 thousand times more acute than a human sense of smell.
21. Moving on to seeing eye dogs, the idea originated in Switzerland to help blind veterans. Seeing eye dogs are also trained to go to the bathroom on command.
22. For the record, Jack Russell terriers were in fact bred by a man named John, aka Jack, Russell.
23. Which isn't that weird when you consider how many things dogs actually have in common with people. Like dogs who bark continuously can also get laryngitis or -
24. They can be left of right-handed or pawed.
25. They also have different blood types and -
26. Dogs even process voices much the same way that humans do, which allows them to detect emotions.
27. But studies indicate they actually don't feel guilt, so all those sad looks you know so well from dog shaming blogs are just a response to the owner's displeasure.
28. They do, however, experience envy if they feel another dog is being better rewarded for the same trick. Also a thing with humans. Like remember with Kim got the Bentley and all the other Kardashian sisters were super jealous because they were like "we are also professionally vapid!"
29. In the 1800s a dog powered device was invented. A dog would walk on a treadmill that ran an appliance like a washing machine or a butter churner.
30. Here's a crazy fact! The smaller a dog is, the more likely it is to have dreams.
31. Also, big dogs have shorter life expectancies because they age faster.
32. A Chinese study found that people who own dogs get better sleep at night and are sick less often but they're also more likely to have to clean up vomit regularly. That wasn't actually part of the study, it's just a fact that I happen to know. Anyway, dog owners are also less likely to suffer from depression than non pet owners.
33. Some dog-owners take that affection pretty far. Like an estimated 1 million dogs in the US have been named primary beneficiary in their owner's wills.
34. Speaking of which, in 1991, German countess Carlotta Liebenstein, left around 106 million dollars to her German Shepherd Gunther the Third. Most of that went to his heir, Gunther the Fourth, so in 2000, Gunther the Fourth bought an 8-bedroom mansion in Miami that once belonged to Madonna.
35. Dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures and the average dog is as intelligent as a two-year-old child so I hope Gunther the Fourth bought himself some Baby Einstein videos with all that sweet will money.
36. In 2010, a Border Collie named Chaser made news because researchers from Waffer College had taught her to recognize 1,022 words including many commands as well as hundreds of toy names. That reminds me of my dog, Willie, who knows the word "treat."
37. Most pregnant Boston Terriers and Bulldogs have to deliver via cesarean section. In fact, up to 92 percent of Boston Terrier deliveries these days are c-sections. So that's probably how you came into the world, Blue 3, although hopefully not with that bone in your mouth. (6:42)
38. In the 1860s, two stray dogs named Bummer and Lazarus roamed the streets of San Francisco and they became a fixture in local newspapers. They were allowed to keep roaming in spite of the city's anti-stray dog rules. It also didn't hurt that they were experts at ratting.
39. The Norwegian Lundehund has six toes on each foot. By the way, they were bred to hunt puffins in Norway, which is how they got that name. "Lunde" is the Norwegian word for "puffin" and "hund" of course means dog.
40. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the tallest dog is a Great Dane named Zeus. He's 44 inches tall and reaches seven-foot-four when he's standing on his hind legs.
41. Finally, I return to my salon to tell you that in 2003, Ozzy Osbourne saw the family Pomeranian, Pip, being attacked by a coyote in the garden. He heard the dog screaming and then physically wrestled with the coyote, rescuing Pip from its mouth and engaging in the most aerobic exercise Ozzy Osbourne has seen since at least 1978.
Ah, if only a nearby fan could've wrestled Ozzy Osbourne to the ground; he could've saved that bat.
Anyway, thanks for watching Mental Floss here on YouTube which is made with the help of all these nice people.
Every week, we endeavor to answer one of your mind-blowing questions. This week's question comes from thegiantsfan0987 who asks: "Why do grading scales skip the letter "E" in the United States?"
Well, first off, the Giants suck. Secondly, the grade "E" was used. The first school in the U.S. to use a grading scale like the one we see today was Mount Holyoke, and they used the letters "A" to "E," "A" being the highest grade, "E" being the lowest, but they worried that parents would think that "E" stood for "excellent."
I wanna apologize, giantfan. I'm a Cubs fan; I'm just jealous.
Anyway, now "F" can be interpreted as standing for fail, but by the 1930s, "F" had replaced "E" in most grading scales because, you know, it's not excellent.
If you have a mind-blowing question of your own you'd like answered, please leave it below in comments. We'll endeavor to answer as many as we can. Thank you again for watching and, as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.
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#wedNEWSday – Millfield Student makes Team Bath Superleague Team
Posted 16th January 2019 by Samuel Kemp
Each week we bring you a good news story from across the South West as part of our wedNEWSday articles.
The 2019 Vitality Superleague Season is now underway and Millfield Upper Sixth pupil and 1st team Netball Captain Hannah Passmore from Wells has been named in the Team Bath Netball squad.
Hannah, who is currently studying for three A levels in Mathematics, French and History, is the only squad member to be born in this millennium after celebrating her 18th birthday in December.
The Sixth Former who plays as a Goal Shooter has been with the Team Bath programme for four years and has progressed through the pathway into the Superleague Team. Hannah will also be Vice Captain of Team Bath’s U21 squad for the 2019 Netball Performance League (NPL), having played a pivotal role when they won bronze in the league and silver in the NPL Tournament last season.
Millfield Netball is pleased of its strong links with both the South West Superleague franchises, Team Bath and Severn Stars. They have athletes playing at U17, U19 and U21 National Performance League level as well as being home to one of the U17 Severn Stars Nova Academies.
Millfield’s Director of Netball Jenna Culley has also recently been announced as Assistant Coach of Welsh Netball, helping the team prepare for the 2022 Commonwealth Games alongside her role at Millfield.
Hannah says, “I am very grateful for the direction that I was given at Millfield Prep, where my journey as a Goal Shooter started. My hard work and determination, along with the guidance from my coaches at Millfield Prep and the unwavering encouragement and understanding of Miss Culley, has helped me to get to where I am today.”
Good luck to Hannah for the season and also to Team Bath and Severn Stars!
If you have a good news story that you would like to share please send your story and a picture to Laura Woodruff (southwest@englandnetball.co.uk)
filed under: Featured, News
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Errata, Author Corrections
About MMBR
Systems Biology Perspectives on Minimal and Simpler Cells
Joana C. Xavier, Kiran Raosaheb Patil, Isabel Rocha
Joana C. Xavier
Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, Universidade do Minho, Braga, PortugalStructural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany
Kiran Raosaheb Patil
Structural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany
Isabel Rocha
Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
DOI: 10.1128/MMBR.00050-13
The concept of the minimal cell has fascinated scientists for a long time, from both fundamental and applied points of view. This broad concept encompasses extreme reductions of genomes, the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), the creation of semiartificial cells, and the design of protocells and chassis cells. Here we review these different areas of research and identify common and complementary aspects of each one. We focus on systems biology, a discipline that is greatly facilitating the classical top-down and bottom-up approaches toward minimal cells. In addition, we also review the so-called middle-out approach and its contributions to the field with mathematical and computational models. Owing to the advances in genomics technologies, much of the work in this area has been centered on minimal genomes, or rather minimal gene sets, required to sustain life. Nevertheless, a fundamental expansion has been taking place in the last few years wherein the minimal gene set is viewed as a backbone of a more complex system. Complementing genomics, progress is being made in understanding the system-wide properties at the levels of the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome. Network modeling approaches are enabling the integration of these different omics data sets toward an understanding of the complex molecular pathways connecting genotype to phenotype. We review key concepts central to the mapping and modeling of this complexity, which is at the heart of research on minimal cells. Finally, we discuss the distinction between minimizing the number of cellular components and minimizing cellular complexity, toward an improved understanding and utilization of minimal and simpler cells.
As recognized in the beginning of the current era of molecular systems biology, a cell could be as simple as we could define life in its simplest form (1). Indeed, all known life forms have the cell as their basic unit. On the other hand, the cell is the most complex structure in the micrometer size range known to humans (2). Despite several achievements in identifying and characterizing the molecular constituents of life, we are far from understanding how these constituents interact with each other and give rise to a robust and self-replicating system. Also, there is not a widely accepted theory of how the first cells arose on Earth, nor has complete synthesis from scratch of simpler living cells been achieved in the laboratory. Therefore, at present, the minimal cell can be defined only on a semiabstract level as a living cell with a minimal and sufficient number of components (3) and having three main features: (i) some form of metabolism to provide molecular building blocks and energy necessary for synthesizing the cellular components, (ii) genetic replication from a template or an equivalent information processing and transfer machinery, and (iii) a boundary (membrane) that separates the cell from its environment. The necessity of coordination between boundary fission and the full segregation of the previously generated twin genetic templates could be added to this definition. Another fundamental characteristic that could be added to the essential features of a minimal cell is the ability to evolve, which is a universal characteristic among all known living cells (4).
From a physicochemical perspective, the minimal cell portrays the transition from nonliving to living matter, which can refer to the transition that occurred during the origin of life that preceded the evolution of species on Earth as well as the transition that is expected to be attained in the laboratory with the creation of an artificial living cell (5). The result of the former transition, usually called the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), universal common ancestor, last common ancestor, or cenancestor, roots the currently accepted tree of life from which all life forms are supposed to have evolved (6, 7). The hypothetical laboratory transition forms the basis of the concept of artificial cells, minimal cells fully created in the laboratory from known parts. It is often difficult to separate the concept of an artificial cell from that of a semiartificial cell which is, to some degree, built from biogenic parts. The pioneering work by J. Craig Venter's team is perhaps the best example of a semiartificial cell, having reported the first functional cell with its genetic material being an artificial, in vitro-synthesized chromosome (8).
Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the work on minimal cells has been closely linked with several lines of research, including minimal genomes, protocells, models of minimal cells, and chassis cells (Table 1).
Concepts related to minimal or simpler cells
Minimal cell models, as the name indicates, refer to any construct that exhibits certain characteristics of biological cells while having a considerably simpler nature. The simplicity of such constructs permits detailed study of the biological characteristics of interest. Minimal cell models comprise physical constructs, protocells, and theoretical models based on mathematical and/or computational descriptions that capture certain features of the living cells (9). Protocells are compartmentalized assemblies based on lipidic vesicles, polymeric or polypeptide capsules, colloidosomes, coacervates, and others (reviewed in reference 10) that usually encapsulate biological material such as organic chemicals, proteins, or RNA. Protocells have been considered models of states of transition toward fully functional living cells and have been mainly developed for studying the emergence of biological characteristics such as self-organization and replication in simpler assemblies of biochemical entities.
The concept that relates to the minimal cell from a more applied angle is that of the chassis or platform cell. The chassis cell can be defined as a cell with reduced complexity that is designed for one or several biotechnological applications and can be modified and controlled with precision and in a predictive manner (11). Although studies of minimal cells have often claimed to pursue both scientific and technological purposes, the two aims are often incompatible. For example, those bacterial cells that have evolved the smallest genomes in nature show slower and less efficient metabolism with low division rates, features that are opposite of those desired for a chassis cell (11, 12). Thus, the chassis cell will need to achieve a tradeoff between the simplicity or minimality needed for predictive manipulations and the complexity needed for robustness and efficiency.
In this review, the various concepts and approaches related to research on minimal cells are further discussed from a systems biology perspective. The plural terms “minimal cells” and “simpler cells” are preferred, as many configurations of each seem to be possible, given the observed high functional redundancy in biological networks.
A Systems Biology Perspective on Minimal CellsBesides being the focus of fundamental and applied research for a long time, minimal genomes have been quasisynonymous with minimal cells since the sequencing of Mycoplasma genitalium in 1995 (13). M. genitalium is so far considered the microbe with the smallest autonomously replicating genome (∼580 kb) that can be grown in laboratory cultures (13). Recently, the focus of minimal cell research has been expanding beyond the genome, as high-throughput technologies are enabling system-wide quantifications of other biomolecules. These studies mainly include proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, and fluxomics. The exponential growth of different omics data sets and computational models has been helping biologists to integrate these data and to predict the behavior of whole cells. The study of life and, consequently, of minimal cells is thus facing a new paradigm, with systems biology beginning to be accepted as an approach that puts biology closer to the other natural sciences by establishing laws and enabling quantitative predictions (14).
Minimal or Simpler Cells?When discussing minimal cells, there is frequently an association of two different concepts. The first concept relates minimal cells to the smallest number of components, implying cells with a small number of genes and expressed proteins. The second concept centers on the lowest complexity and connotes so-called simpler cells, cells with a behavior easier to predict and to manipulate. While the minimality in terms of the number of components is relatively straightforward to measure by genome sequencing and other high-throughput technologies, quantification of complexity has yet to be tackled. For example, the number and dynamics of the interactions between different biomolecules can be regarded as indicators of a cell's complexity (15). However, the technologies for mapping biomolecular interactions in a system-wide manner are yet to mature (16).
As the relationship between the number of components in a system and the system's complexity is often nonlinear, the minimal cell may not necessarily be the simplest cell. We therefore review the literature concerning both concepts. We start with systems with smaller numbers of components, from the minimal genome to the minimal proteomes and minimal nutritional requirements. Next, the special cases of the LUCA and chassis cells are reviewed. Later, different systems-level approaches toward minimal and simpler cell constructs are explored, namely, top-down, bottom-up, and the middle-out/integrative approaches. The last section discusses the importance of considering complexity in a holistic approach to minimal cells and the contribution of systems biology to attaining this goal.
TOWARDS THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF COMPONENTS
Finding the smallest number of components required to constitute a living cell is the classical approach used to understand and create minimal cells. One of the fundamental distinctions to be made here from the systems biology perspective is between a minimal set of components and a minimal “ome.” This distinction was introduced early in 1996, with the first comparative approach for two full genomes (17). A (minimal) genome, proteome, or another ome is the full, functional set of components within a (minimal) living cell, either sequenced, enumerated, or even not yet fully accessible, as in the case of the metabolome (18). On the other end of the spectrum, a (minimal) set is theoretical, derived from comparative or analytical studies, and has not been proven to be functional in a living cell.
Minimal GenomeAs the genome was the first available ome in cell-level systems biology, searching for the smallest functional genome represents most of the state of the art for minimal cells. One comprehensive definition of a minimal genome was given by Koonin: “the smallest possible group of genes sufficient to sustain a functional cellular life form under the most favorable conditions imaginable, that is the presence of a full complement of essential nutrients and the absence of environmental stress” (19). The phrase “most favorable conditions” should be emphasized, which in practice indicates that one minimal cell may have extremely complex nutritional requirements. The smallest prokaryotic genomes sequenced to date belong to species not considered autonomously alive, which, while missing essential genes, became entirely dependent on much more complex hosts: insects (20). “Candidatus Carsonella ruddii” has an impressive 160-kb genome (21), and “Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola” has an even smaller one, with 144 kb, which leaves scientists at the edge of considering them organelles, as in the case of mitochondria and chloroplasts (22). The genome of “Candidatus Carsonella ruddii” lacks genes involved in cell envelope biogenesis and metabolism of nucleotides and lipids (21) and also lacks genes involved in DNA replication, transcription, and translation, which are essential for any bacterial cell to live autonomously (22). However, achieving a minimal genome implies that the microorganism containing it should be accessible with current isolation and cultivation techniques without the aid of another living host, as emphasized by Mushegian, who defined a minimal genome as the “smallest number of genetic elements sufficient to build a modern-type free-living cellular organism” (23). As mentioned above, the smallest natural genome capable of autonomous growth or laboratory cultivation in pure culture and also in a defined medium (24) is the one of M. genitalium, with 580 kb (13).
The first theoretical minimal gene set was proposed by Mushegian and Koonin based on a system-wide comparison of Haemophilus influenzae and M. genitalium genomes, consisting of 256 genes (17). Later, one integrative study utilized a larger data set including results from both experimental and computational approaches for the minimal genome and predicted a set of 206 genes for a theoretical minimal gene set (25). This minimal gene set included genes for DNA replication, repair, restriction, and modification; a basic transcription machinery; aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis; tRNA maturation and modification; ribosomal proteins; ribosome function, maturation, and modification; translation factors; RNA degradation; protein processing, folding, and secretion; cellular division; transport; and energetic and intermediary metabolism (glycolysis, proton motive force generation, pentose phosphate pathway, lipid metabolism, and biosynthesis of nucleotides and cofactors). Those authors did not include rRNA or tRNA genes, and they recognized that the basic substrate transport machinery could not be clearly defined, even though this minimal cell would rely greatly on the import of several substrates, including all 20 amino acids (for which it had no biosynthetic ability). Theoretical minimal gene sets will need to be tested in vivo to be qualified as minimal genomes. The technology to synthesize full genomes has been developed only very recently, and it has not yet been applied toward this goal (8).
Determining a minimal gene set is frequently associated with predicting which genes are essential for a species. M. genitalium was the first organism to be analyzed in a large-scale essentiality assay, with between 265 and 350 genes being identified as essential (26). Proof of gene dispensability, however, requires isolation and characterization of pure clonal populations, which were not done in that study. This gap was later filled by that same team, who identified 382 essential genes; the difference in the number of essential genes might have occurred due to not only mutant complementation in the previous approach but also different medium conditions (27). Several other prokaryotes were targets of genome-wide essentiality studies, for either antibiotic design or antimicrobial control, providing important data sets for benchmarking results. These organisms include Acinetobacter baylyi (28), Caulobacter crescentus (29) Francisella novicida (30), Haemophilus influenzae (28), Helicobacter pylori (31) Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (32), Staphylococcus aureus (33, 34), Neisseria meningitidis (35), and Vibrio cholerae (36). Both the DEG (37) and OGEE (38) databases centralize much of these data.
Essential gene sets obtained by determining all viable single knockouts of a species are always a subset of a possible minimal genome, due to synergistic effects. In other words, these sets exclude genes that are not essential when deleted individually but that cause cell death when deleted simultaneously, also termed synthetic lethal genes. Higher-structure chromosomal effects will also not be evident when genes are deleted individually (reviewed in reference 2). Also, essential gene sets usually lack essential noncoding sequences that would be part of a minimal genome, such as essential promoter regions, tRNAs, small noncoding RNAs, and other noncoding sequences with unknown but essential functions. A recent genome-scale essentiality study identified and described 130 essential noncoding elements of Caulobacter crescentus, including 90 intergenic segments of unknown function (29).
It is now commonly accepted in the scientific community that multiple minimal genomes can exist. Currently known prokaryotic genomes are complex and highly adapted, exhibiting functionally equivalent components with different evolutionary origins, named nonorthologous displacements (NODs). In order to reduce the number of potential combinations, one rational direction is to identify a minimal genome for a number of functional niches or to determine the minimal gene set for a thermophilic autotroph or a mesophilic heterotroph, among others (19).
Other Minimal Sets of ComponentsThe cell-level evaluation of components other than the genome includes functional inferences from the genome at the protein level, directly generating theoretical minimal proteomes by assuming a general translation from the genome. Recently, this functional inference has allowed other omics approaches that analyze whole sets of specific genetic sequences. One example is a comparison of complete sets of tRNA isoacceptors (tRNomics) and tRNA/rRNA modification enzymes (modomics) in all sequenced Mollicutes, a class of bacteria that lacks a cell wall and includes the genus Mycoplasma (39). In that study, it was shown that the organisms have developed different strategies to minimize the RNA component of the translation apparatus. Even given a good representation of the RNA modification enzymes in the genomes of these bacteria (up to 6% in M. genitalium), only 9 enzymes were identified as being more resistant to loss in Mollicutes (39). This finding indicates that even in extremely reduced genomes, for the most basic processes of the cell, such as translation and codification, different strategies can be adopted.
Recently, the whole methylomes of M. genitalium and Mycoplasma pneumoniae were analyzed at a single-base resolution, suggesting a potential role for methylation in regulating the cell cycle and gene expression in these reduced bacteria (40). In another study, the whole transcriptome of Prochlorococcus marinus MED4, the smallest known photosynthetic organism considering both genome and cell size, was analyzed, with a focus on the effects of the light cycle (41). It was found that 90% of the annotated genes of this species were expressed under some condition, and 80% showed cyclic expression together with the light-dark cycle, including genes involved in the cell cycle, photosynthesis, and phosphorus metabolism. While measurements of the proteome and the metabolome are not available for Prochlorococcus, transcriptomics allowed per se the identification of specific metabolic transitions and possible regulatory proteins for these minimal photosynthetic bacteria (41).
Minimal protein sets have recently begun to be inferred by integrating experimental data. This is a step in moving from functional inference from minimal genomes toward a real assessment of minimal proteomes. Pioneer works included a comparison of 17 prokaryotic genomes by integrating a database of experimentally determined unique peptides to define a core proteome (42). The authors of that study predicted 144 orthologs for the core genome, of which ∼74% were actually expressed in all species. More than half of this core proteome was related to protein synthesis, but strikingly, 10 proteins had not been functionally characterized. That study also identified differences in the proteomes associated with the different life-styles of the bacteria analyzed, and the authors concluded that the phenomenon of phenotypic plasticity has an impact on the minimal proteome, which could not be accessed simply by comparing genomes (42). In another work, the proteomes of Acholeplasma laidlawii and Mycoplasma gallisepticum were analyzed by two-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) (43) and compared to the proteome of Mycoplasma mobile obtained in another study (44). Clusters of orthologous genes (COGs) were used to compare both the genomes and proteomes of the three Mollicutes species (43). Two hundred twelve COGs were identified as being part of the core proteome, including DNA replication, repair, transcription, and translation and molecular chaperones. Some metabolic pathways were also represented in this core proteome, including glycolysis, the nonoxidative part of the pentose phosphate pathway, glycerophospholipid biosynthesis, and the synthesis of nucleoside triphosphates (43). One surprising finding was the low level of conservation of proteins related to cell division, as only two proteins were conserved in the core: FtsH and an Smc-like protein. Strikingly, the genome of M. mobile does not even contain FtsK or FtsZ, which indicates that the essential process of cell division has greater plasticity than other cellular systems (43). Building on results of another study of the interactome of M. pneumoniae (45), those authors also concluded that most COGs in the Mollicutes core proteome—140—are expected to associate in protein complexes, and 54 COGs are predicted to participate in more than one complex (43). Due to secondary functions of such complexes, such as the maintenance of overall cellular stability (and particularly genome stability), which could explain the maintenance of incomplete metabolic pathways in reduced genomes, those authors proposed that the concept of a minimal genome should be treated not as a set of essential functions but as a set of essential structures (43).
Another system that can be analyzed at the cell level is the metabolic network of an organism. Given that the whole metabolome is still not accessible due to technological limitations, studies in this area are mainly computational. A minimal metabolic network of 50 enzymatic reactions was derived from the theoretically inferred minimal gene set of Gil et al. (25); it was shown that the encoded metabolism was consistent and that the network's topological parameters were similar to those of natural metabolic networks (46). Another work performed data mining on the KEGG Pathways database in an effort to obtain a minimal anabolic network and the correspondent minimal metabolome for a reductive chemoautotroph (47). The resulting metabolic network comprised 287 metabolites, with more than half being intermediates in the biosynthesis of monomers.
Recently, a series of three papers reported a variety of analyses of M. pneumoniae, a reduced-genome bacterium. These studies included the determination of the proteome (45), the transcriptome (48), and a metabolic network that allowed the identification of a minimal medium that supported growth of M. pneumoniae as well as of M. genitalium (24). This series was a pioneering step forward in the integration of omes other than the genome in the minimal cell panorama and also in the use of the power of a holistic system perspective for the study of a single species.
Work on minimal omes other than the genome facilitated the analysis of the impact of different environmental conditions on minimal sets, mainly through transcriptomics and expression proteomics (42). Also, proteomics permits insight into the spatial organization of minimal cells by analyzing which protein complexes are assembled and which structural functions these complexes could have (43, 45). On the negative side, environment-dependent cell-level analyses are often more prone to errors than genome sequencing. The technology for expressional proteomics is still under development, and proteins with extreme physical and chemical properties, such as low mass and high hydrophobicity, including membrane proteins, can be underrepresented in these assays (49). Moreover, some proteins might be dispensable under optimal growth conditions and expressed only under specific stress conditions. This will decrease the size of core transcriptome and proteome if the experimental setup does not include sufficient diversity.
Minimal Environmental Conditions for LifeEvolution enabled many alternative ecological niches and nutritional pathways for prokaryotes, and there is no experimental or even conceptual support for the existence of just one form of a minimal prokaryotic cell from a metabolic point of view, as recognized by Szathmáry (50), Koonin (19), and Gil et al. (25). Many minimal metabolic networks adapted to different habitats could sustain the universal genetic machinery, the translation and transcription apparatus, which are usually more conserved and similar among distantly related prokaryotes. Depending on environmental conditions such as temperature, pH, salinity, and especially the nutrients available in a specific niche, organisms could differ substantially and still have a reduced number of genes. Here an important minimal set, almost absent in the scientific literature, comes to the scene as a major player in the study and design of minimal cells: the minimal, defined media able to sustain such cells. Minimal medium is not a biological component per se, but it is an emergent biological property that directly reflects the degree of dependence of the cell on the environment.
Currently, there are no comprehensive comparative studies on the different minimal nutritional requirements of different prokaryotic organisms. However, there is a variety of old studies that seem to have been relatively forgotten. A good example is the extensive work started in the 1950s by MacLeod and coauthors on minimal nutritional requirements of marine bacteria (51, 52). Those authors explored and presented several combinatorial possibilities for the composition of defined media, mentioning special needs for amino acids as sole carbon sources or as supplements in addition to non-amino acid sources of carbon and energy and also identifying special needs for ions, vitamins, and other growth factors (51). Bryant and Robinson reviewed work on nutritional requirements of ruminal bacteria and corroborated the conclusion that volatile fatty acids are essential for the growth of several of these organisms, as is ammonium, which is required regardless of the amount of amino acids and peptides present in the medium (53).
The study of mutations leading to specific auxotrophies in bacteria also started several decades ago, long before the DNA structure was discovered (54). Fundamental for the identification of the different steps of metabolic pathways, the classical study of auxotrophies is also central to the study of minimal or simpler cells by identifying possible pathways for viability after gene inactivation.
Old studies on nutritional requirements also include the interesting finding that minimal nutritional requirements increase with extreme temperatures for strains of Lactobacillus plantarum (55) and Escherichia coli (56) and several strains of thermophilic Bacilli (57). This implies that genome reductions starting from these species will have to take into account the conditions that the cells will face in artificial cultures.
Extensive nutritional requirements were predicted for previous theoretical minimal gene sets, including all amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids, and complex coenzymes (17). The number of components of a minimal medium is therefore not a limiting factor for designing and deriving theoretical minimal cells, as long as it does not require other living cells (it remains an axenic culture). However, it certainly becomes a limitation for industrially relevant chassis cells, which must be efficient and profitable (see Chassis Cells, below). The organisms used most often in minimal cell studies for biotechnological applications, E. coli and Bacillus subtilis, are facultative anaerobes, highly versatile organisms with relatively simple nutrient requirements (58). Indeed, E. coli probably has the simplest growth requirements known so far: a medium composed of as little as seven substances corresponding to eight components, disodium phosphate, monopotassium phosphate, sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, magnesium sulfate, calcium chloride, and one carbon source, can sustain growth (59). However, it should not be put aside that some trace metals are also considered essential but are not added to the medium, as they are present in sufficient amounts in water, including copper (60), nickel and cobalt (61), molybdenum (62), iron (63), manganese (64), and zinc (65). All these components together make probably the simplest growth requirements known so far for prokaryotes. An extensive review of nutritional requirements of microorganisms used in fermentation processes covers interesting points, such as why each of the principal elements is needed for the cell's physiology; the major requirements (carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, trace elements, vitamins, and other growth factors) and also physicochemical constraints of growth, such as pH and ionic strength; and the effect of concentrations on growth rates (66).
Defining minimal media for minimal cells also requires definition of a minimal threshold of growth rates. Achieving a clear exponential phase might not be a necessity for the fundamental pursuit of a minimal/simpler cell, while for biotechnological applications, minimalism will have to cope, in a more complex tradeoff, with a minimum yield of biomass and a minimum specific growth rate.
It is estimated that only approximately 1% of bacteria on Earth can be readily cultivated in vitro (67). With this lack of technological capabilities regarding cultivation of prokaryotic cells, there is a great possibility that simpler organisms with more complex requirements might go unnoticed. Organisms that cannot be maintained in a bacteriology culture collection, even in the richest media known, are commonly named “Candidatus” (68). This is a useful term that is not completely implemented within the scientific community. There are no reports of the cultivation of Buchnera aphidicola without insect cells (69, 70); however, as this genus was discovered before the implementation of this nomenclature, and there is sufficient biochemical information available on it, it is not named “Candidatus” (71). While in many cases, unknown nutritional requirements are the reason for the impossibility of cultivating an organism in vitro, “Candidatus” species may also require their host's cells due to unknown physical constraints.
Until recently, M. genitalium was difficult to grow in defined media, and efforts were made to calculate the best composition of such a medium by using genome-scale metabolic modeling (24, 72). These system-level approaches are certainly a promising direction in the field of estimating prokaryotic minimal nutritional requirements.
LUCA AND THE FIRST CELLS
Since the first proposal of the common ancestry theory, described by Charles Darwin in his seminal book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (73), much has been debated and speculated about the origin of life and the nature of a possible cell or set of cells that preceded the evolution of the three main lineages of life forms known today: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. The strongest support for this theory comes from the shared biological features of the three domains, including double-stranded DNA to encode genetic information, transcription to RNA, translation to proteins that are the universal operators of cellular functions, lipidic membranes, and primary metabolism, among others. Other evidence includes the high-level homologies of biological structures with different functions, indicating divergent evolution from a common ancestor; the congruence of morphological and molecular phylogenies; the agreement between phylogeny, the paleontological record, and biogeography; and the hierarchical classification of morphological characteristics (7).
Recent theoretical work (74) was done on the subject of the appearance of the LUCA, making a vital connection between the theory of an inorganically hosted origin of cells (75) and the origin of genomes. The hypothesis of the inorganically hosted LUCA was first posed in 1997 by Russell and Hall, with the premise that it was based on “what life does rather than what life is” (75). This hypothesis was a detailed, complex description of 17 stages of geochemical transformation in a submarine hydrothermal spring, where iron monosulfide bubbles were the hatcheries for the first cells. In a later publication, Russell et al. significantly developed the geochemical details of this theory, specifically the implications of temperature and energetics for the primitive origin of cells (76). In that same year, more biochemistry was incorporated into the theory, including a comparison of the amino acid sequences of the enzymes of glycolytic pathways in eukaryotes and prokaryotes and a simplification of the visual model of the origin of life in hydrothermal vents (77). Claiming that the first free-living cells were eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 billion years ago from inorganic compartments (77), this is probably so far the most accepted theory of the origin of life (74, 78). The geochemical conditions of early Earth and those of other planets in the solar system where life might have originated were discussed comprehensively elsewhere (79).
It has been proposed that the universal ancestor should have been a fully DNA- and protein-based organism with extensive processing of RNA transcripts and should have had an extensive set of proteins for DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis and DNA repair and recombination; control systems for the regulation of genes and cell division; and chaperone proteins, and it probably lacked operons (80). However, there is still uncertainty in the literature regarding the question of whether the LUCA's genetic machinery was based primarily on RNA or DNA and, if it had DNA, how it was replicated (81, 82). In a comparison of sequences of proteins involved in DNA replication, it was proposed that the LUCA had a genetic system that contained both RNA and DNA, but the latter was, at that time, produced by reverse transcription (83).
Recently, the first formal tests of the LUCA hypothesis were performed by Theobald, with statistical evidence corroborating the monophyly of all known life (7). In that study, Theobald ignored the commonly assumed sequence similarity as a proof of common ancestry, as sequence similarity can be a result of convergent evolution due to selection, structural constraints on sequence identity, mutation bias, chance, or artifact manufacture (7). Although this was the first formal attempt at establishing the LUCA theory on a statistical basis, others claim that the tests performed were not sufficient to reject the alternative hypothesis of separate origins of life (84). Theobald replied with improvements of the models used for the formal test and emphasized that his work did not provide absolute proof for the theory of a LUCA but mentioned several strong arguments in favor of it, such as the low sequence requirements for a specific fold and the enormity of the sequence space (85). Although the alternative hypothesis of separate origins cannot be absolutely ruled out (78, 79), a single common ancestry is currently the best-supported theory of the origin of life. Several extended perspectives and reviews focusing on the issue have been published (Table 1), while the focus here is on systems approaches concerning the LUCA.
A prominent systems biology initiative concerning the LUCA is LUCApedia, a recently launched online database that integrates different data sets related to the LUCA and its predecessors (86). With this database, users working on the LUCA hypothesis have a tool for benchmarking their results with other studies predicting the characteristics of the LUCA, searching by protein name or identification in data sets for COGs, protein domain folds, protein structures, and cofactor usage, etc. (86). Comparative studies make up the vast majority of the system-level approaches for the LUCA, with a focus on genome sequences (87, 88), protein domains (89–91), and proteome hydrophobicity (92). A comprehensive review concerning comparative genomics and its role in defining the LUCA's theoretical gene sets suggests that the estimated genome size of the LUCA is 500 to 600 genes (93). A comparison of protein folds from all three domains of life found approximately 50 folds that are present in all three domains (89), and one study that used the COG database found 80 COGs present in all organisms studied across the three domains of life, 50 of which show the same phylogenetic pattern as rRNA (which the authors called three-domain genes) (94). Of the 50 three-domain genes, 37 were associated with the ribosome in modern cells (94). Another interesting study looked at a large set of diverse predicted proteomes to infer the evolution of hydrophobicity (92). By using the percentage of the most hydrophobic residues in proteins, a universal “oil escape” was observed, indicating that the LUCA was more hydrophobic than modern cells (92).
One of the major problems of comparisons of whole genomes or proteomes in order to infer the LUCA's composition arises due to the relatively unknown extents of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and gene loss (93), which generate phylogenetic trees not compatible with the rRNA phylogenetic tree topology. Mirkin et al. analyzed the extent of HGT by using the COG database to construct trees for all the COGs and found an approximately equal likelihood of HGT and gene loss events in the evolution of prokaryotic genomes (95). Although those authors state that their intent was not to reconstruct the functional aspects of the LUCA but rather to make a preliminary attempt at constructing evolutionary scenarios by using comparative genomics data, they support the plausibility of a set of ∼572 genes as being sufficient to sustain a functioning LUCA (95). Even though this and other studies have approached HGT events and gene losses within the LUCA context (95, 96), it is still relatively difficult to estimate the extent of the bias that they cause in comparative approaches. There may have been genes present in the LUCA that were lost before all the major lineages diverged, so when genomes are compared at present, those ancestral genes do not appear in the common pool. Also, some genes may not have been present in the LUCA but, after originating, spread quickly by HGT, being present today in all known microorganisms (93). The presence of de novo synthetic pathways in some but not all prokaryotes may therefore leave some uncertainty about which metabolic routes were taken by the universal ancestor.
The transition from organic chemical compounds to cells is still an extremely delicate subject in biology (97). The vast amount of data that modern experimentalists face in a rapidly evolving technological scenario may be the causative agent of a seemingly increasing distance between experimental approaches and theoretical work taking into account the geochemical context of early life. This gap can be diminished with approaches that are becoming more holistic. The search for the LUCA's minimal omes using evolutionary perspectives will undoubtedly contribute to and benefit from the generic quest for the minimal cell, as the examples mentioned above illustrate. The theory of an inorganically hosted origin of life (74, 77) can shed light on the design of membrane-free minimal cell systems. Similarly, the current discussion on the basis of the LUCA's genetic machinery (82) opens a possibility for minimal cell design based solely on RNA genomes. Also, studies of the LUCA directly benefit from those of minimal cells: while minimal gene sets are theoretical and do not explicitly incorporate evolution, comparative genomics is based on orthology and its resulting minimal gene sets should be related to those of ancestral life forms (93).
CHASSIS CELLS
Probably the most proclaimed reason for the recent interest in minimal cells and related minimal data sets (e.g., the minimal genome and minimal metabolic networks) has been the potential for biotechnological applications. When referring to a minimal cell that is intentionally simplified for use in industry, the terms platform cell or factory cell (12) or the term chassis cell (11) is preferred. This conceptual construct is of extreme importance for biotechnology industries, as it implies more specialized and more comprehensible cells for biological production of industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Microbial cells have been shown to be extremely profitable in many applications, thanks to the catalytic power of enzymes and also the large panoply of products that they can synthesize. Nevertheless, these cell factories still remain, to a large extent, black boxes that often surprise engineers. In industrial bioprocesses, as opposed to scientific discovery, no surprises are desired, and total control over a specially designed and fully comprehensible chassis cell is the ultimate goal. This fact has led some to argue that a minimal cell would be interesting for industry due to its supposed simplicity; however, this is highly debatable, as shown in Table 2, where the predicted requisites of a chassis cell are enumerated based on two recent, comprehensive reviews (11, 12). One of the details that can be controversial in comparisons of industrially driven to scientifically driven minimal cells is the necessity for evolution: some have argued that, ideally, no evolution should occur in a chassis cell (4). A recent study proposed that evolvability is inevitable and can actually increase without any pressure for adaptation in a population model, given that it is the result of the exploration of the genetic space (98). Evolution seems to be a process inextricable from DNA replication, and it can also be seen as necessary to improve organisms through evolutionary engineering, for which major achievements have been reviewed elsewhere (99, 100). In populations of chassis cells that maintain evolvability, optimized pathways and enzymes and better growth rates could be selected for in desired media, either complex or defined.
Requirements for an industrially relevant chassis cell
A chassis cell needs to work on a combination of factors that bounce between simplicity and complexity: precise control often requires simplicity, but energetic and nutritional efficiencies and productivity indicate complex pathways within relatively large networks. Model organisms such as E. coli and B. subtilis, which are well studied and display robust growth, have been preferred subjects of genome-reducing approaches for chassis cells (4, 101–103). When an industrial biotechnology process is discussed, even the complexity of a eukaryote can be accepted as the minimum simplicity, e.g., if synthesis of eukaryotic proteins is desired (104).
Several large projects for genome reduction of industrially relevant prokaryotes have achieved satisfactory results so far. B. subtilis MGIM, based on an ∼1-Mbp deletion of B. subtilis 168, showed little reduction in growth and comparable enzyme productivity (101). B. subtilis MBG874 was achieved by a deletion of 874 kb (20% of the original genome size) and showed a reorganization of the gene expression network and productivities of extracellular cellulase and protease that were 1.7- and 2.5-fold higher than those of wild-type (WT) cells, respectively (105). E. coli MGF-01 was obtained after successive deletions of genomic fragments from E. coli K-12 (a total deletion of about 1 Mbp, or 22% of the genome) and showed improved growth and high-level threonine productivity compared to the wild-type strain (102, 106). E. coli MDS42, obtained by a 14.3% reduction of the genome of E. coli K-12 (103), showed genome stabilization, high electroporation efficiency (103), reduced evolvability (4), and, later, an 83% increase in l-threonine production after metabolic engineering, compared to an E. coli MG1655 strain engineered with the same modifications (107).
Interesting modifications and bottlenecks to be tackled in biotechnological production have been identified by using genome-scale network reconstructions (GENREs) (108), and future designs of chassis cells might emerge from these methods. Accurate submodels of E. coli MG1655 have been derived for aerobic, carbon-limited growth on a chemically defined medium with glucose, glycerol, and acetate as carbon sources (109). These models were created from subsets of reactions from the first E. coli GENRE (110) with the biomass composition as a function of the growth rate (109). Several other metabolic models have been developed, and their applications have been reviewed elsewhere (108). However, regarding modeling of the dynamics of chassis cells in synthetic biology, the focus has been more on modeling individual modules than on modeling whole chassis systems (111).
It seems evident that for chassis cell design, an integrative and pragmatic approach is required (Table 2), along with the best understanding possible of the model organisms to be used. Between the widely used organism E. coli and the minimal organism M. genitalium, there are considerable differences that should be taken into account in time-constrained industrial projects. Even though E. coli has 10 times more protein-coding genes than M. genitalium, a search for species names returned 276 times more abstracts on Medline for the former. The species knowledge index (SKI) is a measure of the amount of scientific literature available for an organism, defined as the number of abstracts on Medline referring to the species, normalized by the number of genes in the genome (112). The SKI index at present is 31 times higher for E. coli than for M. genitalium (Table 3). Although a larger amount of scientific literature does not necessarily imply more knowledge, it is certainly a good indication that there are more scientific data for E. coli than for M. genitalium, which will provide a more solid basis for future interventions using the former species. However, it is not only knowledge about E. coli that makes this species a more promising starting point for the development of chassis cells. The versatility and network redundancy of E. coli are interesting for industrial processes, which often require backup and alternative metabolic routes in cases of enzyme saturation or the ability to change between substrates. The two bacteria also differ strikingly in their doubling times (Table 3), which is often a determinant factor in industrial processes. The short doubling time of E. coli has been shown to be related to posttranscriptional control of protein abundances and posttranslational control of flux rates (113). Studies of Mycoplasma smegmatis concluded that the organization of regulatory operons involved in the regulation of DNA replication and macromolecular synthesis in mycobacteria is very different from that of the majority of other bacteria, which can introduce problems in attempts to control the regulation of these cells (114).
Comparison of relevant characteristics of Escherichia coli and Mycoplasma genitalium
SYSTEMS APPROACHES FOR UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING MINIMAL CELLS
The systems biology approaches relevant to the construction or definition of minimal cells can be divided into four broad categories. The first two approaches are the traditional approaches of any systems science or technology, namely, top-down (analytic [deconstruction of systems]) and bottom-up (synthetic [construction of systems]) approaches, referred to in many reviews of the field (3, 5, 12, 50, 115–119). Both of these classical approaches have comprised mainly physical or experimental studies, in vivo in the case of top-down or in vitro in the case of bottom-up approaches. We introduce here the middle-out approach, which includes large-scale data integration, modeling, and simulations relevant to the study of minimal or simpler cells. Following Denis Noble's definition, the middle-out approach considered here is one that “starts at any level … at which there are sufficient data and reaches (up, down and across) toward other levels and components” (120). The fourth category is system-level comparative studies, the first approaches to be used at a system level toward the construction of minimal cells (17) and probably still the most used approach today for systems biology of minimal cells (93, 121).
Almost a decade ago, Eörs Szathmáry highlighted the importance of bridging the gap between both bottom-up and top-down approaches but also between experimental and theoretical studies (50). In an attempt to organize the sparse and diverse knowledge obtained from the long pursuit of minimal life, we reviewed the diversity of relevant studies, as summarized in Fig. 1. We consider the classification “experimental” versus “theoretical/computational” to be independent of the 4 major categories presented above. In the following sections, we also attempt to associate each approach with the associated technologies and the disciplines that it has primarily served, such as the associations of the top-down approach with molecular biology and of the bottom-up approach with biophysics and biochemistry. This is a different view from that of other authors, who associate the quest for minimal cells with synthetic biology only, for instance (122).
Systems approaches and relevant results toward understanding and designing minimal or simpler cells (8, 27, 45, 46, 101, 125, 140, 145, 156, 164, 170, 203, 204).
Top-Down ApproachBroadly, top-down implies the removal of the nonessential components of the studied system until it is no longer functional and in this manner obtaining an understanding of each part's individual function within the whole system. Traditionally, this approach has also been referred to as reductionism, and in minimal cell studies, it has involved mainly attempts to define minimal gene sets and minimal genomes (see “Minimal Genome,” above), which were achieved by knocking out genes to determine which ones were nonessential.
Several techniques to perform large-scale knockout studies have been developed, as reviewed elsewhere (25), including antisense RNA to inhibit gene expression, systematic inactivation of individual genes, and massive transposon mutagenesis strategies (the most widely used approach). The recent technological capacity to study synthetic lethality on a genome scale in E. coli, taking advantage of conjugation of deletion or hypomorphic strains to create double mutants (123), promises important data sets for the design of reduced strains. As conjugation occurs in other bacteria, it is expected that it will be applied to other organisms (123). Metabolic modeling has already been performed to predict synthetic lethal genes for E. coli on a genome scale, not only for pairs of genes but also for triplets, some quadruplets, and higher-order lethal combinations (124).
Simultaneous deletions of large parts of the chromosome were done mainly for model bacteria that are at the same time industrially relevant (see Chassis Cells, above). Reductions of the genome of E. coli of up to 29.7% (125) were achieved using the red recombination system of phage lambda (126). Another more recent large-scale deletion technique merged Tn5 transposon mutagenesis with the Cre/loxP excision system and phage P1 transduction (127). This method has the advantage of not requiring the construction of genetic vectors or the performance of complex PCR experiments for each deletion, but so far, it has achieved a reduction of only 7% of the genome of E. coli MG1655.
The reduction of genomes occurs naturally in specific habitats, where bacteria adapt drastically to a specific niche, losing several unnecessary genes usually related to the biosynthesis of amino acids and other essential metabolites that they can take up from a stable niche. There has been increasing interest in the natural top-down reduction of the genome of B. aphidicola, as this bacterium keeps the biosynthetic abilities of most amino acids that are provided to the insect host (128). An innovative study analyzed the dynamics of natural genome reduction in Salmonella enterica by an experimental evolution procedure using serial passages (129). Those authors obtained deletions of up to 200 kb (approximately 4% of the WT genome), and impressively, two of the large deletions isolated included several genes that were previously identified as being individually essential for growth (130). These results reinforce the need to perform single-deletion studies under different experimental conditions and, ultimately, to conduct large-scale simultaneous deletions for studies of genome reduction.
Being based on existing natural genomes, top-down approaches can be limiting in drawing universal conclusions about minimalism and simplicity. It has been recognized that as each study starts with a specific organism, it arrives at a specific minimal gene set (131). Finally, it seems that simplifying existing genomes will always lead to a complex cell with complex means of transcribing and translating its genetic code, and there is general discussion about whether this is indeed the simplest living system possible (50).
Table 4 enumerates the most relevant species used in the top-down or analytic approach to obtain or understand minimized cells.
Prokaryotic species with relevance to top-down, system-level studies toward construction of minimal or simpler cells
Comparative ApproachComparative approaches applied to the minimal cell have been mainly those of comparative genomics, involving whole genomes and inferred proteomes. Usually, conserved genes have a higher probability of being not only essential (and therefore part of a possible minimal genome) but also ancient (possibly part of the LUCA's genome). The best known of these genes is the 16S rRNA, traditionally used for phylogeny. In this manner, comparative studies serve mainly evolutionary biology and the quest for the LUCA's constitution (132).
The early comparison of the genomes of M. genitalium and Haemophilus influenzae described above was the first system-level comparative approach to construction of a minimal genome (17). Although only 240 genes were conserved between both genomes, 22 cases of NODs were identified. Depending on the conceptual or practical cellular construct being pursued, choosing the simplest, most ancient, or most economic protein when facing a NOD will be crucial in the search for a minimal cell. An analysis of possible functional redundancy and the presence of parasite-specific genes in this study resulted in a final set of 256 genes as the hypothetical number of genes capable of sustaining a cell (17).
A new wave of comparative studies integrated proteogenomics to validate genetic conservation, using high-throughput tandem mass spectrometry to verify the expression of predicted conserved coding regions (133). First used by Gupta et al. to compare the expressions of orthologous genes across three Shewanella species (121), not much later, comparative proteogenomics was used in the above-described quest for the core proteome of a minimal cell (43) (see “Other Minimal Sets of Components,” above).
The computational comparison of proteins in a large scale can outperform the comparison of genomic sequences. One example includes annotations of curated domain structures, which were done in a previous phylogenomic study with 420 free-living organisms in an attempt to define the proteomic content of the LUCA (91). Others have compared protein folds across Bacteria and Archaea, which indicated a possible set of the top 30 most conserved folds (134).
When jumping from comparisons of genomes to comparisons of proteomes, transcriptomes, or fluxomes, experimental conditions are an additional but indispensable layer of information. The results in these cases are influenced by the media and conditions provided to the cells, which must be kept constant to allow comparative studies to be performed. The comparison of several omics data sets is highly promising, although it can be a challenging task, as many of the studies available in the literature were not done under the same experimental conditions. Even the same complex media can have small variations that will impair comparisons (135), so ultimately, defined media should be preferred for comparative analysis. This will require the generation of new, controlled experimental data for future comparative studies.
Not only omics-level comparisons (arriving at minimal sets) but also comparisons at the level of the organelle can be relevant for the study of minimal cells. A comparison of the sequences of modern ribosomes identified the most conserved regions from the three domains of life, which were then mapped onto determined structures of 30S and 50S subunits of ribosomes (136).
In silico system-level comparative studies include a comparison of biological networks using graph theory-based algorithms to perform a topology-based-only comparison of biological networks (protein-protein or metabolic) on a global scale (137).
Arriving at minimal theoretical sets by comparative and top-down approaches is not sufficient to achieve minimal cells. After the 1,000th prokaryotic genome was made available, the striking discovery that not one single protein-encoding gene is conserved across all prokaryotic genomes shocked biologists (138). Moreover, if Archaea are excluded, only two protein-encoding genes, a translation elongation factor and a ribosomal protein, plus the two rRNA genes are conserved across all Bacteria (138). These facts imply that systematic comparative approaches will gain from focusing on functional differences at levels other than the genome level. Ultimately, by recognizing that the comparative and top-down approaches are insufficient to reduce complexity to the level of a full comprehension of the cell, one should build or synthesize that minimal cell from its parts. This is what the bottom-up approach intends to achieve.
Bottom-Up ApproachThe bottom-up, or synthetic, approach is aimed at assembling a minimal or simpler cell in the laboratory, i.e., constructing minimal cells from nonliving material (5). Bottom-up studies have concerned mainly physical and chemical properties and the dynamics of the building blocks of life. Focus has been placed on inserting genetic material (RNA or DNA) or enzymes inside lipidic vesicles, creating what is often named protocells (see the introduction). Properties such as stability, permeability, and self-reproduction together with the dynamics of eventual biochemical reactions can be studied in these constructs (for a detailed compilation of the work of biophysics in this area, see references 118 and 119). More complex biological properties can also be analyzed in protocells. For example, in a pioneer study, it was shown that Darwinian competition emerges in populations of vesicles with encapsulated genetic material (139). The competition arose simply due to the physical principle of osmosis-driven vesicle growth. Other researchers studied enzymatic RNA replication (140) and movement of vesicles resembling bacterial chemotaxis (141), based on different protocells assembled in those studies.
Solé et al. (9) make a distinction between the major achievements of bottom-up studies, which may lead to the construction of completely artificial cells, and those of reconstruction studies (118), which use components from a biological origin to produce what is here named semiartificial cells.
One innovative bottom-up project involves the idea of creating a minimal cell based on purified proteins. The authors of that study intended to identify the genes necessary for a minimal cell and, after preparation of the purified biochemical molecules, to encapsulate these genes within membranes, possibly rendering an artificial cell (116, 142). Another system of this kind is Cytomin, a cell-free translation system that has revealed promising results for protein synthesis and energy efficiency (143, 144).
Probably the major landmark in bottom-up approaches is the synthesis of the first artificial bacterial chromosome (145). Although a cell was not created per se, this study established the technology for the creation of the code for an entire cell. Nevertheless, although the creation and assembly of fully artificial cells are some of the ultimate goals of bioengineering and would help obtain a deeper understanding of biosystems, they seem part of science fiction, for now.
It might appear that the bottom-up approach is in a privileged position for the study of the LUCA and prebiotic chemistry compared to the top-down approach, as both the creation of artificial cells in the laboratory and the creation of ancestor cells in nature constitute transitions from nonliving to living entities (5). However, the connection between both areas of research should be handled with care (1, 5). While fully tracking the history of life until its origins could in principle allow replication of the process in the laboratory, the opposite cannot be assumed. Any artificial cell to be created in the laboratory based on modern genes, modern proteins, and modern membranes may be far from resembling what the LUCA was. It has been argued that the origin of genetic and enzymatic machineries must have occurred within some inorganic scaffold, with the LUCA not being free-living at first (74), while bottom-up studies commonly use vesicles to build protocells (see LUCA and the First Cells, above). In this manner, classical bottom-up work, regarding the current state of the art, may not be directly associable to the study of the LUCA, as discussed elsewhere (118, 119). Moreover, validating that a protocell would be a good model of a chassis cell would require protocells to be experimentally validated for chassis cell design. Within the state of the art, protocells are still, unfortunately, a meager model of such constructs.
Middle-Out ApproachKohl and Noble attributed the term middle-out originally to Sydney Brenner (146), who coined it during a discussion at a Novartis Foundation symposium on complexity in biological information processing (147). For the purposes of this review, given that the focus is on prokaryotic systems, Noble's definition (120) was adapted to “the approach which starts at any level (gene, RNA, protein, metabolic or regulatory pathways) at which there are sufficient data and reaches (up, down and across) toward other levels and components.” The middle-out approach is often difficult to distinguish from classical approaches. In this review, we classified middle-out approaches as those studies that integrate different layers of information in a final holistic model or construct, as mentioned in Table 1.
Gil et al. performed large-scale work on the integration of several minimal gene sets and generated probably the most comprehensive and accepted theoretical minimal protein-encoding gene set for prokaryotic life (25) (see “Minimal Genome,” above, for the composition of this minimal gene set). That study integrated the orthologous genes resulting from a comparison of the genomes of five endosymbionts (148) with functional equivalents without sequence similarity. Afterwards, the results were integrated into several data sets: a list of essential B. subtilis genes (149), proposed essential E. coli genes from different sources (150–152), the proposed computationally derived minimal gene set of Mushegian and Koonin (17), the results of global transposon mutagenesis for mycoplasmas (26), a list of essential genes identified in S. aureus (33, 153), and the reduced genome of the plant pathogen “Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris” (154). To identify corresponding orthologous genes and protein functions and reconstruct the metabolic pathways, those authors used a comprehensive variety of online databases and resources (25). The final functional classification of the gene set was done with the categories used in the sequencing work on Aquifex aeolicus, one of the earliest-diverging bacteria known (155), and the resulting minimal metabolic network was analyzed for detection of gaps in essential pathways. The proposed minimal gene set reflects a rational integration that has been described in detail elsewhere (25).
Another example of an integrative approach resulting in an original construct is the whole-cell tomogram of M. pneumoniae, which includes individual heteromultimeric protein complexes represented to scale within one bacterial cell, obtained by using electron tomographies of 26 entire cells (45). A combination of pattern recognition and classification algorithms allowed the positioning of the identified protein complexes in a whole-cell illustration of the spatial organization of the proteome of this reduced bacterium (45) (Fig. 1).
A major achievement that so far represents the climax of integrative experimental projects toward the creation of artificial cells came 2 years after the creation of the first synthetic artificial genome (145). The Venter Institute announced the successful transplantation of an artificial chromosome, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, to another recipient cell, a Mycoplasma capricolum cell, creating new cells controlled by the synthetic chromosome (8). This represented a stretching of the boundaries of biotechnology, opening doors to new work using semiartificial bacterial cells.
Models and Simulations of Minimal and Simpler CellsBecause minimal or simpler cells are still conceptual constructs, theoretical representations and mathematical models are crucial for the advancement of the field. Theories (like the one of a hydrothermal origin of life [see LUCA and the First Cells, above]) (75, 76) and models (e.g., physical [experimental protocells] or virtual [in silico simulation models]) are the minimal or simpler cell-related constructs that are closer to being holistically understood among those represented in Table 1, given the complexity of prokaryotic cells.
Theoretical or virtual protocell systems include a vast array of representations of self-replicable systems, some explored mathematically. A pioneering protocell model is the so-called chemoton by Tibor Gánti (156). The chemoton consists of three functionally dependent autocatalytic subsystems: the metabolic network, the template polymerization subsystem, and the membrane subsystem enclosing the previous subsystems. All three subsystems are precisely coupled by stoichiometry, which ensures correct functioning. The chemoton is considered an elegant platform to support different protocell models (157). Physical protocells as minimal cell models and theoretical models of protocells have been reviewed comprehensively elsewhere (9).
On the other hand, the field of modeling of whole cells is still very scattered, and a variety of different modeling approaches have been used so far. In general, whole-cell simulation requires modeling of different biological networks at an appropriate scale. Existing models can be broadly categorized into three classes, interaction models or network representations, constraint-based models (e.g., stoichiometric models), and mechanistic models (e.g., kinetic models), although these models are still far from being holistic (for a review, see reference 158). Among these models, the constraint-based models have played a major role in contemporary attempts at modeling minimal life, mainly because of the simplicity or abstraction that they allow. Genome-scale network reconstructions (GENREs), which have been increasingly used in metabolic modeling, are one example with several practical applications, as discussed elsewhere (108). GENREs require the integration of experimental data in a middle-out manner (108, 159). The minimal requirement for reconstructing a GENRE is the annotated genome sequence of the organism of interest. The resulting basic framework can be further refined and expanded with the incorporation of experimental data at the cell level (mainly transcriptomics and proteomics) and manual curation based on the available literature. These models allow assessment of the biosynthetic capabilities of a species in a systematic manner. Furthermore, these models also enable the simulation of intracellular metabolic fluxes as well as the effects of genetic modifications such as gene knockouts (160, 161). So far, a large number of manually curated prokaryotic GENREs have been reported (108). These models are promising for studies of prokaryotic simplification and even for comparative studies, which will allow the definition of common and different metabolic features. A few studies with GENREs related to minimal or simpler cells have been done. Pál et al. used one E. coli GENRE to analyze reductive evolution from the network of E. coli toward the small networks of B. aphidicola and Wigglesworthia glossinidia, which achieved a remarkable accuracy of 80% (162). GENREs have also been used to predict gene essentiality in different organisms and theoretical compositions of minimal media (163).
Other work in modeling minimal cells has been done with mechanistic cell-level models, focusing on different features, such as cell geometry and division (164), macromolecular interactions (165), and also metabolism (166), with the latter study aimed at modeling a minimal cell from knowledge of the metabolic kinetics of E. coli (167). Another comprehensive, ongoing, whole-cell simulation project based on M. genitalium and including 127 genes, the E-CELL model, is running in Japan (168). More recently, Shuler et al. developed probably the most comprehensive and abstract minimal cell model to date (169), based on the minimal gene set derived by Gil et al. (25). Those authors added genes for 3 rRNA products, 20 tRNA species, and transport systems for amino acids and inorganic ions that were missing in the source gene set. This minimal cell model has 241 genes in total, represented in a 233-kb chromosome coding for all the functions supposedly required for a chemoheterotrophic bacterium to grow and divide (169). The model formulation consists of a differential algebraic equation system, which includes the DNA replication process as well as cytokinesis and the coupling between cell physiology and cell growth. It is also able to output several parameters, such as partition factors, chromosome replication, and cell division parameters (169).
The recently reported whole-cell model of M. genitalium was an important advance not only for the modeling field but also for the biological study of prokaryotes, by allowing accurate phenotypic predictions (170). This model integrates 28 essential cellular processes that were represented in different submodels; these processes fall into five main categories, DNA, RNA, protein, metabolism, and other (cytokinesis and host interaction), including over 1,900 quantitative parameters. Each of the 28 submodels was simulated with an appropriate mathematical representation; for instance, metabolism was modeled by using a constraint-based approach, while RNA and protein degradation were modeled by using mechanistic Poisson processes (170). This integrative strategy makes the assumption that the submodels are approximately independent on short time scales so that at each time step, the submodels depend on the values of variables determined by the other submodels at the previous time step (170). This formulation of independent and decoupled modules allowed the most complete simulation of M. genitalium so far, not only providing insights into the simulated cellular functions but also directing experimental assays that identified kinetic parameters and details of the biological function of metabolic genes.
TOWARDS THE LOWEST COMPLEXITY
For both fundamental science and the design of better platform cells with applications in industrial biotechnology, some of the major concerns are the complexity of the cells used, rather than the number of components that these cells have, and how precisely these cells can be understood and engineered in a predictive manner. Therefore, at this point, it can be argued that for the study of the minimal cell, the focus should be on minimizing the complexity and not the number of components. Complexity is often related to the number of interactions patent in the interactome, with all the interactions linking biological molecules in a cell (171). Once the interactome is known and the complexity of the system is understood, this complexity can be reduced by the rational deletion of some elements, such as single genes or even whole metabolic or regulatory modules that are not essential and that represent a considerable increase of the complexity of the system. One example is work by Trinh et al., who, by knocking out only 8 genes, reduced the functional space of the E. coli central metabolic network from 15,000 pathway possibilities to only 6 growth-supporting pathways (172).
Interactomes and Network BiologyNetwork biology explores the connectivity of molecular elements in biological networks, which can change dramatically for different proteins (173–175). It has been suggested that the complexity of the network of protein-protein interactions in a cell can be reduced to and be represented by a small number of highly connected hubs or protein units of structure and function (174). Network biology also specializes in applying graph theory to biological systems and revealing universal features of cellular networks (176). One of the major discoveries was that biological networks follow a hierarchical organization (173) in a modular manner, a feature that, from a holistic perspective, can facilitate interventions and predictions in the network. Recently, the hierarchical organization of biological networks was highlighted as being vital for the reduction of the complexity of bacterial cells for biotechnological applications but under another nomenclature (177). Those authors emphasize the need to introduce the concept of orthogonalization, a classical notion in engineering and mathematics that represents the ability of subsystems of a higher system to function independently, in biology (177).
An analysis of different prokaryotic networks suggested that more environmental variability is related to more network modularity and therefore more orthogonalization (178). It was demonstrated that E. coli metabolic modules are functionally uniform, with each metabolic class being assignable to one specific structural module, while the reduced network modules of B. aphidicola showed a larger mixture of different functions (178). Another interesting conclusion on biological complexity was that the transition to the largest and more complex metabolic networks was dependent on the presence of oxygen (179).
Genome Size and Cellular ComplexityThe results of high-throughput interactome studies permit a first glance at the relationship between the genome size (in terms of the number of open reading frames [ORFs]) and the number of interactions identified (16) and show that there is no correlation between the two variables (Fig. 2). The total number of interactions exhibits a disperse distribution, but when normalized by the number of baits tested in each study, the ratio of the number of interactions identified to the number of baits was between 2- and 8-fold, with the exception of Campylobacter jejuni, for which the interactome is 18 times larger than the number of baits tested (Fig. 2). This indicates that interactome size might be independent of genome size, although the available data are still insufficient for definitive conclusions.
Results from high-throughput interactome studies of different prokaryotic species (16).
A general lack of strong correlations between genome size and several other cellular features, inferred from annotation data (180), corroborates the notion that the genome size (in kb) is a poor indicator of complexity (Fig. 3A). Of recent annotation data, the worst correlation occurs for the number of predicted HGT events, followed closely by the number of pseudogenes and the number of rRNA copies per genome. The absence of a correlation between the genome size and copy number of small-subunit rRNAs was also suggested by other authors (181), as is the case for pseudogenes. It was shown that the vast majority (90%) of prokaryotic genomes contain <18% noncoding DNA, but this value can be up to 50% in parasites that are enriched in pseudogenes (182). Interestingly, eukaryote-like kinases are present in the genomes of M. genitalium and M. pneumoniae (two kinases and one kinase, respectively) but not in the genome of E. coli (183).
Correlations between genome sizes of prokaryotes and some genomic and phenotypic features. (A) Correlation coefficients for annotation data and doubling times. (Data for eukaryote-like kinases are from reference 183, data for doubling times are from reference 184, and the remaining data are from the IMG database [180].) All P values were <0.001, with the exception of the correlations for doubling times (nonsignificant P values). (B) Pearson's correlation between the number of reactions and the number of ORFs for 49 manually curated metabolic network reconstructions (P value of 0.001637) (for the full list and references, see Data Set S1 in the supplemental material). The blue square represents a theoretical minimal metabolic network (46).
The lack of a correlation between genome size and doubling time is another interesting point to consider (Fig. 3), from the points of view of both evolutionary fitness and industrial application. Indeed, codon usage bias is a much better indicator of the growth rate (184, 185) than genome size. Another interesting feature, the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) defense mechanism has been indicated as a complex feature of prokaryotes, in which both the number of loci and the size of the sequences do not correlate with genome size (186).
The best correlations with genome size occur for metabolism-related features such as the number of predicted enzymes and the transporters assigned by the transporter classification system (Fig. 3). This correlation is weaker when only manually curated GENREs are considered (Fig. 3B; see also Data Set S1 in the supplemental material). Manually curated GENREs are available for a significantly smaller number of species than for those with sequenced genomes; however, the former include a rigorous process of validation and a supervised procedure for gap filling of the network. Overall, it seems plausible that genome size reflects fairly well the metabolic capability of an organism. Metabolic networks are among the most studied and manipulated of all prokaryotic features (108, 159, 187), and it has been suggested that the complexity of metabolism lies mostly in the regulation imposed on the metabolic network (188), which can occur on a large scale with the intervention of a single ubiquitous transcription factor (189), making it difficult to infer biological complexity based on metabolic network size alone.
The complexity of transcriptional regulatory networks, e.g., through transcription factor-gene interactions, can be seen as another metric of overall cellular complexity. Although the number of transcription factors seems to increase with increasing genome size, the number of regulatory sites per intergenic region is independent of it (190). On the other hand, the M. pneumoniae genome, despite having only 0.81 Mb, contains frequent antisense transcripts, alternative transcripts, and multiple regulators per gene, which make regulation and transcriptome of this bacterium highly dynamic and somehow similar to those of eukaryotes (48). M. genitalium lacks two-component regulatory systems with histidine kinase sensors and response regulator domains, which are widespread in E. coli and H. influenzae (13), which led to the anticipation that its regulatory circuits would be less responsive to environmental signals (191) and therefore less controllable in industrial scenarios.
The minimal nutritional requirements of a species summarize its biosynthetic capabilities and hence can be used as a metric of its metabolic complexity. Based on nutritional information for 15 species (see Data Set S2 in the supplemental material), there seems to be a nonlinear relationship between the number of medium components and genome size, with an apparent stabilization in a minimal medium with between 7 and 8 components after the 3-Mb mark (for heterotrophic growth) (Fig. 4). The underlying negative correlation is in accordance with the expectation that the nutritional requirements of smaller genomes should be greater, reflecting evolutionary adaptations that have implications for the design of chassis cells.
Relationship between the number of components of minimal medium and genome size for different prokaryotes of different phyla (see Data Set S2 in the supplemental material for medium composition and references).
The number of genome copies per cell is another feature that defies genome size as an appropriate measure of complexity. Surprisingly, until recently, insect obligate endosymbionts held the record for the largest numbers of copies of genomes per cell, with the average ranging from 20 to several hundred genome copies in Buchnera cells and from 200 to 900 copies in “Candidatus Sulcia” cells (192). Moreover, it was shown that the number of copies of genomes of intracellular symbionts varies in response to the developmental stage of the host, increasing during postembryonic development of insects into adults and decreasing during aging (193). It is reasonable to think that endosymbiosis transforms these prokaryotes into cell factories that are more active in providing the host the “agreed nutrients” by increasing the genome copy number, which can be exploited for more profitable biotechnological applications with minimal cells.
Subcellular ArchitectureHighly organized subcellular architecture is increasingly becoming an object of attention and brings a whole new perspective to the biology of prokaryotes (194, 195), which until recently have been regarded as simple membrane-bound cells with a uniform cytoplasm and one circular genome. It has been shown that even enzymes thought to have only specific chemical roles can have well-defined structural roles in a prokaryotic cytoplasm. The CTP synthase of Caulobacter crescentus forms filaments that help define the characteristic curvature of these bacteria, and these filaments are formed in E. coli as well (196). M. pneumoniae also displays highly ordered structural features (45, 48), including a complex terminal structure that directs human respiratory tract colonization and is considered an organelle per se, with the function of promoting attachment (197). Although this bacterium is among the simplest prokaryotes, with an extremely reduced genome and without cell wall, its subcellular architecture shows that smaller genomes can translate into complex cellular structures.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
The genome, as the first ome made accessible by technological advances, has so far received most of the attention in the field of minimal or simpler cells. Efforts toward the construction of minimal genomes include mainly the large-scale identification of nonessential genes, relatively few experimental genome reductions, and an outstanding example of the construction of a bacterial cell harboring a synthetic genome. In another line of research, comparative approaches identified core, conserved gene sets that were at first thought to constitute the minimal genome. With the sequencing of more and more genomes, at present, this core is practically reduced to zero, as no protein-encoding gene is universal across the prokaryotic domain (138). This outstanding discovery has reshaped the way in which the field of minimal cells is viewed from a systems biology perspective. The genome is no longer seen as the static core identity of the cell but is seen more as a backbone or a database of tools pertaining to a complex and dynamic system. Technologies complementary to genomics are thus entering the main stage, such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, as well as computational tools for simulating the dynamic behavior of the cell. The minimal cell can be seen at present as a broad concept that does not apply to one genome composition only. It seems that a panoply of different small genomes may exist, being regulated differently, expressed in different proteomes, and strongly dependent on the available media and environment.
In parallel to omics-oriented research, the study of the last universal common ancestor has been integrated within the geochemical context of early Earth, which is crucial to the reconstitution and understanding of the genetic and metabolic capabilities of this minimal cell. Furthermore, the design of chassis cells is becoming more and more targeted on specific needs, such as product and culture conditions, expanding on the previous notion that a general minimal cell with a reduced genome would fit industrial needs. Overall, it has become clear that both fundamental and applied goals for research on minimal cells can be achieved only through a system-level analysis encompassing bottom-up, top-down, and middle-out approaches.
The need for taking a holistic approach to the design of minimal cells is underlined by the need to complement experimental approaches with mathematical modeling. Mathematical models can aid in the interpretation and integration of large omics data sets, hypothesis generation, uncovering general principles underlying the operation of complex cellular machinery, and, eventually, designing the network modules for minimal cells. One of the foremost tasks will be to devise metrics for assessing the minimality and simplicity of a biological system, features which may not necessarily go hand in hand. Although minimality can be defined in a relatively straightforward manner, e.g., in terms of genome size, to date there are no explicit metrics of complexity available. Several recent studies providing insight into the cellular interactome (16, 174, 175) indicate that the topological and functional features of these networks may be used for devising suitable complexity metrics.
A cell factory viewpoint of minimal and simpler cells can provide useful insights into the relationship between simplicity and complexity. A cell factory to be used in biotechnological applications will be required to strike a balance between various contrasting features (Fig. 5A). For example, while minimality implies a smaller genome size, it undesirably increases the requirements for nutritional supply. Similarly, minimal complexity and optimal local control may require a certain degree of orthogonalization between the functions of different components or functional modules, while some cross talk between these components will be essential to achieve globally optimal control and a high metabolic efficiency. Indeed, cellular metabolic networks feature both orthogonalization (e.g., distinct biochemical pathways) and cross talk (e.g., through the use of universal redox and energy cofactors). Furthermore, metabolic efficiency and rates often counter each other (198), prompting another balance for the system as a whole. These different tradeoff considerations clearly suggest that minimal cells used for an industrial purpose will have to be tailored to a particular need, with the complexity of the desired phenotype and the economy of the overall process dictating the balancing point. It will be interesting to extend these engineering viewpoints to evolutionary considerations for the LUCA. For example, the theoretical/experimental LUCA models could be refined so as to strike a balance between the number of components and the level of complexity that would likely represent optimal fitness under the postulated environmental conditions.
Open questions (A) and practical objectives (B) in systems biology toward the design and creation of minimal or simpler cells.
Research from diverse fields, ranging from fundamental biology to LUCA to chassis cells, is providing a clearer picture of the workflow that will most likely lead to the reconstruction of simple and minimal cells for basic research as well as for industrial applications. This implies an iterative process building upon top-down studies generating omics data sets; bottom-up, mechanistic studies generating biochemical and biophysical data; and middle-out integrative modeling allowing some degree of abstraction together with important predictions (Fig. 5B). Ultimately, all approaches toward the construction of minimal or simpler cells are systems biology approaches, as the goal is to achieve a whole system—the whole minimized or simplified cell—even though these approaches have much to gain from nonsystematic studies. Examples include studies of a specific protein or regulatory module for cell division of a minimal cell (199, 200); phylogenetic studies and even reconstruction of ancient enzymes, tracing their chemistry back to the context of ancient life (201); and the study of a specific pathway that could later be optimized in a chassis cell (202), etc. The merger between such nonsystematic studies, systematic approaches, and synthetic DNA technology is expected to lead to exciting achievements toward the construction of minimal cells. This combination will be key for answering the long-sought questions of the origin and nature of life and for improving our ability to rationally design minimal or simpler cells.
J.C.X. is sponsored by grant SFRH/BD/81626/2011 from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal.
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/MMBR.00050-13.
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8. Inclusion. We support activities that advance equity by including the voices of constituents in their planning and leadership.
9. Nondiscrimination. We do not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, physical circumstances, age, status as a veteran, or immigration status. Grantees must hold similar standards. Requests from organizations known to have discriminatory policies will not be considered.
Each year is a new year of grant making at ninety-nine girlfriends. Community context changes and so do the members of our Grant Review Teams.
Proposals should respond to a demonstrated need in one of the five focus areas described below. We use these focus area categories to structure our review process. Often, a proposal can fall into more than one area. Each applicant decides which focus area best reflects the intent of their project. When choosing a focus area, we encourage applicants to be guided by the potential impact their project intends, rather than their organization’s overall mission or activities.
Arts & Culture — Projects that enhance opportunities for creative expression that strengthens social fabric, highlights social issues, or engages specific constituencies (particularly those who are currently underserved) in the arts or arts education, broadly defined to include: visual arts, theater/performance, dance, cultural arts, music, film, media, design, humanities, and the study and application of the arts to the human environment.
Education & Lifelong Learning — Projects that improve educational equity, opportunity, or education-related services for children and youth, from preschool through post-secondary; out-of-school time and summer learning, especially related to closing achievement and opportunity gaps; youth workforce development; college and career readiness; family involvement in their children’s learning; adult literacy, and adult workforce development for underserved communities.
Environment & Sustainability — Projects that improve, preserve, or revitalize open spaces, natural resources, and/or facilities; promote the resiliency and welfare of natural habitats; mitigate the impact of environmental hazards on specific populations or species; promote environmental justice, or encourage research, public awareness, policy, or education relating to natural ecosystems or the built environment.
Family & Human Services — Projects that contribute to maximizing the safety, success, and quality of life for all people living in our community, with a focus on preventing as well as remediating threats to well-being for under-served groups of people, and with an emphasis on improving systems to create greater equity.
Health & Wellness — Projects that improve health and prevent health risks, including endeavors focused on overall wellness, access to care, health equity, coordination of behavioral, physical and mental health services, and addressing social determinants of health.
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North Kent Enterprise Zone
Ebbsfleet Garden City
Kent Medical Campus
Innovation Park Medway
European Union, European Regional Development Fund, North Kent Enterprise Zone
Tunnel boosts vision for Enterprise Zone
Partners behind the North Kent Enterprise Zone are viewing the Government’s announcement to give the go-ahead to the construction of a new Lower Thames Crossing as a major boost.
The announced route for the new Lower Thames Crossing (Option C) will, when complete, link the M25 between Junction 29 and 30, and cross the Thames via a bored tunnel east of Gravesend and Tilbury and connecting with the A2 east of Gravesend. This accords with Highways England’s preferred route (modified by opting for the western rather than eastern southern link) and is supported by South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP), Locate in Kent, and business community.
As a result, traffic flows across north Kent and along the M2 and M20 are expected to improve, and make the Enterprise Zone’s sites at Ebbsfleet Garden City, Rochester Airport Technology Park in Medway and Kent Medical Campus in Maidstone even better connected to the wider region.
Christian Brodie, Chairman of SELEP, who championed the push for the Lower Thames Crossing and the recently launched Enterprise Zone, said: “This is excellent news as it will have a significant economic impact. The investments announced will strengthen the resilience of our UK and European connections – imperative as we now move towards Brexit.
“However, the benefits go far beyond Kent and Essex. With the current Dartford Crossing already operating at capacity and freight traffic continuing to grow, the new crossing will also support the Government’s wider economic aspirations for the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine.”
Stakeholders across the region, including the business community and SELEP, will be engaging positively with Ministers to ensure the process for planning and delivering the new road progresses without further delay, in order to relieve pressure on the existing crossing and community at Dartford.
Return to News and Events
Please fill in the form and submit to get the latest on what's happening in the North Kent Enterprise Zone
John Smith [email protected]
© 2019 North Kent Enterprise Zone
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Taking a Chance with Monte Carlo
When evaluating opportunities for investment, businesses must undertake some form of cost-benefit analysis in order to ascertain potential ROI. While R&D, Marketing and other well established business functions can communicate the potential benefits of a £100,000 spend in financial terms, security professionals are left reporting on a perceived risk and as a result can only report on eventualities with no hard figures.
Allocation of resources on a new DDoS mitigation tool might decrease the chances of a successful attack: It also might not. What is the ROI?
Monte Carlo simulation is a computerised mathematical technique used to provide estimates for complex problems where there is significant uncertainty. It is employed to aid decision making throughout industry, from healthcare, where it is used to model radiation therapy procedures, to estimating oil well reserves.
For a given model, Monte Carlo simulation works by assigning all unknown variables a probability distribution. The next step is to sample values randomly from the probability distributions and run the model. This process is repeated thousands of times until we are left with a distribution of potential outcomes. From this we are able to infer the most likely outcomes as well as external scenarios.
By performing Monte Carlo simulations we not only discover what might happen but also how likely it is to happen.
The main blocker in using this technique and particularly in the cyber-industry, is choosing the correct distribution to sample from. If on average, I am the victim of 10 DDoS attempts per year, this could be modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean 10. This is not so easily done when I need to model the cost of potential brand damage from a data breach.
In this instance, we could seek the help of subject matter experts to provide an estimate and then factor in any uncertainty using Monte Carlo. If the SME estimates that the cost of brand damage is £200,000 but is equally likely to be between £150,000 to £250,000, we can use a uniform distribution to model the uncertainty.
The technique is an enhancement to, not a replacement for, existing frameworks. We can use Monte Carlo simulation alongside CyberVaR, Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR), FIPS65 and many more.
Consider a case where, having been subject to 10 DDoS attacks in the previous year, a firm must weigh-up the purchase of a new tool to help prevent further attacks. Apart from the £100,000 cost of the tool, there are very few hard figures to conduct a cost-benefit analysis with. After enlisting the help of an SME it’s suggested that purchasing the new technology would decrease the number of successful attacks from 10 to between 3 and 6 per year while the downtime is approximated to be between 2 and 24 hours, with 6 hours being the most likely time.
A consultation with the wider business has estimated that the cost of brand damage from each successful attack lies between £50,000 and £150,00 and the loss in revenue whilst the servers are down being £1000 per hour.
Using this additional information, we can build a model to estimate the cost savings from implementing the new software.
In this example Annualised Loss is given by the cost of a DDoS attack, which is a summation of the brand damage and the loss of revenue from downtime.
In order to model the SME estimate of downtime, we sample from the PERT distribution. The PERT distribution is a modified beta distribution used exclusively for modelling expert estimates, where the expert has provided guesses for minimum, maximum and most likely values. The value of this distribution compared to others used to model expert opinion is its similarity to the normal and lognormal distributions. At times when there is a lack of real data, assuming that our variable of interest follows a normal distribution makes good sense.
Attack frequency is assumed to follow a Poisson distribution. The Poisson distribution is intuitively a good fit in this case, as it’s used to express the probability that a certain number of events N, happens in a given timeframe (with N being an integer greater than or equal to zero).
Variables that are thought to be equally likely between some maximum and minimum values are assumed to come from a uniform distribution.
Monte Carlo Simulation allows us to account for our expert’s uncertainty about the efficacy of the new technology. Instead of a fixed expected frequency, we instead sample it from a uniform distribution with limits set to the bounds of the estimates.
The Expected Loss from an attack is then multiplied by the estimated annual frequency in order to predict the loss per annum.
The table above displays the findings from running both models 1,000 times. The results show that the increased spend is offset by a nearly five-fold decline in ALE. Furthermore, the loss expectancy at the 90th percentile has fallen in excess of £600,000 with a benefit-cost ratio of 1.65.
The results from this model should be taken with a pinch of salt! However, I hope that I’ve managed to convey the merits of using Monte Carlo simulation to model cyber-risk. In doing so, security professionals will be able to use concrete figures to communicate with the wider business.
####### load required packages and ste seed ########
library(mc2d) #for PERT distribution
library(ggplot2) #for plotting
set.seed(1501)
DDoS <- 10 #Number of DDoS attacks per year
software_cost <- 100000 #Cost of new technology
DDoS_new <- runif(n=1000,min=3,max=6) #Num of attacks after investment
downtime_min <- 2
downtime_max <- 24
downtime_avg <- 6
downtime_cost <- 1000
brand_damage_min <- 50000
brand_damage_max <- 150000
####### without investment ########
no_invest <- rpois(n=1000,DDoS) * (runif(n=1000,min=brand_damage_min,
max=brand_damage_max) +
rpert(1000,downtime_min,downtime_avg,downtime_max,
4)*downtime_cost)
print(paste(“Without investment Annualised Loss Expectancy at the 10th Percentile is“,
round(quantile(no_invest,.1),2),“, “,round(median(no_invest,.1),2),
“ at the Median“, “& “,round(quantile(no_invest,.9),2),
“ at the 90th Percentile“))
######## with investment ########
invest <- rpois(n=1000,DDoS_new) * (runif(n=1000,min=brand_damage_min,
4)*downtime_cost) + software_cost
print(paste(“With investment Annualised Loss Expectancy at the 10th Percentile is“,
round(quantile(invest,.1),2),“, “,round(median(invest,.1),2),
“ at the Median“, “& “,round(quantile(invest,.9),2),
####### plot the distributions of the monte carlo simulations #######
ALE <- data.frame(investment = c(rep(“Investment“,1000),rep(“No Investment“,1000)),
Cost=c(invest/100000,no_invest/100000))
ggplot(ALE,aes(x=Cost))+geom_density(aes(fill=factor(investment),
colour=factor(investment)),
alpha=0.4)+
scale_colour_manual(““,values=c(“Investment“=“black“,“No Investment“=“red“))+
scale_fill_manual(““,values=c(“Investment“=“black“,“No Investment“=“red“))+
xlab(“Cost (£100,000)“)+
ylab(“Density“)+
ggtitle(“The Effect of an £100k Investment on Annualised Loss Expectancy“)
view rawmontecarlo.R hosted with ❤ by GitHub
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Has Economic Policy Uncertainty Hampered the Recovery?
Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics Working Paper No. 2012-003
14 Pages Posted: 23 Feb 2012
See all articles by Scott R. Baker
Scott R. Baker
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance
Nicholas Bloom
Stanford University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Steven J. Davis
University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Chicago Booth Research Paper No. 12-06
The U.S. economy hit bottom in June 2009. Thirty months later, output growth remains sluggish and unemployment still hovers above 8%. A critical question is why. One view attributes the weak recovery, at least in part, to high levels of uncertainty about economic policy. This view entails two claims: First, that policy uncertainty is unusually high in recent years. Second, that high levels of policy uncertainty caused households and businesses to hold back significantly on spending, investment and hiring. We take a look at both claims in this article. We start by considering an index of economic policy uncertainty developed in Baker, Bloom and Davis (2012). Figure 1, which plots our index, indicates that economic policy uncertainty fluctuates strongly over time. The index shows historically high levels of economic policy uncertainty in the last four years. It reached an all-time peak in August 2011.
As discussed below, we also find evidence that policy concerns account for an unusually high share of overall economic uncertainty in recent years. Moreover, short-term movements in overall economic uncertainty more closely track movements in policy-related uncertainty in the past decade than earlier. In short, our analysis provides considerable support for the first claim of the policy uncertainty view.
The second claim is harder to assess because it raises difficult issues of what causes what. We do not provide a definitive analysis of the second claim. Nevertheless, our evidence suggests that policy uncertainty can damage the economy, and that high levels of policy uncertainty have been an important factor hampering the recovery. We find evidence that increases in economic policy uncertainty foreshadow declines in output, employment and investment. While we cannot say that economic policy uncertainty necessarily causes these negative developments – since many factors move together in the economy – we can say with some confidence high levels of policy uncertainty are associated with weaker growth prospects.
Keywords: Policy uncertainty index, news-based uncertainty measure, tax-code expirations, forecaster disagreement, slow recovery
JEL Classification: E60, C43
Baker, Scott R. and Bloom, Nicholas and Davis, Steven J., Has Economic Policy Uncertainty Hampered the Recovery? (February 3, 2012). Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics Working Paper No. 2012-003. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2009451 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2009451
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance ( email )
Stanford University - Department of Economics ( email )
Landau Economics Building, Room 231
579 Serra Mall
HOME PAGE: http://economics.stanford.edu/faculty/bloom
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )
Steven J. Davis (Contact Author)
University of Chicago ( email )
5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
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Markov Perfect Industry Dynamics With Many Firms
See all articles by Gabriel Y. Weintraub
Gabriel Y. Weintraub
Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Columbia University - Columbia Business School - Decision Risk and Operations
C. Lanier Benkard
Stanford Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Benjamin Van Roy
Stanford University - Management Science & Engineering
NBER Working Paper No. w11900
Number of pages: 59 Posted: 05 Feb 2006 Last Revised: 09 Jul 2010
Econometrica, Vol. 76, No. 6, pp. 1375-1411, November 2008
Date Written: February 2007
We propose an approximation method for analyzing Ericson and Pakes (1995)-style dynamic models of imperfect competition. We define a new equilibrium concept that we call "oblivious equilibrium," in which each firm is assumed to make decisions based only on its own state and knowledge of the long run average industry state, but where firms ignore current information about competitors' states. The great advantage of oblivious equilibria is that they are much easier to compute than are Markov perfect equilibria. Moreover, we show that, as the market becomes large, if the equilibrium distribution of firm states obeys a certain "light-tail" condition, then oblivious equilibria closely approximate Markov perfect equilibria. This theorem justifies using oblivious equilibria to analyze Markov perfect industry dynamics in Ericson and Pakes (1995)-style models with many firms.
Keywords: economic theory, microeconomics
JEL Classification: C63, C73, L11, L13
Weintraub, Gabriel Y. and Benkard, C. Lanier and Van Roy, Benjamin, Markov Perfect Industry Dynamics With Many Firms (February 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=870482 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.870482
Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University ( email )
Columbia University - Columbia Business School - Decision Risk and Operations ( email )
C. Lanier Benkard (Contact Author)
Stanford Graduate School of Business ( email )
Stanford University - Management Science & Engineering ( email )
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NOTE: When ordering tapes via email, please include the T or TM number –that refers to the library cataloging method. The OKRWA Librarian needs it to retrieve the tape requested. Speakers are noted only in cases when they might be of particular interest.
Please contact the OKRWA Librarian for information on checking out tapes.
Revision (includes self-editing)
Synopsis and Query
Getty or being published (includes agents and financial concerns)
Miscellaneous Craft
Writing Characters
(T1) Taking a Manuscript Apart and putting it back together (1996)
(T2) What Do Revision Letters Really Mean? (1991)
(T14) Confessions of a Former Copy Editor (1996)
(T46) Writing Basics: Self Editing (1991)
(T53) Keys to Sales: Self Editing (2001) Note: two part series, second tape missing (2001)
(TM11) How to Amputate Without Bleeding To Death (1995)
(T11) Synopsis and Query (1990)
(T15) The Perfect Query Letter
(T20) Write the Selling Synopsis (Leslie Wainger-1996)
Getting or Being Published
(TM12) Everything About Agents and Publishers (Fogelman-1995)
(TM13) Inside the Editor’s Mind (Wainger-2000)
(TM2) The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book (1997)
(TM17) Writing Basics: Etiquette with Your Editor (1991)
(TM7) Being a New Author (1997)
(TM18) The Golden Heart: Make It Work For You (1990)
(TM19) How To Get Six Figures for Your First Novel (1993)
(TM21) Career Planning for the Unpublished Writer (1995)
(TM23) Agents: Who Needs Them? (Axelrod-1991)
(TM29,30) Writing the Breakout Novel (Maas-2001)
(T4) Down and Dirty Advice on Selling Your First Novel (1996)
(T5) So Close, But No Sale (Cotemp Setting) (1996)
(TM14) Show Me the Money (2000)
(T3) Active vs. Passive Voice (1992)
(T8) How To Capture a Good Idea, Amateur to Pro (1996)
(T9) Point of View (1997)
(T10) 1st. Chapter, 1st. Paragraph, 1st. Sentence (1997)
(T14) Voice, Parts 1 & 2 (Side a & b of tape)
(T19) Realizing Emotion (1996)
(T24) Point of View (Vernon 1991)
(T41) Writing Basics: Manuscript Preparation (1991)
(T42) Writing Basics: Prewriting (1991)
(T47) Writing Hot: Sensuality for the Series Writer (1999)
(T50) He Said, She Said: Writing Dialogue (2001)
(T52) Populating Your Story World (2001)
(T54) Creating Character Emotion (2001)
(T56) Where Are We? Setting the Scene (2001)
(T26) Creating Compelling Heroines (2000)
(T27) Write with Archetypes, Not Stereotypes (2000)
(T28) Creating Memorable Characters (2000)
(T30) Creating Perfect Heroes (2000)
(T31) Tight Fittin’ Jeans–Sexual Tension (1999)
(T32) Growing Plot Out of Character (1999)
(T33) Sex vs. Sensuality–Layering Your Stories (2000)
(T34 & T35) Creating The Emotional Black Moment (2000)
(T40) The Psychology of Characterization (1989)
(T43) How To Write Non-Verbal Communication (1992)
(T48) The Romance Of Action Scenes (1996)
(T37) Writing the Blockbuster Novel (2000)
(TM10) Street Smarts for the Writer (1997)
(TM15) Researching the Old West (2000)
(TM3) It’s About Time (1997)
(TM4) Women Of the West (1996)
(TM 5 & 6) Muse on the Run, Pts. 1 & 2 (1998)
(TM8) Here in the Real World (1997)
(TM9) Coping with Stress (1997)
(TM16) Minis Series Aren’t Just for TV Anymore (1998)
(TM20) Tapping Into Your Creativity (1999)
(TM 24 & 25) Crime Investigation Procedures, Parts 1 & 2 (1993)
(TM 27) Taking the Mystery out of Intrigue (Wainger–1991)
(TM28) Get Confident–Public Speaking (1990)
(TM 29, 30) Writing the Breakout Novel (Maas 2001)
(TM31) Writing the Hip Historical (2002)
(T6) Prescription for Sagging Middles (1996)
(T7) How to Write a Page Turner (Brockman 1998)
(T12) Leading the Reader On (1997)
(T16) Where to Stop and Start:Pacing (1995)
(T17) Goal and Conflict (1997)
(T18) Advanced Plotting (1996)
(T21) Conflict: The Core of Your Novel (1997)
(T24) Plotting, Pts. 1 & 2, (Kramer 1996)
(T25) Anatomy of an Escalating Relationship (2000)
(T36) Six Steps to a Perfect Plot (1996)
(T38) Scene on Fire (2000)
(T44) He Feels, She Feels: Creating Internal Conflict (1996)
(T45) Plotting with a Partner and a Plan (1995)
(T49) Anatomy of a Scene (2001)
(T55) Coping with Rejection (1997)
Copyright 2010, Oklahoma Romance Writers of America
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New on Netflix: July 2019
Netflix Monthly
Jun 21, 2019 Jun 21, 2019 ONTVtoday
All Netflix July 2019 titles and dates are subject to change
Stranger Things 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL – Avail. 7/4/19
It’s 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana, and summer’s heating up. School’s out, there’s a brand new mall in town, and the Hawkins crew are on the cusp of adulthood. Romance blossoms and complicates the group’s dynamic, and they’ll have to figure out how to grow up without growing apart. Meanwhile, danger looms. When the town’s threatened by enemies old and new, Eleven and her friends are reminded that evil never ends; it evolves. Now they’ll have to band together to survive, and remember that friendship is always stronger than fear.
Coming in July
July 1July 3 - 9July 10 - 19July 22 - 30Leaving in July
Designated Survivor: 60 days – NETFLIX ORIGINAL – Avail. 7/1/19
Avail. 7/1/19
Designated Survivor: 60 days — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Designated Survivor: 60 Days follows the main storyline of the original format, but has been adapted to feature more of the Korean reality. It is a story of a politician, who suddenly ascends from the position of Minister of Environment to President, as an explosion at the National Assembly kills everyone in the Cabinet who is ahead of him in terms of the presidential succession. Park Mu-jin is a scientist-turned-politician who struggles to fit in politics. Park is the acting president for 60 days, and during this period, albeit inexperienced and unwilling, he tries to uncover the truth behind the attack.
Katherine Ryan: Glitter Room — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Everyone’s favorite single mom is back with her second Netflix original stand-up special Katherine Ryan: Glitter Room, launching globally on July 1. A follow-up to her 2017 special In Trouble, Katherine toured Glitter Room across the UK with an unprecedented four-week run at London’s Garrick Theatre in the West End. After dividing The Belasco Theater audience on their love or dislike of the Kardashians, Katherine showcases her skillful and hilarious storytelling style with tales about following a man to Japan and meeting her daughter’s first celebrity crush, Anna Kendrick.
Caddyshack 2
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke
Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain
Frozen River
Inkheart
Mean Dreams
Nights in Rodanthe
Road House
Swiped
The Accountant of Auschwitz
The Brothers Grimm
The Pink Panther 2
War Against Women
Who’s That Knocking at My Door?
Yummy Mummies: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL – Avail. 7/3/19
The Last Czars — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
When social upheaval sweeps Russia in the early 20th century, Czar Nicholas II resists change, sparking a revolution and ending a dynasty.
Yummy Mummies: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Yum Mums welcome a new member as they settle into motherhood, spice up their sex lives and ponder whether they want to get pregnant again.
Kakegurui: Season 2
Stranger Things 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
In The Dark: Season 1
Free Rein: Season 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Competition heats up at Bright Fields over the summer as tryouts for the “UK Under 18s” team pit friend against friend for just one available spot.
Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: New 2019: Freshly Brewed — NETFLIX ORIGINAL – Avail. 7/19/19
Avail. 7/10/19
Family Reunion — NETFLIX FAMILY
When the McKellan family moves from Seattle to Georgia, life down South — and traditional grandparents — challenge their new-age ways.
Grand Designs: Season 10
Parchís: El documental — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Get an in-depth look at Parchís, the 1980s kids’ band from Spain, through interviews with ex-members and other insiders, concert footage and more.
Cities of Last Things — NETFLIX FILM
In a dystopian tale unfolding in reverse chronology, a man with a complicated past takes revenge on the individuals who wronged him decades ago.
3Below: Tales of Arcadia: Part 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Still stranded in Arcadia, royal alien siblings Aja and Krel continue their quest to return home as General Morando plots a course to invade Earth.
4 latas — NETFLIX FILM
In hopes of visiting a dying friend, longtime pals reunite for a desert road trip from Spain to Mali, while bringing along his estranged daughter.
Blown Away — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Ten master artists turn up the heat in glassblowing sculpture challenges for the chance to win $60,000 in prizes and the title of champion.
Bonus Family: Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
As Martin adjusts to life with a new partner and a baby, Lisa and Patrik grapple with difficult news, and Katja reconnects with an old flame.
Extreme Engagement — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
An engaged twosome take their love on the road and test their commitment as they explore eight cultures’ marriage traditions in the span of one year.
Kidnapping Stella — NETFLIX FILM
Snatched off the street and held for ransom, a bound and gagged woman uses her limited powers to derail her two masked abductors’ carefully laid plans.
Luis Miguel – The Series: Season 1
Point Blank — NETFLIX FILM
An ER nurse and a career criminal are forced into an unlikely partnership in taking down a ring of corrupt cops threatening the lives of both of their families.
Taco Chronicles — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
A tribute to the mighty taco: its history, significance in Mexico, global appeal and varieties: pastor, carnitas, canasta, asada, barbacoa and guisados.
True Tunes: Songs — NETFLIX FAMILY
This fun series of short, silly music videos puts a modern spin on classic nursery songs. Sing along with True and her friends!
Sorry Angel
The Break-Up
Disney’s The Princess and the Frog
Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
In this new mockumentary, join “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour as he uncovers lost footage from his father’s televised stage play, Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein. Expect the unexpected in this over-the-top and often dramatic(ish) reimagined tale of mystery and suspense . With appearances by Alfred Molina, Kate Berlant, and more special guests, Harbour explores the depths of his family’s acting lineage to gain insight into his father’s legacy – all in 28-minutes. Directed by Daniel Gray Longino (“Kroll Show” and “PEN15”) and written by John Levenstein (“Arrested Development” and “Kroll Show”), Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein launches globally on Netflix on July 16, 2019.
Wynonna Earp: Season 3
Pinky Malinky: Part 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Pinky Malinky isn’t the type of hot dog boy who sits around on his buns, and with his BFFs Babs and JJ, he’s learning how to relish the little things.
Secret Obsession — NETFLIX FILM
Recuperating from trauma, Jennifer (Brenda Song) remains in danger as she returns to a life she doesn’t remember.
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: New 2019: Freshly Brewed — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Jerry Seinfeld’s roving talk show combines coffee, laughs and vintage cars into quirky, caffeine-fueled adventures with the sharpest minds in comedy.
The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants: Season 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Fourth-grade friends George and Harold have a shared love of pranks and comic books — and turning their principal into an undies-wearing superhero.
La casa de papel: Part 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Eight thieves take hostages and lock themselves in the Royal Mint of Spain as a criminal mastermind manipulates the police to carry out his plan.
Last Chance U: INDY: Part 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Netflix’s critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated series Last Chance U returns to give viewers an intense, unfiltered look at the junior college football program at Independence Community College (ICC). Entering his third season with ICC and second season on Last Chance U, Coach Brown has assembled a team that looks sure to compete for a national championship, but a disastrous season on the field puts a spotlight on all of the ugliness of college football that winning tends to polish over. With some new and returning faces, this season captures the Pirates fall from grace that leaves the coaches and the town looking for change.
Queer Eye: Season 4 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
The Fab Five are back in Kansas City, Missouri! Join Antoni, Bobby, Jonathan, Karamo and Tan for a new group of inspirational heroes, jaw-dropping makeovers and tons of happy tears!
SAINT SEIYA: Knights of the Zodiac — NETFLIX ANIME
Sworn to protect the reincarnation of the goddess Athena, Seiya and the Knights of the Zodiac aid her in battle against those who seek to end mankind.
Typewriter — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Typewriter is about a haunted house and a haunted book that stir the imagination of a group of young, wannabe ghost hunters, and a dog, determined to capture the ghost that plagues the notorious home in their neighbourhood in Goa. When a new family and their captivating daughter move into the haunted home, the crew finds it difficult to balance the demands of school and chores with the renewed urgency to capture the neighbourhood ghost before it is too late. (MC)
Orange Is the New Black: Season 7 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL – Avail. 7/26/19
The Great Hack — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Explore how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.
Another Life — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Another Life centers on astronaut Niko Breckinridge (Katee Sackhoff) who is focused on searching for alien intelligence. She leads a crew on a mission to explore the genesis of an alien artifact. As Niko and her young crew investigate, they face unimaginable danger on what might very well be a one-way mission. (MC)
Workin’ Moms: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Kate, Frankie, Anne and, now, Ian grow up alongside their kids as they juggle toddlers, aging, work-life balance and tough relationship issues.
Boi — NETFLIX FILM
As a young Catalan chauffeur drives two Chinese businessmen around Barcelona, he finds himself falling deeper into an illusory adventure.
The Exception
Girls With Balls — NETFLIX FILM
Stranded in the woods and eyeballed by twisted hunters, members of a women’s volleyball team bump it up in the most dangerous game of their lives.
My First First Love: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Tae-o and his friends navigate the twists and turns of friendship and love, as they face new challenges in their relationships with one another.
Orange Is the New Black: Season 7 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
A privileged New Yorker ends up in a women’s prison when a past crime catches up with her in this Emmy-winning series from the creator of “Weeds.”
The Son — NETFLIX FILM
Lorenzo, a 50-year-old bohemian painter, is looking forward to the son he’ll have with his new wife. But during pregnancy she becomes obsessed with taking care of the baby, isolating it from the world and its father.
Sugar Rush: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Time’s the most important ingredient as teams race against the clock — and each other — to bake up the best-tasting sweets.
The Worst Witch: Season 3 — NETFLIX FAMILY
Armed with newfound confidence, Mildred returns to Cackle’s Academy, where her mother is joining the staff as the school’s first non-witch teacher.
Whitney Cummings: Can I Touch It? — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Multi-hyphenate comedian, Whitney Cummings, makes her Netflix debut with her 4th stand-up special, Whitney Cummings: Can I Touch It? Filmed at the Sidney Harmon Hall in her hometown, Washington, DC. Cummings’ signature incisive commentary on gender dynamics is more relevant than ever. Do women need to wear service vests instead of “Rosé All Day” t-shirts? Are their nicknames for each other hurting the cause? Now that people are actually listening what should women change? How are men holding up with all the “new” rules they have to follow now? Tune in for Whitney’s take on everything including why we should give sex robots a chance. The special will launch globally on Netflix on July 30, 2019.
Kengan Ashura: Part l — NETFLIX ANIME
Underground gladiator Tokita Ohma fights on behalf of business mogul Nogi Hideki who wagers mega-business deals on the outcome of these brutal matches.
The Letdown: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Audrey, mother of a 2-month-old, joins a new-parents support group, where she makes some quirky friends facing various challenges and life changes.
The Red Sea Diving Resort — NETFLIX FILM
Inspired by remarkable true life rescue missions, THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT is the incredible story of a group of international agents and brave Ethiopians who in the early 80s used a deserted holiday retreat in Sudan as a front to smuggle thousands of refugees to Israel. The undercover team carrying out this mission is led by the charismatic Ari Kidron (Chris Evans) and courageous local Kabede Bimro (Michael Kenneth Williams). The prestigious cast also includes Haley Bennett, Alessandro Nivola, Michiel Huisman, Chris Chalk, Greg Kinnear and Ben Kingsley.
Wentworth: Season 7
The Matrix – Leaving 7/1/19
Leaving 7/1/19
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Chasing Amy
Cool Hand Luke
Definitely, Maybe
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer: Season 1
Malibu’s Most Wanted
Monster-in-Law
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
The Wild Bunch
Turner and Hooch
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
The Indian in the Cupboard
Leaving 7/10/19
July YouTube
New on Amazon Prime Video: July 2019 →
← TCM reopens the ‘Disney Vault’ for a night of treats
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Ex-fire captain gets probation for sex with teen at fire station
By Joshua Rhett Miller
June 25, 2019 | 10:12am | Updated June 25, 2019 | 11:12am
Richard Loughry AP
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A disgraced former Las Vegas fire captain must register as a sex offender and serve up to five years’ probation after paying a 15-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him inside a fire station — but was spared jail time by a judge who cited his “spotless record.”
Richard Loughry, 48, was sentenced Monday after entering a guilty plea in March that required him to admit that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him at trial on charges of attempted statutory sexual seduction and soliciting prostitution, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
Loughry said the February 2017 encounter with the teen — who was listed as 22 on a Craigslist advertisement — was the “most stupid, devastating decision” of his life, one that destroyed the “dignity” of his nearly 20-year career.
“Now there is no solace and honor and no encouragement in my accomplishments,” Loughry whined to Judge James Bixler. “I live in a state of regret and remorse every single day.”
Loughry asked the girl twice if she was comfortable meeting him at his fire station before sneaking the teen into a captain’s dorm where they had sex, according to court records and prosecutors.
The teen told police she spent about 45 minutes at the fire station, where she heard several voices emanating from another room, although it was unclear whether Loughry’s fellow firefighters were aware that she was there.
Loughry resigned after being arrested in 2017. He initially was charged with lewdness with a child, child abuse and soliciting a prostitute, KLAS reports.
Bixler, meanwhile, said he received about 90 letters in support of Loughry, who also had about 12 relatives and former colleagues attend Monday’s hearing, the Review-Journal reports.
“I feel sorry for you,” Bixler told Loughry. “You had done nothing but serve our community for your entire career. And to have this happen to you is really and truly a tragedy.”
Bixler also cited Loughry’s “spotless record” prior to his arrest.
“He certainly stepped in a big hole here,” Bixler said.
Loughry has since started working as a trucker after obtaining his commercial driver’s license, his attorney said.
“We are extremely grateful to Judge Bixler for allowing him the opportunity of completing probation,” attorney Craig Hendricks told the Review-Journal. “It’s obvious the court took into consideration [Loughry’s] perfect record and contribution to the community prior to this incident.”
Filed under crime , firefighters , las vegas , prostitution
'Selfless' Kansas man dies rescuing stranger from river
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Elbert Jacob Guyer – 2002 Inductee
Elbert Guyer doing farmwork on the family homestead in Osborne County, Kansas.
Farmer/inventor/businessman Elbert Jacob Guyer was born October 24, 1914 to William and Maude (Ruthi) Guyer on the family homestead in Kill Creek Township of Osborne County.
At the 2002 Osborne County Hall of Fame Banquet Elbert’s grandson, John Trenton Guyer, gave the following induction speech on the life of his grandfather:
“I’m John Trenton Guyer, Elbert Guyer’s grandson . . . .
In 1875, Elbert’s Grandfather, John W. Guyer homesteaded in a typical sod house along the banks of Kill Creek Township after having walked through a dozen states as a Civil War Union soldier. He had originally come from Switzerland settling in Wisconsin and then Kill Creek.
Elbert, my grandfather, started out in Osborne County, where he grew up on that same farm his grandfather homesteaded. On clear, cold, early winter mornings, while performing the family chores, he often heard the train whistle of the coal fired steam engine run through Bloomington. He never imagined he would see much of the world and the far-off distances the train was headed. He drove a Model A Ford, 11 miles to High School on the dirt roads through mud, snow and ice. The driving experience in those conditions served him well as he later drove throughout all 50 states and 6 Canadian provinces. He accumulated over several million miles hauling or towing products on two-lane highways and roads, oftentimes sleeping in the pickup truck cab.
He also journeyed throughout all the continents of the world except Antarctica and circled the world eight times while experiencing government coups, hazardous airline flights and cultural obstacles. Throughout the years, he always came back to Osborne County to visit family and friends and the ranchland he still owns here.
Elbert and Marval Guyer
Elbert came through the hardship of the dust bowl days. After high school, with no finances to further his education, he ventured into farming to support his family. This led to custom harvesting, which evolved into manufacturing. Being a custom harvester in the grain fields between Texas and North Dakota required healthy self-sufficiency and guidance from God. Elbert reportedly made a public prayer for the crew’s safety before each journey. He and his crew of 10 men spent many nights in their bedrolls under the stars, along with four combines loaded on four grain trucks. Elbert depended on his ingenuity and self-sufficiency along with a portable workshop that also traveled with the crew. It was stocked with a welder, cutting torch, air compressor, parts stock and tools of the day. He could design and build tools not available anywhere else. This eliminated down-time and waiting on parts or making trips for supplies increasing production many times over. This capability was a step towards manufacturing and testing grounds for later products.
One such product was a Milo guard; a combine attachment that prevented Sorghum Heads from being knocked to the ground before the grain could make it into the combine’s storage bin. It was effective and comparatively easy to install and uninstall. It became so popular that piecework was contracted through various points in the county. The Milo guard was followed by other products such as round bottom feed bunks, soft drink cases, partition repair kits, playground equipment and another sign of the time: TV towers. At least one tower still stands in Alton.
Elbert invented the recirculating batch dryer and experimented with the development of it while custom harvesting. The grain dryer became very popular for “on-the-farm” drying and eventually found its place on farms and elevators in 54 countries around the world. But before it could be produced, growing pains required expansion. Families were beginning to introduce television into their homes. Whenever Elbert’s spot welder was engaged, the TV reception up and down the creek would fade and recover from the power surge. Downed phone lines that occurred from the oversized harvesting equipment passing through, plus the party telephone lines busy with business calls meant this expansion required a move. The family said good-bye to Osborne County, and eventually expanded into manufacturing in Moundridge, Kansas.
Today the company called Moridge Manufacturing, Incorporated, produces 33 models of the Grasshopper zero-turn mowers, which was introduced in 1970. Elbert credits the company’s engineering staff for developing the basic mower concept and shaping a product that has been a centerpiece of the commercial mowing industry. The success of the Grasshopper has been due in large part to the pioneering spirit and self-sufficiency instilled by Elbert along with the company’s ability to manufacture and market new products. Other products previously developed and produced by MoridgeManufacturing have been:
• 10″ Baldwin Grain Auger
• Automatic Tube Cattle Feeder
• Goose Neck Stock Trailer
• Springtooth Harrows
• Soybean Roasters and
• Poultry Barn Heaters
Today, the approximately 300,000 square foot plant, continuing the tradition of self-sufficiency, has utilized robotic welders since 1984. In addition, Moridge owns two of only 100 robotic press brakes running nationwide, all computer numerically controlled brakes and shears, laser fabricators, a powder paint system and 250 personnel.
Of course Elbert could not have accomplished this without the support of his wife of 65 years, Marvel Hackerott Guyer. Not only did Marvel take care of the household, but she also did bookkeeping and many times kept the factory running while he was on the road selling products.
Each generation has passed on a legacy to the next and I’m pleased to say ‘Thank you’ for recognizing my grandfather’s hard work and contributions.”
Elbert Guyer passed away in Moundridge on December 22, 2003, and was buried in the Mound Township Cemetery near Moundridge.
The Elbert and Marval Guyer gravestone, located in Mound Township Cemetery near Moundridge, Kansas.
Author ochfPosted on May 28, 2012 May 28, 2012 Categories Business, Farming, InventorTags Grasshopper Mower Moridge Manufacturing, Kill Creek Township, Moundridge
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The Osborne County Hall of Fame Blog at WordPress.com.
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Local Elections: What Happened?
The results of the local elections are still rolling in this morning with many of the Tory shires opting not to count votes last night. The results so far see Labour taking a hammering in the leave voting North, and the Tories faring worse in the South, with smaller parties mopping up the pieces. For a party nine years into opposition this is really not a good result for Labour, and so far the Tories are managing to do as badly as expectated…
Last night Sunderland Labour took a walloping, and their leader on the council had some choice words for the second referendum MPs. He made it plain to the BBC that their losses were down to being seen as an anti-Brexit party by many, and insisted that Labour should respect the result of the referendum in full. “We need to be seen to be democrats.”
Barry Gardiner, on the other hand insisted that Labour is willing to stop Brexit, even sporting a Remain campaign sticker on his iPad. What a shower…
Elsewhere Labour’s failed to tip Swindon council into no overall control, even losing the Labour-voting ward where Labour’s Parliamentary candidate and Guido favourite Kate Linnegar was standing to the Tories. Labour also lost the Middlesbrough Mayoral election and control of Northern councils like Wirral and Hartelpool. But they did pick up the Remain voting Northern council of Trafford…
The Tories lost control of a smattering of councils from leave voting council areas like Basildon, Welwyn Hatfield, and Worcester, but also lost Remain voting Winchester to the Lib Dems. They did however gain control of North East Lincolnshire and Walsall…
The Lib Dems seem to have mounted a decent fightback, although the last time these seats were fought was the absolute Lib Dem nadir of 2015, so they still have a long way to go. The Greens have also made some impressive gains. Guido will keep you up to date as more results roll in…
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Tag Archives: Creosote
Happy Birthday, Minerva Hamilton Hoyt, and Thank You for Joshua Tree National Park!
Posted on March 27, 2017 by Ordinary Philosophy
Minerva Hoyt
Just last week, I returned to one of my favorite places in the world: Joshua Tree National Park.
A native of Southern California, I have visited it many, many times throughout my life, ever since I was a young girl: with family, with friends, and alone. This place is full of wonder, beauty, and a clear clean vastness which tricks your eyes and makes you never quite certain if the rock, rise, or Joshua tree you see in the distance is close enough to touch or miles and miles away. I’ve hiked here, camped here, explored here, laughed and talked here, sighed, embraced, and frolicked with my first love here; I’ve experienced companionship, loneliness, solitude, joy, pain, and peace here. Joshua Tree played a great role in the development of my mind, soul, and heart. The beauty and richness of this place have thus affected so many others, including and especially one other woman, and it shaped her life:
There was once a natural wonder in the California desert — one you may not have heard of — that was essentially destroyed 90 years ago because people wanted desert plants for their own gardens.
One Pasadena-based environmental activist was horrified at that destruction. Her response forever changed the way Californians look at the desert, and earned her a permanent place in the pantheon of California environmentalist women… – Chris Clarke
A young Joshua Tree, cholla, creosote, and yucca at Joshua Tree National Park
…This woman was Minerva Hoyt.
Not many will recall Minerva Hamilton Hoyt and her tireless efforts on behalf of California desert protection. In fact, without her leadership, Joshua Tree National Park might never have become part of the National Park System. How a transplanted southern belle born on a Mississippi plantation became a staunch backer of the protection of desert landscapes is perhaps one of the more unlikely stories in the annals of national park history.
Minerva Hamilton led a genteel early life attending finishing schools and music conservatories. Her marriage to Dr. Sherman Hoyt led her away from the deep south to New York and eventually to South Pasadena where she immersed herself in southern California high society and civic causes. She demonstrated talent as an organizer of special charity events and developed a passion for gardening, which introduced her to some of the native desert vegetation commonly used in southern California landscaping. Trips to the desert instilled in Ms. Hoyt a strong appreciation for the austere beauty and wonderful inventiveness of desert plants that somehow managed to thrive in the harsh climate. She also saw the widespread destruction of native desert plants by thoughtless people who dug up, burned, and other wise destroyed so many of the cacti and Joshua trees that Minerva found beautiful.
Following the deaths of her son and husband, Minerva dedicated herself to the cause of protecting desert landscapes… – Joseph W. Zarki
A Joshua tree in bloom
Here’s a photo journal of some of the beauties I marveled at on my latest visit, including the marvelous desert plants Minerva Hoyt loved so well. There were some wildflowers already in bloom, but this was mid-March, a little early for wildflowers at the higher, cooler, western Mohave Desert end of the park. I heard they were in full bloom at the eastern, lower, warmer Colorado Desert end of the park, but I was with a large family group during this visit and we were unable to round everyone up to make the additional drive.
Following these photos, you’ll find links to articles and books where you can read more about this hero of conservation. The political climate we find ourselves in in the United States does not bode well for the conservation of our greatest national wonders. Yet I hope the great vision of Minerva Hoyt, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt (and later his cousin Franklin, who established Joshua Tree National Park by proclamation), and so many others who fought the good fight on its behalf, fueled by the love of nature which ennobles every heart it finds a home in, continues to win over the hearts and minds of all Americans. This is our pride and our heritage, and once gone, it may never return.
A natural sphinx stands tall among the sunrays and above the yucca plants in Hidden Valley, Joshua Tree National Park
Early blooming cactus, Joshua Tree National Park
Panoramic view of Hidden Valley in early spring, Joshua Tree National Park
A beautiful arrangement of stone, sky, cactus, and creosote, Joshua Tree National Park
Stone, flora, and sky in Hidden Valley, Joshua Tree National Park
Western tent caterpillars in a creosote bush, Joshua Tree National Park
A young Joshua tree forest, Joshua Tree National Park
Another view of Hidden Valley, Joshua Tree National Park
Sources and Inspiration
Bishop, Kim. ‘How One Tireless Advocate Protected Joshua Tree National Park‘. Aug 8, 2016, San Bernardino County Sun
Clarke, Chris. ‘The Woman Who Saved The California Desert‘. March 11, 2016, KCET.org
Kaufman, Polly Welts. National Parks and the Woman’s Voice: A History. University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
Zarki, Joseph W. Joshua Tree National Park, for Images of America book series. Arcadia, 2015
Zarki, Joseph W. ‘Minerva Hoyt‘. For the National Park Service at nps.gov
Posted in Happy Birthday!, Written by Amy Cools | Tagged Cacti, Chris Clarke, Conservation, Creosote, Desert Plants, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph W. Zarki, Joshua Tree, Joshua Tree National Park, Minerva Hamilton Hoyt, Minerva Hoyt, National Park Service, solitude, Western Tent Caterpillars, Wilderness, Yucca | 2 Comments
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Integrated Digital Care Records
Our work in Scotland
Healthcare Partnership Network - North - 2019
What is the Blue Button 2.0 API?
Orion Health Blog
By Dr. David Hay, Product Strategist
Blue Button 2.0 is an API from the Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that incorporates data for 53 million beneficiaries. It contains four years of data that reveals information about the health of each individual, including the Medicare plan they are on right through to the primary care and medicines they receive.
It is an initiative in the U.S. to link claims data from Medicare and make this available to the consumers – i.e. the people who the claim was about. The Blue Button 2.0 API uses the HL7® FHIR® standard as the format and OAuth 2.0 standard and SMART as the authorisation mechanism.
Developers can integrate with the Blue Button 2.0 API which will help individual patients and healthcare organisations to access and monitor health information in one place.
How to connect to the Blue Button 2.0 API
Let’s look at how to connect to the Blue Button 2.0 API using the SMART client that we discussed in a previous blog. There are 2 things we need to do:
As an app developer, we need to register our app (in this case the SMART client) to Blue Button2.0 (BB2).
As a user of the app, we need to register ourselves with BB2 so we can access our own data.
In this blog, we’ll only concern ourselves with registering the app, as there are test logins available. The first thing we need to do is to create a developer account on the BB2 sandbox here.
Once you have an account, you’ll need to register your application. There’s a button on the site and you’ll need to supply the following details:
Name of the application – ‘myBBapp’ sounds elegant.
Client type – choose ‘confidential’ – this means we can save a secret and it uses the ‘authorisation code’ grant type that SMART uses.
Grant type – choose ‘authorisation code’.
Redirect URIs – assuming you’re using the SMART client that will be https://clinfhir.com/callback.
You can ignore the other fields then check the agreement to the service agreement and save. Once you’ve done that, you get a number of elements provided, of which you’re going to need a couple in particular:
The client id – uniquely identifies the app (not the user of the app) to BB2 – technically the OAuth server in BB2.
The secret – because you said that you could keep one when you registered.
Now you’re ready to load these details into the SMART client.
Load the client here, click the ‘Edit Server list’ to the upper right and then click ‘Add’ above the list of servers to add a new one. Here’s the screen you’ll get:
Fill in the field on the form using the values you entered and received from the BB2 site. Note that the baseUrl is https://sandbox.bluebutton.cms.gov/v1/fhir/Patient (It is mentioned in the developer site).
It doesn’t appear that the actual value of the scope matters, so I just left it at the default.
Make sure you set the ‘Where to open browser’ to ‘Separate tab’. When you login, the SMART client app will open a separate tab to enter your login details rather than using the iframe in the main page. This is because of security restrictions made by Blue Button that prevents the login opening in an iframe – the original tab will remain open and you’ll still see the progress comments there.
Once that’s done, save it and then you can select the server in the list and login. After retrieving the Capability Statement (which contains the authorisation endpoints) you’ll need to click a ‘continue’ button (a browser security measure – it requires human intervention to authorise the opening of the separate tab).
Assuming you’ve entered everything OK, a new tab will open with the BB2 login form in it. At least in Chrome, the tab opens automatically – other browsers may require you to select it. This means that the app was properly authenticated, and it’s time for the user to identify themselves. If this was operating against the real BB2 site (rather than the sandbox) then this would be the person wanting to access their own data. However, here we’ll need a test login – there are a number of them available. From the BB2 developer website.
The first user is BBUser00000, with password PW00000!, and these sample users continue all the way to BBUser29999, with password PW29999!. (Note: the ! at the end of the password is required.) Enter any one of these to continue.
Next, you’ll be presented with a form informing you that the application you are using (the SMART Client) wishes to access your personal data, and is that OK? To proceed you need to ‘Allow’ this. Assuming you do, you should land at the query screen. This means that everything has worked and you can now start issuing queries. If this were a real app, it would now be able to retrieve data and display it to the user in whatever format it wants.
Before you do that, take a look at the ‘Supported Resources’ tab. You’ll note that only a small number of resources is supported – just as it says in the documentation. Try entering a query like ‘Coverage’ – which asks for all coverage resource. You’ll only get a few – just those that apply to the currently connected user. This is an example of the server applying its own business logic – only supplying data that the current user is entitled to.
And a reminder that the query is an FHIR search. If you want a single resource, then you’ll need to use the _id query. For example, the coverage resource has an element ‘beneficiary’ that is a reference to the Patient (in this case the same as the logged in user – it’s a patient facing service remember). For example, suppose the beneficiary reference is:
To get the actual patient resource, use the query: Patient?_id= 19990000000001. You’ll get a bundle with just the single Patient resource.
Then you are able to connect the Blue Button 2.0 API which uses the FHIR standard as the format and OAuth 2.0 standard and SMART as the authorisation mechanism.
To learn more about SMART, read my white paper which reviews SMART, and considers how an organisation can support and benefit from this healthcare standard.
Go to White Paper
Dr. David Hay
Product Strategist, FHIR Evangelist
Interoperability – from design to go-live in just seven weeks
The lack of interoperability of data and systems has been a significant blocker to the delivery of integrated care for years. It has caused the pursuit of a single view of patient information to be difficult and dependent on the willingness of vendors to work together.
How can FHIR APIs help to prevent heart attacks?
Learn more about a new sample app
Spine Mini Services Provider
Region: UK & Ireland
This is the UK & Ireland website. Click here to change region.
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Witness could face perjury charge in Navy SEAL court-martial
JULIE WATSON and CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press June 27, 2019
Navy SEAL Murder Case
Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, right, walks with his wife, Andrea Gallagher as they arrive to military court on Naval Base San Diego, Wednesday, June 26, 2019, in San Diego. Trial continues in the court-martial of the decorated Navy SEAL, who is accused of stabbing to death a wounded teenage Islamic State prisoner and wounding two civilians in Iraq in 2017. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder, charges that carry a potential life sentence. (AP Photo/Julie Watson)
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A witness who dropped stunning testimony at the war crimes trial of a decorated Navy SEAL by telling the court he had killed an Islamic State captive in Iraq in 2017 — not his accused platoon chief — could now face charges of perjury, according to the Navy.
The Navy's legal adviser to the commander overseeing the court-martial of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher notified the witness's lawyer, Brian Ferguson, in an email late Tuesday that the testimony Corey Scott gave last week could be used against him if he lied on the stand or gave a false statement.
Capt. Donald King said in the email that Scott's testimony directly contradicted "previous official statements — thus exposing him to prosecution — I feel compelled to ensure you understand this."
Cmdr. Tam Lawrence, Naval Special Warfare spokesperson, said Scott was granted immunity in exchange for the promise of truthful testimony.
"We are reviewing Petty Officer Scott's statements in light of his recent testimony but no decisions have been made," she said.
Scott testified under immunity that would protect him from prosecution for actions he described in his testimony.
Ferguson declined to comment.
The SEAL medic testified that he had killed the adolescent Islamic State captive in their care in Iraq in 2017 by plugging the militant's breathing tube with his thumb.
He said he did it after Gallagher unexpectedly stabbed the patient. Scott testified that he was taken aback by the stabbing but that he thought the teen would survive still so he asphyxiated him to prevent him from being tortured by Iraqi forces.
Prosecutors said Scott had never mentioned the asphyxiation in multiple conversations with them before the trial. Scott said they never asked him the cause of death.
Gallagher, 40, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder for the stabbing of the prisoner and shooting of civilians in Iraq.
Defense lawyers called their first witnesses Wednesday.
Gallagher's superior, Master Chief Petty Officer Brian Alazzawi, testified that Gallagher and his platoon were considered "rock stars" after returning from the 2017 deployment to Iraq in which they aided Iraqi forces in ousting ISIS from Mosul.
But he noticed some platoon members seemed dejected despite the praise.
A month after they were back in San Diego, Alazzawi said Special Operator First Class Craig Miller told him that Gallagher had stabbed a prisoner during the deployment on May 3.
Miller told Alazzawi that he was coming forward because Gallagher was being promoted and nominated for a Silver Star.
Alazzawi said he trusted Miller and found the report credible. He told the troop commander but the alleged war crime wasn't reported outside SEAL team 7 until January 2018 — when Alazzawi got word that several SEALs had planned to go as high as the Navy commodore because nothing was being done.
Alazzawi did not explain why he and the troop commander had taken no action.
Defense lawyers contend that the accusations come from SEALs who offered tainted or even false testimony to oust a platoon chief they hated. They say there is no physical evidence to support the claims.
The government rested its case Tuesday after calling its last witness — a computer specialist who testified that Gallagher had texted a photo to a comrade in which he clutched the hair of the dead captive in one hand and a knife in the other.
The specialist also linked Gallagher to a text message sent to a comrade that bragged: "Got him with my hunting knife."
Two other SEAL snipers from the platoon testified that Gallagher shot an old man and a young girl in Mosul weeks after the stabbing, though neither saw him pull the trigger. A SEAL who spotted Gallagher testified Wednesday he never saw him shoot any elderly man that day.
The defense plans to show jurors Wednesday videotaped testimony from an Iraqi general who handed over the wounded captive to Gallagher.
Weber reported from Los Angeles.
North, South Korea to face off in World Cup qualifiers
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Jennifer Lawrence Hilariously Dragged Amy Schumer for Her New Mom Bedtime
Julie Sprankles
SheKnows June 19, 2019
Ah, friendship! That rare and beautiful bond that involves the people you love totally making fun of you. Case in point? Jennifer Lawrence trolling new mom Amy Schumer and her post-baby nocturnal routine. Schumer had receipts for the trolling, proving three things — No. 1: She took her BFF’s prodding in stride. No. 2: Lawrence might be having a bit of trouble adjusting to her bestie with a baby. No. 3: We want to be part of their friend circle more than ever.
Schumer took to Instagram on Tuesday to post a text thread to her Instagram story of a recent, largely one-sided conversation with Lawrence. It all started innocently enough, with J-Law in desperate need of insight on the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale (ahem, further proof these two are #squadgoals). “You up? I have questions about hand maids take. Tale,” Lawrence texted, correcting her typo before adding, “It’s an emergency.” Schumer didn’t immediately respond, but that didn’t deter Lawrence… at first. “Amy!!! What did she do on season 1 to deserve being in the gallows on season 2. I can’t remember where I left off,” she wrote.
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Then, the truth began to hilariously dawn on Lawrence. “Are you asleep bc of the baby??? Are you asleep before 11? Is this bc of the baby? Don’t make me resent the baby,” she joked, eventually giving up and writing, “Wow. Ur really asleep before 11. I’ll be damned.”
While she didn’t clarify whether she was, in fact, sleeping at the time of Lawrence’s messages, Schumer did respond at some point. “Hi! I’m awake!” she replied. In response to Lawrence’s Handmaid’s Tale query, Schumer noted of the character: “She ran away.” Schumer then later added the entire exchange to her Insta story, captioning the thread, “Everybody keeping their cool about me having a baby.”
Of course, it’s clear Lawrence’s trolling was all in good fun — and if there is anyone who understands joking about the realities of being a new mom, it’s Schumer. On June 8, she posted a photo of herself pushing her infant son, Gene, in a stroller. Only, she wasn’t wearing workout clothes; she was wearing hospital-issued underwear! She has posted a few photos of herself pumping breast milk, too.
Schumer even specifically blamed her baby for the fact that her new mom schedule doesn’t allow as much time for her favorite TV show (much to Lawrence’s chagrin, obvi). On June 5, the comedienne shared a photo of herself with baby Gene snuggled up on her chest. “Oh ok so I can’t watch handmaids anymore,” Schumer wrote, playfully adding, “#filledwithregret.”
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Microsoft's Software is Malware (gnu.org)
264 points by talles on Nov 24, 2015 | hide | past | web | favorite | 173 comments
laumars on Nov 24, 2015
> "Microsoft cut off security fixes for Windows XP, except to some big users that pay exorbitantly."
XP has had longer support than any Linux distro out there (aside the rolling release ones, but that's a little different).
I know this submission is intended to be biased, and I do honestly favour Linux over Windows anyway. But surely FUD like the above is so painfully transparent that it only undermines the credibility of the larger argument?
metric10 on Nov 24, 2015
As the FSF clarifies a few sentences later, their criticism centers around the fact that those users are dependent on Microsoft. When support ends for an old version of a free software distribution, users have the ability to hire someone else to maintain it. They often don't, however, because it's usually cheaper to upgrade to the latest version, and free software operating systems don't have the ratcheting oppressive privacy and security implications that Windows 10 comes with.
I do think, though, that it's a valid counter argument to say that users knew (or should have known) the kind of deal they where making with Microsoft when they bought Windows XP. Instead of criticizing Microsoft, they should be pointing out that free software operating systems typically are much more friendly and respectful of the user's rights, even rights beyond being able to modify that operating system.
The FSF has always had a problem explaining to the average user why they should care about the ability to modify their own software when they lack the expertise to do so; Windows 10 is providing a practical example.
raverbashing on Nov 24, 2015
> When support ends for an old version of a free software distribution, users have the ability to hire someone else to maintain it.
This is the exception rather than the rule (speaking in general terms)
You can pay someone else to isolate and secure your XP installation as well (for the minimum amount of stuff you need in there). Put it in a VM, behind a firewall, secure it, prevent unknown services from running in it, etc.
jxn on Nov 24, 2015
> You can pay someone else to isolate and secure your XP installation as well (for the minimum amount of stuff you need in there). Put it in a VM, behind a firewall, secure it, prevent unknown services from running in it, etc.
Of course, you can also pay someone to do the same for a free software OS. You might even have more options for safely isolating it. I suspect the main point is that you have options, e.g. you don't simply have to isolate it (that may not work depending on how you use the software), you could also maintain / fork it.
In theory, with enough money, I'm sure you could also pay MS to maintain it for you or (as I've seen done once or twice in the business world) simply buy out the company and have them support it, but it seems like the cash barrier required to getting those things done could be lower than self-supporting the software in many circumstances.
> you could also maintain / fork it
That's true. However, for the majority of cases, it's not worth it.
You theoretically could have an old version of Red Hat running and then self-support there, but I believe the answer is probably something similar to what would be done with Windows XP. Even if what you need to run there is Free Software. Easier and probably more feasible, true. Still, very unlikely.
The last option you pointed out is a possibility as well and it happens, however it's usually a way of throwing a lot of money for very little gain
mangecoeur on Nov 24, 2015
It's really not clear who this is addressing. Anyone with technical knowledge will learn nothing from this rather shrill and superficial commentary. Anyone else will either not understand, not care, or simply never end up on the site anyway.
Frankly it reads like it was written by an angry teenager getting mad at The Man for his injustice. If I were trying to convince anyone to use Linux, I would actively discourage them from reading this.
mc32 on Nov 24, 2015
In almost any other context the content being delivered here would be considered a "hit piece".
I'm a bit miffed. The choir is already converted, so to speak, so this is not the intended audience, others, non converts, would mostly be put off by the over the top style and rhetoric.
Moreover, the article focuses on one vendor when other vendors follow similar policies but those aren't visited in the article.
So.... What gives?
a3n on Nov 24, 2015
It focuses on one vendor because Windows is an OS, and there are few of those easily available to the general public.
It also focuses on Windows because the article is about Windows. :)
bad_user on Nov 24, 2015
Lets not forget that Windows XP is a commercial product, for which people paid money and that was the only reasonable choice for about 8 years, the gap between the release of XP and that of Windows 7 (Vista was a flop due to poor drivers).
In these 8 years a lot of companies and individuals bought computers and then stayed on XP because (1) Windows upgrades cost money, (2) compatibility issues and (3) fear of upgrades (Microsoft never educated its users to upgrade, quite the contrary, they've made Windows users fear upgrades because of their fuck-ups with Windows ME or Vista).
Windows XP reached end of life on April 8, 2014, with people being stuck on it without a migration path. Nowadays 5 year old desktops and laptops are often good enough and don't need to be replaced. If you had a company with dozens or hundreds of computers, what would you do? Would you pay $120 before taxes for the Home edition or $199 before taxes for Pro, per computer? Would you try to negotiate better terms maybe? Or would you stay on XP because it works? The offer for a 1-year free upgrade for Windows 10 is not valid for XP and Vista.
And yes, Microsoft supported XP for 12 years. That's 4 years after those 8 years in which XP was the only choice. That's hardly an accomplishment.
They still have users on XP. For those users they have an ethical responsibility to provide security fixes, or a cheap migration path (why is the upgrade to Windows 10 not valid for XP?), or the source code such that they can fix problems by themselves.
The fact that you paid for windows bundled with your laptop at discount 14 years ago does not entitle you to a lifetime of free support. Big companies get XP support at great cost, because support is very expensive.
As you said yourself, Windows is a commercial product - you get what you pay for. Microsoft don't really owe anybody anything beyond what they get paid to do - the only reason they kept XP support for so long is that to do otherwise would be a PR nightmare, all their big customers would be angry and all the regular folks would have machines (even more) full of malware.
I think it's a bit selective to exclude Vista's timeline from XP's concurrency just to make a point. But even that aside, 4 years of concurrency is still pretty good compared to most other Linux distributions. Ubuntu Desktop's long term support (LTS) is only 3 years and that's one of the better supported Linux desktops. Granted Ubuntu Server LTS is 5 years, but then we'd have to compare Linux with Server 2003 to be completely fair.
The only real complaint I have against Windows' support is that it's update utility, "Windows Update", makes the whole process unnecessarily painful compared to the most Linux package managers.
Just as an aside, Windows Home (which you mentioned the cost of compared to Pro) wouldn't be an option for many businesses because you can't join Home editions of Windows to a Windows domain.
scholia on Nov 24, 2015
"In previous releases, a Long Term Support (LTS) version had 3 years support on Ubuntu (Desktop) and 5 years on Ubuntu Server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, both versions will receive 5 years support." https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
delecti on Nov 24, 2015
Vista was a flop because of OEM marketing inadequate hardware as supporting it.
I had a reasonably competent machine, and Vista worked great on it from the day I switched (summer '07, only a few months after it released).
Making the comments others have said about your choice to exclude Vista as a viable option even stronger.
taurath on Nov 24, 2015
On most metrics of performance Vista was a big downgrade from XP, regardless of your hardware.
tracker1 on Nov 24, 2015
Cheap is relative... for a computer purchased 4 years ago, for under $1k a $200 software upgrade is a pretty cheap migration path.
If you distribute that cost over several years, then it may not look so expensive, but the problem is many people may not be capable of such an upfront cost and the perceived benefits of the upgrade (e.g. security patches, newer IExplorer) are seemingly minimal.
erik14th on Nov 24, 2015
I think it misses the point entirely. Being able to define MS software as malware won't make users stop using it.
Even if Windows was way worse than it is now people would still use it.
Also I believe the two distros that have a shot at part of the Windows user base(Ubuntu and Steam OS) could also be defined as malware.
What has to be taken in mind is that FSF is about ideals. Which may explain why they put so much emphasis on concepts as opposed to practical matters.
sanderjd on Nov 24, 2015
They do clarify that it is only "wrong" because the proprietary nature of the OS means that third parties can't carry on supporting users after official support ends. Still pretty shaky reasoning, in my opinion.
nnutter on Nov 24, 2015
I agree with you but I think there argument would be that you could maintain the software "yourself" or hire someone to do so; presumably not at exorbitantly high rates.
tim333 on Nov 24, 2015
Also Microsoft have been fairly laid back about the "Registry hack enables free Windows XP security updates until 2019" stuff
Fartag on Nov 24, 2015
Hold on a second. You can't just claim XP had longer support except for all those "continually updated OSes" and still have a point left! The submission is not FUD, if it is then please point to any fact it gets wrong.
Why are there are so many defensive anti GNU comments here? Do these actual facts that correctly paint Microsoft in a bad light really upset that many Microsoft users / workers / proprietary software proponents?
Also, what is with legitimate comments being ghosted on this site?
> Hold on a second. You can't just claim XP had longer support except for all those "continually updated OSes" and still have a point left!
Rolling release distros are a different ball game entirely. If you take a copy of Windows 7 you can install every update from the initial release to present day. It might take you a while, but you could do it. Equally with your standard release cycle Linux distros, you could take a 3 year old copy of Ubuntu LTS (for example) and bring it bang up to date. However if you took a 3 year old image of a rolling release distro, you'd find it hugely more difficult to update (if at all possible).
Rolling release distros don't have a set end of life date because they're always incrementally reaching end of life. Particularly as breaking changes become old and unsupported (eg try taking an Arch Linux ISO before the filesystem, glibc and systemd packages and watch just how poorly that ISO updates). So something being "rolling release" doesn't mean it doesn't have an end of life - it just means you don't have to perform OS release upgrades.
> Why are there are so many defensive anti GNU comments here? Do these actual facts that correctly paint Microsoft in a bad light really upset that many Microsoft users / workers / proprietary software proponents?
Why do some people think you must be a fanboy or an employee to defend a product? If you want my honest personal opinion: I hate Windows. Absolutely despise it. Please bare in mind this is just my personal opinion, but I just cannot fathom it's maze of confusing windows, I don't like that it's command line is crippled and that Powershell is about as succinct as War And Peace. I hate the lack of a proper package manager (I could write a novel on how much I hate Windows Update). I hate the poor support for nix networking protocols. I hate the outdated file system support. I don't even find it aesthetically attractive. So there really isn't much I like about Windows.
At work I run Linux and manage Linux and Solaris servers (I'm devops) and at home I run Linux and FreeBSD. I don't own nor run a single Windows system and haven't done so in any serious capacity since the early days XP. I really couldn't be any further from the "pro-Microsoft" pigeon-hole you presumed.
I know there are people who feel the same way about Linux, and that's fine. I wouldn't want a Linux monopoly any more than I'd want a Windows monopoly. And I'm certainly not going to accuse those people of being Microsoft employees :P I just believe in being objective because nothing is perfect and we can't improve things if we look at everything with rose-tinted glasses.
> Also, what is with legitimate comments being ghosted on this site?
Most of the comments that have ghosted are because they were complaining that the article was factual thus couldn't be FUD. But that misses the point of what FUD is. FUD doesn't have to be a lie, it can also be a heavily biased fact that casts the opposition in an unfairly bad light. I personally felt the Windows XP support argument was one example of that; it was factually accurate but conveniently overlooks Linuxes similar issues of long term support
I do have a great deal of respect for GNU and RMS, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything posted in their name.
easytiger on Nov 24, 2015
Demonstrate then how it is incorrect.
Nimeo on Nov 24, 2015
They are not baised, they are views and opinions. It's like saying Richard Stallman is baised toward Richard Stallman... while those are his views and thoughts...
rms_returns on Nov 24, 2015
I personally think that if the users are too dumb and lazy to upgrade themselves to better alternatives (either Windows 8/10 or Linux distros), then you can't blame Microsoft for billing on their slumber. In fairness, even Red Hat might be doing the same thing to their RHEL clients who are "locked" into it and can't move on to Ubuntu or something.
krylon on Nov 24, 2015
It's not that simple, unfortunately.
For run-of-the-mill desktop usage, i.e. Office stuff, eMail, Internet access, yes, not upgrading is either lazy or stupid.
But there are quite a few companies out there who have built applications that are critical to their operations and which do not run on versions of Windows more recent than XP. To be fair, that is just as big a problem, relying on proprietary APIs without even thinking of an upgrade path. It's not like Microsoft ending support for XP came as a total surprise nobody could have foreseen.
But sometimes, for example in industrial automation, once an installation has been certified, you cannot simply upgrade to a newer version of Windows. If the automation software does not run on newer versions of Windows (and it's an all-Windows game, as far as I can tell), upgrading means you also have to newer automation software, which means spending tons of money and then spending tons more for reprogramming the whole thing. Some automation engineers at the company where I work still have to deal with DOS for a few installations (at least on DOS, the lack of security updates is not an issue, but getting it to run on newer hardware is hard if not impossible, and keeping aging hardware going is a nightmare).
cm2187 on Nov 24, 2015
I work for one of these large companies. Legacy software does play a role. But I think most of the delays have to do with the state of lethargy of the IT dept. I work in a part of the organisation where IT doesn't even have a plan to upgrade us from Windows XP.
Okay, that is bad.
Microsoft made their schedule for ending XP support public years before it actually happened, and, say, three years should be enough even for a large company.
And even if one has to support legacy software, eventually hardware support becomes an issue as older devices start dying.
If upper management vetoes a migration/upgrade for cost reasons, that is one thing, but not having a plan at all is... kind of frightening.
Any company that was paying attention knew that they had a migration problem as soon as Vista appeared in beta. That was 10 years ago.
"After Longhorn was named Windows Vista in July 2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September of that year, Microsoft started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers from July 2005 to February 2006." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
For comparison, that was before Twitter was founded (March 21, 2006) and before Facebook was opened to public access (September 26, 2006).
wang_li on Nov 24, 2015
To get access to patches from Red Hat you have to purchase an annual service agreement, for a two socket box it's around $300.
If you bought a copy of Windows XP at release it likely cost you around that much and patches and fixes were available to you for fourteen years at no further cost. The equivalent from Red Hat would have run $4200.
mordocai on Nov 24, 2015
Redhat is also only intended for enterprise use (unlike windows XP). You should be comparing redhat to windows server if you want a valid comparison.
In addition, with redhat you get excellent support included (that's what you are really paying for). No such luck with microsoft, you just get crappy bottom tier tech support.
Finally, if you don't like paying redhat switch to centos. Free and no support.
herewulf on Nov 24, 2015
Or you pay someone else for support. I don't know how many options are out there but where I work, we have Oracle Linux (which is basically RHEL) and get support through Oracle.
callinyouin on Nov 24, 2015
While this is true, you're comparing a desktop OS to an enterprise OS. You're mostly paying for support from Red Hat for that $4200 price tag, something you definitely don't get with a retail copy of XP.
Actually the $350/year price does not include support. If you want support during normal business hours you're looking at $799/year and for 24 hour support it's $1299/year.
The only thing you get at the low price point is access to patches, ISOs, and their KB/bug tracker.
rando289 on Nov 24, 2015
It's not FUD. Your comment is FUD. The fact is that MS has well tested security patches sitting on their hard drives for software used by lots of people, which they are only selling for prices so high that 99.9% of people won't get it. That is completely different than deciding not to write the patches. And it's also just pointing out another instance of proprietary software and why it's bad, which if that is fud, well the core of linux and gnu are fud too.
johncolanduoni on Nov 24, 2015
> MS has well tested security patches
How do you know this? I find it likely that they tested them for the specific use cases of the 0.1% who are actually going to receive the patches, since they are providing a specialized solution.
> And it's also just pointing out another instance of proprietary software and why it's bad, which if that is fud, well the core of linux and gnu are fud too.
You can want to use free software for some things without thinking proprietary software is bad for everything.
> use cases of the 0.1% who are actually going to receive the patches
It seems highly unlikely. They are not writing custom ordered security patches. They are selling general security support to whoever can afford it.
sounds on Nov 24, 2015
How exactly does a factual statement, "Microsoft cut off security fixes for Windows XP, except to some big users that pay exorbitantly," cause Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt?
Are you really uncertain about whether Microsoft will EOL your current Windows version, or what that will mean for legitimate businesses who need it to continue to function?
If you don't want to hear what the FSF has to say, that's fine. But their statements are carefully worded in the hopes we can have a calm, logical discussion about the issue -- user freedom has become impossible with Microsoft's latest OS.
This submission is not intended to be biased.
It is FUD because of the implication that there are competitors who do support their operating systems for more than 15 years without requiring expensive support contracts.
RyanZAG on Nov 24, 2015
It's all true and yet not true at the same time. Each item on the list has valid business requirements and is needed.
For example, the backdoors are required by government, and Microsoft is not above the government and cannot really refuse if it is a legal requirement for national security. They're not exactly designed as backdoors either - mandatory security updates are necessary to prevent the spread of botnets. There is a valid argument that users should not be allowed to stop these essential security updates. Unfortunately, there are far more changes than only security updates.
DRM is pretty much required for Microsoft to be able to get into distributing media for a fee. The same applies to a lot of the rest - it's all for being competitive in a world where Apple and Google are doing the same thing.
However, that they are all legitimate doesn't actually change that it really is malware at the end of the day and this page is pretty much true.
forgottenpass on Nov 24, 2015
Each item on the list has valid business requirements and is needed.
So, the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense? [0]
Regular malware-malare has a valid business reason for showing you ads and exfiltrating private data too. It's harder to defend because it isn't bundled with a featureset the user also likes. But nobody downloaded BonziBUDDY or hot screensaver packs because they wanted the ads.
[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/quotes?item=qt0418062
Yup. http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/08/25/for-the-children/
pjc50 on Nov 24, 2015
if it is a legal requirement for national security.
Is it legally required?
TallGuyShort on Nov 24, 2015
If it was, are you sure they would be allowed to tell you?
chris_wot on Nov 24, 2015
So let me get this straight... you think that a legal requirement should be secret?
oldmanjay on Nov 24, 2015
It's pretty clear that there was no statement of personal opinion on the morality of the national security directives contained in that post.
Edit: clarity
I don't think that at all - where did you get that? I'm referring to national security letters, which any regular reader of HN should know about and which require you to hand over information like this and keep it a secret. If Microsoft had government mandated backdoors, there's a good chance they'd be required to keep the intentions hush-hush as well.
Weren't NSLs found unconstitutional?
Possibly - not sure which cases have dealt specifically with national security letters and which have dealt with other aspects of the related programs. However there have definitely been cases which the government lost initially and then won on appeal, and as I've discussed on here before, I'm not convinced that inherently secret agencies will actually not do illegal things once they lose the case. They may still send letters to intimidate people and just won't be able to enforce it so easily. So the concept is still relevant IMO. We can't assume companies are allowed to disclose such backdoors if they exist.
Lawtonfogle on Nov 24, 2015
Not should be, is. Stating what one thinks reality is like is not the same as making a moral statement about that reality.
CyberDildonics on Nov 24, 2015
> Each item on the list has valid business requirements and is needed.
Is that why Linux and FreeBSD both do the same thing?
ChrisLTD on Nov 24, 2015
"Microsoft cut off security fixes for Windows XP, except to some big users that pay exorbitantly. (...)
A person or company has the right to cease to work on a particular program; the wrong here is Microsoft does this after having made the users dependent on Microsoft, because they are not free to ask anyone else to work on the program for them."
Microsoft did not make anybody dependent on them, and should have zero obligation to open source Windows XP. There are thriving alternatives to Windows like OS X, Android, Chrome OS, and iOS that XP users could have moved to in the last 14 years.
The argument is that by having users at all you're creating dependence. After all, if you've written a business critical application to the Windows API, you're not easily going to move to any of those options.
That's true, but those same businesses could have more easily moved to a newer version of Windows. It seems like an irresponsible business strategy to have your critical applications rely on a 14 year old operating system.
Microsoft releases new versions of Windows just about every 3 years. Businesses shouldn't be surprised that Microsoft has moved on.
wosos on Nov 24, 2015
I think the problem is that they won't allow anyone else to continue working on it
nivla on Nov 24, 2015
Technically they are not preventing you from working on it, they are just not making it easy by open sourcing it. Personally, I would like to modify my OS and contribute the changes under a liberal license such as MIT but the terms of GPL can make it tricky. However it will be wrong of me to go around demanding older phased out Linux distros to be re-licensed under a more liberal license.
dogma1138 on Nov 24, 2015
You won't be able to distribute your fixes (because they contain MSFT copyright protected code), reverse engineering the binaries and even the API might be a violation of the DMCA, and you will not be able to update system files from within the system it self. So yes they kinda preventing you from working on it, at least for the benefit of anyone besides your own intellectual curiosity.
That said I don't see any problem with MSFT dropping support for XP, they supported it much longer than any software by any vendor closed or open sourced.
GL getting support for RHEL 10 years down the line if you haven't upgraded your OS, and Linux from 10-15 years ago has as much in common with Linux today as Windows XP has with Windows 10.
dragonwriter on Nov 24, 2015
> Technically they are not preventing you from working on it, they are just not making it easy by open sourcing it.
Technically, they are preventing you from legally doing most work on it, since (in the US, at least) creating (not just distributing) a derivative work is an exclusive right under copyright for which they do not license you.
That's only a problem if Microsoft promised or implied XP would be updated indefinitely. Is that the case?
Not that I agree, but the FSF's issue with non-free software does not seem to be purely based on those who sell proprietary software lying (or being unclear) about the limitations, but at least partially on the fact that they even offer such "raw deals" to begin with.
Silhouette on Nov 24, 2015
Given that Microsoft has long published the support lifecycles for its major products, and that those support lifecycles are often guaranteed (as much as anything in the commercial world can be) many years into the future, any criticism on this score just feels like bad faith.
The alternative is to take your chances with free software where outside of any commercial support agreement with a specific provider you generally have no actionable guarantees of any kind that your support will last as far as the time your installation completes.
Yes, you're right, in the end is the users fault as they didn't foresee those consequences and some didn't even made migration plans, even when stated clearly.
You can even argue that all of the things there end up being the users fault as they choose so for convenience.
rplnt on Nov 24, 2015
No.. but one could think so seeing how they postponed the end of life so many times :)
robin_reala on Nov 24, 2015
That’s what ReactOS is for: https://reactos.org/
Quinner on Nov 24, 2015
Or, you know, any of the several Windows releases since XP.
outside1234 on Nov 24, 2015
All of this is true, but where is the equivalent attack on Google, whose software is essentially entirely designed to spy on you. Isn't that also Malware? Or is this sort of malware ok because it runs the Linux kernel?
I really want to support GNU and FSF but they seem to be constantly fighting some 20 year stale war against a company that is in many ways way more open than Google, Facebook, and Apple.
SEJeff on Nov 24, 2015
In the meantime, the EFF is actually fighting for your freedom and right to not be spied on. Consider donating to them. I switched my monthly donation to the FSF to the EFF instead many years ago as I feel they're doing more to help keep society free than the FSF.
If you care about software freedom, do donate to fsf. eff leaves that to fsf and they already have 50x more funding. Of course eff also has much broader and less well defined goals of things like "internet freedom."
They didn't post this to hacker news, it's /an/ article on their site thats been there for quite a while, and yes they call out Google elsewhere. For example http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html. gnu.org != whatever some random user posted on hacker news today. Try thinking a little before posting.
I don't think the author is saying 'Microsoft is bad - everyone swap to Google and Apple!'. This is from GNU. The author is saying Microsoft is bad, and since most of these points probably apply to Apple and Google too, the author would probably say that Apple and Google are bad too.
Either way it's kind of irrelevant. "He shot my dog!" "Not an issue, other people are shooting dogs all the time."
Other people being at fault does not absolve you of fault.
jvalleroy on Nov 24, 2015
Here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.en....
bitmapbrother on Nov 24, 2015
One more thing, Microsoft is a hypocrite. Microsoft employed a number of marketing campaigns to smear Google. They even went so far as to hire Mark Penn, a political smear campaign hitman, to carry out their plans. Now that we know all of the nefarious activities Microsoft has been up to and tried to conceal from the press their actions are even more despicable. From breaking into their users accounts and rifling through their documents, giving the NSA full access to Skype, online storage and email and the spyware infected Windows 10 that they're now trying to impose on people unwillingly.
As for your question, it's better to attack a hypocrite that claimed to champion privacy when in reality they did just the opposite.
What hypocrisy are you referencing? I'm not really questioning the veracity of your list of items, to be clear. I just don't see anything that fits the definition of hypocrisy.
threatofrain on Nov 24, 2015
The hypocrisy is that Microsoft wants us to remember that we're getting Scroogled, but ignore that they are just as bad for privacy. Personally I don't care about hypocrisy; people can flip flop all the time, and maybe it indicates a flexible mind that updates based on new evidence.
What bothers me is the dishonest implication that Microsoft is good for privacy, and that the anxiety they wish to arouse for Google shouldn't be placed back on Microsoft.
Microsoft accused Google of spying on you and invading your privacy in a number of failed PR campaigns. It was then discovered that not only was Microsoft spying on you, but they took it to the next level with their links with the NSA, their invasion of a user's email and storage accounts and the built in spyware embedded into Windows 10.
dang on Nov 24, 2015
Accusing other users of astroturfing or shilling without evidence is a breach of civility that is not allowed on HN, so please don't do it. If you're concerned about possible astroturfing, email hn@ycombinator.com instead and we'll look into it.
We take the question seriously and have banned accounts for astroturfing in the past. Alas, what's far more common is commenters lobbing the accusation merely to attack someone they disagree with, and that's emphatically not allowed here.
Also, some of your other comments have been outright uncivil. We ban accounts for doing that, so please re-read the site guidelines and stop doing that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
Why don't you point out the spy software on the Android Open Source Project?
throwaway2048 on Nov 24, 2015
how about you point out the phone that runs AOSP without driver blobs/google services blobs.
Oletros on Nov 24, 2015
Without any Google blobs any smartphone without Google services.
And, as far as I know, binary blobs for bootloader ate not made by Google
I'm not a fan of pretty much anything on this list, but I do think the thing about phasing out Windows XP does stand apart. I don't know exactly how long you should expect an OS to be supported, but I feel like 12 years falls somewhere on the right side of that line.
They add the following disclaimer about that:
> A person or company has the right to cease to work on a particular program; the wrong here is Microsoft does this after having made the users dependent on Microsoft, because they are not free to ask anyone else to work on the program for them.
which if that is the case, means the whole spiel at the beginning about non-free software not automatically being malware in the FSF's eyes pretty empty if "non-free software not supported forever" is malware.
Nice pacemaker you have there, unfortunately, we've ceased supporting the software, and you are too old for a new one to be implanted, so it might break or get hacked and you'll die. How long would you expect us to support it?! And obviously we can't give away our intellectual property!
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/jul/21/software-de...
Strawman much? Windows XP /= pacemaker. Just because I disagree with this line of reasoning for Windows XP, doesn't mean I do for critical medical equipment.
Although XP is unfortunately used for some other medical equipment. However I think the problem there was using a consumer desktop operating system as an integral part of a medical device in the beginning.
Honestly I think hn, and generally internet commenting sucks because it's mostly all arguments. 1 person says something in a blog/article, 90% of top hn comments are criticism & counter argument, 95% of replies are arguments against the parent, on and on and on.
It wasn't an argument that your comment was wrong, so it wasn't a strawman, it was just an example of something. And then you later go on to agree with me that should be supported because it's proprietary and no one else can support it is subjective and changes based on the use case, eg. medical equipment which runs xp.
cwyers on Nov 24, 2015
"Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user."
Some days I'm pretty sure bash is malware, too.
Especially older unpatched versions of bash with the auto-execution of functions inside environmental variables.
bitdiddle on Nov 24, 2015
ramblerman on Nov 24, 2015
Hmm, I agree with the some of the points on this page but the language used is incredibly childish, "Microsoft Tyrants" and "Microsoft Sabotage"....
I think there are better ways to educate and spread this message. Whoever wrote this page is a bit too emotionally vested imo.
It's preaching to the choir in the guise of persuasive writing. Almost literally, given the religious nature of the gnu belief system.
dsr_ on Nov 24, 2015
I like the FSF. I like the fact that RMS exists.
I love open source software, and I even like the GPL a fair amount.
Do I think this goes too far? Absolutely. The Free Software position is that the benefits of Free (libre) software outweigh all of the disadvantages, so anyone who chooses proprietary software has already made a big mistake.
Given that the mistake has been made, there's no particular advantage in castigating the manufacturer of that software for living up to the FSF's predictions. It's not a surprise, and the FSF is much better off pointing out that, sure, enough, they told you so, and it happened. Make a better choice next time. Here are some alternatives to help you out.
This is a tactical mistake.
You like the FSF? Point #1 fsf makes is that proprietary = wrong/bad/malware, period. Malware is mostly just a synonym. So if point #1 is too far, you really don't get it.
You can appreciate the FSF and Stallman without agreeing with everything they say. I think they did a lot to put open source on the map, and make us aware of the dangers with closed source software in certain areas, even if I think that their stance is overzealous.
> they did a lot to put open source on the map
Nope nope nope. They've publicly been the biggest voice to erase "open source" from the map since it was coined. All while acknowledging that it has mostly the same goals as the free software movement. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.e...
The unfortunate thing about gnu and the fsf is that they think connotation management and "clever" wordplay are effective marketing strategies.
"Open source" was designed for the sole purpose of being "clever" wordplay and an effective marketing strategy, so you really can't blame fsf on that one.
Words matter. See "pro life" vs "pro choice", see "terrorist" vs "criminal" see "migrant" vs "alleged refuge", etc. etc.
The tech press are mouthpieces for the big corporations, and all of the big corporations do not want free software messing with their profits, so they use and coin words which align with their interests. It's perfectly natural for fsf to use different words.
I'm aware of their thoughts on the distinction between open and free software. However these are (a) lost on most people involved in open source and (b) largely irrelevant as far as the FSF's projects being a large part of GNU/Linux, one of the most widely used open source/free software projects, or their dedication to seeing some key legal questions that affect both open source and free software play out in court.
exo762 on Nov 24, 2015
This is false. E.g. they make perfectly clear that some software (e.g. games) are perfectly fine being proprietary and closed source.
mechazawa on Nov 24, 2015
Why? If ID showed one thing it is that you can safely publish your source code as long as the user still has to pay for the actual assets.
diivio on Nov 24, 2015
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.en.h...
Stallman feels the same way about Facebook as well. He got mad at Berkeley when he came to speak and found out someone posted a Facebook event about him coming to campus to speak lol.
He also feels cloud computing endangers us because we aren't in full control or fully aware of the computations being done with our data.
(He told us this at a meeting in Berkeley back when I was in school)
So he has similar views on Google, Apple, Facebook but only Microsoft is being hated on here lol
His views are a little extreme. even if his points are valid they seem impractical given the computing paradigms and cultures of today.
Don't get me wrong I work at Microsoft in hybrid cloud storage in a team that's a startup that got acquired and I think not having the NT kernel under a GNU v2 license is sad. Any kernel imo should be open source but I don't want to get into a debate on this at least not today.
But I'm glad people like him still exist.
jacquesm on Nov 24, 2015
Stallman has the nasty little habit of being right in the long run. So even if his views may appear 'a little extreme' today give it a decade or two, you'll come around.
tzs on Nov 24, 2015
It's easy to be right in the long run. What's hard is doing the right things in the short run that will bring about that long term rightness.
Stallman is basically like Richard Altmayer from the Asimov short story "In a Good Cause—" [1].
[1] http://www.epubsbook.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27354.html
I think RMS did plenty of things in the short run back in the day that brought about more than just a little bit of long term rightness and good. The fact that it's easy to discount him in the present while he's still working away at moving the needle, not just for the day after tomorrow but also for tomorrow itself is quite special. Anybody else with a track-record like that would probably get a more receptive audience. Now if only he'd get his 'PR' to be as effective as his vision, that may make an even bigger difference.
He's been doing this stuff for around 30 years so far, and I don't see the evidence of him being exclusively right about anything very much. What have I missed?
Far from "coming around", the invention of "open source" was specifically a way of removing the moral tub-thumping "philosophically- and politically-focused" aspect of Free Software and the FSF. http://opensource.org/history
I think he's done a lot of good work on DRM and software patents in general, but a lot of people have had the same or similar worries without his involvement.
gkop on Nov 24, 2015
I had the opportunity to try Windows 10 last week. I was surprised to find that Windows now has pop-up advertisements for Office and Bing embedded in the OS itself that recur during day-to-day usage and cannot be dismissed. That seems wild to me. Also, contrary to opinions that I have heard on HN and elsewhere on the web, Windows 10 is typical poor quality Microsoft software, not one of the "good" Windows like XP and 7 were. For example, there are literally two control panels that are different: the classic control panel and a Settings tool (not a different view of the control panel but something completely different) that comes up when you search for various settings in the Start menu. The Start menu is super clunky and slow as well.
HelloMcFly on Nov 24, 2015
> I was surprised to find that Windows now has pop-up advertisements for Office and Bing embedded in the OS itself that recur during day-to-day usage and cannot be dismissed.
Where are these? I use Windows 10 at home and work, and what you're referring to doesn't ring a bell at all. I already have Office on both machines though, so that may explain one portion.
forgotAgain on Nov 24, 2015
I confirm that Windows 10 shows advertisements to install Office. They appear as small popups in the notification area of the toolbar. This was on a fresh upgrade of a Windows 8 machine.
In task manager I found a running program (which I can't recall the exact name of but the purpose was obvious) that was for posting ads to install Office. I searched for the name and found instructions for uninstalling it.
I don't know if there are others or not. I only ran Windows 10 for a few hours to check it out.
romanovcode on Nov 25, 2015
Using Windows10 since launch, never ever had I've seen a single pop-up.
Are you sure you don't have malware?
The positive opinions of Windows 10 on HN were, for the most part, postings from Microsoft "reputation managers" to create hype and positive spin for the product.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/06/16/2327213/microsoft-r...
https://www.linkedin.com/job/microsoft/online-reputation-man...
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Reddit-Xbox-One-Reputation-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fv5yj/i_saw_micros...
Generally, I find that conspiracy theories only work on the sort of people who are gullible enough to believe in conspiracy theories....
> "In practice nonfree software is often malware, because the developer's awareness that the users would be powerless to fix any malicious functionalities tempts the developer to impose some"
I'm finding this claim from the article to be very true and it's a pity. Users are often powerless in fixing the software they bought, or the services they subscribed for, with the cost of switching to something else being often very significant. Users are also often uneducated or ignorant in what the software does, not realizing the long term consequences of their interactions with software.
And because users are often powerless or uneducated or ignorant, software developers feel empowered to move the boundaries, preferring to ask for forgiveness than for permission as they say, with current casualties being the loss of privacy and even the loss of freedom of speech. And then it isn't a wonder that intelligence agencies get a free pass to spy on everybody's communications, I mean if the software makers and the service providers are doing it themselves, the government would be stupid to not be a part of it, given that we've made it so easy.
I've always disagreed with Richard Stallman's stance on Free versus Nonfree software, preferring Open-Source instead and being relaxed about developing and using nonfree software. I've always said to myself that many companies are doing a good job and software developers have to eat, including myself. But some of FSF's arguments hold very true and it makes me wonder. Maybe Free Software is the only ethical choice.
beat on Nov 24, 2015
When was this written? 2002? It feels archaic. Right down to the antique cvs $Id$ tag used for the file version at the bottom. It's like the open source version of some crufty enterprise legacy code.
ksk on Nov 24, 2015
I think the reason why people (who aren't already RMS fans) don't agree with some of his views is that he has not made a good moral argument against proprietary software. The writings[1] on the moral question fail to convince most people, who then reject other positions that build on that foundation. We see some of that whenever people link to his writings.
Even if people do not produce material objects, I think that products of labor especially those can be exchanged for material wealth do require legal protection. (Note that this is separate from Intellectual Property, as in simply thoughts and ideas)
If you want proprietary software to go away, you should pay people to write even more open source software and then give it away. You should not have an agenda that demonizes people trying to earn a living. Calling someones means of living as illegitimate/immoral/unethical is simply going to ensure that they never support you.
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.en.html
My biggest problem with the FSF's point of view is that they see these kind of eventualities as inevitable for all non-free software.
I would claim that there is not only room for non-free open source software sans abuse, but even closed source software. When it comes to something you want to use as a core foundation on which to build (whether you are building software, general business, academic work etc.) I completely understand how this is very likely to lead to you being exploited. This applies for example to an operating system, or a programming platform (JVM, .NET, etc.). But there are plenty of places where you can use closed source software that don't put you in such a disadvantageous position.
One example is non-required tooling like an IDE. If Jetbrains goes Dr. Evil on everyone tomorrow (though I guess some would argue their recent pricing model changes have done that), there is still Eclipse and plenty of room for someone else to break into that space. Changing IDEs isn't nothing, but it's not like I'd have to rewrite my code.
Another is various general XaaS offerings. If Heroku (or more likely Salesforce) goes off the deep end tomorrow, worst case is that I have to administer some servers myself. Again, I don't lose anything that I would have had before anyway.
The current trend is already building everything on top of open source infrastructure. Even the JVM and .NET are open source now, as are most other pieces of the development puzzle (Databases, libraries of all shapes and sizes, etc.). In fact, I don't think even a big player like Microsoft would have much luck trying to get people to invest in another closed source platform. So if we walk this line between open and closed software, what do we lose by using some replaceable closed source tools or services? That is one question I think the FSF doesn't have a good answer for.
zeveb on Nov 24, 2015
> Changing IDEs isn't nothing, but it's not like I'd have to rewrite my code.
You'd have to rewrite any IDE code you've written, which isn't nothing (that pain is a good part of the reason why emacs is still stuck on elisp instead of Common Lisp).
eka808 on Nov 24, 2015
And after reading that, let's take a deep breath and think about Android.
From my personal opinion, it's not better than and maybe worse : - Obligation of having a G+ account. Disable it is NOT straighforward at all and it will try to recreate himself often. - Personal content publicly uploaded/displayed in G+ account I had the bad surprise, and few friends also to see that the photos taken with my android phone were automatically published on my G+ account !
When you notify what it's visible, you are are afraid about what is not visible...
frik on Nov 24, 2015
In Android you can deactive all phone home and cloud features, also most Android device manufactore add various apps that require no cloud connection at all. The same goes for iOS were it is even easier.
In contrary to Windows 10 were you can't deactivate several phone home and cloud features. Severals apps are only shipped as cloud-only. The Windows update is forced on you and cannot be deactivated. And to top it, every feature update (like Threshold 2) resets your personal privacy settings and more as it is basically a system upgrade that often also replaces device drivers. So Android, iOS, OSX and all other OS incl. Windows up to v8.1 are way better for the end user - as there they still have the choice and decide for themself.
It takes a lot more than cutting Google out of the OS to truly make it secure and private: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardenin...
Report finds Android/iOS apps regularly 'spy on users' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34732514
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, and Carnegie-Mellon universities studied 110 apps available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. They found 73% of the Android apps shared users' email addresses, and 47% of the iOS apps shared location data. Android health app Drugs.com shared medical information - including words such as "herpes" - with five third-party domains, including doubleclick.net and googlesyndication.com. The research also found that 93% of the Android apps tested connected to the domain safemovedm.com
>In contrary to Windows 10 were you can't deactivate several phone home and cloud features.
Configure telemetry and other settings in your organization https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs....
Spybot Anti-Beacon https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/
On any system, Microsoft says that Basic level telemetry doesn't send any identifiable information.
You can configure the Android firewall, done.
Win10 firewall especially has a hardcoded whitelist for Microsoft phone home IP address ranges and domains - how evil is that? You would have to patch the kernel mode network driver dll to make sure Win10 won't phone home, a software firewall would still have to rely on Microsofts kernel mode dll. And why would one trust them anymore - they were the first company that handed over their data (Hotmail/Outlook.com) as we learned last year (neither Apple nor Google cooperated). And I always thought Microsoft has a solid business and has no reason to rely on advertisement business and therefor label the user data as products, things have changed since Ballmer. Fact is Win10 on PC and mobile is impossible to secure without running it behind a hardware firewall (or Enterprise license) - and who is running around with a hardware firewall device connected to their phone/notebook?
So did you actually read any of the links?
> to make sure Win10 won't phone home
Windows 10 is "Windows as a Service" and is continuously updated from the web, based on telemetry. It also runs on smartphones and games consoles. It includes notifications, cloud (OnDrive) integration and an intelligent assistant (similar to Siri, Google Now and Alexa).
Sure. But have your read my comment? Your second paragraph is really comical as an answer. But thanks for listing all negative things that many don't want. Win7 has non of them or can be deactivated. Win7 is great.
The problem is Microsoft trust their metrics too much. Since Office XP and WinXP the collect usage statistics (which can be turned off in all of their software except Win10!). Of course most power users and companies turn them off, that's why we got Ribbon bars in Office and Windows, and weird UI designs - based on skewed statistics. Windows as a service is probably a tipping point for Microsoft, we will see how it goes. WinPhone7-10, XBoxOne and Win8x aren't very successful. A new CEO, a new head of PR & brands and a new head of user interface design would do wonders.
> Of course most power users and companies turn them off
Great way to make sure that your views and usage patterns don't contribute to the development of the software.....
Instead just /thinking/, try reading the rest of the gnu site, including the article on android: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html. Or you could buy a book which has most of the articles and had a new updated release a few months ago: http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society-3-pap...
No, Android doesn't require a Google account.
Perhaps you're talking about Google services instead
Yes, let's talk about Android. First, let's try and get a few things correct before we talk about it.
1. There is no need for a Google+ account. Why you would say this makes me wonder if you even use the platform.
2. You don't even need a Google account and can use the phone without one.
3. Getting back to the Google+ account. If you don't want one or would like to delete your existing one then there's a simple way to do it.
Agreed However, as a lambda user, by buying an android phone and following the default "init procedure" you would have a G+ account without really asking it.. If you disable it, if you try to do something on YouTube, your G+ account will come back as herpes comes back...
The problem is not really what is possible to do but how much effort is needed to protect his privacy using google tools.
And, by the way, photo upload is opt in, it is disabled by default.
And public sharing us disabled by default.
If they have been uploaded and made public us because you did it.
I would say that the GUI related to that is sufficiently unclear for making you doing that without wanting it.
Moreover, If it was only me, I would say that I'm too stupid for understanding how it works but this happened to friends of mine also who are way too smart for doing that :)
Unclear? You have to enter in the setting and click a check box where it it clearly states that the pictures will be backed up.
But you're now changing the goalposts, facts are:
- There is no obligation of having a Google Plus account - Picture backup is disabled until you opt in - By default all the picture uploads are private
arca_vorago on Nov 24, 2015
What amazes me is that people on HN still continue to rail against RMS and the FSF while blatantly showing their ignorance of the principles they both stand for, and often not even through logically sound arguments.
Personally, I understand the main reasons people have issues with this though, because very often they simply haven't actually taken the time to think of computing as a philosophical choice as well as a practical choice.
As the surveillance and control engine enlarges itself though, those who are more closely aligned with GPLv3-esque ways of computing will have more freedom and control over their systems than others who accept fuedal walled gardens will be, and it is at that point that the walled garden people will start to understand the real impact of what are often considered frivolous arguments like BSD vs GPL.
Enjoy your locked down BSD playstation/iBrain/iHome etc, I for one intend to stick with GNU/GPL, and the FSF, as much as possible. The reality is that we have been locked in so much though that this process takes time and should be started now and not later. For example, in my various workflow pipelines, I still have a handful of apache, mit, and bsd licensed programs, but I have at least dramatically reduced the number of them...
If you haven't taken the time to understand the differences between BSD and GPL you owe it to yourself, as I consider it foundational knowledge for modern computing, the same way I consider history foundational knowledge of current events.
neya on Nov 24, 2015
I was just casually checking and looks like they have a page for Apple too..ha
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/malware-apple.html
tychuz on Nov 24, 2015
Also http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/malware-apple.html
dayon on Nov 24, 2015
Spoke in person with Stallman. I asked him why he doesn't complain about server side code. His beef is with software we "own" being proprietary, so apparently server-side code isn't a big deal to him. It puts a huge dent in his logic, though, because if you follow his concerns to the end, then the internet in general is malware. Even if a site claims to be open-source, posting its code online, you can't know what version of the code it's running unless you're given access to the server. So, even if we use all open-source, free hardware, firmware, and local software, as soon as we connect to a remote site, it goes out the window.
mark_l_watson on Nov 24, 2015
I support the FSF financially (and sometimes using their licenses) but I think that this article is a little bit off in the criticisms about updates.
I use OS X, Ubuntu, and sometimes Windows 10.
I want security updates as often as they are released.
I don't often use my Windows 10 laptop but when I do the first thing I always do is to update the system and anti-virus definitions.
I also frequently check and update OS X and Ubuntu.
I happen to trust Apple and Microsoft to perform automatic updates, but that is my personal decision.
HillaryBriss on Nov 24, 2015
The BitLocker recovery key for the user’s device is automatically backed up online in the Microsoft OneDrive account.
Even if we trust MS, do we trust MS to keep these keys safe from outside hackers?
No this is why it's not the default setting it asks you if you want to do it. That said OneDrive content is encrypted, while the encryption is not perfect it's not going to be "hacked" as easily as one thinks, it's not stored in some global key repository just in your normal onedrive account which is by far more likely to be compromised due to your activity than Microsoft's.
BitLocker can fail, simple things like a UEFI/BIOS updates will cause it to fail, playing around with your boot loader or even boot order will cause it to fail, anything that will trigger the TPM will cause it to fail, sudden powerloss/crash can cause it to fail.
BitLocker is quite more reliable now but when I was using it with Widnows 7 about 4-5 years ago I had to use the recovery every 2-3 months usually so I had the key printout stored in my wallet this is probably quite less safe than storing the key in OneDrive.
Most people use encryption not to fight state level surveillance but to ensure that if they lose their devices or they get stolen they don't need to worry about all their accounts being compromised and their life being penetrated to a point where they need to worry about identity theft, fraud, and extortion. However FDE also puts you at risk for not being able to access the device when you need to, at like usual it will fail at the worst possible moment, the chance of losing all access to your device and data is a big hurdle which prevents people from using FDE and OneDrive-BitLocker integration kinda solves this quite well while still providing tamper resistance/detection.
I mean, the short answer is "no." But the longer answer is more complicated than that. Start off with the question of, is the consequences of not being able to access your device worse than the consequence of someone else getting unauthorized access to your device (or is it worse, controlling for the probability of each?) And then, is Microsoft's storage of those keys more or less secure than any alternative way you could back up those keys remotely? It's possible to both not trust Microsoft to store the keys safely and to make a rational decision to entrust the keys to Microsoft anyway.
KeyBoardG on Nov 24, 2015
"Windows 8 on “mobile devices” is a jail: it censors the user's choice of application programs."
I laughed. I don't think its their choice that the app store is horrific.
grub5000 on Nov 24, 2015
OP surely must have meant the Windows RT devices, which can only install apps from the windows store. Normal windows 8 devices can install anything they want.
However, in practice nonfree software is often malware, because the developer's awareness that the users would be powerless to fix any malicious functionalities tempts the developer to impose some.
Speaking as a professional software developer who typically does not write free software: [expletives inappropriate for HN deleted]
The allegation that any developer who does not share the FSF's views on the advantages or otherwise of free software is inherently more tempted to screw their users is not only wrong, it's offensive. I have never imposed any of the kinds of malware listed in this article on any user of any project I work on, nor would I be happy to do so in the future. This is more than can be said for several popular software products that also happen to be FOSS.
Also, the idea that Microsoft, or any other commercial software provider for that matter, should be responsible for supporting its software indefinitely, entirely at its own expense and regardless of context, is just silly. I think it is sensible to expect and if necessary legally require a basic level of support for commercial software products that were defective when first supplied, for some reasonable period that will probably vary greatly with context. In practice, actual regulation or legislation has rarely been necessary as most major software vendors have volunteered such support anyway, though the unwelcome trend is for this to change and so the regulatory/legal framework may need to change to match. However, Microsoft has, at least until recently, gone far beyond that industry norm in terms of long term support for its older software, and far beyond any major Free Software project. It might have been fair to say that Microsoft was the last very large software company that should be criticised on this score, but for their recent shifts in policy to much more user-hostile terms.
dexterchief on Nov 24, 2015
I think FSF could learn a lot from what Micah Lee is doing at the Intercept. He's been doing a bunch of articles that are a nice blend of why and how with a nice conversational feel.
In terms of outreach and informing new generations of users... I think adopting that style would be a big win. Even non-technical users have a multi-year investment in Windows, and in spite of all the polish of modern distros, the jump to FOSS is still a big one. Help people make it.
https://theintercept.com/2015/04/27/encrypting-laptop-like-m... https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/getting-hacked-doesnt-ba...
Beltiras on Nov 24, 2015
I'm glad RMS has a platform. I even agree with the majority of the sentiments expressed. This list is too juvenile for my taste. The corresponding Apple hit-list is more toned down and not so acerbic. Free speech is important but for the sake of the cause I hope that some judicious edits will be made.
api on Nov 24, 2015
Many of the things on this list are more or less technical requirements. Forced security updates are required to stop the spread of botnets, for example. If you make security updates optional people will turn them off and you'll get botnets, ransomware, and DDOS flood epidemics. DDOS floods are a major threat to the open web, requiring web sites to cluster behind MITMing 'protection services' like CloudFlare.
I do agree about the privacy aspects, but unfortunately most users do not care about security or privacy and "most users" (the mainstream of the market) pays the bills. Until users care and vote with their wallets, companies will continue to disregard these things.
yuhong on Nov 24, 2015
I think it is pretty fun to compare "Windows as a service" with actual "SaaS" (eg Google Docs). As a side note, I once mentioned how Win10 driver signing requires EV certs that are not sold to individuals, and remember this response: https://twitter.com/ericlaw/status/619309157791891456
bittercynic on Nov 24, 2015
The mandatory updates seem like a major problem.
One of the greatest benefits of purchasing software instead of using SAAS products is that you can keep using your purchased software regardless of changes the vendor may make in the future. If you're not free to reject updates, you've lost this advantage.
Informing NSA about bugs before fixing them is grand. This alone qualifies MS software as malware.
skolor on Nov 24, 2015
Note what the actual source for that says:
> Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process.
The implication being made in the gnu page is that Microsoft delays fixing bugs so that the NSA can exploit them. The source article says something slightly different though, that they inform "various" agencies prior to the patches going live. I suspect the linux kernel devs do too, or Firefox, or any number of open source projects. I'd be more surprised if none of the people on the security lists for those groups don't have a list of agencies (both US and otherwise) they send bugs to .
MSFT notifies every large costumer of security issues sometimes months in advance, the NSA don't get an exploit just a notification that a security issue has been detected, some mitigating actions they can take, sometimes an IDS/IPS signature from MSFT partners and an expected date for the fix.
Smaller business costumers (pretty much any one with a TAM) will get notification before patches are released and in some cases will get the updates prior to the normal release window on "Patch Tuesday".
Microsoft isn't the only company that does that, you can't expect businesses with 1000's of machines to be able to roll out patches on a moments notice so they share information before it becomes a Zero-Day issue for their clients.
swiley on Nov 24, 2015
Just a reminder about why people still use xp:, earlier versions of windows supported a real time mode (sort of like the preempt rt Linux patches). This is needed in order to run some equipment but later versions of windows (post xp) have dropped support for it.
noorah on Nov 25, 2015
How can a user without computing background be sure that Linux is not what Microshaft Windoze is?
ape4 on Nov 24, 2015
I wish Microsoft had a way to pay for Windows 10 so I can opt out of the ads, tracking.
Arzh on Nov 24, 2015
I guess all of the internet is also malware. Neat.
krapp on Nov 24, 2015
The web possibly qualifies as malware (or at least malware-like) under several of the definitions provided by FSF:
surveillance: although this can be mitigated somewhat by turning off javascript, sites can be very aggressive about forcing you to reveal data about yourself, and making a site unusable unless you do. This data about you, your habits and identity can be used for marketing purposes you may not consent to.
DRM: you don't control the data you post to a site, can't necessarily change, update or remove it at will, and you're subject to arbitrary terms of service which may have the site assert ownership over user posted content.
sabotage: there is nothing you can do if an online service decides to close and take your data with it - you can't simply fork it. Sites can remove or monetize formerly free parts of their API and hold your data hostage.
jails: because the site itself runs on a remote server, you are limited to interacting with it through whatever API the site owners see fit. You cannot download it in its entirety, inspect the code, modify it for any purpose and redistribute it, unless it's entirely static. But, of course, as the code is on a remote server, there's no way to verify that either.
Spivak on Nov 24, 2015
Even if what you said was true, and it's not, "well everyone else is doing it" is never an excuse.
I don't take a side in this statement.
dstaheli on Nov 24, 2015
This article is weak-minded propaganda.
PC Does What?
What an apropos marketing campaign.
joenathan on Nov 24, 2015
This is way a Neo Nazi or KKK member would describe people of color, cherry picked 'facts' to build an absurd argument.
flurpitude on Nov 24, 2015
What's absurd about it? Which of the items presented are untrue, as suggested by your scare quotes around "facts"? Yes, the article is one-sided, but these are all real points of concern about the direction Windows is going in.
I'm a sysadmin, I deal with malware on a very regular basis, saying MS software is malware is an absurd statement. Equal to saying black people are all criminals and then quoting incarceration reports.
yarrel on Nov 24, 2015
Cutely emotive comparison, but you have the power dynamic backwards.
ghduxjc on Nov 24, 2015
Ahh, the circle of life continues.
RMS produces an opinion piece -> everyone denounces it as extremist -> some time passes -> something horrible happens that proves RMS was right (like the NSA disclosures) -> everyone freaks out at what's happening -> some more time passes -> RMS produces another opinion piece -> repeat
you forgot -> people show up in the thread and mock anyone who doesn't accept that RMS is, has always been, and will always be right about everything.
You'll have a hard time finding any believer in any religion who would admit to the biases in their beliefs.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10621576 and marked it off-topic.
Do the anti-GNU, anti-FOSS advocates of proprietary software ever see theirs? The facts presented in the submission are being largely dismissed without cause.
jevgeni on Nov 24, 2015
These things are dismissed because they are dismissible.
For example, the article says:
> Windows 10 sends identifiable information to Microsoft, even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings.
And links to an Ars Technica article. If you follow this link, you will find that it says nothing of the sort: Windows 10 doesn't send identifiable information to Microsoft as far as this article is concerned.
This is just yet another FOSS fan talking about things they seem to be to arrogant to even try to understand, towards a crowd they don't really know.
I read a few parts of the article and already saw this:
"For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots."
"if Web searching and Cortana are disabled, we suspect that the inference that most people would make is that searching the Start menu wouldn't hit the Internet at all. But it does. The traffic could be innocuous, but the inclusion of a machine ID gives it a suspicious appearance."
That's as personally identifiable as you need when you have an identifier locked to the machine that is sent even across reboots. This is even more identifiable than an IP address, even for static IPs (since you can have multiple machines behind it).
Is that sufficient for the claim or do you still reject it? I'm most concerned that you hold anger at FOSS people's "arrogance" over complaints about a bad software package that many people are unfortunately hooked to.
Anti-FOSS advocates here in these comments are behaving poorly; a conclusion they don't like which is supported by facts that are referenced isn't being taken well.
Here's some examples of where it is going wrong in these comments: attacking the messenger, claiming things are false / unsupported when they are, trying to find any minor flaw in what was stated in order to discredit the whole thing, ignoring facts and misleading people about what the source actually says.
That's some nasty stuff. That's Us vs. Them stuff, not "yeah that is a concern, I'm upset about that too!"
It's a GUID (as far as I know) that is randomly generated every 30 minutes. I mean, if people think that's a serious privacy problem, then they shouldn't be using any Internet protocols at all. I mean, you yourself draw the IP address comparison, so where do you draw the line? I mean, doesn't it bother anyone from the so called "FOSS" people that cell phones regularly identify themselves to supporting towers?
(As a brief aside: I don't like calling the FSF supporters in this particular case FOSS people. FOSS is a broad field and not all of it are anti-commercial zealots)
So this leaves me with a problem of defining what "personally identifiable" is. If it's comparable with an IP address, then the argument is so watered down, it's a non-starter. If you say that sending a random 128-bit number into the Internet somehow severely violates my privacy and degrades the usefulness of the software, then it's wrong.
The reason why I call FSF zealots arrogant, is that they don't seem to ever consider the needs of users, but rather try to dictate them. They assume some moral and technical superiority and never consider the possibility that people are OK with the proprietary software's trade offs. I use Windows 10, OS X, and Adobe Creative Cloud among other things. Open source alternatives to those products (in my opinion) are shit. I really don't miss literally days of configuration -when I used to run Linux and FreeBSD machines exclusively 7 years ago- and still being in a constant state of subtle, changing brokenness.
But it is a logical thing. FOSS is a philosophy, and not a business. Expecting it to produce polished end-user products is wrong: it is very hard and people doing it would like to get paid regularly, thank you very much. But that's the economics of it. Look at Ubuntu: they start to move towards a more polished, more coherent product, they become less libre and more commercial. Should we criticize them for it? No.
So unless Windows 10 is tracking my bank transactions, I'm OK with it broadcasting a different GUID to the Internet now and again. If I'll get paranoid about my privacy, I will buy a rugged laptop, put OpenBSD on it and start living in the wilderness.
And if people really want to commit to FOSS, then they should focus on writing clear and good software under public domain or MIT license and stay away from the cheap, patronising, rms-inspired politics.
Proprietary software isn't a religion. It's politics.
I'm not really aware of a practical difference when considering the nature of political and religious beliefs, so sure, substitute politics into my thought at will.
Proprietary software is neither a religion nor politics, it's just business.....
littletinman on Nov 24, 2015
Shots Fired!
GFK_of_xmaspast on Nov 24, 2015
They've been firing shots at Microsoft for decades now (remember "MS-DOG" in old GNU writings?)
Or their absolutely ridiculous Bad Vista campaign?
http://badvista.fsf.org
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Dangote Refinery to save Nigeria from Dirty fuels with Euro V specification
Home News Business
by newspeak
Dangote Oil Refinery Company (DORC) says the 650,000 barrels per day refinery has been designed to process a variety of light and medium grades of crude and produce extremely clean fuels that meet Euro V specification.
Sulphur in petroleum fuels results in vehicle exhaust emissions that have negative impact on health and environment. Nigeria has continued to remain a home for fuels with very high sulphur contents (dirty fuels), and the presumed ban on such products happens not to be having any effect.
Speaking on Promoting Efficiency & Clean Fuels in African Refining and Petrochemicals Market at the Oil Trading and Logistics (OTL) conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Dangote’s Group Executive Director, Devakumar Edwin, said Dangote Refinery is investing in most advanced units to produce Euro V fuel due to help Nigeria meet the European Standard of gasoline.
Edwin, who was represented by Director Business Strategy & Optimization, Dangote Refinery, Mr. Srinivas Rachakonda said that the construction of the Refinery will provide thousands of direct and indirect jobs and add value to the Nigeria’s economic development.
Singapore-based firm, Olam, offers N130bn to buy Dangote Flour Mills
Dangote trailers detained over smuggling
Rich list: Why Dangote ranks 65th on Bloomberg but 132nd on Forbes
He noted that the Refinery will lead to significant skills transfer and technology acquisition opportunities in the country.
He said the Group has embarked on a landmark integrated Refinery and Petrochemical project, regarded as the largest industrial complex in the history of Africa, which is expected to take Nigeria to new heights through transformation of the economy.
According to him, the Refinery will ensure that the security of local supply of petroleum products is guaranteed as well as the availability of petrochemical feedstock (Poly-propylene & Polyethylene), which will be enough for the Nigerian market as well as the neighboring countries. In addition to Polypropylene Polyethylene, the Refinery will also produce Carbon Black feedstock and Sulphur.
With a fast-growing population and poor infrastructure, he said the refinery will also reposition Nigeria as an attractive investment destination and a major industrial hub in Africa.
He disclosed that the company has also invested in the East West Offshore Gas Gathering System (EWOGGS) project, which is expected to unlock significant gas supply and help to reduce gas flaring in Nigeria. The first phase is expected to deliver gas for the use of Dangote Industries, including the proposed fertiliser plant in the refinery complex, and other identified industrial and power plant users.
Speaking during the session, former Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Reginald Stanly, said Dangote Refinery is going to be a game changer for the entire African downstream industry.
He condemned the continuous importation of dirty fuel into the country. “Emission is the highest killer today in Nigeria. I commend Dangote Refinery for its decision to produce Euro V specification of gasoline. Dumping of toxic fuel in the country is not acceptable, the earlier they stop it, the better for us,” he added.
He urged Major Oil Marketers to retool their strategies to remain in business when Dangote refinery finally comes on stream.
Giving his welcome address, Chairman, OTL Africa Downstream, Mr. Emeka Akabogu, said recent market tendencies have shown appetite for some categories of investment in the downstream value chain.
Akabogu noted that there have been considerable investments in retail outlet development, marine logistics platforms and storage facilities across the country, while several refinery projects that aim to balance the discrepancy caused by inadequate refining capacity on the continent are currently underway.
He said other emerging developments, issues bordering on regulation of the industry and independence of the regulators themselves have also received the attention of stakeholders.
However, he added that policy development and implementation have not kept pace with the urgency of industry needs and the appetite of market operators.
Speaking on the impact of the conference, Akabogu stated: “This year’s event will further empower African oil and gas companies to harness the economic potential of the downstream sector in areas ranging from crude oil value addition to refining, to development of critical supply infrastructure across African States. Issues to be discussed include prospects for refining in Africa, finance for downstream trading and infrastructure projects, regional cooperation, mergers, takeovers and lots more. We will also see discussions on the sector’s disruptive influences, the rising profile and application of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) across the continent, as well as renewable energy”.
Tags: DangoteDangote RefineryRefineries
ACPN presidential candidate, Oby Ezekwesili, speaks on how she'll fix broken education system
Kaduna relaxes night-time curfew to 10pm to 5am
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‘The Voice’ Singapore Under Fire For Only Accepting Mandarin-Speaking Contestants
King Malleta· May 9, 2017 ·4 min read
“The Voice” Singapore and Malaysia edition is open for auditions, but there is only one catch — you need to be able to speak fluent Mandarin.
There are no other restrictions when it comes to the nationality of anyone who wants to join the famous singing competition apart from being able to perform in Mandarin, which is one of the four official languages of Singapore which includes Tamil, Malay, and English. According to AsiaOne, the organization listed on their website that singers must be “fluent in Mandarin, and are able to perform Mandarin songs.”
“Although participants can be of any race or nationality, “talents have to be fluent in Mandarin and able to perform songs in Mandarin”.” pic.twitter.com/uAZpIJ3tae
— the local rebel (@thelocalrebel) May 6, 2017
Though the rule seemed acceptable to some, there were others who were outraged since contestants were told they were allowed to sing in “any language (except for Dialects such as Cantonese or Hokkien).”
@thelocalrebel this is why people picture a Chinese person as a "standard" Singaporean. Pls la guys don't be so ignorant it's unprofessional pic.twitter.com/M1BGdgii7U
— L U I S A (@theloohours) May 7, 2017
Don't you put The Voice Singapore or Malaysia if the person who audition needs to speak perfect mandarin…What about the malay and Indians?
— Raihanna Rayyans 卌 (@RaihannaRayyans) May 7, 2017
@thelocalrebel Isn't Singapore main language, English? I shouldnt feel this way, but, is it now MY fault not knowing mandarin?????? Since its a big deal???
Heather Johnson Yu· June 27, 2017
Nap Cafes Reveal Just How Little Sleep South Koreans Are Getting
— chubby sya (@sy4za) May 6, 2017
“Isn’t Singapore main language, English? I shouldnt feel this way, but, is it now MY fault not knowing mandarin?????? Since its a big deal???” said one online user.
Meanwhile, Singapore Idol’s Top 5 finalist, Joakim Gomez, also has an opinion about the competition’s strict rule:
“Singapore and Malaysia are both a melting pot of backgrounds, cultures, and languages. This show has almost alienated the few things our respective countries boast. Yet again, we find ourselves having to tell our western counterparts the all familiar phrase of, ‘Singapore (and/or Malaysia) is not a part of China. We don’t just speak one language. We actually do speak English and many others,’” she said.
Many were angered and expressed their sentiments of the rule which will further insinuate the misconception that Singapore is part of China.
asiaasianchinesesingaporethe voice
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sub(Comparative literature) » Refine Search
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The politics of excess: Religion, gender, and race in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown
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News One Exclusives
Pope Francis In America: How Will The Pontiff’s Visit Impact Black Catholics?
During Wednesday’s edition of TV One’s NewsOne Now, Roland Martin spoke with Rev. Bryan Massingale, Professor of Theological Ethics at Marquette University; Deacon Al Turner, Executive Director, Office of Black Catholics, Archdiocese of Washington; and DeKarlos Blackmon, Supreme Knight & CEO of The Knights of Peter Claver, about Pope Francis’ historic visit to the United States, and discussed the impact the Holy Father’s visit will have on Black Catholics.
Rev. Massingale described him as being “unique among the modern Popes.”
“He has captured the imagination of the world. He’s a world leader and I think the key to his popularity is that the man not only has a prophetic message of concern for the marginalized — you know Matthew 25 — Reaching out to those who are hungry and homeless, but he is also a person who seems to embody these things,” said Massingale.
Deacon Al Turner told Martin that Pope Francis, “embodies everything that I’ve been taught as a deacon and as a believer about what it means to pastor the flock and the whole flock.
Turner continued, “He sees the whole picture here. That everyone is a child of God and he treats everyone in that particular way, and I think that is a real role model for all of us to follow.”
DeKarlos Blackmon, head of the largest group of Black Catholics in the world, told Martin, “Pope Francis is clearly a Pope that Black people can identify with.”
“Pope Francis who comes from us for us,” said Blackmon. He added the Pontiff meets people “in whatever stages they are in life,” which in his eyes is “particularly tremendous.”
“If you look at the United States — just looking at the prison system, there are an inordinate amount of Blacks and Browns in prisons and the Holy Father coming over here — he’s going to visit penitentiaries,” said Blackmon.
Later during their conversation, Blackmon told Martin, that Pope Francis “appeals to people’s morals to do the right thing” and he also wants us to “remember that everyone is your neighbor, whether they look like you or not.”
Watch Roland Martin, Rev. Bryan Massingale, Deacon Al Turner, DeKarlos Blackmon, and the NewsOne Now panel discuss Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States and the impact his visit may have on Black Catholics.
Stay tuned to NewsOne Now for our continuing coverage of the Pontiff’s tour of America. Tune in weekdays at 7 A.M. ET to watch “NewsOne Now” with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.
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Pope Francis In America: How Will The Pontiff’s Visit Impact Black Catholics? was originally published on newsone.com
Black Catholics , Deacon Al Turner , DeKarlos Blackmon , exclusive video , newsone now , Pope Francis , religion , Rev. Bryan Massingale , Roland Martin , TV One , Video
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The Annals of Probability
Ann. Probab.
Volume 38, Number 5 (2010), 1817-1869.
A change of variable formula with Itô correction term
Krzysztof Burdzy and Jason Swanson
More by Krzysztof Burdzy
More by Jason Swanson
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We consider the solution u(x, t) to a stochastic heat equation. For fixed x, the process F(t)=u(x, t) has a nontrivial quartic variation. It follows that F is not a semimartingale, so a stochastic integral with respect to F cannot be defined in the classical Itô sense. We show that for sufficiently differentiable functions g(x, t), a stochastic integral ∫ g(F(t), t) d F(t) exists as a limit of discrete, midpoint-style Riemann sums, where the limit is taken in distribution in the Skorokhod space of cadlag functions. Moreover, we show that this integral satisfies a change of variable formula with a correction term that is an ordinary Itô integral with respect to a Brownian motion that is independent of F.
Ann. Probab., Volume 38, Number 5 (2010), 1817-1869.
https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aop/1282053773
doi:10.1214/09-AOP523
Primary: 60H05: Stochastic integrals
Secondary: 60G15: Gaussian processes 60G18: Self-similar processes 60H15: Stochastic partial differential equations [See also 35R60]
Stochastic integration quartic variation quadratic variation stochastic partial differential equations long-range dependence iterated Brownian motion fractional Brownian motion self-similar processes
Burdzy, Krzysztof; Swanson, Jason. A change of variable formula with Itô correction term. Ann. Probab. 38 (2010), no. 5, 1817--1869. doi:10.1214/09-AOP523. https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aop/1282053773
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Project Euclid: euclid.aoap/1034968071
[2] Cheridito, P. and Nualart, D. (2005). Stochastic integral of divergence type with respect to fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter H∈(0, ½). Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Probab. Statist. 41 1049–1081.
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[5] Gradinaru, M., Nourdin, I., Russo, F. and Vallois, P. (2005). m-order integrals and generalized Itô’s formula: The case of a fractional Brownian motion with any Hurst index. Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Probab. Statist. 41 781–806.
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1016/j.anihpb.2004.06.002
[6] Gradinaru, M., Russo, F. and Vallois, P. (2003). Generalized covariations, local time and Stratonovich Itô’s formula for fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index H≥¼. Ann. Probab. 31 1772–1820.
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Zentralblatt MATH: 05708799
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1214/09-AOP473
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[15] Swanson, J. (2007). Variations of the solution to a stochastic heat equation. Ann. Probab. 35 2122–2159.
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1214/009117907000000196
The weak Stratonovich integral with respect to fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter 1/6
Nourdin, Ivan, Réveillac, Anthony, and Swanson, Jason, Electronic Journal of Probability, 2010
Quarticity and other functionals of volatility: Efficient estimation
Jacod, Jean and Rosenbaum, Mathieu, The Annals of Statistics, 2013
Integration with respect to local time and Itô's formula for smooth nondegenerate martingales
Bardina, Xavier and Rovira, Carles, Publicacions Matemàtiques, 2010
Central limit theorem for a Stratonovich integral with Malliavin calculus
Harnett, Daniel and Nualart, David, The Annals of Probability, 2013
Convergence of stochastic integrals with respect to Hilbert-valued semimartingales
XIE, Yingchao, Journal of the Mathematical Society of Japan, 2005
On Itô’s formula for elliptic diffusion processes
Bardina, Xavier and Rovira, Carles, Bernoulli, 2007
The Substitution Theorem for Riemann Integrals
Bagby, Richard J., Real Analysis Exchange, 2002
Skorohod and Stratonovich integration in the plane
Chouk, Khalil and Tindel, Samy, Electronic Journal of Probability, 2015
Stochastic integration with respect to additive functionals of zero quadratic variation
Walsh, Alexander, Bernoulli, 2013
Remarks on Föllmer's pathwise Itô calculus
Hirai, Yuki, Osaka Journal of Mathematics, 2019
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20th Century Philosophy > 20th Century Analytic Philosophy > Ludwig Wittgenstein
Edited by Edmund Dain (Providence College)
Siblings:
G. E. M. Anscombe (4)
J. L. Austin (20)
A. J. Ayer (1)
C. D. Broad (1)
Rudolf Carnap (110 | 9)
Roderick Chisholm (5)
Donald Davidson (60)
Paul Feyerabend (19)
Gottlob Frege (45)
Nelson Goodman (11)
Thomas Kuhn (42)
Imre Lakatos (23)
David Lewis (24)
G. E. Moore (19)
Karl Popper (104 | 7)
W. V. O. Quine (84)
John Rawls (141)
Gilbert Ryle (8)
Wilfrid Sellars (24)
P. F. Strawson (22)
Alfred Tarski (18)
Logical Empiricism (37)
20th Century Analytic Philosophy, Misc (73)
Postdoc & Lecturer
Beijing Normal University
Visiting Assistant Professor
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An Incommensurability Discussion From a Linguistic Perspective.Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı - 2018 - Mantık Derneği Yayınları.details
The concept of incommensurability has been a subject of debate in the philosophy of science for a long period of time. This paper will focus on the incommensurability discussion from linguistic aspects. After the introduction and the explanation of the concept of paradigm, I will first illustrate Thomas Kuhn’s initial ideas of the existence of incommensurability and large-scale communication breakdown. Then counter-arguments from Donald Davidson and William Orman Quine will be examined followed by Kuhn’s refined versions of local and taxonomic (...) incommensurability. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate my research results from this incommensurability discussion. As a result, the local and taxonomic incommensurability is what I consider to be more reasonable, which claim incommensurability exists amongst scientific theoretical terms (instead of daily words) due to the inter-defined taxonomic structures that scientific terms belong to. (shrink)
Clarifying Conversations: Understanding Cultural Difference in Philosophical Education.Thomas D. Carroll - 2017 - In Michael A. Peters & Jeff Stickney (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein on Education: Pedagogical Investigations. pp. 757-769.details
The goal of this essay is to explain how Wittgenstein's philosophy may be helpful for understanding and addressing challenges to cross-cultural communication in educational contexts. In particular, the notions of “hinge,” “intellectual distance,” and “grounds” from On Certainty will be helpful for identifying cultural differences. Wittgenstein's dialogical conception of philosophy in Philosophical Investigations will be helpful for addressing that cultural difference in conversation. While here can be no panacea to address all potential sources of confusion, Wittgenstein's philosophy has strong resources (...) that are helpful for curbing some of our human tendencies to misunderstand other people. (shrink)
A Critique of Saul Kripke's "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language".Chrysoula Gitsoulis - 2008 - Dissertation, Graduate Center, City University of New Yorkdetails
In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke presents a controversial skeptical argument, which he attributes to Wittgenstein’s interlocutor in the Philosophical Investigations [PI]. The argument purports to show that there are no facts that correspond to what we mean by our words. Kripke maintains, moreover, that the conclusion of Wittgenstein’s so-called private language argument is a corollary of results Wittgenstein establishes in §§137-202 of PI concerning the topic of following-a-rule, and not the conclusion of an independently developed argument (...) in §§243ff of PI, as most commentators take it to be. In this work, I assess Kripke’s skeptical argument both in its own right, and as an interpretation of the rule-following sections of PI. In its own right, I try to show that it is critically flawed. However, as an interpretation of the rule-following sections of PI, I try to show that it is essentially correct. I do this by showing that Kripke’s interpretation squares with and supports the meta-philosophical framework developed by Wittgenstein in §§107-136 of PI, which immediately precedes his remarks on following-a-rule. (Oct 16, 2008. Committee: Paul Horwich, Galen Strawson, Michael Levin) -/- . (shrink)
Naturalism.Geert Keil - 2008 - In Dermot Moran (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Twentieth-Century Philosophy. London: Routledge. pp. 254-307.details
1. Introduction 2. Naturalism in the First Half of the Century 3. Three Eminent Figures 3.1 Husserl 3.2 Wittgenstein 3.3 Quine 4. The Nature of Naturalism 5. A Classification of Naturalisms 5.1 Metaphysical Naturalism 5.2 Methodological, or Scientific, Naturalism 5.2.1 Naturalism with a Leading Science: Physicalism and Biologism 5.2.2 Naturalism without a Leading Science 5.3. Analytic, or Semantic, Naturalism 6. Three Fields of Naturalisation 6.1 Naturalising Epistemology 6.2 Naturalising Intentionality 6.3 Naturalising Normativity 7. Naturalism and Human Nature 8. Scientific naturalism (...) quo vadis? 8.1 Scientia mensura and the Disunity of the Special Sciences 8.2 The Business of Philosophy . (shrink)
Musical Profundity: Wittgenstein's Paradigm Shift.Eran Guter - 2019 - Apeiron. Estudios de Filosofia 10:41-58.details
The current debate concerning musical profundity was instigated, and set up by Peter Kivy in his book Music Alone (1990) as part of his comprehensive defense of enhanced formalism, a position he championed vigorously throughout his entire career. Kivy’s view of music led him to maintain utter skepticism regarding musical profundity. The scholarly debate that ensued centers on the question whether or not (at least some) music can be profound. In this study I would like to take the opportunity to (...) relate Wittgenstein’s ideas on music to this current debate, thereby achieving a twofold goal: not only to reintroduce Wittgenstein’s ideas into the current debate, but also to use the current debate as a foil to better appreciating Wittgenstein’s otherness as a philosopher of music. I argue that Wittgenstein’s unique philosophical response to the Romantic framing of the discourse concerning musical profundity —specifically, its threefold emphasis on the specificity, aboutness, and artistically exalted status of music— occasioned a view, which was bound to be glossed over by a philosophical tradition, whose origins had made it inimical to Wittgenstein’s original philosophical insights. I conclude that, in a sense, Wittgenstein occasions a paradigm shift by his philosophical thrust to undo the gravitational forces which form the current debate: the very idea of aboutness pertaining to music, and the very idea that a clear line could ever be drawn between music and language. (shrink)
La estructura lógica del comportamiento humano.Michael Starks - 2019 - Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press.details
Mi afirmación es que la tabla de intencionalidad (racionalidad, mente, pensamiento, lenguaje, personalidad, etc.) que se presenta aquí describe de forma prominente más o menos precisa, o al menos sirve como una heurística para, cómo pensamos y comportamos, y por lo que abarca no meramente filosofía y psicología, pero todo lo demás (historia, literatura, matemáticas, política, etc.). Tenga en cuenta especialmente que la intencionalidad y la racionalidad como yo (junto con Searle, Wittgenstein y otros) lo ve, incluye tanto deliberativo consciente (...) Lingüística Sistema 2 y automático inconsciente prelingüística Sistema 1 acciones o reflejos. -/- I proporcionar un estudio crítico de algunos de los principales hallazgos de dos de los estudiantes más eminentes del comportamiento de los tiempos modernos, Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle, sobre la estructura lógica de la intencionalidad (mente, lenguaje, comportamiento), tomando como punto de partida el descubrimiento fundamental de Wittgenstein-que todos los problemas verdaderamente ' filosóficos ' son los mismos-confusiones sobre cómo usar el lenguaje en un contexto particular, y así todas las soluciones son las mismas, observando cómo se puede utilizar el lenguaje en el contexto en cuestión para que sus condiciones de verdad (condiciones de satisfacción o COS) sean claras. El problema básico es que uno puede decir cualquier cosa menos que uno no puede significar (el estado claro COS para) cualquier enunciado arbitrario y significado es solamente posible en un contexto muy específico. Analizo varios escritos por y sobre ellos desde el Moderno perspectiva de los dos sistemas de pensamiento (popularizado como ' pensar rápido, pensar lento '), empleando un nuevo cuadro de intencionalidad y nueva nomenclatura de sistemas duales. Muestro que se trata de una heurística de gran alcance para describir el comportamiento. -/- Por lo tanto, todos comportamiento está íntimamente conectado si uno toma el punto de vista correcto. La ilusión fenomenológica (olvido de nuestro sistema automatizado 1) es universal y se extiende no sólo a través de la filosofía, sino a lo largo de la vida. Estoy seguro de que Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg y el Papa serían incrédulos si se les dijera que sufren del mismo problema que Hegel, Husserl y Heidegger, (o que difieren sólo en grado de drogas y adictos sexuales en ser motivados por la estimulación de sus las corteces frontales por la entrega de dopamina (y más de 100 otros productos químicos) a través del tegmentum ventral y el núcleo Accumbens), pero es claramente cierto. Mientras que los fenomenólogos sólo desperdiciaron un montón de tiempo de la gente, están desperdiciando la tierra y el futuro de su descendiente. (shrink)
Espace logique et modalités chez Wittgenstein.Fabien Schang - 2014 - AL-Mukhatabat 9:230-242.details
L'article s'intéresse aux obstacles épistémologiques qui empêchèrent Wittgenstein d'admettre l'idée moderne de logique modale et, en particulier, les logiques d'attitudes propositionnelles. Tout en proposant un aperçu rétrospectif de la logique des modalités épistémiques, nous verrons que ces obstacles reposent avant tout sur la nature de l'espace logique présenté dans le Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus et le statut métaphysique du sujet. Des passages éclairants seront rappelés pour justi.
Wittgenstein's Attitudes.Fabien Schang - 2008 - In Alexander Hieke & Hannes Leitgeb (eds.), Reduktion und Elimination in Philosophie und den Wissenschaften. pp. 289-291.details
What's wrong with modalities in (Wittgenstein 1922)? In (Suszko 1968), the writer argued that "Wittgenstein was somewhat confused and wrong in certain points. For example, he did not see the clear-cut distinction between language (theory) and metalanguage (metatheory): a confusion between use and mention of expressions". Furthermore, a modal logic was proposed in (von Wright 1986) as depicting Wittgenstein's bipolarity thesis in a S5 frame. -/- The aim of the present paper is to deal with the specific case of epistemic (...) modal logic: such a logic of propositional attitudes assumes a philosophy of language that would violate Wittgenstein's two main assumptions. (shrink)
Review: ENGELMANN, M. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Development. [REVIEW]Luiz H. S. Santos & Marcos Silva - 2018 - Argumentos 20:204-210.details
Review of 'Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy-- Neither Theory nor Therapy' by Daniel Hutto 2nd Ed. (2006)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 364-382.details
One of the leading exponents of W's ideas on the language games of inner and outer (the `Two Selves' operation of our personality or intentionality or EP etc.) is the prolific Daniel Hutto (DH). His approach is called `Radical Enactivism' and is well explained in numerous recent books and papers (see my review of Radicalizing Enactivism) and a new one is appearing as I write (Evolving Enactivism). It is a development of or version of the Embodied Mind ideas now current (...) and, cleansed of its jargon, it is a straightforward extension of W's 2nd and 3rd period writings (though Hutto seems only intermittently aware of this). -/- Unfortunately, in 2006 Hutto had not yet arrived at his Radical Enactivism, so much time is wasted on McDowell and Brandom and of course none of them to this day have totally digested the later W and his prescient analysis of automatic behavior and the two systems of thought - so fully in tune with contemporary research. Nor is there any discussion of Searle's groundbreaking and completely Wittgensteinian (unwittingly) disquisitions on the Construction of Social Reality. Thus, his chapters 5 and 6 on Realism and Idealism etc., though superb for 2002, need a complete rewrite from a modern two systems viewpoint and I provide a start on that in my review. Much time is wasted on Davidson and Williams, etc. but one can endure them for Hutto's brilliant analyses and the frequent quotes from W. The last chapter gives his critic Rupert Read the counterblast he deserves and permits a slight update to 2006. Overall a lovely book and I eagerly await the third edition which I hope will ensue. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)
Review of 'John R Searle-Thinking About the Real World' by Franken Et Al Eds. (2010)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 405-424.details
This book is the result of Searle's stay in the Munster University Philosophy Dept in 2009 and all the papers except his introductory one and his final response are from persons associated with Munster. However, all the papers were written or revised later and so are one of the most up to date looks at his views available as of mid-2013. S has in my view made more fundamental contributions to higher order descriptive psychology (philosophy) than anyone since Wittgenstein (W), (...) and has been writing world class material for over 50 years. He is also (like W before him) regarded as the best standup philosopher alive and has taught and lectured worldwide. He is also one of the clearest and most careful writers in the field, so one would think that every philosopher writing an article on his work would have an up to date and accurate understanding of his ideas. Unfortunately, this book shows that this is far from true. All the 11 articles make major mistakes regarding his views and regarding what he (and I) would regard as an accurate description of behavior. -/- Searle's obliviousness (which he shares with most philosophers) to the modern two systems framework, and to the full implications of W’s “radical” epistemology, as stated most dramatically in his last work ‘On Certainty’, is most unfortunate (as I have noted in many reviews). It was Wittgenstein who did the first and best job of describing the two systems (though nobody else has noticed) and OC represents a major event in intellectual history. Not only is Searle unaware of the fact that his framework is a straightforward continuation of W, but everyone else is too, which accounts for the lack of any significant reference to W in this book. As usual one also notes no apparent acquaintance with Evolutionary Psychology, which can enlighten all discussions of behavior by providing the real ultimate evolutionary and biological explanations rather than the superficial proximate cultural ones. -/- However, his comment on p212 is right on the money—the ultimate explanation (or as W insists the description) can only be a naturalized one which describes how mind, will, self, intention work and cannot meaningfully eliminate them as ‘real’ phenomena. Recall Searle’s famous review of Dennett’s ‘Conscious Explained’ entitled “Consciousness explained away”. And this makes it all the more bizarre that Searle should repeatedly state that we don’t know for sure if we have free will and that we have to ‘postulate’ a self (p218-219). -/- As he notes “The neuro-biological processes and the mental phenomena are the same event, described at different levels” and “How can conscious intentions cause bodily movement? …How can the hammer move the nail in virtue of being solid? …If you analyze what solidity is causally…if you analyze what intention-in-action is causally, you see analogously there is no philosophical problem left over.” -/- Also, I would state “The heart of my argument is that our linguistic practices, as commonly understood, presuppose a reality that exists independently of our representations.” (p223) as “Our life shows a world that does not depend on our existence and cannot be intelligibly challenged.” -/- This book is valuable principally as a recent synopsis of the work of one the greatest philosophers of recent times. But there is also value in analyzing his responses to the many basic confusions manifested in the articles by others. Since this review, I have written many articles extending the framework of the logical structure of rationality and commenting in depth on Searle and Wittgenstein which are all readily available on the net. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)
Review of 'Tractatus Logico Philosophicus' by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 348-363.details
TLP is a remarkable document which continues to seduce some the best minds in philosophy, with new books and articles dealing partly or entirely with it appearing frequently over a century after it was first conceived. The first thing to note is that W later rejected it entirely for reasons he spent the rest of his life explaining. He was doing philosophy (descriptive psychology) as though the mind was a logical mathematical machine that processed facts, and behavior was the result. (...) Thus, long before computers W gave the ultimate statement of what was half a century later to become known as strong AI, CTM (Computational Theory of Mind) and most recently DSM (Dynamic Systems Theory). Eventually, W realized that perception and memory were the raw material acted upon by our innate psychology (EP) and logic and math were some of the results. Being able to say or understand anything presupposed EP and trying to make logic primary leads to incoherence, as is evident throughout TLP (and the explanation for its many bizarre statements-see e.g. Hutto). Even so, one can “understand” TLP in the sense that one can state the confusions he labored under and which most of the world still does. I briefly review Wittgenstein’s work in modern context. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)
Wolpert, Chaitin and Wittgenstein on Impossibility, Incompleteness, the Liar Paradox, Theism, the Limits of Computation, a Non-Quantum Mechanical Uncertainty Principle and the Universe as Computer—the Ultimate Theorem in Turing Machine Theory (Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century -- Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization -- Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 4th Edition Michael Starks. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 294-299.details
I have read many recent discussions of the limits of computation and the universe as computer, hoping to find some comments on the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert but have not found a single citation and so I present this very brief summary. Wolpert proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv dot org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, (...) and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior. They make use of Cantor's diagonalization, the liar paradox and worldlines to provide what may be the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory, and seemingly provide insights into impossibility, incompleteness, the limits of computation, and the universe as computer, in all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms, generating, among other things, a non- quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and a proof of monotheism. There are obvious connections to the classic work of Chaitin, Solomonoff, Komolgarov and Wittgenstein and to the notion that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. One might say this body of work implies atheism since there cannot be any entity more complex than the physical universe and from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint, ‘more complex’ is meaningless (has no conditions of satisfaction, i.e., truth-maker or test). Even a ‘God’ (i.e., a ‘device’with limitless time/space and energy) cannot determine whether a given ‘number’ is ‘random’, nor find a certain way to show that a given ‘formula’, ‘theorem’ or ‘sentence’ or ‘device’ (all these being complex language games) is part of a particular ‘system’. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 2nd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky 403p (2013) (Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century -- Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization -- Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 4th Edition Michael Starks. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 299-316.details
I give a detailed review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky from a unified perspective of Wittgenstein and evolutionary psychology. I indicate that the difficulty with such issues as paradox in language and math, incompleteness, undecidability, computability, the brain and the universe as computers etc., all arise from the failure to look carefully at our use of language in the appropriate context and hence the failure to separate issues of scientific fact from issues of how language works. (...) I discuss Wittgenstein's views on incompleteness, paraconsistency and undecidability and the work of Wolpert on the limits to computation. To sum it up: The Universe According to Brooklyn---Good Science, Not So Good Philosophy. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations by David Stern (2004)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. pp. 166-193.details
Overall Stern does a fine analysis of Wittgenstein (W) and is one of the top W scholars, but in my view, they all fall short of a full appreciation, as I explain at length in this review and many others. If one does not understand W (and preferably Searle also), then I don't see how one could have more than a superficial understanding of philosophy and of higher order thought and thus of all complex behavior (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, (...) society). In a nutshell, W demonstrated that when you have shown how a sentence is used in the context of interest, there is nothing more to say. I will start with a few notable quotes and then give what I think are the minimum considerations necessary to understand Wittgenstein, philosophy and human behavior. As Stern is aware, throughout W’s works, understanding is bedeviled by possible alternative and consequently often infelicitous translations from often unedited and handwritten German notes, with “Satz” being frequently incorrectly rendered as “proposition” (which is a testable or falsifiable statement) when referring to our non-falsifiable psychological axioms, as opposed to the correct “sentence”, which CAN be applied to our axiomatic true-only statements such as “these are my hands” or “Tyrannosaurs were large carnivorous dinosaurs that lived about 50 million years ago”. -/- Finally, let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy by David Pears (2006)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 295-301.details
Pears is an eminent philosopher, notable among W scholars for his “The False Prison: a study of the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy” in 2 volumes published 20 years ago. Based on these facts I expected some deep insights into W in the current volume. There were certainly some good points but overall it was profoundly disappointing. All of behavioral science is about our innate human nature and since W was the first to elucidate the axioms of our universal psychology, I (...) expected this to be front and center in a work written during the golden age of evolutionary and cognitive psychology and with much good recent work on W appearing. However, one would never guess from this book that W or philosophy had any connection with psychology or indeed that there is such a thing as evolutionary psychology. Hence, I cannot recommend Pears works and instead provide a framework for rationality totally lacking in Pears (and most writing on human behavior). -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
The Foundation Stone of Psychology and Philosophy--A Critical Review of 'On Certainty' by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1969) (1951). (Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 110-141.details
A critical review of Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' which he wrote in 1950-51 and was first published in 1969. Most of the review is spent presenting a modern framework for philosophy (the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) and positioning the work of Wittgenstein and John Searle in this framework and relative to the work of others. It is suggested that this book can be regarded as the foundation stone of psychology and philosophy as it was the first to describe the (...) two systems of thought and shows how our unshakable grasp of the world derives from our innate axiomatic System 1, and how this interacts with System 2. It was a revolution in epistemology since it showed that our actions rest not on judgements but on innate undoubtable axioms leading directly to action. I situate the work of Wittgenstein and Searle in the framework of the two systems of thought prominent in thinking and decision research, employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian (2007)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 302-308.details
Overall, it is first rate with accurate, sensitive and penetrating accounts of his life and thought in roughly chronological order, but, inevitably (i.e., like everyone else) it fails, in my view, to place his work in proper context and gets some critical points wrong. It is not made clear that philosophy is armchair psychology and that W was a pioneer in what later became cognitive or evolutionary psychology. One would not surmise from this book that he laid out the foundations (...) of the modern concept of intentionality (roughly, personality or higher order thought) which has been further advanced by many (most notably in philosophy by John Searle in “The Construction of Social Reality” and “Rationality in Action”). -/- There is no clear explanation of how W defined the class of potential actions, which he called dispositions or inclinations, (now often called propositional attitudes), differentiating them from perceptions, memories and actions and showing how they lack truth value. He notes that W spent much of his time discussing the foundations of mathematics but fails to provide any explanation as to how this relates to his work on language and logic. In fact, as W came to realize, they are all names for groups of functions of our innate psychology with many differences and none are dependent on the others. It is not really made clear that all our behavior depends on the unquestionable axioms of our evolved psychology and thus differs totally from the testable empirical facts which they enable us to discover. It is not explained that W’s frequent references to “grammar” and to “language games” refer to our innate psychology. All these failings are the norm in behavioral studies. -/- He notes that W described thinking and other dispositions or inclinations (W’s terms) -- (i.e., judging, feeling, remembering, believing etc.) -- as behaviors and not as mental activities but I don’t see that he really makes it clear that another pioneering discovery of W’s was that dispositions describe public actions and cannot be mental phenomena for the same reason that he so famously rejected the possibility of a private language. -/- He repeatedly and correctly notes (e.g., p176) that the core of W’s work is the nature of language but (again the universal failing) does not make it clear that language is for humans (as opposed to animals) almost coextensive with thought (public behavior as W insisted) and thus with our evolved psychology. Like most people, philosophers or not, Kanterian has not followed W and taken the final step towards understanding and describing behavior from an evolutionary standpoint, the only viewpoint that makes sense of it, or indeed of anything. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in the Writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 8-109.details
I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of Wittgenstein and Searle on the logical structure of intentionality(mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem (...) is that one can say anything but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I begin with ‘On Certainty’ and continue the analysis of recent writings by and about them from the perspective of the two systems of thought, employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of Wittgenstein -- Rethinking the Inner by Paul Johnston (1993)(Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 225-245.details
Overall Johnston has done a phenomenal job and this book should be required reading for all those interested in behavior. -/- It is quite striking that although W’s observations are fundamental to all study of behavior—linguistics, philosophy, psychology, history, anthropology, politics, sociology, and art, he is not even mentioned in most books and articles, with even the exceptions having little to say, and most of that distorted or flat wrong. There is a flurry of recent interest, at least in philosophy, (...) and possibly this preposterous situation will change, especially due to the continuing efforts of Peter Hacker, Daniele Moyal-Sharrock and more recently Annalisa Coliva. I will first offer some comments on philosophy (descriptive psychology) and its relationship to contemporary psychological research as exemplified in the works of Searle (S) and Wittgenstein from the modern two systems of thought perspective as W did 60 years ago. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Review of Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy by Paul Horwich 248p (2013) (Review Revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In The Logical Structure of Human Behavior. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 142-165.details
Horwich gives a fine analysis of Wittgenstein (W) and is a leading W scholar, but in my view, they all fall short of a full appreciation, as I explain at length in this review and many others. If one does not understand W (and preferably Searle also) then I don't see how one could have more than a superficial understanding of philosophy and of higher order thought and thus of all complex behavior (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, society). In a (...) nutshell, W demonstrated that when you have shown how a sentence is used in the context of interest, there is nothing more to say. I will start with a few notable quotes and then give what I think are the minimum considerations necessary to understand Wittgenstein, philosophy and human behavior. -/- First one might note that putting “meta” in front of any word should be suspect. W remarked e.g., that metamathematics is mathematics like any other. The notion that we can step outside philosophy (i.e., the descriptive psychology of higher order thought) is itself a profound confusion. Another irritation here (and throughout academic writing for the last 4 decades) is the constant reverse linguistic sexism of “her” and “hers” and “she” or “he/she” etc., where “they” and “theirs” and “them” would do nicely. Likewise, the use of the French word 'repertoire' where the English 'repertory' will do quite well. The major deficiency is the complete failure (though very common) to employ what I see as the hugely powerful and intuitive two systems view of HOT and Searle’s framework which I have outlined above. This is especially poignant in the chapter on meaning p111 et seq. (especially in footnotes 2-7), where we swim in very muddy water without the framework of automated true only S1, propositional dispositional S2, COS etc. One can also get a better view of the inner and the outer by reading e.g., Johnston or Budd (see my reviews). Horwich however makes many incisive comments. I especially liked his summary of the import of W’s anti-theoretical stance on p65. He needs to give more emphasis to ‘On Certainty’, recently the subject of much effort by Daniele Moyal- Sharrock, Coliva and others and summarized in my recent articles. -/- Horwich is first rate and his work well worth the effort. One hopes that he (and everyone) will study Searle and some modern psychology as well as Hutto, Read, Hutchinson, Stern, Moyal-Sharrock, Stroll, Hacker and Baker etc. to attain a broad modern view of behavior. Most of their papers are on academia dot edu and philpapers dot org , but for PMS Hacker see his papers on his Oxford page. -/- He gives one of the most beautiful summaries of where an understanding of Wittgenstein leaves us that I have ever seen. -/- “There must be no attempt to explain our linguistic/conceptual activity (PI 126) as in Frege’s reduction of arithmetic to logic; no attempt to give it epistemological foundations (PI 124) as in meaning based accounts of a priori knowledge; no attempt to characterize idealized forms of it (PI 130) as in sense logics; no attempt to reform it (PI 124, 132) as in Mackie’s error theory or Dummett’s intuitionism; no attempt to streamline it (PI 133) as in Quine’s account of existence; no attempt to make it more consistent (PI 132) as in Tarski’s response to the liar paradoxes; and no attempt to make it more complete (PI 133) as in the settling of questions of personal identity for bizarre hypothetical ‘teleportation’ scenarios.” -/- Finally, let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)
Do Your Exercises: Reader Participation in Wittgenstein's Investigations.Emma McClure - 2017 - In Michael A. Peters & Jeff Stickney (eds.), A Companion to Wittgenstein on Education: Pedagogical Investigations. New York: pp. 147-159.details
Many theorists have focused on Wittgenstein’s use of examples, but I argue that examples form only half of his method. Rather than continuing the disjointed style of his Cambridge lectures, Wittgenstein returns to the techniques he employed while teaching elementary school. Philosophical Investigations trains the reader as a math class trains a student—‘by means of examples and by exercises’ (§208). Its numbered passages, carefully arranged, provide a series of demonstrations and practice problems. I guide the reader through one such series, (...) demonstrating how the exercises build upon one another and give us ample opportunity to hone our problem-solving skills. Through careful practice, we learn to pass the test Wittgenstein poses when he claims that something is ‘easy to imagine’ (§19). Whereas other critics have viewed the Investigations as merely a diagnosis of our philosophical delusions, I claim that Wittgenstein also writes a prescription for our disease: Do your exercises. (shrink)
The Concept of Color as a Grammar Problem in Wittgenstein's Perspective of Language.Luca Nogueira Igansi - 2019 - Philia 1 (1):121-139.details
This essay aims to provide conceptual tools for the understanding of Wittgenstein’s theory of color as a grammar problem instead of a phenomenological or purely scientific one. From an introduction of his understanding of meaning in his early and late life, his notion of grammar will be analyzed to understand his rebuttal of scientific and phenomenological discourse as a proper means for dealing with the problem of color through his critique of Goethe. Then Wittgenstein’s take on color will become clear (...) as his sympathy for Runge, the painter that Goethe criticizes, is analyzed to understand color as a language-game regarding kinds of colors as numbers and geometrical figures, in that grammar rather than experience is used to acknowledge them. (shrink)
The Case for a Feminist Hinge Epistemology.Natalie Alana Ashton - 2019 - Wittgenstein-Studien 10 (1):153-163.details
Epistemology Without Intuition.Manhal Hamdo - 2018 - International Journal of Innovative Studies in Sociology and Humanities 3 (10):49-53.details
From Plato to present, intuition plays a central role in epistemology. My concern in this paper is with the nature and epistemic status on intuition. To that end, I will be reviewing both Bealer’s and Wittgenstein’s accounts of intuition. I will be arguing that by ‘intuition’ Bealer understands modal intuition that has Platonic and metaphysical roles. Subsequently, I shall also show that although Wittgenstein’s view avoids these two issues, it amounts to the idea that intuition is a normative activity with (...) a dialectical value. As a result, if Bealer and Wittgenstein are right, then intuition should no more have any epistemic and evidential role. (shrink)
On the Nature of Hinge Commitments.Eros Carvalho - 2019 - Sképsis 10 (19):55-66.details
This is a critical commentary on Pritchard's book Epistemic Angst. In Section 2, I present the closure-based radical skeptical paradox. Then in Section 3, I sketch Pritchard’s undercutting response to this paradox. Finally, in Section 4, I put forward two concerns about Pritchard’s response and I also propose a reading of hinge commitments, the ability reading, that might put some pressure on Pritchard’s own reading of these commitments.
“A Small, Shabby Crystal, yet a Crystal”: A Life of Music in Wittgenstein’s Denkbewegungen.Eran Guter - forthcoming - In B. Sieradzka-Baziur, I. Somavilla & C. Hamphries (eds.), Wittgenstein's Denkbewegungen. Diaries 1930-1932/1936-1937: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Innsbruck, Austria: StudienVerlag.details
Ludwig Wittgenstein's life and writings attest the extraordinary importance that the art of music had for him. It would be fair to say even that among the great philosophers of the twentieth century he was one of the most musically sensitive. Wittgenstein’s Denkbewegungen contains some of his most unique remarks on music, which bear witness not only to the level of his engagement in thinking about music, but also to the intimate connection in his mind between musical acculturation, the perils (...) of modernity, and the challenge, which was very personal to Wittgenstein, of philosophizing amidst what he believed was a dissolution of the resemblances which unite his culture’s ways of life. In particular, Denkbewegungen contains unique remarks on modern music, the problem of Gustav Mahler’s music, and the music of the future. Also, it contains, among other things, some unusually forward-looking remarks on the differences between Brahms and Bruckner, which both probe deeply into the nature of musical creativity and anticipate his later philosophical move beyond the inner/outer divide in his last writings. I shall offer a close reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks on music in Denkbewegungen, which situates them in the broader context of his philosophical development in his middle-period and beyond. I aim to show the deep integration of Wittgenstein’s thinking about music with his philosophical development, his deep sense of cultural lamentation, and his development as a person and as a philosophical expositor. (shrink)
Being Lost and Finding Home: Philosophy, Confession, Recollection, and Conversion in Augustine's Confessions and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.Steven Affeldt - 2013 - In Wittgenstein Reading. Berlin, Germany/Boston, MA: pp. 5 - 22.details
¿Era Wittgenstein un filósofo liberal?Robert Vinten - 2018 - Analisis: Revista Colombiana de Humanidades 50 (93):461-483.details
La pregunta si Wittgenstein fue un filósofo liberal ha recibido menos atención que la de si fue un filósofo conservador, pero, como Robert Greenleaf Brice ha defendido recientemente, hay muchos indicios de liberalismo en algumas de sus observaciones, y algunos filósofos, como Richard Eldridge, han sostenido que hay un cierto tipo de liberalismo que se sigue de la filosofía de su última etapa. Richard Rorty ha sacado también conclusiones liberales a partir de la perspectiva filosófica que se basa en la (...) obra de Wittgenstein y Alice Crary ha sugerido que las lecciones aprendidas de su propria interpretación de Wittgenstein "reflejan en formas de vida social que incorporan los ideales de la democracia liberal". (shrink)
Review of Avner Baz, The Crisis of Method in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy. [REVIEW]Nat Hansen - forthcoming - Mind:fzy064.details
This is the second book by Baz that aims to show that a big chunk of contemporary philosophy is fundamentally misguided. His first book, When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy (2012) adopted a therapeutic approach (in the Wittgensteinian style) to problems in contemporary epistemology, arguing that when properly thought through, the way philosophers talk about ‘knowing’ that something is the case ultimately does not make sense. Baz’s goal in his second book is less therapeutic and (...) more constructive: he aims to start a methodological revolution (in the Kuhnian sense)—to shake contemporary philosophers out of the unconscious habits of normal science and provoke them into making a radical change in the methods they use to do philosophy and the basic assumptions that motivate those methods. (shrink)
The Transcendental Argument of the Novel.Gilbert Plumer - 2017 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (2):148-167.details
Can fictional narration yield knowledge in a way that depends crucially on its being fictional? This is the hard question of literary cognitivism. It is unexceptional that knowledge can be gained from fictional literature in ways that are not dependent on its fictionality (e.g., the science in science fiction). Sometimes fictional narratives are taken to exhibit the structure of suppositional argument, sometimes analogical argument. Of course, neither structure is unique to narratives. The thesis of literary cognitivism would be supported if (...) some novels exhibit a cogent and special argument structure restricted to fictional narratives. I contend that this is the case for a kind of transcendental argument. The reason is the inclusion and pattern of occurrence of the predicate ‘believable’ in the schema. Believability with respect to fictional stories is quite a different thing than it is with respect to nonfictional stories or anything else. (shrink)
Creencias religiosas, inefabilidad y verdad.Angel Rivera-Novoa - 2017 - Franciscanum: Revista de Las Ciencias Del Espíritu 168 (LIX):23-61.details
El objetivo de este artículo es establecer una condición de posibilidad para el diálogo interreligioso o religioso-ateo. Esta condición consiste en tomar los conceptos de «verdad» y «condiciones de verdad» como elementos centrales de la naturaleza de la creencia religiosa. Además, para hacer posible el diálogo, es necesario rechazar cualquier rasgo de inefabilidad de cualquier descripción satisfactoria de la creencia religiosa. Así, en primer lugar, se examinará el trabajo de Wittgenstein en su Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus para mostrar que, en esta aproximación, (...) todo discurso religioso es un sinsentido y, por lo tanto, ningún diálogo sería posible. En segundo lugar, se analizará la obra tardía de Wittgenstein, para mostrar que conceptos como «juego de lenguaje», «forma de vida» y «ver-aspectos» no son herramientas suficientes que permitan el diálogo. En general, se argumentará que ambas perspectivas de Wittgenstein fallan debido a que asumen que la inefabilidad es un atributo esencial de la creencia religiosa. Finalmente, se argumentará que los conceptos de «verdad» y «condiciones de verdad» son esenciales a la creencia religiosa, si se quiere garantizar el diálogo interreligioso. Se defenderá que la interpretación radical de Davidson es útil para este propósito y además permite la tolerancia entre puntos de vista religiosos y divergentes. (shrink)
The Aesthetic Dimension of Wittgenstein's Later Writings.William Day - 2017 - In Garry L. Hagberg (ed.), Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding. pp. 3-29.details
In this essay I argue the extent to which meaning and judgment in aesthetics figures in Wittgenstein’s later conception of language, particularly in his conception of how philosophy might go about explaining the ordinary functioning of language. Following a review of some biographical and textual matters concerning Wittgenstein’s life with music, I outline the connection among (1) Wittgenstein’s discussions of philosophical clarity or perspicuity, (2) our attempts to give clarity to our aesthetic experiences by wording them, and (3) the clarifying (...) experience of the dawning of an aspect, which Wittgenstein pictures as the perception of an internal relation. By examining Wittgenstein’s use of “internal relation” from the Tractatus to his later writings, I come to challenge the still prevalent understanding of Wittgenstein’s appeals to grammar as an appeal to something given (e.g., to a set of grammatical rules). Instead, as I argue, Wittgensteinian appeals to grammatical criteria should be understood as modeled by the form of justification found in our conversations about art. (shrink)
To Not Understand, but Not Misunderstand: Wittgenstein on Shakespeare.William Day - 2013 - In Sascha Bru, Wolfgang Huemer & Daniel Steuer (eds.), Wittgenstein Reading. Berlin: pp. 39-53.details
Wittgenstein's lack of sympathy for Shakespeare's works has been well noted by George Steiner and Harold Bloom among others. Wittgenstein writes in 1950, for instance: "It seems to me as though his pieces are, as it were, enormous sketches, not paintings; as though they were dashed off by someone who could permit himself anything, so to speak. And I understand how someone may admire this & call it supreme art, but I don't like it." Of course, the animosity of one (...) great mind for another has its own interest. But the interest here is increased by two factors: (1) Wittgenstein's brief but specific critique of Shakespeare's similes, of interest particularly since he identifies his own philosophical strength half-deprecatingly but still seriously as one of crafting beautiful similes; and (2) Wittgenstein's and Shakespeare's shared concern, as revealed in Stanley Cavell's writings, with the human impulse to skepticism. The present paper considers the importance of these two factors in weighing Wittgenstein's judgment. It suggests that Wittgenstein's frequent charge that Shakespeare is "completely unrealistic" is not a misunderstanding of the Bard (Wittgenstein distinguishes his "failure to understand" from others' willingness to misunderstand Shakespeare) but rather an expression of Wittgenstein's anxiety over Shakespeare's wholly original use of language to represent the sound of the raw motives to skepticism. (shrink)
The Ends of Improvisation.William Day - 2010 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 (3):291-296.details
This essay attempts to address the question, "What makes an improvised jazz solo a maturation of the possibilities of this artform?" It begins by considering the significance of one distinguishable feature of an improvised jazz solo - how it ends - in light of Joseph Kerman's seemingly parallel consideration of the historical development of how classical concertos end. After showing the limits of this comparison, the essay proposes a counter-parallel, between the jazz improviser's attitude toward the solo's end and Ludwig (...) Wittgenstein's attitude toward our (or philosophy's) arriving at the end of justifications. The parallel depends on one's granting that both the improviser and Wittgenstein are, in their distinct ways, doing battle against the recurring human fantasy of the fixity of experience. (shrink)
Jazz Improvisation, the Body, and the Ordinary.William Day - 2002 - Tidskrift För Kulturstudier 5:80-94.details
What is one doing when one improvises music, as one does in jazz? There are two sorts of account prominent in jazz literature. The traditional answer is that one is organizing sound materials in the only way they can be organized if they are to be musical. This implies that jazz solos are to be interpreted with the procedures of written music in mind. A second, more controversial answer is offered in David Sudnow's pioneering account of the phenomenology of improvisation, (...) Ways of the Hand. Sudnow claims that learning to improvise at the piano is concerned centrally with copying the bodily ways of one's mentors and finding how one's instructable hands and the keyboard come to answer to one another, so that "to define jazz ... is to describe the body's ways." But despite its greater sensitivity over the traditional account, Sudnow's account is flawed both as a description of how improvisatory skill is acquired and as a model for describing the interest of jazz. My critique of Sudnow compares his account to Augustine's account of learning language, and finds that Wittgenstein's criticisms of Augustine extend to Sudnow. I offer a third approach to understanding improvised music, one which treats the procedures of improvisation as derived from, and importantly at play in, our everyday actions. (shrink)
Philosophy and 'The Literary Question': Wittgenstein, Emerson, and Strauss on the Community of Knowing.William Blaine Day - 1999 - Dissertation, Columbia Universitydetails
Despite their differences, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Leo Strauss share two key philosophical commitments. They recognize that philosophy cannot establish or discover a conceptual structure to which one might appeal to justify what one says. And they agree that the task of philosophical writing is to convey a way of thinking set apart from that which seeks to establish or discover conceptual structures. Yet each knows that his writing, in the absence of a universal ground of appeal, will (...) mostly fail to convey that way of thinking, and so will be, to that extent, esoteric. What differentiates them is their rendering of philosophy's inherent esotericism. -/- Wittgenstein's late interest in aspect-seeing and aspect-blindness grows out of his well-documented despair that his writing would fall before uncomprehending eyes. The correlation here rests on noticing, contra Stephen Mulhall, that Wittgenstein's aspect-seeing remarks are inspired by aesthetic matters, not least by the 'subjective universality' of aesthetic judgments. Indeed, Wittgenstein's appeals to grammatical criteria are rightly understood, not as appeals to rules in a game, but as cousin to the form of justification in aesthetics. But then, as in aesthetic justification, there may be no reason for a speaker's inability to convey to another the connections he or she may see. Emerson, whose approach to writing comes into view alongside parallel strategies in jazz and film, begins with the fact that he can write the way he does---relying on the transformative possibilities of words whose multiple meanings he acquired the way anyone does---and concludes that no one is precluded from finding in his writing a model for transforming thinking. Strauss begins with the fact that esoteric writing works the way it does---conveying the writer's true thoughts to some while withholding them from the majority---and concludes that such writing reveals a natural order of rank among readers. Yet nothing in the nature of writing philosophy as Strauss understands it compels one, in the end, to accept Strauss's conclusion. (shrink)
Review of Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations by Stern (2004).Michael Starks - 2017 - Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks 3rd Ed. (2017).details
Overall Stern does a fine analysis of Wittgenstein (W) and is one of the top W scholars, but in my view they all fall short of a full appreciation, as I explain at length in this review and many others. If one does not understand W (and preferably Searle also) then I don't see how one could have more than a superficial understanding of philosophy and of higher order thought and thus of all complex behavior(psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literature, society). (...) In a nutshell, W demonstrated that when you have shown how a sentence is used in the context of interest, there is nothing more to say. I will start with a few notable quotes and then give what I think are the minimum considerations necessary to understand Wittgenstein, philosophy and human behavior. -/- As Stern is aware, throughout W’s works, understanding is bedeviled by possible alternative and consequently often infelicitous translations from often unedited and handwritten German notes, with “Satz” being frequently incorrectly rendered as “proposition”(which is a testable or falsifiable statement) when referring to our nonfalsifiable psychological axioms, as opposed to the correct “sentence”, which CAN be applied to our axiomatic true-only statements such as “these are my hands” or “Tyrannosaurs were large carnivorous dinosaurs that lived about 50 million years ago”. -/- Finally, let me suggest that with the perspective I have encouraged here, W is at the center of contemporary philosophy and psychology and is not obscure, difficult or irrelevant, but scintillating, profound and crystal clear and that to miss him is to miss one of the greatest intellectual adventures possible. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle 59p(2016). For all my articles on Wittgenstein and Searle see my e-book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Wittgenstein and Searle 367p (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may consult my e-book Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) Amazon ASIN # B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) Amazon ASIN # B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) Amazon ASIN # B0711R5LGX . (shrink)
On Not Explaining Anything Away.Eran Guter & Craig Fox - 2018 - In Gabriele M. Mras, Paul Weingartner & Bernhard Ritter (eds.), Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, Contributions to the 41st International Wittgenstein Symposium. Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria: Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 52-54.details
In this paper we explain Wittgenstein’s claim in a 1933 lecture that “aesthetics like psychoanalysis doesn’t explain anything away.” The discussions of aesthetics are distinctive: Wittgenstein gives a positive account of the relationship between aesthetics and psychoanalysis, as contrasted with psychology. And we follow not only his distinction between cause and reason, but also between hypothesis and representation, along with his use of the notion of ideals as facilitators of aesthetic discourse. We conclude that aesthetics, like psychoanalysis, preserves the verifying (...) phenomena in their fullness. (shrink)
Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Technology and Mental Mechanisms.Thomas Raleigh - 2018 - Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 22 (3):447-471.details
This article provides a survey of Wittgenstein’s remarks in which he discusses various kinds of technology. I argue that throughout his career, his use of technological examples displays a thematic unity: technologies are invoked in order to illustrate a certain mechanical conception of the mind. I trace how his use of such examples evolved as his views on the mind and on meaning changed. I also discuss an important and somewhat radical anti-mechanistic strain in his later thought and suggest that (...) Wittgenstein’s attitude to mechanistic explanations in psychology was ultimately quite ambivalent. (shrink)
Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Language.Oleksandr Kulyk - 2018 - Днипро, Днепропетровская область, Украина, 49000: LIRA.details
This is an instructor’s manual with student exercises for the Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Language course. It is intended to assist the instructor in teaching the subject to students for whom English is a second language. -/- This manual begins with a chapter that describes the types of learning activities during this course. Next are topic chapters, each of which has four sections: a synopsis of the lecture on the topic; a lecture lesson worksheet with tasks; a seminar lesson (...) worksheet with tasks; and assignments for essay writing. At the end of the manual is a list of key definitions for the course, a list of exam questions, and answer keys for seminar tasks and lecture worksheets. (shrink)
William James on Conceptions and Private Language.Henry Jackman - 2017 - Belgrade Philosophical Annual 30:175-193.details
William James was one of the most frequently cited authors in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, but the attention paid to James’s Principles of Psycho- logy in that work is typically explained in terms of James having ‘committed in a clear, exemplary manner, fundamental errors in the philosophy of mind.’ (Goodman 2002, p. viii.) The most notable of these ‘errors’ was James’s purported commitment to a conception of language as ‘private’. Commentators standardly treat James as committed to a conception of language as (...) private, and the most notorious instance of this commitment can purportedly be found in his discussion of the feelings associated with logical terms like ‘and’, ‘if ’ and ‘but’ in the Principles’s chapter, ‘The Stream of Thought’. However, the received view stands in need of serious re-evaluation. In particular, there is little reason to think that James’s notorious discussion of the ‘if-feeling’ should be understood as an attempt to give an account of the meaning of ‘if ’ (indeed, there is little reason to even think that Wittgenstein interpreted him this way). The picture of our ideas developed in ‘The Stream of Thought’ sits badly with any theory that identifies meanings with ideas in this way, and while James’s chapter on ‘Conception’ (as well as some portions of Some Problems of Philosophy) has also been portrayed as committing James to the in principle privacy of language, it will be argued here that James’s account of our ‘conceptions’ is radically different from that of the private linguist. (shrink)
The Philosopher as Artist: Ludwig Wittgenstein Seen Through Edoardo Paolozzi.Wolfgang Huemer - forthcoming - In The philosopher and the Artist: Wittgenstein and Paolozzi. Palgrave Macmillan.details
In this article I argue that the strong fascination that Wittgenstein has had for artists cannot be explained primarily by the content of his work, and in particular not by his sporadic observation on aesthetics, but rather by stylistic features of his work formal aspects of his writing. Edoardo Paolozzi’s testimony shows that artists often had a feeling of acquaintance or familiarity with the philosopher, which I think is due to stylistic features of his work, such as the colloquial tone (...) in which Wittgenstein shares his observation with the reader, but also the lack of long-winded arguments or explanations. In the concluding part I suggest that we can read Wittgenstein’s artworks of a specific kind: as philosophical works of art. (shrink)
Propositions, Meaning, and Names.Tristan Grøtvedt Haze - 2018 - Philosophical Forum 49 (3):335-362.details
The object of this paper is to sketch an approach to propositions, meaning and names. The key ingredients are a Twin-Earth-inspired distinction between internal and external meaning, and a middle-Wittgenstein-inspired conception of internal meaning as role in language system. I show how the approach offers a promising solution to the problem of the meaning of proper names. This is a plea for a neglected way of thinking about these topics.
Wittgenstein and the Challenge of Global Ethics.Julian Friedland - 2011 - In Claus Dierksmeier, Michael Pirson, Wolfgang Amann, Heiko Spitzeck & Ernst von Kimakowitz (eds.), Humanistic Ethics in the Age of Globality. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 210-22.details
This paper describes Wittgenstein's pre-theoretical transcendentalist conception of ethics and the challenge it presents for the kind of global cosmopolitan perspective required of any multinational social responsibility strategy. It is argued that this challenge can be overcome through establishing a sense of solidarity with all stakeholders via a corporate social compact rooted in what Wittgenstein refers to as spontaneous agreement and sympathy. Contemporary examples of successful strategies are provided.
¿principio De Caridad O Hybris?Victor J. Krebs - 2008 - Revista de Filosofía (Venezuela) 60 (3):61-90.details
¿Principio de caridad o hybris? La intuición de Wittgenstein, de que el significado lingüístico se constituye dentro de la trama de vida pareciera hacer posible un acercamiento entre la tradición hermenéutica continental y la filosofía analítica del lenguaje. En el presente artículo se sostiene que esta intuición debe ir acompañada de una revisión de la concepción del sujeto implícita en el principio de caridad de Donald Davidson. Sin esa reconcepción, el principio de caridad se convierte en una forma encubierta de (...) imperialismo conceptual incompatible con el espíritu de la hermenéutica continental. Se concluye el artículo con algunas observaciones sobre el relativismo a la luz de las consideraciones anteriores. (shrink)
El naturalismo trascendental del último Wittgenstein.VÍctor Krebs & João Victor Victor - 1996 - Ideas Y Valores 45:61-75.details
El Naturalismo Trascendental del Ultimo Wittgenstein The present article considers an internal tension in Wittgenstein's late philosophy. In what I call his 'naturalism', Wittgenstein circumscribes philosophical reflection to natural objects, to «making natural history». In his 'transcendentalism' he focuses on the «possibility of phenomena» and distinguishes philosophical method from the method of the natural sciences. I show that his 'transcendentalism' is present in his discussion of rules and prívate language, arguing for an interpretation in terms of a kantian type of (...) transcendental synthesis. But far from contradicting his 'naturalism', both tendencies are inseparable and essential to the main purpose of his Philosophical Investigations. (shrink)
Going Wide: Extended Mind and Wittgenstein.Victor Loughlin - 2018 - Adaptive Behavior.details
Extended mind remains a provocative approach to cognition and mentality. However, both those for and against this approach have tacitly accepted that cognition or mentality can be understood in terms of those sub personal processes ongoing during some task. I label this a process view of cognition (PV). Using Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach, I argue that proponents of extended mind should reject PV and instead endorse a ‘wide view’ of mentality. This wide view clarifies why the hypothesis of extended mind (HEM) (...) is incoherent. However, this view also indicates why the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) could be true. (shrink)
Wittgenstein E a medida da circunferência.André Porto - 2007 - Philósophos - Revista de Filosofia 12 (2).details
Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics involves two highly controversial theses: the idea that mathematical propositions are not about (abstract) objects and the idea that no mathematical conjecture is ever answered as such, because the advent of the proof always determines a semantical shift of the meanings of the terms involved in the conjecture. The present article offers a reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s arguments supporting these theses within a very restricted setting: Archimedes’ discovery of an algorithm for calculating the number Pi.
Starting with Wittgenstein. By Chon Tejedor. [REVIEW]Manuel Lechthaler - 2014 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):149-151.details
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Dingo fence study shows dingo extermination leads to poorer soil
A comparison of conditions in the outback on either side of Australia's dingo fence has revealed that extermination of these apex predators not only affects the abundance of other animals and plants, but also reduces the ...
EPA signs off on North Dakota regulation of CO2 wells
The Trump administration is proposing to make North Dakota the first state with the power to regulate underground wells used for long-term storage of waste carbon dioxide captured from industrial sources such as coal-fired ...
Threatened bird nesting again on Los Angeles area beaches
The western snowy plover is nesting along the Los Angeles area coast for the first time in nearly seven decades, federal officials said.
Facebook says it found faster way to translate through AI
Facebook says its researchers have found a new way to use artificial intelligence to translate material on its social network faster and more accurately.
Techno-infused opera about Steve Jobs gets new backers
A techno-infused opera about the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has earned the financial backing of opera companies in San Francisco and Seattle, ensuring the musical meditation on the iconic entrepreneur will travel ...
Trump delays decision on Paris climate deal
President Donald Trump delayed a decision to honor or walk away from the Paris climate accord until he returns from Europe late this month, leaving global partners in limbo Tuesday.
Researchers find significant increase of invasive seaweed changing sea habitat
Walking along the beaches of New England, it is easy to spot large amounts of a fine red seaweed clogging the coastline, the result of sweeping changes in the marine environment occurring beneath the water. To further investigate, ...
Achieving near-perfect optical isolation using opto-mechanical transparency
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a new level of optical isolation necessary to advance on-chip optical signal processing. The technique involving light-sound interaction can ...
Experiments show that a few self-driving cars can dramatically improve traffic flow
The presence of just a few autonomous vehicles can eliminate the stop-and-go driving of the human drivers in traffic, along with the accident risk and fuel inefficiency it causes, according to new research. The finding indicates ...
Research reveals globe-trotting history of sika deer
On first glance, Yakushima Island in Japan and Dorchester County, Maryland, wouldn't appear to have a lot in common, but a closer ecological look reveals one stark similarity: both are home to populations of sika deer.
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Watch Rosy Full Movie Online Free | Gomovies
Movies/
A lonely man called Doug kidnaps a struggling actress named Rosy. Plans go awry as she proves more difficult for him to handle than ever expected.
Genre : Comedy, Romance, Thriller
Actors : Adam David Thompson, Alex Karpovsky, Chukwudi Iwuji, Johnny Knoxville, Karen Ludwig, Matthew Blumm, Nat Wolff, Sky Ferreira, Stacy Martin, Tony Shalhoub, Victor Verhaeghe
Director : Jessica Manafort
A story about four spanish people who see themselves as freaks and seldom go outside…
In 2039, jails have been turned into online portals where the public gets to choose what prisoners eat, wear, watch and who they fight. So successful is Panopticon TV, it is about to be rolled out to a whole town, providing subscribers even more choice.
Country: UK , USA
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller
A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.
At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie (Audrey Tautou) accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?
Country: France, Germany
Porco Rosso, known in Japan as Crimson Pig (Kurenai no Buta) is the sixth animated film by Hayao Miyazaki and released in 1992. You’re introduced to an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing “air pirates” in the Adriatic Sea. He has been given a curse that changed his head to that of a pig. Once called Marco Pagot, he is now known to the world as “Porco Rosso”, Italian for “Red Pig.”
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
Country: France, United States of America, USA
Adam Buckley finds himself in the middle of a convenience store robbery during his last night as a pledge for a college fraternity. When the initiation ritual goes horribly wrong, and every move proves disastrous, Adam is forced to confront a new challenge all together, and he has to take a stand.
Julia’s Eyes
The story of a woman who is slowly losing her sight whilst trying to investigate the mysterious death of her twin sister.
The Harvesting
To escape their marital problems, a young family travels from the city to spend the summer in Amish Country where a malevolent presence grips them. They soon discover that they were brought there for a reason and they must break free before the demonic hold consumes them.
When Billy Peltzer is given a strange but adorable pet named Gizmo for Christmas, he inadvertently breaks the three important rules of caring for a Mogwai, and unleashes a horde of mischievous gremlins on a small town.
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
Greg Fitzsimmons: Life on Stage
Comedy Central Special Released 18th of August 2013. Life On The Stage finds Greg back in his hometown of Tarrytown, NY to give a cutting standup set of twisted life advice. Nothing is off-limits in his advice for getting older, and stories of his life on and off stage.
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
Taken Heart
When her daughter is kidnapped in Belize and held hostage to be used for human organ trafficking, Kate Johnson goes on a crusade to infiltrate the cartel and rescue her.
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The Power of Poison
The Power of Poisonadmin2017-04-13T20:45:38+00:00
The Power of Poison – A Family Adventure in Costa Rica
To commemorate our 10th Anniversary, Reefs to Rockies announces “The Power of Poison”, a fully guided Costa Rica family adventure launching in 2016. This immersive itinerary provides travelers an in-depth look into the roles of poisons and venoms in the rainforest on Costa Rica’s south Pacific coast. Participants will travel alongside local expert guides to Uvita and the Osa Peninsula. Private reserves and Marino Ballena National Park are central to the experience.
Guided excursions will highlight poison’s paradoxical roles in nature. Travelers will delve into the world of poison dart frogs, bullet ants, scorpions, spiders, snakes, and an array of other rainforest residents. Guests will also learn about plant poisons and ways in which animals like howler monkeys and sloths counteract these chemical defenses.
Costa Rica’s Wild Side (Pacific Coast)
DAY 1: Arrival ~ Upon arrival to Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO), transfer to Hotel Bougainvillea to spend a relaxing evening after your flight. Hotel Bougainvillea is situated within a beautiful tropical garden setting in a quiet neighborhood less than 30 minutes from the SJO Airport. Overnight at Hotel Bougainvillea. (D)
DAY 2: Uvita/ La Cusinga’s Private Nature Reserve ~ Transfer back to SJO Airport in time for your flight to Palmar Sur and ground transfer to Uvita on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast where you’ll spend the next two nights. The rest of the day is yours to explore the trails in the La Cusinga’s private nature reserve adjacent to the lodge. The reserve protects over 500 acres of primary rainforest and is home to blue morpho butterflies, howler and white-faced monkeys, sloths, toucans, poison dart frogs, and many other tropical species. Overnight at La Cusinga Rainforest Lodge. (B,L,D)
DAY 3: Uvita/ Marino Ballena National Park ~ This morning, set out for a guided marine wildlife boat tour in Marino Ballena National Park. The park was created in 1990 to help protect valuable habitat for the many whale species, including humpbacks that visit at certain times of the year. Dolphins and sea turtles sighting are possible all months of the year. The most commonly seen dolphins on the Pacific coast are bottlenose and spotted dolphins. There will be time for snorkeling during the excursion. Keep an eye out for brightly colored puffer fish swimming among the rocks. Overnight at La Cusinga. (B,L,D)
DAY 4: Uvita/ Hacienda Baru National Wildlife Refuge ~ Today brings a visit to Hacienda Baru National Wildlife Refuge located just north of the beachside community of Dominical. Hacineda Baru’s 815 acres cover a variety of habitats from wetlands and secondary rainforest in the lowlands to primary rainforest on the highland coastal ridge. There are 7 km of walking trails and 3 km of prisitine beahc just waiting to be explored. While there, get a bird’s eye view of the rainforest during your Flight of the Toucan ziplining adventure. The zipline route imitates the flight of the chestnut-mandible toucan, a common rainforest resident in the area. Overnight at La Cusinga. (B,L,D)
DAY 5: Uvita/ Osa Peninsula ~ Enjoy a final morning at La Cusinga before your transfer to El Remanso Lodge located in the heart of the Osa Peninsula. El Remanso’s Private Reserve covers 185 acres of tropical rainforest that acts as an important buffer zone to Corcovado National Park. National Geographic Magazine labeled the Osa Peninsula as “one of the most biologically intense places on Earth’. Wildlife are plentiful here. This afternoon, you’ll embark on a hike with Gerardo Orozco Borbón, one of El Remanso’s resident guides and an expert in local flora and fauna. Overnight at El Remanso Lodge. (B,L,D)
DAYS 6-7: Osa Peninsula ~ These two days are yours to enjoy the natural surroundings at the lodge with the local knowledge of your guides. Additional tours including visiting a sea turtle conservation project, waterfall rappelling, kayaking, horseback riding and surfing are available at El Remanso during your stay. Overnights at El Remanso Lodge. (B,L,D)
DAY 8: Osa Peninsula/ Departure ~ After breakfast at the lodge, transfer back to Puerto Jimenez in time for your flight to SJO. Connect to your flight home. (B)
NOTE: If you’re interested in volunteering time at a local conservation project during your trip, just let us know. We work with a variety of conservation projects in the Osa Peninsula.
Pricing from $2295 per person based on quad occupancy. Scheduled departures available with small groups of four or more guests. Max group size: eight guests.
Package includes accommodations and meals as listed, private ground transfers between airports and hotels, full-time naturalist guide for duration of trip on a private basis, transfers and entrance fees for guided excursions, domestic flights (SJO – Palmar Sur and Puerto Jimenez-SJO), non-alcoholic drinks, and sales taxes. A donation to support local conservation and environmental education efforts will be made on behalf of each participant.
Exclusions: international airfare, passport/visa fees, taxis, optional activities, gratuities, alcohol, excess baggage fees, items of a personal nature, and travel insurance.
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Kobo teams up with ABA to offer ebooks to U.S indies
The American Booksellers Association has partnered with Kobo to sell ebooks and e-reading devices.
Kobo will now provide ABA members nearly three million ebook titles, as well as ereaders and accessories. The company will also support 400 member stores with training, merchandising, marketing, sales, and logistics.
Publisher’s Weekly quotes ABA CEO Oren Teicher:
We are pleased to offer our ABA members a competitive e-book retailing solution uniquely crafted to meet the needs of independent booksellers and their customers. Through this partnership with Kobo, indie bookstore customers will have access to a broad and diverse inventory of e-books.
The deal comes after Google terminated its reseller program for ebooks in April. That decision was met with surprise by many indie booksellers in Canada and the U.S. who saw the plan as a chance to launch themselves into the digital world “ it would have allowed thousands of booksellers to take digital books from Google’s store and sell them for a commission.
Several Canadian independent retailers had signed on to the program through a partnership between the Canadian Booksellers Association and Campus eBookstore.
After the cancellation, the CBA looked to Login Canada, Transcontinental, and Enthrill Entertainment as potential providers. Christopher Smith, vice president of CBA says the organization has plans in the works and will make an official announcement in early September.
By Katie Gowrie
Category: Bookselling, Digital publishing and technology
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How 10 Latinxs Built Their Own Empowering Spaces Through Zines
Photo by Samanta Helou for Remezcla
By Samanta Helou | 1 year ago
Self-publishing is alive and well. This past weekend, Los Angeles held its sixth annual zine fest, where 200 creators sold and traded their handmade booklets. Independent publishing as a way to spread information can be traced as far back as printing technology, and modern zine makers are continuing the tradition. The Latinx zinesters present at the fest — who often cited their involvement with punk scenes as their introduction into the zine-making practice — are using the medium as a form of self-empowerment, identity formation and exploration, and advocacy around issues, such as Central American representation, sex workers’ rights, and veganism among many, many other things.
Because zines can focus on literally anything, they’re a tangible and accessible way to flip narratives presented by mainstream media and build community around issues and cultures that are often misrepresented, if represented at all. At this year’s LA Zine Fest, we talked to Latinx creators about what zines mean to them and why they find the medium important for their communities.
Editor’s Note: The interviews below have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Alma Rosa, Frijolera Press
“I like the fact that you can publish things without waiting for anyone, and it’s a good way to take up space. Zines spread knowledge, it can be political things, topics about mental health, it can be poetry, or your art. It’s spreading things without having a filter or having to wait for someone to let you release the information.
“A lot of times we are silenced by society, our parents, or our work. A lot of times we can’t be who we want to be all the time, and zines are a really healthy way to express ourselves.”
Richard Castor, 35, Originals Por Vida
“The zine is a collaboration with a bunch of artists who send art. It’s based on barrio arte. It’s not just Chicano, but obviously Chicanos are the ones that started this style of art. It’s inspired by Teen Angels magazine, because they’re not doing it anymore so it’s a continuation of it.
We are not represented well so this is one way to get our word out there. We need to show who we are and where this stuff comes from, because you see it on TV but it’s sometimes not by Chicanos and the same people who really make it.”
Daisy Zamora, 33, Brown and Proud Press
“[Brown and Proud Press is] a collective of artists, writers, and illustrators. we come together to write zines. We select a theme, and we send it out to the community. Folks write back and we put it together.
“I see zines as truth-telling pieces, where folks can tell their stories. It’s like your own personal project that you can then release to the community and folks can take them. Some tell stories and some have instructions. Some of them will tell you news, they’ll talk about history, identity, and some of them have maps. It’s whatever you want it to be. You’re making your dream come true in this way.
“It’s really hard to publish a book, so I think zines offer this other space where you can tell your story. No one can police you on your grammar. You can purposefully spell things however you want. It’s unique and authentic to yourself.”
Ziba Zehdar-Gazdecki
“I started the zine library at the Baldwin Hills branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Now seven out of 73 branches in LA have zine libraries. I came from the Long Beach Public Library, and I started it there. It was the first zine library in Southern California, and we got up to 1,000 zines. Then, I switched jobs and I started it in LA. And we are the first branch of the LA Public Library to have a zine library.
Zines are a part of DIY culture. It’s not about being a commercially published author or mainstream press, it’s about publishing whatever you’re passionate about.”
Natasha Hernandez, 31, Isabel Ann Castro, 28, St. Sucia Zine
“The zine started 4 years ago. Isa had the idea to start an-all Latina zine. We’ve had 11 issues; we’ve gone international; we’ve been added to university libraries; we’ve been archived by university collections; we’re on the syllabus at different universities around the country. Our goal has been the same this whole time – to elevate Latina voices in art and in literature and to smash stereotypes of Latinas. We are opening up a platform to elevate voices of all different types of Latinas and to tell their truths and stories. We recognize that Latinas are a diverse population and we need to recognize that and respect that. We are in solidarity together. I identify as Chicana and Isa identifies as Mexican-American but we publish everybody: queer Latinas, trans Latinas, Afro-Latinas, Boricuas, Dominicanas, everybody. It’s not just Chicanas.” -Nastasha
“Historically, no one is publishing us or asking us to be in their gallery shows. We have to do it for ourselves. With our zine, me and Isa are not waiting for someone else to give us these opportunities. It’s an amazing access point and no one is telling us what to publish. We are not worried about sponsors. We are not worried about marketing. Nobody tells us what to do. We get to tell the stories we want to tell. All of it is self-sustaining; all the money we get from publishing the zine, goes right back to it. We make zero money off of the zine.” -Isabel
Jocelyn Moguel, 22, Xicanx Cry Baby zine
“We do a zine about the LA music scene like punk, ska, and hardcore. We also talk about our feelings; we are trying to centralize the notion that you can absolutely cry, you can absolutely feel anger and sadness and write it down. We are trying to destigmatize the whole crying thing because in Latinx cultures, you’re taught not to cry or show weakness, especially amongst men.
“I got introduced to zines at a particularly tough part in my life and making zines has a been a really cool part of my healing, and I was able to get out more and meet people. The zine family that I have right now especially in LA, they’re like family to me.”
Daisy, 24, and Caroh, 22, All Sex Workers Go to Heaven collective
“We run a collective called All Sex Workers Go to Heaven. It was created because I was tired of being the token friend for my sex worker friend’s art projects. I was tired of not speaking for myself and not showing my own narrative. So I thought it was about time to start a zine speaking for our own. The zine is made out of submissions that other sex workers send in. I prioritize sex workers of color and trans sex workers of color, because I think that’s most important. It’s important to speak for ourselves for once.
“I think we forget that sex workers are people; sex work is work; and a lot of us are artists; a lot of us do really cool things and a lot of people forget about that. When I call for submissions they don’t have to be related to sex work. If you’re an awesome artist and you’re a sex worker, send your work in.” -Daisy
“In these zines I constantly see myself. I see my friends. I see my family. Sex workers are not humanized in the same way. We are not seen as everyday people. We are only seen for our profession. Zines are an amazing way to not just humanize us but really grab the person and show them that we go beyond this. We are artists, we are parents, we are real ass hustlers outside of this. Having that on a zine, people can hear us. I feel like that’s one of the few ways people will listen.” -Caroh
Oombi, 29, Jotita de Amor zine
“I write queer poetry from a migrant lens. I have two zines out, and they’re either about breakups and about LA and what it looks like now compared to when I first came here as a kid and the whiteness of it and the lack of resources for other Chicano or Latino people.
Zines are important because it gives a chance for our community to be represented without having to conform to or do things through a middle person who’s usually male or white. It gives specifically queer and other people of color the chance to get stuff out.”
LA Zine Fest, photo, zines. Friday, June 1, 2018 at 1:29 PM EDT June 1, 2018 by Samanta Helou
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UP NEXT: Meet Julia Arredondo, the Tejana Artist Running an Online Bodega Inspired by Mod...
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Category: event
Press Release: "Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey" Event in NYC
This is a press release for a non-fiction book I’m in titled, “Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey.” The book is a non-fiction collection of essays by 50 writers about the runaway bestselling novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James. I thought this event might be of interest to those who are fans of the book who live in the NY tri-state metropolitan area. And the event itself looks like it should be fun and it’s something I’m going to try to get to depending on my schedule next week.
Book contact: Heather Butterfield, Publishing Associate
Smart Pop Books
(207) 944-8447 | heather@benbellabooks.com
**digital cover image available**
DomSubFriends to host fifty shades book event
Contributors to Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey Will Penetrate the Fifty Shades Phenomenon with a Panel Discussion at Paddles on November 16
Date: Friday, November 16
Place: Paddles, #250 West 26th Street, NYC
Admission: $4 DomSubFriends members, $6 other group members, $10 non-members
Contact e-mail: DomSubFriends@aol.com
On November 16, DomSubFriends will host an insightful and scintillating event on E.L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy at Paddles S&M club. There will be a Fifty Shades of Play BDSM demonstration, followed by a panel discussion featuring contributors to Smart Pop’s latest title, Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey (available everywhere books are sold on November 20).
Join Dominant ChrisMarks and his submissive and romantic partner Lia as they explain what each of them gets from their BDSM relationship. Their demonstration will include sensation play with some pain, restraint, spanking, flogging, and will end with whipping, followed by aftercare.
The panel portion of the evening will include a diverse group of expert panelists:
– Moderator: Lori Perkins, editor of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, publisher of Riverdale Avenue Books, and editor of 20 erotic anthologies
– Sinnamon Love, former porn star and BDSM Dominant
– D.L. King,erotic romance author and BDSM lifestyle participant
– Pamela Madsen, author of bestselling submissive memoir Shameless, and women’s health and sexuality advocate
– Selina Fire, host of the monthly Pleasure Salon, a kinky cocktail party, and sex writer
– Stacey Agdern, bookseller at Posman Books in the Grand Central Terminal and romance reviewer
– Mala Bhattacharjee, erotic romance writer and Romantic Times Book Reviews staff member
– Susan Colón, romance novelist and O, The Oprah Magazine contributor
– Megan Frampton, romance novelist and Heroes and Heartbreakers romance blog moderator
– Debra Hyde, winner of the 2011 Best Lesbian Erotica Lambda Literary Award for her BDSM tale Story of L
– Rachel Kenley, erotic romance author and editor
– Katharine Sands, literary agent
– Hope Tarr, PhD, historical and contemporary romance author
About Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey
é “Fascinating examination of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy . . . Love Fifty Shades or hate it, this engaging and eclectic read has a little bit of something for everyone.”
—Publishers Weekly starredreview
E. L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy has fascinated and seduced millions of readers. In bedrooms, in book clubs, and in the media, people can’t stop talking about it! In Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, 50 writers—from romance and erotica authors, to real-world BDSM practitioners, to adult entertainment industry professionals—continue the conversation with sections on Fifty Shades as erotic fiction, sexual empowerment, fanfiction, and pop culture.
About DomSubFriends and Smart Pop
DomSubFriends is an inclusive BDSM Organization serving the NYC and immediate surrounding areas. They provide educational classes, lectures, demos, and exclusive fetish parties and events on a weekly basis. DSF is open to all those 18+ years old.
Smart Pop is the pop culture imprint of Dallas-based publisher BenBella Books. Our mission is to publish smart, fresh nonfiction titles on television, books, and film. You can find more online at smartpopbooks.com.
Title: Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey
Editor: Lori Perkins
Publisher: Smart Pop (An Imprint of BenBella Books), distributed by Perseus Distribution
Publication: November 20, 2012, $14.95 (CAN $17.50), Paper, ISBN: 978-1-937856-42-7
Fiction/Literature, 304 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4
Available at bookstores everywhere and through Perseus Distribution
Toll-free number for orders only:
1-800-343-4499. Orderentry@perseusbooks.com.
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Chris Ciovacco
Chris Ciovacco is the Chief Investment Officer for Ciovacco Capital Management, LLC.
Dow Theory: Yellow Flags or Green Light?
By Chris Ciovacco - Sep 18, 2014, 7:27 AM CDT
Mixed Message For Manufacturing
Stock prices have a high correlation to economic activity and earnings. History tells us bear markets are often kicked-off by recessions. Recent economic data does not hint at an imminent recession. However, a mixed message came in a September 15 report on industrial production. From The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. industrial production fell in August for the first time since January, the latest sign of uneven improvement in the economy..."The trend in the data still looks decent, but has moderated noticeably from the much stronger gains reported earlier this year," said J.P. Morgan Chase economist Daniel Silver.
What Is Dow Theory?
Dow Theory's stance has changed in the last 30 days; this article covers the recent improvement in the observable evidence. Before we cover the updated charts, it is important to revisit the fundamental concepts they convey. Dow Theory is based on a series of Wall Street Journal articles written by Charles Dow. The basic tenets are easy to understand. Charles Dow believed that:
In order for industrial companies to increase their earnings, they had to produce and sell more goods.
If industrial companies are selling more goods, then transportation companies must be delivering more goods to retailers and wholesalers.
Therefore, in a healthy economy, both industrial companies and transportation companies should be experiencing revenue growth.
If industrial and transportation companies are growing their revenues, then the industrial and transportation stocks should be attractive to investors.
If industrial and transportation companies are doing well and are attractive to investors, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average should be making new highs in unison, serving to confirm a healthy economy.
Signal: That Was Then
If investors believe industrial and transportation stocks are healthy and thus, attractive investments, that speaks to demand. When demand is strong, stock prices rise. On September 2, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) was unable to post a new closing high, leaving an economic divergence in place relative to the high made in the Dow Jones Transportation Average (see charts below). The inability of the Dow to post a new closing high was an economic yellow flag according to Dow Theory (see point 5 in the list above).
Signal: This Is Now
In Wednesday's session both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average made new highs. Therefore, the concerning economic non-confirmation has been taken off the table.
How Can This Help Us?
Everything we do revolves around probabilities and an uncertain future. The new highs in the Dow and Trannies tell us investor confidence in earnings, economic activity, and Fed policy is better than it was a few weeks ago when the Dow was unable to sustain a new high. Sustainability is still important. If the new highs are followed by weakness and a retreat below 16,368 on the Dow, it brings us back into a lower investor conviction realm. The longer the Dow stays above 17,138, the better for the bulls from an "odds of good things happening" perspective.
Investment Implications - The Weight Of The Evidence
Have the observable evidence and hard data been helpful prior to and after Wednesday's Fed statement? Yes, the S&P 500 (SPY) closed Monday at 1984, which was near a support level we noted last week. Our market model also told us to be patient heading into the Fed (see Monday tweet below).
Last week's uncertainty called for a slight reduction in our equity exposure. We headed into the week with U.S. stocks (VTI), leading sectors, including transportation (IYT), offset by a relatively small stake in bonds (TLT). If the S&P 500 can post a new closing high Thursday (above 2007), then the evidence may call for an "incremental add" to our equity-based holdings.
Bullish, But Highly Flexible
With the Fed on the verge of a policy shift, we will take nothing for granted. The markets will need to be monitored a bit more closely in the coming months. The evidence will guide us if we are willing to listen.
Traffic light image Lawrence Rayner via Flicker (altered).
Wednesday Report...Currencies...The World According to Chartology
Here's Why Trendlines are Your New Best Friend, Part 3
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His Royal Highness
All posts tagged His Royal Highness
Jatukam Ramathep: Thailand’s Modern Powerful Amulet of Unknown Origin
Several months ago, I wrote about Thailand’s Four Faced Buddha, which remains to be one of the most popular religious icons that the country has ever produced. That particular post remains to be one of the most well read post, it’s constantly in the top 12 post of my blog. I was not surprised how well you, the readers of this blog, received that particular post, it is because the 4-Faced Buddha is really one of the most popular spiritual icon because the 4-Faced Buddha is extremely powerful and swift in delivering his blessings. In fact, I received a lot of emails from people who have experienced the miraculous protection of the 4-Faced Buddha.
Today, allow me to introduce you to another very powerful religious or spiritual tool that came out in Thailand. I’m talking about the Jatukam Ramathep Amulets, sometimes simply called as Jatukam Amulets. Some people, especially Westerners, will sometimes spell it as Jatukarm (with an R), this is because that’s how it’s pronounce by Thais.
Jatukam Amulets became so famous that I’ve met a couple of Thais from Phuket and a Chinese Thai from that haven’t heard of Mario Mauer, a Thai famous actor, but who absolutely gets excited when I mentioned the Jatukam Amulet.
Jatukam Ramathep Amulets can be considered as Thailand’s modern powerful amulet of unknown origin because it is, I think, the only amulet that was discovered in modern times, also it is also a very powerful amulet as can be attested of those who has it, like me. But before that let me share with you story of where the amulet came from.
The truth is, there are a lot of different stories relating to the history of the Jatukam Ramathep Amulets. I will not dwell about the different stories, but instead allow me to share with you the most widely accepted story.
It is said that during the 800 AD, Asia experienced one of its greatest turbulent era. The King of Siam (modern day Thailand) has two royal sons who are very devoted to the throne and to Buddha. The princes’ names are Jatukam and Ramathep. Obviously, the amulets were named after them.
But before we go the story of the princes, it is important to share with you that their father is said to be a very powerful and noble king. The king is also a devoted Buddhist. Going to wars only when he really has to. It is in one of these wars that the King was able to get possession of some sacred relics of Siddhartha Buddha himself in Sri Lanka. He naturally brought the sacred relic to his kingdom and palace in Siam (Thailand). Because the sacred relic is so precious the king decided that he could only entrust it to his sons – Jatukam and Ramathep.
It is also said that a Buddhist monk tried to approach the King to tell him that he had a vision that the Buddha wants the sacred relic to be transported to a province in Northern Siam. However, palace guards prevented the monk from facing the king, thus he was unable to convey his vision.
After a few years, with the war in Asia further escalating, the King found himself travelling with some of his people to protect his kingdom. Unfortunately, Siam is losing the war, and enemies were conspiring to take the kingdom’s riches and also the Buddha relics ‘owned’ by the kingdom. To protect the relic of Siddhartha Buddha they decided to bring it back to Sri Lanka. The two princes unable to send word to their father the king decided to head to Sri Lanka by sea.
On their way to Sri Lanka, a wicked storm came and sunk their ship. Some say that all the people aboard the ship died except for the two princes, and some say all of them survived and wash ashore in a land of fertile soil. The place is now the present day Nakhon Si Thammarat (spelled as Nakhon Sri Thammarat).
According to the stories, the princes tired their best to continue their mission to move to Sri Lanka, however, for some weird reason, they were unable to move the case containing the relic. They took it as a sign that the relic wants to make Nakhon Si Thammarat as its home. Because of this the princes decided to make Nakhon Si Thammarat as their new home. They build Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan, a Buddhist temple that still stands in Nakhon Sri Thammarat. To this day, you’ll still see the said temple, which has again become really famous because of the Jatukam amulets. Also, to this day, the Buddha relics that the two princes were trying to saved are still in that temple. Some say that the relic is a Tooth Relic.
However, for a very long the temple’s history is actually unknown, although there was some oral history handed down from one generation to the other. Until several years back when they were renovating the temple they chance upon the relic the princes’ bodies buried near where the relics is hidden.
After awhile, Thais immortalized the two princes and started praying to them as one, thus calling them Tao Jatukam Ramathep. It is said that praying to Tao Jatukam Ramathep will be blessed with a happy, well-balanced life, filled with wealth.
Several years back I was bless with the fortune to be able to visit the temple – Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan. It’s located at Ratchadamnoen Road. At the entrance of the temple are statues of Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep, this is very symbolic of their mortal duties as the guardian of the Buddha relics housed within.
Note that the story just shared with you is the most widely accepted version of the history of the temple and of Jatukam Ramathep. The truth there are a lot more different versions, and nobody is unable to say which of the stories circulating are the most accurate version. However, what is certain is that it was a Thai policeman named Khun Phantharak Rajjadej a devotee of Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep, who first commissioned the monks of the temple to make him a Jatukam Ramathep amulet. This was in 1987 and no known Jatukam Ramathep amulets existed before that.
Khun Phantharak Rajjadej believes that it is Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep who helps him solves his difficult murder cases. Again, Khun Phantharak Rajjadej left not written record, but according to his family, one time in an official police operation, a friend and colleague of Khun Phantharak Rajjadej was shot and died. Fearing more for his family than for himself, he begged Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep to always protect him and to continuously provide for his family, because his meager salary as a police is not enough.
This is the back side of my Jatukam Ramathep Amulet.
Again, there are two versions of how he came up with the Jatukam Ramathep amulets. One version is that after praying to Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep, he was paid a visit by the two guardian princes in his dream, there he was told to convince the Buddhist monks of Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan to make an amulet for him. It was said that it was Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep who told him the basic manner of making the amulet, which he needs to convey to the Buddhist monks. The other version is that after praying to the princes, he was approached by a woman who has no knowledge of what he prayed for but told him that she had a vision from Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep, to tell him to convince the monks to make an amulet.
The two versions state that it was Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep themselves through the dream or the vision who gave Khun Phantharak Rajjadej the ‘ingredients’ and the procedures of doing the amulet.
The ingredients of the amulet are quite simple, because all they need is some incense ash from the temple, soil, and a very small splinter of wood from the old doors or roofs of the temple.
The design is also quite simple because it is said that Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep has provided this through the dream or vision. What’s difficult is the process of making it, because the Buddhist monks will have to do empowering meditation for one lunar cycle and then they will have to travel to the mountain, and the sea, face EAST, WEST, NORTH, SOUTH to make a special prayer in each of the direction before the amulet is fully empowered and effective.
Well, did the amulet for Khun Phantharak Rajjadej? To answer that question, allow me to share with you that after he got hold of the amulet, it is said that he never had an unsolved case. Furthermore, he and his family were all blessed with material wealth and long life. Khun Phantharak Rajjadej himself died at the age of 108 and has the position of a Major General. He also became so loved and respected for his selfless acts to protect the public that he was given a Royal Cremation ceremony where more than 250,000 people attended. Also in attendance are several government officials, businessmen, and celebrities. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn presided over the ceremony, which is under the patronage of the Thai King and Queen.
Major General Khun Phantharak Rajjadej. Image was uploaded from Google.
By that time, the amulet has already gained some popularity, but it was the Thai King himself, King Bhumibol Adulyadej who furthered made the amulet really famous. King Bhumibol Adulyadej got really ill and was rumored to be on his death bed. The rumor was not surprising because it was the first time that he was confined in the hospital for long period of time and it was also the first time that several members of the Thai royal family had to cancel several official engagement to be with the king. However, after a few weeks the king was discharged from the hospital and he was seen, videoed and photographed to be wearing one of the original Jatukam Ramathep Amulets, it is from the batch that was commissioned by Khun Phantharak Rajjadej.
The image of the Thai king leaving the hospital wearing a Jatukam Ramathep Amulet further soared its popularity, and a businessman who said to have been blessed by the first batch of the Jatukam Ramathep amulet again commissioned the temple to make another batch of Jatukam Ramathep amulets to be given out for a minimal fee. On the day of its release, a lot of people flock to Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan to get an amulet. The crowd became so unruly that a woman died during a stampede. Because of this incident the Buddhist monks threatened that they will hold off the releasing of the amulet and that they will no longer make any Jatukam Ramathep amulet.
For a while, they did what they said, and it was after a few more years when they started making another batch of Jatukam Ramathep amulet. Because of this, prices of the existing first 2 batches of Jatukam Ramathep went really high. In fact, a Jatukam Ramathep from the original batch that was commissioned by Khun Phantharak Rajjadej now costs about US$ 300,000.00 and somebody bought it!!!
I was fortunate enough to be able to get a Jatukam Ramathep amulet from the 4th batch that was made by the Buddhist monks of Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan. This is a prized possession because the truth is they can only make Jatukam Ramathep amulets by batches, once, at most, twice a year.
There are a lot of wonderful and magical stories about the Jatukam Ramathep amulets, and all you need is to Google it to read about them. However, I have personally heard from people who has directly benefitted from the Jatukam Ramathep Amulets that is why I decided to get one for myself to try it out. This was before I became a believer.
When I first had my Jatukam Ramathep amulet, I immediately felt its power. The feeling is very subtle and quite difficult to explain but more than that I also noticed that everything seems to be going smoothly. I have already been practicing Feng Shui and have been enjoying its good effect when I had my Jatukam amulets, so there is really no astounding personal story that I can share with you. However, whenever I’m running into an extremely bad month or year or week as indicated by my Flying Stars, I always wear it and everything seems to go really smoother.
Nevertheless, allow me to share with you the story of a friend who also got a Jatukam Ramathep amulet from the 7th batch that was made. He was experiencing a particularly difficult year. I think it was karmic because no Feng Shui cure seems to work. His marriage was going through a really bad time and he got separated from his wife and his 2 children. Business is also really bad and he is about to declare himself bankrupt! Out of desperation, he requested me to acquire for him a Jatukam Ramathep amulet. We both travelled to Thailand to get his Jatukam Ramathep amulet.
When we got back home 2 days after he got his Jatukam Ramathep, his brother called him to inform him that he was able to get him an investor who can help him get out of financial rut. This is something that he is looking for but a lot of people think that his business is too far-gone that nobody wants to gamble on a losing business. Furthermore, he was able to make peace with his wife and they started living together again, it happened a month after he got his Jatukam Ramathep amulet.
Another story that I would like to share is from a Malaysian businesswoman, who said that 3 days after wearing her Jatukam Ramathep amulet, she went to buy a lottery ticket. Guess what? She won!!!
Stories like these…testimonials like these are what make the Jatukam Ramathep amulet really famous. In fact, they are so famous that it is now a 20 Million Baht ‘industry’. Unfortunately, a lot of these are Jatukam Ramathep amulets that have the same designed but are no longer made in Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan, and they don’t go through the empowering meditation and the mountain, sea, east, west, north, and south special empowering prayer. I know I might get into trouble by saying this, but for me, I think unless a Jatukam Ramathep amulet is not made in Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan, then it is considered fake.
Remember, some of the main ingredients of the Jatukam Ramathep as instructed by Tao Jatukam and Tao Ramathep is for it to have incense, soil, and a splinter from the old door or ceiling of the temple. The main ingredients, not to mention the empowering prayers done, are what make Jatukam Ramathep amulets powerful.
In fact, the first and second batch of the Jatukam Ramathep amulets are made purely of hardened soil and clay, and they are considered to be truly potent that just merely holding them can fulfill our wishes. However, because it doesn’t have a plastic casing they easily break also and a lot of the original Jatukam Ramathep amulets no longer exist.
If you plan to get yourself a Jatukam Ramathep amulet, please make sure that it is made by the Buddhist monks, with the ingredients from Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan. There are a lot of Jatukam online, and in the malls in Bangkok, most of them are not real Jatukam!!!! Most Jatukams are quite expensive and this is because it is really hard to make them and it takes money to make them, especially, the newer version of Jatukam Ramathep amulets is also partly made of bronze, or silver, or gold. The money goes to the restoration and maintenance of Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan.
Now, is also the best time to get your Jatukam Ramathep amulets, because Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan monks have just released the batch 14 of Jatukam Ramathep amulets. This is also one of the reasons why I’m going to Thailand on the 16th of January. I’m going there with some friends to get some Jatukam Amulets from batch 14. Personally, I’m getting more of the Jatukam Ramathep amulets for my nephews who still don’t have one!
BLOGGER’S NOTE ADDED DEC. 30, 2012 AT 19:45: It’s been only nineteen hours ago when I posted this ‘article’ about the powerful Jatukam Ramathep amulet and I already got a total of 17 email asking whether I can help them get the Jatukam Ramuthep in my upcoming trip to Thailand. I urge you to make that trip yourself, but make it soon because the latest batch is selling really fast. But to answer the question whether I can help get them the amulet, the answer is Yes. You can email me directly at sanaakosirickylee@gmail.com.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ADDED JANUARY 3, 2012 22:45: I decided to include this FAQ because I’ve been receiving a lot of questions through email about the Jatukam Ramathep Amulet.
Q1: Do we need to have the amulet blessed or cleansed from time-to-time or after wearing for a long time? The answer is NO. The only who can bless the amulet is the Buddhist monks who made them. Actual blessing of the pendant is done through an empowering meditation and special prayer done in the mountain and the sea, and facing East, West, North, and South. However, if people touches your pendant, it might be a good idea to let it pass over an incense smoke.
Q2: Is there a special mantra for the Jatukam Ramathep amulet? The answer is NO. Just wear it and it will start working for you.
Q3: Can the Jatukam Ramathep amulet be shared from one member of the family to another? This is not a very ideal thing to do. However, since the amulet is quite pricey, this may be an alternative. A family member who may be experiencing a spade of bad luck can wear it.
Q4: Are the Jatukam amulets available online real? My answer to this particular question is ‘I don’t know’. You will have to check whether they are really a reputable supplier. As mentioned in the article, there are a lot of other Buddhist temples, and, unfortunately, even ‘businessmen’ who started making their own Jatukam Ramathep amulet. Remember, if it didn’t come from Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan, and was not made by the monks from that temple, and if doesn’t have the material from the said temple, then it is not a real Jatukam Ramathep amulet. It needs to have all the component to make it a real Jatukam Ramathep amulet. When buying online, I suggest you do the following: 1. CHECK THE CREDIBILITY OF THE ONLINE STORE. 2. CHECK WHAT BATCH OF JATUKAM ARE THEY SELLING. Note that Jatukam amulets are in high demand, the truth is there is no longer single Jatukam Ramathep amulet available in the market from the last batch (before this latest one recently released) that was made. If it’s an original Jatukam Ramathep ask them from what batch it belongs and ask how were they able to ‘hoard’ and not sell it right away. 3. PRICE IS ALSO A FACTOR. Unfortunately, because of the tedious process, and some of the precious materials used in doing the Jatukam Ramathep it is usually very expensive. The one’s I’m getting from this last batch is quite pricey. It’s THB 11,200.00.
Q5. Is there any special way of wearing the amulet? Unlike other amulets or talismans, the amulet is usually worn outside the shirt. Meaning it is usually worn exposed. However, I personally wear it hidden under my shirt.
Tagged: 108, 1987, 4-Faced, 4-Faced Buddha, 800AD, Amulet, Bronze, Buddha, Buddhist, Buddhist Monks, Chinese Thais, Crown Prince, East, empowering, empowering meditation, Feng Shui, Flying Stars, Four Faced, Four Faced Buddha, Gold, His Royal Highness, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha Vajralongkorn, Incense Ash, Jatukam, Jatukam Amulet, Jatukam Ramathep, Jatukam Ramathep Amulet, Jatukarm, Khun Phanthara Rajjadej, King, King and Queen, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Siam, lunar cycle, Maha Vajralongkorn, Major General, Mario Mauer, meditation, Modern Powerful, Mountain, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, North, Northern Siam, Phuket, Queen, Royal Cremation, Sacred Relic, Sea, Siam, Siddhartha Buddha, silver, soil, South, splinter, Sri, Sri Lanka, Tao Jatukam, Tao Ramathep, Thai, Thai Famous Actor, Thai King, Thai Royal Family, Thailand, Tooth Relic, Unknown Origin, Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan, West, Wood
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How were the first ZX Spectrum games written?
Being a child of the 80s I loved my ZX Spectrum, did my best to learn BASIC but I felt like the games I was playing (Jetpac, Dizzy, Renegade etc) were perhaps not written using BASIC.
I wondered: how were these early games developed?
These days I've figured (or am guessing) they were written using Z80 assembly, and if that's the case, did the developers literally writing assembly by hand and running it on their Spectrums? How were they running it? How were they testing (or at least recovering from inevitable crashes)?
As a developer myself, I appreciate it's commonplace to have tooling to generate code. Did the developers of these mid-80s games have any tooling?
The only reference I've managed to find was an interview with Matthew Smith talks about building a custom interface board to write to ZX Spectrum ROM via a TRS80. Was that typical?!
history zx-spectrum gaming software-development
Rui F Ribeiro
Remy SharpRemy Sharp
I've also spotted anecdotes about VAXs and Exidy Sorcerors as hosts for cross-development tools, and I'm sure the wide array of Z80-targeting tools available for CP/M (including Pascal and C compilers) won't have gone overlooked. Damned if I have a complete answer from the array of vague mentions though. – Tommy Jul 16 '17 at 14:33
There's an interview with Sandy White, author of Ant Attack here (youtube.com/watch?v=RdrgBwSH9W8) where he explains how he hand-assembled everything on paper and typed the hex codes into the Spectrum via an interface. I don't know if this is typical either! – user3570736 Jul 16 '17 at 16:49
Some of the early Spectrum games WERE written using Spectrum BASIC, for example Football Manager by Kevin Toms. I can remember hacking it (trivial for this game) and giving myself almost infinite cash so I could buy the best players like Peter Shilton and Bryan Robson :-) – davidjwest Jul 17 '17 at 14:25
Steve Turner (Avalon, Quazatron etc..) write a blog where he often describes the processes he went through when developing on a Spectrum: graftgold.blogspot.co.uk – Steve Smith Jul 17 '17 at 15:15
I did not write for the Spectrum, but I did write Conway's Life for the TRS-80 in hand-written assembly. I tested by writing small functions and testing each using a debugger. – Ralph Jul 18 '17 at 9:44
Interestingly enough, I stumbled in a related article, that hints firstly the (cross)development at Sinclair was made on CP/M machines, (which corroborates the Matthew Smith Manic Miner development in the TRS 80 reference on the OP question), and later on in CP/M emulated under a VAX for (re)using the original binary (cross)toolchain.
At Sinclair, a £60,000-plus DEC VAX 11/780 was used for software development, email and other shared activities — hardware design was done mostly on Valid workstations (one of which was broken so often it acquired an 'In' before its badge).
Pretty much standard corporate computing for the time, the '780 was a powerful beast capable of supporting forty-odd terminals over miles of serial cables. As the Sinclair lab was on top of the only hill for miles, lightning strikes on a radio mast nearby were common had a habit of frying all the line driver cards in the computer. Amazingly, this was never given as an excuse for delivery delays.
All the Spectrum software development tools ran under CP/M, the standard micro-computer operating system before MS-DOS took over. CP/M was designed to run on the 8080 and Z80 microprocessors, and a card with two Z80s lived in the VAX to run the operating system and interface it to the users. If two people were using the card then you could opt to run a Z80 emulator on the VAX proper — which absolutely soaked up all the processing power it had, slowing things down to an unusable crawl for everyone else.
As for other first developers, the ZX81 already existed at the time, and if memory does not fail me some of the first commercial hits were ZX81 adapted titles. Actually, as far as I remember, there were some oddities in the Speccy ROM that could only be explained from it being initially a conversion job from the ZX81 ROM.
In fact the easiest way to load ZX81 source titles or binaries over, before modifying them, was writing a short ZX81 compatible tape loading routine. Interestingly enough, one of these days, the author of Ant Attack was telling me in a Facebook thread that he first wrote a Z80 interpreter to run the ZX81 binary in Speccy hardware before doing a much improved conversion.
As for Matthew Smith, the experience seems more typical than is evident at first sight (or not), as I will talk further ahead.
I wrote a lot of Z80 asm code using the honorable Gens3 assembler and drinking a lot from the Spectrum ROM disassembly book and MicroHobby magazines.
I had the Gens3 assembler even before I knew assembly (1984), however I also wrote and input machine code by hand when I had my cassette recorder broken (which sadly was its normal state); it is actually doable to do the entire conversion process by hand, however it would just be easier writing the asm code in a another foreign contemporary platform, cross assembling it, and then just copy the opcodes by hand if need be.
In fact, some magazines at the time had Basic programs with a somewhat de facto "standard" hexadecimal format (with slight variations depending on the magazine you were reading), hexadecimal data lines with a checksum, to input programs by hand, which you could also easily use and adopt.
Nevertheless, the CP/M or the PC XT/AT and the Speccy processor bus were pretty well documented and understood even at the time, and it made much more sense cross assembling programs and developing/ hacking together a small electronic interface to bit bang data between two machines than inputting all the cross-developed code by hand before the appearance of the ZX Interface 1 expansion module in 1983 (basically in the 2nd year the ZX Spectrum was available).
Or instead of the data bus, connecting the parallel port of a IBM PC/AT to the EAR and MIC tape port of a ZX Spectrum. (I actually wrote TAPE2TAP in Intel assembly that loads tapes/gets saved data in from an EAR port in the native ZX Spectrum ROM format using an IBM PC parallel interface). The electronic schematics are simple enough for exporting data out of the ZX Spectrum and are here as to show it ought to be simple to complement them to import data too.
. you need a 25-pin D-type connector (just like the one that plugs your
printer to your computer)
. a jack connector to plug to tape recorder
. some cable
(1) (2) (Female connector seen from solder side)
___|_______|___________________________________________
13 \ o . o . . . . . . . . . . / 1
\ . . . . . . . . . . . . /
25 \_________________________________________________/ 14
At the jack (mono):
(1) (2)
| |
.-D1>---. Don't try to see if this works without the
| | diode and the resistor. If you do that you can
| R1 severely damage your printer port!
\ [ (4)
\ [
(3) [ [ <-- This pretends to be a mono jack
R1 = 100 Ohms
D1 = 4.7V Zener diode
Actually the schematics for both directions are here in a better, and slightly more complex design:
So contemporary cheap interfaces could be put together that cost peanuts for shifting data in and out of Speccy for PCs (I would swear there was a much similar design for getting tapes into an Amiga emulator, but I never owned one).
As such, while there are contemporary tales of Speccy titles stitching together multiple Gens3 runs, for any serious software house, and as the years go by in the 80s, it stops making much sense developing big titles directly in a Spectrum, as the memory, keyboard and screen size provide(d) a subpar experience compared to more advanced/professional platforms.
By probably much earlier on than the middle '80s, I believe you already had in widespread use (cross)assemblers running in CPM and DOS, but even failing that, or lacking the funds to buy one, the Z80/speccy architecture was simple enough to justify developing your own internal productivity tools for bigger projects (and for multiple titles).
Besides the ROM Basic, basic Pascal, extended BASIC and C compilers were available in the ZX Spectrum, however they were pretty limited, and if memory does not fail me the libraries also used up valuable memory (never used them much).
Despite the (many) limitations, many games were written using Hisoft's Gens3 assembler, which had an integrated editor/text IDE that was quite interesting back in the day. Gens3 also had a companion, Mons3 to disassembly and debug Z80 code step-by-step. Hisoft Devpac Both were released in 1983.
GENS, the program-generator, lets you type in up to 30K of program text in one lump on any Spectrum. This is enough for between 2K and 5K of machine code, though you can compile larger programs from disk, as explained later.
There's no fixed relationship between the size of an assembler program in text form and the corresponding machine code. The ratio depends on your programming style, and whether or not you include comments so you can understand what you've written when you come back to it after a few months.
Editing is fairly painless if you're used to line editors in the style of CP/M's ED or Microsoft BASIC's EDIT. Lines are stored in numeric order, and can be edited individually by moving a cursor back and forth along the line in a variety of modes. This is no substitute for a screen editor, but it's not too hard to get used to and doesn't need much code, leaving extra space for text.
The display can use standard 32-column text or a compact but readable 51 characters per line. Assembler programs are written in five columns - line number, label, instruction, operand and comment - so I prefer the > 51-column display even though it's a bit slow, taking about four seconds to redraw the whole screen. Groups of spaces are compressed into a single byte when a line is stored, saving memory.
The cursor keys have rather arbitrary effects - the right arrow is a tab key to skip between columns, but the left arrow throws away the entire line. The up and down arrows don't appear to have any effect at all!
The editor includes a full set of multiline commands, including automatic line-number generation, renumbering, searching for text - you can replace it with something else - block printing, deleting, saving and loading. Files can be stored and catalogued on disk, tape and RAM disk.
SLOW ASSEMBLER
GENS can translate your completed program into code at about 50 lines a second, if the program text is already loaded. That may seem rather slow, but it won't bother you if you only assemble a few hundred lines at a time.
If you want to assemble a big program you must split the text into several files and tell GENS to read the text from disk rather than from RAM. This
slows things down even more, especially as GENS has to read the entire text twice. Version 5.1 assembles about 309 lines a second when reading text from RAM disk, and 20 lines a second from floppy.
If you're really prolific you can spread a program over two drives and the RAM disk, so there's virtually no limit on the size of program you can assemble if you're willing to wait a 16K program could take about 7 minutes.
The assembler has some professional facilities. You can use macros with parameters: in other words, you define new symbolic commands that stand for a group of instructions of your choice, saving typing and text space. Whenever you write a macro name GENS inserts the whole group of instructions, plugging parameters in as required.
There was also many "rumours" and interviews in Speccy magazines in the heydays of Spectrum that hinted big software houses had developed (or bought) "powerful" cross-assembler/emulator tools, and (cross)development was being made in IBM PCs and Commodore Amigas. The resulting machine code routines were then transferred to a ZX Spectrum using either a interface 1 expansion module with a rs232 interface or manipulating directly RAM via the Spectrum bus interface. However, there were also hints the (first) emulator tools had not achieved yet 100% hardware emulation capabilities in software, at a decent speed (for several reasons).
I do remember (vaguely), an interview in Yes Sinclair (I think), were the developer of a known software house, while talking about the development phase of a recently released game, talked about their first experience using a cross-development environment. He was also complaining the debugging and testing phases were too limited on that environment for such a complex game. Apparently, they lost valuable time transferring multiple times times data to a real Spectrum, only to find out a modification to a routine would not work (via saving a tape on the cross development system, and loading it on a real Spectrum, I think, not having a more streamlined process due to hardware limitations). That particular interview also dealt with the next steps they were planning to improve their cross-development rig for the next project, but sadly I do not remember much more of it, except them commenting it would allow them to run directly Spectrum binaries too. Nevertheless, the interview was not that rich in technical details. People kept under wraps whatever they were using.
I also found an interesting reference to Ultimate Games, which appeared earlier on in the life of the ZX Spectrum:
From the beginning, Ultimate developed games in a way very different from the typical Speccy bedroom coder. As with so much else about Ultimate, details of their development system are not entirely clear, but those early interviews do describe it as a 32-bit multi-user system on which they could write and compile their code and ship it over to an attached Spectrum for execution. (A best guess would be a 68000-based Unix workstation.) The methodology obviously borrowed heavily from that used by Zilec and their competitors for writing arcade firmware, and cost “several thousand pounds.”
As for Hewson (1988), already a bit later on the game, but here for the sake of completeness and history:
As you can see from the photographs, a lot more equipment is used in developing Spectrum games than a single Spectrum and cassette-based assembler! The Spectrum is actually developed on an IBM compatible PC which runs a fast Z80 cross-assembler that can compile a 200K source file in a few seconds. After the program has been assembled, it can be downloaded to the Spectrum via a parallel link, ready for testing.
The graphics are all designed on an Atari ST using the Advanced Art Studio. This package (programmed by my good friend Chris ‘8-bits are crap’ Hinsley) also features a ‘map editor’ that enables all the screens in a game to be chopped and changed very quickly. The ST format graphics are converted to Spectrum format data to be incorporated into the main program.
This type of set-up has many advantages over developing the program on the Spectrum itself. For a start you never have to worry about the Spectrum crashing, as the program is permanently stored on the PC’s hard disk. The program’s development time is cut down by a huge amount. The idea was to be able to write games using the (limited) full 48KB memory in games and speed up the development process.
Later on the life of Spectrum, around the mid 80s, people also used the 128K models as souped-up development rigs, notably with the Laser Genius assembler and the Gens4 assembler , which were expanded to be 128K aware and were thus able to use the extra memory.
GENS4 is a fast, two-pass Z80 assembler which assembles all standard Z80 mnemonics and has added features which include macros, conditional assembly, many assembler commands and a binary-tree symbol table.
Back in the dying years of Spectrum, emulation and cross assemblers/cross compilers started being written by "common" people, first in assembly, JPP and Z80 the better known for DOS, and, as more powerful CPUs started being more affordable for domestic use, using the extra CPU power and development kits allowing writing near same speed emulators in high level languages.
(I myself wrote an emulator/step-by-step debugger for it in C for DOS around 1990, using TASM as a cross-assembler for Z80 code, and released the first emulator in Windows for the ZX Spectrum 48k around 96 - see First computer emulator in Windows and wspecem).
Common user ported games to/from emulator platforms using tape. I myself wrote too in 80x86 assembly an open source routine to load ZX Spectrum tapes in an IBM PC TAPE2TAP,that was used in a wspecem companion utility, and adapted for the Warajevo emulator (with my blessing).
By the Z80, wspecem and Warajevo emulators time, there were already several emulators and utilities in the emulation/development scene to export and import back Z80 Spectrum binaries via tape.
The .TAP and shortly later on the .TZX file formats started being more used to store images of emulated tapes. By that time, the Speccy, Z80 and ULA behaviour was also relatively well understood, and 98.xx%-99.xx% of it was fairly well emulated.
Up to these days people normally develop for the ZX Spectrum in more modern hardware, and load the resulting machine code via tape or micro SD card adapter interfaces, of which the most known is the DivMMC
PS Coming back to the Manic Miner lore.
The story goes Matthew Smith developed and tested the core of Manic Miner running in the TRS80 before the Speccy was launched. (in fact in the heydays of Spectrum there were rumours of vestigial CP/M routines in the actual Manic Miner tape...cannot remember the details)
He then wrote blindly the Spectrum specific routines.
Using his personal connections, got (paid) access to the Sinclair development rig one entire weekend from Friday evening to Monday morning, two weeks before the Spectrum official launch, to debug and save the final version to tape, in a truly hit or miss marathon.
So as it appears, the game actually was ready by the time the Spectrum hit the shelves. What Matthew Smith did not count on was the delays on the distributor logistic. If memory does not betray me, the original one even managed to miss the Christmas season.
The rest, as they say, is history.
As far as I remember, after the Manic Miner money downfall, he got his own ZX Spectrum cross-development rig, from the same supplier of the Sinclair team.
Disclaimer: the details are too hazy after all this years. While I think not, I might have mistaken this Manic Miner story for other game.
PS: in fact in the heydays of Spectrum there were rumours of vestigial CP/M routines in the actual Manic Miner tape, at least in the first launched version. Cannot remember more details.
PS2: There were also rumours and nowadays there are also proofs of source code remnants in the speccy address space.
From http://skoolkit.ca/disassemblies/manic_miner/reference/facts.html#sourceCodeRemnants
Before the game starts for the first time, the 512-byte cavern buffer at 32768 contains source code remnants (shown below). The DB directives define part of the title screen tune data at 33902. There are more source code remnants at 37708.
This bit of information actually suggests the memory was not actually bit-banged in binary format from CPM, but was originally loaded in an intermediate format, or at least part of it.
see also First computer emulator in Windows
That part about SW dev at Sinclair... isn't really relevant, since that's more about system software (developing the machine itself) than developing SW for the Spectrum. Of course you can't fully dev the ROM for the Spectrum on the Spectrum, since at that point in time there is no Spectrum to dev on :D – Jürgen A. Erhard Aug 11 '17 at 7:04
@JürgenA.Erhard The question does mention it, and contemporary magazines hinted they were not the only ones using advanced computing rigs for cross development. – Rui F Ribeiro Aug 11 '17 at 12:25
Sorry, you're right, I was skimming and missed out a vital piece of text. – Matt Wenham May 14 '18 at 11:41
Wow, this deserves an upvote just for its sheer size! :-) – user6464 Sep 12 '18 at 1:35
Matthew Smith hand made a cable from the TRS-80 to the Spectrum to transfer data direct. The same cable worked on the Atari ST, I know because he gave it to me. He still also has the original source code to Manic Miner on his ancient TRS-80. – WLGfx Sep 28 '18 at 13:22
This is quite a wide-ranging question.
There are some resources online which help:
Jonathan Cauldwell, author of various Spectrum hits, has a How to write games for the Spectrum" guide, which seems to mainly cover modern Speccy development.
The Oliver Twins (authors of many Codemasters-published titles back in the day) detail some of their development processes in their History pages.
Apparently I need more reputation to publish more than two links. Darn.
From my own knowledge of Amstrad CPC gaming, a popular native assember was Maxam, which could be loaded from disk, tape or a custom ROM package attached to the interface port of the machine. The Multiface was a similar tool which allowed the user to break into a currently running program at the press of an external button, whereupon the user can view and modify memory and the CPU's registers, which I imagine would have helped with debugging games. It certainly did help when hacking them!
Tools such as C and Pascal compilers, which did exist for these early machines, were workable but would not produce assembly of sufficient speed to eek every bit of power from the CPU, which typically only ran at around 4MHz. All of this speed was definitely needed to deliver realtime arcade-style games. Of course memory was also tight and optimised assembly routines would usually take up less space than the equivalent code compiled from a higher-level language. Programmers would often employ tricks to reduce processing requirements by a few clock ticks including using then-undocumented Z80 assembler commands and writing self-modifying code.
If developed in assembly language, a program is translated into Z80 opcodes and placed into a specific starting address in memory. To run the program, the address is called, which means the CPU's Program Counter is set to the address required. This can usually be done from BASIC.
To test a routine, it can again be directly called, but first the CPU's registers must be set to the values expected by that routine, akin to method parameters today. The 'return value' from such routines would again be placed across the various registers, meaning a routine could return more than one value. Of course routines could read/write memory and so on as well. If the program crashed or locked, the machine would have to be reset and the program reloaded from disk or tape.
(Aside: if you want to get a feel for how development was on these old machines, I wholeheartedly recommend TIS-100, which simulates a computer with very limited memory and a restricted command set. Unfortunately it's a multi-core system, which no machines were at the time, but it certainly sets the right tone).
As evident elsewhere, it was fairly common in the larger software houses to connect the target 8-bit micro to something more powerful on which the actual development work would be done, perhaps an IBM-PC or similar. Many games however were written on the machine itself, at home, in the spare time of schoolchildren, students and people employed in non-gaming industries, making this a true technical revolution which touched the lives of most young people at the time.
I hope this has helped a little.
Nige JonesNige Jones
The six paragraphs you posted afterwards are exactly the reason you need more reputation to post more links (apart from spam, of course). Welcome to Retrocomputing Stack Exchange. Please read the tour then have a go at answering some more questions! – wizzwizz4♦ Jul 16 '17 at 19:00
The Oliver Twins have their own webpage? That is so cool! – CJ Dennis Jul 17 '17 at 3:20
@CJDennis they also have a book out. – mickburkejnr Jul 17 '17 at 9:29
TIS-100 is a great game. – JeremyP Jul 17 '17 at 9:45
@MattWenham Of course it's possible to create a C compiler for these CPU-s (there's also some for MOS 6502), but the result won't be very efficient. Given the severe restrictions in speed and memory size, you certainly can't afford such overhead in most projects. Maybe, if you restrict yourself to use global variables only, and you have some very smart compiler that will certainly has to run on another more powerful computer... – ddekany May 14 '18 at 12:03
I remember a friend of mine who did a lot of C64 coding. I distinctly remember seeing him writing out the assembly mnemonics on a lined notepad, then working out what the hex codes were for each instruction, then writing a BASIC program to POKE them into memory before running them. He did eventually get a disk assembler (store a text file on a floppy disk, then run the compiler from same disk, output binary was written to same disk), but in the early days of C64, that wasn't really an option. Although the programs he wrote back then, with this method, weren't 'games', he did get a few listings published in magazines, and later, one conversion that was a MASSIVE hit.
This is the manly way of programming. Seriously, when I was a kid programming my C64 in assembly, I saved up and bought an assembler cart. I can't remember the name of it. – cbmeeks Jul 17 '17 at 12:33
Probably the Programmers Aid Cartridge, which had a pretty good Machine Code Monitor in the feature-set. Or maybe SuperMon, which was my weapon of choice. Today of course I use VSCode, KickAssembler, and VICE. :) – Eight-Bit Guru Jul 17 '17 at 14:21
This is how I learned on the TRS-80 with nothing but a flimsy knowledge of basic and a z80 assembly manual. How I would have loved to have someone--ANYONE--who was even remotely into the same thing that I could talk with about it. Don't for get to save your program onto cassette tape before running it because the slightest coding error means a full reset/rewind your tape/hit play/"cload". Still, easier than submitting a punched card deck. – Bill K Jul 17 '17 at 16:34
@BillK, one of my full assembler programs on the Atari 800 XL was a floppy disk (360K!) tool - it could do custom disk formats and such things. I dare you, no, I double dare you to guess how I lost the program. :D – AnoE Jul 18 '17 at 12:10
@billk I also had no one to talk to, but the aid of an excellent Spanish Magazine, MicroHobby – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 20 '17 at 7:33
Many, many Spectrum games were written with Devpac, on the Spectrum itself. Devpac was written by HiSoft, where I worked during this period (on the 68k Devpac, I never worked on the Z80 stuff myself).
HiSoft themselves developed their Z80 software on CP/M machines (using their own Z80 assembler), though for the life of me I cannot remember how they got the code from the CP/M machines into the Spectrum.
Andy PennellAndy Pennell
Slight correction: Devpac may not have been the term used, but Gens and Mons (in the post below) were the assembler and debugger that I was referring to. The Devpac term may have in fact started with the 68k stuff (Atari/Amiga), that I created. – Andy Pennell Jul 18 '17 at 15:55
Reread your answer and it just dawned in me you mentioned working in Hisoft. Trivia question, where Gens3, Mons3, and/or Hisoft C and Pascal compiler running in Z80 natively or into p-code? – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 18 '17 at 21:32
They were all written in Z80 and C and Pascal generated Z80 directly: no p-code. There were limitations (eg no floating point is one I can recall). The first time we wrote anything in a high-level language was the linker for the Atari ST (which was my first experience with C). – Andy Pennell Jul 19 '17 at 0:58
Interesting, I could swear the whole family of tools generated p-code, but truth be told, I mastered assembly on the ZX Spectrum, and never cared about using other languages on it. By the end of the eighties I was already introduced to HP/UX, Xenix, Turbo Pascal/C and Microsoft C and MASM. – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 19 '17 at 1:13
(I did give a run to Hisofts Pascal and C at a friends house though. The little buggers did work). I implemented a known integer circle algortihm in C – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 19 '17 at 10:30
I did a lot of work on the ZX Spectrum in the 80's using an assembler that I created myself, which ran on the Spectrum itself. I started out doing machine code, but it was not productive and made it hard to go back and change things later on (it was write-only, as Phillipe Khan once said).
Creating an assembler made it a lot more productive, especially as I added macros, etc.
Mostly I worked on games and hacker utilities, the latter being used to investigate games to discover pokes, etc.
Steve JonesSteve Jones
I can only answer authoritatively for Adventure International UK, as I worked there.
The ZX spectrum games were cross assembled on a TRS80 (model III or 4 I think III but it was a long time ago) with floppy disks using the standard rather nice TRS80 Z80 development tools. We had a magic cable that went from the TRS80 to the tape port of the spectrum and a tool that bitbanged the spectrum tape protocol.
Alan CoxAlan Cox
I remember assembling by hand, and then inputting the hex code using a BASIC program called EZ-code, whose listing was provided in a book, which I still have (although it is falling to pieces), called Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner by William Tang:
As there was a limit1 to the size of the code, due to the size of EZ-code's BASIC code, the coding had to be done in chunks, with each chunk written to tape, and then the respective parts where then "linked" using another BASIC program, from the same book, called Hexloader, with each chunk being read from the tape and then saving the code as a whole back out on to tape.
Arduous? Yes, but well worth the effort.
I also remember there being a, rather pricey, Disassembler and Monitor produced by Sinclair themselves, and there was an Assembler too:
1 A limit of around 800 bytes and 200 instructions.
edited May 13 at 3:13
GreenonlineGreenonline
Zeus is still in use and under development by one of the original authors: Zeus – scruss May 13 at 1:48
Broadly speaking, you just need a way to get your code into RAM. The z80 begins code execution at the bottom of RAM. On a normal Spectrum, this is where the ROM code is, which brings up the BASIC interpreter and what passes for an operating system. From here, an autorunning BASIC program is used to populate the memory, usually from tape, but it doesn't actually have to be. You could interpret bytes coming off the serial port or in at least one case. a joystick interface and fill RAM that way. Indeed, the humble hexloader, a BASIC listing seen in most magazine's programming sections will do the job from the keyboard.
There are as many solutions as early 80's hackers could devise. It turns out, that's quite a lot.
answered Jun 21 at 15:37
TheTurnipKingTheTurnipKing
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Filed under: Bad Cops and corrupt public officials in Gilmer County WV, Cal Patty Press Glenville, Gilmer County is Crooked County!, Gilmer County WV home of corruption, Gilmer WV News, Revenge of the Ghost Wolf, The Butcher Bitches of Gilmer County West Virginia, West Virginia! — 5 Comments
Alex Vincent Golosow may have taken important information to his grave regarding Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt. At one time he wanted to speak with her father about some secrets he knew but the dead girls father could not bring himself to speak with the man also known as TATTOO VINCE.
This is a mugshot photo of a man known as TATTOO VINCE who always denied being responsible for the Spencer woman Christian Dawn Seabolt who was only 18 years old at the time of her disappearance;. He did claim to have information on the young womans death, but he never got to talk to the father of the dead girl before he passes away in prison.
Seven years ago authorities went to a remote area known as Groundhog Ridge to examine some remains, discovered about 25 feet from a rural road. The remains were sent to the Smithsonian for forensic examination, during which they determined a positive identity of Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt.
Golosow was 56 when he died according to official reports he died shortly after 8 a.m. on May 12 at the Mount Olive Correctional Center. The probable cause of death was listed as heart disease, however his medical records also reflected the fact he was also suffering from Cancer.
Rumors have linked Golosow aka TATOO VINCE with the death of Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt, who was 18 when she disappeared in 2002. She left her mother’s apartment in downtown Spencer one evening to get a pack of cigarettes and NEVER returned.
State Police in Spencer indicated to Spencer Newspapers they have no new leads on who murdered the woman, but the Spencer newspaper is a lot like the lying ass Glenville Democrap and Pathfinder of Bullshit ran by Dave, “CORKY” Corcoran, whose paper survives on county commission money from placing legal ads, otherwise could never sell enough advertising to support the rinky dink slink link of a poor excuse for print media.
The 18 yr old girl left her mother’s apartment in Spencer to get a pack of cigarettes on August 31, 2002, but what was not said was that Dawn Starcher Seabolt had information on bad cops and local drug dealing. Anybody that was around in those days and knew the girl would tell you the same story.
This story is about complacency and people not wanting to get involved for the reason the matter stinks of police corruption. If you don’t believe those allegations, I would invite you to go talk to her friends who have long since had their ten year high school reunion. Privately they will tell you the young girl had information about a bad cop.
Seabolt was an acquaintance of “Tattoo Vince” Golosow, a Tariff, Roane County man, who was serving a life sentence for killing Michael Judson Reid, 52.
“Tattoo Vince” was connected to a number of individuals who resided in Roane, Wirt and Clay counties, but quite frankly had nothing to do with the murder of the girl. “Vince” will tell you himself, why kill one of the few bang-able chicks in the area. The word is from people in the area was that they were on friendly terms.
Therefore, any savvy investigator knows “Tattoo Vince” in this case is just a patsy, and that false story that he was responsible for the girls murder was disinformation released by the local cops, and by the person that was actually guilty of murdering the girl.
This was the ROANE COUNTY version of the murder of FRED HILL 7 years in advance.
“Tatto Vince” Golosow , said Seabolt was a nice girl. He did admit Seabolt used to come around his house.
Sometime after Seabolt went missing, Judd Reid, a friend of hers and Golosow, was murdered.
Golosow was convicted of Reid’s murder in 2004. Golosow, who claims he’s innocent of Reid’s murder, is also considered a person of interest in Seabolt’s case by law enforcement officials.
Moe Starcher the father of the murdered girl thinks his daughter was murdered for attempting to report police corruption. He points to rumors of drug-related law enforcement corruption in the area. His daughter’s claims did not sit well within the law enforcement community, Starcher said.
“What I was told before she came up missing and what I believe to this day:”
“There were some dirty cops in Clay and Roane County. It is well known by many.”
Christian Dawn Seabolt as she looked just before her disappearance in Spencer during the late summer of 2002.
Starcher claims a 911 call was made the day Seabolt disappeared. Officials said the 911 call to which Starcher refers was not made by his daughter.
Officials are working with Starcher to allow him to listen to the recording. Starcher believes the recording the state police will provide is not the call his daughter made, and that they are covering for dirty county cops the same exact way they have been documented of doing so for corrupt law enforcement in Gilmer County.
“I was told by a state police officer that there is a phone call and it was my daughter and now it doesn’t exist. Where does that leave me?”
The State Police are obviously corrupt too!
“I think when (Golosow) said I was on the right track, referring to police corruption, he’s right on that,” Moe Starcher the father of Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt said.
Starcher referred to a fictional crime novel, “Murder Mountain” written by Ohio police officer, Stacy Dittrich. The fictional novel is based on drug-related events in Clay and Roane counties.
Christian Dawn Seabolt never even got to see twenty years go by in her young life and maybe the Murder Mountain book will reveal what really happened. Known as “Murder Mountain” to the local common folk, but heard told the real criminals in Central West Virginia call it SUGAR MOUNTAIN…
Dave Cacamamie and his GLENVILLE DEMO-CRAP local print media staff have been kissing the ass of the Gilmer County POWER ELITE for years!!! It is sickening to watch and worse to read!! Glenville Democrat NOW AVAILABLE in a convenient SPRAY CAN!
COMING SOON on REVENGE of the Ghost Wolf a scary as HELL PHOTO of Richard DICK FACEMIRE Circuit Court Judge, swearing in Andrew Butcher as Circuit Court Clerk of Gilmer County…. and I have to wonder is that the same BUTCHER BOY that got arrested during the raid of the MAIN EVENT by the ATF, for don’t you think it is time we brought that little piece of history out to look at again… tell your friends that the Difference between GOOD and EVIL runs right down that Crooked County Line and we will be running it all down the line soon on RGW!!!
CalPatty Press
Reblogged this on CalPatty Press and commented:
Concerned Citizens Free Press
Moe Starcher has been waiting for more than 14 years for answers related to the disappearance and death of his daughter, Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt.
She disappeared in 2002. Her remains were discovered seven years later. To date no one has been charged in her death. Law enforcement officials state the investigation is still on-going. They have released little information on the case and, according to Starcher, still have her remains.
“It’s been almost eight years. I don’t understand why she’s being kept,” he said. “Her remains are just sitting up there.”
CalPatty Press reporting on the CROOKS from CROOKED COUNTY !!
The CalPatty Press brings you the REAL TRUTH! Read at your own Risk!
BRAXTON WOMAN ARRESTED OVER MAILING $170,00 IN DRUGS
West Virginia State Police in Braxton County arrested a woman who they said was trying to ship several pounds of drugs through the mail.
Troopers said Rebecca Shaver, 34, mailed a package full of drugs to her aunt’s house in Sutton. The package was sent from Colorado.
According to troopers, the package contained 5 pounds of marijuana, 2.6 pounds of meth and THC wax. The drugs are worth an estimated $170,000.
Shaver told troopers she had the package shipped to her aunt’s house because she didn’t have a permanent address.
On Friday, troopers received word of the package and dressed as Fed Ex delivery drivers and delivered the package. That is when they made the arrest.
Shaver is charged with possession with the intent to deliver marijuana, possession with the intent to deliver meth and conspiracy to commit a felony. She is being held in the Central Regional Jail on $50,000 bond.
tim workman
Corruption runs deep
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07-09-2018 | Treatment | Feature | Article
At a glance: Common scores used in rheumatology
A number of different scores, many of them composite outcomes, are used in daily rheumatology practice and in clinical trials to assess the efficacy of new treatments. This article provides a quick-reference guide to the criteria that are commonly used, together with an explanation of the component parts making up the individual scores.
DAS28
Disease activity score at 28 joints
Definition: A combined index providing a measure of disease activity, comprising:
the number of swollen joints (of a possible 28);
the number of tender joints (of a possible 28); and
either erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or C-reactive protein (CRP) level (DAS28-ESR and DAS28-CRP, respectively).
Link to further information: http://www.das-score.nl/das28/en/
Visual analog scale
Definition: A psychometric response scale for parameters that range across a continuum of values, such as pain. The VAS pain scale ranges from “no pain” to “worst pain,” and patients mark a line to indicate how they are feeling.
Link to further information: https://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/treatments/plan/remission/measuring-disease-activity.php
HAQ-DI
Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index
Definition: The physical function scale of the HAQ, including 20 items in eight categories representing activities including dressing, eating, walking, grip, and reach.
Link to further information: http://www.clinexprheumatol.org/article.asp?a=2681
CDAI
Clinical Disease Activity Index
Definition: A composite index for assessing disease activity based on:
swollen joint count (of a possible 28);
tender joint count (of a possible 28);
patient’s global assessment of disease activity (VAS); and
physician’s global assessment of disease activity (VAS).
Link to further information: https://arthritis-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/ar1740
SDAI
Simplified Disease Activity Index
Definition: The numerical sum of five measures:
patient’s global assessment of disease activity (VAS);
physician’s global assessment of disease activity (VAS); and
levels of CRP.
Link to further information: https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/42/2/244/1788401
ACR20/50/70 response
American College of Rheumatology response criteria
Definition: At least a 20%, 50%, or 70% improvement in the number of tender and swollen joints, and at least a 20%, 50%, or 70% improvement in three of the following five criteria:
patient global VAS;
patient pain VAS;
physician global VAS;
HAQ score;
acute-phase reactant value (ESR or CRP).
Link to further information: https://www.rheumatology.org/Portals/0/Files/ACR_Core_Disease_Activity_RA_Clinical_Trials93.pdf
EULAR response
European League Against Rheumatism response criteria
Definition: Response criteria based on the DAS28 index.
Good response: More than a 1.2-point improvement in DAS28, with a present score of 3.2 points or lower.
Moderate response: More than a 1.2-point improvement in DAS28, with a present score of more than 3.2 points, or an improvement in DAS28 of >0.6 to ≤1.2 points, with a present score of 5.1 points or lower.
No response: Improvement in DAS28 of >0.6 to ≤1.2 points, with a present score of more than 5.1 points, or an improvement in DAS28 of 0.6 points or less, regardless of present score.
Link to further information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/art.1780390105
mTSS score
Modified total Sharp/van der Heijde score
Definition: A standard scoring method for analyzing radiographs to assess disease progression.
Link to further information: https://ard.bmj.com/content/62/7/597
WOMAC score
Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index
Definition: Self-reported 24-item scale used to measure disease activity in patients with osteoarthritis, based on pain, stiffness, and physical function.
Links to further information: https://www.rheumatology.org/I-Am-A/Rheumatologist/Research/Clinician-Researchers/Western-Ontario-McMaster-Universities-Osteoarthritis-Index-WOMAC
https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/3068365
Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score
Definition: An extension of the WOMAC score developed with the purpose of evaluating long- and short-term symptoms and function in people with osteoarthritis and knee injury. The KOOS includes five self-reported subscales:
pain;
other symptoms;
function in daily living;
function in sport and recreation;
knee-related quality of life.
Link to further information: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.1998.28.2.88
Kellgren–Lawrence score
Kellgren and Lawrence system for classification of osteoarthritis
Definition: A method based on radiographic measures for classifying the severity of knee osteoarthritis using five grades, from 0 (indicating no presence of osteoarthritis) to 4 (indicating severe osteoarthritis).
Links to further information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4925407/
https://radiopaedia.org/articles/kellgren-and-lawrence-system-for-classification-of-osteoarthritis-of-knee
BASDAI
Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index
Definition: A measure of disease activity in patients with ankylosing spondylitis, including patient-reported levels of:
back pain;
peripheral joint pain and swelling;
localized tenderness; and
duration and severity of morning stiffness.
Links to further information: http://basdai.com/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acr.20575
BASFI
Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index
Definition: A self-assessed measure of functional ability for patients with ankylosing spondylitis.
Links to further information: http://basdai.com/BASFI.php https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acr.20575
SASSS
Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spinal Score
Definition: Radiographic scoring system in ankylosing spondylitis that evaluates the lumbar spine at the posterior and anterior corners for erosions, sclerosis, squaring, total bony bridging, and syndesmophytes.
Link to further information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10229435
mSASSS
modified Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spinal Score
Definition: A modification of the SASSS with the addition of a score for the cervical spine and the definition of how to identify squaring. mSASSS is the sum of the lumbar and cervical spine score, and has a range of 0–72 points.
ASDAS
Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score
Definition: A composite index to assess disease activity in ankylosing spondylitis patients, combining five variables to give a single disease activity score. The ASDAS is based on CRP (preferred version) or ESR, and takes back pain, morning stiffness, and peripheral pain/swelling into account.
Link to further information: https://ard.bmj.com/content/70/1/47
ASAS20/40/50/70 response
Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society response criteria
Definition: At least a 20%, 40%, 50%, or 70% improvement and an absolute improvement of at least 1 unit on a scale of 1–10 in at least three of the following criteria:
patient global assessment;
function (BASFI); and
inflammation (duration and severity of morning stiffness as measured by BASDAI).
Link to further information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1529-0131(200108)44:8%3C1876::AID-ART326%3E3.0.CO%3B2-F
ACR20/50/70 response (also used in rheumatoid arthritis)
mTSS score (also used in rheumatoid arthritis)
PASI75/90/100 response
Psoriasis Area and Severity Index response criteria
Definition: At least a 75%, 90%, or 100% improvement in the PASI, a widely used tool to assess the severity and coverage of psoriasis.
Links to further information: https://www.pasitraining.com/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jdv.12817
SLEDAI
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Measure
Definition: A global index of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity over the previous 10 days, including measures of manifestations in nine organ systems.
Links to further information: https://www.clinexprheumatol.org/article.asp?a=8761
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/art.1780350606
SELENA-SLEDAI
Safety of Estrogen in Lupus Erythematosus National Assessment-Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Measure
Definition: A modification of the SLEDAI index by the SELENA (Safety of Estrogen in Lupus Erythematosus National Assessment) group during a randomized trial investigating contraceptive use in SLE patients. The update included the addition of a glossary, and modification of the scoring to account for persistent active disease in the form of rash, mucosal ulcers, and alopecia.
Links to further information: https://arthritis-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13075-015-0702-6
https://www.clinexprheumatol.org/article.asp?a=8761
SLEDAI-2K
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Measure-2002
Definition: A modification of the SLEDAI index introduced in 2002 to allow documentation of persistent disease activity manifesting as rash, alopecia, mucosal ulcers, and proteinuria.
Links to further information: http://www.jrheum.org/content/29/2/288.long
https://arthritis-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13075-015-0702-6
British Isles Lupus Assessment Group index
Definition: A score providing measures of disease activity across eight organ systems on a scale of A (most severe, indicating that a patient requires treatment with prednisolone 20 mg daily or immunosuppressive therapy) to E (indicating that the disease has never been active). The original index was published in 1988.
Links to further information: https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/55/8/1357/2566467
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acr.20572
BILAG-2004
British Isles Lupus Assessment Group index-2004
Definition: An updated version of the BILAG index, published in 2005, which measures disease manifestation in nine systems.
SLE Responder Index (SRI)
Systemic lupus erythematosus responder index
Definition: A composite index to measure disease activity, defined as:
at least a 4-point reduction in the SELENA-SLEDAI score;
no new BILAG A or no more than one new BILAG B domain score; and
no more than a 0.3-point worsening in Physician’s Global Assessment.
https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/55/8/1357/2566467
JIA ACR30/50/70/90 response
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis response criteria
Definition: At least a 30%, 50%, 70%, or 90% improvement from baseline in any three of the following six variables in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) patients, with no more than one variable worsening by more than 30%:
physician’s global assessment of disease activity;
parent/guardian’s or patient’s global assessment of overall wellbeing;
functional ability;
number of joints with active arthritis;
number of joints with limited range of motion; and
ESR.
Link to further information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/art.1780400703
JADAS
Juvenile Arthritis Disease Activity Score
Definition: A composite disease activity score for JIA including four measures:
number of joints with active arthritis; and
The JADAS-71 includes a complete joint count (71 joints) in addition to the other measures, while the JADAS-27 and JADAS-10 include reduced joint counts (27 and 10 joints, respectively).
Links to further information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/art.24516
https://ard.bmj.com/content/72/12/1983
JADAS-CRP
Juvenile Arthritis Disease Activity Score based on CRP
Definition: An alternative version of the JADAS score where ESR is substituted with CRP.
Link to further information: https://ard.bmj.com/content/71/7/1122
cJADAS
Clinical Juvenile Arthritis Disease Activity Score
Definition: A clinical three-item version of the JADAS score that excludes ESR or CRP. The cJADAS includes the following variables that are measured routinely in clinical settings:
physician global assessment of disease activity;
parent/guardian or patient global assessment of overall wellbeing; and
number of joints with active arthritis.
Link to further information: https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2012-202031
Wallace criteria
Criteria for inactive disease developed by Carol Wallace and colleagues.
Definition: Inactive disease defined as:
no active arthritis;
no fever, rash, serositis, splenomegaly, or generalized lymphadenopathy attributable to JIA;
no active uveitis;
normal ESR or CRP; and
physician's global assessment of disease activity rated at the best score possible for the instrument used.
Link to further information: http://www.jrheum.org/content/31/11/2290.long
Patient-reported outcomes rotated-square
Rheumatoid arthritis rotated-square
Osteoarthritis rotated-square
Ankylosing spondylitis rotated-square
Systemic lupus erythematosus rotated-square
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis rotated-square
Doctor and calculator/© nito / stock.adobe.com
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Home News Insights Uncertainty in Employer Social Media Policies
Uncertainty in Employer Social Media Policies
Insight January 26, 2011
The NLRB created significant uncertainty regarding the appropriate scope of social media policies when it filed a complaint that alleges a company violated the National Labor Relations Act by terminating an employee for posting negative commernts about her supervisor on the employee's personal Facebook page.
A case that labor law experts predicted would set important precedent regarding employer policies that restrict employees' use of social media may instead be headed for settlement. The parties in the action brought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc. (AMR) postponed a hearing set for October 25, 2010 while the two sides discuss a possible settlement.
On November 2, 2010, the NLRB issued a press release announcing it had filed a complaint against AMR. The complaint alleges that AMR violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by terminating an employee for posting negative comments about her supervisor on her personal Facebook page.
According to the complaint, AMR denied the employee's request for union representation made after her supervisor asked her to prepare an investigative report concerning a customer complaint about her job performance. That evening, the employee posted negative comments about her supervisor on her Facebook page using her home computer. Coworkers who visited the page posted comments supportive of the employee and critical of the supervisor.
Like many companies, AMR has a social media policy that prohibits employees from making disparaging remarks when discussing the company or the employee's superiors, co-workers, or competitors. The policy also bars employees from depicting the company "in any way" on Facebook or other social media sites in which they post photos of themselves.
The NLRB contends AMR's policy unlawfully interfered with the employee's rights under Section 7 of the NLRA which gives workers a federally protected right to form unions and prohibits employers from punishing workers, whether union or nonunion, for discussing working conditions or unionization. Claiming AMR's social media policy was "overly broad," the NLRB contends it improperly limited employees' rights to discuss working conditions among themselves.
Against a rapidly changing legal landscape, the eventual fate of this action is highly uncertain. While current labor law supports the contention that an employment policy that prohibits all criticism of an employer is presumptively invalid, numerous cases suggest employers do not violate the NLRA by disciplining employees whose negative comments constitute disparagement or disloyalty. Further, in December of 2009, the NLRB issued an advice memorandum supporting the legality of an employer policy prohibiting "disparagement of company’s or competitors’ products, services, executive leadership, employees, strategy, and business prospects” after finding the policy could not be reasonably viewed by an employee as chilling protected activity. The apparently contradictory stance of the NLRB might reflect changes in the makeup of the Board itself, since Obama appointees are widely regarded as more pro-union. Regardless of political views, the implication for employers is to review the scope of their current policies.
This is the first case in which the NLRB has argued that workers' criticisms of their bosses or companies on a social networking site are generally a protected activity and that employers would be violating the law by punishing workers for such statements. As such, it has created significant uncertainty regarding the permissible scope of an employer's social media policy. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this action, all private sector employers, unionized or not, should review their electronic use and social media policies to ensure any restrictions on communications about the company are appropriately tailored to areas the company can legitimately restrict. As an additional safeguard, employers may wish to include language in their policy explaining that the policy will not be construed or applied in a manner that interferes with employees' rights under Section 7 of the NLRA.
For more information, please contact a member of the firm's employment law group at http://www.rimonlaw.com/practice/employment-law.
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Lisa-Marie Monsanto
Office (800) 930-7271 Ext. 259 // Direct: (202) 609-8771
Corporate, Financial Services, International, Private Client, Technology
Commercial Transactions, Debt Finance, Energy and Project Finance, International Transactions, Renewable Energy and Cleantech, Latin America/Caribbean
School of Law, JD
Rutgers University–Newark
Katten (Partner)
Lisa-Marie Monsanto focuses her practice on representing project sponsors, private equity funds, issuers and other parties in the structuring, negotiation and documentation of a broad range of financing transactions and equity investments with commercial and bilateral/multilateral development finance institutions. She is experienced in project finance, secured and unsecured single bank, club and syndicated credit facilities, first lien/second lien financing, mezzanine financing, export finance and equipment finance. Lisa-Marie focuses on financings in emerging markets, including Latin America and the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Africa. She also has a background in a wide range of specialized capital markets products.
Lisa-Marie also provides general corporate and licensing counseling to small and medium size companies that are expanding in the U.S. and emerging markets. She serves as general counsel for two of her clients in the life sciences and manufacturing sectors.
Representative Transactions
Represented a Jordanian private equity fund in connection with OPIC financing for one of their renewable energy portfolio companies.
Represented a life sciences company in connection with distribution agreements for its product in six Southeast Asian countries.
Represented a project sponsor in connection with the development of an ammonia-urea plant in Nigeria.
Represented a Latin American private equity fund in connection with an investment in an energy conglomerate in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Represented a utility pole manufacturer in connection with various corporate and commercial finance matters.
Represented an aircraft manufacturer in connection with various manufacturer financing transactions.
Represented an insurance company in connection with an OPIC financing of the Philippine power distribution system.
Represented a trucking company in connection with a leverage buyout.
Represented an insurance company in connection with the purchase of U.S. Ex-Im guaranteed loans issued to various foreign airlines.
Represented technology start-ups on commercial finance and venture capital investments.
Represented commercial bank in connection with a large debt offering.
Represented a commercial bank on various trustee matters.
Represented a German bank on a complex securitization.
Represented a hedge fund on the purchase and sale of various real estate assets.
Represented a leading technology company in connection with a large commercial bank financing
Represented a housing agency on a large loan securitization.
Represented a Philippine alternative energy producer on the sale of certain assets.
American Bar Association, International Law and Business Law Section
Women's Foreign Policy Group
Women's World Banking
Speaking Engagements & Presentations
Speaker | Securing Multilateral Institutions and Government Funds | Caribbean Renewable Energy Finance Conference | Montego Bay, Jamaica (May 2–3, 2011)
Panelist | Beyond the BRICs: What Do Alternative Emerging Markets Offer Investors? | Emerging Markets Summit 2011: BRIC and Beyond | New York, New York (January 19, 2011)
Speaker | A View From the Top: A Report Card on Women's Leadership | New Economy, New Reality: Developing Tools for Empowerment and Opportunity | New York, New York (June 5, 2009)
National Council for Research on Women, “30 Leaders Changing the Way the World Looks at Women”
Legal Counsel on Legal Diversity 2012 Fellow
LIBOR Fallbacks- Alternative Reference Rates
International Financing Partner Lisa-Marie Monsanto Joins Rimon Law’s Washington, DC Office
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Smoke on the Water: Cigarette Racing 515 Project One Raceboat
Just as it has been for the last 11 years, the Cigarette Racing Mercedes-AMG raceboat was the star of this year’s Miami boat show.
By Michael Verdon on February 21, 2018
Photo: Courtesy Cigarette Racing
View Gallery — 9 Photos
Running at 120 mph across open water can be a terrifying experience. If you turn your head ever so slightly and try to talk to the white-knuckled person next to you, you can guarantee that your sunglasses will disappear and your mouth will puff up like a blowfish. At that speed, some raceboat hulls feel like they’re dancing back and forth on the water so wildly—chinewalking, boaters call it—that it could spin out in a heartbeat.
On Cigarette Racing’s custom 515 Project One, however, the experience is exhilarating, and always under control. I found that out firsthand during a run last week on the newest Cigarette, a one-off design based on the 217 mph Mercedes-AMG Project One supercar. It looked like a fast boat even at the dock, with its black-and-silver exterior and special badging, a nautical twin to the Project One supercar in the Cigarette booth. Of any boat at the Miami boat show, this received by far the most attention.
For good reason: Cigarette is in its 11th year of collaboration with Mercedes, and has worked closely with the AMG design team each year to come up with a showstopper of a boat based on one of Mercedes’s most exciting new cars. Last year’s model was based on the Mercedes-AMG GT R, aptly nicknamed the Beast of the Green Hell, and was built around the Cigarette 50 Marauder. I had a chance to run that one, too, and it was one of the most exhilarating rides of my long boating career.
This year’s run on the 515 Project One was just as good, if not better. Both design teams have been pouring more resources and time into each year’s new collaboration. The teams have also become close over the years. Gorden Wagener, Daimler AG’s chief design officer, told me that this year’s project was the most challenging yet. “The process of moving features from a hypercar to a hyperboat meant that nothing in the design is decorative,” Wagener said. “It’s pure function matched to the features of the sea.”
Cigarette also went far beyond the call of duty by designing an entirely new hull for the 515 Project One. Typically, the Miami-based builder uses a stock hull and heavily modifies it to become the nautical version of that year’s Mercedes-AMG. The 515 is different. “Our goal was to create a boat that is a foot longer, 3 feet taller, and 1.5 feet wider than the 50 Marauder,” says Chad Braver, Cigarette’s head of product development. “But we wanted it to be the same weight. That involved a new way of thinking about engineering.”
The extra dimensions might not sound like much, but they added 30 percent more volume to the hull. The Cigarette team couldn’t just add a foot at the stern and widen the cockpit. Boats like these have to be lightweight and structurally sound since they take a beating in ocean waves at high speeds. Cigarette created new molds for the 515, while employing carbon fiber and other exotic materials in the deck, forward bulkheads, cabin liner, and engine hatch to keep the boat light and strong. “We used Kevlar in the bulkheads because of its toughness,” says Braver. “It was critical that we get the right materials in the right places. We were very happy with the way this boat runs in rough water.”
I was thrilled on last year’s ride on the Marauder 50, which rocketed to 121 mph with its twin 1,550 hp Mercury Racing engines. The boat never wavered or felt unsafe during the run around Biscayne Bay. But I loved the wider cockpit and softer ride of this year’s 515 Project One, which also accelerated past 120 with the same Mercury engines. Accelerating from 90 to 110 mph in a few seconds in an open-cockpit boat is almost indescribable. Time seems to move from a flow to freeze-frame shots while everything—the water, other boats, and the landscape—streaks by in a blur. There’s no choice but to hang on tight and enjoy the fast ride. Last summer, I went 120 mph up the Hudson River in a canopied performance raceboat. That felt like watching a video game. This Cigarette felt like real boating, complete with the in-your-face winds, Miami sunshine, and fleeting but jealous looks of other boaters who disappeared in our wake.
Cigarette did such a great job on weight savings with the 515 that it added a cabin in front of the helm area—sacrilege on most high-performance boats because that extra weight would slow it down. The 515, in fact, weighed 88 pounds less than the standard 50 Marauder, so it actually beat its weight goals. The owner of last year’s 50 Marauder AMG boat loves the cabin idea so much that he’s having Cigarette build one into his boat, too.
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Carl F. Bucherer’s Tourbillon Heralds A New Beginning
This timepiece is the first in what will become a series of releases of limited-edition heritage introductions.
By Paige Reddinger on November 1, 2018
Photo: Courtesy of Carl F. Bucherer
Earlier this year at the Baselworld watch fair in Switzerland, Carl F. Bucherer introduced a new tourbillon movement, the CFB T3000. It’s an impressive watchmaking feat, since it employs a peripherally mounted tourbillon cage that looks as though it is floating in the dial because it doesn’t need bridges for mounting. The Swiss watchmaker first started using an automatic peripheral winding system back in 2008, with its COSC-certified CFB A2000 movement, which has since been used by top tier watchmakers like Breguet and Jaeger-LeCoultre.
“We were the first company in the world to successfully produce this movement,” Carl F. Bucherer CEP Sascha Moeri told a crowd of journalists at New York’s 60 Thompson hotel this week. “There were other companies already working on this peripheral system, but nobody had successfully created it before.” Now the watchmaker is taking that technology and upping the ante by introducing the Heritage Tourbillon Double Peripheral Limited-Edition—a watch that employs its peripherally mounted tourbillon, while playing up the company’s history with a caseback featuring a hand-engraving of the city of Lucerne and its landmark Chapel Bridge.
Carl F. Bucherer Tourbillon Double Peripheral Limited Edition Photo: Courtesy of Carl F. Bucherer
The engraving, which takes from two to four weeks to complete on each timepiece, also comes with a very special rendering only visible with a magnifying loupe. The timepieces are each decorated with a miniature swan that swims in the lake beneath the bridge. What makes the engraving special is the position of the swan in the lake. Each client’s swan will swim in a different part of the lake to distinguish the watches. Since there will be just 88 pieces, that means there are 88 subtly different swans. The number is a tribute to the company, which was founded by Bucherer in 1888 in Lucerne. And like it or not, the price is too. Each timepiece will retail for $88,888.
The timepiece is the first introduction in what Moeri says will be future releases of limited-edition watches that play up the brand’s history. And while the watchmaker has plans to up its production to 30,000 pieces next year, the goal is to remain exclusive and the brand is banking on these special introductions in small quantities to be a draw for collectors. “Every year, from now on, we want to do a very limited, very exclusive, vintage heritage edition,” says Moeri.
Watch companies have, for some time, been introducing unique limited-edition models, based on heritage timepieces, in small quantities to control supply and increase interest. And if Rolex’s Pepsi GMT Master II release this year is any indication, it’s working. While that timepiece is certainly its own case, and was not technically a limited-edition, Rolex chose to release the timepiece, based on its early Pan-Am watch that could tell time in two time zones for the first transatlantic pilots, in smaller quantities and it caused a frenzy. The watch which retailed for $9,200 now commands figures up to $22,000. Anyone trying to get one on their wrist is immediately relegated to a multi-year waiting list.
While it’s nearly impossible to compete with the kind of consumer mania that brands as big as Rolex can command, there’s no doubt that other brands can and are capitalizing on limited-edition heritage timepieces with success. Carl F. Bucherer’s contribution to the game not only boasts recent mechanical innovations, but also age-old artisanal craftsmanship that discerning collectors will no doubt, appreciate.
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Effective limb length and the scaling of locomotor cost in terrestrial animals.
Relative to body size, smaller animals use more energy to travel a given distance than larger animals, but the anatomical variable driving this negative allometry remains the subject of debate. Here, I report a simple inverse relationship between effective limb length (i.e. hip height) and the energy cost of transport (COT; J kg(-1) m(-1)) for terrestrial animals. Using published data for a diverse set of terrestrial species including birds, mammals, reptiles and arthropods, I show that between-species differences in locomotor cost are driven by differences in limb length. Notably, there is no independent effect of body mass on cost. Remarkably, effective limb length explains 98% of the observed variance in locomotor cost across a wide range of terrestrial species including mammals, birds, reptiles and arthropods. Variation about the limb-length/COT scaling relationship is attributable to taxonomic differences in limb design, with birds and arthropods exhibiting greater residuals than mammals. Differences in COT between semi-aquatic, generalist and cursorial species also corresponds to differences in leg length between these groups. These results are discussed in light of previous investigations of the limb length and locomotor cost.
Pontzer, Herman
Pontzer, H
210 / Pt 10
10.1242/jeb.002246
Body Weights and Measures
Energy Metabolism
Organ Size
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ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University
Home > College of Arts and Sciences > Psychology > PSYCH_DISS > 181
Psychology Dissertations
Factors Influencing Species Performance in a Cross-Taxon Comparative Research Program
Laurent Prétôt, Georgia State UniversityFollow
Sarah F. Brosnan
David A. Washburn
Michael J. Beran
Heather Kleider-Offutt
Species vary in the ease with which they can solve apparently similar problems. For instance, problems will be interpreted differently by different species due to differences such as how they process the world or their ecology. The latter is the focus of the ecological approach to cognition, which posits that ecology influences decision-making such that each species performs better on tasks that are naturally relevant to them. In a previous work, my colleagues and I compared the performance of cleaner fish and nonhuman primates, which differ substantially in brain size and ecology, on a dichotomous choice task derived from the cleaner fish ecology. In the task, subjects chose between two different plates, each containing a same food; if they chose the food from plate A, they could then choose the food from plate B as well, whereas if they chose B first, A was no longer available. Fish were better than primates at solving this task, emphasizing the role of ecology in shaping one species’ decision-making. For my dissertation project, I explored possible explanations for the primates’ poor performance in the task. In a first series of studies, I investigated the possibility that species differed in the task because of differences in the capacity to recognize the relevant cues (i.e. the plate design), to solve it. I thus repeated the task with fish and nonhuman primates, using variations designed to be more salient to primates. In a first experiment, the foods were different colors, whereas in a second experiment, they were hidden to avoid the prepotent response. In a second series of studies, I tested monkeys in a computerized paradigm that differed from the plate task by removing interaction with the human experimenter, which may be distracting, and providing a more standardized testing environment. Finally, in a last study, I investigated one possible cognitive limitation to the primates in the plate task, the failure to use backwards induction to solve it. These studies allowed me to investigate the role of ecology in species’ decision-making, a perspective that is often neglected in studies of cognition.
Prétôt, Laurent, "Factors Influencing Species Performance in a Cross-Taxon Comparative Research Program." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2017.
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/psych_diss/181
Available for download on Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Submit ETD (Thesis/Dissertation)
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PODCAST: Bruce Campbell On Ash Being A Dad
So does that make this season like you know more challenging than ever for you ?
Bruce Campbell: Yeah. I have a daughter. That. She looks like my daughter. Really. Yes. And we had scenes that were actually surprisingly difficult to do because a couple of times I couldn’t get through them. Because it got kind of real because evil is like the mafia. They can’t get to Ash so they’re going to get to his family. So she’s in grave danger from the second she appears until the end of the season. So he’s more vulnerable to that.
Can tell you once he accepts the fact he’s a father?
Ash Vs. Evil Dead – HollywoodLife Exclusive Photos
Bruce Campbell: Now it’s like holy shit. I have to protect her. She’s job one. You know you have a lot of times that I should be like :Hey I’d love to stay but you know I’ve got a daughter “.
Tony Tellado: Henrietta returned. Are there any other beasties coming ?
Bruce Campbell: Who’s left ? I think we’ve sort of screwed the pooch on that. I know if Season 4 comes about everything will be very different in every way you can imagine. To some degree but there’s no point to get a bunch of writers in a room if you can’t pay them. So yeah we have a clue. But it’ll be radically different.
This was pretty big. This satisfied me for the whole season. You know because with scenes with her or with someone who’s actually like my real life daughter. It’s like scenes you’ve never done before that Ash has never done this before. So it’s all new and that’s what keeps actors interested as they (writers) keep evolving that character. We have to you can’t stall in television. You make a movie. Characters can be two dimensional and snarky. You do a TV show you’re investing. You’ve got to invest in this person. You want them to come back every week. You have to have different criteria. There’s going to be a different step to that character and the show has to grow and evolve. So that’s we’re hoping in Season 3 to grow it.
Bruce Campbell: New characters ,like a little more of the Joseph Campbell myth thing is going to come out. Ash wants to know too. Why the hell me ? Why is it me ? We also get to see Ash kind of get to his breaking point. This the point where he maybe he can’t do it anymore. So is this good stuff.
Did you ever have concerns that maybe you couldn’t do this on a weekly basis ?
Bruce Campbell: You know it was only the physical concern that it was just that not the mental concerns that I think we could have fun with and make them work. Just doing the actual job playing as it gets harder every year. You know so we should kill him pretty soon. Yeah I think in a larger scope this year 2017 has been a peak year for horror with like that out has it’s very successful it was kicking ass.
How does that make you feel ?
Bruce Campbell: Well I love it. These are our brothers. The Walking Dead does well, I’m not jealous and happy for the genre. They brought it out of the darkness. You know they made it mainstream. We all owe a big debt to The Walking Dead. So these are my brothers the guys like Greg Nicotero. So everybody is sort of intertwined and look at the end of the day it’s just another genre. And that’s what I think people realize that. Same with the superhero movies. It’ll eventually fall off his little perch. I guarantee you have three or four bombs in a row with those spandex movies are going to go bye. They will become another standard genre .
I think the original Spider-Man really jumpstarted it and Sam Raimi did a really good job regardless of what the group thinks of which one was best, but really solidified that so or is just another genre. Now when I first started out here horroe was about one rung above porn. It was looked down upon. You were either starting your career or you were ending it in horror. Now its ok .
Ash is kind of be a superhero because while I look great the icons are typically monsters they’re not typically heroes. That’s right. That’s what makes us unique in the horror universe. There are very few series that have the good guys to lead you.It’s always the killer. Yeah maybe that’s why we stand out.
The themes that have you know made him successful in films. Are they the same themes same things now ?
Bruce Campbell: Because he’s you know he’s you fighting monsters. It’s your neighbor. Ash has no special skills. We got a note from Starz that Ash improperly went in front of a guy’s face and shoot something and we’re like that’s a dumb no. I have never had any gun handling change. It’s just silly. He’s not in the military he never was. Another reason why people can’t relate because he’s not a superhero. He doesn’t come from another planet. He’s way mortal. He’s a flawed mortal. I love how flawed he is. Well that’s the beauty of television. At the end of season three you still got 15 hours you know 15 hours.I we did movies you’d get a hour and a half or we’d spit out a couple of them. If you want to product men go to TV. So we were just grateful that people have accepted the show. They didn’t have to . Campbell’s too old and out of shape. This is just not going to happen. We’re not interested in this anymore. To me it actually has made it more interesting to me because he’s not able to do the job anymore. I mean he drinks, smokes, does angel dust. He’s got lots of bad habits and this is the guy who has to save the world. I think that’s fantastic. It’s just an old geezer now trying to save the world. I love that.
Tony Tellado: What about directing an episode ?
Bruce Campbell: I try not to get involved in the directing side of it. I’ve been on the producing side. I think it’s more fun just to torment the directors that come through there and finish this season.
Is there any particular stunt you should look for that you know is especially harrowing for you or anything like that ?
Bruce Campbell: Anything not tear a hamstring like last year. I didn’t tear one this year so that was better physically. This is the hardest work. Harness workss kind of sucks in general because you can’t breathe. You know feel like you’re in a horse of which you are now in just general discomfort ? Yeah fake blood still tastes like shit. The taste does not really change. What has a lot better is the delivery system. Like you can swap out of nozzles and the guys will take us outside if we have a thing coming up. We’ll go outside the stage. And put the nozzles on and they have an outline of a human to see what it’ll do. See, we want to see the spread. Like am I going to get a tight shot of the face or is it more of a shotgun. Shit that’s a lot of blood. So you can get yourself ready. You know it’s coming. So try try not to flinch when a guy is like right in front of you.
Special thanks to Starz And New York Comic Con . Photos are from Hollywood Life.
Bruce talks about Ash being a dad as season three of Ash Vs The Evil Dead starts season three. He also reflects on this unsual horror icon from NYCC roundtables. Please note that this is uncensored and rated explicit for language.
https://scifitalk.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/brucecampbellashseason3.mp3
10/10/2017 10/08/2018 Sci-Fi TalkPodcastsAsh Vs The Evil Dead, Ash Vs The Evil Dead Season Three, Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi
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{"domain":"hack-spirit.myshopify.com" }
The Art of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Living in the Moment
Mindfulness has become increasingly popular in the western world.
Celebrities swear by it, scientists study it, and monks still practice it. It has fast become the slow way to manage the modern world – without chanting mantras or finding hours of special time to meditate.
Put simply, the daily application of mindfulness can dramatically improve your health and wellbeing, and lead to greater success in all areas of your life.
But what, exactly, is mindfulness? And how can you tap into its considerable physical and mental health benefits?
The Art of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Living in the Moment is the perfect introduction to mindfulness. Learn what 'mindfulness' really is, the scientific benefits to practicing it daily, and a set of simple yet powerful techniques to be mindful throughout the day.
About the eBook
Mindfulness has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.
While mindfulness has ancient origins, it has now become mainstream in the modern world. Celebrities, athletes, and CEOs alike endorse “mindfulness training.” Doctors and therapists integrate mindfulness into treatment plans. And countless apps such as Insight Timer, Headspace, and Calm have emerged to fill the demand for instruction in mindfulness meditation.
What is the hype all about? How has an ancient concept connected to Hinduism and Buddhism so captivated the modern world? And most importantly, what do you need to know about mindfulness to lead a happier and more peaceful life?
The Art of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Living in the Moment answers these questions and provides a compelling introduction to the concept of mindfulness. We outline practical ways you can start living a more mindful life today.
In this eBook we:
Discuss the main benefits of mindfulness, including the latest scientific research into it.
Teach you how to develop a daily habit of mindfulness.
Outline 7 incredibly effective exercises you can use to bring mindfulness into your life.
Introduce you to meditation, including several simple techniques to meditate daily.
Provide a brief history of mindfulness and explain why it's become so popular in modern popular culture.
Within these pages is the blueprint to living a happier and more satisfying life.
A message from Justin Brown, CEO of Ideapod.com
Who is this eBook for?
Do you have an overactive mind? Are you always multi-talking? Do you suffer from anxiety, fear or stress?
Then The Art of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Living in the Moment eBook is the companion you need.
Imagine a world in which you feel no stress about the past or the future. You exist fully in the right now without regret, dread, self-recrimination, or anxiety. Sound impossible? Maybe so, but this alternative world is perhaps closer than you think.
While there is no magic wand that can erase all of your life’s struggles and woes, mindfulness can provide you powerful tools to brave the inevitable storms that arise.
The Art of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Living in the Moment is packed full of practical exercises that can be done in minutes. These simple yet powerful exercises can be incorporated into your daily life to help break the cycle of anxiety, stress or unhappiness we can all experience.
About Hack Spirit
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Is being able to talk evidence that you can breathe?
In discussions and articles about the death of Eric Garner I encountered several people denying that he was actually choked and couldn't breathe. The essence of that argument most often was that "if you can talk, you can breathe", claiming that repeatedly saying "I can't breathe", as Eric Garner did according to the video evidence, is proof that he wasn't actually choked.
A CBS News repeats this claim as well:
Garner was overweight and in poor health. Police and their supporters argue that if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," as he did several times, it means he could breathe.
Is it actually a case that people simply cannot speak if they are choked? Or is this wrong, and you can still asphyxiate while being able to talk?
Existing health issues certainly can play a role here, I think answers for healthy as well as people with relevant health issues like asthma would be interesting here.
Oddthinking♦
Mad Scientist♦Mad Scientist
As for "several people denying that he was actually choked", isn't that contradicted by the medical report? – ChrisW Dec 7 '14 at 23:12
NYPD "chokehold arrest" of Eric Garner ruled homicide says, "The death of Eric Garner, a man who died after being put in an apparent chokehold by a New York City police officer during an arrest, has been ruled a homicide. Garner's death was caused by compression of neck and chest, and his prone positioning during physical restraint by police, the New York City Medical Examiner's office announced Friday. Asthma, heart disease and obesity were listed as contributing factors." – ChrisW Dec 7 '14 at 23:12
It's entirely possible to be able to exhale, and thus speak, without being able to inhale again. Simply apply sufficient pressure to someone's chest. They'll be able to speak until their lungs are empty, but they won't be able to inhale. – Compro01 Dec 8 '14 at 19:54
What do people who deny he was choked suppose the cause of death is...?! – gerrit Dec 8 '14 at 22:41
@gerrit, he was just faking death to get attention. – Benjol Dec 9 '14 at 8:32
Asthma guidelines (the victim was asthmatic) say you might talk a little even if you can't breathe enough:
The Asthma emergency page from "Athsma Australia" says that symptoms of a "life-threatening" emergency include:
Gasping for breath
Unable to speak or 1-2 words per breath
Confused or exhausted
Turning blue
May no longer have wheeze or cough
Not responding to reliever medication
IMO being able to say "I can't breathe" is compatible with "1-2 words per breath" symptom.
When to seek emergency medical treatment on the Asthma attack page of the Mayo Clinic says,
Seek medical attention right away if you have signs or symptoms of a serious asthma attack, which include:
Severe breathlessness or wheezing, especially at night or in the early morning
The inability to speak more than short phrases due to shortness of breath
Having to strain your chest muscles to breathe
Low peak flow readings when you use a peak flow meter
Again, IMO I would characterize "I can't breathe" as "a short phrase".
What does 'choked and couldn't breathe' mean?
Comments below this answer suggests misunderstandings about the word "choke" (in the question and in the actual event).
Wikipedia says that there are two kinds of choke-hold (i.e. "air choke", and "blood choke")
This BBC article suggests that use of the word "chokehold" in a police/reporting context is ambiguous, and could mean either: Eric Garner death: What next for the chokehold?
Choking is also a general/imprecise term for non-specific asphyxiation
When I watched the video it seemed to me that:
He said he couldn't breathe, after being taken to the ground.
While (as long as) the alleged choke-hold was being applied, which was for about 10 seconds, he said nothing intelligible/recorded.
That's consistent with the news report (note the word "after" in the following report):
A 400-pound asthmatic Staten Island dad died Thursday after a cop put him in a chokehold and other officers appeared to slam his head against the sidewalk, video of the incident shows.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner, 43, repeatedly screamed after at least five NYPD officers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beauty supply store when he balked at being handcuffed.
Within moments Garner, a married father of six children with two grandchildren, stopped struggling and appeared to be unconscious as police called paramedics to the scene.
I don't want my interpretation of the video to be part of this answer, but I say this in order to explain a limit/limitation of my answer. When I answer "yes" (i.e. that it's possible that he couldn't breathe enough, that he was "choking" even though he could say a few words) that is because, IMO:
The victim may still have "been choking" even while he was no longer "being choked", while he was complaining that he couldn't breathe.
"Choking" does not necessarily mean "continuous/deliberate compression of the trachea".
That isn't want the question is asking (the question doesn't presume that interpretation of choking)
If the question did imply/require that interpretation of choking, then this answer wouldn't be relevant. IMO the question is asking about "choking" as a synonym for "asphyxiating". The victim was asthmatic.
a question on this though, asthma is a medical condition that doesn't allow you to take proper full breaths because something internally is blocking your ability to breath in. and it is a narrowing of the lungs, not allowing you to take a full breath. being choked however means that your airway is completely blocked off. so being able to speak repeatedly means that the choking is leaving enough open for air to get into your lungs, and theoretically a full breath could pass through this. however the intensity of the choke could have been increasing and decreasing causing restricted breath. – Himarm Dec 10 '14 at 0:43
also speaking means that at the moment the airway was clear as a complete choke again stops the ability to speak. basically i don't believe asthma is a good comparison for being choked as it is 2 different parts of the airway that are being block and are unrelated. – Himarm Dec 10 '14 at 0:44
@Himarm I don't see a question in your comment. You seem to want to imply that "choked" is an "either all (no air) or nothing (no constriction)" condition. My answer to the question says, that people's experience with asthma is that it's possible to say a few words (which uses, I guess, about half a cup of air). I can count out loud to "40" with one lungsful of air, so I guess I could say "I can't breathe" using about 5% of one lungsful, plus I guess his body's demand for oxygen would have rocketed when he was arrested/attacked. – ChrisW Dec 10 '14 at 1:03
@Himarm The answer says, "yes you can talk a little even if you can't breathe enough." That's what the question asked. I don't see what more I could add? If you watch the video it seems to me that he couldn't breathe after being taken to the ground. He may still have "been choking" even while he was no longer "being choked", while he was complaining that he couldn't breathe. Your insisting that "choking" must mean "deliberate compression of the trachea" isn't want the question is asking. The question is (IMO) asking "choking" as a synonym for "asphyxiating". And, the victim was asthmatic. – ChrisW Dec 10 '14 at 1:49
@JonathonWisnoski You're right. The reason I said that because the average word has more than one syllable , so 3 syllables is IMO in the same range (of length) as "1-2 words". – ChrisW Dec 12 '14 at 9:44
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RED SOLAR SKYWALKER
Kin #113
John Robinson, Birth
English diplomat
Date: 11/7/1650 AD
Elapsed: 368 Years 8 Months 9 Days
Profession: Politics
Kin: 113
Death: 1859-01-28 BLUE-COSMIC-EAGLE
John Robinson at Wikipedia
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Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin are widely considered one of the most successful, innovative, and influential rock grou -more-
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Chicago American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois.
Music on Red Solar Skywalker (53)
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Kate Bush 7/30/1958 Birth English singer/songwriter
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Fernando Lopes-Graça 11/27/1994 Death Portuguese composer and musicologist
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* 8/19/1990 - Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
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Ennis Cosby 1/16/1997 Death son of entertainer Bill Cosby
Politics on Red Solar Skywalker (73)
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Justus Jonas 6/5/1493 Birth German Protestant reformer
Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy 6/20/1634 Birth
Kim Gu 8/29/1876 Birth President of the Provisional Government of the Repub...
Richard Corbett 1/6/1955 Birth Labour Member of the European Parliament
Bess Truman 10/18/1982 Death First Lady of the United States
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King Louis VII of France 9/18/1180 Death
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Willy Brandt 10/8/1992 Death Chancellor of Germany, Nobel laureate ,
Hartland Molson 9/28/2002 Death Canadian businessman (Molson family), senator and sp...
John Robarts 10/18/1982 Death Canadian politician, Premier of Ontario
Emperor Karl I of Austria 4/1/1922 Death
Matilda of Flanders 11/2/1083 Death Queen consort
* 2/20/1962 - Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7 John Glenn becomes the first US to orbit the earth, makin...
* 3/2/2004 - Voters in the U.S. state of Georgia vote on a referendum concerning its Confederacy-derived flag.
* 4/6/1917 - World War I: The United States declares war on Germany (see President Woodrow Wilson's address to Cong...
* 6/10/2008 - The Gora Prai airstrike by the United States reportedly kills 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops.
* 7/5/1775 - United States Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition.
* 7/25/1755 - British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. T...
* 9/18/1960 - Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations.
* 11/2/1967 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and "The Wise Men" conclude that the US people should be g...
* 1/1/1960 - The Republic of Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and...
* 1/16/1581 - The English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.
* 4/1/1974 - In the United Kingdom the Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties come into being.
* 5/1/1840 - The Penny Black the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
* 1/1/1700 - Russia begins using the Anno Domini era and no longer uses the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire.
* 12/12/0627 - Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian force...
* 7/20/1656 - Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeats the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian ...
* 12/7/1724 - Tumult of Thorn religious unrest was followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the m...
* 12/12/1979 - President of Pakistan Zia-ul-Haq, confers Nishan-e-Imtiaz on Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam.
* 7/10/1978 - President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania is ousted in a bloodless coup d'état.
* 12/12/1979 - Coup d'état of December Twelfth: South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of A...
* 9/8/1970 - Hijacking (and subsequent destruction) of three airliners to Jordan by Palestinians; the events to fol...
* 3/12/0538 - Witiges king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in t...
* 9/18/1544 - Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Francis I of France sign the Ceasefire of Crepy-en-Laonnois.
* 1/1/1804 - French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black republic and first independent country in the...
* 5/16/1877 - May 16, 1877 political crisis in France.
* 7/25/1547 - Henry II of France is crowned.
* 9/18/1180 - Philip Augustus becomes king of France.
* 6/25/1993 - Kim Campbell is chosen as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and becomes the first...
* 8/4/2005 - Prime Minister Paul Martin announces that Michaëlle Jean will be Canada's 27th — and first b...
* 1/16/1945 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
* 6/30/1936 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Abbysinia appeals for aid to the League of nations against Mussolinis invasi...
Writing on Red Solar Skywalker (27)
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Roberta Wohlstetter 1/6/2007 Death military historian and strategist
* 5/6/1835 - James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
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Mort Walker 9/3/1923 Birth US cartoonist (Beetle Bailey)
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* 6/30/1988 - French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church.
* 3/12/1994 - The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
Science on Red Solar Skywalker (30)
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Robert Bruce Merrifield 7/15/1921 Birth US chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
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Friedrich August Wolf 2/15/1759 Birth German archaeologist
Gerd von Rundstedt 12/12/1875 Birth German field marshal
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John Harsanyi 8/9/2000 Death Hungarian-born economist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Percy Spencer 9/8/1970 Death inventor of the microwave oven, ,
* 1/11/1794 - Robert Forsythe a U.S. Marshal is killed in Augusta, Georgia when trying to serve court papers, the f...
War on Red Solar Skywalker (32)
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Nicholas Markowitz 8/9/2000 Death kidnapped and murdered by Jesse James Hollywood
* 4/6/1865 - US Civil War: The Battle of Sayler's Creek Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virg...
* 5/31/1862 - US Civil War Peninsula Campaign: Battle of Seven Pines or (Battle of Fair Oaks) Confederate forces u...
* 7/20/1864 - US Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General Jo...
* 8/19/1782 - US Revolutionary War: Battle of Blue Licks the last major engagement of the war, almost ten months a...
* 12/7/1776 - Marquis de Lafayette attempts to enter the US military as a major general.
* 7/20/1916 - World War I: In Armenia Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek.
* 11/17/1796 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Arcole French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.
* 3/2/2004 - War in Iraq: Al Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq killing 170 and wounding over 500.
* 9/28/1066 - William the Conqueror invades England: the Norman Conquest begins.
* 11/27/1942 - World War II: At Toulon the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi ha...
* 2/25/2009 - BDR massacre in Pilkhana, Dhaka Bangladesh. 74 People were being killed, including more than 50 Army ...
* 5/21/1924 - University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in...
Sports on Red Solar Skywalker (66)
Aaron Gray 12/7/1984 Birth US basketball player
Adam Everett 2/5/1977 Birth US baseball player
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Bill Campbell 8/9/1948 Birth US baseball player
Bison Dele 4/6/1969 Birth US basketball player
Bret Saberhagen 4/11/1964 Birth US baseball player
Chris Simms 8/29/1980 Birth US football player
David West 8/29/1980 Birth US basketball player
Eddie Eagan 4/26/1897 Birth US sportsman
Ernie Quigley 3/22/1880 Birth Canadian-US sports official
Garrett Atkins 12/12/1979 Birth US baseball player
Henry Carr 11/27/1942 Birth US athlete
Jack Nicklaus 1/21/1940 Birth US golfer
Jerry Blackwell 4/26/1949 Birth US wrestler
Jimmy Carson 7/20/1968 Birth US ice hockey player
Jimmy Johnson 8/14/1943 Birth US football coach
Jimmy Wynn 3/12/1942 Birth US baseball player, 1963-1977
Kay Baxter 10/3/1945 Birth US bodybuilder
Latrell Sprewell 9/8/1970 Birth US basketball player
Michael Cuddyer 3/27/1979 Birth Minnesota Twins baseball player
Nate Clements 12/12/1979 Birth US football player
Sandy Alderson 11/22/1947 Birth US baseball executive
Terrell Davis 10/28/1972 Birth US football player
Alison Ramsay 4/16/1959 Birth Scottish field hockey player
Allan McGregor 1/31/1982 Birth Scottish football player
Daley Thompson 7/30/1958 Birth English decathlete
Julian Hodgson 7/25/1963 Birth English chess player
Joakim Bonnier 1/31/1930 Birth Swedish racecar driver
Miguel Veloso 5/11/1986 Birth Portuguese footballer
Robert Kubica 12/7/1984 Birth the first Polish Formula One racing driver
Mohammad Sheikh 8/29/1980 Birth Kenyan cricketer
Clarence Passailaigue 8/4/1901 Birth Jamaican cricketer
Luca Rigoni 12/7/1984 Birth Italian footballer
JÄnis Sprukts 1/31/1982 Birth National Hockey League player
Abou Diaby 5/11/1986 Birth French footballer
Cristobal Huet 9/3/1975 Birth French hockey player
Manuel "Grubby" Sch... 5/11/1986 Birth Dutch Professional Gamer
Ties Kruize 11/17/1952 Birth Dutch field hockey player
Andreas Görlitz 1/31/1982 Birth German football player
Sandra Völker 4/1/1974 Birth German swimmer
Walter Röhrl 3/7/1947 Birth German race and rally car driver
Zheng Jie 7/5/1983 Birth Chinese tennis player
Fred Shero 10/23/1925 Birth Canadian hockey player and coach
Myriam Bédard 12/22/1969 Birth Canadian athlete
Ronny 5/11/1986 Birth Brazilian footballer
Philipp Peter 4/6/1969 Birth Austrian racing driver
Brad Thompson 1/31/1982 Birth Major League Baseball player
Bret Boone 4/6/1969 Birth Baseball Player
Carlos Bianchi 4/26/1949 Birth Argentinian footballer
Hugo Benjamín Ibarra 4/1/1974 Birth Argentine footballer
Yuniesky Betancourt 1/31/1982 Birth Major League Baseball shortstop
Fritz Pollard 5/11/1986 Death US football player
Joe Kelley 8/14/1943 Death US baseball player
Joe Start 3/27/1927 Death US baseball player
Lee Roy Yarbrough 12/7/1984 Death US race car driver
Marge Schott 3/2/2004 Death US baseball team owner
Mario Danelo 1/6/2007 Death US football player
Joe Davis 7/10/1978 Death English snooker player
Alexander Ragulin 11/17/2004 Death Russian hockey player
Mikael Ljungberg 11/17/2004 Death Swedish wrestler
Cormac McAnallen 3/2/2004 Death Northern Irish Gaelic footballer
Telê Santana 4/21/2006 Death Brazilian football manager and former player
* 7/20/1968 - Special Olympics founded.
Education on Red Solar Skywalker (2)
* 3/22/1984 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with satanic ritual abus...
Nature on Red Solar Skywalker (0)
Business on Red Solar Skywalker (13)
Alan Voorhees 12/17/1922 Birth US engineer and urban planner
Tom Allason 8/29/1980 Birth UK based entrepreneur
Jean B. Fletcher 9/13/1965 Death US architect
John D Rockefeller III 7/10/1978 Death US businessman
Theodore Judah 11/2/1863 Death US railroad engineer
Pietro da Cortona 5/16/1669 Death Italian architect
Robert Bosch 3/12/1942 Death German industrialist
Elizabeth Poole 5/21/1664 Death Puritan businesswoman
* 11/17/2004 - Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly mer...
Accidents on Red Solar Skywalker (0)
Other on Red Solar Skywalker (23)
Betsy Ross 1/1/1752 Birth US seamstress
Duff Goldman 12/17/1974 Birth US chef
Ben Ainslie 2/5/1977 Birth British sailor
Yuji Nishizawa 9/8/1970 Birth Japanese hijacker
Ratko Mladic 3/12/1942 Birth Republika Srpska leader
Henry P. McIlhenny 5/11/1986 Death US philanthropist
Richard Bellingham 12/7/1672 Death English-born Massachusetts colonial magistrate
Sidney Gottlieb 3/7/1999 Death US CIA official
Conrad Schumann 6/20/1998 Death East German border guard
Struan Sutherland 1/11/2002 Death Australian medical researcher
* 12/12/1979 - Rhodesia changes its name to Zimbabwe.
* 1/1/1908 - For the first time, a ball is dropped in New York City's Times Square to signify the start of the New ...
* 5/16/1929 - In Hollywood, California the first Academy Awards are handed out.
* 11/7/1910 - The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright Brot...
* 2/10/1920 - Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea celebrating restitution of ...
* 11/12/1905 - (November 12 and November 13) Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic.
* 5/11/1310 - Fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake in France for being heretics.
* 1/31/1930 - 3M begins marketing Scotch Tape.
* 5/11/1934 - Blaise Diagne dies
* 6/30/1520 - The Spaniards are expelled from Tenochtitlan.
* 7/10/1978 - World News Tonight premieres on ABC.
* 7/30/0762 - Baghdad is founded.
* 8/4/1693 - Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of Champagne.
Tone 9 Solar
Realizing * Intention * Pulse
Tribe 13 Skywalker
Explore * Wakefulness * Space
Affirmation for: Red Solar Skywalker I Pulse in order to Explore
Realizing Wakefulness
I seal the output of space
With the Solar tone of Intention
I am guided by the power of Universal Water
Reading for: Red Solar Skywalker
Reading for Red Solar Skywalker
Red Skywalker is your Conscious Self - who you are and who you are becoming.Red Skywalker is the skywalker, the time/space traveller who can jump dimensions to assist you in realizing heaven on Earth. Red Skywalker is unlimited in form but often chooses the form of the angelic messenger.
A person who embodies cosmic wisdom may be known as a sky-walker, sage or bodhisattva. When others see such light in human form, they feel the vibration of heaven. This vibration may be embodied by you or experienced with a guru, master, an energy such as Red Skywalker, or in a 'chance' encounter with an extraordinary person.
An encounter with the energy of Red Skywalker can spark a deep yearning within you for reunion with the Source. Yet from this place of love and compassion, you also have a desire (embodied in physical form) to serve the light. This is the place in you that has the courage to fully express unconditional love, the depths of your being. Red Skywalker asks you to live the new myth by bringing this heaven to Earth in your daily life. As this reality is lived, it touches and awakens the same truth in others: "They kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven."
Red Skywalker represents balance in your life - not static balance, but a dynamic equilibrium that includes both your present expression and your starseeded self. In Red Skywalker's star-glyph you see that the pillars of heaven don't appear to touch the Earth. You are the element that appears to be missing in the star-glyph. You are the one whose expression of the light assists in drawing the pillars of heaven to Earth.
Joining these pillars in yourself can be viewed as reuniting your male and female aspects. Together, in balance, we create the pillars of the etheric temples of heaven on Earth.
The natural state of every system moves toward balance that is fluid and free, as in dance. That balance is experienced differently by each person, but it often brings a sense of steadiness or centeredness even in the midst of movement and change. When you are dancing, you can use your very state of imbalance to create the fluidity of the dance.
Red Moon is your Higher Self & Guide.
Red Moon is the cosmic seed of awakened awareness. Consume it like a fruit, and let it blossom within you. You are on the quest of self-remembrance, of Godseed. If you work with the energy of Red Moon with clear awareness and attention, an awakened state of remembrance will naturally blossom within you. Remembrance means having direct access to your expanded presence through an intrinsic perception of unity. Remembrance is your recognition of the larger pattern and your connection to it, often facilitated through dreams, art, music, colors and creative pursuits. With focused attention, meditate on Red Moon and you will receive help with self-remembrance.
Red Moon is also a beacon or transmitting station. As you open to self-remembrance, you become a beacon and receiver for cosmic consciousness. This communication creates the gradual opening of the third eye, the eye within the mononlith of self. As this eye opens and your communication becomes more refined, you will notice more signs, signals and understanding coming to you. These are all for your growth and evolution - a feedback system from which you can gain insight about your journey.
The number for Red Moon is 9, which symbolizes the recurrence of great cycles. An example of such recurrence is the periodic return of master teachers to help awaken human beings on Earth. Nine is the number of Quetzalcoatl, buddha, and Christ. Red Moon is a symbol for great teachers who have come to translate universal wisdom to humanity, to embody the awakened state of consciousness that is accessible to all. Such teachers serve as a connection to the Divine and hold the promise of full self-mastery.
Take off the veil of forgetfulness. Become the beacon of awakened awareness. As you open to self-remembrance, you will freely receive divine guidance. Be with others who support your fullest expression.
Yellow Star is your Subconscious Self and Hidden Helper.You are a starseed! You contain a holographic 'seed packet' of your evolution into the Mind of Light and the energy that directs you toward wholeness. This resonance offers an expanded view of the larger self and new ways of perceiving reality. Through self-acceptance, you are gifted with this journey. Yellow Star is ignition, like a cosmic milkweed explosion of resonant sparks. It is the launching pad from which you can hear the rumble of the rocket of your accelerated evolution.
The energy of Yellow Star may be experienced as a gentle rocking that becoes a floating and spiraling sensation, ending in a rush of feeling as you move into expanded reality. This sensation has been described as gently cascading fireworks, shimmering burst on the tapesty of Creation. Cascade into this unchartged perspective. Flow on the cosmic winds wherever Divinity directs, arching back to this reality wth a new experience of self.
Yellow Star's starseeded gift is the revelation of the harmony that unites all things. Instead of just aspiring to be harmonious, become harmony. Practice harmony not just as an abstraction, but as a living reality. This practice blends different energies, thoughts, people, and processes. Act on intuitive guidance as to what to combine and when. As you begin to follow your heart, you will know the feeling of being on the return path to the stars.Yellow Star offers you the ability to hold a greatly expanded focus, a unity of awareness that encompasses aspects of the larger constellation of self. An example of this would be a simultaneous awarenss of the desires of the existential self and the truth of the Essence Self. This star harmony encompasses the greatly enlarged perspective of your starseeded self, the part within you that holds the potential of your greatest destiny.Unlike the preceding 7 tones, which were seperate and distinct, Yellow Star begins a more complex harmonic series as it completes the preceding octave. On a spiritual level, Yellow Star begins the development of higher being. The fundamental tones that occur in this series are of a more expanded frequency than those of the preceding seven tones. In this new octave, there is alignment in the harmonies of Earth and the harmonies of the stars that are now being sounded on Earth. Yellow Star is the first in a series of star harmonies that evoke accelerated growth of the starseed potential within you.
Blue Night represents your Challenge and Gift. With maturity and awareness this challenge will turn into a Focus. This is what you desire to learn in this lifetime.One indication of the shadow of Blue Night is being lost in self, being too inward and subjective. Some experience this subjectivity as depression. Yet from this place you can learn to face and free your deepest fears. Instead of resisting this process, embrace it, garnering its wisdom. Go deep inside and discover the positive intent that is held in your experience. What is it trying to show you that you have not been willing to look at? If you can go through your 'stuckness', you can find unexpected insights and gifts in the apparent darkness.
A great opportunity for looking within can also be found in recognizing how you judge and evaluate yourself. Self-judgement impairs access toyour own intrinsic wisdom. Judgement of how you 'should' be affects your process. Perhaps your conditioned beliefs have become harsh tools of comparison and classification. To "be" is not a specific goal; being is simply the innocence that is regained through acceptance of self.
Freed from judgement and labels, your journey naturally opens to growth. It is OK to make "mistakes" along your way. From life, you have created the "house" you live in and from which you see the world. Now is the time to go within and reveal your essence, to break the bonds of the old structures. In this process, it is only natural to feel vulnerable. You are breaking up the blockages and barriers around the heart of self. You are creating a new "home" in Essence Self, a sanctuary within the serenity of innocence.Self-judgment also intensifies issues of self-worth and feelings of separation. You are intrinsically worthy. Become aware of anything that suggests you are not worthy to receive all that you desire. Self-judgment can seriously hamper your evolution. Love yourself. Remember: beliefs that are ready to be transformed show you the way through their shadows. Be willing to follow your process into seeming darkness and discomfort, to find the gifts being offered there. Blue Night can help to show you that apparent enclosures and limitations are only opportunities to learn.Blue Night may also signal an unconscious fear of change, from deep core issues to the fear of life's lessons. A unique opportunity beckons and transformation awaits; where the illusions of fear have been separated from consciousness, the gifts of integration and wholeness are found. What appears to be contraction into self will eventually bring you full circle, like the in-yang symbol, into a more fluid and expanded state. Going deep within, Blue Night teaches you its greatest truth: what is contained in darkness holds the greatest potential for light.
White World-Bridger is your Compliment - something that comes naturally to you. In this life-time you are being asked to release and surrender. Surrender is the opposite of giving up. It is freeing yourself from the desire to be in control, letting go of how you think things should be. Surrender is freedom. You are being invited to release yourself from the bondage of preconceived action, to let everything be all right as it is, so that you can live a more inspired life in the moment!
Holding on to past patterns and grievances only limits the possibilities. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Let go. Surrender whatever limits you. Face whatever you are resisting. In the experience of any loss, it is never too late to complete. Through your willingness to walk in the dark forest, insights and revelations will naturally emerge.Accept the truth of your present situation. Through accepting what is, you are free to go forward. Change and growth become easier and more natural. Each experience in this enlivened state of surrender allows for more joy.
Your Tone is Tone 9 - SolarCompletion, expansion, mastery, larger cycles of time, fulfillment, grand design.Nine is the ray of greater cycles, the foundation of self opening to the four points of measure and cycle. It is the grand design, the unfolding order of the larger pattern. With the Solar tone of nine, you are being offered the embrace of longed-for completion. Fulfill your pattern, your circle. Embody the mastery and wisdom you came to express. This ray asks you to be rather than try to be. Embody the wisdom of the larger cycles. Become the one who shines the light for others. You are the humanitarian whose being unfolds the larger pattern of the new world.In the grand cycle of time, nine is the number of completion and expansion. What is it that you are being asked to complete? Can you see the clues to this lifetime of completion? As you expand, shed old patterns that do not support your growth. Receive completion's fulfillment. You are poised on an arc of a grand cycle of time. In this cycle, time and space fold, past and future merge, and lifetimes meld in completion. Join in the fulfillment of the mystery of the triple triangle by offering your mystery to be woven into the larger loom of reality.
Red Solar Skywalker is in the Serpent wavespell
Kin: 113 Red Solar Skywalker
Be the 1st PASSENGER to add to John Robinson's page!
Passengers Born on Kin 113 (33)
Fontana CA USA
Jeanrique
Johannesburg 06 South Africa
Cork 04 Ireland
elementaloneami
Fort Myers Beach FL USA
Schiphol 07 Netherlands
christianbaba
Oslo 12 Norway
navahobreeze
Cedar Creek TX USA
jenniflower
Little River CA USA
Palisades Park NJ USA
renen redder
Wijchen 03 Netherlands
SunWolf
Miami FL USA
john wolf
Auckland E7 New Zealand
New Castle VA USA
FelixFiedel
andrea calderon
Paris A8 France
veerman
Амир
Moscow Moscow Russian Federation
Casper Wyoming USA
Nia Kassabova
Sofia Sofia-Capital Bulgaria
vanillasmile82
San Salvador San Salvador El Salvador
Nur Heru El
DeSoto Texas USA
B.Mitchell Station
Decatur Georgia USA
AÍAoie
Atlanta Georgia USA
The_enlightened_ram
Simone Jülich
Dusseldorf North Rhine-Westphal Germany
Michelle Currie
Systar Roni Auset
The next Galactic Birthday for kin 113
is in 108 days on 11/2/2019
John Robinson is a Yang Metal Tiger
Yang Metal Tiger
Tiger affinity is with Horse and Dog
But Tiger opposes Monkey!
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Dan L. Spoon
Bryan L. Spoon
Injury and Accident Lawyers you can trust
We have an exemplary reputation and a commitment to our community and clients
Our Attorneys What We Do
Quality legal service
with Integrity and Respect for our Community
Learn More Contact Us
Contact an Attorney You Can Trust, call 406-541-2200
800 South 3rd Street West P.O. Box 8869 Missoula, MT 59807-8869
The Spoon Gordon Attorneys
John R. Gordon (1937-2011)
Our attorneys can help you in the following areas of the law:
Personal Injury (Trip/Fall, Car Accidents, Dog Bites)
The Spoon Gordon Mission
Spoon Gordon, PC’s mission is to provide high quality legal services with integrity, professionalism and respect for our clients and the community. In doing this, we enjoy and strive for a collegial group practice while recognizing that our principal goal is to serve our clients effectively.
Bryan Spoon helped me save thousands when a former employer said I broke a contract when in fact I did not. I am so grateful. Thank you!
Bryan Spoon is amazing If I could do 10 stars I would give him 11. I had called around to every law office in town just to get turned down (not even by the lawyers either just their secretaries gave me the bad news). Just when I was about to lose all hope of getting justice from what had happened to me, I got a call from Bryan himself not his secretary! He went out of his way to help me. He even put me before himself, by explaining that I could handle the majority of the process on my own so I wouldn't have to pay any fees. On top of that he walked me through the steps that I needed to take. To top it all off, any time I had any questions or needed some help, I could email him and he would respond almost immediately and answer any questions I had or help me through a problem I was having. He made me feel important and most importantly he gave me hope again!
Dan and Bryan are the absolute best. I could not have asked for better representation. I was in a car accident in 2011 and was injured and they dealt with the insurance companies and doctors when I had to have surgery and really just fought hard for me and had my best interests 100%. They were always there for me and if I called or emailed always got back to me quickly. Dana and Misty are also awesome and so sweet. But Bryan and Dan really went above and beyond my expectations of what I expected in an attorney and I'm so glad found them and chose them for my case. I can't thank them enough for all the hard work they put into helping me, and how amazing they treated me throughout the whole process. Love these guys! Thank you again.
Bryan is one of a kind. He is not just a 9-5 attorney. He never fails to return a call, he has dealt with me late into the evening and on weekends. He actively solicits feedback and input and is very thorough in explaining various processes or options. I would have no trouble recommending him to anyone.
© 2017 Spoon Gordon, PC. All Rights Reserved.
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Need to recharge? Glass cabins in West Sweden offer the ultimate immersive escape
In the wilderness of West Sweden, ‘getting away from it all’ means just that, particularly when you’re staying in a glass-panelled hut… we find ourselves totally at one with nature far away from the City stress
by Tom Powell
Jonas Ingman
Anna Lena
Published: Tuesday 29th January 2019
THE AIR IS crisp, the afternoon bright. A fishing boat braces itself against the strong easterly wind, sending bucketloads of briny spray slopping across its salt-encrusted portholes. A weasel bursts from a hedgerow and darts across the trail, startled from its hiding place by voices and torchlight. Seagulls circle, caw and divebomb as a fisherman in bright orange overalls slings baby crabs back to sea from a battered old lobster pot. Wood smoke billows from the chimney of a sauna as the moon rises above a gently rippling lake. A cormorant shelters from the rain beneath its own wings on a small bathing platform. A young man strips down to his boxer shorts as the sun rises, falling to a seated position before crab-walking down the algae-covered rock and slipping with a neat plop straight into the bracingly cold water.
In many ways, the coast and lakeland of West Sweden is little more than a succession of moments, each ebbing and flowing before your eyes. And all of them lead to this one: I'm floating towards a tiny islet in the water off Henriksholm, a privately owned island in Sweden's Dalsland lake district, which is about a two-hour drive (and two-minute boat ride) from Gothenburg Airport.
In the water, I walk out, arms propelling me in a gentle breaststroke, until my toes can no longer get any purchase on the slimy pebbles beneath them. The water, both surprisingly shallow and surprisingly sun-warmed for 7am, is crisp and pure. I do about 12 strokes before reaching the islet, which is home to a pair of gnarled, leafless trees, a few tussocks, a rock encrusted with bird shit and some short muddy grass. From the vantage point of one of the trees' lower branches, I look back at Henriksholm, watching the sun rise above the woodland to my right as a man slouches from the wide-open doors of a glass cabin in a small wooded cove 300m across the water.
This is the culmination of a four-day trip to West Sweden, on which I've done absolutely nothing. Or at least that's what my host Staffan Berger would say. Since September 2017, he's been hosting world-weary travellers in five glass cabins on his island home, letting them get back to nature and reset the clock.
"Most people who come here say that they have done nothing. They say that they've just been relaxing," says Staffan, speaking of the kind of clientele he's received on the island since opening – the exhausted office workers and disillusioned city dwellers who want to switch off their phones for a weekend of soft adventure. "And that's exactly what we wanted," he continues, "that makes us incredibly happy."
I RISE, SLIP FROM MY CABIN AND YOMP THROUGH WOODLAND UNTIL I REACH THE LAKE, WHERE I BRUSH MY TEETH WITH THE WATER
Conceptualised by Visit Sweden, realised by Staffan's architect daughter Jeanna and maintained by Staffan and his wife Maria, the 72-Hour Cabins are perhaps the perfect way to experience the wilderness in security and comfort: the glass-panelled huts – elevated a couple of feet off the ground on stilts and completed with cosy double beds and huge, barn-style wooden doors – protect you from the elements without disconnecting you from them. And they work: a pilot group made up of people in jobs selected from Forbes' list of the world's most stressful occupations were medically tested for the duration of their stay, and saw their stress levels drop by 70%, and their systolic blood pressure by 9% in just 72 hours.
The concept comes from a form of nature therapy known as Shinrin-Yoku, or forest bathing, which sprung out of Japan in the 1980s, and continues to become more and more popular in a world that increasingly leaves us with less exposure to natural light, physical labour and fresh air than previous generations and more time spent staring into screens for both work and play.
Here, instead of itching to check emails, sitting contorted in a desk chair or endlessly scrolling through Twitter and Instagram, you'll spend your days at ease on the island. You can forage for mushrooms, wild cook on an open fire in an outdoor kitchen in the woods, borrow a fishing rod and a rowing boat from the Bergers' boathouse or just take a dip in the crystal-clear lake. For the most part, I opt for walking: creeping through the 5km-long, 500m-wide island's woods, criss-crossing through fallen trees and grinning as the sun completes its arc through a sky that's just visible through the canopy above. As I go I'm attuned to the forest floor – acorn shells, pine cones and tiny mushrooms are everywhere. Usually glossing over these things for the bigger picture or full scene, I feel my mind sharpen and my inhibitions fade.
Now heading for a barbecue dinner in a sheltered clearing by the boathouse on the island's east side, I walk, stop, and listen to the rustle of the oak leaves in the trees. Looking down, I pick a mushroom that meets Staffan's specifications for cep that we'll be cooking later, and before I know it I'm wandering down the dirt track, absentmindedly exfoliating the dirt from its base with the rough edge of a pinecone.
I drop the mushroom into a trug brimming with others we picked earlier and sit down as the thick, smoky haze of steaks browning on the fire fills the air. Sitting against a tree, the cabins' architect Jeanna tells us that her creations have been so successful and lauded that they're currently in the process of manufacturing flat packs that can be put up in other nooks of nature across the globe, with interest coming from everywhere from Scandinavia and the Mediterranean to luxury resorts in the Caribbean.
Currently, though, there are only three more, and they're all in Dalsland: a pair sit overlooking a lake at country house hotel Baldersnäs Manor, and another stands alone on a dramatic crag beside a lake in nearby Dalsland Aktiviteter adventure park.
Later, back at my cabin – a lakeside outpost at the edge of the woods with a tree trunk for a chair and a low-hanging branch perfect for drying my soggy swimming shorts on – I stretch out, staring up through the stars, eyes peeled for a rare showing of the Northern Lights that the Bergers' had heard about over the radio earlier. I listen to the rustle of the reedbed ten feet below me, staring out at a strange greenish glint on the horizon, struggling to work out if it's a reflection in the window or the aurora my tired eyes are desperate for. I sleep.
I wake at dawn, watching the sun rise out east on the other side of the lake, casting the sky pink, then orange, before glimmering across the lake's surface like a thousand flickering candles. I rise, slipping from my cabin and yomping through the woodland trail until I reach a slender peninsula at the southernmost tip of the island. I brush my teeth with lake water, strip down to my boxers and slide into the water. You know the rest.
Off the island, the land is covered in mile after mile of boreal forest. In fact, north of here Sweden is almost all woods, all of it part of the world's second largest biome, the taiga. As we drive, the roads twist through the woods as the trees fade into a misty wet haze. Then, after an hour or more, we hit the 165 motorway and everything changes: the road carves past a cliff of towering black gneiss topped with a smattering of pines that hang erect over the edge, and things all start to get a bit more pastoral.
In these westernmost reaches of Sweden, below the border to Norway and above the coastal outpost of Gothenburg, the landscape begins to resemble a strange version of the Cotswolds painted by someone with a slightly over-enthusiastic love for the Scottish highlands. These undulating hills and rugged-looking meadows are dotted with characteristically Scandinavian houses made of colourfully painted corrugated iron and topped with gigantic red apex roofs.
Half an hour further and you hit the coast, farmland giving way to a string of cute towns full of chalet-style homes by the waterside, some of them having their lawns cut by robot mowers now that their summer residents are out of town for the low season.
Here, we board a small fishing boat and head out to sea, crashing through waves for eight nautical miles until we reach Storö, which is the largest of Sweden's Weather Islands – a 365-strong archipelago at the uttermost end of the country.
Roger Borgelid
West Sweden/J
More a tiny archipelago of smooth rocky humps than a single island, Storö is easy to explore in a few hours, but to properly commune with the island's rhythms, light and micro beauty could take you several days or more.
In my 24 hours on the island, I do very little in real terms: I pull lobster pots on a boat with my host Pia's husband, eat langoustine cooked in boiling seawater on the island's jetty and watch as the wood-fired hot tub gets lit. Just before sunset, I jog and scramble across the island's many dramatic hillocks, searching for a compass carved in the hilltop by seafarers who lived on the island as early as 1400. On my return the sky bruises itself pink and purple above the clay-red huts of corrugated iron, signalling the time to gather in the wood-panelled dining room of Pia's guesthouse, Väderöarnas Värdshus, to eat local cod and enjoy a log fire while discussing the island's colony of Nordic bees (and their slightly saline honey) as well as the return of the bluefin tuna to waters in nearby Norway.
Early the next morning, I'm standing overlooking a bathing platform on the western side of Storö. My shoes are off, my socks rolled into a ball by their side.
According to Pia, there's a form of alternative therapy known as earthing: to take off your shoes and socks and expose your skin – achy sinews, weary being and all – to the sand, earth, grass or rock beneath your feet. In doing so, apparently, you fill your body with the Earth's electric charge, hooking yourself up to a global grid of energy that's normally cut off by the insulating effects of manmade materials like rubber soles, nylon socks, carpet or (God forbid) lino.
At my host's behest, I'm giving it a go, rain jacket zipped against the wind and drizzle, toes curling against the cold of the rock, trying to soak up one final moment before I get on a boat and head back to the mainland.
Barefoot, I close my eyes. Moments from the last three days start ebbing back to me: a twig breaking underfoot, causing a deer to dart deeper into the woods beyond; being startled awake in the middle of the night, a gale blowing loudly at my window; walking in darkness down an old farm track, I turn off my head-torch and gaze upwards – the stars are clear, undiluted and panoramic.
Later, as my plane ascends towards grey clouds, I look down on a stream of pylons carving a straight line through the heart of the forest. A slender highway snakes through rugged country before disappearing into the heart of Gothenburg. From there, it's coast, then islands, then sea.
Three nights at the 72 Hour Cabins on Henriksholm costs from £590. stenebynas.se; Stay full board at Väderöarnas Värdshus in the Weather Islands from £180pn. vaderoarna.com; Norwegian flies from Gatwick to Gothenburg from £62 return. norwegian.com; For more information on holidays to West Sweden, head to westsweden.com
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70's Classic Soul
performed by Various Artists (Collecting Records OMP, 2007), 32 mins
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Cite & share
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Performer / Ensemble
Collecting Records OMP
1. I'm On My Way (Re-recorded), 3 mins
2. Patches (Re-recorded), 3 mins
3. Feel The Need In Me (Re-recorded), 3 mins
4. War (Re-recorded), 3 mins
5. My Guy (Re-recorded), 3 mins
6. That Same Old Feeling (Re-recorded), 3 mins
7. Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy (Re-recorded), 3 mins
8. Car Wash (Re-recorded), 3 mins
9. Pepper Box (Re-recorded), 2 mins
10. Sing A Happy Song (Re-recorded), 2 mins
11. Something Old, Something New (Re-recorded), 3 mins
Show more tracks
90's R&B
performed by Soul Groove (White Parrot, 2009), 1 hour 7 mins
Soul Groove
1. Practice What You Preach, 6 mins
2. Stroke You Up, 5 mins
3. 100% Pure Love, 3 mins
4. Never Lie, 4 mins
5. When Can I See You Again, 4 mins
6. Knockin' Da Boots, 4 mins
7. Someone to Love, 4 mins
8. I Wanna Sex You Up, 4 mins
9. Freak Me, 4 mins
10. Vision Of Love, 3 mins
11. Motownphilly, 4 mins
12. I Adore Mi Amor, 5 mins
13. At Your Best (You Are Love), 5 mins
14. Boy Is Mine, 4 mins
15. If You Love Me, 4 mins
16. Nice & Slow, 4 mins
(Motown, 1992), 36 mins
1. The Love You Save, 3 mins
2. One More Chance, 3 mins
3. ABC, 3 mins
4. 2-4-6-8, 3 mins
5. (Come 'Round Here) I'm The One You Need, 3 mins
6. Don't Know Why I Love You, 4 mins
7. Never Had A Dream Come True, 3 mins
8. True Love Can Be Beautiful, 3 mins
9. La La (Means I Love You), 3 mins
10. I'll Bet You, 2 mins
11. I Found That Girl, 3 mins
12. The Young Folks, 3 mins
Abraham Lincoln Sings On!
performed by Douglas Jimerson (AmeriMusic, 1998), 55 mins
Douglas Jimerson
AmeriMusic
Copyright Message
1998 Amerimusic.com
1. Tenting on the Old Campground, 3 mins
2. Wait For The Wagon, 3 mins
3. Home, Sweet Home, 3 mins
4. Oh! Susanna, 2 mins
5. The Bonnie Blue Flag, 2 mins
6. Do They Miss Me At Home?, 2 mins
7. The Yellow Rose of Texas, 2 mins
8. Goober Peas, 3 mins
9. When Johnnie comes Marching Home, 2 mins
10. Aura Lea, 3 mins
11. Marching Through Georgia, 2 mins
12. Just Before the Battle, Mother, 4 mins
13. That's What's the Matter, 2 mins
14. We are Coming, Father Abraham, 2 mins
15. Gentle Annie's, 3 mins
16. I'll Be a Sergeant, 3 mins
17. Annie Laurie, 3 mins
18. Dixie, 2 mins
19. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!, 2 mins
20. For The Dear Old Flag I Die, 4 mins
21. Battle Hymn of the Republic, 3 mins
22. Battle Cry for Freedom, 2 mins
23. America, 1 min
Abrams, Muhal Richard, 1930-, by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Stephen Thomas Erlewine (San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books, 2001), 1 page(s)
Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Backbeat Books
Person Discussed
Muhal Richard Abrams, 1930-
©2001. All Music Guide
performed by Carol Noonan, fl. 1997 (Rounder Records, 1995), 56 mins
Kristjan Järvi's 18-piece Absolute Ensemble brings irreverence and rhythmic mettle to the world of contemporary classical and third stream music. This is the group's fourth release, and it features works by six composers -- the last of which is Jimi Hendrix, whose "Purple Haze" is given a warped reworking by Dani...
Kristjan Järvi's 18-piece Absolute Ensemble brings irreverence and rhythmic mettle to the world of contemporary classical and third stream music. This is the group's fourth release, and it features works by six composers -- the last of which is Jimi Hendrix, whose "Purple Haze" is given a warped reworking by Daniel Schnyder. (In the liners, Hendrix's tremolo bar is hilariously described by Schnyder as a "joy slide stick tool.") Schnyder's own "s... Kristjan Järvi's 18-piece Absolute Ensemble brings irreverence and rhythmic mettle to the world of contemporary classical and third stream music. This is the group's fourth release, and it features works by six composers -- the last of which is Jimi Hendrix, whose "Purple Haze" is given a warped reworking by Daniel Schnyder. (In the liners, Hendrix's tremolo bar is hilariously described by Schnyder as a "joy slide stick tool.") Schnyder's own "subZERO," a three-movement concerto for bass trombone featuring David Taylor, is one of the disc's centerpieces, a marvelous showcase for an instrument seldom pushed to the foreground. The late Lepo Sumera's relatively lengthy "Play for 10," with its maddening staccato repetitions and stark mood swings, is another major highlight. Denman Maroney is unaccompanied on his own "Par 3," an astonishing work for prepared piano; he returns to wreak inspired havoc on "Purple Haze" as well. Pianist Matt Herskowitz contributes "Serial Blues," an energetic, improv-heavy jazz/funk vehicle that highlights his own virtuosity, as well as that of the ensemble's rhythm section (drummer/percussionists David Rozenblatt and Pablo Rieppi, bassist Mat Fieldes). Slap-bass funk and sectional counterpoint collide on Charles Coleman's "Absolution," while a sneakier sort of percussive engine propels the opening "Dance Machine." Riotously complex, thoughtful, and often uplifting, the music defies categorization even as it upholds the rigors of classical orchestration. ~ David R. Adler, All Music Guide Show more Show less
Carol Noonan, fl. 1997
Rounder Records
1. Absolution, 6 mins
2. Till I See You Again, 6 mins
3. Hard Way, 5 mins
4. Sacrifice, 6 mins
5. Break The Ice, 5 mins
6. Come Undone, 6 mins
7. I Wonder, 6 mins
8. Train Song, 7 mins
9. Heaven, 6 mins
10. She Moved Through The Fair, 4 mins
performed by The Persuasions (BizarrePlanet Entertainment, 2005), 38 mins
The Persuasions
BizarrePlanet Entertainment
1. Introduction, 1 min
2. Searchin' For My Baby, 5 mins
3. I Just Can't Work No Longer, 2 mins
4. Old Man River, 6 mins
5. Monologue Introduction, 3 mins
6. Don't Look Back, 4 mins
7. Drip Drop, 2 mins
8. The Whole World Is A Stage, 3 mins
9. Up On The Roof, 3 mins
10. The Bounce, 2 mins
11. Since I Fell For You, 2 mins
12. Too Late, 3 mins
13. It's All Right, 3 mins
Ace Cannon: 22 All Time Greatest Hits
performed by Ace Cannon, 1934- (King Records, 2002), 1 hour 7 mins
Ace Cannon, 1934-
1. Tuff, 2 mins
2. Waltz Medley With Gusto, 3 mins
3. Stealin' Feelin', 3 mins
4. White Silver Sands, 3 mins
5. Green Back Dollar, 3 mins
6. I Feel Like Playin' The Blues, 3 mins
7. Yakety Sax, 2 mins
8. Swanee River, 4 mins
9. Cannon Boogie, 3 mins
10. Danny Boy, 4 mins
11. Honey Hungry, 3 mins
12. The Entertainer, 3 mins
13. Red River Valley, 3 mins
15. Frankie And Johnny, 3 mins
16. You And Your Precious Love, 2 mins
17. Catchee, 4 mins
18. John Henry, 5 mins
19. Sugar Blues, 2 mins
20. What If, 3 mins
21. Streets Of Laredo, 3 mins
22. Cotton Fields, 2 mins
Acid Blues
(Azzurra Music, 2005), 1 hour
Azzurra Music
1. BARRY'S RIFF, 4 mins
2. THE HIPPIE GOD, 9 mins
3. PUNI, 5 mins
4. PINK NOISE, 3 mins
5. THE BLUES IS ACID, 7 mins
6. SOUL CIRCLE, 6 mins
7. ACID ROAD, 8 mins
8. JIMI DIMMI, 5 mins
9. SILVER STRINGS, 12 mins
Acoustic Music To Suit Most Occasions
(Rounder Records, 1994), 39 mins
1. Traveling Light, 3 mins
2. Matchbox, 3 mins
3. Two Little Boys, 4 mins
4. Muddy Roads! Give The Fiddler A Dram, 2 mins
5. Bo Weevil, 2 mins
6. Keep That Candle Burning, 5 mins
7. All Shook Up, 3 mins
8. Tennessee Wig Walk, 2 mins
9. Money, 3 mins
10. Handsome Molly, 3 mins
11. Tin Whistle, 1 min
12. Blue Suede Shoes, 3 mins
13. Going Down The Road, 4 mins
Copyright © 2019 by Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company
American MusicAll of Alexander Street
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Flying Dogs, Hackable Infrastructure and Other Tall Tales
December 10, 2015 14:31 by Paul
The headlines warning about cyber risks on the Internet of Things obscure the truth. That’s especially true of critical infrastructure.
In-brief: The headlines warning about cyber risks on the Internet of Things obscure the truth. That’s especially true of critical infrastructure, warns Cisco’s Marc Blackmer.
Tabloids are not my thing. But there was something so ridiculous about “Man Hit in Head by Flying Dog” that I gave in to my curiosity. See, I’m one of those people who believes you should only say and print what you know to be true, so I was intrigued as to how a story about a flying dog couldn’t be a complete fabrication. As it turned out: the dog had been hit by a van with such force that it sent the poor creature through the air and into a bystander’s head. Unfortunate. Also while, indeed, the gentleman was hit by an airborne dog, the headline was misleading. It also prompted me to buy their paper. Lesson learned.
I’m seeing something similar to the “flying dog” effect in the headlines and presentations about cybersecurity and the Internet of Things (IoT). If we are to believe most of what we read and hear about IoT security, particularly in respect to critical infrastructure, it could come crashing to the ground tomorrow. Don’t believe it.
True, there are many known security issues with industrial control systems (ICS). These devices and systems tend to be older and have spent much of their existence in secluded, air-gapped networks. They are now facing a hostile connected world and need protection. But is our critical infrastructure really in such bad shape?
Marc Blackmer is a Product Marketing Manager for Industry Solutions at Cisco Systems.
That is the question I put to Robert (Rob) M. Lee, ICS515 Course Author at SANS Institute, and author of “SCADA and Me: A Book for Children and Management.” His answer? “No.” In fact “industrial control networks are more defensible than IT networks because industrial networks are very static,” Lee told me. That makes it much easier to detect anomalies. It also takes a great deal of specialized knowledge to understand and manipulate industrial processes. There are a great deal of monitoring and physical safety measures designed into these processes that it would be difficult for an attacker to gain and maintain access without being detected.
[Read more of Marc’s thought leadership on Security Ledger.]
Rob was also sure to point out that defensible is not the same as defended. Many of those whose expertise is industrial control system security will readily say that control environments are immature when it comes to cybersecurity. The introduction of firewalls, for example, is still relatively new for many industrial organizations. It will take time to reach parity with the information technology security practices in other sectors. This, also, is understandable when we consider that routable protocols are still considered “new” in industrial environments, even though they’ve been a mainstay of enterprise networks for more than two decades. There is going to be a learning curve.
The good news is that the industrial control sector can close that gap in less time than it took the IT world to gain its maturity, Rob argues. In addition, organizations with industrial control system infrastructure need to be prepared to defend against ICS-aware malware like Stuxnet and HAVEX, which share characteristics and behavior irrespective of their payload or intended targets. Fortunately, the detection methods for one known strain of malware can be applied to later variants, including those targeting ICS systems. This gives ICS environment the benefit of a known body of detection that can be applied to ICS from the beginning.
ICS serves as a great corollary for the security of the Internet of Things. Both are part of a rush to connect devices to capitalize on the benefits of connectivity, while also having to deal with a new cyber security reality. The methods for applying cybersecurity to ICS and the larger Internet of Things that critical infrastructure systems are a part of will vary. The constant for both is that the security of these systems needs to be dictated by a realistic assessment of the risks they face, not by scary headlines. As is the case with traditional IT environments, we have to look at our industrial control system environments objectively, as they are, and determine a course of action that is rooted in an objective assessment of risk.
Objectivity is easier said than done, so I asked Rob for some practical advice. The first question he asks his clients is “where do you want to be [as an organization]?” To achieve their goal, Rob makes sure they understand “…that they need to invest in architecture and defense.” He also doesn’t promote cybersecurity for cybersecurity’s sake, but as a byproduct of efficient operations, which helps to make the business case for cybersecurity investment.
For instance, network security monitoring can help to detect misconfiguration within the ICS, thereby providing operational value, he says.
No problem has ever been solved by hysteria. No complex problem (and cyber insecurity is a complex problem) has ever been solved with a single technology. As I’ve argued before, the solution doesn’t start with technology. We have to start with objectivity and rationality. To do otherwise, will leave us chasing our tails, and accomplishing nothing.
Tags: critical infrastructure, data privacy, hacking, Internet of Things, reports, vulnerabilities
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StarCraft missions, StarCraft Episode V missions, StarCraft Terran missions
Emperor's Fall
Assault on Korhal
Emperor's Flight
Korhal
Korhal falls to UED control
Arcturus Mengsk escapes to Aiur with the help of Raynor and Fenix
UED Expeditionary Fleet
Raynor's Raiders
Khalai Refugees
Admiral Gerard DuGalle
Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov
Lieutenant Samir Duran
Emperor Arcturus Mengsk
General Edmund Duke
Commander Jim Raynor
Praetor Fenix
Cronus Wing
Elite Guard
Destroy Mengsk's command center
Emperor's Fall is the collective name for two versions of the fifth terran mission of Episode V of StarCraft: Brood War. The two versions of the mission are named "Ground Zero" and "Birds of War," with the player playing one or the other depending on how they completed the previous mission's objectives.
After completing the initial mission, the other version can be played from the menu.
A siege on the outskirts of Augustgrad weakened the primary defenses of the Terran Dominion, and the UED Expeditionary Fleet prepared to invade the city itself to capture Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Though Mengsk could not reinforce his troops, his standing forces were substantial, and while his defenses were weakened, they were still considerable.[1]
The UED's strike team encountered heavy resistance, but were able to break the Augustgrad defense and destroy Mengsk's command center. With the city fallen, Mengsk attempted to escape in the Dominion flagship Norad III. Mengsk was intercepted by Admiral Gerard DuGalle in the Aleksander in orbit over Korhal, where they parleyed. Mengsk was accepting of his defeat, confident he would be able to overthrow the UED in time as he had the Terran Confederacy, but DuGalle told Mengsk he intended to have him and his other ranking officers executed.
As the UED prepared to take Mengsk into custody, they were intercepted by an unexpected enemy; the Hyperion and a small protoss fleet. Commander Jim Raynor had come to save Mengsk from the UED, and both battlecruisers and the protoss fleet were recalled. The flustered DuGalle was infuriated by Mengsk's escaped and ordered his men to track them.[2] Though Mengsk had escaped, Korhal was still conquered, and the UED seized the planet. They would use it as their primary staging point through the rest of their operations in the Koprulu sector, until it was later retaken by Mengsk with the aid of Sarah Kerrigan, forcing the UED to relocate their forces to Char.[3]
Gameplay between the two versions of the map differs considerably with regards to defense, as covered below. Offensively, once the Dominion's opening attack is repelled, the player can begin rebuilding and expanding. The player should take the northern resource node as soon as they are able, as enemy troops need to come by this area to reach the player's main base, so it is in the player's interest to defend the area anyway. Two more resource nodes can be found in the far north-west and south-east corners of the map, behind some light enemy defenders.
For defense, station siege tanks and missile turrets on the cliffs around the base, allowing them to guard the choke points and bombard enemies from out of sight. In tandem with bunkers on the low ground the base will be fairly secure. Enemy attacks will include large groups of infantry with some mechanical forces. Wraiths are sparse but may be used, and will likely have cloaking, so missile turrets will help take care of them in tandem with mobile forces.
The map is extremely inhospitable to ground forces; aside from its considerable size, there are numerous enemy defenders placed on high ground and many choke points the player would have to push through, as well as the main bridge to the enemy bases in the middle of the map being layered with many spider mines. For this reason, a fleet of battlecruisers is optimal, at least a dozen. The player should also train several medics and research their restoration ability; when the fleet moves out to attack, the medics should follow in a dropship to restore the battlecruisers should they be hit with lockdown from an enemy ghost.
The best place to launch the attack is the south-east corner of the map and then move north. Enemy air resistance will be limited to goliaths and missile turrets until the player reaches the higher cliffs where the main enemy force is stationed, and here the terrain will make it difficult for defenders to move in properly. When Mengsk's command center is destroyed, the mission ends.
Ground Zero Edit
In the Ground Zero version of the map, the player will be nuked by a trio of ghosts, a warning of a massive nuclear barrage incoming. The player will receive numerous reinforcements, but they will perish when the nukes land. The player then receives a small force of stragglers and some extra resources to begin the mission proper.
To defend against the enemy ghosts, the player should quickly tech up to a science facility and build several science vessels, then research their irradiate ability. When the player receives word of a nuke, they should quickly find the targeted dot, then have a nearby science vessel sweep the area and irradiate the ghost. Provided the player reacts quickly enough, irradiate will kill the ghost before it can finish targeting the nuke. A comsat station will help in quickly finding the ghost.
Stopping the Nukes Edit
It is possible to save a substantial number of the player's reinforcements with foreknowledge of where the ghosts and nukes will come. The player should begin the mission by researching spider mines, then building vultures as resources allow; the player should have enough time to build two vultures before the nukes come, and the spider mines will finish researching in plenty of time.
The ghosts that nuke from these approximate locations are the crucial ones to kill.
A substantial part of the provided reinforcements will survive as a result.
Have the two vultures lay their spider mines in the key six locations shown on the image to the right; the ghosts that come near these locations will target their nukes closest to the reinforcements, and thus killing them will allow much of the reinforcements to survive the barrage. The two mines that are standing in the right-side images should be placed only once the nukes have been targeted; other ghosts walk past these spots to nuke other locations, and the player will waste mines placing them here before the ghosts get into proper position. The ghosts do not always move to the same exact spots, so there is some trial and error involved, but they will come to these approximate places; the player may wish to save their game before the ghosts come and reload to reset their positions and try again.
Note that it is impossible to stop all the nukes without cheats; the player simply does not have enough time or resources to build enough detection and units to kill all the ghosts.
Birds of War Edit
The map begins with eight battlecruisers approaching the player's base. The player will receive back-up in the form of several goliaths, marines and ghosts, the latter already upgraded with lockdown. When the battlecruisers approach the player should quickly lock down each one, and then their army can destroy them.
For the rest of the mission, in lieu of missile turrets the player should continue to focus on goliaths, upgrading their weapons so they can more easily engage the battlecruisers that come. Cloaked wraiths are still a problem, so a few missile turrets will still be needed, but the goliaths are much more effective at long-term anti-air than the turrets. The player should also keep a close eye on their ghosts, as they are invaluable for defense against all enemy attack waves thanks to lockdown, and are costly to replace if they die. Medic support for them is a must.
Starcraft Brood War - Terran Mission 5b Emperor's Fall (Birds of War)
The two versions of this mission are not entirely identical in map layout. The position of mineral fields on several resource sites change, though this does not affect the total amount of minerals the nodes have between the two missions. The red terran force has several more supply depots in the "Ground Zero" version, presumably to allow the construction of nukes easier. The most significant change in terms of gameplay effects is the presence of a wall in the red terran base in the "Birds of War" version that makes a choke point in the base significantly smaller.
Player receiving reinforcements after finish the mission, during the mission ending scene
The trigger that gives reinforcements to the player differs between both versions of the mission: while in "Ground Zero" version the reinforcements come after the enemy ghosts fires the first nukes in the outlying buildings, in the "Birds of War" version the reinforcements come only after the buildings in the outlying buildings are destroyed. This means that if the player manages to prevent the outlying buildings from being destroyed in the "Birds of War" version (by using the "power overwhelming" cheat, for example), the player will not receive the reinforcements. Preventing the reinforcements from coming for the entire mission will cause a glitch after the mission ends: after Mengsk's Command Center being destroyed, the game removes all units and buildings from the map (to spawn only the units of the end mission scene), including the player's outlying buildings, triggering the event that sends reinforcements to the player after the end of the mission.
Numerous oddities can be encountered in the "Ground Zero" version of the mission as part of the opening sequence where the ghosts nuke the player's base:
Mengsk's ghosts aren't the only intruders in the player's base.
Several dozen zerglings exist around the player's base, burrowed and invincible, ostensibly to prevent the player from building in the area that will be nuked, or to stop them from blocking the ghosts from getting to their base to nuke. These zerglings are removed once the nukes fall.
If the player moves a unit far to the east, they will find several command centers with nuclear silos, to allow the enemy ghosts to nuke properly. These command centers and nuclear silos are removed once the opening wave of nukes fall.
If the player lifts off a building and tries to fly it too far over their mineral field, it will begin to move back. This is because triggers are in place to keep buildings away from the cliff, where the player's reinforcements spawn.
Dominion (blue) and UED (white) civilians together in Augustgrad
If the player manages, in the "Ground Zero" version of the mission, to prevent the player's civilians from be killed by the initial nuclear launches, the player can safely leave them in the upper-left corner of the map close to Dominion civilians. The enemy AI won't send any units to destroy them, even with the blue enemy having permanent vision of the player's civilians, unless the player aggros enemy forces to there.
↑ Gerard DuGalle: "You should know, that even though Mengsk cannot reinforce his numbers, his standing forces are substantial. Augustgrad is easily the most heavily fortified city in all of Dominion space." StarCraft: Brood War. Vivendi Games. Level/area: Emperor's Fall (in English). 1998.
↑ Blizzard Entertainment. StarCraft: Brood War. Vivendi Games. Mission: Emperor's Fall (in English). 1998.
↑ Sarah Kerrigan: "I liberated this planet because it was the UED's primary staging point, not because I was under any obligation to you." StarCraft: Brood War. Vivendi Games. Level/area: True Colors (in English). 1998.
StarCraft Episode V Missions
The Dylarian Shipyards
Ruins of Tarsonis
Emperor's Fall (Ground Zero)
Emperor's Fall (Birds of War)
Patriot's Blood
To Chain the Beast
UED Victory Report
Retrieved from "https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Fall?oldid=309875"
StarCraft Terran missions
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Shop >Categories >DVD's >Church History >Tares among the Wheat
Tares among the Wheat
(Adullam Films - 1 DVD)
In the 19th century, a revolution in biblical scholarship was prompted by the publication of a never-before-seen manuscript called Codex Sinaiticus. The work was allegedly “discovered” by a German scholar named Constantine von Tischendorf, who declared this to be the oldest Bible ever found. Tischendorf said he found the work in a rubbish basket at a Greek Orthodox monastery in Egypt. While many in the academic world did not fully believe his story, they were willing to accept his claims about the antiquity of the codex.
Yet shortly after his discovery was published, a renowned Greek paleographer named Constantine Simonides came forward and declared that the manuscript was no ancient text at all, but had been created by him in 1840. The controversy surrounding these events is, perhaps, the most incredible untold chapter in Bible history. It involves Jesuits, the Pope, a high-minded German, a committee of Anglo Romanists, and a mysterious Greek patriot. It is a story that (while quite true and well documented) a vast majority of modern academics know nothing about. Yet the subject matter dramatically impacts the world of biblical scholarship, even to this present hour. Most of what today’s scholars believe about manuscript evidence is based on the events of this era, and the footnotes in your Bible are the proof of it.
Topics discussed in this documentary:
1 ) New details about the Counter Reformation and its origins
2) Answers arguments concerning the Waldenses, Albigenses, Paulicans -- and the accusation that they were “Manichean heretics.”
3) History of how the Papacy was established in 606 A.D.
4) Italian missionary explains Rome’s works gospel vs. the gospel of grace
5) The Jesuit plan to seize control of the Bible.
6) The Oxford Movement and its use of “Protestants” as secret agents for Rome.
7) The Jesuit origins of higher criticism as a weapon against the Bible.
8) Rome’s history of creating forged manuscripts and fake relics.
9) The never-before-told history of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
10) Westcott, Hort and the Revision of 1881.
Featured experts: Dr. David Brown, Dr. Henry Hudson, Dr. Ronald Cooke, Dr. Alan O’Reilly, Les Garrett, Roger Oakland, Dr. D.A. Waite, Dr. H.D. Williams.
More from Adullam Films
Eye of the Phoenix: Secrets of the Dollar Bill Bridge to Babylon The Kinsey Syndrome DVD
Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings A Lamp In The Dark: The Untold History of the Bible Untold History of the Bible DVD
Dark Clouds Over Elberton The Hidden Faith of the Foundation Fathers Riddles in Stone
Escape From Communist Bulgaria DVD $12.00 Dr Christopher's Herbal Eyebright Formula $25.00
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Which team of marbles will you support? (Illustration by Jasmine Hsiao, Rhode Island School of Design)
Move Over Nascar, Jelle’s Marble Runs Is Pulling Up to the Track
This YouTube channel is showing how interesting a bunch of racing marbles can be.
By Sophie Westergren, Ithaca College
Recently, someone introduced me to an interesting YouTube channel called Jelle’s Marble Runs. When I asked what it was about, they told me that, basically, it’s a man who creates tracks to race marbles down, and he times it like a real sports event. I was intrigued, but unconvinced. Where’s the excitement? You didn’t build the track, and you are not the one competing, so what’s the fun in that?
In the first five seconds of watching, though, I realized that it’s so much more than that, and I shouldn’t have been so quick to knock it when I hadn’t even tried it. The channel is created by two Dutch brothers, Dion and Jelle Bakker, who dedicate hours upon hours toward modifying and perfecting intricate racetracks, going so far as to create arenas for the marbles to race in, complete with marble audience members. They have set up an array of high-quality cameras to track the marbles as they roll, recording at different angles and even capturing slow-motion instant replays to time each marble — down to the hundredth of a second.
This way, at-home viewers who are rooting for a specific team can confirm with certainty that their team crossed the finish line before the team that their silly roommates were rooting for. The competition can be neck-and-neck more often than not, because the teams become your team, as long as you are interacting with the program as you would with any other sporting event.
Jelle has created 33 teams of marbles, each with their own team name, logo and uniform color, that compete against other teams in thrilling competition. These teams include, but are not limited to: the O’Rangers (whose logo is an orange wearing a cowboy hat), the Hazers and my personal favorite, the Raspberry Racers.
Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau Are Engaged and It’s Most Likely a Sham
Each team also has fan support, with marbles in the audience that wear corresponding uniform colors and hold little signs that promote different team names and hashtags to get your favorite team trending online. This way, the audience can show their support for their personal favorites. You can even hear them cheering along with the plays made on the track, and some of the always-eager audience members find themselves seated in special, highly-elite VIP sections.
But it goes even further than that! They record highly-animated commentary to play as the athletes perform, personifying each marble as they detail how every single move they make can either hurt them or push them further.
It isn’t all racing, as you might have imagined, considering that there are only so many marble-related activities the average person could think of before getting absolutely consumed by boredom. Jelle’s Marble Run also created an event called MarbleLympics, which includes choreographed opening and closing ceremonies, filmed in stop motion. The ceremonies involve elaborate Rube Goldberg mechanics that trigger what we can only assume are hired marble performers to roll and dance around the competitors.
There is also a ceremonial candle lighting at the games’ beginning, and a defusing as the games come to an end, when a winner sits high on their podium and is awarded a golden trophy. The 16 events of the MarbleLympics include indoor and outdoor activities, water sports, biathlons, surfing competitions, block pushing and so many more entertaining events that you can’t help but choose a team to jump off of your couch for. As long as you’re rooting for the Raspberry Racers.
Why Jenna Marbles’ Dogs Are the True Stars of Her YouTube Channel
What is interesting to me (and I saw this more predominantly in the MarbleLympics) is that there is truly consistency between competitors. If the O’Rangers are doing well in a certain event — say, the meter sprint — then they will continue to perform well in that event across multiple recordings. That is the amount of care and detail Jelle’s Marble Runs puts into building each track, making it incredibly exact in terms of final scoring. It really feels like these marbles have spent time training, because the creators have spent so much time constructing each event.
It’s not nearly the same as going home, opening a book and rolling some purple marbles down its spine to create a track; there are no grubby thumbs propelling them and the events are not held on Mom’s dining room table. Instead, the marbles rest against a starting gate that snaps open, sending the athletes onto the track at the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second.
Looking for Hilariously Overwrought Film and Video Game Theories? Matthew Patrick’s Your Man
Jelle’s Marble Runs is the YouTube channel you didn’t know you needed this summer, because it’s the YouTube channel you didn’t know could possibly exist. And how could you? Who would have known there is a whole other genre of sports, only being discovered now, thanks to the creativity of two brothers who care so deeply, and with detailed precision, for something that we thought could only stimulate the minds of children? How little did we know.
So if you’re bored this summer, rally up a couple of friends and place your bets! Get excited by the roaring marble spectators and delve into the 16 events of the MarbleLympics. Or just enjoy some of their everyday racing competition videos. You’ll have to try really hard to be disappointed.
Let’s go Raspberry Racers!
Screens /// Sounds
How YouTuber Madilyn Bailey Found Fame Far from the Mainstream
9 Professional Athletes with YouTube Channels
Four Popular YouTuber Podcasts That You Need to Know About
Meet Gabbie Hanna, YouTube’s Triple Threat
Where Are YouTube’s Most OG Content Creators Now?
Pages /// Screens
Why Christine Riccio’s ‘Again, But Better’ Deserves Its (Substantial) Hype
10 Underrated YouTube Channels from 10 Different Categories
The Moral Case Against Family Vloggers
Are the Try Guys Really the Legends of the Internet?
Pages /// Thoughts
Is Christine Riccio’s Debut Novel, ‘Again, but Better,’ Living up to Its Hype?
YouTubers Carrie Dayton and Sierra Schultzzie Are Challenging the Status Quo of YouTube
How James Charles and Tati Westbrook’s Feud Feeds into the Idea of ‘Cancel Culture’
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US20110271040A1 - Memory system having nonvolatile semiconductor storage devices - Google Patents
Memory system having nonvolatile semiconductor storage devices Download PDF
Akinori Kamizono
Toshiba Memory Corp
Toshiba Corp
2010-04-30 Priority to JP2010-105622 priority Critical
2010-04-30 Priority to JP2010105622A priority patent/JP2011233114A/en
2011-03-10 Application filed by Toshiba Corp filed Critical Toshiba Corp
2011-03-10 Assigned to KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA reassignment KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: KAMIZONO, AKINORI
2017-08-24 Assigned to TOSHIBA MEMORY CORPORATION reassignment TOSHIBA MEMORY CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA
G11C—STATIC STORES
G11C16/00—Erasable programmable read-only memories
G11C16/02—Erasable programmable read-only memories electrically programmable
G11C16/06—Auxiliary circuits, e.g. for writing into memory
G11C16/10—Programming or data input circuits
According to an embodiment, a memory system includes a memory unit, a memory controller, a timer and a timer control unit. The memory unit has nonvolatile first and second chips capable of holding data. The memory controller transfers data received from host equipment simultaneously to the first and second chips. The timer measures a lapse of preset shift time. The timer control unit starts writing of data into the second chip immediately after the lapse of the shift time.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-105622, filed on Apr. 30, 2010, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Embodiments described herein relate to a memory system having nonvolatile semiconductor storage devices.
There has recently been development of semiconductor storage devices, e.g. flash memory cards which are nonvolatile semiconductor storage media. Such semiconductor storage devices are in widespread use as external storage devices of information equipment such as digital cameras, which are host equipment. The increase in volume of data to be handled by the host equipment has increased the capacity and density of a flash memory.
For the flash memory card, there is considered an approach to increase the speed of writing data into the flash memory. However, there is a problem of increased current consumption of the flash memory card.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a memory system according to an embodiment;
FIG. 2 is a table showing signal allocation to pins of a connector according to the embodiment;
FIG. 3 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of a memory card according to the embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of a memory unit according to the embodiment;
FIG. 5 is a block diagram schematically showing an internal configuration of a chip according to the embodiment;
FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram of a part of a memory cell block according to the embodiment;
FIG. 7 is a diagram schematically showing parallel control according to a first embodiment;
FIG. 8 is a basic timing chart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 9 is a basic flowchart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 10 is a graph showing a relationship between average current consumption and Busy shift time according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 11 is a table showing a relationship between average current consumption and busy shift time or data-in shift time according to the embodiment;
FIG. 12 is a graph showing an example of a relationship between a threshold of the average current consumption and the busy shift time according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 13 is an example of a timing chart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 14 is another example of a timing chart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment;
FIG. 15 is a diagram schematically showing interleave control according to a second embodiment;
FIG. 16 is a basic timing chart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 17 is a basic flowchart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 18 is a table showing a relationship between average current consumption and data-in shift time according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 19 is a graph showing an example of a relationship between a threshold of the average current consumption and the data-in shift time according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 20 is an example of a timing chart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 21 is another example of a timing chart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment;
FIG. 22 is a graph showing a relationship between a data transfer speed between host equipment and an external interface unit and busy shift time or data-in shift time according to a third embodiment; and
FIG. 23 is a table showing a relationship between average current consumption and Busy shift time or data-in shift time according to the third embodiment.
Further embodiments are described below with reference to the drawings. In the drawings, the same reference numerals denote the same or similar portions.
The configuration of a semiconductor device according to a first embodiment is described below with use of FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a memory system according to the embodiment.
The overall configuration of the memory system is described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, a memory card 100 that is the memory system is connected to host equipment 200 through a connector 13. The host equipment 200 includes hardware and software to access the memory card 100 connected through the connector 13. The memory card 100 operates with power supplied when the memory card is connected to the host equipment 200, and performs processing in response to the access by the host equipment 200.
The configuration of the memory card is described. The memory card 100 is, for example, an SD memory card used as an external storage device of the host equipment 200 by being loaded into the host equipment 200. Examples of the host equipment 200 include information processing equipment including a personal computer, a digital camera and the like, which processes various data such as image data and music data.
Note that, in the embodiment, the memory card 100 and the host equipment 200, to which the memory card 100 is applied, may be configured as the memory system. Alternatively, the form of a card is not adopted, and instead a flash memory and a controller to control the flash memory may be incorporated into the host equipment 200 to configure the memory system. Note that electronics such as a PDA, an electronic book, a digital video and a mobile phone are also conceivable as the host equipment 200 other than those mentioned above.
The memory card 100 transmits and receives information to and from the host equipment 200 through the connector 13. The memory card 100 includes a memory unit (nonvolatile semiconductor storage unit) 11 that is an NAND flash memory chip (which may be simply called the NAND flash memory or flash memory), a memory controller (card controller) 12 which controls the memory unit 11, and the connector 13 having multiple signal pins (pins 1 to 9).
The connector 13 is electrically connected to the memory controller 12. Signal allocation to the pins 1 to 9 of the connector 13 is as shown in FIG. 2, for example. FIG. 2 is a table showing the pins 1 to 9 and signals allocated thereto. Note that, in FIG. 2, an SD mode (1-bit and 4-bit) and an SPI mode are data transfer operation modes specified by the SD memory card standard. Note that transfer modes of the memory card 100 include, depending on a transfer clock frequency and the like, an ultra high speed mode (also called “UHSM”) supporting up to 104 MHz, and the like, in addition to a normal speed mode (also called “NSM”) supporting up to 25 MHz and a high speed mode (also called “HSM”) supporting up to 50 MHz.
The embodiment of the invention is more effective when applied to the case where the current consumption limit is specified in multiple steps during high-speed data transfer such as in the ultra high speed mode (UHSM), for example.
Data DAT0, DAT1, DAT2, DAT3 are allocated to the pins 7, 8, 9, 1, respectively. A card detection signal CD is also allocated to the pin 1. A command CMD and a response RES that is a response signal of the memory card 100 to the command CMD are allocated to the pin 2. A clock signal CLK is allocated to the pin 5. A power supply voltage VDD is allocated to the pin 4, a ground voltage VSS1 is allocated to the pin 3, and a ground voltage VSS2 is allocated to the pin 6.
The memory card 100 is formed so that the memory card can be inserted into and removed from a slot provided in the host equipment 200. A host controller (not shown) provided in the host equipment 200 communicates various signals and data with the memory controller 12 in the memory card 100 through the pins 1 to 9. For example, when data are written into the memory card 100, the host controller transfers a write command as a serial signal to the memory controller 12 through the pin 2. In this event, the memory controller 12 retrieves the write command given to the pin 2 in response to the clock signal supplied to the pin 5.
As the operation modes (hereinafter also referred to as the “transfer modes”) during data transfer of the memory card 100 that is the SD memory card, the SD mode and the SPI mode are specified as described above. Furthermore, as the transfer modes of the SD mode, two modes are specified, including a 1-bit mode using only the data DAT0 and a 4-bit mode using the data DAT0 to DAT3. Note that the transfer modes of the memory card 100 include modes of various transfer speeds depending on the transfer clock frequency and the like.
In the SD mode (SD 4-bit mode) for data transfer with 4-bit bus width, four pins 1, 7, 8, 9 for data are all used for the data transfer. On the other hand, in the SD mode (SD 1-bit mode) for data transfer with 1-bit bus width, only the pin 7 is used for the data transfer, and the pins 8, 9 for data are not used. Moreover, the pin 1 is specified to be used for asynchronous interrupt, for example, from the memory card 100 to the host equipment 200, and the like.
The SPI mode is the 1-bit bus width transfer mode. In the SPI mode, the pin 7 is used for a data signal line (DATA OUT) from the memory card 100 to the host equipment 200, the pin 2 is used for a data signal line (DATA IN) from the host equipment 200 to the memory card 100, and the pins 8, 9 are not used. Moreover, in the SPI mode, the pin 1 is specified to be used for transmission of a chip select signal CS from the host equipment 200 to the memory card 100.
Note that whether to use the SD mode or the SPI mode is determined at the initialization of the memory card 100. Moreover, a command (SET BUS WIDTH) from the host selects between the 1-bit mode and 4-bit mode of the SD mode.
Here, as described above, the write command is serially inputted to the memory controller 12 using only the pin 2. The pin 2 allocated to the input of the command is disposed between the pin 1 and the pin 3 for a ground potential Vss as shown in FIG. 2. That is, the connector 13 is used for the host controller in the host equipment 200 and the memory card 100 to communicate with each other.
Meanwhile, communication between the memory unit 11 and the memory controller 12 is performed by a memory interface unit (which may be hereinafter simply called the “NAND bus” or “NAND interface”) 21 for the NAND flash memory. Thus, although not shown here, the memory unit 11 and the memory controller 12 are connected to each other through 8-bit input/output (I/O) lines, for example.
For example, when the memory controller 12 writes data into the memory unit 11, the memory controller 12 sequentially transmits a data input command 80H, a column address, a page address, data and a program command 10H (or a cache program command 15H) to the memory unit 11 through the I/O lines. Here, “H” of the command 80H represents hexadecimal notation, and 8-bit signals “10000000” are actually given to the 8-bit I/O lines in parallel. That is, multiple bit commands are given in parallel in an external interface unit 15.
Meanwhile, in the memory interface unit 21, the commands and data to the memory unit 11 are communicated using the same common I/O line. Therefore, the interface (connector 13) through which the host controller in the host equipment 200 and the memory card 100 communicate with each other differs from the interface (NAND bus 21) through which the memory unit 11 and the memory controller 12 communicate with each other.
The configuration of the memory controller is described below. The internal configuration of the memory controller included in the memory card 100 shown in FIG. 1 is described with use of FIG. 3. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the memory card 100.
The memory unit 11 is a nonvolatile semiconductor memory, and includes multiple NAND flash memories. The data and the like transmitted from the host equipment 200 are stored in the memory unit 11. Moreover, firmware (system information) that is control programs, and the like may be stored in the memory unit.
The connector 13 is connected to the memory controller 12 through a bus 14. The bus 14 includes a CLK line, a CMD/RES line, a DAT0 line, a DAT1 line, a DAT2 line, a CD/DAT3 line, a VDD line, a VSS1 line and a VSS2 line. The memory controller 12 is connected to the memory unit 11 through a bus having, for example, an 8-bit bus width.
The memory controller 12 manages the physical state in the memory unit 11 (e.g., what physical block address includes what number logical sector address data or which block is in the erased state). The memory controller 12 includes the external interface unit 15, a command control unit 16, a data control unit 17, an MPU (Micro Processing Unit) 18, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 19, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 20, the memory interface unit 21, and a timer (measurement unit) 22.
The external interface unit 15 performs an interfacing process between the memory controller 12 and the host equipment 200. To be more specific, the external interface unit 15 is a functional block connected to the host equipment 200 through the connector 13 to transmit and receive commands, various data or the like according to a predetermined protocol under the control of the MPU (control unit) 18.
The command control unit 16 receives a command CMD transmitted from the host equipment 200, and interprets the command CMD. The command control unit 16 also generates a response RES that is a response signal to the command CMD, and transmits the response RES to the host equipment 200.
The data control unit 17 transmits and receives data based on a command CMD transmitted from the host equipment 200. The data control unit 17 also generates a status data (STATUS) showing an operation state and the like of the memory card 100, and transmits the status data to the host equipment 200.
The MPU 18 controls operations of the entire memory card 100. The MPU 18 creates various tables in the RAM 20 by reading the firmware (systemm information) stored in the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20 and then executing a predetermined process when the power is supplied to the memory card 100, for example. In addition, the MPU 18 receives a write command, a read command, an erase command or the like from the host equipment 200, and then executes a predetermined process for the memory unit 11 or controls a data transfer process through a buffer. To be more specific, the MPU 18 issues a write command in writing of data, for example. The write command is, for example, “80H”, “10H” or the like, which is specified by the NAND interface. The MPU 18 also has a timer control unit (measurement control unit) 18 a which controls the timer 22. The timer control unit 18 a can set a measurement time in the timer 22 or control the MPU 18 or the memory interface unit 21 based on a time measurement completion signal from the timer 22. Specifically, the timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21, thereby controlling (delaying) the transfer of the write command issued by the MPU 18 or the execution of data input (data in). Note that the timer control unit 18 a may supply a measurement completion signal to the MPU 18. Moreover, the timer control unit 18 a may be provided outside the MPU 18.
The ROM 19 is a memory to store the firmware and the like to be executed by the MPU 18. The RAM 20 is a memory used as a work area of the MPU 18 to store the firmware and various tables. The memory interface unit 21 is a functional block to perform an interfacing process between the memory controller 12 and the memory unit 11.
The memory interface unit 21 performs the transfer of the write command issued by the MPU 18 or data input (data in) to the memory unit 11 upon receipt of, for example, the time measurement completion signal or the like from the timer control unit 18 a. Note that although FIG. 3 shows the MPU 18 and the memory interface unit 21 as separate circuit blocks, the function, of the MPU 18, to issue the write command, for example, may be included in the memory interface unit 21. It is possible to accomplish an adjustment of write command set timing to the memory interface unit 21 without the timer 22. It is possible to control write timing to a chip by using a internal clock of the memory controller 12 having a constant interval. Specifically, after a redundant program command (e.g. a loop process being only count up until predetermined upper limit) is executed designated numbers by firmware stored the RAM 20, a setting of the write command are executed. By an increase or a decrease of the loop numbers, although the internal clock of the MPU 18 or the controller 12 is depended, it is possible to adjust the command execution timing at a few clock units, and it becomes able to control the write timing to the chip.
The timer 22 measures (counts) time using a period from the rising edge to falling edge of 1 CLK (clock) as a minimum unit. When the time measurement is completed, the timer 22 notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect.
In the memory controller 12, a buffer (not shown) is provided, which can temporarily store a predetermined amount of data (e.g., data for one page) when the data sent from the host equipment 200 is written to the memory unit 11 or temporarily store a predetermined amount of data when the data read from the memory unit 11 is sent to the host equipment 200.
The configuration of a memory unit 11 is schematically described. As shown in FIG. 4, the memory unit 11 has multiple chips (nonvolatile semiconductor memory chips) 11 a (e.g., n chips of Chip 0 to Chip n−1). Each of the chips 11 a is an NAND flash memory.
The configuration of a NAND flash memory is described. The internal configuration of the chip 11 a is schematically described with reference to FIG. 5. FIG. 5 is block diagram of the chip 11 a. As a shown in FIG. 5, a memory cell array 30, a row decoder 31, a column buffer (page buffer) 32, and a data cache 33 are included in the chip 11 a.
The configuration of a memory cell 30 is described. Multiple memory cell block BLK (e.g., m chips of BLK 0 to BLKm−1) (m is a natural number) are included in the memory cell 30.
The memory cell block BLK includes multiple Pages 0 to p−1 (p is a natural number). The page is a unit by which data are collectively written, and is a set of multiple memory cell transistors capable of holding data. Moreover, data erasing is performed for each memory cell block BLK. That is, data in the same memory cell block BLK is erased collectively.
A row decoder 31 included in the chip 11 a is described. The row decoder 31 receives a row address from the memory controller 12 and decodes the row address. The row address includes a block address specifying any of the memory cell blocks BLK and a page address specifying any of the pages. The row decoder 31 selects any of the pages in any of the memory cell blocks BLK based on the row address.
A data cache 33 is described. The data cache 33 is configured to be able to temporarily hold data of a page size.
The data cache 33 transmits and receives data to and from the memory controller 12. More specifically, the data cache 33 transfers data given from a column buffer 32 to the memory controller 12 during reading of data, receives data given from the memory controller 12 during writing, and transfers the received data page by page to the column buffer 32.
The column buffer 32 temporarily holds data read page by page from a memory cell array 30 during reading of data, and transfers the data to the data cache 33. During writing of data, the column buffer 32 transfers the data transferred from the data cache 33 to bit lines BL0 to BLn, and executes a program for each page of the data.
Next, a memory cell block is described. The configuration of a memory cell block BLK is described in detail with reference to FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram of a part of a memory cell block.
As shown in FIG. 6, the memory cell block BLK has multiple NAND cells. Each of the NAND cells includes multiple (e.g., eight) memory cell transistors MT and select transistors ST1, ST2. The memory cell transistors MT each have a stacked gate structure in which a charge storage layer (e.g., a floating gate) is formed on a semiconductor substrate with a gate insulating film interposed therebetween and a control gate is formed on the charge storage layer with an inter-gate insulating film interposed therebetween. Note that the number of the memory cell transistors MT is not limited to 8 but may be 16 or 32. The memory cell transistors MT share source and drain with adjacent memory cell transistors MT, and are arranged so that current paths are connected in series between the select transistors ST1, ST2. A drain region at one end of the memory cell transistors MT connected in series is connected to a source region of the select transistor ST1, and a source region at the other end is connected to a drain region of the select transistor ST2.
The control gates of the memory cell transistors MT in the same row are connected in common to any of word lines WL0 to WL7, and gates of the select transistors ST1, ST2 of the memory cells in the same row are connected in common to select gate lines SGD and SGS, respectively. Furthermore, drains of the select transistors ST1 in the same column in the memory cell array are connected in common to any of the bit lines BL0 to BLq−1 (q is a natural number), and sources of the select transistors ST2 are connected in common to a source line SL.
In the above configuration, the data are collectively written and read for the multiple memory cell transistors MT connected to the same word line WL. The memory cell transistors MT can hold, for example, 1 bit data. In this case, one page is allocated to one word line WL. Thus, in the example shown in FIG. 6, one memory cell block BLK includes eight pages. On the other hand, the memory cell transistors MT may hold multiple bits. In this case, writing and reading of data are performed for each bit. For example, when the memory cell transistors MT hold 2 bit data, pages corresponding to a lower bit and an upper bit are allocated to one word line WL. Thus, in this case, one memory cell block BLK includes (8×2)=16 pages in the example shown in FIG. 6.
Next, description is given of control of the memory unit 11 by the memory controller 12 in the memory system thus configured. The memory controller 12 according to the embodiment can simultaneously access the multiple chips 11 a in the memory unit 11. This is called parallel control.
Basic operations of the parallel control are described. The parallel control is described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the parallel control, showing how the data (external data) transferred from the host equipment is transferred to each of the chips 11 a. FIG. 8 is a basic timing chart of the parallel control, showing input data, write data and a ready/busy (R/B) signal for each of the chips 11 a.
As shown in FIG. 7, in the parallel control, the data transferred from the host equipment 200 is divided into multiple pieces, which are simultaneously accessed (written) in the pages of the multiple chips 11 a. To be more specific, one piece of data is divided into multiple ((n−1) in the example shown in FIG. 7) data strings D0 to Dn−1. The host equipment 200 assigns addresses to the data strings D0 to Dn−1, respectively. It is assumed, for example, that addresses corresponding to Chips 0 to n−1 are assigned to the data strings D0 to Dn−1, respectively. In this case, the data strings D0 to Dn−1 are transferred in parallel to Chips 0 to n−1.
As shown in FIG. 8, from time t0 to time t1, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits data strings to the chips 11 a into which data are written. In this event, since each of the chips 11 a is in an accessible state (data receivable state), i.e., in a ready state, a high level (also simply described as H) R/B signal is outputted.
At time t1, the memory controller 12 issues a write command (10H). In response to the command, each of the chips 11 a performs writing (programming) of data strings from time t1 to time t2. Since the chip 11 a is in an access prohibited state (data reception prohibited state), i.e., in a busy state during the period, a low level (also simply described as L) R/B signal is outputted. Note that the time between the start of programming and the end of programming is hereinafter referred to as busy time. In the embodiment, for convenience, the busy time is treated the same as programming time for the chip 11 a.
After the programming of each of the chips 11 a is completed, each chip 11 a returns to the ready state. Thus, the memory controller 12 transmits data strings to the chips 11 a from time t2 to time t3. Thereafter, the programming and transmission of data strings are repeated in the same manner.
Next, busy shift is described. The memory controller 12 according to the embodiment performs control to shift the program start time between the chips 11 a in the parallel control described above. This is called “busy shift”. The busy shift is described below with reference to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 is a basic flowchart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment, showing the flow of operations of the memory system. In the embodiment, description is given of the case where writing is performed simultaneously into n chips of Chip 0 to Chip n−1.
First, the memory controller 12 expands into the RAM 20 the firmware (system information) stored in the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 or information on program deviation time (which may be simply called shift time or first period) stored in the memory unit 11 when the power is supplied to the memory card 100. The control is performed by the MPU 18, for example (Step S1001).
Next, setting information including current consumption limit, a transfer speed between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12, and the like is supplied to the external interface unit 15 from the host equipment 200 (Step S1002).
The MPU 18 derives program deviation time from the RAM 20 based on the setting information. In this event, the MPU 18 derives the program deviation time from the table expanded into the RAM 20, for example. The program deviation time is preliminarily stored in the memory unit 11, for example (Step S1003). Note that the program deviation time will be described in detail later.
Thereafter, the MPU 18 sets the program deviation time (issuance timing of a command 10H) in the timer control unit 18 a. Then, the timer control unit 18 a sets the program deviation time in the timer 22 (Step S1004).
Subsequently, the memory card 100 supplies a write request from the host equipment 200 to the external interface unit 15. When the memory unit 11 is in a writable state, the MPU 18 returns a response indicating that the memory unit 11 is in the writable state to the host equipment 200 (Step S1005).
Next, data divided into multiple pieces are supplied to the data control unit 17 from the host equipment 200 through the external interface unit 15. As to the divided data, the original data are not physically divided, but the address of the chip 11 a into which data are written is divided into multiple addresses (Step S1006).
Thereafter, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits multiple divided data strings to the column buffer 32 of the multiple chips 11 a in the memory unit 11 according to the address (data in). The multiple divided data strings are temporarily held in the column buffer 32. Thereafter, the MPU 18 issues a write command (10H) (Step S1007).
The timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21 to delay the transfer timing of the write command 10H to the memory unit 11 in accordance with the program deviation time set in the timer 22 (Step S1008).
The measurement by the timer 22 allows the data strings to be sequentially written into the respective chips 11 a (Step S1009).
In the embodiment, the time is measured by the built-in timer 22, thereby shifting the program execution timing between the chips 11 a. This is called “busy shift”.
Next, the program deviation time (busy shift time) Tbd described in Step S1003 is described.
Time required to store the data strings in the memory unit 11 is defined as data-in time Tdi, and time required between the storage of the data strings in the memory unit 11 and actual recording of the data strings in the memory unit 11 is defined as program time Tpg. Assuming that the quantity of electricity in this event is Q, average current consumption Im in the case where there is no busy shift is calculated as shown in the following equation (1).
Im=Q/(Tdi+Tpg) (1)
When the busy shift is performed, the time required for the storage in all the chips 11 a and for the programs becomes longer by Tbd×(Nc−1) than that required when no busy shift is performed. Here, Nc is the total number of chips. In this case, average current consumption Im in the case where there is no busy shift is calculated as shown in the following equation (2).
Im=Q/(Tdi+Tpg+Tbd(Nc−1)) (2)
Accordingly, a relationship shown in FIG. 10 is obtained. FIG. 10 is a graph showing the average current consumption Im to the Busy shift time Tbd. FIG. 10 shows that the longer the busy shift time Tbd, the lower the average current consumption Im. Note that the average current consumption Im described here means an average of currents consumed between the start and end of writing the data strings into the memory unit 11.
FIG. 11 is a table showing a relationship between the average current consumption limit and the busy shift time. When there is no limitation on the average current consumption from the outside, i.e., when the average current consumption is I0 or more in FIG. 10, the busy shift time is T0=0 with the maximum writing speed performance into the memory unit 11. In other words, when there is no particular limitation on the average current consumption, no busy shift needs to be performed. On the other hand, when there is a limitation, the busy shift time is set in accordance with the limitation. For example, the memory controller 12 performs control so that the busy shift time is T1 (T1>0) when the average current consumption limit from the outside is II, the busy shift time is T2 (T2>T1) when the average current consumption limit is I2 (I2<I1), and the busy shift time is Tn-1 when the average current consumption limit is In-1. FIG. 11 shows that I0>I1>I2>I3> . . . >In and Tn>Tn-1>Tn-2> . . . >T0=0. This leads to the conclusion that the busy shift time Tbd need only be increased as the allowable maximum average current consumption is reduced.
Next, a method for setting the Busy shift time is described. As the method for setting the busy shift time (program deviation time), are conceivable a method for setting the busy shift time based on a threshold of average current consumption, a method for setting the busy shift time based on the table expanded into the RAM 20, a method for setting the busy shift time corresponding to the average current consumption by calculation, and the like.
First, description is given of the method for setting the busy shift time based on the threshold of average current consumption. In the method, the MPU 18 previously prepares in the RAM 20 the threshold of average current consumption and busy shift time corresponding to the magnitude of the threshold. These pieces of information may be read, for example, from the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20. Then, when the current consumption (required current consumption) Is set in the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200 is equal to or larger than the threshold, busy shift time Tbd1 (Tbd1≧0) is selected. On the other hand, when the current consumption Is is smaller than the threshold, busy shift time Tbd2 (Tbd2>Tbd1) is selected. In this event, an upper limit is set for Tbd2 in view of the writing speed performance. In this way, the busy shift time can be set based on whether the required current consumption Is is larger or smaller than a certain threshold using the threshold as a reference.
Next, description is given of the method for setting the busy shift time based on the table expanded into the RAM 20. In the method, the MPU 18 previously prepares in the RAM 20 multiple (e.g., about ten to twenty) thresholds of average current consumption and busy shift times corresponding to the multiple thresholds. These pieces of information may be read, for example, from the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20. Then, the busy shift time is selected in accordance with the current consumption (required current consumption) set in the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200. In this way, the busy shift time can be set using the multiple thresholds as a reference. This method enables more detailed setting of the busy shift time.
An example of the relationship between the threshold of average current consumption and the busy shift time corresponds to the equation (2) derived above, for example, as shown in FIG. 12. FIG. 12 is a graph showing a relationship between the required current consumption Is and the busy shift time. As shown in FIG. 12, when the required current consumption Is satisfies Threshold I0≧Is>Threshold I1, the busy shift time Tbd0 (0≦Tbd0<T1) between 0 and T1 corresponding to between the thresholds I0 and I1 is selected. Meanwhile, when the required current consumption Is satisfies Threshold I1≧Is>Threshold I2, the busy shift time Tbd1 (T1≦Tbd1<T2) between T1 and T2 corresponding to between the thresholds I0 and I1 is selected based on the relationship described above. Furthermore, when the required current consumption Is is equal to or smaller than the threshold I10 (Is≦I10), the busy shift time Tbd10 equal to or larger than T10 (T10≦Tbd10) corresponding to the threshold I10 based on the relationship described above. Note, however, that an upper limit is set for Tbd10, e.g., Tbd10=T10, in view of the writing speed performance.
Next, description is given of the method for setting the busy shift time corresponding to the average current consumption by calculation. In the method, an analog circuit for calculation (not shown) is provided in the memory controller 12 to calculate the equation (2) described above based on the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200, thereby deriving the busy shift time.
As described above, the busy shift time is variable, and may be 0 depending on the request from the host equipment 200.
Next, concrete examples of the busy shift are described. With reference to FIG. 13, description is given of specific parallel control when the busy shift time is the time Ta. FIG. 13 is an example of a timing chart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment, showing how the data (external data) transferred from the host equipment is transferred to each of the chips 11 a.
As shown in FIG. 13, all Chips 0 to n−1 are in the ready state at time point ta0. Thus, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits data strings to Chips 0 to n−1. In the example shown in FIG. 7, for example, the memory controller 12 transfers in parallel the data strings D0 to Dn−1 to Chips 0 to n−1. The data string transfer is performed during the period between the times ta0 and ta1.
After storage of all the data strings is completed, the memory controller 12 executes writing of the data strings at time point ta1. That is, the MPU 18 issues a write command (10H) and supplies the write command to the memory interface unit 21. In this event, the timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21 to delay the issuance of the write command to write the data strings into Chips 1 to n−1.
To be more specific, the memory interface unit 21 first issues a write command to Chip 0. Accordingly, Chip 0 is set in the busy state since data strings are written into Chip 0. As a result, an R/B signal of Chip 0 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 0 is L, and starts counting (measuring) the busy shift time Ta set by the timer control unit 18 a. The memory interface unit 21 can issue a write command to Chips 1 to n−1 when notified by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set busy shift time Ta from the time ta1, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point ta2. Then, the timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command to Chip 1. Alternatively, the timer control unit 18 a may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to issue a data string write command to Chip 1, next. Thus, Chip 1 starts writing of data strings. As a result, Chip 1 becomes the Busy state, and the R/B signal of Chip 1 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 1 is L, resets the count (measurement), for example, and starts counting (measuring) from 0 to the busy shift time Ta set by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures an elapse of the set busy shift time Ta from the time ta2, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point ta3. The timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command to Chip 2. Alternatively, the timer control unit 18 a may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to issue a data string write command to Chip 2, next. Thus, Chip 2 starts writing of data strings. As a result, Chip 2 becomes the busy state, and the R/B signal of Chip 2 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 2 is L, resets the measurement, for example, and starts measuring from 0 to the busy shift time Ta set by the timer control unit 18 a.
The timer control unit 18 a similarly controls the memory interface unit 21, and measures from the time 0 to the time Ta every time an R/B signal from Chip x (x is a natural number) is recognized as being L. Then, when the timer 22 finishes measuring the time Ta, the memory interface unit 21 issues a data string write command to Chip x+1. In this way, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command every time the timer 22 measures the time Ta up to the chip n−1. As a result, the data strings are written in a sequentially shifted manner into Chips 0 to n−1.
At time t′a0 when writing of data strings into all the chips 11 a is completed, all Chips 0 to n−1 are in the ready state. Thus, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits the data strings to Chips 0 to n−1. Thereafter, the writing and transmission of data strings are repeated in the same manner.
Next, with reference to FIG. 14, description is given of specific parallel control when the busy shift time is the time Tb (Tb>Ta). FIG. 14 is another example of a timing chart of the parallel control according to the first embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 14, all Chips 0 to n−1 are in the ready state at time point tb0. Thus, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits data strings to Chips 0 to n−1.
After storage of all the data strings is completed, the memory controller 12 executes writing of the data strings at time point tb1. That is, the MPU 18 issues a write command and supplies the write command to the memory interface unit 21. In this event, the timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21 to delay the issuance of the write command to write the data strings into Chips 1 to n−1.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures an elapse of the set Busy shift time Tb from the time tb1, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point tb2. Then, the timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command to Chip 1. Thus, Chip 1 starts writing of data strings. As a result, the R/B signal of Chip 1 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 1 is L, resets the measurement, for example, and starts measuring from 0 to the Busy shift time Tb set by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set busy shift time Tb from the time point tb2, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point tb3. The timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command to Chip 2. Thus, Chip 2 starts writing of data strings. As a result, the R/B signal of Chip 2 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 2 is L, resets the measurement, and starts measuring from 0 to the busy shift time Tb.
In the same way, the memory interface unit 21 issues a write command every time the timer 22 measures the time Tb up to the chip n−1. As a result, the data strings are written in a sequentially shifted manner into Chips 0 to n−1.
At time t′b0 when writing of data strings into all the chips 11 a is completed, all Chips 0 to n−1 are in the ready state. Thus, the memory controller 12 simultaneously transmits data strings to Chips 0 to n−1. Thereafter, the writing and transmission of data strings are repeated in the same manner.
FIGS. 13 and 14 show that the longer the busy shift time Tbd, the smaller the number of the chips 11 a into which data strings are simultaneously written.
According to the embodiment described above, the memory system includes the memory unit 11 having nonvolatile first and second Chips 0 and 1 capable of holding data, the memory controller 12 to transfer data received from the host equipment 200 simultaneously to first and second Chips 0 and 1, the timer 22 to measure a lapse of preset busy shift time, and the timer control unit 18 a to start writing of data into second Chip 1 immediately after the lapse of the busy shift time. The memory system further includes the RAM 20 capable of holding multiple different busy shift times, and the timer control unit 18 a selects any one of the multiple busy shift times in the RAM 20.
In the parallel control, current consumption is increased since writing of data into the multiple chips 11 a is performed all at once. However, shifting the timings of writing data strings into the respective chips 11 a based on the setting information from the host equipment 200 makes it possible to reduce the number of the chips 11 a into which the data strings are simultaneously written, and to suppress the average or instantaneous current consumption. Accordingly, the current consumption can be suppressed to be equal to or smaller than the value of average current consumption required by the host equipment 200. As a result, the memory system capable of suppressing the average or instantaneous current consumption can be obtained.
Next, with reference to FIGS. 15 to 21, description is given of control of a memory unit 11 by a memory controller 12 in a memory system according to a second embodiment. The memory controller 12 according to the second embodiment can start, during writing of data strings into chips 11 a in the memory unit 11, accessing the other chips 11 a. This is called interleave control. Note that, in the description of the interleave control, description of portions overlapping with those in the first embodiment is omitted.
Basic operations of the interleave control are described. The interleave control is described with reference to FIGS. 15 and 16. FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of the interleave control, showing how the data (external data) transferred from the host equipment 200 is transferred to each of the chips 11 a. FIG. 16 is a basic timing chart of the interleave control, showing input data, write data and a ready/busy (R/B) signal for each of the chips 11 a. In the embodiment, as an example, the interleave control is performed for the two chips 11 a, i.e., the Chips 0 and 1.
As shown in FIG. 15, in the interleave control, data D′0 transferred from the host equipment 200 is transferred to Chip 0, and new data D′1 transferred from the host equipment 200 is transferred to and written into Chip 1 different from Chip 0 while the data D′0 is being written into Chip 0. Note that the data D′0 to D′2p−1 are different from each other. Moreover, an address corresponding to Chip 0 or 1 is assigned to each of the data D′0 to D′2p−1 by the host equipment 200.
As shown in FIG. 16, the memory controller 12 transmits data to Chip 0 into which data are written from time t0 to time t1. In this event, since the two Chips 0 and 1 are in a Ready state, a high-level R/B signal is outputted.
At time t1, the memory controller 12 issues a write command (10H). In response to the command, Chip 0 performs writing of data from time t1 to time t3. Since Chip 0 is in an access prohibited state (data reception prohibited state), i.e., in a busy state during the period, a low-level R/B signal is outputted. Moreover, the memory controller 12 starts transmitting data to Chip 1 when the memory controller 12 recognizes the low-level R/B signal from Chip 0. During this period, Chip 1 outputs the high-level R/B signal.
At time t2, the memory controller 12 issues a write command (10H). In response to the command, Chip 1 performs writing of data from time t2 to time t4. Since Chip 1 is in an access prohibited state (data reception prohibited state), i.e., in a busy state during the period, a low-level R/B signal is outputted.
At time t3, after the writing of data into Chip 0 is completed, Chip 0 returns to the Ready state. Thus, the memory controller 12 transmits data strings to Chip 0 from time t3 to time t4. Thereafter, the programming and transmission of data strings are repeated in the same manner.
Next, data-in shift is described. The memory controller 12 according to the embodiment performs control to shift data input time between the chips 11 a in the parallel control described above. This is called “data-in shift”. The data-in shift is described below with reference to FIG. 17. FIG. 17 is a basic flowchart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment, showing the flow of operations of the memory system. In the embodiment, description is given of the case where writing is performed simultaneously into 2 chips of Chip 0 and Chip 1.
First, the memory controller 12 expands the firmware (system information) stored in the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 or information on data-in shift time (which may be simply called deviation time or first period) stored in the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20 when the power is supplied to the memory card 100. This control is performed by the MPU 18, for example (Step S2001).
The MPU 18 derives data-in shift time from the RAM 20 based on the setting information. In this event, the MPU 18 derives the data-in shift time from the table expanded into the RAM 20, for example. The data-in shift time is preliminarily stored in the memory unit 11, for example (Step S2003). Note that the data-in shift time will be described in detail later.
Thereafter, the MPU 18 sets the data-in shift time (data input timing) in the timer control unit 18 a. Then, the timer control unit 18 a sets the data-in shift time in the timer 22 (Step S2004).
Subsequently, the memory card 100 supplies a write request from the host equipment 200 to the external interface unit 15. When the memory unit 11 is in a writable state, the MPU 18 returns to the host equipment 200 a response indicating that the memory unit 11 is in the writable state (Step S2005).
Next, data are supplied to the data control unit 17 from the host equipment 200 through the external interface unit 15. The data are temporarily held in a buffer in the memory controller 12 (Step S2006).
Next, the timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21 based on the data-in shift time to delay the transfer timing of transferring data to the memory unit 11 (Step S2007).
The memory controller 12 supplies data to a column buffer 32 in the memory unit 11 (data in), and then the MPU 18 issues a write command (10H) (Step S2008).
In the embodiment, the time is measured by the built-in timer 22, thereby shifting the data input timing.
Next, the data-in shift time Tdd described in Step S2003 is described.
Time required to store the data in the memory unit 11 is defined as data-in time Tdi, and time required between the storage of the data in the memory unit 11 and actual recording of the data strings in the memory unit 11 is defined as program time Tpg. As to the average current consumption Im, if the writing size is sufficiently large, the first Tdi of Chip 0 is reduced to a negligible level. Assuming that the quantity of electricity in this event is Q, average current consumption Im in the case where there is no data-in shift is calculated as shown in the following equation (3).
Im≈Q/(Tdi+Tpg) (3)
When the data-in shift is performed, the time required for the storage in Chips 0 and 1 and for the programming becomes longer by Tdd×2 (twice as long as Tdd) than that required when no data-in shift is performed. In this case, average current consumption Im in the case where there is data-in shift is calculated as shown in the following equation (4).
Im≈Q/(Tdi+Tpg+2Tdd) (4)
Accordingly, a relationship shown in FIG. 18 is obtained. FIG. 18 is a graph showing the average current consumption Im to the data-in shift time Tdd. FIG. 18 shows that the longer the data-in shift time Tdd, the lower the average current consumption Im.
FIG. 11 is a table showing a relationship between the average current consumption limit and the data-in shift time. When limitation on the average current consumption from the outside is Jo or more, i.e., when there is no limitation on the average current consumption and writing speed performance into the memory unit 11 is the maximum, the data-in shift time is T0=0. In other words, when there is no particular limitation on the average current consumption, no data-in shift needs to be performed. On the other hand, when there is a limitation, the data-in shift time is set in accordance with to the limitation. For example, the memory controller 12 performs control so that the data-in shift time is T1 (T1>0) when the average current consumption limit from the outside is I1, the data-in shift time is T2 (T2>T1) when the average current consumption limit is I2 (I2<I1), and the busy shift time is Tn-1 when the average current consumption limit is In-1. FIG. 11 shows that I0>I1>I2>I3> . . . >In and Tn>Tn-1>Tn-2> . . . >T0=0. This leads to the conclusion that the data-in shift time Tdd need only be increased as the allowable maximum average current consumption is reduced.
Next, a method for setting the data-in shift time is described. As the method for setting the data-in shift time (program deviation time), are conceivable a method for setting the data-in shift time based on a threshold of average current consumption, a method for setting the data-in shift time based on the table expanded into the RAM 20, a method for setting the data-in shift time corresponding to the average current consumption by calculation, and the like, as in the first embodiment described above. Note that a basic method for deriving the data-in shift time is the same as that for the busy shift time described above.
First, description is given of the method for setting the data-in shift time based on the threshold of average current consumption. In the method, the MPU 18 previously prepares in the RAM 20 the threshold of average current consumption and data-in shift time corresponding to the magnitude of the threshold. These pieces of information may be read, for example, from the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20. Then, when the current consumption (required current consumption) Is set in the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200 is equal to or larger than the threshold, data-in shift time Tdd1 (Tdd1>0) is selected. On the other hand, when the current consumption Is is smaller than the threshold, data-in shift time Tdd2 (Tdd2>Tdd1) is selected. In this event, an upper limit is set for Tdd2 in view of the writing speed performance. In this way, the data-in shift time can be set based on whether the required current consumption Is is larger or smaller than a certain threshold using the threshold as a reference.
Next, description is given of the method for setting the data-in shift time based on the table expanded into the RAM 20. In the method, the MPU 18 previously prepares in the RAM 20 multiple (e.g., about ten to twenty) thresholds of average current consumption and data-in shift times corresponding to the multiple thresholds. These pieces of information may be read, for example, from the ROM 19 or the memory unit 11 into the RAM 20. Then, the data-in shift time is selected in accordance with the current consumption (required current consumption) set in the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200. In this way, the data-in shift time can be set using the multiple thresholds as a reference. This method enables more detailed setting of the data-in shift time.
An example of the relationship between the threshold of average current consumption and the data-in shift time corresponds to the equation (2) derived above, for example, as shown in FIG. 19. FIG. 19 is a graph showing a relationship between the required current consumption Is and the data-in shift time. As shown in FIG. 12, when the required current consumption Is satisfies Threshold I0≧Is>Threshold I1, the data-in shift time Tdd0 (0≦Tdd0<T1) between 0 and T1 corresponding to between the thresholds I0 and I1 is selected. Meanwhile, when the required current consumption Is satisfies Threshold I1≧Is>Threshold I2, the data-in shift time Tdd1 (T1≦Tdd1<T2) between T1 and T2 corresponding to between the thresholds Io and I1 is selected based on the relationship described above. Furthermore, when the required current consumption Is is the threshold I10≧Is, the data-in shift time Tdd10 equal to or larger than T10 (T10≦Tdd10) corresponding to the threshold I10 is selected based on the relationship described above. Note, however, that an upper limit is set for Tdd10, e.g., Tdd10=T10, in view of the writing speed performance.
Next, description is given of the method for setting the data-in shift time corresponding to the average current consumption by calculation. In the method, an analog circuit for calculation (not shown) is provided in the memory controller 12 to calculate the equation (4) described above based on the setting information transferred from the host equipment 200, thereby deriving the data-in shift time.
As described above, the data-in shift time is variable, and may be 0 depending on the request from the host equipment 200.
Next, concrete examples of the data-in shift are described. With reference to FIG. 20, description is given of specific interleave control when the data-in shift time is the time Tc. FIG. 20 is an example of a timing chart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment, showing how the data (external data) transferred from the host equipment 200 is transferred to each of the chips 11 a.
As shown in FIG. 20, Chip 0 and Chip 1 are in the ready state at time point tc0. Thus, the memory controller 12 performs data transmits to Chip 0.
After storage of the data in Chip 0 is completed, the memory controller 12 executes writing of the data strings at time point tc1. That is, the MPU 18 issues a write command and supplies the write command to the memory interface unit 21. Then, the data are written into Chip 0. In this event, the timer control unit 18 a controls the memory interface unit 21 to delay the data input to Chip 1.
To be more specific, the memory interface unit 21 first issues a write command to Chip 0. Accordingly, Chip 0 is set in the busy state since data strings are written into Chip 0. As a result, an R/B signal of Chip 0 is set to be L. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 0 is L, and starts measuring the data-in shift time Tc set by the timer control unit 18 a. The memory interface unit 21 can transmit data to Chip 0 or Chip 1 when notified by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set data-in shift time Tc from the time tc1, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point tc2. Then, the timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 performs data input to Chip 1. Alternatively, the timer control unit 18 a may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to transmit data to Chip 1, next. Thus, the data are transmitted to Chip 1.
At time tc3, data are written into Chip 1. Accordingly, the R/B signal of Chip 1 becomes L.
Next, at time point tc4, writing of data into Chip 0 is completed. Thus, Chip 0 becomes the ready state, and the R/B signal of Chip 0 becomes H. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 0 is H, resets the measurement, and starts measuring from 0 to the data-in shift time Tc set by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set data-in shift time Tc from the time tc4, and then notifies the timer control unit 18 a to that effect at time point tc5. Then, the timer control unit 18 a, upon receipt of the notification, notifies the memory interface unit 21 to that effect. Upon receipt of the notification, the memory interface unit 21 transmits data to Chip 0. Alternatively, the timer control unit 18 a may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to transmit data to Chip 0, next. Thus, the data are transmitted to Chip 0.
The timer 22 similarly measures from the time 0 to the time Ta every time an R/B signal from Chip y (y is 0 or 1) is recognized as being H. Then, when the timer 22 finishes measuring the time Tc, the memory interface unit transmits data to Chip y. In this way, the memory interface unit 21 transmits data every time the timer 22 measures the time Tc. As a result, the data are written in a sequentially shifted manner into Chips 0 and 1. Thereafter, the writing and transmission of data are repeated in the same manner.
With reference to FIG. 21, description is given of specific interleave control when the program deviation time is the time Td (Td>Tc). FIG. 21 is another example of a timing chart of the interleave control according to the second embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 21, Chips 0 and 1 are in the ready state at time point td0. Thus, the memory controller 12 transmits data to Chip 0.
After storage of the data in Chip 0 is completed, the memory controller 12 executes writing of the data strings at time point td1. That is, the MPU 18 issues a write command and supplies the write command to the memory interface unit 21. The data are written into Chip 0. In this event, the timer 22 controls the memory interface unit 21 to delay the data input into Chip 1.
To be more specific, the memory interface unit 21 first issues a write command to Chip 0. Accordingly, an R/B signal of Chip 0 is set to be L. The timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 0 is L, and starts measuring the data-in shift time Td set by the timer control unit 18 a. The memory interface unit 21 can transmit the data to Chip 0 or Chip 1 when notified by the timer 22.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set data-in shift time Td from time td1, and then provides notification to that effect at time point td2. Then, the memory interface unit 21, upon receipt of the notification, transmits the data to Chip 1. Alternatively, the timer 22 may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to transmit the data to Chip 1, next. Thus, the data are transmitted to Chip 1.
At time td3, data are written into Chip 1. Accordingly, the R/B signal of Chip 1 becomes L.
Next, at time point td4, writing of data into Chip 0 is completed. Thus, Chip 0 becomes the ready state, and the R/B signal of Chip 0 becomes H. Then, the timer 22 recognizes that the R/B signal from Chip 0 is H, resets the measurement, and starts measuring from 0 to the data-in shift time Td set by the timer control unit 18 a.
Thereafter, the timer 22 measures a lapse of the set data-in shift time Td from time td4, and then provides notification to that effect at time point td5. The memory interface unit 21, upon receipt of the notification, transmits the data to Chip 0. Alternatively, the timer 22 may command or request the memory interface unit 21 to transmit the data to Chip 0, next. Thus, the data are transmitted to Chip 0.
Thereafter, the writing and input of data are repeated in the same manner.
FIGS. 20 and 21 show that the longer the data-in shift time Tdd, the shorter the time during which data are written simultaneously into two chips 11 a.
According to the embodiment described above, the memory system includes the memory unit 11 having nonvolatile first and second Chips 0 and 1 capable of holding data, the memory controller 12 to transfer data received from the host equipment 200 alternately to first and second Chips 0 and 1, the timer 22 to measure a lapse of preset data-in shift time, and the timer control unit 18 a to start the input of data to second Chip 1 immediately after the lapse of the data-in shift time. The memory system further includes the RAM 20 capable of holding multiple different data-in shift times, and the timer control unit 18 a selects any one of the multiple data-in shift times in the RAM 20.
In the interleave control, current consumption is increased since writing of data into two chips 11 a, for example, is performed all at once. However, shifting the timings of inputting data to the respective chips 11 a based on the setting information from the host equipment 200 makes it possible to reduce the time during which the data are written simultaneously to the multiple chips 11 a, and to suppress the average or instantaneous current consumption. Accordingly, the current consumption can be suppressed to be equal to or smaller than the value of average current consumption required by the host equipment 200. As a result, the memory system capable of suppressing the average or instantaneous current consumption can be obtained.
Next, with reference to FIG. 22, description is given of a memory system according to a third embodiment. In the third embodiment, busy shift time or data-in shift time is set based on data transfer speed (bus transfer speed) between host equipment 200 and an external interface unit 15. Note that, in the description herein, description of portions overlapping with those in the first and second embodiments is omitted.
FIG. 22 is a graph showing a relationship between a data transfer speed V between the host equipment 200 and the external interface unit 15 and busy shift time or data-in shift time (also simply called shift time) T.
There is a case where a maximum data transfer speed Vx between the host equipment 200 and a memory controller 12 is lower than a maximum data transfer speed Vy (Vy>Vx) between the memory controller 12 and a memory unit 11. Note that the shift time T set long reduces the speed of the memory system. However, since the maximum data transfer speed Vx between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12 is lower than the maximum data transfer speed Vy between the memory controller 12 and the memory unit 11, the maximum data transfer speed of the memory system turns out to be the speed Vx. For this reason, it turns out that the maximum data transfer speed of the memory system is not reduced even if the shift time T is set within the range 0≦T≦Tx as shown in FIG. 12.
As a method for obtaining the minimum shift time Tx, the maximum data transfer speed Vx between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12 is derived by, for example, the external interface unit 15, and the speed information is supplied to the MPU 18. The speed information is stored in the memory unit 11 or the like. The table showing the relationship between the data transfer speed and the shift time is expanded into the RAM 20. Then, the MPU 18 derives the minimum shift time Tx corresponding to the maximum transfer speed Vx from the table expanded into the RAM 20.
According to the embodiment described above, in the memory system, the busy shift time or the data-in shift time (the first period) is determined based on the data transfer speed from the host equipment 200.
When the data transfer speed between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12 is lower than the data transfer speed between the memory controller 12 and the memory unit 11, the speed performance of the entire memory system is dependent on the data transfer speed between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12.
However, as shown in FIG. 23, when the shift time T is the time Tx, average current consumption Im turns out to be current Ix (Ix<I0). FIG. 23 shows that the longer the shift time T, the smaller the average current consumption Im. Since the shift time need only be within 0≦T≦Tx, the average current consumption can be reduced to be smaller than I0.
Therefore, by controlling the busy shift time or the data-in shift time T based on the data transfer speed between the host equipment 200 and the memory controller 12, the average current consumption can be suppressed without degrading the speed performance of the entire memory system. As a result, the memory system capable of suppressing the average or instantaneous current consumption without degrading the speed performance can be achieved.
Note that the description has been given in the first to third embodiments by taking the SD memory card as an example. However, the invention is also applicable to other memory cards, memory devices, internal memories and the like as long as such devices are semiconductor storage devices having the same bus structure, and the same advantageous effects as those of the memory card 100 or the like can be achieved. The invention is also applicable to, for example, a semiconductor device having multiple memory chips mounted in host equipment. Furthermore, the memory chip is not limited to the NAND flash memory, but may be other semiconductor memories.
Moreover, in the embodiments described above, the timer 22 controls the issuance of the write command (10H) by the MPU 18 or the execution of data input (data in) by controlling the memory interface unit 21. However, the timer 22 may notify the MPU 18 of the completion of the measurement of the first period, thereby allowing the MPU 18 to control (delay) the issuance of the write command (10H) or the execution of data input (data in).
Furthermore, although the parallel control and the interleave control are separately performed in the first and second embodiments described above, the parallel control and the interleave control may be combined. Thus, the busy shift and data-in shift in the first and second embodiments can be simultaneously performed.
While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intend to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of the other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
1. A memory system, comprising;
a semiconductor storage unit having nonvolatile first and second semiconductor memory chips capable of holding data;
a memory controller configured to transfer data received from host equipment simultaneously to the first and second semiconductor memory chips;
a measurement unit configured to measure a lapse of a preset first period; and
a control unit configured to start writing of the data into the second semiconductor memory chip immediately after the lapse of the first period.
2. The memory system according to claim 1, wherein the control unit starts writing the data into the first semiconductor memory chip immediately after a completion of a write ready condition in the first and second semiconductor memory chips, the control unit starts writing the data into the second semiconductor memory chip immediately after the lapse of the first period.
3. The memory system according to claim 1, wherein an upper limit is set for the first period.
4. The memory system according to claim 1, further comprising:
a storage region capable of holding a plurality of the first periods different from one another, wherein
the control unit selects any one of the plurality of first periods in the storage region.
5. The memory system according to claim 1, wherein the first period is determined based on a speed of data transfer from the host equipment.
6. The memory system according to claim 1, wherein the memory system is a memory card.
7. The memory system according to claim 1, wherein the measurement unit and the control unit are provided in the memory controller.
8. A memory system, comprising:
a memory controller configured to transfer data received from host equipment alternately to the first and second semiconductor memory chips;
a control unit configured to start input of the data into the second semiconductor memory chip immediately after the lapse of the first period.
9. The memory system according to claim 8, wherein the control unit starts writing the data into the first semiconductor memory chip immediately after a completion of a write ready condition in the first semiconductor memory chip, a write ready condition in the second semiconductor memory chip is started immediately after the lapse of the first period when a write ready condition in the first semiconductor memory chip is started, the control unit starts writing the data into the second semiconductor memory chip.
10. The memory system according to claim 8, wherein an upper limit is set for the first period.
11. The memory system according to claim 8, further comprising:
12. The memory system according to claim 8, wherein the first period is determined based on a speed of data transfer from the host equipment.
13. The memory system according to claim 8, wherein the memory system is a memory card.
14. The memory system according to claim 8, wherein the measurement unit and the control unit are provided in the memory controller.
15. A memory system, comprising:
an external interface unit configured to transfer data outputted from host equipment;
a memory controller configured to transfer data received through the external interface unit from the host equipment simultaneously or alternately to the first and second semiconductor memory chips based on a data transfer speed between the host equipment and the external interface unit;
a control unit configured to start writing of the data into the second semiconductor memory chip immediately after the lapse of the first period when the memory controller transfers the data simultaneously to the first and second semiconductor memory chips, and to start inputting the data to the second semiconductor memory chip immediately after the elapsed time of the first period when the memory controller transfers the data alternately to the first and second semiconductor memory chips.
16. The memory system according to claim 15, wherein an upper limit is set for the first period.
17. The memory system according to claim 15, further comprising:
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Owner name: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:KAMIZONO, AKINORI;REEL/FRAME:025935/0555
Owner name: TOSHIBA MEMORY CORPORATION, JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA;REEL/FRAME:043709/0035
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US6704723B1 - Method and system for providing business intelligence information over a computer network via extensible markup language - Google Patents
Method and system for providing business intelligence information over a computer network via extensible markup language Download PDF
markup language
extensible markup
Ali Alavi
Yuan Ding
Benjamin Z. Li
Abhimanyu Warikoo
MicroStrategy Inc
2001-06-20 Application filed by MicroStrategy Inc filed Critical MicroStrategy Inc
2001-10-04 Assigned to MICROSTRATEGY, INCORPORATED reassignment MICROSTRATEGY, INCORPORATED ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: WARIKOO, ABHIMANYU, ALAVI, ALI, DING, Yuan, LI, BENJAMIN Z.
2002-01-23 Assigned to FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION reassignment FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION SECURITY INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED
2002-10-15 Assigned to MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED reassignment MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED RELEASE OF SECURITY INTEREST Assignors: FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION
2002-10-16 Assigned to FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION reassignment FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION SECURITY AGREEMENT Assignors: MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED
G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
G06F16/958—Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
G06F16/986—Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
Y10S—TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
Y10S707/00—Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Y10S707/99931—Database or file accessing
Y10S707/99933—Query processing, i.e. searching
Y10S707/99934—Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
A method and system is provided for exchanging information over a computer network. A network server computer system receives a query request from at least one client computer system over a computer network. The query request is formatted into an extensible markup language query document according to an extensible markup language document application program interface. The extensible markup language query document is transmitted to at least one business intelligence server computer system. The at least one business intelligence server computer system retrieves the information requested in the extensible markup language query document from at least one data storage device.
This invention relates generally to systems and methods for exchanging information over computer networks, including information derived from on-line analytical processing (OLAP) systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for utilizing a specific extensible markup language application program interface to enable the exchange of business intelligence information between client systems and server systems.
The ability to act quickly and decisively in today's increasingly competitive marketplace is critical to the success of any organization. The volume of data that is available to organizations is rapidly increasing and frequently overwhelming. However, proper management and retrieval of relevant information creates a substantial advantage to the organization commonly referred to as business intelligence. The need to carve intelligent and useful information out of the large volumes of data presents various challenges. One challenge is to avoid inundating an individual with unnecessary information. Another challenge is to ensure all relevant information is available in a timely manner.
One known approach to addressing these and other challenges is known as data warehousing. Data warehouses, relational databases, and data marts are becoming important elements of many information delivery systems because they provide a central location where a reconciled version of data extracted from a wide variety of operational systems may be stored. As used herein, a data warehouse should be understood to be an informational database that stores shareable data from one or more operational databases of records, such as one or more transaction-based database systems. A data warehouse typically allows users to tap into a business's vast store of operational data to track and respond to business trends that facilitate forecasting and planning efforts. A data mart may be considered to be a type of data warehouse that focuses on a particular business segment.
Decision support systems (DSS) have been developed to efficiently retrieve selected information from data warehouses, thereby providing business intelligence information to the organization. One type of decision support system is known as an on-line analytical processing system (“OLAP”). In general, OLAP systems analyze the data from a number of different perspectives and support complex analyses against large input data sets.
In conventional OLAP systems, business intelligence queries originating from client computer systems (such as, e.g., world wide web client systems, desktop client systems, wireless client systems, etc.) interface with an OLAP application or other business intelligence server through a COM application program interface (API). More generally, conventional systems are typically built around proprietary API's and communication protocols, i.e. not only using COM-compliant interfaces. One drawback of using a proprietary protocol is that the data format is not client-independent. That is, multiple API's are needed to request and display data in various formats including the web, email, instant messaging, wireless, etc. Requiring multiple protocols adds complexity and expense to the system. Another drawback of utilizing the former proprietary protocols is the difficulty of integrating with other systems. Another drawback is the lack of a standard and the corresponding level of knowledge required to make use of one or more proprietary technologies.
Accordingly, existing OLAP systems fail to provide for a method and system for enabling the exchange of business intelligence information over a computer network through a robust and scalable methodology.
The present invention overcomes the problems noted above, and provides additional advantages, by providing for a method for exchanging information over a computer network comprising a first step of receiving a query request into at least one network server computer system, from at least one client computer system over a computer network. The query request is formatted in an extensible markup language query document according to an extensible markup language document application program interface. The extensible markup language query document is transmitted to at least one business intelligence server computer system. The at least one business intelligence server computer system receives the extensible markup language query document and retrieves corresponding information from at least one data storage device said at least one data storage device.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an architecture for a system according to an embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating steps performed by a process utilizing a query engine according to an embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 3 is a generalized block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a system for providing business intelligence information data over a computer network;
FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a second architecture for a system according to an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 5 illustrates an example of an XML tree structure formatted in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 6 illustrates an example of an XML tree structure having an <information> element as a root node; and
FIG. 7 illustrates an example of an XML document formatted in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The present invention may cooperate with a business intelligence system such as that shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system 100 by which a variety of data resources may be accessed for business analytic, report generation and other intelligence purposes according to an embodiment of the invention. According to a preferred embodiment, the system 100 may comprise an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) decision support system (DSS). In particular, FIG. 1 may comprise a portion of the MicroStrategy 7 or 7.1 platform which provides a preferred system in which the present invention may be implemented.
In general, through using the system 100 of the invention, analysts, managers and other users may query or interrogate a plurality of databases or database arrays to extract demographic, sales, and/or financial data and information and other patterns from records stored in such databases or database arrays to identify strategic trends. Those strategic trends may not be discernable without processing the queries and treating the results of the data extraction according to the techniques performed by the systems and methods of the invention. This is in part because the size and complexity of some data portfolios stored in such databases or database arrays may mask those trends.
In addition, system 100 may enable the creation of reports or services that are processed according to a schedule. Users may then subscribe to the service, provide personalization criteria and have the information automatically delivered to the user, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,766 to Yost et al., which is commonly assigned and hereby incorporated by reference.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a business, a government or another user may access the resources of the system 100 using a user engine 102. The user engine 102 may include a query input module 116 to accept a plurality of searches, queries or other requests, via a query box on a graphical user interface (GUI) or another similar interface. The user engine 102 may communicate with an analytical engine 104. The analytical engine 104 may include a set of extensible modules to run a plurality of statistical analyses, to apply filtering criteria, to perform a neural net technique or another technique to condition and treat data extracted from data resources hosted in the system 100, according to a query received from the user engine 102.
The analytical engine 104 may communicate with a query engine 106, which in turn interfaces to one or more data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n (where n is an arbitrary number). The data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may include or interface to a relational database or another structured database stored on a hard disk, an optical disk, a solid state device or another similar storage media. When implemented as databases, the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may include or interface to, for example, an Oracle™ relational database such as sold commercially by Oracle Corporation, an Informix™ database, a Database 2 (DB2) database, a Sybase™ database, or another data storage device or query format, platform or resource such as an OLAP format, a Standard Query Language (SQL) format, a storage area network (SAN), or a Microsoft Access™ database. It should be understood that while data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n are illustrated as a plurality of data storage devices, in some embodiments the data storage devices may be contained within a single database or another single resource.
Any of the user engine 102, the analytical engine 104 and the query engine 106 or other resources of the system 100 may include or interface to or be supported by computing resources, such as one or more associated servers. When a server is employed for support, the server may include, for instance, a workstation running a Microsoft Windows™ NT™ operating system, a Windows™ 2000 operating system, a Unix operating system, a Linux operating system, a Xenix operating system, an IBM AIX™ operating system, a Hewlett-Packard UX™ operating system, a Novell Netware™ operating system, a Sun Microsystems Solaris™ operating system, an OS/2™ operating system, a BeOS™ operating system, a MacIntosh operating system, an Apache platform, an OpenStep™ operating system, or another similar operating system or platform. According to one embodiment of the present invention, analytical engine 104 and query engine 106 may comprise elements of an intelligence server 103.
The data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may be supported by a server or another resource and may, in some embodiments, include redundancy, such as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID), for data protection. The storage capacity of any one or more of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may be of various sizes, from relatively small data sets to very large database (VLDB)-scale data sets, such as warehouses holding terabytes of data or more. The fields and types of data stored within the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may also be diverse, and may include, for instance, financial, personal, news, marketing, technical, addressing, governmental, military, medical or other categories of data or information.
The query engine 106 may mediate one or more queries or information requests from those received from the user at the user engine 102 to parse, filter, format and otherwise process such queries to be submitted against the data contained in the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. Thus, a user at the user engine 102 may submit a query requesting information in SQL format, or have the query translated to SQL format. The submitted query is then transmitted via the analytical engine 104 to the query engine 106. The query engine 106 may determine, for instance, whether the transmitted query may be processed by one or more resources of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n in its original format. If so, the query engine 106 may directly transmit the query to one or more of the resources of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n for processing.
If the transmitted query cannot be processed in its original format, the query engine 106 may perform a translation of the query from an original syntax to a syntax compatible with one or more of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n by invoking a syntax module 118 to conform the syntax of the query to standard SQL, DB2, Informix™, Sybase™ formats or to other data structures, syntax or logic. The query engine 106 may likewise parse the transmitted query to determine whether it includes any invalid formatting or to trap other errors included in the transmitted query, such as a request for sales data for a future year or other similar types of errors. Upon detecting an invalid or an unsupported query, the query engine 106 may pass an error message back to the user engine 102 to await further user input.
When a valid query such as a search request is received and conformed to a proper format, the query engine 106 may pass the query to one or more of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 n . . . 108 n for processing. In some embodiments, the query may be processed for one or more hits against one or more databases in the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. For example, a manager of a restaurant chain, a retail vendor or another similar user may submit a query to view gross sales made by the restaurant chain or retail vendor in the State of New York for the year 1999. The data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may be searched for one or more fields corresponding to the query to generate a set of results 114.
Although illustrated in connection with each data storage device 108 in FIG. 1, the results 114 may be generated from querying any one or more of the databases of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n, depending on which of the data resources produce hits from processing the search query. In some embodiments of the system 100 of the invention, the results 114 may be maintained on one or more of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n to permit one or more refinements, iterated queries, joinders or other operations to be performed on the data included in the results 114 before passing the information included in the results 114 back to the analytical engine 104 and other elements of the system 100.
When any such refinements or other operations are concluded, the results 114 may be transmitted to the analytical engine 104 via the query engine 106. The analytical engine 104 may then perform statistical, logical or other operations on the results 114 for presentation to the user. For instance, the user may submit a query asking which of its retail stores in the State of New York reached $1M in sales at the earliest time in the year 1999. Or, the user may submit a query asking for an average, a mean and a standard deviation of an account balance on a portfolio of credit or other accounts.
The analytical engine 104 may process such queries to generate a quantitative report 110, which may include a table or other output indicating the results 114 extracted from the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. The report 110 may be presented to the user via the user engine 102, and, in some embodiments, may be temporarily or permanently stored on the user engine 102, a client machine or elsewhere, or printed or otherwise output. In some embodiments of the system 100 of the invention, the report 110 or other output may be transmitted to a transmission facility 112, for transmission to a set of personnel via an email, an instant message, a text-to-voice message, a video or via another channel or medium. The transmission facility 112 may include or interface to, for example, a personalized broadcast platform or service such as the Narrowcaster™ platform or Telecaster™ service sold by MicroStrategy Incorporated or another similar communications channel or medium. Similarly, in some embodiments of the invention, more than one user engine 102 or other client resource may permit multiple users to view the report 110, such as, for instance, via a corporate intranet or over the Internet using a Web browser. Various authorization and access protocols may be employed for security purposes to vary the access permitted users to such report 110 in such embodiments.
Additionally, as described in the '766 Patent, an administrative level user may create a report as part of a service. Subscribers/users may then receive access to reports through various types of of data delivery devices including telephones, pagers, PDAs, WAP protocol devices, email, facsimile, and many others. In addition, subscribers may specify trigger conditions so that the subscriber receives a report only when that condition has been satisfied, as described in detail in the '766 Patent. The platform of FIG. 1 may have many other uses, as described in detail with respect to the MicroStrategy 7 and 7.1 platform, the details of which will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the reporting and decision support system art.
The steps performed in a method 200 for processing data according to the invention are illustrated in the flowchart of FIG. 2. In step 202, the method 200 begins. In step 204, the user may supply input, such as a query or a request for information, via the user engine 102. In step 206, the user input query may be preliminarily processed, for instance, to determine whether it includes valid fields and for other formatting and error-flagging issues. In step 208, any error conditions may be trapped and an error message presented to the user, for correction of the error conditions. In step 210, if a query is in a valid format, the query may then be transmitted to the analytical engine 104.
In step 212, the analytical engine 104 may further process the input query as appropriate to ensure the intended results 114 may be generated to apply the desired analytics. In step 214, the query engine 106 may further filter, format and otherwise process the input query to ensure that the query is in a syntax compatible with the syntax of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. In step 216, one or more appropriate databases or other resources within the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may be identified to be accessed for the given query.
In step 218, the query may be transmitted to the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n and the query may be processed for hits or other results 114 against the content of the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. In step 220, the results 114 of the query may be refined, and intermediate or other corresponding results 114 may be stored in the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n. In step 222, the final results 114 of the processing of the query against the data storage devices 108 a, 108 b . . . 108 n may be transmitted to the analytical engine 104 via the query engine 106. In step 224, a plurality of analytical measures, filters, thresholds, statistical or other treatments may be run on the results 114. In step 226, a report 110 may be generated. The report 110, or other output of the analytic or other processing steps, may be presented to the user via the user engine 102. In step 228, the method 200 ends.
Now referring to FIG. 3, there is shown a generalized block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a system 300 for providing business intelligence data over a computer network in accordance with the present invention. In particular, one or more client computer systems 302 a, 302 b . . . 302 n (where n is an arbitrary number), typically executing a client browser application that supports the HTTP protocol, are connected, typically through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to a computer network 304, such as the Internet. Further, one or more network server computer systems 306 a, 306 b . . . 306 n (where n is an arbitrary number), executing one or more server applications are also coupled to the computer network 304 through an ISP. In one embodiment, a plurality of network server computer systems 306 a, 306 b . . . 306 n are operatively joined together to form a server cluster, thereby improving the performance of the web server applications being executed thereon. One example of a suitable server 306 is a web server for hosting at least one web server application available over the World Wide Web. However, additional network servers are also suitable and may include email servers, instant messaging servers, and wireless content servers.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, one ore more business intelligence server computer systems 308 a, 308 b . . . 308 n are operative connected to the one or more network servers computer systems 306 a, 306 b . . . 306 n for providing the analytical and querying functions described above in relation to the system of FIG. 1. As with the plurality of network server computer systems 306 a, 306 b . . . 306 n, the business intelligence server computer systems 308 a, 308 b . . . 308 n may also be operatively joined together to form a server cluster. As will be described in additional detail below, the one or more network server computer systems and the one or more business intelligence computer systems are configured to format, send and receive information utilizing a specialized transmission protocol implementing extensible markup language (XML).
Upon receiving a query request from at least one of the client computer systems, the network server application formats the request into an XML query document in the manner set forth in detail below. In one embodiment, the initially received query request comes in the form of a document created utilizing hypertext markup language (HTML) or dynamic hypertext markup language (DHMTL). The formatted XML document is then transmitted to at least one of the business intelligence server applications residing on the business intelligence server computer systems 308. Upon receipt of a properly formatted XML query document, the business intelligence server computer system 308 may then communicate with one or more data storage devices 310 a, 310 b . . . 310 n to retrieve the appropriate data.
Once the requested information has been retrieved, the entire process is reversed. In particular, the retrieved information is formatted into an XML results document, transmitted to the network server computer system 306, reformatting into a simple browser-executable format such as HMTL/DHTML and returned to the client computer system 302 via the computer network 304.
Turning now to FIG. 4, there is shown a block diagram 400 illustrating one embodiment of a network server computer system 306, a business intelligence server computer system 308, and a plurality of data storage devices 310 a, 310 b, and 310 c configured in the manner described above. In this embodiment, network server computer system 306 receives conventional HTML/DHTML-formatted data 402 from a client computer system over the computer network 304. Relating specifically to business intelligence data acquisition, one exemplary request may be a search for all consumer sales by an organization's Chicago office during calendar year 1997.
In accordance with the present invention, the network server computer system 304 is configured to include an application program interface 404 (API) for translating the received HTML/DHTML request 402 into a particular format of XML. The details and specificities of the particular XML format implemented by the network server computer system 304 will be described in additional detail below in relation to FIGS. 5-6. The XML API 404 of the present invention constitutes the specific method by which the network server applications can make HTML/DHTML-based requests readable to the business intelligence server in a manner which maximizes the functionality of the entire system. By specifically prescribing the format of the interaction, the various programs are able to efficiently interface with each.
Upon receiving an HTML/DHTML request 402 from a client server computer system, the network server computer system 306 operates to apply the XML API 404 to the received request, thereby converting the HTML/DHTML request into an XML request 406 readable by the business intelligence server computer system 308 in the manner set forth in detail below. Once converted, the XML request 406 is transmitted to the business intelligence server computer system 308 for processing via a transmission protocol such as Internet Protocol (IP). As will be discussed in additional detail below, processing operations resulting from the receipt of a properly formatted XML request include report execution 410, various business intelligence operations 412, and the application of personalization filters to the requested data 414. Further, each of these operations interact with the data storage devices 310 a, 310 b, and 310 c to retrieve any requested data.
Referring now to the specific format of the XML API utilized in the present invention, each interaction between applications comprises the exchange of at least one structured XML document conforming to the particular format imposed. Each structured XML document is composed of a series of elements, identified by nested tags. Further, the structured document also includes a unique root element for identifying the start and end of a particular document. The content of each element in a document is defined to be the text contained between a start tag <tag> and an end tag </tag> of the element. Generally, elements included within start and end tags include several types of information including: additional nested tags; pure text data, commonly referred to as “character data” or CDATA; and various attributes of the element, which typically take the form of name=value pairs and are used to described the element to which they are attached.
In addition to various tagged elements, a structured XML document formatted in accordance with the present invention also references a particular document type declaration file (DTD), which is a computer-readable file including a set of rules defining the tag guidelines for the particular XML document. In a pure sense, the structure of an XML document can be thought of as a tree, where each node denotes an element in the document, and each node connection denotes the parent-child relationship between various nodes. This type of document structure can be used as a simplified method for expressing the relationships between elements without requiring the expression of any actual character data or node attributes.
Referring now to FIG. 5, there is shown one embodiment of an XML tree structure 500 formatted in accordance with the present invention. In particular, each XML document initially contains a root element identified by as <msi_document> 502. The <msi_document> element 502 is used to mark a piece of XML as following the XML specifications of the present invention. Various sub-elements beneath the root element of a specific XML document may fall into a wide variety of different categories. For example a particular document could contain any of the following: a Report Instance Item indicating the answers to an available report query; an Object Item relating to a list of answerable queries; an Element Item relating to a pick list usable in creating a particular database query; a Document item relating to complex queries and possibly identifying multiple report items; and so on. Further, in some cases a single XML document may contain a combination of several of these items. For example a complete Report Instance Item will almost certainly contain several Object Items.
In order to distinguish clearly between different categories of items in a single XML document, a <msi_item> element 504 is implemented. Each XML file will contain at least one <msi_item> element 504. By using a <msi_item> element 504, the receiving application (either the business intelligence server 308 or the network server computer system 306) is able to accurately separate the XML documents into separate items by looking for information contained within the appropriate tags.
In order to enable applications to easily determine additional information about a particular item included within an <msi_item> element 504, several sub-elements are common to all such elements. An <information> element 506 holds information about the objects that appear within the <msi_item> tag. This element is used for two purposes: it makes it easy to find out which objects appear in the document, and when an object appears several times in the item it normalizes the supplemental information. A <dependents> element 508 is utilized to hold dependency relations between the various objects contained within the <msi_item> element 504. For example, a Folder object may contain one or more Reports within that Folder. In this case, the Reports within the Folder would be listed individually as dependents of the Folder. If, as if often the case, the item needs a list of <ancestors> elements 510 to establish its position in some hierarchy, the ancestors included therein are placed within a corresponding set of <ancestors> tags. This allows a component to render the path to the item, without giving the item itself, thereby facilitating rapid item searching.
A <report instance> element 512 holds information about a report execution action. This includes the various objects used to define the report, the answers used for prompts in the reports, SQL used to generate the reports, and the raw data returned from the data data storage devices. In addition to elements 506-512, many item-specific elements exist which are specific to the nature of the particular item and depend on the particular item within the <msi_item> tag. These content elements are represented in the Fig. by <content_tag> 514. It should be understood that not all of the common elements, (i.e., <information> elements 506; <dependent> elements 508; <ancestor> elements 510; and <report_instance> elements 512) need exist below any particular <msi_item> element 504. However, if those tags do exist, they must be present in the predefined location as described herein.
Referring now specifically to the <information> element 506, FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment of an XML sub-tree structure 600 formatted in accordance with the present invention. In particular, nodes beneath the <information> element 506 typically include at least one <object_info> element 602 which defines information about the object being called by the requesting application. In addition to the <object_info> element 602, other elements 604 may also be provided. Each of the <object_info> element 602 as well as any other elements provided represent some data structure that appears elsewhere within the <msi_item> element 504. Each of these nodes is preferably identified by a refid=attribute for enabling subsequent reference to the information recited therein. In particular, the refid=attribute holds a unique integer value and is used to establish cross-references between various objects within the various <information> elements 506, and elsewhere in the file. To make it easier to maintain uniqueness when merging several <msi_item> nodes into a single XML document, each <msi_item> is preferably given two attributes, a min_refid=attribute and a max_refid=attribute that together specify a range for the various refids defined within the <msi_item> element 504.
The <object_info> elements 602, are the most common type of elements contained beneath the <information> element 506 and are used to define type independent information about a particular decision support system (DSS) object within the item. Generally speaking, in a decision support system, there are several object types. The DSS system utilized with the present invention, includes such object types as Folders, Reports, Documents, Templates, etc. The <information> element for each object includes information that is common across all object types; for example, all Reports, Documents, Folders, etc. have a Name, a Description, a Creation Time, etc. All the information that is specific to a particular type in contained under the various content tags. For example, Reports have rows and columns, but Folders do not. So row- and column-related tags would appear in a Report, but not a Folder. The <object_info> element 602 typically references at least one attribute and further includes a plurality of possible subnodes relating to a plurality of object properties, as well as comments related to the particular object. A <properties> element 606 and associated <property> sub-elements 608 define particular properties and groups of properties of the particular DSS object being defined. Each of these properties are user-defined. In this case, the user who defines these properties is the person who builds the DSS application. For example, some applications may want to identify a folder as a “My Favorite Reports” folder. They would use these properties to indicate that a particular folder is the My Favorite Reports folder. Preferably, the values and information related to these properties are defined through a series of specific attributes including a property_set=attribute, a name=attribute, a data_type=attribute, and a value=attribute. In a similar manner, a <comments> element 610 and associated <comment> sub-elements 612 define any comments that are associated with a DSS object.
If a particular XML document wants to contain more information about the DSS object than is contained in the <object_info> element 602, then an additional <msi_item> element 614 is used beneath the particular <object_info> element 602. As shown in FIG. 6, the new <msi_item> element 614 appears below the <object_info> element 602. In addition, the <msi_item> element 614 may also appear in the main part of the surrounding item, that is, outside of the <object_info> element 602. The appearance of the second item distinguishes between object reference (e.g., id, name, description, etc.) and object containment (e.g., an item, which has the content or definition of another object.). If the second <msi_item> element 614 is itself a DSS object, then it also has an <object_info> element of its own (not shown) within its <information> sub-element.
Each <object_info> element 602 may include a plurality of attributes indicated the properties associated with the particular object. An abbreviation=attribute defines a string used as an abbreviated name for the object. A creation_time=attribute defines the time when the particular object was created in a local specific format. A description=attribute defines a string used as a description of the object. A dss_id=attribute defines an ObjectID string assigned to this object by the business intelligence server 308. Further, the dss_id=attribute is used to identify the DSS object in the data storage devices 310. In one preferred embodiment, the values assigned to the dss_id=attribute consist of 32 uppercase hexadecimal digits.
An id=attribute defines a local identification number assigned to the particular DSS object. This number is used to identify the object within the entire XML document (i.e., within the <msi_document> element 502. In a preferred embodiment, the value assigned to this attribute is a small positive integer of the form “R”+a unique number. An example would be “R45”. A modification_time=attribute defines the time the particular object was last modified in a local specific format. A name=attribute defines a string used as the name of the particular object. A type=attribute defines a number from the DSSObjectIfnfo_Type enumeration and is used to assign a general type to the particular object. A version=attribute defines a VersionID string used to identify a specific version of the object. It should be understood that, although a combination of all attributes may be found within a particular XML file, usually only a subset of the attributes are present in any particular file, in order to keep the file as small as possible.
Returning now to the <dependents> element 508 defined above, the <dependents> element is used to describe a dependency relationship between items listed in the <msi_document> 502. Every relationship listed under the <dependents> tag relates the various items located under the <information> 506 section described above. A <depend_item> sub-element 514 includes a refid=attribute, that defines a small unique (within the scope of the <msi_document>) identifier. This id is associated with an item described under the <information> tag. Additional <depend_item> sub-elements 516 a . . . 516 n may be utilized to describe additional relationships defined in the <information> element.
Returning now to the <ancestors> element 510 defined above, the <ancestors> element 510 is used to list items which have a parent-child relationship in at least one corresponding <ancestor> sub-element 518. Two examples of objects with a parent-child relationship are folders and elements. Since the relationships being expressed are identical, there is merit in having a uniform way of describing those relationships. Each ancestor is listed, along with its refid=attribute and collection of item specific tags, such as a <folder> tag. For instance, if the item is a folder, the ancestors will also be folders.
Referring now specifically to the <report_instance> element 512, FIG. 7 illustrates one embodiment of an XML sub-tree structure 700 formatted in accordance with the present invention. In particular, nodes beneath the <report_instance> element 512 typically include at least one <report_definition> element 702 which is used to define the report as a whole, and at least one <view> element 704 which contains a single view of the data being presented. Relating specifically to the <view> element 704, several subnodes are provided for specifically defining particular representations of the data. In particular, at least one <grid > element 706 is provided for defining the individual grids of data for display.
The <grid> element 706 further includes a plurality of subnodes such as a <layout> element 708, a <row_headers> element 710, a <column_headers> element 712, and a <page_headers> element 714. The <layout> element 708 includes information relating to the template units for each axis of the grid. In particular, a plurality of subnodes thereunder are provided for defining the various titles for the grid axes, such as a <row_titles> element 716, a <column_titles> element 718, and a <page_titles> element 720. Each of the elements 716-720 include <title> elements 722 thereunder corresponding to a template unit for the grid.
Relating to the <row_headers> element 710, each element includes a <row> sub-element 724 for each row in the grid, where a row is simply a list of header cells followed by value cells. The <column_headers> element 712 includes <column_header> elements 726 for each column in the grid. Also, the <page_headers> element 714 includes the page axis information for the particular grid of data. Further, each <row> element 724 and <column_header> element 726 also includes at least one <header> element 730 defining the actual contents of the individual header cells in the grid. Also, a <form_value> sub-element 732 is found under each <header> element to define the form of the cell value (e.g., string, number, date, URL, image, etc.) Additionally, <row> elements 724 may also include <metric_value> and <subtotal_value> sub-elements 734 and 736 for defining the type of data which appears within the particular row.
Referring now to FIG. 8, there is shown example of a structured XML document constructed in accordance with the present invention. The Example of FIG. 8 primarily illustrates an XML representation for a Folder object, defined in accordance with the present invention. Initially, the document indicates that it refers to 13 items. The main item is a Folder (object type #8) called “Web Demo,” but there are also 4 other Folders, 7 Reports (object type #3), and one more Folder. The Web Demo folder is nested within a recursive nest of folders, as described by the <ancestor> tags and having the path of \CASTOR_DEMO1\App Objects\TESTER\Reports. Further, this Web Demo folder contains 7 reports beginning with “1: Region Dept (Row) and Sales (Column)” and ending with “7: Big Report”. Finally, this Web Demo folder also contains another folder called “Included Folder”. Using this XML representation, an application such as a web application could present the contents of the folder to a user, who might select one of the reports to run, or who might choose to explore a folder higher or lower in the hierarchy of folders.
By providing a format for XML interaction between the network server computer system 306 and the business intelligence server computer system 308, the present invention enables increased functionality to the overall system by provide a structure upon which additional applications may easily be added. In addition, XML interchange requires reduced memory and processor. Further, the use of a uniform XML standard in accordance with the present invention enables data to be more easily transmitted or otherwise broadcast through services such as the Narrowcaster™ platform or Telecaster™ service sold by MicroStrategy Incorporated and described briefly above.
The present invention is not to be limited in scope by the specific embodiments described herein. Indeed, various modifications of the present invention, in addition to those described herein, will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the foregoing description and accompanying drawings. Thus, such modifications are intended to fall within the scope of the following appended claims. Further, although the present invention has been described herein in the context of a particular implementation in a particular environment for a particular purpose, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that its usefulness is not limited thereto and that the present invention can be beneficially implemented in any number of environments for any number of purposes. Accordingly, the claims set forth below should be construed in view of the full breath and spirit of the present invention as disclosed herein.
We claim:
1. A method for exchanging information over a computer network comprising the steps of:
receiving, into at least one network server computer system, a query request from at least one client computer system over a computer network;
formatting the query request into an extensible markup language query document according to an extensible markup language document application program interface, wherein the extensible markup language query document references a document type declaration, wherein the document type declaration is a set of rules defining the guidelines for the extensible markup language query document;
transmitting the extensible markup language query document to at least one business intelligence server computer system;
storing on the at least one business intelligence server computer system a copy of a document type declaration file including the referenced document type declaration;
receiving, into the at least one business intelligence server computer system, the extensible markup language query document;
retrieving information requested in the extensible markup language query document from at least one data storage device;
formatting the retrieved information into an extensible markup language results document;
transmitting the extensible markup language results document to the at least one network server computer system;
storing on the at least one network server computer system a copy of a document type declaration file including the referenced document type declaration;
formatting the extensible markup language results document into an browser-executable results document that references the document type declaration; and
transmitting the browser-executable results document to the at least one client computer system over the computer network.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one network server computer system comprises a cluster of network server computer systems configured to operate jointly.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one business intelligence server system comprises a cluster of business intelligence server computer systems configured to operate jointly.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer network is the Internet.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of formatting the query request into an extensible markup language query document according to an extensible markup language document application program interface further comprises the step of:
formatting the query request into a document having a plurality of nested elements, wherein the plurality of nested elements define relationships for information contained within the query.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
formatting the query request to include a root level element; and
formatting the query request to include at least one item level element nested within the root level element, wherein the at least one item level element relates to data requested within the query request.
formatting the query request to include at least one information level element nested within at least one of the at least one item level element, wherein the at least one information level elements relates to objects requested within the query request.
8. A system for exchanging information over a computer network comprising:
at least one network server computer system for receiving a query request from at least one client computer system over a computer network, the at least one network server computer system formatting the query request into an extensible markup language query document according to an extensible markup language document application program interface, formatting the extensible markup language results document into an browser-executable results document that references a document type declaration, wherein the document type declaration is a set of rules defining the guidelines for the extensible markup language query document, transmitting the browser-executable results document to the at least one client computer system over the computer network, and storing a copy of a document type declaration file including the referenced document type declaration; and;
at least one business intelligence server computer system for receiving the extensible markup language query document from the at least one network server computer system, formatting the information into an extensible markup language results document that references the document type declaration, storing a copy of a document type declaration file including the referenced document type declaration, and transmitting the extensible markup language results document to the at least one network server computer system;
at least one data storage device for storing information requested in the extensible markup language query document,
wherein the at least one business intelligence server computer system retrieves the information requested in the extensible markup language query document from the at least one data storage device.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one network server computer system comprises a cluster of network server computer systems configured to operate jointly.
10. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one business intelligence server system comprises a cluster of business intelligence server computer systems configured to 1 0 operate jointly.
11. The system of claim 8, wherein the computer network is the Internet.
12. The system of claim 8, wherein:
the at least one network server computer system formats the query request into a document having a plurality of nested elements, wherein the plurality of nested elements define relationships for information contained within the query.
13. The method of claim 8, wherein:
the at least one network server computer system formats the query request to include a root level element; and
the at least one network server computer system formats the query request to include at least one item level element nested within the root level element, wherein the item level element relates to data requested within the query request.
14. The system of claim 13, wherein:
the at least one network server computer system formats formatting the query request to include at least one information level element nested within at least one of the at least one item level element, wherein the at least one information level elements relates to objects requested within the query request.
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Owner name: MICROSTRATEGY, INCORPORATED, VIRGINIA
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Owner name: FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION, CALIFORNIA
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WO2011017215A1 - Dialysis systems, components, and methods - Google Patents
Dialysis systems, components, and methods Download PDF
WO2011017215A1
WO2011017215A1 PCT/US2010/043867 US2010043867W WO2011017215A1 WO 2011017215 A1 WO2011017215 A1 WO 2011017215A1 US 2010043867 W US2010043867 W US 2010043867W WO 2011017215 A1 WO2011017215 A1 WO 2011017215A1
WIPO (PCT)
dialysate
dialysis system
PCT/US2010/043867
Michael James Beiriger
Robert Dale Parks
Ryan Christopher Kaintz
Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc.
2010-07-30 Application filed by Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc. filed Critical Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc.
2011-02-10 Publication of WO2011017215A1 publication Critical patent/WO2011017215A1/en
A61M1/14—Dialysis systems; Artificial kidneys; Blood oxygenators; Reciprocating systems for treatment of body fluids, e.g. single needle systems for haemofiltration, pheris
A61M1/16—Dialysis systems; Artificial kidneys; Blood oxygenators; Reciprocating systems for treatment of body fluids, e.g. single needle systems for haemofiltration, pheris with membranes
A61M1/1694—Dialysis systems; Artificial kidneys; Blood oxygenators; Reciprocating systems for treatment of body fluids, e.g. single needle systems for haemofiltration, pheris with membranes with recirculating dialysing liquid
A61M1/1601—Control or regulation
A61M1/1603—Regulation parameters
A61M1/1605—Physical characteristics of the dialysate fluid
A61M1/1621—Constructional aspects thereof
A61M1/1629—Constructional aspects thereof with integral heat exchanger
A61M1/1696—Dialysis systems; Artificial kidneys; Blood oxygenators; Reciprocating systems for treatment of body fluids, e.g. single needle systems for haemofiltration, pheris with membranes with recirculating dialysing liquid with dialysate regeneration
A61M1/28—Peritoneal dialysis ; Other peritoneal treatment, e.g. oxygenation
A61M2205/12—General characteristics of the apparatus with interchangeable cassettes forming partially or totally the fluid circuit
A61M2205/33—Controlling, regulating or measuring
A61M2205/3317—Electromagnetic, inductive or dielectric measuring means
A61M2205/3324—PH measuring means
A61M2205/3331—Pressure; Flow
A61M2205/3334—Measuring or controlling the flow rate
A61M2205/3365—Rotational speed
A61M2205/3375—Acoustical, e.g. ultrasonic, measuring means
A61M2205/3379—Masses, volumes, levels of fluids in reservoirs, flow rates
A61M2205/3393—Masses, volumes, levels of fluids in reservoirs, flow rates by weighing the reservoir
A61M2205/50—General characteristics of the apparatus with microprocessors or computers
A dialysis system including a housing, a dialysate pump disposed in the housing, and a dialysate line configured to be operatively connected to the dialysate pump such that the dialysate pump can pump dialysate through the dialysate line when the dialysate line is in fluid communication with a dialysate source.
DIALYSIS SYSTEMS. COMPONENTS. AND METHODS
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Application Serial No. 61/231,220, filed on August 4, 2009. TECHNICAL FIELD
This disclosure relates to dialysis systems, components, and methods.
Dialysis is a treatment used to support a patient with insufficient renal function. The two principal dialysis methods are hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.
During hemodialysis ("HD"), the patient's blood is passed through a dialyzer of a dialysis machine while also passing a dialysis solution or dialysate through the dialyzer. A semi-permeable membrane in the dialyzer separates the blood from the dialysate within the dialyzer and allows diffusion and osmosis exchanges to take place between the dialysate and the blood stream. These exchanges across the membrane result in the removal of waste products, including solutes like urea and creatinine, from the blood. These exchanges also regulate the levels of other substances, such as sodium and water, in the blood. In this way, the dialysis machine acts as an artificial kidney for cleansing the blood.
During peritoneal dialysis ("PD"), a patient's peritoneal cavity is periodically infused with sterile aqueous solution, referred to as PD solution or dialysate. The membranous lining of the patient's peritoneum acts as a natural semi-permeable membrane that allows diffusion and osmosis exchanges to take place between the solution and the blood stream. These exchanges across the patient's peritoneum result in the removal waste products, including solutes like urea and creatinine, from the blood, and regulate the levels of other substances, such as sodium and water, in the blood.
Many PD machines are designed to automatically infuse, dwell, and drain dialysate to and from the patient's peritoneal cavity. The treatment typically lasts for several hours, often beginning with an initial drain cycle to empty the peritoneal cavity of used or spent dialysate. The sequence then proceeds through the succession of fill, dwell, and drain phases that follow one after the other. Each phase is called a cycle.
In one aspect of the invention, a dialysis system includes a housing and a dialysate pump disposed in the housing. The dialysate pump is positioned above a cavity defined by the housing. The system also includes a slidable drawer at least partially disposed within the cavity of the housing. The drawer is connected to the housing in a manner such that when the drawer is moved to a closed position within the cavity, a member of the drawer is lifted towards the dialysate pump positioned above the cavity. The system further includes a dialysate line connected to the member of the drawer and configured to be operatively connected to the dialysate pump when the drawer is moved to the closed position and the member of the drawer is lifted such that the dialysate pump can pump dialysate through the dialysate line when the dialysate line is in fluid communication with a dialysate source.
In another aspect of the invention, a dialysis system includes a sorbent device, a dialysate reservoir fluidly connected to the sorbent device and arranged to collect dialysate exiting the sorbent device, a first pump in fluid communication with the sorbent device, and a second pump in fluid communication with the dialysate reservoir. The first pump is positioned upstream of the sorbent device and is configured to introduce dialysate into the sorbent device. The second pump is positioned
downstream of the sorbent device and is configured to draw dialysate out of the dialysate reservoir.
In an additional aspect of the invention, a hemodialysis system includes a first module including a blood pump, a blood line operatively connected to the blood pump such that the blood pump can pump blood through the blood line when the blood line is in fluid communication with a blood source, a dialyzer fluidly connected to the blood line, a second module that is separate from the first module and includes a dialysate pump, and a dialysate line operatively connected to the dialysate pump such that the dialysate pump can pump dialysate through the dialysate line when the dialysate line is in fluid communication with a dialysate source. The dialysate line is fluidly connected to the dialyzer. Implementations can include one or more of the following features.
In certain implementations, the dialysate line is secured to a dialysate component carrier that is connected to the member of the drawer.
In some implementations, the dialysate component carrier snaps into the drawer. In certain implementations, the dialysate line extends across an aperture formed by the dialysate component carrier.
In some implementations, the aperture is configured to receive a pump of the second module therein.
In certain implementations, the dialysate component carrier defines an aperture overlying the dialysate line.
In some implementations, the dialysis system further includes a heater arranged to be aligned with the aperture such that heat emitted from the heater warms dialysate passing through the dialysate line.
In certain implementations, the drawer includes a mechanical lifting mechanism operatively secured to the member of the drawer.
In some implementations, the dialysis system further includes a blood line operatively connected to a blood pump such that the blood pump can pump blood through the blood line.
In certain implementations, the system further includes a dialyzer to which the dialysate line and the blood line are fluidly connected.
In some implementations, the dialysis system is a hemodialysis system.
In certain implementations, the sorbent device is absorbent.
In some implementations, the dialysate reservoir is vented to atmosphere.
In certain implementations, the second pump is adapted to draw fluid from the dialysate reservoir at substantially the same rate that the first pump introduces dialysate into the sorbent device.
In some implementations, the dialysis system further includes a connector line that fluidly connects the sorbent device to the dialysate reservoir.
In certain implementations, one end of the connector line is connected to a top region of the sorbent device, and another end of the connector line is connected to a top region of the dialysate reservoir.
In some implementations, the sorbent device and the dialysate reservoir sit on a weight scale. In certain implementations, the dialysis system further includes a
microprocessor connected to the scale and the first and second pumps.
In some implementations, the microprocessor is adapted to control the first and second pumps in a manner to maintain a substantially constant weight on the scale.
In certain implementations, the first and second modules are releasably secured to one another.
In some implementations, the first module is positioned on top of the second module.
In certain implementations, the first module comprises at least one weight scale. In some implementations, the at least one weight scale is configured to be stored in a cavity formed in the first module.
In certain implementations, the at least one weight scale is pivotably connected to the side of the first module.
In some implementations, the dialysis system further includes a dialysate component carrier to which the dialysate line is secured.
In certain implementations, the dialysate line extends across an aperture formed by the dialysate component carrier.
Implementations can include one or more of the following advantages.
In some implementations, the dialysate component carrier is positioned below the pumps and valves of the dialysis machine. As a result, in the event of a leak in any of the components secured to the dialysate component carrier, the dialysate is prevented from contacting the pumps and valves of the dialysis machine. Similarly, in certain implementations, the dialysate component carrier is contained within a compartment (e.g., a drawer) of the dialysis machine such that, in the event of a leak, the dialysate can be contained within the compartment.
In certain implementations, a drawer in which the dialysate component carrier is disposed is configured to automatically lift the dialysate component carrier as the drawer is closed. As a result, the components secured to the dialysate component carrier can be engaged with corresponding instruments (e.g., pumps, sensors, etc.) of the dialysis machine in a single step taken by the user (i.e., by shutting the drawer). In some implementations, the system includes a dialysate reservoir that is positioned downstream of the sorbent device and in fluid communication with the sorbent device. The dialysate reservoir contains a sufficient volume of dialysate to meet the demands of the dialysis machine. For example, in some cases, the sorbent device absorbs some of the dialysate that is introduced into the sorbent device via a dialysate inlet line. As a result, the amount of dialysate exiting the sorbent device is less than the amount of dialysate entering the sorbent device. By drawing dialysate into a dialysate outlet line from the dialysate reservoir rather than directly from the sorbent device, a substantially constant volumetric flow rate can be achieved in the dialysate inlet and outlet lines. Similarly, if the dialysate absorbed by the sorbent device is released and introduced back into the dialysate circuit such that the amount of dialysate exiting the sorbent device exceeds the demand of the dialysis machine, the excess dialysate can be retained within the dialysate reservoir. By removing that excess dialysate from the circuit and storing it in the dialysate reservoir, a substantially constant volumetric flow rate can be maintained in the dialysate inlet and outlet lines.
Other aspects, features, and advantages will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a portable hemodialysis system.
Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 with a door open to expose a blood component carrier and with a drawer open to expose a dialysate component carrier.
Fig. 3 is a front view of the blood component carrier of the portable
hemodialysis system of Fig. 1.
Fig. 4 is a back view of the blood component carrier of the portable
Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 with the door open and the blood component carrier removed.
Figs. 6 and 7 are cut-away views of a portion of the system that includes retractable scales.
Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the dialysate component carrier of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1. Fig. 9 is a plan view of the dialysate component carrier of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1
Fig. 10 is a cut-away view of a portion of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 with the drawer open and various internal components of the hemodialysis system exposed.
Figs. HA and HB are schematics of fluid flow through the portable
hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 during set up.
Figs. 12A and 12B are schematics of fluid flow through the portable
hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 during hemodialysis.
Fig. 13 is a perspective view of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 configured for transport.
Fig. 14 is a perspective view of another type of blood component carrier that can be used in the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1.
Fig. 15 is a perspective view of a hemodialysis system with a blood component carrier that is fully contained within a carrier compartment of a hemodialysis machine. Foldable weight scales extend from opposite sides of the hemodialysis machine.
Fig. 16 is a right, perspective view of the hemodialysis system of Fig. 15 in a configuration for transport or storage.
Fig. 17 is a left, perspective view of the hemodialysis system of Fig. 15 in a configuration for transport or storage.
Fig. 18 is a side schematic view of the bottom module of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1, with the drawer of the module fully open such that a scissor mechanism of the drawer is in a lowered position.
Fig. 19 is a side schematic view of the bottom module of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1, with the drawer of the module fully closed such that the scissor mechanism of the drawer is in a raised position.
Figs. 20 and 21 are top schematic views of the drawer of the bottom module of the portable hemodialysis system of Fig. 1 in partially closed and fully closed positions, respectively.
FIG. 22 is a perspective view of a portable hemodialysis system including a hemodialysis machine with a display that can be used as a graphical user interface exposed on its front face. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Referring to Fig. 1, a portable hemodialysis system 100 includes a hemodialysis machine 102 having a top module 104 that rests on a bottom module 106. A blood component carrier 108 is secured between a door 110 and a front face 112 of the top module 104. Various blood lines and other blood components, including a dialyzer 114, are secured to the blood component carrier 108. During use, arterial and venous patient lines 116, 118 are connected to a patient to allow blood to flow through a blood circuit formed by the various blood lines, the dialyzer 114, and various other components connected to the blood component carrier 108. A dialysate component carrier 120 (shown in Fig. 2) is contained within a drawer 122 of the bottom module 106. Various dialysate lines and other dialysate components are connected to the dialysate component carrier 120. The dialysate lines are connected to, among other components, the dialyzer 114, a sorbent device 124, and a dialysate reservoir 126. The sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 are connected to one another by a connector line 128. During use, dialysate is circulated through a dialysate circuit formed by the dialysate lines, the dialyzer 114, the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, and various other components of the dialysate component carrier 120. As a result, the dialysate passes through the dialyzer 114 along with the blood. The blood and dialysate passing through the dialyzer 114 are separated from one another by a permeable structure (e.g., a permeable membrane and/or permeable microtubes). As a result of this arrangement, toxins are removed from the blood and collected in the dialysate as the blood and dialysate pass through the dialyzer 114. The filtered blood exiting the dialyzer 114 is returned to the patient. The dialysate that exits the dialyzer 114 includes toxins removed from the blood and is commonly referred to as "spent dialysate." The spent dialysate is routed from the dialyzer 114 to the sorbent device 124 where the toxins, including urea, are stripped from the spent dialysate. The resulting liquid exiting the sorbent device 124 (referred to herein as "recycled dialysate") is then circulated back through the dialysate circuit and re-used to filter blood of the patient.
Fig. 2 illustrates the hemodialysis system 100 with the door 110 of the top module 104 and the drawer 122 of the bottom module 106 open to expose the blood component carrier 108 and the dialysate component carrier 120. The blood component carrier 108 can be secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104 using any of various attachment techniques. In some implementations, the blood component carrier 108 is secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104 by inserting projections extending from a rear surface of a body 130 of the blood component carrier 108 into mating recesses formed in the top module 104 of the hemodialysis machine 102. The blood component carrier 108 can alternatively or additionally be secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104 using other types of mechanical connectors (e.g., clips, clamps, screws, etc.). In addition, the door 110 includes an inflatable pad that is inflated after closing the door 110 to compress the blood component carrier 108 and its components between the door 110 and the front face 112 of the top module 104. The dialysate component carrier 120 sits within a recess formed by the drawer 122. As discussed below, when the drawer 122 is closed, the dialysate component carrier 120 and its components are mechanically lifted to compress the dialysate component carrier 120 and its components against an instrument bearing horizontal surface of the top module 104. As discussed in greater detail below, by compressing the blood component carrier 108 and the dialysate component carrier 120 against surfaces of the top and bottom modules 104 and 106, respectively, certain components secured to the carriers 108, 120 are brought into operative engagement with associated devices (e.g., pumps, sensors, etc.) on the surfaces of the modules 104, 106.
As shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the blood component carrier 108 holds various different blood components. The molded body 130 of the blood component carrier 108 forms a series of apertures and recesses for capturing and retaining the various blood lines and components. The body 130 includes a recessed portion (shown on the left side of Fig. 3 and the right side of Fig. 4) and a flat portion (shown on the right side of Fig. 3 and the left side of Fig. 4). The recessed portion is configured to retain most of the blood components while the flat portion is configured to hold the dialyzer 114.
Still referring to Figs. 3 and 4, an air release chamber 132 is snapped into an aperture formed in the body 130 of the carrier 108. In some implementations, projections from the body 130 extend part way around the air release chamber 132 to retain the air release chamber 132 securely in the carrier. The air release chamber 132 allows gas, such as air, to escape from blood in the blood circuit and out of the chamber through a vent positioned at the top of the chamber. Examples of suitable air release chambers are described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0106198 and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009-0071911, which are incorporated by reference herein. Pressure sensor capsules 134, 136 are similarly positioned in apertures formed in the body 130 of the carrier 108. A suitable capsule can include a thin membrane on one side (i.e., on the side that faces the front face 112 of the top module 104 during use) through which pressure in the capsule can be determined by a pressure sensor (e.g., a pressure transducer) on the front face 112 of the top module 104 during use. The carrier 108 can be arranged so that the thin membrane is placed in close proximity to or in contact with the pressure sensor on the front face 112 of the top module 104 during use. Suitable capsules are described further in U.S. Patent No. 5,614,677, "Diaphragm gage for measuring the pressure of a fluid," which is incorporated herein by reference.
The arterial patient line 116 is contained within a recess formed in the body 130 of the blood component carrier 108. One end of the arterial patient line 116 is fluidly connected to an artery of a patient during treatment. The arterial patient line 116 is also fluidly connected to the capsule 134. The capsule 134 allows pressure in the arterial patient line 116 to be sensed by a mating pressure sensor on the front face 112 of the top module 104 of the hemodialysis machine 102 during treatment. The arterial patient line 116 extends along the recess to a first pump line adaptor 138, which connects the arterial patient line 116 to one end of a U-shaped pump line 140. The other end of the pump line 140 is connected to a second pump line adaptor 142, which is in fluid connection with a dialyzer inlet line 144. The dialyzer inlet line 144 is connected via a tube adaptor to a blood entry port 146 of the dialyzer 114. A blood exit port 148 of the dialyzer 114 is connected to another tube adaptor, which connects the dialyzer 114 to a dialyzer outlet line 150. The capsule 136 is positioned along the dialyzer outlet line 150, upstream of the air release chamber 132. The air release chamber 132 includes both an entry port and an exit port along its bottom surface. The capsule 136 is fluidly connected to the entry port. The venous patient line 118 extends from the air release chamber 132 and is fluidly connected to a vein of a patient during treatment.
Still referring to Figs. 3 and 4, in addition to the blood lines forming the main blood circuit described above, a priming line 152 and a drug line 154 are connected to the blood circuit for introducing priming solution, such as saline, and drugs, such as heparin, into the blood circuit. The priming line 152 is connected to the first pump line adaptor 138, and the drug line 154 is connected to the second pump line adaptor 142.
The various blood lines, priming line 152, and drug line 154 can be formed of any of various different medical grade materials. Examples of such materials include PVC, polyethylene, polypropylene, silicone, polyurethane, high density polyethylene, nylon, ABS, acrylic, isoplast, polyisoprene, and polycarbonate. In some
implementations, the blood component carrier body 130 is formed of PVC,
polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and/or high density polyethylene. The various blood lines, priming line 152, and drug line 154 are typically retained within recessed channels formed in the carrier body 130. The recessed channels can have a diameter equal to or slightly less than the diameters of the lines so that the lines are retained within the channels with a friction fit. Alternatively or additionally, any of various other techniques can be used to secure the lines to the carrier body 130. For example, mechanical attachment devices (e.g., clips or clamps) can be attached to the carrier body 130 and used to retain the lines. As another example, the lines can be adhered to or thermally bonded to the carrier body 130.
Suitable blood component carriers and their related components are described in greater detail in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0101566, entitled "Dialysis Systems and Related Components," which is incorporated by reference herein.
Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the hemodialysis system 100 with the blood component carrier 108 and its blood lines and components removed from the top module 104. As shown in Fig. 5, a blood pump 156 extends from the front face 112 of the top module 104. The blood pump 156 is a peristaltic pump and is arranged so that the U-shaped pump line 140 extending laterally from the blood component carrier 108 is positioned around the peristaltic pump when the blood component carrier 108 is secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104. The top module 104 also includes pressure sensors (e.g., pressure transducers) 158, 160 that align with the pressure sensor capsules 134, 136 of the blood component carrier 108 when the blood component carrier 108 is secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104. The pressure sensors 158, 160 are adapted to measure the pressure of blood flowing through the capsules 134, 136. In addition, the top module 104 includes a level detector 162 that aligns with the air release chamber 132 when the blood component carrier 108 is secured to the front face 112 of the top module 104. The level detector 162 is adapted to detect the level of blood within the air release chamber 132. The level detector 162 can, for example, include an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver for determining the level of blood in the air release chamber 132. A drug pump 164 also extends from the front face 112 of the top module 104. The drug pump 164 is a peristaltic pump with an external housing. During use, the drug line 154 extending from the blood component carrier 108 can be connected to a heparin vial 166 (shown in Figs. 1 and 2) and operatively positioned within the housing of the drug pump 164 in a manner such that rolling members of the drug pump 164 operatively engage the drug line 154. The drug pump 164 can then be activated to inject heparin into the blood passing through the blood lines (i.e., the pump line 140) of the blood component carrier 108.
Referring again to Fig. 1, load cell scales 168, 170 extend from opposite sides of the top module 104. The sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 sit on the scale 168 extending from one side of the module 104, and a dilution water container 172 and a sodium chloride solution container 174 sit on the scale 170 extending from the opposite side of the top module 104. As described in greater detail below, the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 are fluidly connected to dialysate lines and components of the dialysate component carrier 120 within the drawer 122 of the bottom module 106. During use, the contents of the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 are delivered to and pass through the dialysate lines and various other components secured to the dialysate component carrier 120. As the volumes of liquid within the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 change, the load applied to the load cell scales 168, 170 also changes, causing the scales 168, 170 to move slightly. The load cell scales 168, 170 include strain gauges that can detect slight movement of the scales 168, 170. A change in liquid volume can thus be determined using the strain gauge. Monitoring the volumes of liquid contained in the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 can help to ensure that desired amounts of those liquids are delivered to the dialysate within the dialysate circuit.
Figs. 6 and 7 are cut-away views of the top module 104 with the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 removed from the scales 168, 170. As shown in Figs. 6 and 7, the scales 168, 170, when not in use, can be pushed into a cavity formed by the top module 104. The scales 168, 170 are secured to the bottom surface of the top module 104 via slidable tracks 176, 178. This arrangement permits the scales 168, 170 to be extended from the sides of the top module 104 for use and to be pushed into a cavity formed in the top module 104 for storage. By pushing the scales 168, 170 into the cavity for storage, the overall footprint of the system 100 can be reduced, making it easier to transport the system 100.
Still referring to Figs. 6 and 7, the scales 168, 170 include recessed regions that are sized and shaped to retain the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174. A recess 179 for retaining the sorbent device 124 also includes a depression 181 in which a dialysate line extending from the dialysate component carrier 120 can be disposed to connect the fluid line to a fluid fitting at the bottom of the sorbent device 124.
Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the dialysate component carrier 120, and Fig. 9 is a top, plan view of the dialysate component carrier 120. As shown in Figs. 2, 8, and 9, the dialysate component carrier 120 holds various different dialysate components. The carrier has a molded body 180, which includes apertures and recesses for capturing and retaining the various dialysate lines and components.
Five pump lines (i.e., a dialyzer inlet pump line 182, a dialyzer outlet pump line 184, an ultrafiltrate pump line 186, a dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump line 188, and an infusate pump line 189) are positioned within apertures 190, 192, 194, 195 formed in the carrier body 180. Connectors 196, which are attached to opposite ends of each of the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189, are secured to the carrier body 180. In particular, the connectors 196 are snapped into mating recesses formed in the carrier body 180. The recesses are sized to securely retain the connectors 196 when they are snapped into the recesses. Alternatively or additionally, other attachment techniques, such as clipping, clamping, adhering, and/or thermal bonding, can be used to secure the connectors 196 to the carrier body 180. The apertures 190, 192, 194, 195 across which the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 extend are sized and shaped to receive pumps positioned in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 during use, as discussed below. When those pumps are received within the apertures 190, 192, 194, 195, the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 engage the pumps and conform to the surfaces of the pumps.
In addition to the apertures 190, 192, 194, 195, the carrier body 180 includes apertures 198, 199, 200, and 202 that are arranged to permit a conductivity meter, a blood leak detector, a temperature sensor, and a heater, respectively, in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine to access fluid lines underlying those apertures, as will be discussed in greater detail below.
A pressure sensor capsule 204 is positioned in an aperture formed in the body 180 of the carrier 120. A suitable capsule can include a thin membrane on one side through which pressure in the capsule 204 can be determined by a pressure sensor (e.g., a pressure transducer) in the bottom module 106 during use. The dialysate component carrier can, for example, be arranged so that the thin membrane is placed in close proximity to or in contact with the pressure sensor in the bottom module 106. Suitable capsules are described further in U.S. Patent No. 5,614,677, entitled "Diaphragm gage for measuring the pressure of a fluid," which is incorporated herein by reference.
An ammonium sensor capsule 206 is also secured within an aperture formed in the carrier body 180. The ammonium sensor capsule 206 is arranged to cooperate with an ammonium sensor located in the bottom module 106.
Still referring to Figs. 2, 8, and 9, one end of a dialyzer outlet line 208 is connected to a dialysate outlet port 210 (shown in Fig. 4) of the dialyzer 114 during use. The opposite end of the dialyzer outlet line 208 is connected to a T-connector 212. The T-connector 212 includes one port connected to a line leading to the dialyzer outlet pump line 184. The line leading to the dialyzer outlet pump line 184 is connected to the connector 196 at one end of the dialyzer outlet pump line 184. The connector 196 at the opposite end of the dialyzer outlet pump line 184 is connected to a line that leads to another T-connector 214. One of the ports of the T-connector 214 is connected to a sorbent device inlet line 216. The sorbent device inlet line 216 is fluidly connected to a fluid fitting at the bottom of the sorbent device 124 during use. As discussed above, the sorbent device 124 is fluidly connected to the dialysate reservoir 126 by the connector line 128 such that dialysate can flow from the sorbent device 124 to the dialysate reservoir 126 during treatment. One end of a dialysate reservoir outlet line 220 is in fluid communication with the dialysate reservoir 126 during use. The opposite end of the dialysate reservoir outlet line 220 is connected to one of the connectors 196 of the dialyzer inlet pump line 182, and a dialyzer inlet line 222 is connected to the connector 196 at the opposite end of the dialyzer inlet pump line 182. The dialyzer inlet line 222 is fluidly connected to the pressure sensor capsule 204 and the ammonium sensor capsule 206 and leads back to the dialyzer 114 where it is connected to a dialysate entry port 224 (shown in Fig. 4) of the dialyzer 114.
In addition to the dialysate lines described above, which form the main dialysate circuit, additional fluid lines are secured to the carrier body 180 and fluidly connected to the main dialysate circuit to permit fluids to be added and removed from the main dialysate circuit. Still referring to Figs. 2, 8, and 9, one end of a fill/drain line 226 is connected to a fill/drain container 228. The other end of the fill/drain line 226 is connected to one of the connectors 196 of the ultrafiltrate pump line 186. The connector 196 at the opposite end of the ultrafiltrate pump line 186 is connected to a line leading back to the T-connector 212. As discussed below, the fill/drain line 226 permits dialysate to be transferred from the fill/drain container 228 during fill phases of operation and permits fluid to be removed from the main dialysate circuit and transferred to the fill/drain container 228 during drain phases of operation.
One end of a dilution water / sodium chloride outlet solution line 230 is fluidly connected via a three-way valve 232 to a dilution water outlet line 229 in the dilution water container 172 and to a sodium chloride solution outlet line 231 in the sodium chloride solution container 174 during use. The opposite end of the dilution water / sodium chloride solution outlet line 230 is connected to one of the connectors 196 of the dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump line 188. A dilution water / sodium chloride solution injection line 234 is connected to the connector 196 at the opposite end of the pump line 188. The dilution water / sodium chloride injection line 234 is connected at its opposite end to the T-connector 214 arranged along the sorbent device inlet line 216. This arrangement allows dilution water and sodium chloride solution to be injected into the dialysate flowing through the sorbent device inlet line 216 during treatment.
Still referring to Figs. 2, 8, and 9, an infusate jar 233 is fluidly connected via an infusate injection line 235 to the dialysate circuit. One end of the infusate injection line 235 is inserted into the infusate jar 233 and the other end of the infusate injection line 235 is connected to one of the connectors 196 of the infusate pump line 189. An infusate connector line 239 is connected to the other connector 196 of the infusate pump line 189. The infusate connector line 239 is connected at its opposite end to a T- connector 241, which is positioned along the dialyzer inlet line 222. As a result of this arrangement, the infusate connector line 239 provides fluid communication between the infusate pump line 189 and the dialyzer inlet line 222.
The infusate jar 233, as shown in Fig. 2, sits on a load cell scale 237 connected to the front face 112 of the top module 104 of the hemodialysis machine 102. The load cell scale 237 is adapted to detect mass change resulting from a change of volume of infusate solution within the infusate jar 233.
As discussed above, in addition to the apertures 190, 192, 194, 195 in which the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 are positioned, the carrier body 180 includes apertures 198, 199, 200 that overly portions of the dialyzer inlet line 222, the dialyzer outlet line 208, and the sorbent device inlet line 216, respectively. These apertures 198, 199, 200 expose the lines 222, 208, 216 from the top side of the carrier 120. As discussed below, this arrangement allows sensors positioned in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 to access the lines during treatment. The large aperture 202 exposes portions of each of the dialyzer outlet line 208, the dialyzer inlet line 222, and the dilution water / sodium chloride solution injection line 234 from a top side of the carrier 120. As described below, this aperture 202 permits heat to be applied to those lines from a heater positioned in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 during treatment in order to maintain the fluids passing therethrough within an acceptable temperature range.
The dialysate lines discussed above can be formed of any of various different medical grade materials. Examples of such materials include PVC, polyethylene, polypropylene, silicone, polyurethane, high density polyethylene, nylon, ABS, acrylic, isoplast, polyisoprene, and polycarbonate. In some implementations, the dialysate carrier body 180 is formed of PVC, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and/or high density polyethylene. The various dialysate lines and components described above can be secured to the dialysate carrier body 180 using any of the techniques discussed above for securing the blood lines and components to the blood component carrier body 130.
As shown in Fig. 2, the dialysate component carrier 120, sits within a recess of the drawer 122. The dialysate component carrier 120 is secured to the drawer 122 in a manner such that the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 align with associated pumps in the bottom module 106 when the drawer 122 is pushed fully into the drawer cavity of the bottom module 106 and engaged. The drawer 122 includes locating pins that cooperate with slots 236 (shown in Figs. 8 and 9) formed in the dialysate component carrier body 180 to maintain the dialysate component carrier 120 in a desired position relative to the drawer 122. In particular, the locating pins engage the back edge of the carrier body 180 that forms the slots 236 while the front edge of the carrier body 180 engages a front wall of the drawer 122. As a result, the locating pins limit the movement of the dialysate component carrier 120 within the drawer 122 and thus help to ensure that the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189, the sensor capsules 204, 206, and the apertures 198, 199, 200, 202 of the dialysate component carrier 120 align with their associated instruments in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 during treatment.
Fig. 10 is a cut away view of the bottom module 106, which shows a dialyzer outlet pump 238, a dialyzer inlet pump 240, an ultrafiltrate pump 242, a dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244, an infusate pump 245, a conductivity meter 246, an ammonium sensor 248, a blood leak detector 250, a pressure sensor 252, a temperature sensor 254, and a heater 256 positioned above the drawer cavity of the bottom module 106. Each of the pumps 238, 240, 242, 244 is a peristaltic pump that includes multiple rolling members positioned about the circumference of a rotatable frame. When the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 are pressed against the rolling members of the pumps 238, 240, 242, 244, 245, the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 deflect into recesses or raceways 257 formed along the bottom surface of the drawer 122. As the pump frames are rotated, the rolling members apply pressure to the associated pump lines and force fluid through the pump lines.
The conductivity meter 246, the ammonium sensor 248, the blood leak detector 250, the pressure sensor 252, and the temperature sensor 254 can be any of various devices capable of detecting the conductivity, ammonium level, blood, pressure, and temperature, respectively, of fluid passing through the lines associated with those instruments.
The heater 256 is capable of raising the temperature of the fluid flowing through the dialyzer outlet line 208, the dialyzer inlet line 222, and the dilution water / sodium chloride solution injection line 234 to a desired temperature (e.g., about body temperature) and then maintaining the flowing fluid within an acceptable temperature range. Any of various different types of heaters that are sufficiently compact to fit within the bottom module 106 of the dialysis can be used. In some implementations, the heater is a resistance heater. In certain implementations, the heater is an inductance heater. Any of various other types of heaters can alternatively or additionally be used.
The hemodialysis machine 102 also includes a microprocessor to which the pumps 238, 240, 242, 244, 245, the three-way valve 232, the weight scales 168, 170, 237, the sensors 248, 250, 252, 254, and the heater 256 are connected. These instruments can be connected to the microprocessor in any manner that permits signals to be transmitted from the instruments to the microprocessor and vice versa. In some implementations, electrical wiring is used to connect the microprocessor to the instruments. Wireless connections can alternatively or additionally be used. As described below, the microprocessor can control the pumps 238, 240, 242, 244, 245, the valve 232, and the heater 256 based on information received from the scales 168, 170, 237 and the sensors 246, 248, 250, 252, 254.
Referring to Figs. 18 and 19, which show the drawer 122 of the bottom module 106 in a fully open and fully closed position, respectively, the drawer 122 includes a scissor mechanism 502 on which a platen 504 is situated. The dialysate component carrier 120 sits on top of the platen 504. When the drawer 122 is pushed into the cavity of the bottom module 106, the platen 504 and the dialysate component carrier 120 are automatically raised by the scissor mechanism 502 such that the dialysate components and dialysate lines of the carrier 120 engage associated instruments inside the dialysis machine. Although figures 18 and 19 show only the left scissor mechanism 502 of the drawer 122, it should be understood that the drawer 122 also includes a right scissor mechanism. Because the structure and functionality of the left and right scissor mechanisms are substantially the same, only the left scissor mechanism 502 will be described in detail below.
The scissor mechanism 502 includes two elongate members 506, 508 that are pinned together in a central region of each elongate member such that the elongate members 506, 508 can rotate relative to one another. The rear end region of the elongate member 506 (i.e., the end region of the elongate member 506 on the left in Figs. 18 and 19) is pinned to a base 510 of the drawer 122, and the rear end region of the elongate member 508 (i.e., the end region of the elongate member 508 on the left in Figs. 18 and 19) is pinned to the platen 504 of the drawer 122 on which the dialysate component carrier 120 rests. Due to this arrangement, the rear end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 are able to pivot relative to the base 510 and the platen 504, but the rear end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 are not allowed to move translationally (i.e., in the direction of movement of the drawer as it is opened and closed) relative to the base 510 and the platen 504. The front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 (i.e., the end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 on the right in Figs. 18 and 19) are also pinned to the base 510 and the platen 504, respectively. The portions of the base 510 and the platen 504 to which the front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 are pinned define slots 512, 514 (shown in figure 19) in which the pins are allowed to move translationally. When the front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 are positioned at the front ends of the slots 512, 514, as shown in Fig. 18, the scissor mechanism 502 is in a lowered position.
When the front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 are positioned at the rear ends of the slots 512, 514, as shown in Fig. 19, the scissor mechanism 502 is in a raised position. Because the base 510 of the drawer 122 is not free to move in the vertical direction but the platen 504 is free to move in the vertical direction, the platen 504 is raised and lowered as the scissor mechanism 502 is raised and lowered. Thus, by controlling the translational position of the front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508, the height of the platen 504 in the dialysate component carrier 120 can be controlled.
A pull plate 516 is secured to the pin that rides within the slot 512 and secures the elongate member 508 to the base 510 of the drawer 122. The pull plate 516 is similarly secured to a pin that rides within a slot formed in the right-hand side of the base of the drawer and secures an elongate member of the right scissor mechanism to the base of the drawer. The pull plate 516 extends rearward toward the rear end of the drawer 122, and the rear end region of the pull plate 516 includes a bearing pin 518 extending therefrom. The bearing pin 518 is located at the rear of the dialysate drawer 122 and is configured to engage a cam 520 positioned near the rear of the dialysis machine when the drawer is closed. The cam 520 is secured to a cam drive (e.g. a worm drive) 522. The cam drive 522 is configured to rotate the cam 520. When the bearing pin 518 of the pull plate 516 is engaged with the cam 520 and the cam 520 is rotated by the cam drive 522, the rotation of the cam 520 moves of the pull plate 516 in a translational direction. Depending on the direction of rotation of the cam 520, the pull plate 516 can be moved in a rearward or frontward direction. Multiple projections 524 and alignment pins 526 extend downward from the top surface of the bottom module 106 forming the drawer cavity. The projections 524 are configured to keep the dialysate component carrier 128 a desired distance away from the top surface of the bottom module 106 when the scissor mechanism 502 is raised, as shown in Fig. 19. The projections 524 can, for example, engage the top surface of the platen 504 as the platen 504 is raised by the scissor mechanism 502. Alternatively or additionally, the projections 524 can engage the dialysate component carrier itself to maintain the dialysate component carrier 120 a desired distance away from the top surface of the bottom module 106.
The alignment pins 526 are conical shaped and configured to mate with recesses formed in the top surface of the platen 504 when the platen 504 and the dialysate component carrier 120 are raised. The alignment pins 526 help to ensure that the dialysate component carrier 120 is properly aligned with respect to the top surface of the bottom module 106 so that the various dialysate components and dialysate lines of the dialysate component carrier 120 align with and engage their corresponding instruments on the top surface of the bottom module 106. As an alternative to or in addition to mating with recesses formed in the top surface of the platen 504, the alignment pins 526 can mate with recesses formed in the dialysate component carrier itself.
The bottom module 106 further includes a wheel 528 that rides along the top surface of the platen 504 as the drawer 122 is closed. By riding along the top surface of the platen 504, the wheel 528 prevents the scissor mechanism 502 from expanding prematurely. Once the drawer 122 has been closed a sufficient amount such that the front end of the platen 504 has passed the wheel 528, the wheel 528 no longer prevents the scissor mechanism 502 from expanding.
Figures 20 and 21 are top schematic views of the drawer 122 in a partially closed and fully closed position, respectively. As shown in figure 20, during use, the drawer is closed until the bearing pin 518 of the platen 504 engages the cam 520. The cam 520 forms a spiral slot 530 in which the bearing pin 518 is received. As the bearing pin 518 enters the spiral slot 530, the cam drive 522 is activated, causing the cam 520 to rotate in a clockwise direction. The bottom module 106 can, for example, include an optical interrupter adapted to activate the cam drive 522 when the drawer 122 is sufficiently closed to cause the bearing pin 518 to enter the slot 530. Alternatively or additionally, the bearing pin 518 itself can include a switch that activates the cam drive 522 when the bearing pin 518 enters the slot 530. This switch can, for example, be positioned on the rear surface of the bearing pin 518 such that the switch is activated upon contacting the cam 520.
Referring to figure 21, as the cam driver 522 rotates the cam 520 in the clockwise direction, the spiral shape of the slot 530 pulls the bearing pin 518, and thus the pull plate 516, in the rearward direction. The spiral slot 530 of the cam driver 522 can, for example, be designed to pull the bearing pin 518 and the pull plate 516 a distance of about one inch or less in the rearward direction. As the pull plate 516 moves in the rearward direction, the front end regions of the elongate members 506, 508 of the left and right scissor mechanisms move rearwardly, causing the scissor mechanisms to raise the platen 504 and the dialysate component carrier 120 sitting on the platen 504. As the dialysate component carrier 120 is raised, the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 come into contact with their associated pumps 238, 240, 242, 244, 245 positioned in the bottom module 106 and the pump lines 182, 184, 186, 188, 189 deflect into the recesses 257 formed by the bottom surface of the drawer 122. Thus, by activating the pumps 238, 240, 242, 244, 245, fluid can be forced through the various fluid lines connected to the dialysate component carrier 120. In addition, raising the dialysate component carrier 120 brings the portions of the fluid lines exposed by the apertures 198, 199, 200 into close proximity with their associated sensors 246, 250, 254, and brings the pressure and ammonium sensor capsules 204, 206 into close proximity with the pressure and ammonium sensors 248, 252. This arrangement permits accurate measurements related to various different properties of the fluids flowing through those fluid lines. The segments of the fluid lines underlying the aperture 202 are similarly brought into close proximity to the heater 256 to allow the heater 256 to warm the fluids passing though those lines to a desired temperature and then to maintain those fluids within a desired temperature range.
To open the drawer 122 after treatment, the user can press a button on a control panel (e.g., a touch screen) of the hemodialysis machine that causes the cam drive 522 to rotate the cam 520 in a counterclockwise direction, and thus to move the bearing pin 518 and the pull plate 516 toward the front of the machine. This rotation of the cam 520 causes the drawer 122 to move into a slightly open position. The user can then manually open the drawer 122 to the fully open position. In some implementations, the bottom module 106 is equipped with a hand crank that permits the user to manually rotate the cam 520 in the event of a power loss to the machine. The hand crank can, for example, extend from the rear surface of the machine.
In certain implementations, the drawer 122 includes one or more springs to assist with lowering the scissor mechanisms. The drawer 122 can, for example, include one or more springs that are secured to the front region of the pull plate 516 and to the front face of the drawer 122 to apply a forward force to the pull plate 516. Alternatively or additionally, the drawer 122 can include one or more springs secured at one and to the base 510 of the drawer 122 and at the other end to the platen 504 to apply a downward force to the platen 504.
Referring again to Figs. 1 and 2, the sorbent device 124 includes a housing containing a sorbent cartridge capable of removing uremic toxins. In some
implementations, the cartridge is disposable. The cartridge can, for example, be constructed such that it can be disposed after use and removed from the housing. The replaced cartridge could then be replaced with a similar cartridge for a subsequent use of the system 100. The cartridge can purify water and regenerate spent dialysis solution through the use of a series of layers which can remove heavy metals (e.g., lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, chromium and thallium), oxidants (e.g., chlorine and chloramine), urea, phosphate and other uremic waste metabolites (e.g., creatinine and uric acid) from the solution, without removing or adsorbing excessive amounts of cations (e.g., calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium) or essential ions.
In some implementations, the components of the cartridge that perform the afore-mentioned functions include a purification layer that includes activated carbon; an ion exchange layer that includes a polymer phosphate binder or an ion exchange sorbent; and a urea removal layer that includes strong acid cation exchange resin and basic resin(s) or urea-degrading enzymes and an ion exchange sorbent together with a composition that rejects cations (e.g., flat membrane / hollow fibers described further herein, an ion-exchange membrane, or an encapsulation surrounding the urea removal components).
In certain implementations, the cartridge includes the following layers and materials: sodium zirconium carbonate or other alkali metal-Group IV metal-carbonate; zirconium phosphate or other ammonia adsorbents; alumina or other like material; alumina supported urease or other immobilized enzyme layer or other material to convert urea to ammonia, such as diatomaceous earth or zirconium oxide; and granular activated carbon, such as charcoal, or other adsorbent. The sodium zirconium carbonate component can act as a phosphate adsorbent. The zirconium oxide can be capable of acting as a counter ion or ion exchanger to remove phosphate, and can be in the form of hydrous zirconium oxide (e.g., hydrous zirconium oxide containing acetate). The zirconium oxide can also be blended with the sodium zirconium carbonate when positioned in the cartridge.
Non- limiting examples of urea-degrading enzymes that can be employed in either implementation of the sorbent cartridge include enzymes that are naturally occurring (e.g. urease from jack beans, other seeds or bacteria), produced by
recombinant technology (e.g., in bacterial, fungal, insect or mammalian cells that express and/or secrete urea-degrading enzymes) or produced synthetically (e.g., synthesized). In some implementations, the enzyme is urease.
In certain implementations, the sorbent cartridge further includes hollow fibers. The hollow fibers can reject positively charged ions, as well as increase the capacity of the cartridge. The hollow fibers can be coated with an ion-rejecting material, which through a water-purification like mechanism allows the urea through but rejects positively charged ions such as calcium and magnesium. The material coating the hollow fibers can be any such material known to one of skill in the art (e.g., fatty acids or polymer chains like polysulfone) that can effectively reject calcium and magnesium and therefore retain the ions in the dialysis solution. Generally, to have this effect the material itself would be positively charged. In some implementations, for example, the material used to coat the hollow fibers is cellulose acetate (e.g., cellulose triacetate). The hollow fibers that are to be coated are commercially available (e.g., Fresenius Medical Care North America) and can be coated with any desired ion-rejecting material available to one having skill in the art.
Alternatively, the hollow fibers can include an ion-selective nanofiltration membrane. Such membranes are commercially available from a number of sources (e.g., Amerida, Koch, GE, Hoechst and Dialyzer outletw Chemical). These membranes have pores sizes that prevent ionic substances from diffusing through the membrane. For example, there are nanofiltration membranes that have an ability to reject ions with more than one negative charge (e.g., sulfate and phosphate) while allowing single- charged ions to pass through, with the converse also being the case. In either case, the hollow fiber devices are available in a variety of dimensions and need only be small enough to fit in the replaceable cartridge, which can be sized for use in an in-home system.
In certain implementations, the sorbent cartridge can further include a flat membrane that is covered with a positively charged material like those described above. In addition, the membrane can be an ion exchange (e.g., anion) membrane that limits the passage of positively charged ions (e.g., Astrom® Neosepta® AFX anion exchange membrane, PCA GmbH PC-SA anion exchange membrane). Advantageously, this ion exchange membrane also has an ability to adsorb phosphate.
The cartridge and/or its components or layers can be replaced (e.g., membrane, urea-degrading enzyme), regenerated (e.g., resin, sorbent) and/or sterilized for re-use when necessary (e.g., saturation, damage, depletion). In addition, the entire sorbent device can be replaceable and thus removed from the dialysis system when there is a decrease in the regeneration efficiency of the cartridge (e.g., through layer saturation) or the cartridge becomes worn or damaged, for instance.
Further examples of sorbent devices are described in U.S. Patent No. 6,878,283; U.S. Patent No. 7,033,498; and in Sorb's REDY cartridge (e.g., see "Sorbent Dialysis Primer" COBE Renal Care, Inc. Sep. 4 1993 Edition, and "Rx Guide to Custom
Dialysis" COBE Renal Care Inc. Revision E. Sep. 1993), all incorporated in their entirety by reference herein.
Typically, the hemodialysis machine 102 is a reusable device while the blood and dialysate component carriers 108, 120 and all of their associated components are disposable (i.e., constructed for single use). Referring again to Figs. 1 and 2, to prepare the system 100 for treatment, the scales 168, 170 are extended from the top module 104, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 are then positioned on their scale 168. At this point, the sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 are dry (i.e., not filled with liquid). The dilution water container 172 is then filled with tap water, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 is filled with sodium chloride solution. The sodium chloride solution can, for example, be made by mixing sodium chloride powder with tap water in the container. After filling the dilution water container 172 and the sodium chloride solution container 174, those containers are placed on the other scale 170. After positioning the sorbent device 124, the dialysate reservoir 126, the dilution water container 172, and the sodium chloride solution container 174 on their respective scales 168, 170, the blood component carrier 108 is secured to the top module 104. The blood component carrier 108 is usually supplied to the user in a closed, sterile bag. Thus, the user removes the blood component carrier 108 from its sterile bag before securing it to the top module 104. The U-shaped blood pump line 140 is operatively engaged with the blood pump 156 by wrapping the blood pump line 140 around the blood pump 156. The drug line 154 leading from the blood circuit is then connected to the heparin vial 166, and a portion of the drug line 154 downstream of the vial is operatively engaged with the drug pump 164. In particular, the drug line 154 is positioned within a slot formed by the housing of the drug pump 164 such that the drug line 154 is compressed against the rolling members of the peristaltic drug pump 164.
With the blood component carrier 108 secured to the top module 104 and the various blood lines attached to their associated devices, the door 110 of the top module 104 is closed and the inflatable pad within the door 110 is inflated. This compresses the blood component carrier 108 and its components between the door 110 and the front face 112 of the top module 104 such that the pressure sensors 158, 160 (shown in Fig. 5) in the top module 104 are brought into close proximity to the pressure sensor capsules 134, 136 secured to the blood component carrier 108 and the level detector 162 (shown in Fig. 5) is brought into close proximity to the air release chamber 132 secured to the blood component carrier 108.
The drawer 122 of the bottom module 106 is then opened and the dialysate component carrier 120 is inserted into the drawer 122. Similar to the blood component carrier 108, the dialysate component carrier 120 is usually supplied to the user in a closed, sterile bag. Thus, the user removes the dialysate component carrier 120 from its sterile bag before placing it within the drawer 122. As discussed above, using the locating pins extending from the inner surface of the drawer 122, the dialysate component carrier 120 is positioned within the drawer 122 such that the pumps, sensors, and heater of the bottom module 106 align with their associated apertures and fluid lines of the dialysate component carrier 120 when the drawer 122 is closed. After positioning the dialysate component carrier 120 within the drawer 122, the drawer 122 is closed and the sorbent device inlet line 216 and the dialysate reservoir outlet line 220 are fluidly connected to the sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126, respectively. The dilution water line 229 and the sodium chloride solution line 231 are similarly inserted into the dilution water container 172 and the sodium chloride solution container 174, respectively, and connected to the dilution water / sodium chloride solution outlet line 230 via the three-way valve 232. The sorbent device inlet line 216 is connected to the fluid fitting at the bottom of the sorbent device 124. The dialysate reservoir outlet line 220 is inserted into the dialysate reservoir 126 such that the open end of the line 220 is positioned near the bottom of the dialysate reservoir 126 and submerged in the dialysate therein. In addition, the connector line 128 is connected to the fluid fittings at the top of the sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 to place the sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126 in fluid communication with one another.
With the blood component carrier 108 secured to the top module 104 and the dialysate component carrier 120 contained within the drawer 122 of the bottom module 106, the user fills the fill/drain container 228 with tap water and powdered dialysate concentrate to make dialysate. To ensure that the powdered dialysate concentrate is adequately mixed with the water, the user can manually shake or stir the solution. The user then connects the fill/drain line 226 of the dialysate component carrier 120 to the fill/drain container 228 by inserting the fill/drain line 226 into the fill/drain container 228 such that the open end of the fill/drain line 226 is positioned near the bottom of the fill/drain container 228 and is submerged in the dialysate. As discussed below, the dialysate is pulled into the dialysate circuit via the fill/drain line 226 by running the ultrafiltrate pump 242 in the bottom module 106 in reverse. Thus, positioning the open end of the fill/drain line 226 near the bottom of the fill/drain container 228 helps to ensure that the open end of the fill/drain line 226 remains below the liquid surface throughout the prime and fill phases of the set up process and is thus able to draw dialysate from the fill/drain container 228 throughout the prime and fill phases, which are described in greater detail below.
The user then fills the infusate jar 233 with tap water and a powdered concentrate (i.e., a calcium, magnesium, and potassium concentrate) to make infusate solution. The user then connects the infusate injection line 235 of the dialysate component carrier 120 to the infusate jar 233 by inserting the infusate injection line 235 into the infusate jar 233 such that the open end of the infusate injection line 235 is positioned near the bottom of the infusate jar 233 and is submerged in the infusate.
After connecting the infusate jar 233 to the infusate injection line 235, a saline bag 258 is connected to the priming line 152, which is fluidly connected to the blood circuit formed by the blood lines. The saline bag 258 is hung from an IV pole extending from the hemodialysis machine 102. The saline bag 258 can alternatively be hung from a separate IV pole positioned next to the system 100.
While the steps of preparing the system 100 for treatment have been described as being performed in a particular order, it should be understood that the order of the steps can be changed in any of various different ways without affecting the treatment.
Figs. HA and HB are schematics of fluid flow through the dialysis system 100 during set up. Referring to Figs. 1, 2, and, HA, to ready the dialysate within the fill/drain container 228 for treatment, the ultrafϊltrate pump 242 in the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 is operated in reverse to draw dialysate from the fill/drain container 228 into the dialysate circuit where it is warmed and circulated. Within the dialysate circuit, the dialyzer outlet pump 238 and the dialyzer inlet pump 240 are used to circulate the dialysate through the sorbent device 124, the dialyzer 114, and the various other dialysate components and lines therebetween. As the dialysate passes through the sorbent device 124, certain substances, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium are removed from the dialysate. As discussed above, the sorbent device 124 is also adapted to remove toxins, such as urea, from fluid flowing therethrough. However, the dialysate from the fill/drain container 228 would generally not contain any urea at this point as it has not yet been exposed to the patient's blood.
Upon exiting the top of the sorbent device 124, the dialysate flows into the dialysate reservoir 126. The dialysate reservoir 126 is vented (i.e., open to the atmosphere) and thus helps to ensure that gases within the dialysate are released. As dialysate is being introduced into the dialysate reservoir 126 via the connector line 128 that is connected to the fluid fittings at the top of the sorbent device 124 and the dialysate reservoir 126, dialysate is also drawn from the dialysate reservoir 126 by the dialyzer inlet pump 240 via the dialysate reservoir outlet line 220. At this stage of the process, the dialyzer inlet pump 240 can be operated at a slower speed than the dialyzer outlet pump 238 in order to fill the dialysate reservoir 126 to a desired level with dialysate. In some implementations, the dialyzer inlet pump 240 remains deactivated until the dialysate reservoir 126 is filled to the desired level with dialysate. The microprocessor of the hemodialysis machine 102 controls the pumps 238, 240 based on the volume of dialysate determined to be in the dialysate reservoir 126. The microprocessor can, for example, operate the pumps in a manner to fill the dialysate reservoir 126 until the scale 168 indicates that the dialysate reservoir 126 contains the desired volume of dialysate. After the dialysate reservoir 126 is filled with the desired volume of dialysate, the dialyzer inlet pump 240 and the dialyzer outlet pump 238 are operated at substantially the same speed to achieve circulation of the dialysate within dialysate circuit at a substantially constant flow rate.
As the dialysate is pumped through the dialyzer inlet line 222 by the dialyzer inlet pump 240, a desired amount of infusate solution, which includes magnesium, calcium, and potassium, is pumped into the dialyzer inlet line 222 from the infusate jar 233 by activating the infusate pump 245. The microprocessor controls the infusate pump 245 based on the dialysate flow. The infusate can, for example, be infused at 1/342 of the dialysate flow to maintain physiological infusate levels. The infusate jar scale 237 is used to measure the amount of infusate delivered. The microprocessor can confirm that the infusate pump 245 is delivering the desired amount of infusate by monitoring the weight of the infusate jar 233.
The dialysate then passes across the ammonium sensor 248, which detects ammonium levels within the dialysate. The microprocessor is connected to the ammonium sensor 248 and receives data regarding ammonium levels within the dialysate. The ammonium sensor 248 can help to determine the state of the sorbent device 124. As the sorbent device 124 is used to recycle spent dialysis, the ammonium levels in the dialysate will increase. Upon reaching a maximum acceptable ammonium level, the treatment can be terminated by the microprocessor. Alternatively, upon reaching the maximum acceptable ammonium level, the microprocessor can cause a warning signal (e.g., an audible and/or visual signal) to be emitted. This signal can alert the user to replace the spent sorbent device with a fresh sorbent device before resuming treatment. If the ammonium levels within the dialysate are within an acceptable range, as would be expected at this early stage of the process, the pumps continue to circulate the dialysate through the dialysate circuit.
The dialysate, after passing the ammonium sensor 248, passes by the conductivity meter 246. The conductivity meter 246 sends a signal regarding the measured conductivity to the microprocessor, which can estimate, based on the measured conductivity, the concentration of sodium within the fluid. The dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244 and the three-way valve 232 in the lines leading from the sodium chloride solution container 174 and the dilution water container 172 are then activated by the microprocessor in a manner to introduce sodium chloride solution into the sorbent device inlet line 216 from the sodium chloride solution container 174 if the conductivity reading indicates that the sodium level in the dialysate is lower than desired, or to introduce dilution water into the sorbent device inlet line 216 from the dilution water container 172 if the conductivity reading indicates that the sodium level in the dialysate is higher than desired. The dilution water can be metered into the sorbent device inlet line 216 by activating the dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244 and manipulating the three-way valve 232 to allow flow from the dilution water container 172 but prevent flow from the sodium chloride solution container 174. Similarly, the sodium chloride solution can be metered into the fluid line by activating the dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244 and manipulating the three-way valve 232 to allow flow from the sodium chloride solution container 174 but prevent flow from the dilution water container 172. The number of revolutions of the dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244, which is a peristaltic pump, can be controlled to deliver a desired volume of sodium chloride solution or dilution water to the dialysate circuit. The scale 170 on which the dilution water container 172 and the sodium chloride solution container 174 are positioned can be used to confirm that the desired volume of sodium chloride or dilution water was delivered to the dialysate circuit.
Prior to reaching the dialysate circuit, the infusate solution, the dilution water, and the sodium chloride solution pass through fluid detectors (e.g., bubble detectors), which can detect the presence or absence of fluid. In the event that no fluid is detected, a signal to that effect is sent to the microprocessor and, in response, the system 100 is shut down and/or an alarm (e.g., an audible and/or visual alarm) is activated to inform the user that the infusate jar 233, the dilution water container 172, or the sodium chloride solution container 174 needs to be refilled.
After passing the conductivity meter 246, the dialysate passes across the pressure sensor 252. The pressure sensor 252 can be used to detect leaks or other anomalies within the dialysate circuit. For example, a pressure reading that is below an acceptable minimum value can indicate a leak within the dialysate circuit, and a pressure reading above an acceptable maximum limit can indicate a kinked line or an obstruction within a line. Upon detecting a pressure outside an acceptable range, the pressure sensor 252 transmits a signal to the microprocessor, which shuts down the system 100 and/or provides an indication (e.g., an audible and/or visual indication) to the user.
After passing by the pressure sensor 252, the dialysate passes through the dialyzer 114. Because the arterial and venous patient lines 116, 118 are not connected to the patient at this stage of the process, no blood is flowing through the dialyzer 114. Thus, the composition of the dialysate exiting the dialyzer 114 is substantially unchanged relative to the dialysate entering the dialyzer 114.
After exiting the dialyzer 114, the dialysate passes by the blood leak detector 250, which detects whether blood has leaked into the dialysate via the dialyzer 114.
As the dialysate flows through the dialyzer outlet line 208 after passing the blood leak detector 250, the heater 256 within the bottom module 106 of the hemodialysis machine 102 heats the dialysate. The dialysate, after passing under the heater 256, is pumped back toward the sorbent device 124 by the dialyzer outlet pump 238. Before reaching the sorbent device 124, the dialysate passes through the temperature sensor 254, which detects the temperature of the dialysate and transmits a signal regarding the temperature of the dialysate to the microprocessor. The microprocessor controls the heater 256 based on the feedback from the temperature sensor 254. For example, upon reaching a desired temperature, the heat emitted by the heater 256 can be reduced to merely maintain the dialysate at the desired temperature.
The ultrafiltrate pump 242 continues to pull the dialysate from the fill/drain container 228 until a desired volume of dialysate (e.g., about four to six liters of dialysate) is circulating within the dialysate circuit. In order to determine the volume of dialysate delivered to the dialysate circuit from the fill/drain container 228, the microprocessor monitors the number of revolutions of the ultrafiltrate pump 242. In particular, because the ultrafiltrate pump 242 is a metering pump (i.e. a peristaltic pump), the desired volume of dialysate can be delivered to the dialysate circuit by turning the ultrafiltrate pump 242 a number of revolutions that corresponds to that volume. After the desired volume of dialysate has been delivered to the dialysate circuit, the ultrafiltrate pump 242 is turned off and the dialysate is circulated within the dialysate circuit by the dialyzer inlet pump 240 and the dialyzer outlet pump 238.
Now referring to the blood circuit side of Fig. 1 IB, in addition to drawing dialysate into the dialysate circuit, saline is pulled from the saline bag 258 into the blood circuit formed by the blood lines and other blood components of the blood component carrier 108. As an alternative to or in addition to using a pulling force to draw the saline into the blood circuit, a dedicated saline pump can be used to pump the saline into the blood circuit. Such a pump can be used to automatically deliver a desired volume (e.g., 200 ml, 300 ml, 400 ml) of the saline into the blood circuit.
Because the arterial and venous patient lines 116, 118 are not connected to a patient, the saline passes through the blood circuit and out of the open ends of the arterial and venous patient lines 116, 118. As a result, any air that might have been contained within the blood circuit (i.e., within the blood lines and blood components secured to the blood component carrier 108) is forced out of the blood circuit.
Figs. 12A and 12B are schematics of fluid flow through the dialysis system 100 during hemodialysis. After flushing the air out of the blood circuit and warming the circulating dialysate to a desired temperature, the arterial and venous patient lines 116, 118 are connected to the patient and hemodialysis is initiated. During hemodialysis, blood is circulated through the blood circuit (i.e., the blood lines, the various blood components, and the dialyzer 114). At the same time, dialysate is circulated through the dialysate circuit (i.e., the dialysate lines, the various dialysate components, and the dialyzer 114).
Focusing first on the blood circuit shown in Fig. 12B, during hemodialysis, the blood pump 156 is activated causing blood to flow through the blood circuit. The blood is drawn from the patient via the arterial patient line 116 and flows to the pressure sensor capsule 134. The pressure sensor 158 on the front face 112 of the top module 104 (shown in Fig. 5) aligns with the capsule 134 and measures the pressure of the blood flowing through the blood circuit on the arterial side. The blood then flows through the U-shaped pump line 140, which is operatively engaged with the blood pump 156. From the pump line 140, the blood flows to the dialyzer 114. After exiting the dialyzer 114, the blood flows through the other pressure sensor capsule 136 where the pressure of the blood on the venous side is measured by the pressure sensor 160 on the front face 112 of the top module 104 (shown in Fig. 5). Next, the blood flows through the entry port of the air release chamber 132 in which any gas, such as air, in the blood can escape. After leaving the air release chamber 132, the blood travels through the venous patient line 118 and back to the patient.
Turning now to the dialysate circuit shown in Fig. 12A, the dialysate passes through the dialyzer 114 at the same time that the patient's blood is passed through the dialyzer 114. As a result, toxins, such as urea, are transferred across a permeable structure (e.g., permeable membrane and/or permeable microtubes) of the dialyzer 114 from the patient's blood to the dialysate. In certain treatments, an ultrafiltration process is also performed to remove excess fluid from the patient's blood. During
ultrafiltration, a pressure gradient is created across the permeable structure between the dialysate side and the blood side of the dialyzer 114 by running the ultrafϊltrate pump 242. As a result, fluid is drawn across the permeable structure of the dialyzer 114 from the blood to the dialysate. Spent dialysate, including the toxins and excess fluid drawn from the patient, exits the dialyzer 114.
The spent dialysate exiting the dialyzer 114 passes through the blood leak detector 250, which checks to ensure that an unacceptable volume of blood has not leaked through the permeable structure of the dialyzer 114 and into the dialysate. The spent dialysate then passes through the online heater 256, which maintains the temperature of the dialysate within a desired range.
Some of the spent dialysate can be routed to the fill/drain container 228 by activating the ultrafϊltrate pump 242 as the spent dialysate is forced through the dialyzer outlet line 208. For example, a volume of the spent dialysate equal to the volume of fluid removed from the patient as a result of the ultrafiltration and the total volume of infusate, sodium, and dilution water added to the dialysate can be pumped to the fill/drain container 228 by the ultrafiltrate pump 242. This can help to ensure that a substantially constant volume of fluid is circulated through the dialysate circuit throughout treatment.
The dialyzer outlet pump 238 forces the volume of the spent dialysate that is not routed to the fill/drain container 228 through the dialyzer outlet pump 238 to the sorbent device 124. As the spent dialysate passes through the sorbent device 124, urea is removed from the spent dialysate. Calcium, magnesium, and potassium are also stripped from the spent dialysate by the sorbent device 124. The sorbent device 124 is somewhat absorbent and, as a result, the volumetric flow rate of fluid exiting the sorbent device 124 may be slightly less than the volumetric flow rate of fluid entering the sorbent device 124. The tendency of the sorbent device 124 to absorb fluid typically increases as the rate of fluid flow through the sorbent device 124 increases. Upon decreasing the flow rate of fluid through the sorbent device 124, fluid that was previously absorbed by the sorbent device 124 can be released. In such instances, the volumetric flow rate of fluid exiting the sorbent device 124 may be slightly greater than the volumetric flow rate of fluid entering the sorbent device 124.
The recycled dialysate, upon exiting the sorbent device 124, passes through the connector line 128 and into the dialysate reservoir 126. Any gases that may have been produced as a result of chemical reactions within the sorbent device 124 as well as any air that might have been trapped within the recycled dialysate is removed from the recycled dialysate and exits the dialysate reservoir 126 via its vented opening.
The pumping action of the dialysate inlet pump 240 draws the recycled dialysate from the dialysate reservoir 126 into the dialysate reservoir outlet line 220 at a desired volumetric flow rate. Typically, the recycled dialysate is removed from the dialysate reservoir 126 at the same volumetric flow rate at which the spent dialysate enters the sorbent device 124. Thus, even in the event that the volumetric flow rate of the recycled dialysate exiting the sorbent device 124 differs from the volumetric flow rate of the spent dialysate introduced into the sorbent device 124, the volumetric flow rate through the remainder of the dialysate circuit remains substantially constant.
In the manner discussed above, after the recycled dialysate exits the dialysate reservoir 126, the infusate solution is introduced into the recycled dialysate. The recycled dialysate then flows through the ammonium sensor 248. The ammonium sensor 248 can help to determine the state of the sorbent device 124. For example, as the sorbent device 124 is used, the ammonium levels in the dialysate will increase. Upon exceeding an acceptable ammonium level, the treatment can be terminated.
Alternatively, upon exceeding the acceptable ammonium level, the sorbent device 124 can be replaced with a fresh sorbent device and treatment can resume.
After exiting the ammonium sensor 248, the recycled dialysate passes through the conductivity meter 246 where the conductivity of the recycled dialysate is measured. Based on the conductivity reading at the conductivity meter 246, sodium chloride solution or dilution water can be added to the dialysate flowing through the sorbent device inlet line 216. In the initial stages of treatment, sodium levels in the recycled dialysate tend to be lower than desired due to the tendency of the sorbent device 124 to strip sodium from fluids passing therethrough. Consequently, in the early stages of the treatment, sodium chloride solution will typically be injected into fluid line to increase the concentration of sodium in the recycled dialysate. In later stages of the treatment, however, the sorbent device 124 may contain high levels of sodium and thus start releasing sodium into the spent dialysate as it passes through the sorbent device 124. This can lead to higher than desired levels of sodium in the recycled dialysate passing through the dialysate reservoir outlet line, resulting in an injection of dilution water into the recycled dialysate.
The recycled dialysate then passes through a pressure sensor 252 that measures the pressure of the recycled dialysate. As discussed above, the measured pressure is sent to the microprocessor and the system 100 is shut down and/or a warning signal (e.g., an audible and/or visual signal) is emitted if the detected pressure falls outside of an acceptable pressure range.
The recycled dialysate then passes through the dialyzer 114 where toxins are transferred from the patient's blood to the dialysate. This process is repeated until the hemodialysis treatment is completed.
After completing the patient's treatment, the dialysate within the dialysate circuit is pumped back to the fill/drain container 228. To do this, the ultrafϊltrate pump 242 can be operated at a greater speed than the dialyzer inlet pump 240 and the dialyzer outlet pump 238. The dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244 would typically be turned off during this draining phase.
After draining the dialysate circuit, the dialysate component carrier 120 and its components and the various other dialysate components (e.g., the sorbent device 124, the infusate jar 233, the sodium chloride solution container 174, the fill/drain container 228, and their associated fluid lines) are disconnected from the hemodialysis machine 102 and discarded. Similarly, the blood component carrier 108 and it components are disconnected from the hemodialysis machine 102 and discarded. Because all of the components that contact the blood and dialysate during use are disposable, it is typically unnecessary to perform an extensive cleaning operation on the system 100 after use. The system 100 can be reconfigured for storage or transport, as shown in Fig. 13. In this configuration, the scales 168, 170 are pushed into the cavity of the top module 104, the door 110 and the drawer 122 are closed, and no dialysate/blood component carriers are connected to the machine 102. In addition, the top module 104 can be removed from the bottom module 106. In this configuration, the system 100 can be easily transported from one place to another. For example, the overall size and weight of the system 100 in this configuration allows a user to place the system 100 in most car trunks or similar spaces for transport.
While certain implementations have been described, other implementations are possible.
While the blood pump 156 has been described as a peristaltic pump, other types of pumps can alternatively or additionally be used. In some implementations, hydraulic or pneumatic pumps are used. Fig. 14 illustrates a blood component carrier 308 that can be used with such pumps. The blood component carrier 308 includes two adjacent diaphragm pumps 340A, 340B secured thereto. Each of the diaphragm pumps includes a housing forming a chamber in which a membrane is disposed. The membrane separates the chamber into first and second sub-chambers. When the blood component carrier 308 is positioned on the front face 112 of the top module of the machine, pressurized fluid sources mate with the diaphragm pumps in a manner such that the fluid sources are fluidly connected to a sub-chamber of each pump. The fluid sources can be activated to deliver pressurized fluid into the sub-chambers and to remove the pressurized fluid from the sub-chambers. As the sub-chambers of the pumps are filled with the pressurized fluid, blood within the other sub-chamber is forced out of the sub- chamber and through the blood lines connected to the carrier. As the pressurized fluid is removed from the sub-chambers (e.g., by vacuum), blood is pulled into the sub- chamber. The pumps are typically operated in an alternating fashion such that one pump expels blood from its chamber as the other pump pulls blood into its chamber and vice versa. This helps to ensure a constant circulation of blood though the blood circuit formed by the blood lines secured to the blood component carrier 308. The pumps can alternatively be operated simultaneously to achieve single needle access. An example of a blood pump of the type described above is the Pulsar Blood Movement System, available from Renal Solutions, Inc. (Warrendale, PA). While the scales 168, 170 have been described as being secured to the bottom surface of the top module 104 via slidable tracks that permit the scales 168, 170 to be extended from the module and stored within a cavity in the module, any of various other mechanisms that allow the scales 168, 170 to be extended from the module and stored within a cavity in the module can be used. Further, while the slidable tracks have been described as being attached to the bottom surface of the top module 104, the slidable tracks or other mechanisms to permit movement of the scales can alternatively or additionally be secured to other surfaces of the top module 104.
While the scales 168, 170 have been described as part of the top module 104, the scales 168, 170 could alternatively be part of the bottom module 106.
While the scales 168, 170 have been described as load cell scales that utilize strain gauges, any of various other types of scales can be used. Other types of scales that can be used include compression load cells, torque load cells, shear beam and double beam load cells, force sensing resistors, pressure transducers, and force sensors.
While the dialyzer 114 has been illustrated as extending beyond the side of the hemodialysis machine 102, in certain implementations, the dialyzer is fully contained within a compartment of the hemodialysis machine. In addition, while the scales 168, 170 have been described as being slidable into a cavity formed in the top module 104 of the hemodialysis machine 102 for storage and transport, the scales can alternatively be configured to fold against the side of the hemodialysis machine for storage and transportation. Referring to Figs. 15-17, for example, a hemodialysis system 400 includes a hemodialysis machine 402 with a top module 404 sitting atop the bottom module 106. The top module 404 includes a door 410 that cooperates with a front face 412 to form a dialysate component carrier compartment that entirely encloses the blood component carrier 108. The top module 404 includes foldable weight scales 468, 470 attached to its opposite side walls. In the storage configuration shown in Figs. 16 and 17, the weight scales 468, 470 are folded upward against the side walls of the top module 404 to reduce the footprint of the system 400 for transport. The system 400 works in substantially the same way as the system 100 described above.
Various other components of the hemodialysis system can also be configured differently from the configurations in the implementations described above if desired. As shown in FIG. 22, for example, a hemodialysis system 600 includes a hemodialysis machine 602 with a top module 604 that is resting on the bottom module 104 and is equipped with many of the same components as the top module 104 of the
hemodialysis machine 102 discussed above. However, some of those components are arranged in a different configuration to accommodate a display (e.g., a touch screen) 603 that is exposed on a front face 612 of the hemodialysis machine 602. The infusate jar 233, the drug vial 166, and the drug pump 164, for example, are situated side-by- side within a recess 605 beneath the display 603. Many of the fluid lines that are used to connect the various different components of the hemodialysis system 600 are not shown in FIG. 22 for simplicity.
The display 603 can be used for a variety of purposes. For example, the display can be used to walk the patient through the set up process and to provide the user with information related to the treatment. The display can also be used to allow the patient to input data and information into the hemodialysis machine 602. In some
implementations, the hemodialysis machine 602 is equipped with a web browser and is connected to the Internet such that the patient, via the display 603, can access online records and other information. In certain implementations, the display 603 serves as an interface that allows the patient to communicate with a physician or nurse in order to troubleshoot complications with the hemodialysis machine 602. Apart from the added functionality of the display 603, the hemodialysis system 600 generally operates in the same manner as the hemodialysis system 100 described above.
While the display 603 of the hemodialysis machine 602 has been described as a touch screen that allows the patient to both view and input information, the display 603 can alternatively be a conventional display used for viewing purposes only. In such cases, the front face 612 of the hemodialysis machine 602 is equipped with additional buttons (e.g., hard keys, feather touch buttons, etc.) that allow the patient to navigate through screens displayed on the display 603 and to input data and commands into the hemodialysis machine 602.
While the drawer 122 has been described as including locating pins to ensure that the dialysate component carrier 120 remains in a desired position within the drawer 122, other mechanisms can alternatively or additionally be used. For example, in some implementations, the drawer 122 includes clips or clamps to hold the dialysate component container. Adhesive can also be used to secure the dialysate component carrier 120. While the dialyzer inlet pump 240, the dialyzer outlet pump 238, the ultrafiltrate pump 242, and the dilution water / sodium chloride solution pump 244 have been described as peristaltic pumps, other types of pumps can alternatively or additionally be used. In some implementations, hydraulic or pneumatic pumps are used. In certain implementations in which hydraulic or pneumatic pumps are used, the dialysate component carrier has a pump arrangement similar to that of the blood component carrier 308 discussed above, with two adjacent diaphragm pumps secured to the carrier body. Each of the diaphragm pumps includes a housing forming a chamber in which a membrane is disposed. The membrane separates the chamber into first and second sub- chambers. When the dialysate component carrier is positioned within the cavity of the drawer and the drawer is closed, pressurized fluid sources mate with the diaphragm pumps in a manner such that the fluid sources are fluidly connected to a sub-chamber of each pump. The fluid sources can be activated to deliver pressurized fluid into the sub-chambers and to remove the pressurized fluid from the sub-chambers. As the sub- chambers of the pumps are filled with the pressurized fluid, dialysate within the other sub-chamber is forced out of the sub-chamber and through the fluid lines connected to the carrier. As the pressurized fluid is removed from the sub-chambers (e.g., by vacuum), dialysate is pulled into the sub-chamber. The pumps are typically operated in an alternating fashion such that one pump expels dialysate from its chamber as the other pump pulls dialysate into its chamber and vice versa. This helps to ensure a constant circulation of dialysate though the dialysate circuit formed by the lines secured to the dialysate component carrier. The pumps can alternatively be simultaneously operated.
While the hemodialysis systems described above control the flow of dialysate through the hemodialsyis machine using two pumps, namely a dialyzer inlet pump and a dialyzer outlet pump, other techniques for controlling the flow of the dialysate can be used. In certain implementations, for example, the dialysate component carrier of the hemodialysis system can be equipped with one or more balancing chambers to control the flow of the dialysate through the system. In some implementations, the system includes a dialyzer outlet pump, a balancing chamber positioned along a fluid passage connecting the dialyzer to the dialyzer outlet pump, and a balancing chamber positioned along a fluid passage connecting the sorbent device to the dialyzer. In such implementations, the operation of the dialyzer outlet pump provides the force required to pump dialysate through the system and the balancing chambers control the volume of dialysate that flows through the system at a given time.
While the hemodialysis systems described above are configured to inject sodium chloride solution and/or dilution water into the dialysate circuit in order to adjust or control sodium levels in the dialysate, other sodium management techniques can be used. In certain implementations, the hemodialysis system includes a deionization column containing a strong acid / strong base resin combination that can be used to remove sodium from the fluid circulating through the system. The column can be formed from a replaceable cartridge. Alternatively, the column can be formed from a deionization polisher. The strong acid / strong base resin combinations can remove sodium from the dialysis solution and control pH. Upon detecting excessive sodium levels within the fluid circulating through the system, a three-way valve can be used to divert the dialysate through the strong acid / strong base ion exchange resin mixture in the column to remove sodium in exchange for water. The dialysate is then returned to the dialysate circuit. Advantageously, this method allows sodium levels to be adjusted without the addition of water to the fluid circulating through the system. Thus, additional reservoir volume is not required to compensate for the dilution.
However, an exchange program may be used to regenerate the deionization polisher. The control method for either the dilution or the ion exchange systems could be via electronic feedback from the hemodialysis machine, a separate conductivity probe, or a timed sequence.
While some of the above hemodialysis systems include an inflatable pad positioned between the door of the hemodialysis machine in the blood component carrier, other techniques can alternatively or additionally be used to press the blood component carrier against the front face of the hemodialysis machine. In some implementations, for example, the door of the hemodialysis machine includes mechanical features (e.g., projections, springs, etc.) that mate with blood components and/or blood lines of the blood component carrier to press those blood components and/or blood lines against the front face of the hemodialysis machine.
While the level detector 162 has been described as an ultrasonic device, any of various other types of devices capable of measuring the level of liquid in the air release device can be used. While the drug pump 164 has been described as being a peristaltic pump, any of various other types of pumps capable of injecting drugs into the bloodstream can be used. In some implementations, for example, the drug pump is a syringe pump adapted to receive a syringe into axially move a plunger of the syringe to inject drugs into the bloodstream. In such implementations, the syringe pump can include a stepper motor in order to drive the plunger.
While certain methods above describe manually shaking or stirring the water and dialysate concentrate mixture, any of various other suitable mixing techniques can be used. In some implementations, the fill/drain container 228 includes a powered mechanism to mix the water and dialysate concentrate.
While the dialysate concentrate has been described as being in powder form, liquid concentrates can alternatively or additionally be used. Similarly, while the dialysate has been described as being made by mixing tap water and concentrate, a prepackaged container of dialysate can alternatively or additionally be used.
In certain implementations, the systems described above are adapted to connect to the Internet. In such cases, the microprocessor can retrieve patient information and other data from the Internet and use that information and data to achieve desired treatment parameters. The various pumps can, for example, be controlled to deliver desired amounts of fluid at desired rates, according to the particular patient being treated.
While the systems described above have been described as hemodialysis systems, similar arrangements can be used for other types of medical treatments, such as peritoneal dialysis. To use systems similar to those above for peritoneal dialysis, instead of pumping blood through a blood circuit, dialysate would be pumped through a second dialysate circuit. The second dialysate circuit would be connected to a patient's abdomen and the other dialysate circuit would remains substantially similar to those dialysate circuits described above. Dialysate could be introduced into the patient's abdomen and then removed and circulated through the second dialysate circuit. Toxins from the dialysate exiting the patient would be removed within the dialyzer and transferred to the dialysate circulating through the other dialysate circuit. The cleansed dialysate (i.e., the dialysate from which the toxins were removed) could then be sent back to the patient.
Other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.
1. A dialysis system, comprising:
a dialysate pump disposed in the housing, the dialysate pump positioned above a cavity defined by the housing;
a slidable drawer at least partially disposed within the cavity of the housing, the drawer being connected to the housing in a manner such that when the drawer is moved to a closed position within the cavity, a member of the drawer is lifted towards the dialysate pump positioned above the cavity;
a dialysate line connected to the member of the drawer and configured to be operatively connected to the dialysate pump when the drawer is moved to the closed position and the member of the drawer is lifted such that the dialysate pump can pump dialysate through the dialysate line when the dialysate line is in fluid communication with a dialysate source.
2. The dialysis system of claim 1, wherein the dialysate line is secured to a dialysate component carrier that is connected to the member of the drawer.
3. The dialysis system of claim 2, wherein the dialysate component carrier snaps into the drawer.
4. The dialysis system of claim 2, wherein the dialysate line extends across an aperture formed by the dialysate component carrier.
5. The dialysis system of claim 4, wherein the aperture is configured to receive a pump of the second module therein.
6. The dialysis system of claim 2, wherein the dialysate component carrier defines an aperture overlying the dialysate line.
7. The dialysis system of claim 6, wherein the dialysate system further comprises a heater arranged to be aligned with the aperture such that heat emitted from the heater warms dialysate passing through the dialysate line.
5 8. The dialysis system of claim 1, wherein the drawer comprises a mechanical lifting mechanism operatively secured to the member of the drawer.
9. The dialysis system of claim 1, wherein the dialysis system further comprises a blood line operatively connected to a blood pump such that the blood pump o can pump blood through the blood line.
10. The dialysis system of claim 9, wherein the system further comprises a dialyzer to which the dialysate line and the blood line are fluidly connected. 5 11. The dialysis system of claim 1 , wherein the dialysis system is a
hemodialysis system.
12. A dialysis system, comprising:
a sorbent device;
0 a dialysate reservoir fluidly connected to the sorbent device and arranged to collect dialysate exiting the sorbent device;
a first pump in fluid communication with the sorbent device, the first pump positioned upstream of the sorbent device and configured to introduce dialysate into the sorbent device; and
5 a second pump in fluid communication with the dialysate reservoir, the second pump positioned downstream of the sorbent device and configured to draw dialysate out of the dialysate reservoir.
13. The dialysis system of claim 12, wherein the sorbent device is absorbent.0
14. The dialysis system of claim 12, wherein the dialysate reservoir is vented to atmosphere.
15. The dialysis system of claim 12, wherein the second pump is adapted to draw fluid from the dialysate reservoir at substantially the same rate that the first pump introduces dialysate into the sorbent device.
16. The dialysis system of claim 12, further comprising a connector line that fluidly connects the sorbent device to the dialysate reservoir.
17. The dialysis system of claim 16, wherein one end of the connector line is connected to a top region of the sorbent device, and another end of the connector line is connected to a top region of the dialysate reservoir.
18. The dialysis system of claim 12, wherein the sorbent device and the dialysate reservoir sit on a weight scale.
19. The dialysis system of claim 18, further comprising a microprocessor connected to the scale and the first and second pumps.
20. The dialysis system of claim 19, wherein the microprocessor is adapted to control the first and second pumps in a manner to maintain a substantially constant weight on the scale.
21. A hemodialysis system, comprising:
a first module comprising a blood pump;
a blood line operatively connected to the blood pump such that the blood pump can pump blood through the blood line when the blood line is in fluid communication with a blood source;
a dialyzer fluidly connected to the blood line;
a second module that is separate from the first module, the second module comprising a dialysate pump;
a dialysate line operatively connected to the dialysate pump such that the dialysate pump can pump dialysate through the dialysate line when the dialysate line is in fluid communication with a dialysate source, the dialysate line being fluidly connected to the dialyzer.
22. The dialysis system of claim 21, wherein the first and second modules are releasably secured to one another.
23. The dialysis system of claim 21 , wherein the first module is positioned on top of the second module.
24. The dialysis system of claim 21, wherein the first module comprises at least one weight scale.
25. The dialysis system of claim 24, wherein the at least one weight scale is configured to be stored in a cavity formed in the first module.
26. The dialysis system of claim 24, wherein the at least one weight scale is pivotably connected to the side of the first module.
27. The dialysis system of claim 21, further comprising a dialysate component carrier to which the dialysate line is secured.
28. The dialysis system of claim 27, wherein the dialysate line extends across an aperture formed by the dialysate component carrier.
29. The dialysis system of claim 28, wherein the aperture is configured to receive a pump of the second module therein.
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Renewal: How Nature Awakens Our Creativity, Compassion, and Joy by Andrés Edwards
Source: Amazon.com
Author - Andrés Edwards
Publisher - New Society Publishing
New Society Publishing says,
Why spend countless hours indoors in front of screens when being in nature feels so good? In learning why and how to nurture our emotional connection with nature, we can also regenerate the ecosystems on which we depend for our survival.
Renewal explores the science behind why being in nature makes us feel alive and helps us thrive. Using personal experiences and cutting-edge research in cognitive science, this book weaves delightful stories that:
Reveal nature's genius and impacts on our lives from physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual perspectives
Explore how emulating nature is yielding design breakthroughs with biomimicry and biophilic design
Highlight the importance of compassion and coexisting with wildlife in designing our conservation strategies
Describe the significance of nurturing an ecological ethic that supports a reciprocal relationship with nature.
Whether you are drawn to conservation or are interested in the science behind human behavior, Renewal will help create a blueprint for integrating nature with a life of creativity, compassion, and joy."
New Society Publishing says "Andrés R. Edwards is an educator, award-winning author, media designer, and sustainability consultant. He is founder and president of EduTracks, a firm specializing in developing education programs and consulting services on sustainable practices for green building and business initiatives. He has worked as a producer, exhibit developer, and consultant for projects in natural history, biodiversity, and sustainability."
Where to get it?
New Society Publishing
Biophony - The Sounds of Nature
Scenery is the Ultimate Souveneir
Biophilia and Ecoliteracy
Amazing Nature
Curing Nature Deficit Disorder
Sounds, Samples, and Songs
How Nature Boosts Health
Nature Boosts Mental Health
How Nature is Good for Health and Happiness
Connectign with Nature Boosts Creativity and Health
How Nature Boosts Kindness, Creativity, and Happiness
8 Ways Nature Boosts Your Total Health and Wellness
Forest Bathing: A Retreat to Nature can Boost Immunity and Mood
garden master
Location: Greater Houston, TX US Hardy:9a Annual Precipitation: 44.78" Wind:13.23mph Temperature:42.5-95F
I give this book 10 out of 10 acorns!
I think Renewal does a good job of fulfilling the mission that it set out to accomplish, as I think it stated well in the Foreword:
"Our choices are based on our values. Renewal explores how we can nurture an ecocentric ethic, which encompasses a reciprocal relationship with nature where we use natural resources wisely and enhance the biodiversity of nonhuman species."
I commend the author for the organization and formatting in the book, because this is something I deeply appreciate for its ability to make things easier and more enjoyable to read. Each chapter begins with a picture related to that chapter, a few quotes that hit the essence of that chapter, and of course, the chapter title and number. Then, there is usually a personal anecdote of some sort to start the discussion that Andres Edwards would like to get into for that chapter. This is then followed by a short explanation of the topic, usually supported with evidence of some kind. Then, the chapters are broken into sections, which go into specific nuances about the subject of that chapter. Throughout each chapter, there are usually a few nice and inspiring images related to the discussions of that chapter. Lastly, each chapter ends with a series of questions of suggested exercises to help with incorporating and practicing that aspect of ecocentric ethics into one's life or community.
I appreciated how thoroughly cited the book is, because that indicated to me how much work the author has done into understanding the topic at hand. I also liked the many quotes that Andres used from the sources he referenced.
The section at the end of the book Resources (in their own words) was particularly nice, because I like to have places to go to for further information when I want to delve deeper into certain topics.
I found the stories and research used to explain the many facets of what an ecocentric ethic is and how to incorporate it to be well-chosen, compelling, and highly informative. I appreciated the name-dropping in the book of about other people and their work, because it made it very easy for me to find out more. I liked the discussions on using beauty and emotion to inspire action the most, because I similarly do not believe that emotional beings (which I think most people are) will be compelled to act by data alone.
So, that was the being a fair reviewer part. I think the book was well-executed and accomplished its mission well. However, for the personal bias stuff, I found the book to be mostly preaching to the choir, for me at least. i found that a lot of information in Renewal was stuff that I had already encountered or learned about at multiple earlier points in my life from my own personal interests or classes or exploring Nature. So, I think this book would be good for people who are new to the concepts of land stewardship, ecology, human-nature interactions, and self-care. Using the Wheaton Eco Scale, I would recommend this book for people with knowledge around Level 0 to Level 1. I think this is an awesome book for getting started, and I think the numerous references, citations, and compiled list of resources will do a lot for swaying skeptical people and in convincing others to start caring for the earth and themselves more. For me, I think I will mostly keep this book and refer back to it for the Resources section at the end of the book, I'm always looking for new sources of wonderful information to devour on topics I know little about!
Alea iacta est! / Welcome to Permies! / Permaculture Resources / Dave's Goods
Hugo Morvan
Location: France, Burgundy, parc naturel Morvan
The book is deep and philosophical, i can't give acorns yet, because i am at chapter 3. But it has questions and activities at the end of each chapter, and one was think of beauty and nature and spend 30 minutes describing it through writing drawing, painting etc. I
The importance of beauty.
Beauty has many faces, as well as that, it is in the eye of the beholder. I can be wowed by the monstrous grandiosity of a 100% artificial industrial complex. I like to watch that too, but it's not beautiful as nature is. Beauty comes with humbleness, being an observer of something pristine and unique makes it personal and precious. A butterfly of a kind i've never seen before fluttering about and sucking on a leave, completely unaware of my presence. It's there, alive, continuously it exists, my awareness does not affect it's liveliness, however it's liveliness does affect my awareness. It creates appreciation, curiosity, it calms me to know that despite the madness of the human experience, the butterfly will continue, the beauty will continue. I was only there to witness it, because i chose to, beauty is like an always around ever giving present, silently waiting to be embraced.
The vibrant colors of flowers combined with their soothing smell, the vastness of a sky filled with curious cloud-forms, the waving of the pasture that has gone to seed in the summer-breeze are obvious examples of beauty. An old lonely dead tree, dead as can be, has a different kind of beauty, stagnant, dark, relentless decay, a reminder of sorts to enjoy as much beauty as we can while still alive, for time is short.
Surround ourselves with beauty and let it lead us into the flow of what there is to know and forget...
I've been very busy creating a garden to feed myself while enhancing biodiversity, so busy i forgot at times to appreciate the beauty it has brought forward. Renewal is the book that made me remember. I try to write a bit more lately, because i am so busy with my expanded permaculture project and life that i can't sit still, but it's so hot that i have to have some chill time in the shade in which i read Renewal and write. It's perfect because it approaches things differently than what i'm used to, in a complete way, whole spectrum in stead of just science, science is part of it, but also the personal, it is broadening touches a nerve and is very timely for me in my life.
What's that smell? Hey, sniff this tiny ad:
Food Forest Card Game - Game Forum
https://permies.com/t/61704/Food-Forest-Card-Game-Game
The Wheaton Eco Scale
Elegant Simplicity by Satish Kumar
Making Better Buildings by Chris Magwood
Backyard Biodiesel by Bob Armantrout and Lyle Estill
Nature-Based Therapy by Nevin J. Harper, Kathryn Rose & David Segal
Raising Goats Naturally by Deborah Niemann
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J.B. Hunt buys e-commerce freight carrier, first company acquisition in 26 years
Arkansas Transportation ReportBusinessLatest NewsNorthwest Arkansas
by Jeff Della Rosa (JDellaRosa@nwabj.com) July 21, 2017 9:44 am 1,300 views
J.B. Hunt Transport Services will spend $136 million to purchase Houston-based carrier Special Logistics Dedicated, allowing the Lowell-based carrier to expand its e-commerce delivery platform.
If the deal closes, it would be the first time J.B. Hunt has acquired another company since 1991, said Brad Delco, trucking/transportation analyst for Stephens.
On Friday (July 21), Hunt announced it had agreed to buy Special Logistics Dedicated and its affiliated entities. The purchase includes no assumption of debt, according to a news release.
“SLD’s strong customer base and strategically placed fulfillment centers position us as a top national pool distribution services provider,” John Roberts, president and CEO of J.B. Hunt, said in the statement. “This acquisition will also allow our customers to deploy ‘big and bulky’ inventories into key markets, improving order fulfillment times for final mile deliveries and further enhancing our e-commerce delivery capabilities.”
J.B. Hunt will use “its existing revolving credit facility to finance this transaction and to provide liquidity for future operations,” the release shows. “Preliminary valuations indicate an incremental amortization expense between $7 million and $10 million annually.”
The purchase isn’t expected to “have a significant impact on interest expense.” Also, the deal shouldn’t impact 2017 operating results but is expected to increase earnings in 2018.
Special Logistics Dedicated provides pool distribution, which is the delivery of goods to numerous points in a specific region, throughout North America. It operates 14 terminals and fulfillment centers and has a fleet with more than 850 pieces of equipment, according to a news release. Its services include dedicated transportation at “dedicated and multi-use sites, cross-docking and contract logistics, less-than-truckload product consolidation, commingled pool distribution and a Texas-based intrastate 57-foot dry van highway service.”
Pool distribution allows a company to combine multiple less-than-truckload shipments into one shipment, resulting in a lower shipping rate, Delco said. The service is used in the distribution of e-commerce freight.
Until now, it’s a service J.B. Hunt hasn’t had a lot of exposure in, he said.
Assistant U.S. trade commissioner talk opportunities, hurdles with Wal-Mart, business owners
Lessons from the post-Millennial crowd
Read the Digital Issue
Follow NWABJ on Facebook
Follow TBP Everywhere
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Landscape Information
Designed Landscape
Garden and Estate
Country Place Era Garden
Colonial Revival
Charles Willing
Willing, Sims & Talbutt
This 35-acre suburban estate on Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line takes its name from the legendary rooster, prominently displayed on the estate’s historic entrance gate pillars. Designed for Adolph Rosengarten, Sr. by architect Charles L. Borie and completed in 1913, the Pastoral Style manor was sited atop an expansive, undulating lawn. Though landscape architect Thomas Sears drew plans for an original landscape design, there is little evidence that his design was ever installed. In 1925 Charles Willing and Joseph P. Sims enveloped Chanticleer with a pool, teahouse, and sunken garden. Expanding their estate in 1933 from its original six acres, the Rosengartens purchased the nearby Minder House for their son and, a few years later, constructed another house for their daughter. Working at the Minder House in 1958, Willing and Sims developed gardens incised by a rivulet which cascades into a large pond.
Ten years before the death of Adolph Rosengarten, Jr. in 1990, The Chanticleer Foundation was established; the gardens opened to the public in 1993. Since then, the setting, buttressed by woodlands and an orchard, has witnessed a steady redesign with the introduction of variously themed gardens connected by a meandering, mile-long path. The Rosengarten’s tennis court was transformed into a parterre garden of herbaceous plants and the Teacup Garden was designed to include subtropical flora centered around a small, Italianate fountain. In 2000 landscape architect Mara Baird created the Ruin Garden on the foundations of the razed Minder House. Chanticleer was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Location and Nearby Landscapes
Nearby Landscapes
Photo by Nancy Slade::2012::The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Photo by Lisa Roper courtesy Chanticleer Gardens::2012::The Cultural Landscape Foundation
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complete the sign-up form on the Web Site or alternative process provided by a Reseller if access to the Telagus Services is purchased from a Reseller; and
accept these Terms by clicking “Sign up” or other similar button
Each Client may have only one Account. If several persons need to use an Account on behalf of Client, Client must designate such persons as Users. Each such User shall be subject to the restrictions set forth in these Terms. If Client has designated Users and granted them Authorization, such Users will be deemed to be authorized to act on behalf of Client when using the Account. Supplier is not responsible for and shall have no liability for verifying the validity of Authorization of any User. However, Supplier may, in its discretion, request additional information or proof of the person’s credentials. If Supplier is not certain if a User has been granted Authorization, Supplier may, in its sole discretion, prevent such User from accessing the Telagus Services. A User may be associated with multiple Clients and Accounts. Deleting a User from one Account will not remove the User from the Platform if he/she is connected to multiple Accounts. The Client and any User associated with an Account must provide Supplier with true, accurate, current, and complete information about the Client, Users or Account and keep it up to date. 4.2 Logging Into an Account. Supplier shall provide Client with a username and password (“Login Credentials”) to be used to log in to its Account unless the Client uses the single sign-on feature or another service to log in. These Login Credentials must not be used by multiple persons. If Client has designated several Users, each User will be provided with separate Login Credentials. Client and each User are responsible for keeping confidential all login credentials associated with an Account. Client must promptly notify Supplier:
of any disclosure, loss or unauthorized use of any Login Credentials;
of a User’s departure from the Client’s organization;
of a change in a User’s role in the Client’s organization;
of any termination of a User’s right for any reason.
4.3 Termination of Account. Client may terminate these Terms at any time as provided in Section 17. Supplier shall permanently delete the Account within six months of the effective date of the termination. 4.4 Fees. The use of an Account is subject to a Fee. Upon sign-up for an Account, the Client must select a Plan. Different rates apply to different Plans. The applicable Fee is charged in advance on monthly or annual payment intervals, unless agreed otherwise between parties. All Fees are non-refundable, i.e. there are no refunds or credits for periods where the Client did not use an activated Account, used it only partially, or deactivated the Account or terminated these Terms during an ongoing payment interval. If, after signing up, Client elects to upgrade to a more expensive Plan, the unused portion of any prepaid Fees shall be applied to the Fee of the more expensive Plan. All Fees are exclusive of all taxes, levies or duties applicable under any applicable law, unless stated otherwise stated herein. Client is solely responsible for the payment of such taxes, levies or duties. 4.5 Changing Plans. Any Client has the right to upgrade or downgrade a current Plan at any time by selecting a new Plan among the collection of Plans determined by the Supplier. In such an event, the Client’s credit card on file with the Supplier will automatically be charged with a Fee for the next payment interval with the rate stipulated in the new Plan. Downgrading of the current Plan may cause the loss of features or capacity of the Account, as well as the loss of Client Data. 4.6 Free Trial. A new Client may be entitled to a Free Trial, unless the Client has applied for the Account as a result of an ongoing marketing campaign organized by the Supplier in co-operation with its partners. The Client is not required to provide any credit card information during the period of Free Trial. If the period of Free Trial has expired, the Account will be automatically deactivated. In order to prevent deactivation or to reactivate the Account, the Client is required to select a suitable Plan and pay the first Fee. If the Client does not pay the first Fee within 2 weeks as of the expiry of the Free Trial, Supplier has the right to permanently delete the Account, including all Client Data therein. In addition to the current collection of Plans, Supplier may offer special discounts and motivation schemes (for example finder’s fees, etc.).
The following provisions are applicable only if you purchase access to the Telagus Services directly from Supplier. If you purchase access to the Telagus Services through a Reseller, the payment terms are set forth in the agreement with your Reseller. 5.1 Payment Card Authorization using gocardless. Supplier may seek pre-authorization of Client’s payment card account prior to your purchase of Telagus Services in order to verify that the card is valid and has the necessary funds or credit available to cover your purchase. You authorize such payment card account to pay any amounts described herein, and authorize Supplier to charge all sums described in these Terms to such card account. You agree to provide Supplier updated information regarding your payment card account upon Supplier’s request and any time the information earlier provided is no longer valid.
CLIENT DATA
6.1 Uploading Client Data to Platform. If the Client uploads Client Data to the Platform, such Client Data and any processing of such Client Data must be in compliance with these Terms and applicable law. All rights, title and interest in and to the Client Data belong to the Client or third persons (including Users, persons and Organizations) whether posted and/or uploaded by you or made available on or through the Telagus Services by Supplier. By uploading Client Data to the Platform, Client authorizes Supplier to process the Client Data. The Client is responsible for ensuring that:
the Client and any of the Users associated with the Account do not create, transmit, display or make otherwise available any Client Data that violates the terms of these Terms, the rights of Supplier, other Clients or Users, persons or Organizations or is harmful (for example viruses, worms, malware and other destructive codes), offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful or otherwise unlawful; and
the Client and all of the Users associated with the Account have the necessary rights to use the Client Data, including to insert it into the Platform and process it by means of the Account.
6.2 No Guarantee of Accuracy. Supplier does not guarantee any accuracy with respect to any information contained in any Client Data, and strongly recommends that you think carefully about what you transmit, submit or post to or through the Telagus Services. You understand that all information contained in Client Data is the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Client Data originated. This means that Client, and not Supplier, is entirely responsible for all Client Data that is uploaded, posted, transmitted, or otherwise made available through the Telagus Services, as well as for any actions taken by the Suppliers or other Clients or Users as a result of such Client Data. 6.3 Unlawful Client Data. Supplier is not obliged to pre-screen, monitor or filter any Client Data or acts of its processing by the Client in order to discover any unlawful nature therein. However, if such unlawful Client Data or the action of its unlawful processing is discovered or brought to the attention of Supplier or if there is reason to believe that certain Client Data is unlawful, Supplier has the right to:
notify the Client of such unlawful Client Data;
deny its publication on the Web Site or its insertion to the System;
demand that the Client bring the unlawful Client Data into compliance with these Terms and applicable law;
temporarily or permanently remove the unlawful Client Data from the Web Site or Account, restrict access to it or delete it.
If Supplier is presented convincing evidence that the Client Data is not unlawful, Supplier may, at its sole discretion, restore such Client Data, which was removed from the Web Site or Account or access to which was restricted. In addition, in the event Supplier believes in its sole discretion Client Data violates applicable laws, rules or regulations or these Terms, Supplier may (but has no obligation), to remove such Client Data at any time with or without notice. Without limiting the generality of the preceding sentence, Telagus US complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and will remove Client Data from the Platform upon receipt of a compliant takedown notice. Telagus EU as the data processor will assist the Client as the data controller in meeting the Client’s obligations under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, providing subject access, and allowing data subjects to exercise their rights under Regulation (EU) 2016/679. 6.4 Compelled Disclosure. Supplier may disclose a Client’s confidential information to the extent compelled by law to do so. In such instance, Supplier will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide Client with prior notice of the compelled disclosure (to the extent legally permitted) and Client shall provide reasonable assistance, at its cost, if Client wishes to contest the disclosure. If Supplier is compelled by law to disclose Client’s confidential information as part of a civil proceeding to which Supplier is a party, and Client is not contesting the disclosure, Client will reimburse Supplier for its reasonable cost of compiling and providing secure access to that confidential information.
7.1 Use of the Telagus Services. Subject to these Terms, and the payment of the applicable service Fee, Supplier grants Client and its authorized users a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable license to use the Telagus Services to:
collect, store and organize Client Data, such as add new Leads and Clients, add new Users and grant them Authorizations, assign Activities to a particular User;
modify and delete Client Data;
customize the standard features of the Telagus Services;
receive reasonable help and guidance and from Supplier regarding the use of the Telagus Services.
7.2 Technical Support. Supplier shall provide reasonable technical support to Client and its authorized User at the reasonable request of the Client. Supplier shall respond to enquiries of support from a Client utilizing the contacts set forth below as soon as reasonably possible. Responding to enquiries of Clients and Users who have accepted these Terms but do not have an Account may be less expedient, or may not occur at all. The contacts for all enquiries of support are:
e-mail: hello@telsamedia.com
7.3 Modifications to Service. Supplier reserves the right to modify the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof from time to time without prior notice, including, without limitation:
rebranding the Telagus Services at its sole discretion;
ceasing providing or discontinuing the development any particular Telagus Service or part or element of the Platform temporarily or permanently;
taking such action as is necessary to preserve Supplier’s rights upon any use of the Telagus Services that may be reasonably interpreted as violation of Supplier’s intellectual property rights, distribution of Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, malware, and other destructive activities or illegal activity.
As applicable, Client may be notified of such modifications when logging in to the Account. Modifications, including change in applicable rates for the Telagus Services, will become effective thirty (30) days before the effective date of such modification. If the Client does not accept the modification, the Client shall notify Supplier before the effective date of the modification, and these Terms will terminate on the effective date of the modification. The Client’s continued use of the Telagus Services, or any part or element thereof, after the effective date of a modification shall indicate its consent to the modifications. Supplier shall not be liable to the Client or to any third person for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Telagus Services, or any part or element thereof.
DATA PROCESSING CONTRACT
For the purposes of Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, these Terms constitute the data processing contract between the Client as the data controller and the Supplier as the data processor. The Client hereby instructs the Supplier to process the data as described in these Terms. 8.1 Subject matter and nature of processing. The Supplier provides the Platform where the Client, as the data controller, can collect, store and organize the personal data of data subjects determined by the Client. The Platform has been designed to work as a sales CRM tool but, to the extent not regulated by these Terms, the Client decides how they use the Platform. 8.2 Duration. The Supplier will process data on behalf of the Client until the termination of the Telagus Services in accordance with these Terms. Upon termination, Telagus will store the Client’s data for a period of three months, should the Client wish to reopen the Account to resume the use of the Telagus Services or to export Client Data, unless instructed otherwise by the Client. The Supplier deletes or returns all the personal data to the controller after the end of the provision of services relating to processing, and deletes existing copies unless Union or Member State law requires storage of the personal data. 8.3 Parties’ rights and obligations. The Client’s rights and obligations regarding Client Data are provided in sections 4 through 10 of these Terms. The Supplier ensures that persons authorised to process the personal data have committed themselves to confidentiality or are under an appropriate statutory obligation of confidentiality. The Supplier takes all measures required pursuant to Article 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679. The Supplier undertakes to make available to the controller all information necessary to demonstrate compliance with their obligations and to allow for and contribute to audits, including inspections, conducted or mandated by the Client as the data controller.
9.1 Prohibited Activities. Client and its authorized Users may use the Telagus Services and any part or element thereof only in the scope, with the means and for purposes as identified in these Terms and applicable law. By way of example, neither the Client nor any User may:
use the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof to commit a crime, breach any applicable law or entice or invite others to carry out such illegal actions;
copy, duplicate, distribute, modify, adapt, hack, create derivative works, reverse engineer or decompile the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof, or attempt to extract the source code thereof, unless (i) it is expressly allowed under applicable law, and (ii) to the extent that the Supplier is not permitted by that applicable law to exclude or limit the foregoing rights;
use the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof unless it has agreed to these Terms.
9.2 Certain Uses Require Supplier Consent. The Client or any User may not, without Supplier’s prior express written consent (e-mail, fax, Skype, etc.):
sell, resell, lease, license, sublicense, distribute, provide, disclose, divulge, exploit or otherwise grant Access or make the Telagus Services available in whole or in part to any third persons, unless such third person is another authorized User of the same Client;
use the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof in a scope, with means or for purposes other than those for which their functionality was created;
use the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof by means of programs that send them automatic enquiries or requests, unless such program has been made available by Supplier;
Supplier takes the privacy of its Clients and Users very seriously. Supplier’s Privacy Policy at www.telagus.com/privacy is hereby incorporated into these Terms by reference. Please read the Privacy Policy carefully as it governs Supplier’s collection, use, and disclosure of Client’s or User’s personal information.
10.1 Telagus’s Intellectual Property Rights in the Telagus Services. The Telagus Services, Telagus Materials, Telagus trade names and trademarks, and any parts or elements thereof are solely and exclusively owned and operated by Supplier and its third party vendors and hosting partners. Telagus Materials are protected by copyright, trade dress, patent, trade secrets, and trademark laws, international conventions and treaties, and all other relevant intellectual property and proprietary rights laws. Supplier, its affiliates and licensors retains all right, title and interest in such Telagus Services, Telagus Materials, Telagus trade names and trademarks, and any parts or elements. Your use of the Telagus Services and Telagus Materials, and any parts or elements does not grant to you any ownership right or intellectual property rights therein. Any commercial or promotional distribution, publishing or exploitation of the Telagus Materials is strictly prohibited unless you have received the express prior written permission from Supplier or the otherwise applicable rights holder. Supplier reserves all rights to the Telagus Services, Telagus Materials and Telagus trade names and trademarks not expressly granted in the Terms. 10.2 Content Owned by Telagus. Subject to these Terms and the payment of the applicable service Fee, Supplier grants Client and its authorized users a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable license to download a single copy of any part of the Content solely for your personal, non-commercial use if you retain all copyright and proprietary notices that are contained in such part of the Content. You expressly acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights by downloading any copyrighted material from or through the Platform or the Telagus Services. You shall not copy, distribute or publish any Content or any information obtained or derived therefrom except as permitted on or through the Telagus Services or as otherwise permitted by applicable law. 10.3 Client Data.
Supplier may use Client Data in an aggregated or anonymized format for research, educational and other similar purposes. Supplier may not otherwise use or display Client Data without Client’s written consent. Supplier respects your right to exclusive ownership of your Client Data. Unless specifically permitted by you, your use of the Telagus Services does not grant Supplier the license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish or distribute the Client Data created by you or stored in your Account for Supplier’s commercial, marketing or any similar purpose. Client expressly grants Supplier the right to use and analyze aggregate system activity data associated with use of the Telagus Services by Client and its Users for the purposes of optimizing, improving or enhancing the way the Telagus Services operate, and to create new features and functionality in connection with the Telagus Services in the sole discretion of Supplier.
Client is solely responsible for its own Client Data and the consequences of posting or publishing them on or through the Telagus Service. In connection with Client Data, Client affirms, represents, and warrants that: (i) Client either owns its Client Data or has the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize the Suppliers to display or otherwise use the Client Data under all patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights in and to your Client Data in a manner consistent with the intended features of the Telagus Services and these Terms, and to grant the rights and license set forth in Section 11.3(a), and (ii) Client Data, Supplier’s or any Telagus Licensee’s use of such Client Data pursuant to these Terms, and Supplier’s or any Telagus Licensee’s exercise of the license rights set forth in Section 11.3(a), do not and will not: (a) infringe, violate, or misappropriate any third-party right, including any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, moral right, privacy right, right of publicity, or any other intellectual property or proprietary right; (b) violate any applicable law or regulation anywhere in the world; or (c) require obtaining a license from or paying any fees and/or royalties by Supplier to any third party for the performance of any Telagus Services Client has chosen to be performed by Supplier or for the exercise of any rights granted in these Terms, unless Client and Supplier otherwise agree.
10.4 Feedback. If Client or a User provides Suppliers with any comments, bug reports, feedback, or modifications for the Telagus Services (“Feedback”), Supplier shall have the right to use such Feedback at its discretion, including, but not limited to the incorporation of such suggested changes into the Telagus Services. Client or User (as applicable) hereby grants Supplier a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty free license under all rights necessary to incorporate, publish, reproduce, distribute, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, exploit and use your Feedback for any purpose. Supplier shall have the right to modify or remove any Feedback provided in the public areas of the Web Site if the Supplier deems, at its discretion, harmful, offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful or otherwise unlawful.
THIRD-PARTY SITES, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
The Telagus Services may include links to other websites or services (“Linked Sites”) solely as a convenience to Clients. Unless otherwise specifically and explicitly indicated, Supplier does not endorse any such Linked Sites or the information, material, products, or services contained on or accessible through Linked Sites. Furthermore, Supplier makes no express or implied warranties with regard to the information, material, products, or services that are contained on or accessible through Linked Sites. ACCESS AND USE OF LINKED SITES, INCLUDING THE INFORMATION, MATERIAL, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES ON LINKED SITES OR AVAILABLE THROUGH LINKED SITES, IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. Any content referred to as community provided is provided by third parties and not developed or maintained by Telagus. By using any community marked code or libraries in your software development, you acknowledge and agree that Telagus is not in any way responsible for the performance or damages caused by such community provided code or library.
DISCLAIMERS; NO WARRANTY
UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY STATED BY SUPPLIER, THE TELAGUS SERVICES, TELAGUS MATERIAL, AND ANY CONTENT, SERVICES, OR FEATURES MADE AVAILABLE IN CONJUNCTION WITH OR THROUGH THE TELAGUS SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, SUPPLIER AND ITS AFFILIATES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, STATUTORY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT OF PROPRIETARY RIGHTS, CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, AND RELIABILITY. UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY STATED BY SUPPLIER, SUPPLIER AND ITS AFFILIATES DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE TELAGUS SERVICES AND ANY CONTENT, CLIENT DATA SERVICES, OR FEATURES MADE AVAILABLE IN CONJUNCTION WITH OR THROUGH THE TELAGUS SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE TELAGUS SERVICES AND ANY CONTENT, CLIENT DATA, SERVICES, OR FEATURES MADE AVAILABLE IN CONJUNCTION WITH OR THROUGH THE TELAGUS SERVICES OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES THEM AVAILABLE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY STATED BY SUPPLIER, SUPPLIER AND ITS AFFILIATES DO NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE PLATFORM, THE TELAGUS SERVICES, TELAGUS MATERIAL OR ANY LINKED SITES, IN TERMS OF CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE. THE LAWS OF CERTAIN COUNTRIES AND STATES DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES. IF THESE LAWS APPLY TO YOU, SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE DISCLAIMERS, EXCLUSIONS, OR LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU, AND YOU MIGHT HAVE ADDITIONAL RIGHTS.
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Supplier and its affiliates, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents, from any claims, losses, damages, liabilities, including attorney’s fees, arising out of your use or misuse of the Telagus Services, Telagus Materials, representations made to the Supplier, its affiliates and/or third parties, violation of these Terms, violation of the rights of any other person or entity, or any breach of the foregoing representations, warranties, and covenants. Supplier reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter for which you are required to indemnify Supplier, and you agree to cooperate with such defense of these claims.
14.1 No Liability: Supplier shall not be liable to the Client or User for any consequences resulting from:
any modifications in these Terms, calculation and rates of Fees, the Telagus Services, Telagus Material, or any part or element thereof (including but not limited to Account), including any error, permanent or temporary interruption, discontinuance, suspension or other type of unavailability of the Telagus Services or Telagus Material;
deletion of, corruption of, or failure to store any Client Data;
use of Client Data by the Client or any of the Users associated with the Account;
upgrading or downgrading the current Plan;
any disclosure, loss or unauthorized use of the login credentials of Client or any authorized User due to Client’s failure to keep them confidential;
the Client’s use of the Account or the Telagus Services by means of browsers other than those accepted or supported by the Supplier;
the application of any remedies against the Client or authorized Users by the Supplier, for example if the Client or User has committed a crime or conducted a breach of applicable law by using the Telagus Services or any part or element thereof;
the differences between technologies and platforms used for access, for example if certain features, functions, parts or elements of the Telagus Services are designed for use on a personal computer or laptop and do not function on a mobile platform or a tablet;
the Supplier’s application of the remedies described in these Terms, even if the reasonable grounds or legal basis for the application of these remedies turned out to be unfounded or invalid afterwards.
In addition, Supplier and its affiliates shall not be liable to the Client for any claim by any User, person, Organization or third persons against the Client arising out of the Client’s failure to:
provide Supplier with accurate information about the Client, Users or Account;
notify Supplier of any reasons due to which a User does not have the right to use the Account on behalf of the Client;
provide any Products which it has agreed to provide to such a person or Organization (whether such failure arises as a result of Supplier’s negligence, breach if these Terms or otherwise);
ensure the lawfulness of the Client Data;
obtain the necessary rights to use the Client Data; or
abide by any of the restrictions described in these Terms.
14.2 Limitation of Liability. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF TELAGUS AND ITS AFFILIATES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT PAID BY CLIENT HEREUNDER FOR THE TELAGUS SERVICES GIVING RISE TO THE LIABILITY IN THE SIX MONTHS PRECEDING THE FIRST INCIDENT OUT OF WHICH THE LIABILITY AROSE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION WILL APPLY WHETHER AN ACTION IS IN CONTRACT OR TORT AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, BUT WILL NOT LIMIT CLIENT’S PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE “PAYMENT” SECTION ABOVE. 14.3 Exclusion of Consequential and Related Damages. IN NO EVENT WILL EITHER PARTY OR ITS AFFILIATES HAVE ANY LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS FOR ANY LOST PROFITS, REVENUES, GOODWILL, OR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, COVER, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, WHETHER AN ACTION IS IN CONTRACT OR TORT AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF A PARTY OR ITS AFFILIATES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR IF A PARTY’S OR ITS AFFILIATES’ REMEDY OTHERWISE FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. THE FOREGOING DISCLAIMER WILL NOT APPLY TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY LAW.
TERMINATION OF THESE TERMS
15.1 For Convenience. These Terms may be terminated for convenience upon written notice to the other party as indicated in the “Notice” Section below:
by the Client any time by clicking the no-questions-asked cancellation link on the Web Site, when logged in to the Account, or if the Client is paying for the Service with a Gocardless, by revoking Directly with your bank Or by submitting a ticket with us to request the cancellation.
by Supplier upon decision to end provision of the Telagus Services and close the Platform; or
immediately by either party, if proceedings are initiated for the other party’s liquidation or insolvency or a negotiated settlement with the other party’s creditors is concluded or an assignment is made on behalf of the other party for the benefit of creditors.
15.2 For Default. These Terms may be terminated for default upon written notice to the other party as indicated in the “Notice” Section below:
by either party in case of breach of these Terms by the other party, if the breach has not been cured within 30 days of receipt of a notice from the non-breaching party; or
immediately by either party if the other party breaches its obligations, as applicable under Sections 12 [Intellectual Property Rights] and 15 [Indemnification] of these Terms.
15.3 Effect of Termination. Upon termination of these Terms,
Supplier shall deactivate and permanently delete the Account, within six months of the effective date of termination of these Terms. If the Client has specifically requested for an earlier deletion of the Account, Supplier shall fulfill such request within 1 month of its receipt of such request.
Client must:
stop using and prevent the further usage of the Telagus Services, including, without limitation, the Platform;
pay any amounts owed to Supplier under these Terms; and
discharge any liability incurred by the Client before under these Terms prior to their termination; and
The following provisions shall survive the termination of these Terms: Sections 1, 7.4, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18 and 19.
15.4 Remedies. If Supplier terminates these Terms as a result of an uncured breach by a Client or User, Supplier is entitled to use the same or similar remedies against any other persons who use the Telagus Services in conflict with these Terms. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Supplier may also apply any other remedies available to it under the applicable law. Upon application of any remedies, the Client or User may lose Access or suffer a loss of certain features, functions, parts or elements of the Telagus Services. If Supplier has reasonable grounds to believe that the Client’s or User’s use of the Telagus Services, including the Account may harm any third persons, Supplier has the right to take adequate measures under its control to prevent, stop and eliminate the harm, where possible, in order to protect those third persons.
WHO YOU ARE CONTRACTING WITH
16.1 General. The Supplier with whom Client is contracting depends on the domicile of the Client. The Supplier determines the domicile of the Client based on the country indicated in the billing address of the User who concludes these Terms on behalf of the Client. During the Free Trial, the Supplier determines the domicile of the Client based on the location indicated in the IP-address of the User who concludes these Terms on behalf of the Client. By accepting these Terms, the Client is contracting with the Supplier listed opposite such Client’s domicile in the following table:
Client’s domicile: Supplier: Supplier’s contact:
Anywhere in world Telagus UK e-mail: info postal address: Telsa Media House 90 Stafford Road Wallington Surrey SM6 9AY England
17.1 Relationship of the Parties. The parties will act solely as independent contractors. These Terms shall not be construed as creating an agency, partnership, joint venture, fiduciary duty, or any other form of legal association between the Client and either Supplier, and the Client shall not represent to the contrary, whether expressly, by implication, appearance or otherwise. These Terms are not for the benefit of any third parties. 17.2 Severability. If any term, condition or provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal in whole or in part for any reason, that provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible so as to effect the intent of the parties. The validity and enforceability of the remaining terms, conditions or provisions, or portions of them, shall not be affected. 17.3 Entire Agreement. These Terms are the entire agreement between Client and Supplier regarding Client’s use of the Telagus Services and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements, proposals or representations, written or oral, concerning its subject matter. Except as otherwise provided herein, no modification, amendment, or waiver of any provision of these Terms will be effective unless in writing and signed by the party against whom the modification, amendment or waiver is to be asserted. 17.4 Assignment. Client may not, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, by operation of law or otherwise, assign or transfer these Terms or delegate any of its rights and/or obligations under these Terms without Supplier’s prior written consent. Any attempted assignment, transfer or delegation without such prior written consent will be void and unenforceable. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Client, or its permitted successive assignees or transferees, may assign or transfer these Terms or delegate any rights or obligations hereunder without consent: (1) to any entity controlled by, or under common control with the Client, or its permitted successive assignees or transferees; or (2) in connection with a merger, reorganization, transfer, sale of assets or product lines, or change of control or ownership of the Client, or its permitted successive assignees or transferees. 17.5 No Waiver. Failure of either Party to exercise or enforce any provision of or any of its rights under these Terms shall not be deemed a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision or right. 17.6 Notices. Except as otherwise specified in these Terms, all notices related to these Terms will be in writing and will be effective upon (a) personal delivery, (b) the second business day after mailing, or (c), except for notices of termination or an indemnifiable claim (“Legal Notices”), which shall clearly be identifiable as Legal Notices, the day of sending by email. Billing-related notices to you will be addressed to the relevant billing contact designated by you. All other notices to you will be addressed to the relevant Services system administrator designated by you. Last update: June 6, 2019
Telagus Services
2018 Copyright. powered by Telsa Media
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Archive for the GOP Insanity Category
Despite Hillary’s Amazing 92% Chance Of Winning The Presidency There Is No Room For Complacency!
Posted in 2016 Presidency, 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 2016 White House, Bernie Sanders Baggage, Bill Clinton, Blacks, Children, Christ, Current events, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, Equal rights for all, Equality, George W. Bush, GOP Insanity, GOP Wrecking America, Hate, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, HOPE, Kathy Perry, LGBT, Media, Michelle Obama, Politics, Politics 2016, President Obama, Republican Scam, Republicans, Republicans Witch Hunt, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United States, Vote Hillary, Women, Women's Rights with tags Elect Democratic Controlled House and Senate, Vote Hillary Clinton President on October 24, 2016 by sheriffali
[New York Times And Nate Silver’s-FiveThirtyEight October 24, 2016 Presidential Projection]
The Upshot’s elections model suggests that Hillary Clinton is favored to win the presidency, based on the latest State and National Polls. A victory by Mr. Trump remains possible: Mrs. Clinton’s chance of losing is about the same as the probability that an N.F.L Kicker misses a 30-yard field goal.
Support and Vote Hillary Clinton for President and Vote to Elect a Democratic Controlled House and Senate to keep America moving forward, as Hillary Clinton continues Obama’s Legacy, Polices and build on Obama’s achievements.
President Obama saved America from the Republicans Disaster – George W Bush, Dick Cheney and a Do Nothing Republican Congress!
http://53eig.ht/2016Forecast
The Names Abraham Lincoln And Donald Trump Should Never be In The Same Sentence! President Lincoln Worked To End Racism, Bigotry And End Slavery. Trump Is Trying To Reinstitute Hate, Racism, Bigotry, Fascism And Slavery. [Gettysburg]
Posted in 2016 Presidency, 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 2016 White House, Abraham Lincoln, Blacks, Democrats, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, GOP Derangement, GOP Insanity, GOP Is A Cancer, John F. Kennedy, LGBT, Obama Administration, Peace, Politics, Politics 2016, Poverty, President Obama, Racism, Republicans, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United States, Women, Women's Rights with tags Abraham Linton Great American, Donald Trump Worst American, Elect Democratic Congress, Lincoln 13TH Amendment, Lincoln Emancipation, Trump Bigot, Trump Fascsist, Trump Hater, Trump Racist, Vote Hillary Cliinton on October 22, 2016 by sheriffali
[WAPO] “GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Donald Trump traveled Saturday to the site of the most bloody battle of the Civil War, where he suggested that the United States is nearly as divided now as it was then. But instead of laying out his vision for uniting the country, as President Abraham Lincoln once did in this historic place, Trump declared that the system is rigged against him, that election results cannot be trusted, that Hillary Clinton should have been barred from running for president, that the media is “corrupt” and that he will sue all of the women who have accused him of sexual assault.
“It is my privilege to be here in Gettysburg, hallowed ground where so many lives were given in service to freedom — amazing place,” Trump said, soon after taking the stage more than an hour later than expected in a ballroom at the Eisenhower Hotel and Conference Center. “President Lincoln served in a time of division like we’ve never seen before. It is my hope that we can look at his example to heal the divisions we are living through right now. We are a very divided nation.”
Trump told the crowd of about 500 locals who are active in the Republican Party that he didn’t have to run for president, but he did so because the country is in trouble, and he can fix things because he’s an outsider who knows how the “very broken system” works. He described himself as being able to deliver “the kind of change that only arrives once in a lifetime.”
Support And Vote Hillary Clinton President And Elect A Democratic Controlled Congress, Ending The “Do Nothing Republican Obstructionist Congress!
http://wpo.st/oAn72
The Media For Ratings And Mammon Is Legitimizing Russian/WikiLeaks Stolen Forgeries As Breaking News Facts And Instigating And Encouraging Vladimir Putin To Continue To Hack All Segments Of America.
Posted in 2016 Presidency, 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 White House, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, Equal rights for all, Equality, Fox News, George W. Bush, GOP Derangement, GOP Insanity, GOP Is A Cancer, Gun Violence, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, HIllaryClinton2016, Hypocrisy, KKK, Koch Brothers, LGBT, Liar, Light, Limiting the black President, Media, Media Bias For GOP, Michelle Obama, New York City, Newt Gingrich, NRA, Obama Administration, Politics, Politics 2016, President Obama, President Obama's Accomplishments, Republican Legislators, Republican Scam, RICH OR POOR, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United States, Vote Hillary, White House 2016, Women, Women's Rights with tags CON MAN TRUMP, Groper In Chief GOP Trump, Media Enablers Of Putin Hacking, Media Enablers Of Wikileaks, Media Loves Hacking, Stop The Groper Trump Now, Trump Sexual Assault on October 14, 2016 by sheriffali
[NYT] “In the final weeks of a dizzying presidential campaign, Donald Trump is suddenly embracing an unlikely ally: The document-spilling group WikiLeaks which Republicans denounced when it published classified State Department cables and Pentagon secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump, his advisers, and many of his supporters are increasingly seizing on a trove of embarrassing emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign that WikiLeaks has been publishing — and that American intelligence agencies said on Friday came largely from Russian intelligence agencies, with the authorization of “Russia’s senior-most officials.”
The Trump campaign’s willingness to use WikiLeaks is an extraordinary turnabout after years of bipartisan criticism of the organization and its leader, Julian Assange for past disclosures of American national security intelligence and other confidential information.
The accusation that Russian agents are now playing an almost-daily role in helping fuel Mr. Trump’s latest political attacks on Mrs. Clinton raises far greater concerns, though, about foreign interference in a presidential election.
With the White House weighing its next move — from possible sanctions to covert, retaliatory cyber action — President Vladimir Putin of Russia insisted on Wednesday that his nation was being falsely accused. “The hysteria is merely caused by the fact that somebody needs to divert the attention of the American people from the essence of what was exposed by the hackers,” Mr. Putin said.
He did acknowledge that the disclosures were the work of an illegal hack — which is further than Mr. Trump went in Sunday’s debate. In one exchange with Mrs. Clinton, the Republican candidate said: “Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia,” he said, as part of an effort to “tarnish me.”
Mr. Trump has seized on more than 6,000 emails published so far this week, apparently from the personal Gmail account of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta. Based on a few emails plucked from the account, Mr. Trump and his team have accused Clinton aides of improperly receiving inside information from the Obama administration.”
The Orange Volcano Donald Trump, Exploded And Magma Is Spewing On All Republicans!
Posted in 2016 Presidency, 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 2016 White House, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, GOP Insanity, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, HIllaryClinton2016, Kelly Ayotte, Lindsay Graham, Media, Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, New York City, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Politics, Politics 2016, Poverty, Presidency 2016, President Obama, President Obama's Accomplishments, Racism, Religion, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United States, Vengeful McCain, Vote Hillary, White House 2016, Women, Women's Rights with tags CON MAN TRUMP, Debased Republicans, Grope Trump, Lewd Trump, President Obama Greatest, Republicans And Racism, Swindler Trump, Unite Vote Blue, Vote Hillary Clinton, Vulgar Trump on October 9, 2016 by sheriffali
Subsequent to Barack Obama winning the Presidency in 2008, Mitch McConnell and his Myrmidons went into “Over-Drive” to make President Obama a “One Term President.”
As was told by a former Republican, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said Republicans, headed by Mitch McConnell on the day of President Obama Inauguration ordered all Members Of The GOP to do everything within their powers to make Obama a “One-Term-President, even if such actions were destructive to America and the American People.
Col. Wilkerson’s Exact Words – Verbatim:
“Let me just be candid: My Party is full of Racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my Party wants President Obama Out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as Commander In Chief and President, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that is despicable.”
In the final analysis, we all reap what we sow and that is without a doubt. Modern Day Republicans took the Party of one of America’s Greatest President, Abraham Lincoln and they literally destroyed the GOP. It is anyone’s guess as to whether or not after November 8, 2016 if there would still be a meaningful Republican Party, or, would they have to start all over from scratch.
Republicans sowed for decades; Bigotry, Fascism, Racism, Hate, Lies, Intolerance and every despicable adjective that comes to mind and now, the Republican Egregious Machinations, Metastasized in the Vulgar, Lewd, Bigoted, Racist, and Swindler – Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is fully cognizant he is going down, but Trump is Hell Bent on Taking the Republican Party with him.
Unite and Vote Blue as if your life depends on it, because in reality, it does. Hillary Clinton is hated by many because she is lied about; on the other hand, Donald Trump is hated because he lies and he is a parasitic parasite, despicable, vulgar, notorious, sorry excuse for a human being.
Support and Vote Hillary Clinton for President and Elect a Democratic Controlled House and Senate, for America to keep moving forward, after President Obama, who has done an exceedingly great job as President, despite the “Do Nothing, Obstructionist Republicans.”
Mike Pence’s Galling Amnesia! Pence As Any Educated Person Knows Trump Isn’t Going To Win. Pence Display During The VP Debate Is Self Evident He Is Thinking 2020!
Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 2016 White House, Democrat, Democrats, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, GOP Derangement, GOP Insanity, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, HIllaryClinton2016, KKK, LGBT, Liar, Politics, Politics 2016, Poverty, President Obama, President Obama's Accomplishments, Republican Scam, Republicans, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, United States, Women, Women's Rights with tags Bankruptcy King Trump, CON MAN TRUMP, Liar Trump, Mike Pence, Mike Pence Anti-Women Rights, Pence Anti-LGBT, Pence Threw Trump, Swindler Trump, Under The Bus, VP Debate on October 5, 2016 by sheriffali
[NYT – FRANK BRUNI] Back when Mike Pence hosted a talk radio show in the 1990s, he described himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”
For much of Tuesday night, he was like Forrest Gump on chamomile, squarely and steadily plodding forward, seldom tugged from his talking points and never particularly rattled. His expression was a sort of upbeat blur. His voice was a lulling drone.
It wasn’t exactly a vivid performance, but it was an eerily consistent one, and it answered the question of how a man who supposedly prides himself on his virtue defends a running mate who is often bereft of it. He sets his jaw. He slows his pulse. He practices a bemused chuckle, perfects deafness to anything he prefers not to hear and purges from his memory anything he doesn’t want to own.
That included the whole grotesque cornucopia of Donald Trump’s slurs and bad behavior, which Tim Kaine had studied up on exhaustively, knew by heart and kept throwing at Pence, pressing for the barest glimmer of shame or the slightest hint of apology. It was pointless — a point that Kaine himself made about an hour into this exercise in futility.
“Six times tonight, I have said to Governor Pence: I can’t imagine how you can defend your running mate’s position on one issue after the next,” Kaine said, his voice somewhat squeaky with frustration. “And in all six cases, he’s refused to defend his running mate, and yet he is asking everybody to vote for somebody that he cannot defend.”
That’s a fair enough summary of the vice-presidential debate, and it flagged what made the event so fascinating, which was Pence — specifically, the astonishing peace he has made with Trump and his wholehearted readiness to promote a man who should be so offensive to him.
In the face of Kaine’s incessant grilling, Pence blithely denied that Trump had made statements that he inarguably had, changed the subject to Hillary Clinton’s failings, mocked Kaine for being scripted and dismissed Kaine and Clinton as career politicians — ignoring the fact that he fits that description, too.
Substantively, it was galling. Strategically, it may well have worked. With his minimalist speaking style, Pence drew attention to Kaine’s maximalist salvos. Pence’s unflappability threw Kaine’s irritation and interruptions into relief.
Open New York Times Link For Full Article: http://nyti.ms/2dDdkJC
Texas Newspaper Destroys The Myth That Hillary Clinton Is The Lesser Of Two Evils!
Posted in 2016 Presidency, 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, America's 2%, America's 98%, CNN, Democrat, Democrats, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, GOD'S GRACE, God's love, God's Spirit, GOP Insanity, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, HIllaryClinton2016, KKK, LGBT, Liar, Media, Michelle Obama, New York City, Obama Administration, Presidency 2016, President Obama, President Obama's Accomplishments, Republicans, Right Wing Extremists, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Spiritual Strength, United States, White House, White House 2016, Whites, Women, Women's Rights with tags Elect Democratic House And Senate, Endorses Hillary Clinton, Experienced Hillary Clinton, Qualified Hillary Clinton, Stand With President Obama, Texas News Papers, Texas News Papers Hillary Is Not The Lesser Of Two Evils, Vote Hillary Clinton President on October 3, 2016 by sheriffali
A Texas newspaper hasn’t just endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times destroyed the media created myth that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are equals, but that Clinton is the lesser of two evils.
[Politicususa] A Texas newspaper hasn’t just endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times destroyed the media created myth that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are equals, but that Clinton is the lesser of two evils.
In their endorsement the editorial board of the Caller-Times Wrote:
She is not, as has been sold, a mere lesser of two evils. Her experience and intellect would make her a standout in any group of candidates. Like President Obama said and didn’t need to be fact-checked, she’s more qualified than him or her husband.
Being the only serious alternative is both Clinton’s fortune and misfortune. It increases the likelihood of victory, but also of presiding over a nation with large groups of dissidents. While voting against her can be a statement of differing principle, voting for Trump would not rise to that level. It’s not a vote for Republicanism. The Republican Party’s principles and standards are beyond Trump’s reach.
We perceive in Clinton the capability to bridge the divide — to define rather than exploit our problems and pursue intelligent solutions. Her “basket of deplorables” comment made the task more difficult but it was a rare lapse by an otherwise level-headed servant leader with a history of self-correcting resilience. The former senator’s Republican colleagues remember her fondly as a middle-ground-seeking master of the art of deal-making. If there is to be a return to bipartisanship, she is the one to lead it.
It is rare to see an endorsement in this presidential election that focuses on why one candidate should be president instead of why her opponent is unfit to hold the office.
Hillary Clinton is not the lesser of two evils. She has never been. When one examines the facts, there is no contest between Clinton and Trump. Donald Trump has a real rap sheet that should disqualify him from being president. Hillary Clinton’s “crimes” are conspiracy theories that have been cooked up by the conservative media’s anti-Clinton conspiracy cottage industry that has spent decades as a robust source of profit for conservative authors and media.
The idea that Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils is a lazy media narrative that was created by corporate mainstream talking heads only interested in false equivalence to keep ratings and interest up during an election. It would take too much effort for the media to discuss the fact that Clinton’s approval ratings are a byproduct of decades of Republican attacks on her last name combined with the extreme polarization of the electorate.
2016 isn’t a lesser of two evils election. It is a base election that may turn into a rout because Republicans made the foolish decision to nominate a candidate with a closet full of evils to run against the most competent and qualified candidate to a major party’s nomination in the modern era of American politics.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/02/texas-newspaper-destroys-myth-hillary-clinton-lesser-evils.html
It’s Already Happening! Yes, Trump Is Closing In On The Polls, But Here’s Why That’s Meaningless!
Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 2016 White House, America's 98%, Bill Clinton, Blacks, Children, Colin Powell, Democrats, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Scam, Equal rights for all, Fox News, GOP Insanity, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton For POTUS, LGBT, Liar, Media Bias For GOP, Obama Administration, Obama's Compassion, Paul Ryan, President Obama, President Obama's Accomplishments, Republican Scam, Republicans, Right Wing Extremists, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vote Hillary, Women, Women's Rights with tags Anti Hillary Clinton Media, Bigoted Trump, ConMan Trump Can't Win, Electoral Map Favors Clinton, Falsehood Of Polls, Fascist Trump, Pathological Liar Trump, Racist Trump, Swindler Trump on September 15, 2016 by sheriffali
[Salon] “As you read this, pollsters are preparing to release surveys conducted over the past weekend and its immediate aftermath, when Hillary Clinton made her accurate but perhaps poorly phrased comment about Donald Trump’s “deplorable” fans, then nearly passed out at a 9/11 memorial service in New York before revealing she had been trying to “power through” a case of walking pneumonia. This allowed the media to start reporting on rumors about her health, which had previously been the province of the right-wing fever swamps from which Trump has drawn much of his support and campaign staff.
In other words, the news of the moment will likely result in some polls at both the national and swing-state level that do not look so good for Clinton. Hey look, it is already happening!
These polls will lead partisans to add to an already-vibrant chorus of grumbling about Clinton’s inability to already demolish Trump and political writers who will tell you that the carrot-colored real-estate mogul has “momentum.” Hey look, that too is already happening.
This would all be a lot more frightening if the narrowing polls had not been totally predictable, independent of any caterwauling from the media about health scares and Kinsley gaffes. For we have now come to the Great Tightening, that point of every recent presidential election cycle when the candidates see their numbers in national and swing-state polls inch closer to each other. Predictably, this is being followed by the Great Freak-Out, when supporters of the leading candidate set their hair on fire and run through the public square screaming for water.
But this weekend’s stumbles by Clinton are also why articles that claim Trump has “momentum” tell us nothing more than that the writer had a quota to fill for the day. Momentum is an overrated concept in national elections at the presidential level, especially this late in the game.
In 2012, for example, Mitt Romney was supposed to have momentum after he performed much more strongly in his first debate against President Obama than most people expected. During this year’s primaries, Bernie Sanders was said to have momentum when he won the Michigan primary, and again when he won Wisconsin a few weeks later.”
With Hillary Clinton Resting-Up President Obama Makes Hillary’s Case In a Biting Campaign Stop In Pennsylvania – See Video!
http://videos.tout.com/dry/mp4/36b537748529d134.mp4
Open Link For Salon Full Article
http://www.salon.com/2016/09/15/its-already-happening-yes-trump-is-closing-in-on-the-polls-but-heres-why-thats-meaningless/
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2 Yazidi takfiri Taliban terrorists killed in shootout with police in Karachi
Two Yazidi takfiri nasbi terrorists associated with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were gunned down in a joint operation carried out by the Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC) and the Sohrab Goth police on Sunday, said a police official.
The law enforcers received information regarding a group of terrorists attempting to carry out an attack on polio workers.
Taking action on the information received the AVCC and the Sohrab Goth police started patrolling near Afghan Camp and signalled a suspicious car and a rickshaw to stop. However, instead of complying, the terrorists in the vehicles opened fire on the law enforcers and sped away.
The police party chased them and opened fire at the vehicles near Ganna Mandi situated in the New Sabzi Mandi locality. The two terrorists travelling in the rickshaw were injured and captured, while four of their accomplices travelling in the car managed to escape under the cover of fire.
A thorough search of the rickshaw resulted in the police seizing two TT pistols, two hand grenades and 10 kilograms of explosive materials. On the way to the Civil Hospital Karachi, the wounded suspects identified themselves as 28-year-old Qamar Zaman and 35-year-old Moosa Khan. They succumbed to their injuries before reaching the hospital.
Sohrab Goth Station House Officer Syed Shoaib Ali told the Shiite News that the terrorists hailed from Waziristan. They were involved in the killings of polio workers in the last immunization campaign.
Another Shia youth embraced martyrdom due to Yazidi terrorist attack
Kafan-Posh rally in Karachi protests Shia genocide in Karachi
Six TTP takfiri suspects killed in Orangi operation: Rangers
Funeral of renowned Shia scholar Allama Ali Ghazanfar Kararvi held
Punjab Govt Abducted Islamic Preacher from Mashhad; Still Missing
Pakistan and US agree not to remain hostage to perceptions
Dozens of Shia azadars injured in ASWJ attack on Ashura procession in Sialkot
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The US-Saudi blockade and aggression on Yemen has created the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis
On the humanitarian level in Yemen and the catastrophic consequences of the US-imposed embargo imposed on the Yemeni people, the humanitarian situation in Yemen has reached record levels in the number of victims of “Yemeni” civilians, women and children affected by the aggression and victims affected by the siege.
According to the United Nations in more than one session, Yemen is facing the biggest human catastrophe in the world, especially after the outbreak of cholera, which increased the magnitude of the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.
Incredibly, there are record numbers for civilian casualties affected by war and siege. According to UN statistics and the World Health Ministry
She explained that more than 6 million Yemenis are living below the poverty line today due to deteriorating living conditions.
As for the health and the situation of the patients, field sources confirmed that there are more than 500 thousand Yemeni children are threatened to die due to lack of food and relief resources in addition to the situation of chronic diseases, which lead to kidney failure and anemia and numbers tens of thousands and because of the interruption of electricity and prevent aggression from entering The therapeutic materials needed to combat these diseases have become the life of these patients on the brink of completion.
In the same context, the blood of the Kingdom and its allies has not stopped the siege and starvation of the Yemenis, but the death fighters of Saudi Arabia and the coalition forces are still committing mass acts of genocide against civilians around the clock. The international organizations said that the American air force killed more than 13,000 Yemenis and wounded 40,000, the majority of which are children and women, and with the deterioration of health conditions and lack of medicines in the Republic’s hospitals increased the gravity of the situation of the wounded especially those with in critical conditions.
The suffering of Yemeni citizens has been exacerbated by the recent outbreak of cholera in 22 Yemeni provinces. In a record time, the death toll from the epidemic has been around 1,800 and around 300,000 people infected every 10 minutes.
The storm led by Saudi Arabia has caused enormous damage to Yemen’s infrastructure and economy. It has left innocent Palestinian children and women in Yemen and has prevented the entry of medicines and therapeutic supplies for Yemeni patients affected by air strikes, but has also prevented the entry of medical supplies to combat the cholera epidemic, which is spreading rapidly and dangerously. In this sense, it is possible to say that the Kingdom has made in Yemen the greatest humanitarian crisis known to the times and human history
civilian killed in yemen Houthis of Yemen humanitarian crisis Palestinian saudi led coalition shia news report shiie news The US-Saudi blockade and aggression on Yemen has created the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis united nations report USSaudi back terrorist USSaudi blockade and aggression world’s biggest humanitarian crisis Yemen War
Amnesty Int’l Condemns “Terrorism” Charges against Ebtisam Al-Sayegh
US sees Iran’s tactful, sensible policies threat to own profiteering plans: Official
45 army recruits killed in Yemen’s Aden bomb attacks
Yemeni forces shoot down Saudi-led spy drone in Asir
Yemen Bomb Attack Wounds Six Ansarullah Revolutionaries
Yemen launches ‘ballistic’ missile at Saudi military base in Jizan
Ansarullah Retakes Large Parts of Lahij in Yemen
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The Hoatzin was originally described by German zoologist Statius Müller in 1776.
Picture of the Hoatzin has been licensed under a GFDL
Original source: Own work
Author: Linda De VolderOther versionsDerivative works of this file:
Permission: GNU Free Documentation License
The Hoatzin is classified as Least Concern. Does not qualify for a more at risk category. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category.
Hoatzin, a crested bird of tropical South America. The adult hoatzin is about 22 inches (56 cm) long. Its upper plumage is dark brown flecked with white. The underparts and crest are reddish-brown. The bare skin on its face is blue. Hoatzins are born with two claws on each wing, which are used for climbing and which disappear after three weeks. More
World News Hoatzin - the strangest bird in the Amazon Houston Chronicle 2010-04-09 ECUADORAN AMAZON - The hoatzin was one of the strangest birds I saw during our trip here last month. Even its name, pronounced wat-sin, sounds peculiar and like something that would arise from the Amazon jungle. The hoatzin hangs around trees near wet areas such as still water, slow-moving creeks, flooded forests, swamps and oxbow lakes. It's a primitive-looking bird,... More
Not only does the Hoatzin look strange, this South American bird has characteristics unlike any other. Read some interesting facts about Hoatzins. Hoatzins (Opisthocomus hoazin) live in the Amazon rain forest, in the basins of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. They perch in colourful groups on tree branches in swamps or along the banks of slow moving rivers. Clumsy on their short legs, and poor fliers, they are nevertheless beautiful birds that tolerate the presence of humans quite well. More
The Hoatzin (left and below) is a very odd, monotypic species of uncertain affinities which lives in backwater swamps of the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America. It is often considered one of the most primitive of birds. While it is not difficult to find Hoatzins once their habitat is reached, I have had much difficulty in taking photos. More
unterscheidet sich der Hoatzin durch sein an Wiederkäuer erinnerndes Verdauungssystem und die krallenbewehrten Flügel der Jungvögel. Inhaltsverzeichnis - * 1 Merkmale * 2 Verbreitung und Lebensraum * 3 Lebensweise * 3.1 Aktivität * 3.2 Nahrung * 3. More
Baby hoatzinHoatzin speciesHoatzin chickHoatzin rainforestHoatzin dietWhat are hoatzins ada... More
In this respect the hoatzin is reminiscent of the extinct lizard-bird Archaeopteryx. As the young mature and begin to fly (though never especially well), the claws dwindle. Hoatzins are sometimes called reptile-birds because of their crocodilian odor and harsh, monotonous call. In yet another respect, they are the most advanced of avians. In other birds, food is broken up in the gizzard, but the hoatzin accomplishes this in its well-developed, muscular, horny-walled crop, and its gizzard is much reduced. More
Hoatzin is herbivorous, it eats leaves and fruit, and has an unusual digestive system with an enlarged crop which functions as a rumen. It also produces a horrible smell to scare away potential predators. Contents - * 1 Taxonomy, systematics and evolution * 1.1 History of the debate * 1. More
Hoatzins are classified in the phylum Chordata Chordata (kôrdā`tə,–dä`–) ..... Click the link for more information. , subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Galliformes, family Opisthocomidae. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. More
Hoatzin, May 19 2005, Otorongo Lake, Manu National Park, Peru This photo was taken by me on our last day in Manu, on Otorongo Lake (an oxbow lake near the river, a common place to find Hoatzin). We plied the calm lake waters in a small catamaran, and came across a half dozen individuals on a snag over the water. The other 4 left, but this character (and the one in the photo below) hung around to see what we were on about. More
The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is a colorful neotropical bird with an archaic appearance, featuring wing claws in the chicks, similar to those present on the Archaeopteryx fossil, the first known winged lizard-bird. The Hoatzin weights ~ 700 grams and it is about the size of a pheasant. Its crest is red-orange up to 8 cm long. It has a long neck with a small head and a bright blue area of bare skin around the red eyes, and a short, pale brown bill. More
Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoatzin), Venezuela (on nest spreading its wings) RELIC OF PREHISTORY? Written and Photographed by ADRIAN WARREN One of the strangest living birds is the hoatzin, which seems to be a link with birds that became extinct millions of years ago, and even shows similarities to the first known bird Archaeopteryx - It is generally accepted that Archaeopteryx was the world's first bird, though it was really nothing more than More
Hoatzin ( Opisthocomus hoazin) Class: Aves, Order: Currently in Debate, Family: Opisthocomidae, Genus: Opisthocomus, Species: hoazin IUCN Status: Not Listed Hoatzin These unique birds are considered a relic from the age of the dinosaurs. They represent the only living member of the family Opisthocomidae, and its close relatives probably died out long ago. These chicken-sized birds weigh less than a kilogram (2 lbs) and have a body length of 61-66 cm (24-26 inches). More
The hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is one of the world's most peculiar bird species. It is the sole member of its family, Opisthocomidae. It is peculiar enough to have defied taxonomists' best efforts for years. This bird lives only in the rainforests of northern South America. Its feathers are dark brown on the back and lighter below, and chestnut-colored on its sides. The skin around its red eyes is a startling electric blue. Its head is topped by a crest of long chestnut-colored feathers. More
Get updates via SMS by texting follow hoatzin to 40404 in the United States Codes for other countries Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes: Country Code For customers of Australia * 0198089488 Telstra Canada * 21212 (any) United Kingdom * 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2 Indonesia * 89887 AXIS, More
The Hoatzin ( Opisthocomus hoazin ), also known as the Hoactzin , Stinkbird , or Canje Pheasant , is an odd species of tropical bird found in the swamps of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers in South America. It is pheasant-sized — but much slimmer — The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin), also known as the Hoactzin, Stinkbird, or Canje Pheasant, is an odd species of tropical bird found in the swamps of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers in South America. More
The hoatzin's length is about 61-66cm or 24-26in long. It weighs about 816 grams, and is a chicken size bird, with large wings, a small head, and a long black tail. It also has a frizzy red crest, red eyes with a large bright blue area around them, and a bare head. The sexes of the hoatzins are very similar, only that females are slightly smaller, and have lower crests. More
The hoatzin is a slender bird with a brownish plumage spotted with white above and reddish-yellow to rust below. It may reach up to 25 in. (64 cm) in length, but weighs no more than 13/4 lb (810 grams). It has a long tail of 10 loosely bound feathers, and a large, bristly crest mounted on a tiny skull. More
HoatzinsThe Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin), also known as the Hoactzin, Stinkbird, or Canje "Pheasant", is an unusual species of tropical bird found in swamps, riverine forest and mangrove of the Amazon and the Orinoco delta in South America. Range of the Hoatzin It is the only member of the genus Opisthocomus (Ancient Greek: wearing long hair behind, referring to its large crest), which in turn is the only extant genus in the family Opisthocomidae. More
The Hoatzin was one of our main target species and we were really lucky to get such good views. I remember them from Life of Birds, as Stewart noted above - the young have vestigial claws on their wings and when threatened drop into the water and, assuming they escape the attention of the Caiman below, climb back up again. They really look prehistoric. Posted 21 months ago. More
Nominate for Hoatzin in the encyclopedia? Relevant to Hoatzin in the encyclopedia? Was in Hoatzin in the encyclopedia Yes No Yes Yes No Nominate to enable voting on this photo for the Hoatzin encyclopedia article You'll get 50 nominations tomorrow Cancel Submit Report NominateVote downVote upPhoto detailsFull window 1MMT.PhotomoduleElementItemhttp://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/jeans-2ZgJ1tVSH9s-image.jpgdefaulthttp://www.fotopedia.com/context_votes?context_vote%5Bcontext_id%5D=9cd580a04f3&context_vote%5Bcontext_type%5D=PictureSet&context_vote%5Borigin_id%5D=fotopedia-en-Hoatzin&context_vote%5Borigin_type%5D=Album&context_vote%5Bvotable_id%5D=jeans-2ZgJ1tVSH9s&context_vote%5Bvotable_type%5D=Itemhttp://www.fotopedia. More
Hoatzin - Not On IUCN Red List Check 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species More
Hoatzins are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Galliformes, family Opisthocomidae. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More
The Hoatzin weight about 2 pounds, and is about 2 feet long, sometimes a bit more. They have an almost entirely bare head, with a crest on top of it that is red, and blue skin around the red eyes. The Foul Smelling Hoatzin The Foul Smelling Hoatzin On the back of the neck they are green striped and the throat and breast of the Hoatzin is white. More
The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is one of the Amazon's weirdest birds and rather shy (as you can tell from the photo!), except in breeding season. It has a punk hair-do, and a bright blue face. Added to that it smells horrible, so it's also called the "Stink-bird." It eats only leaves, so is rather heavy, and hence a clumsy flyer. More
hoatzin holds a special place in rainforest lore. The hoatzin is an evolutionary offshoot, so unusual that this one species is placed in a family of its own, Opisthocomidae. (Compare for example about 360 species in the parrot family.) Recent studies suggest that the hoatzin is most closely related to cuckoos, and perhaps the turacos found in Africa. The hoatzin has a relatively small neck and head with a pronounced loose crest of reddish-orange feathers. More
The Hoatzin eats the leaves and to a lesser degree fruits of the plants which grow in the marshy and riverine habitats where it lives. It clambers around clumsily among the branches, and being quite tame (though they become stressed by frequent visits), often allows close approach and is reluctant to flush. The Haotzin uses a leathery bump on the bottom of its crop to help balance itself on the branches. One of this species' many peculiarities is that it has a digestive system unique amongst birds. More
Hoatzin are found in South America in the Amazon. Diet Hoatzin eat leaves and fruit. Habitat Hoatzin live in trees and branches above rivers and marshy areas. Size Adult Hoatzin are approximately 1.5 to 2.5 feet. Reproduction Hoatzin lay approximately 2-3 eggs at a time. More
Family : Opisthocomidae
Genus : Opisthocomus
Species : hoazin
Authority : (Müller, 1776)
Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)
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"17Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch."
O Come O Come Emmanuel Buy
"1Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. 2And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. 8Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know; am I my brother's keeper? 10And the Lord said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. 13Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. 15Then the Lord said to him, Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 16Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. 17Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. 19And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. 23Lamech said to his wives: Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. 24 If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold. 25And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. 26To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord."
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8 Reasons You Should Be Evaluating New Backup and Recovery Solutions
Hint: your peers already are.
In a 2016 study, Gartner reports that, “for years now, many organizations have continued to re-architect their backups in an effort to modernize their approach in handling new data types and deployment models, increased workload volumes, and improve backup and restore times to meet rising SLAs.”
If you are in the midst of, or beginning to evaluate backup and recovery processes, offsite encryption systems and testing methods to fully restore enterprise data, these eight Gartner research statistics will give you an idea of where colleagues and peers are headed and recent trends that have appeared over the last two years.
By 2020, 30% of organizations will leverage backup for more than just operational recovery (e.g., disaster recovery, test/development, DevOps, etc.), up from less than 10% at the beginning of 2016.
By 2020, over 40% of organizations will supplant long-term backup with data archiving systems — up from 20% in 2015.
By 2020, 10% of storage systems will be self-protecting, obviating the need for backup applications, up from less than 2% in 2016.
By 2019, 30% of midsize organizations will leverage public cloud IaaS for backup, up from 5% in 2016.
By 2018, 70% of business and application owners will have more self-service control over their data protection services, up from 30% in 2016.
By 2018, 50% of organizations will augment with additional products or replace their current application with another purpose built backup solution, compared to what they deployed at the beginning of 2015.
By 2018, more than 50% of enterprise storage customers will consider bids from storage vendors that have been in business for less than five years, up from less than 30% in 2016.
By 2018, the number of enterprises using the cloud as a backup destination will double, up from 11% at the beginning of 2016.
If you have any questions or want to learn more about how the ability to replicate and securely restore backups can impact your time to recovery, and ultimately, your peace of mind, contact the VSS Service Team.
Source: 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Software
Tiffany Whitmore
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You Have Been Hacked!
VSS Named to CRN’s 2017 Technology Solution Provider 500 List for Fifteenth Straight Year.
VSS, LLC recently announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named the IBM Platinum Business Partner to its 2017 Solution Provider 500 list. The
Throw off the False Sense of Security Blanket
Despite spending a substantive amount on enterprise security tools and experts every year, some CIOs and CISOs remain unsatisfied with the state of their organi
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The one where Jessica blushes a lot, or #48 Slam Book Fever
June 20, 2007 October 16, 2007
Let me start by saying that I love describing anything as ____ fever. I’m going to make a conscious effort to use it in my everyday vernacular. I am moving next week and my apartment is like “box fever”. Like tomorrow at work I am going to casually say, “It’s like paperwork fever in here!” I’ll let you know if it catches on.
Also, this is a PRIME SVH book. Blackstabbing, gossip, crushes, etc.- this is SVH at its best! (worst)
Ok. Amy Sutton wants everyone to start Slam Books. Apparently, they were all the rage when she lives in Connecticut. Wait, hold up. I lived in CT for three years and I did not see one Slam Book. Damn, Francine, everything else is so realistic, why make stuff like this up? For those of you not in the know, Slam Books are where you write categories like “biggest flirt” and “best couple” and all those catty categories and people anonymously write in people’s names.
So, are you ready? This one is confusing. So, Jessica has a crush on the new boy, A.J., but feels all awkward and shy around him, so she doesn’t want anyone to know she likes him. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is jealous because her boyf Jeffrey (Todd moved to Vermont like, 20 books ago) is spending time with Olivia Davidson working on a literary magazine. So, someone writes in the Slambooks that Jeffrey and Olivia are the “couple of the future” in order to make Liz suspicious. So she gets mad at Jeffrey and decides to flirt with A.J. after someone but her and A.J. as the couple of the future, which makes Jessica furious at Liz. Finally, they find out Lila is behind all of it, because she wants Jeffrey for herself. Oh, that Lila. Also, A.J. is interested in Jessica, because he thinks she is shy and reserved, and Elizabeth is too pushy and flirtatious. OH THE IRONY!
I love how Amy Sutton introduces the concept to them and is all “make sure everyone knows it was my idea”. That’s kind of something I would do.
I am pretty sure Jeffrey French is gay. I am going on pure stereotypes here, but
1. He insists on being called Jeffrey, not Jeff.
2. He works on a literary magazine.
3. He mostly hugs Liz, whereas she and Todd would suck face all the time.
This was totally fake. A.J. was standing around talking with Aaron Dallas (captain of the soccer team) and som other jock discussung the twins. He says something like “Jessica seems so quiet and friendly. I’d love to get to know her.” Yes, I am sure that is exactly how high school boys talk.
Mr. Collins, The Oracle Faculty advisor, threw a party for Olivia when she finished the literary magazine. As in, brought in tons of food and hung up banners. Get a life! Also, you’re a pervert! Stop spending times throwing parties for high school girls.
Someone wrote Jessica in the category: “Most Likely to Have Six Kids”. Hahahaha, they called her a whore.
At the beach, Lila’s beach towel says “THE RITZ HOTEL” on it, and she perches on the edge so everyone can see the writing on it. Bwah.
Blech, Elizabeth and Jeffrey. Their dates consist of things like a picnic in the park after school. They are sixteen- what happened to groping each other in her parents’ living room? They act like they are 80. I never thought I’d say I prefer to read about her fights with Todd.
Now, the cover.
God, Jessica looks so annoying. By the looks of Amy’s face, you can tell she’s thinking “bitch please, leave me alone so I can write your ass in my slam book.” I also had a sweater exactly like Jessica is wearing. Or did I have it BECAUSE Jessica was wearing it? Hmmmm.
WHERE ARE THE ADULTS TO MONITOR THE SLAM BOOKS? How is this appropriate for school? I also love how when Amy tells them about it, they all think it will be a great idea and it will be harmless fun.
Ok, so you would think the lesson of this story is that slam books and rumors and gossip are destructive. Good old Francine, trying to make a buck. Here was an add in the back of the book. Your for only $3.95! Plus $5.96 shipping and handling!
If you’ve read Slambook Fever, you know that Slam Books are the rage at Sweet Valley High. Now you can have a slam book of your own! Make up your own categories, such as “Biggest Jock” or “Best Looking”, and have your friends fill in the rest! There’s a four page calendar, horoscopes and questions most asked by Sweet Valley readers with answers from Elizabeth and Jessica.
Did she read her own book? Did she not see what damage it did? And before you ask, yes, I do want to get my hands on a copy. I’ve already combed ebay looking for it.
Ok, confession. I read this when I was 10, and I decided to try and start a slam book in my fifth grade class. I wrote people’s names on some pages, but ended up only writing descriptions of the people like, “Sue has brown hair”. God, I sucked at slam booking.
My grade: A-
Posted in: Sweet Valley High | Tagged: A.J. Morgan, rumors
The one where Bruce touches Jessica’s boobs, or #3 Playing With Fire
The one with all the humiliating pledging, or #47, Troublemaker
31 thoughts on “The one where Jessica blushes a lot, or #48 Slam Book Fever”
Onnie says:
Lila always has to be such a spoiled bitch, and yet, everyone still talks to her and Jessica is still her best friend, even though Lila has tried to dick over both J and L. speaking of fav books – I love it when Todd comes back, and L dumps Jeffrey, and the one when L turns into a cheerleader to help J out…don’t have them? let me know, i will fedex ’em to you!
omg, I love the later ones where there were trilogies. What was the one where Todd moves in? Once I get in my new place, I may take you up on your offer.
oh crap – i def remember that one – but i cannot remember what trilogy it was a part of…darn it…yeah remember how todd was trying to be all domesticated and cooked? hahaha
I tried SOOOOO hard to start a slam book, several times after reading several books about them. They never caught on. Guess I should have spent more time in the real world rather thanthe book world back in the day
kiwimusume says:
I think the domesticated!Todd one may have been the trilogy where they’re trying to get Lila’s parents back together, but I could be wrong…*checks booklist* Yep! It’s #102 – Almost Married.
I remember this one. I remember at the time I asked my mom about it and she said they were popular when she was in high school. In the 60s. Way to be up on the trends, Francine.
Lois Waller says:
Anyone remember that Ann M. Martin novel (not a babysitters club book) that was called “Slam Book” in which a character committed suicide because of a Slam Book? It was a bit more heavy handed…
OMG YES!!!!! That was deep shit. It kind of freaked me out.
Love your login name. Wasn’t Lois Waller another “fat” girl at SVH?
haha. indeed she was. but i mean, what do you expect when her name was Lois Waller?
And in that vein, could “Enid Rollins” have ever been anything but a nerd?
nellswell says:
I had that slam book!! It was more of a Sweet Valley Twins thing. It had a pink cover. I’d forgotten all about it. I soooo wish I still had it, it would be hilarious to read the answers!
I love the blog, by the way!! (just came across it today…)
Dwanollah says:
In what high school would something like Slam Books become a thing? Elementary school, maybe. Maybe seventh grade. Maybe pre-teen summer camp. But a bunch of sixteen-year-olds slam bookin’? Even less believable than most of Sweet Valley.
And, because I’m as egotistical as Jessica, I did a Sweet Valley Slam Book thingie on my website a million years ago:
http://www.dwanollah.com/blather/030102/index.html
Deathy says:
We had a slam book back in fifth grade and some people wrote some pretty nasty crap in it. Mostly about the one girl in the class that was really overweight. Kids are such bitches. We got in trouble.
Goldray says:
Another valuable childhood lesson from Sweet Valley High.
brandname says:
We had slam books in the fifth grade too, but they were ones that you bought in stores with pre-assigned categories. I want to say there were stickers too. Anyway, just like snap bracelets and flip flops, they were eventually banned.
I actually had the official Sweet Valley High slambook. I was the coolest person in the 5th grade for about five minutes because of it! (Which is saying something because I was a huge nerd in 5th grade.)
It did have preprinted categories, and in some of those categories, names of SVH characters were already “written” in! I should go dig it up, I think it is still sitting on the bookshelf in my old room at my parents’ house!
And yeah, they were eventually banned at my school, too.
Amy Slutton says:
I always loved this cover lol. I still wish I could find a sweater like that!!
Haha I remember at the end of this one Jessica is already desperately trying to act more “nerdy” to attract AJ. I can’t wait for the recap of Playing for Keeps 😀
Nester says:
Amy Slutton, I love Jessica’s sweater to this day. I had the official Slam Book, but it never left my house! Too embarrassed to show it to anyone. I swear I was the only person in my school who read SVH, Sleepover Friends, Taffy Sinclair, BSC, etc. Perhaps I was the only person in my school to read….
i was a huge jeffrey french fan because he reminded me of, well…me. and, not to sound gay or anything, but he was probably one of the more attractively drawn characters on the sweet valley high covers he was on (see #35 out of control and #58 brokenhearted). he looked like a wholesome boy from the 50s, lol. Unfortunately, i chose to pattern my “game” after his and paid for it dearly. the guy was as dull as as my freshman yr. literature class
and what’s with liz acting all jessica because of what someone wrote in a slam book about her boyfriend?? logically she chose to take it out on…her boyfriend? isn’t she supposed to be the reasonable one? i love having people acting out of character for the sake of a plot (no, i really don’t).
BurtonFanatic says:
Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I love Jessica’s sweater too. I am actually wearing a black and grey one that is similar to it. (A xmas present from NY&Co.)
I had a slam book in 5th grade too! But it was SUPER lame like “Favorite Drink, Favorite Sport, Favorite teacher”… my school was so lame.
LimeGreenTriumph says:
I think I had the official slam book too….I remember the SVH names already written in there….like Liz and Jess were both “Most Popular” or some crap…
Pingback: The one where Jessica wins the fashion show and the boy or #49 playing for keeps « The Dairi Burger
Ugh. I tried to make a Slam Book with my best friend in seventh grade (I still hadn’t developed taste in books by then), and it was a dismal failure. First of all, it was just a few sheets of graph paper stapled together. Second, someone got a hold of it before we could finish it and laughed their ass off at it. Third, my best friend’s ideas for categories weren’t exactly, I dunno, GOOD:
“Best Fashion Sense”
“Best Clothes”
Yes, the girls in my class were obsessed with garments, thanks for asking. Also:
“Funkiest”
“Most Hip”
Well guess what my name is! Lois Waller!! And I’m not fat!
Enid Rollins says:
I thought this was the worst Sweet Valley ever. Contrived, condescending, cheesy, boring…
“Jessica seems so quiet and friendly. I’d love to get to know her.”
Oh. Fucking. Please. If the ghostwriter had any balls, she would have written what guys that age would really say: “She’s hot. I’d so hit it.”
A.S. says:
I totes started a Slam Book after reading this is 6th grade. But I went to a practically all-black school outside of Detroit and the kids all just wrote in it to humor me, not to mention most of the entries were actually nice/sweet/overly generous … Real life is so boring. No wonder I eschewed my multicultural life to read about WASPy homogenous SVH!
Deitra says:
I never read this one,i wanted to never had the pleasure or mispleasure actually
anj says:
we made slambooks too in 5th grade because of this book!
Lila Fowler says:
Years ago I came across the SVH Slam Book in a 2nd hand store. It was like finding gold! I still have it too along with my 200+ beloved SVK,SVT,SVH,SVU collection. Such a nerd!
This was the first Sweet Valley Book I ever read. Why I continued reading them after this is beyond me.
Pingback: Lois waller | Everythingturb
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No, God Doesn’t Love Abortion, And If You Say So You’re Not A Real Pastor
May 31, 2019 By Glenn T. Stanton
The Atlantic’s headline writers must have envisioned people concluding abortion might not be so bad if a pastor thinks it’s moral.
The New York Times Is Confused About Protestant Denominations
July 2, 2015 By Mollie Hemingway
The New York Times thinks the progressive United Church of Christ is “one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States.” Not by a long shot.
How To Shrink Your Church In One Easy Step
August 21, 2014 By Alexander Griswold
Every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization on sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.
Suit Against NC Marriage Law Has Activists Excited. Should They Be?
May 1, 2014 By Mollie Hemingway
Same-sex marriage advocates say North Carolina’s marriage law restricts religious liberty. But they forgot to explain why they think that.
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Climate change found to increase human conflict and violence
Signal of change / Climate change found to increase human conflict and violence
By Juliette Aplin / 13 Jul 2015
Al Jazeera English / Flickr
A growing field of research is finding correlations and connections between climate change and outbreaks of human conflict.
A working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), reviewed 55 studies into climate change and cases of human conflict. The statistical analysis concluded that changes in temperatures and precipitation patterns systematically increase the risk of both inter-personal violence (murder, rape, assault) and inter-group (civil conflict, war) violence.
The work builds upon an earlier IPCC report published in 2014, which concluded that climate change provided fertile ground for violence generally, due to the increased pressure imposed on resources and society.
Further research into specific case studies also support these findings, implicating climate change among the causal factors in the war in Syria, violence against women, modern-day piracy, violence in Colombia, and contemporary conflicts throughout Africa.
As Chris Field, one of IPCC report authors, commented, “It’s high time to move beyond weather and energy related impacts when discussing the risks of a changing climate”. The report highlights that changes in climate and outbreaks of conflict form a potent combination, due to the creation of a negative feedback loop of effects.
Variations in temperature and precipitation patterns increase stress on societies and resources – such as food shortages, water scarcity and infrastructural damage. These shortages then often trigger outbreaks of violence and conflict, and societies experiencing conflict are more vulnerable to the damage created by climate change as they are less likely to adapt. In other words, climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier’ or ‘accelerant of instability,’ particularly in already volatile regions, such as Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, and East Africa.
Further research into the causal relationship between human conflict and climate change is needed. However as Marshall Burke, author of the NBER Working Paper, stated to the BBC, “one of the main mechanisms that seems to be at play, is change in economic conditions. We know that climate change affects economic conditions, particularly in agrarian parts of the world”. This relationship suggests security analysts and political scientists need to incorporate environmental variables into their assessments of political and economic stability in conflict-prone areas.
Once a greater understanding of the mechanisms linking climate change to conflict is established, the question will be, how can societies adapt in order to mitigate conflict risk?
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), (October 2014) Climate and Conflict
IPCC (October, 2014) Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
The European Union Institute for Security Studies, (2015) A New Climate for Peace:
Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks
Science Magazine (August, 2013) Quantifying the Influence of Cimate on Human Conflict (August, 2013)
Climate Economics
What might the implications of this be? What related signals of change have you seen?
Will Ingram
Some questions have been asked recently about the role climate change has played in the migration crisis that Europe and the Mediterranean are experiencing.
While direct causal linkages are overly simplistic, the ‘threat multiplying’ effect of climate can easily be extrapolated to mass migrations, from war-torn Syria, for instance.
Jn Ng
More pomegranate trees would make things better
Dorothy Ng
Beyond the weather, energy and conflict related risks of a changing climate, climate change is also found to make food crops less nutritious - high CO2 levels significantly reduces essential nutrients in wheat, rice, maize and soyabeans, as revealed by Nature paper - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/07/climate-change-food-crops-nutrition
Climate change is also found to cause ecoanxiety - PTSD, anxiety, and depression on a mass scale - https://qz.com/948909/ecoanxiety-the-american-psychological-association-says-climate-change-is-causing-ptsd-anxiety-and-depression-on-a-mass-scale/
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Duterte to PMA grads: Follow chain of command
March 18, 2018 · by topnewsnow! · in PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. DUTERTE. ·
“Dedicate your life to the service of God, country and people”
President Rodrigo Duterte has called on the members of Philippine Military Academy (PMA) ‘Alab Tala’ Class of 2018 to abide by the Constitution and follow the chain of command.
Duterte, also the Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, during Sunday’s commencement exercise of the 282 cadets said: “My heartfelt congratulations to the graduates of PMA ‘Alab-Tala’ Class of 2018. I join your families and your friends in celebrating this important milestone in your young careers.”
“Your courage and bravery have been tested numerous times but despite all of these trials, you have emerged victorious and ready to take on bigger challenges ahead,” Duterte said as he also noted that life in the academy is not that easy.
The Commander-in-Chief added, “you have been equipped with the knowledge and skills to excel but how far can you go will depend greatly on the discipline and determination and faith.”
He said they should remember always the three words that have been ingrained deeply in their hearts — courage, integrity, and loyalty — which will serve as their guide throughout their careers.
“As you dedicate your life to the service of God, country, and people, know that the Armed Forces of the Philippines has the government’s full support,” Duterte said.
Duterte said he wanted to leave behind a strong Armed Forces and Philippine National Police simply because the troubles now faced by the country will not disappear within the next four to seven to 10 years.
“As you leave the halls of PMA and enter your chosen branches of service, you will be faced with realities that are far more complex than what you have been prepared for. Mistakes will always be inevitable but have confidence in knowing that the rules of the academy have honed you for the responsibilities that await you as you assume leadership roles in the armed forces,” he added. (PNA)
Tags: chain of command, Constitution, philippine military academy
← PANELO: Trillanes seditious remark vs. Duterte not covered by immunity
WHO ARE THE MEMBERS OF THE DAVAO CITY COUNCIL WHO HAVE RESORTS, MANSIONS OR REST HOUSES IN MARILOG? →
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Want to Fight Back Against the Hatred of Trump and Daines? This is How…
Don Pogreba dpogrebapogiedpogreba
Don Pogreba
Weeks of Doom, Years of Good Fortune: Teacher Talk
The posting has certainly been light here in the past few weeks as I go through an annual ritual called the
Weeks of Doom with my AP Language and Literature students. Over a four week period, those 80 students each get the experience of writing 10 timed essays while I get the pleasure of commenting on and returning each handwritten essay—overnight. It’s an incredibly stressful time for both students and their harried teacher, who is slowly coming to realize that he might be getting a little too old to grade essays at 3:00 a.m., but it’s also excellent preparation for their AP exams and college, not to mention the profits of coffee producers in the local area.
During this time of year, teaching can occasionally feel like an incredible burden, and that’s even before I read today that it’s the “most overrated”career in the United States. Tensions are high, the paper load feels unmanageable, and sleep is fleeting. And the constant attacks on the profession from a certain political persuasion certainly don’t help.
The past few weeks, though, have also provided reminders of just how lucky I am to be involved in public education, flawed and frustrating as parts of it may be. I’m not only seeing real growth in my students’ writing; I’m hearing from former students who are continuing to do amazing things. They are a reminder that I have the obligation to do everything I can to improve their education and that I have the privilege of proudly watching them as they achieve goals they probably couldn’t have imagined when they were 17 years old, counting the minutes until my class was over.
One, a teacher, just had a beautiful baby girl; another just began a pilot for his own television show; a former debater is leading an incredibly professional statewide political campaign here in Montana. An incredibly talented musician is seeking funding to release her album while another is running for the state legislature here in Helena. Two have worked in health and education for the Peace Corps, while others are serving with the distinction in the armed forces.
For each of these successes that I’ve recently discovered, there are no doubt hundreds I haven’t yet heard about, but it’s a real pleasure to continue rooting for all of them. No temporary frustrations can ever diminish the good fortune I’ve had to be a small part of these amazing and evolving lives.
No sense of doom or exhaustion can ever diminish that.
Participate in this conversation via emailGet only replies to your comment, the best of the rest, as well as a daily recap of all comments on this post. No more than a few emails daily, which you can reply to/unsubscribe from directly from your inbox.
Mark Tokarski says:
Attacks on teachers in this era are usually motivated by anti-unionism. Public employee unions are the largest remaining unions we have, and so are being demonized and attacked. I regard teachers as the greatest wealth creators we have, and sadly, the lowest on the monetary reward scale.
But the other side of that coin is that, by definition, teachers are not in it for the money. That is arguable on the major campuses these days, but in the small colleges, the two year insinuation, and in primary and secondary, it is the rule.
It’s easy, therefore, for a teacher to feel put upon. I know the long hours you work, your dedication to your kids. Anything else that comes out is generally aimed at American education in general, and not at each individual participant, least of all you.
Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers says:
What the hell are you farting about, Buttinski? You’re an idiot. You have absolutely NO idea of what you’re talking about. Teach much, didja? We had a saying in Nam, dude. If you haven’t been there, STFU! Actually, that is where the last part of that sentence originated. And you haven’t been a teacher, dude, so STFU! ONLY someone who has actually taught can understand what the profession is all about.
For example, have you EVER sat across the table from a group of asshole farmer school board members during negotiations, and been told that you shouldn’t even be making as much as you are because the guys down at the local feed plant work harder than you and make less? THEN, you begin understand what education is all about, dude! But you ain’t been there.
The fact that someone was drafted and sent to Vietnam makes that person a victim, in m view. But being a soldier by definition means that you were indoctrinated and compartmentalized. For that reason, your Vietnam experience means nothing to me, and the fact that you were a soldier even less. If we had real enemies we would need soldiers to defend us. We don’t. My countary nvaded Vietnam and unleashed mighty horrors on them. You participated, so shame on you.
Want a good laugh? Regard what Mencken had to say about soldiers.
I am not a teacher. I do make private judgments on the personal integrity of others, as we all do. Many people who disagree with me are people of high integrity and character. You are not one of those, Kralj. Butt out.
The Polish Wolf says:
Nope, your country did not invade Vietnam, so you can feel better about that, Mark! Your country send troops to an internationally recognized state to defend that state’s sovereignty. Was it a terrible state? Oh yes. Did it’s people deserve some kind of liberation from their plutocratic government. Probably. Was the defense of that state worth the what happened? No.
But Mark, now you’re reversing your stance on sovereignty. It was clear that North Vietnam (not to mention China), even minus an actual invasion, was interfering with the sovereignty of South Vietnam through their support of forces hostile to the government, the same way the US violated Libyan sovereignty, and the same way you accuse the US of violating Syrian sovereignty. The US position in Vietnam was merely the defense of a South Vietnamese sovereignty – if an actual invasion were on the table, we might have stood a better chance of winning or at least coming to a favorable peace agreement. But it wasn’t. And if you can find a shred of evidence that the US caused more Vietnamese civilians casualties than the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces (both during and after the war), your position will be much more powerful.
But Vietnam isn’t the main issue here, Mark. The point is, you are living entirely in the theoretical. You haven’t seen the students, you aren’t intimately familiar with the curriculum, you lack first hand experience with administrators and school boards that set policy, and therefore your opinions on education are not well informed, coming from at best secondary sources.
“insinuation” s/b “institutions”
NamelessRange says:
Though it may sound cliche, my High School English teacher changed my life. Specifically, one day in class, I said something stupid and hurtful about a certain subset of the population. He called me out in front of the entire class, and afterwards made me state the premises of my argument, and ripped them apart. He made me feel like shit, but he was right. I’ve since written him a letter of gratitude. When you look up to someone, and they try to understand you, as a teenager, you listen. He also pounded into all of our heads a simple way to write essays, which I used successfully in every blue book exam I ever took in college.
-Say what you’re going to say
-Say it
-Say what you said
Teachers make a difference.
Max Bucks says:
I have a better one from a college history professor: “Say what you think. Don’t pull punches. All these people are dead, anyway.”
— Max Bucks
As a Vietnam War combat veteran and someone who has taught high school and college students, I can say unequivocally that Larry and Mark are totally clueless, if not world-class lairs.
Really? How so, cupcake? Maxine, methinks that it’s YOU who’s embellishing here, dude. Where and when did you serve, cutie pie? Man UP, buttercup! Hard to take a liar seriously unLESS he puts a name up there too, doncha think? Maxine, you’ve proven to be a lousy liar in the past. Now, prove up!
p.s. Maxine, there IS a site for dudes like you who lie about their service. It’s called Stolen Honor. Put your name up there so we can check you out! Hell, the wackos have been checking me out for years! And they get pissed when they come up with nothing!
Justice Department Investigating Sexual Assaults in Missoula, Van Valkenburg Turns TEA Party in Response
Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate Sandy Welch Doesn’t Offer Any Specifics
Don Pogreba is an eighteen-year teacher of English, former debate coach, and loyal, if often sad, fan of the San Diego Padres and Portland Timbers. He spends far too many hours of his life working at school and on his small business, Big Sky Debate.
His work has appeared in Politico and Rewire.
In the past few years, travel has become a priority, whether it's a road trip to some little town in Montana or a museum of culture in Ísafjörður, Iceland.
Bill on Steve Daines Enthusiastically Embraces Racism
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Fake news is NOT profitable: NY Times laying off MORE reporters & editors
TOPICS:editorslay-offslosing moneyNew York TimesreportersTrump Derangement Syndrome
Posted By: usafeaturesmedia June 25, 2017
(National Sentinel) Media: We hate to see anyone lose job. Well, almost anyone. We should have clarified that we hate to see anyone who is doing a good job lose it.
But when you allow yourself as a journalist to become little more than a fake news-trafficking presstitute, well, you reap what you sow.
Enter one of the most heralded of fake news factories, The New York Times. The paper continues to shed floors, reporters and editors. As reported by Breitbart News, management is set to undertake yet another round of personnel cuts:
Peddling fake news does not, in fact, equate to a long-term successful business strategy, reporters for The New York Timesare learning the hard way.
The Gray Lady, which many in the media class consider the pinnacle of the information business, is struggling so much financially that reporters are expected to be laid off from the publication, along with many editors, the New York Post reports.
“Reporters at the New York Times could soon be ‘vulnerable’ to the ax,” the Post’s Keith Kelly wrote. “If the ongoing round of voluntary buyouts being offered to editing staff does not get enough takers, the Gray Lady could begin another round, NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet recently warned his top department editors.”
The Times has been undergoing a major restructuring beginning this year, with a staggering 109 copy editors having already been terminated, while just 50 new jobs are likely to be created as the paper shifts its focus to digital.
Kelly further reported:
When the downsizing was first revealed in late May, a memo from Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn portrayed the cuts as a “streamlining” of the editing process and indicated that some of the savings would be used to hire up to 100 more journalists. But in a mid-June meeting with department heads, Baquet admitted that journalists could be targeted in a new round of layoffs once the editing ranks are culled.
Kelly also quoted a memo from New York Times metro editor Wendell Jamieson, who noted that the buyouts targeting elimination of editor jobs at the Times now also involve reporters.
“I just attended a department head meeting with Dean and the rest of the staff,” Jamieson said in the June 15 memo to his staff. “While much of the buyout discussions have focused on editors, the buyouts are also available to reporters. Dean made it clear that, should the Times find itself in a layoff situation, reporters will also be vulnerable.”
“This proves what we have suspected all along,” NewsGuild president Grant Glickson said, according to the Post. “The Times ‘restructuring’ of the newsroom is really about the bottom line and not about making the editing process more efficient, as they claim.”
Trafficking in fake news aimed at the Trump administration feeds red meat to unhinged Left-wing haters, but it obviously isn’t profitable. Still, don’t expect the true believers at the Times to change their habits: There appears to be no cure or treatment for Trump Derangement Syndrome, so expect more of the same – and more financial hemorrhaging – from the Times.
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1984 Movie Reviews – Karate Kid and Rhinestone
by Sean P. Aune | June 22, 2019June 22, 2019 10:30 am EDT
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. Imagine a world where This is Spinal Tap and Repo Man hit theaters on the same day. That is the world of 1984.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 35th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory.
This time around it’s June 22, 1984, and we’re off to see Karate Kid and Rhinestone.
As I’ve worked my way through these films for this project, I’ve been a bit surprised by what has and hasn’t held up. Gremlins held up especially well. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom did not. I definitely was expecting The Karate Kid to fall into the latter group.
Much to my surprise, it held up really well.
It has been a couple of decades since I last watched this movie, so I had forgotten some of the story beats. I kept expecting a training montage to come up, and it never did. Instead, the training was treated as the star of this movie. For once a story was far more about the journey than the destination, and it created a pleasant pace to the story that never made you feel like you were being rushed down the road just to get somewhere.
Where the montage happened, actually, was in the All-Valley Karate Championships (that name has always killed me) scenes. And that was where it belonged. It gave us a sense of place and time without causing you to get bored with the happenings.
Some of the acting, to be blunt, is a bit over the top, but you just muddle through it for an entertaining story that 35 years later still keeps you engaged throughout.
I learned a valuable lesson with Rhinestone: Make sure the movie is in print before announcing you’re reviewing it. Rhinestone is not available digitally and is out of print on physical media. I finally located a used DVD that didn’t feel like highway robbery. Sure, I could have just skipped it, but if we announce a movie, we’re covering it. Add in I had never seen it, and I just had to go for it.
That being said… we could have skipped this movie.
Rhinestone was based on the song “Rhinestone Cowboy”… somehow. Still not sure of the connection. Dolly Parton plays a country singer with a stereotypical 1980s manager who wants to sleep with her. They establish a bet she can turn anyone into a country singer given two weeks, and if she wins she’s free of this guy. If he wins, I know you’ll be shocked, he gets to sleep with her.
Of course, Sylvester Stallone becomes the guy involved in the bet and he has no singing ability and no love of country music.
To be frank, the first act of the film was cute and tolerable. The second act where they head to her small hometown to teach him how to be country was okay, but seemed a bit drawn out. And the third act… the third act is a trainwreck.
Back in New York City to settle the bet, Nick (Stallone) performs for his family. He says how much he loved it, and he may want to make it into a career. and then Jake (Parton)just completely stomps on him. Throughout the movie she had been patient and supportive, and here she just turns into a completely different character. It is truly a character assassination played out in real time that is just stunning to see happen.
Any goodwill you had for this movie – which was tiny to be sure – is just completely wiped out in one scene, From this point on you don’t care what happens because you have one character just being completely decimated in front of his entire family and then he’s supposed to still help?
It was nonsensical and, frankly, ugly to watch.
Rhinestone isn’t a bad 80s movie, it is simply a bad movie. No wonder this thing is out of print.
1984 Movie Reviews will return on June 8 with a triple feature! Join us for Bachelor Party, Cannonball Run II, and Conan the Destroyer!
… and yes, I’ve made sure all three are available in some form.
Fun Jug Media, LLC (operating TheNerdy.com) has affiliate partnerships with various companies. These do not at any time have any influence on the editorial content of The Nerdy. Fun Jug Media LLC may earn a commission from these links.
Sean P. Aune
Sean Aune has been a pop culture aficionado since before there was even a term for pop culture. From the time his father brought home Amazing…
1984 Movie Reviews – The Last Starfighter and The Muppets Take Manhattan
1984 Movie Reviews – Bachelor Party, Cannonball Run II, and Conan the Destroyer
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All tagged The Avengers
Apr 3 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony MackieRunning Time: 2 hr 16 mins Rating: PG-13 Release Date: April 4, 2014
Jun 20 Much Ado About Nothing
Cast: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan FillionRunning Time: 1 hr 47 mins Rating: PG-13 Release Date: June 21, 2013
Apr 30 TOP 7 Performances of Marvel's Phase One
We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.
Dec 27 TOP 7 Films of 2012
Click for the Top 7, now here's 7 more8. Argo 9. Django Unchained 10. Friends with Kids 11. Your Sister's Sister 12. End of Watch 13. Killer Joe 14. The Raid: Redemption
Jul 19 TOP 7 Movies So Far in 2012 (Another Opinion)
Jul 3 TOP 7 Films So Far in 2012
May 22 TSR Blog: The Villainous Box Office Success of 'The Avengers'
May 9 The Avengers
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett JohanssonRunning Time: 2 hrs 22 mins Rating: PG-13 Release Date: May 4, 2012
May 6 Episode 109: Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider - 'The Avengers' and more
May 6 Trailer Truth: 'The Avengers,' 'The Five-Year Engagement' and 'Think Like a Man'
May 4 May Preview: 'The Avengers,' 'Dark Shadows' and 'Battleship'
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy RennerRunning Time: 2 hrs 22 mins Rating: PG-13 Release Date: May 4, 2012
Morrow McLaughlin
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Chris EvansRunning Time: 2 hrs 22 min Rating: PG-13 Release Date: May 4, 2012
Final Score: 10/10
Reviewed by Morrow McLaughlin
Apr 3 April Preview: 'American Reunion' to 'The Five-Year Engagement'
Feb 6 'The Avengers' starring Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans - Super Bowl trailer review
Oct 14 'The Avengers' starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans - trailer review
May 4 TOP 7 Marvel Characters Who Deserve Their Own Movie
Calhoun Kersten
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By Arturo Farage -
In an express mission to the "doomsday glacier", Boaty McBoatface will help scientists from the UK and the US figure out how to stop sea levels from rising dangerously. Image: Compfight
The United States and the United Kingdom have joined forces in order to figure out the progressive meltdown of glaciers in Antarctica known as the Thwaites Ice shelf, this being the largest American British collaboration in nearly 70 years. This massive scientific project will now count with the British submarine Boaty McBoatface to assist the research.
This crisis will involve more than 100 scientists and it will begin in the latter half of this year. This research could explain major catastrophes and help mankind prevent them, like the already imminent threat of the rising sea level around the world, to which the melting of the Thwaites Glacier could have a massive impact on climate change and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
About Boaty McBoatface
The ship was assigned to this mission by the Natural Environment Research Council. This autonomous submarine is designed to collect data and intel underneath the ice’s surface and could heavily influence the research on the now called “Doomsday Glacier”, that as of today accounts for 4% of the global sea level rise according to the Natural Environment Research Council.
#HometimeReading: Scientists from the UK and US are working to examine the stability of the Thwaites Glacier in #Antarctica (with help from Boaty McBoatface!) Via @BBCScienceNews https://t.co/fCOdo1wQck
— Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) May 1, 2018
The Thwaites Glacier research
Scientists intend to reduce their uncertainty about the likelihood and estimated times of the complete melting of this Glacier. Since it has been labeled as an international priority, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has been developing technologies and capabilities to predict the amount of ice loss from the West Antarctica Sheets.
It has been reported that the cause of the glaciers drain has been doubling up since the 90s and are roughly the size of the entire British Isles. The Ice Glacier generates floating ice that will eventually melt, due to the cooler water progressively heating a grounding line of the Glacier, causing the mass of ice to retreat.
1. I wanted to add some additional notes this morning on why it is such a big deal that the U.S. and UK are jointly spending tens of millions to send some 100 scientists – and Boaty McBoatface! — to study Thwaites glacier, Antarctica. https://t.co/h2q2Wa1Osi pic.twitter.com/FVyLOlwnBh
— Chris Mooney (@chriscmooney) April 30, 2018
To further explain this phenomenon William Easterling, NSF assistant director for Geosciences said: “To answer the key questions of how much and how quickly sea level will change requires scientists on the ground with sophisticated equipment collecting the data we need to measure rates of ice-volume or ice-mass change.”
The hardest issue scientists are facing right now is how to conduct fa fieldwork of this magnitude in such a harsh and remote place, Easterling said that the first need scientists require is for countries to collaborate by giving their logistical resources to enable further research on the glacier, as field work is heavily conditioned.
Arturo Farage
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Watch: Massive chunk breaks off Greenland’s Helheim Glacier
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Tag Archives: Rolling Stone
We’re in the end of summer, pre-September everything is happening space and that means there’s not a great deal going on right now. But there are still events including the last vestiges of the Emmy campaign dance and more fabulous magazine editorials/covers. An Emmy cocktail reception going by the name Television Academy’s Performers Peer Group is the perfect place for Tracee Ellis Ross to show up in a Chanel embroidered ensemble and finishing it off with a simple white tee. Bonus lip color delight and this is all Tracee Ellis Ross in application (as per her Insta).
Also serving up great poses on her Instagram and this shot is even better. Karla Welch shout out and she continues to do her amazing thing. Cannot wait to see all of her many nominated clients’ — including Elisabeth Moss, Sarah Paulson — at the Emmys. This Monique Lhuillier frock is perfect end of summer florals and I love that Kathryn Hahn has gone with a shoe this pink. I also still need to watch I Love Dick, so thank you Kathryn Hahn for this reminder. And another Karla Welch picked ensemble! Looking classic in black Marc Jacobs with a hint of gold sparkle is Alison Wright and while The Americans has not had the award recognition it deserves, this show always does well in the guest actress category. Fingers crossed for Wright and that Poor Martha gets to drop the first part of that moniker. Always thrilled to see the RuPaul’s Drag Race judging team (accompanied by Delta Work) and RuPaul’s leopard print suit is divine. Also here is a really good behind the scenes look at the rise of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
On a personal style note, I have decided this will be the fall where I finally get a leopard print jacket. Watch this space. For the newly redesigned The Cut — which looks amazing btw — Julia Garner is here to make me lust after this Louis Vuitton jacket and sweater. And apparently I now have to watch Ozark because I didn’t realize Garner is in it and I think she is wonderful.
As this profile by Anna Silman mentions, the reason why Garner is so compelling is because she can play so many things at once including the role which has been discussed many times on these pages:
“As Kimmy, she harnessed that singular mix of vulnerability and toughness that has become a Garner trademark.”
It sounds like Garner is delivering on the contradictions in Ozark and I’m also looking forward to seeing how Kimmy will play a part in the final season of The Americans as Philip’s only spy operation. I’m so excited about Maggie Gyllenhaal being on TV this fall and all the profiles coming our way to discuss The Deuce, including this one from Time Out. Gyllenhaal discusses this new David Simon show and her dual role as actor/producer on this project, including what level of creative input she had:
“David [Simon] would come down to my trailer and ask for my thoughts. I told him early on that we get to see so much performative sex as a financial transaction, watching women dressing and coming in the way men want, with little to do with their own desire. I said, “Maybe you could have a scene where I masturbate?” And he wrote it beyond what I could have imagined.”
There is also a discussion about her brother and their different experiences in this industry. Keep these Maggie Gyllenhaal profiles coming. Cue my Almost Famous rendition of “Cover of Rolling Stone” and I’m so thankful that Gal Gadot is wearing a moth-holed white tee instead of the standard white tank — someone at Rolling Stone has obviously invested a lot of money in this garment. The bonus appearance of the Wonder Woman cuffs really makes the cover and I’m happy that we’re talking about this movie still. Ignoring James Cameron, of course. I love a good pun and this headline ticks those boxes and then some because Caitriona Balfe looks stunning on this Entertainment Weekly cover. New Outlander is coming soon (September 10) and the thirst most definitely is real.
EW loves a good steamy shoot and this time they are paying homage to From Here to Eternity; switching beachwear for some Outlander appropriate threads.
Tags: Alison Wright, Caitriona Balfe, Entertainment Weekly, Gal Gadot, Julia Garner, Kathryn Hahn, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rolling Stone, RuPaul, Tracee Ellis Ross
Out of the Box: Look of the Week – Best of 2016 Part 1
Taking a TV costuming break for this installment of our Best of 2016 series for a midweek “Out of the Box” special focusing on the best magazine covers of the year.
Each of the covers below has appeared on “Out of the Box” and while publications like Teen Vogue, Bust and Variety have featured on multiple occasions we have picked only one cover per magazine. The twelve chosen don’t quite work on a one per actual month, but it is a good snapshot of what was on offer throughout 2016 and this is the order they were published in.
In fact three of them were from the same “Out of the Box” column in October; this was a very good week for magazines and made the disappointing September issues a distant memory.
A study by Fashionista shows that diversity of cover stars is much improved in 2016 and this is evident from the entries below, although there is always room for improvement especially from certain publications who still lean heavily towards a certain look (oh hey Harper’s Bazaar).
Composition and color that standout were important in how each one was picked and styling was also an influence; I would be more than happy to have any of these issues on my coffee table (and quite a few of them have). Teen Vogue has had a very influential year and they kickstarted 2016 with this stunning Amandla Stenberg cover; this one appeared on the first “Out of the Box” of the year and the direct look to camera is full of self-assured confidence.
Almost 12 months later and I am still mesmerized. Between the bold lip color, the super expressive smile, the backdrop and the lip hair clip this Bust cover featuring Jessica Williams is enough to make anyone feel happy. Pairing a bright yellow with black and white is instant cover catnip and Kirsten Dunst is giving me a look as if to say she knows this. I’m not normally a fan of the wet look hair trend, but here it works with the casual denim jacket number.
My one magazine purchasing regret this year is I didn’t find an outlet that sold this issue of The Gentlewoman. When this cover of Rolling Stone was unleashed on to Twitter it very much distracted from the work I was in the middle of because, well you can see.
Oscar Isaac hugging a dog in his coat is very much in my wheelhouse.A #LadySuitWatch2016 entry and Elle is very good (with certain beauty shot caveats) at these multi-cover celebrations; this one looking to women in comedy with the Ghostbusters cast getting their own covers. This has been the year of the Winona Ryder comeback with several publications featuring Ryder front and center. Nylon goes old school with a ‘zine like shot and Winona Forever indeed (she definitely has a portrait in her attic). The haircut of the year is showcased on Latina Magazine with Gina Rodriguez’s Annihilation half buzz cut; this is another case of staring directly at the reader, which is both disarming and enticing. The accompanying editorial is just as stunning. Thankful for wigs on Jane the Virgin so she could do this during its hiatus. A super ethereal image of Laverne Cox for Variety and this is how to do striking pastels beyond the Hollywood Reporter’s stagnant drama actress roundtable sartorial choices (see also the seriousness of putting everyone in black/white or blush tones). So dreamy.
It is no surprise that Michelle Obama has appeared on a vast array of magazines this year and The New York Times gives the most original with an incredible beauty shot rather than sharing the focus with a fabulous outfit at the same time. November issues were so full of hope and this Emma Stone Vogue entry is bittersweet now. I still love it though and the whole composition coupled with the pixie cut, stripes and color palette is so good that the crop top is something I can get on board with. Ruth Negga has had a very good 2016 and the “Out of the Box” column this Hollywood Reporter cover was part of also featured Negga’s Vogue editorial and she is also the first face of Vogue’s 2017 issues.
This is a great shot with Negga commanding the focus and the Saint Laurent floral pussy bow dress is something I covet in both this and blouse form (as seen on Keri Russell).
Ending the year with something sparkly and my forever fave Michelle Williams wearing Michael Kors for Porter. The photo shoot inside is just as fabulous and something in the interview caused me to go full klaxon on Twitter. Someone make this happen.
Stay tuned for more “Out of the Box” 2016 highlights next week and for the regular column on Friday.
Tags: Amandla Stenberg, Bust, Elle, Emma Stone, Gina Rodriguez, Jessica Williams, Kate McKinnon, Kirsten Dunst, Latina Magazine, Laverne Cox, Michelle Obama, Michelle Williams, Nylon, Oscar Isaac, Porter Magazine, Rolling Stone, Ruth Negga, T Magazine, Teen Vogue, The Gentlewoman, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Vogue, Winona Ryder
Categories Best of 2016, Magazine Covers, Out of the Box: Look of the Week
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Play For The Festival Tour
We're back on the road with the Play For The Festival Tour in May and June, performing live to raise funds for Newton Stewart & Minnigaff Traditional Music & Dance Festival and Trad Music Trust. Catch us at Portpatrick this Fri 3rd May, Newton Stewart on 24th May and Portpatrick again on 1st June.
Resonate Dumfries & Galloway
Paragon Music will be facilitating a series of workshops in Newton Stewart entitled 'Resonate Dumfries & Galloway' at the ARC, Newton Stewart, on May 13th, 20th, 27th & June 3rd 10th and the opportunity to meet new friends and enjoy creating and discovering music, dance and visual art.
Girvan Folk Festival 3rd-5th May
Don't miss the 45th Girvan Traditional Folk Festival this weekend. That's right, 45 years of outstanding traditional music and one of the best festivals on the circuit. As ever, it's a fantastic line-up of guests along with tune and song sessions that are always a big part of the Girvan weekend.
Dougie MacLean Tickets Going Fast!
If you are planning on catching the fabulous Dougie MacLean's intimate and unique performance at the gorgeous Newton Stewart Cinema on Sunday 14th July, please make sure you book early. We've less than 50% of tickets left now so please don't leave it too late.
Jones Bros Live This Week
Tonight, Thu 25th Apr, at The Buccleuch and Queensberry Arms Hotel, Thornhill; Mill on the Fleet, Gatehouse of Fleet, on Fri 26th; Star Hotel, Twynholm, on Sat 27th and The Buccleuch Arms, Moffat, on Sun 28th; Festival Director Nathon Jones and twin brother Aaron perform as part of D&G Arts Live.
Buskers raise £185.17 for The Vault
If you happened to be in Newton Stewart on Saturday 20th April 2019, you'd have heard the many buskers who performed outside the former RBS building to raise funds for the proposed new arts centre project, The Vault. A fabulous £185.17 was raised taking the overall total past the £2,000 mark!
New partnership with VisitScotland
Very proud to see the festival listed in the VisitScotland Dumfries & Galloway and Greater Glasgow & The Clyde Valley 2019-2020 Guides, 100,000 of which are printed and distributed throughout Scotland and the UK as well as being available as e-Brochure downloads from the VisitScotland website.
Busking fir the airts!
This Saturday 20th April, Trad Music Trust and friends will be busking from 11am - 4pm outside the former RBS building at 40 Victoria Street, Newton Stewart - the proposed new arts centre venue - to raise funds to support The Vault Arts Centre development and the work of the Trad Music Trust.
Online Registration Now Open
South West Scotland's biggest Highland dancing competition is now open for registrations and we're expecting another fantastic event at Minnigaff Playing Fields on Saturday 13th July 2019; showcasing, celebrating and championing a wonderful Scottish tradition.
Table Top Sale Raises £145.91
Last Sunday's table top sale at the McMillan Hall, whilst it wasn't particularly busy, raised £145.91 for The Vault Arts Centre fundraising campaign taking the overall total to £1,705.20. Huge thanks to everyone who took a table and to everyone who came along to support the event.
Duathlon For The Airts
Just over a month to go until Festival Director Nathon Jones taks tae the hills on Sunday 12th May 2019 for the Galloway Hillbillies Kirroughtree Hillbilly Duathlon to raise funds for The Vault Arts Centre but he still needs your help to reach his fundraising target of £500.00.
Arts Centre Fundraising Reaches 10%
Thanks to the wonderful generosity and support shown by local businesses and the local community, we are very pleased to announce that we have just reached 10% of our fundraising target for the proposed new arts centre in Newton Stewart with the total now standing at £1,509.29.
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WestConnex plan finalised
Opal’s hidden gems
Posted: January 31, 2014 in Transport
Tags: Fares, Opal
Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that train journey lengths were calculated as the crow flies. This is incorrect. They are only calculated this way for buses and ferries.
Opal, Sydney’s electronic ticketing system, is set to rollout to the entire city by the end of the year. Most people may have heard about the 8 journeys and then the rest of the week is free bonus that it provides. Quite a few also know that Opal fares have been frozen since it was introduced in late 2012, while prices for paper tickets have gone up in line with inflation. But there are a number of benefits that aren’t very well known, some hidden gems. Here are 4 of Opal’s best kept secrets.
1. Journey distances for buses and ferries are calculated as the crow flies rather than actual distance travelled
Fare’s are calculated based on the distance travelled. With paper tickets that is based on the actual distance travelled, so a passenger who takes a non-direct journey from origin to destination (perhaps because they caught a bus that makes a number of detours) ends up clocking up a much longer distance. In the case of buses, it’s calculated based on sections, each 1.6km in length. A 1.8km journey that starts at the end of one section, travels through a second, and then ends at the start of the third section is considered to be 3 sections, and has a more expensive fare than a 2 section journey.
An adult Opal smartcard. Click to enlarge. (Source: Transport for NSW)
With Opal, journey distances will be calculated as the shortest distance (direct line) from the origin to the destination. In many cases this will bump passengers down into a lower fare band.
2. Free return trips when time spent at destination is under an hour
Quick journeys mean that the return trip is considered a continuation of the initial trip, as long as less than 60 minutes pass between tapping off and tapping on again at the destination. The fare for the overall journey is equal to the fare for the initial trip. The return trip to the origin is effectively free.
3. Off-peak discounts for train travel
Most Opal users would be aware of the 30% discount for train travel during off-peak hours (and all day on weekends). What they may not know is that as long as they tap on outside of peak-hour (7:00AM-9:00AM and 4:00PM-6:30PM) then they are still eligible, even if they then travel during the peak period. So someone arriving at a train station at 6:50AM each morning will receive a 30% discount, regardless of when their train arrives or when they reach their destination. The same applies in the evening.
Note: Morning peak hour for NSW TrainLink services outside of metropolitan Sydney is 6:00AM-8:00AM.
4. Tap off to reverse a tap on
Any tap on can be reversed by tapping off immediately from any readers at that station/wharf/bus/tram. This is designed to allow passengers who tapped on by mistake to undo their action. However, it also means that it allows passengers to pass through the gated parts of the stations and out the other end, tapping off to reverse the initial tap on. This is possible, as the reversal tap off does not have to be on the same reader which was used to tap on. For large stations like Central or Strathfield, the fastest way to reach a certain destination is sometimes through the station itself. It’s also useful for when nature calls and toilets are only available in the gated section of the station.
Another big advantage (particularly when they continue the bus rollout) is Transfers.
At the moment you could catch the
333 from Bondi Junction to CBD for $3.50 (Opal Bus Zone 2), then transfer within an hour to the 504 to Hornsby for only an extra $1.00 (as this is in Opal Bus Zone 3)
Unfortunately policy is this only applies to the same mode (eg. bus-bus). Train to train you can generally do this anyway.
One hidden disadvantage is the afternoon “peak” periods on rail.
If you buy a paper return ticket at 4pm it is an off-peak ticket.
If you use Opal to catch a train at 4pm, have a coffee or two, do some shopping, and return at 6pm your are charged two peak fares
What I want to see is a national reciprocal arrangement.
I live in Canberra and have a smart card. Future system enhancements should allow me to be able to catch a train in Sydney, or a tram in Melbourne, at the appropriate fare, charged back to my Canberra ‘myway’ card.
Then incorporate it into peoples driving licence, so the one card rules them all!
Unfortunately I suspect there are some ‘technical’ issues in doing this – ignoring the fact that Sydney(the biggest system) is still a long way from being completed.
Japan – which is the main example of card interoperability all use Sony Felicia cards.
Hong Kong/China – think there is a card that can operate between HK and Shenzhen but it uses different cards in different currencies.
Then in Australia you have
QLD – goCard – Cubic consortia / MIFARE Classic 1K
VIC – myki – Keane consortia / MiFare DESFire (2002)
NSW – Opal – Cubic consott / MiFare DESFire EV1 (2006)
SA – Metrocard – ACS / MiFare DESFire EV1 (2006)
WA – Smartrider – MIFARE Classic 1K
ACT – Downer/Parkeon – MIFARE Classic 1K
So while all MiFARE cards and broadly interoperable, I suspect the reader equipment outside of NSW and SA would struggle to read the NSW/SA cards.
FYI the Classic 1K cards are the ones that have been cracked.
Jiwon Jung says:
hello i got bus tap on reversal from sydney north rocks shopping centre to my church at north rocks near montana av and i got reversal what should i do ? should i call the opal or tap on and off when i go home ?
Bablo Raja says:
What happens in the situation where I tap off reverse during off-peak period and then do the actual travel during peak hours within 60mins.
e.g. tap on reverse done at 3.50pm.
then for actual trip tapped on at the same station at 4.40pm (within 60mins).
Does it charge off-peak fare?
Bambul Shakibaei says:
@Bablo
I haven’t been in this situation personally, so I’m not 100% sure. My guess is that you’d be charged the off-peak rate. Your best best would be to contact the Opal team via the http://www.opal.com.au website. Or give it a go and see how you get charged.
Comparing Opal to Myki and TCard
Metro plan could cost more and Northern Beaches Rail Line in the planning
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Mia Carameros’ Elegant Paintings are a Daily Invitation to Observe the Natural World
Mia Carameros’ elegant and precise paintings are a daily invitation to observe the natural world
by Margaret Williams
Photographs by Hannah Haston
Mia Carameros has been making and creating most of her life. As a young child, the El Paso native would wake up as early as 4 a.m. “My mom just wasn’t having it,” explains the artist. “She cleaned out an empty closet; decked it out with scissors, markers, paintbrushes, paint; and told me to go to my little studio. Then she would come and get me when it was time to start the day. My mom really championed the creative part of me from a very young age.”
Carameros pictured in front of, “Golden Skin, 2018.”
These early nudges toward creativity came naturally in a family where art was always valued and easily incorporated into everyday life. Carameros recalls weekends marked by estate sales and antiques store outings and family trips that revolved around museum and gallery visits. In fact, on one such trip she remembers, “My parents bought my brother a painting that really spoke to him — he was 14. Now it hangs in his home. Pretty unusual.”
Childhood daybreak crafting led to an adolescent interest in collecting and pressing plants, and by high school the textile design enthusiast was rearranging her school schedule so that she could audit an apparel design class at a local tech school. “As a high schooler, that was my dream for myself, as a fashion designer,” remembers Carameros. After four years of studying high school art (technically not allowed) and summers spent at Savannah College of Art and Design, the Coronado High grad left for art school in the San Francisco Bay Area, eventually transferring to St. Edward’s University as a visual studies major.
This move proved to be a crucial one, as St. Ed’s is where Carameros met professor Hollis Hammonds, herself a multimedia installation artist, who would became a pivotal instructor and mentor. Hammonds and Carameros would talk beauty, concept and philosophy for hours, and these exchanges encouraged the now oil painter to hone in on the yearlong project that would become her senior thesis: “Forty-five small paintings based on two friends’ experiences of suffering and dealing with major loss,” explains Carameros.
In the midst of the painter’s senior thesis she happened to take printmaking and was asked to pick one subject matter to focus on. She chose plants. Despite a childhood love for flora and fauna, she isn’t quite sure what precipitated the decision, but before long she was “scanning plants, manipulating them, turning the threshold down … that screen-printing class was the catalyst to what I do now.”
The artist next to, “Paris During Winter,” as she manipulates a found branch on her studio wall.
After graduation, and without access to a printing press, the artist began painting her romantic and sparse imprints. An offhand “in process” photo sent to designer Hanna Seabrook (a fan of Carameros’ work) that was then shared on social media set the wheels in motion for larger career moves. Carameros explains, “It was 2013 and social media had just become a place to share work and gain a following.” By 2014 she had her first exhibition — a group show at Agave Print with photographer Kate LeSueur — and after 4 years of working full-time and painting in her spare time, Carameros decided in August 2017 to fully pursue her career as an artist.
Now represented by gallerist Wally Workman, Carameros says she “wants to keep focusing and working on this until I’m 80. It’s really more of a practice now. I am always on the hunt. It’s a daily invitation to keep my eyes open. The plant has to speak to me. Sometimes I’ll pick something and it won’t come out at all. This process gives me a lot of room to fail gracefully. It’s just a plant. If it doesn’t work out, it’s OK.”
By the looks of it, things are working out just fine.
Mia’s Process
•Picks a plant and presses it. The pressing can take anywhere from a week to a month depending on how much cellulose the plant has.
•Scans the pressings. Mia has a digital archive of everything she has ever pressed.
•Views the plant through a compositional lens — removing a leaf, for instance.
•Projects the edited pressings, using a ’50s projector, onto paper. Mia says she “prefers paper to canvas. Something about it is precious.”
•Draws and paints the projection. Mia explains that she goes into “surgery mode” when she starts painting. “I have to position my body a certain way,” she says. “I like that I have to be present and precise. The process requires a lot out of me and I enjoy that.”
Read More From the Interiors Issue | January 2019
Mia Carameros’ Elegant Paintings are a Daily Invitation to Observe the Natural World2018-12-312019-01-22http://tribeza.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/asset-24x.pngTribezahttps://tribeza.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/miacarameros.jpg200px200px
Leah Ashley Makes the Case for Collecting
This Valentine’s Day, Thanks to Loot Rentals, Fourteen Couples Will Take the Leap
Tribeza’s Sixth Annual Interiors Tour
Social Hour: Frye Presents Texas Piano Man Robert Ellis
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Hazards of the Beach
Animals that Bite or Wound
Animals that Envenomate
Animals that are Poisonous to Eat
General Prevention Strategies
Traveler Summary
Coastal waters around the world can be dangerous. Swimming, diving, snorkeling, wading, fishing, and beachcombing can pose hazards for the unwary marine visitor. The seas contain animals and plants that can bite, wound, or deliver venom or toxin with fangs, barbs, spines, or stinging cells. Injuries from stony coral and sea urchins and stings from jellyfish, fire coral, and sea anemones are common. Drowning can be caused by tides, strong currents, or rip tides; shark attacks; envenomation (e.g., box jellyfish, cone snails, blue-ringed octopus); or overconsumption of alcohol. Eating some types of potentially toxic fish and seafood may increase risk for seafood poisoning.
Risk depends on the type and location of activity, as well as the time of year, winds, currents, water temperature, and the prevalence of dangerous marine animals nearby.
In general, tropical seas (especially the western Pacific Ocean) are more dangerous than temperate seas for the risk of injury and envenomation, which are common among seaside vacationers, snorkelers, swimmers, and scuba divers.
Jellyfish stings are most common in warm oceans during the warmer months.
The reef and the sandy sea bottom conceal many creatures with poisonous spines.
The highly dangerous blue-ringed octopus and cone shells are found in rocky pools along the shore.
Sea anemones and sea urchins are widely dispersed.
Sea snakes are highly venomous but rarely bite.
Shark attacks are unpredictable.
Cutaneous larva migrans is a slowly migrating, itchy rash caused by hookworm larvae that penetrate the skin. These larvae are natural to domestic and wild animals, especially cats and dogs. Humans become infected while walking barefoot or lying down on warm, moist soil where infected animals have deposited feces. Larvae can penetrate swimming suits and towels. The tide line of tropical and sub-tropical beaches where dogs run free at night is a common place to acquire the infection.
Gastrointestinal infections: Untreated sewage outlets are common on the beaches of tourist resorts in developing countries as well as some developed countries. Polluted water contaminates nearby beaches and infects local shellfish, such as crabs, oysters, and mussels. Undercooked shellfish is a common source of gastrointestinal infection.
Envenomation: Wading in shallow water carries risks of encounters with jellyfish, sea urchins, and sting rays. Box jellyfish invade shallow coastal tropical waters seasonally. Playing in rock pools in the Indo-Pacific seas carries the risk of an encounter with the highly venomous blue-ringed octopus.
Drowning: More than 1 in 10 deaths due to injury among U.S. citizens abroad are due to drowning, especially among travelers to island nations. Strong ocean currents, tides, rip tides, scuba diving, surfboard accidents, and diving headfirst into shallow pools are common causes. Drinking alcohol increases risk.
Choose a beach and picnic site away from river mouths, sewage outlets, and signs of dogs.
Watch for tentacles of jellyfish, especially on shores where box jellyfish may be common; do not handle jellyfish or enter the water if jellyfish are present. (See Jellyfish, below.)
Check for notices about regulations and local dangers.
Wear suitable footwear while wading.
Shuffle rather than high-step on a sandy bottom if stingrays may be present.
Observe standard precautions for swimming. (See the water safety section of the article Safety and Security.)
Do not handle a very small octopus, as it could be venomous.
Spines of coral, starfish, and sea urchins:
Leave the water at once; extract as many spines as possible; apply topical disinfectant.
If a secondary infection develops, treatment with an antibiotic may be necessary.
Encysted spines may require surgical removal later.
Jellyfish stings:
Douse box jellyfish stings with vinegar, if available; scrape off adherent tentacles.
It may be necessary to visit a hospital.
Blue-ringed octopus bite:
Persons bitten by this octopus need to be transported to a hospital.
About 100 shark attacks on humans are reported each year worldwide, leading to about 15 deaths—half in swimmers and half among surfers and divers. The risk of a shark attack is much less than that of drowning or being killed by a falling coconut.
Two-thirds of attacks are by great white sharks, tiger sharks, and bull sharks. Hit-and-run attacks occur near the shoreline or on a reef flat. Territorial defense and feeding attacks occur further out to sea and are more serious.
Great white sharks migrate long distances but surface in cool seas around the coasts of New Zealand and non-tropical Australia, the west coast of the Americas, the east coast of Asia as far south as Korea, southern African coasts, the Mediterranean, and the east coast of North America as far south as Florida.
The tiger shark inhabits estuarine, coastal, and coral reef waters throughout the tropics.
The bull shark inhabits fresh and marine waters of rivers, lakes, estuaries, and coasts throughout the tropics, migrating to temperate waters in the summer.
Carpet sharks are bottom-dwellers, resting on sand or gravel or under rocky ledges around tropical coasts and are a hazard to divers and fishermen. They are small, flattened, camouflaged, and bad tempered. When disturbed, they may bite and not let go.
Crocodiles eat all kinds of animals, including humans. They run and swim fast and can strike with their tails. Three species of saltwater crocodiles inhabit coastal swamps, estuaries, and saltwater and freshwater lakes, and may travel out to sea.
The American crocodile is found on the coasts of Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and Florida.
The Nile crocodile may be found in freshwater rivers and lakes, and along all the coasts of tropical Africa.
The estuarine crocodile or Australian "salty" inhabits the northern coasts of Australia, Papua New Guinea, the islands of the Malaysian archipelago, the Philippines, Southeast Asia as far as Bangladesh, and the east coast of India.
Seals and Sea Lions
Seals and sea lions are usually docile, but males may attack if provoked during the mating season.
Stingrays
Stingrays can both stab and envenomate. See Stingrays and other venomous fish, below.
Barracuda may bite accidentally, attracted by speared fish, glinting jewelry, or a watch face. Their teeth are long and sharp and can sever an artery or tendon or mangle fingers. The great barracuda inhabits all tropical seas except the eastern Pacific. The less dangerous blackfin barracuda inhabits the tropical Pacific.
Trigger fish attack intruders seasonally while defending their nests on the sea floor beside coral reefs. Their heavy jaws and 4 cm-long (1.5 in) teeth can remove chunks of flesh. They inhabit all tropical seas, but the largest and most aggressive species are found in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans.
Moray eels are common throughout tropical and warm temperate seas, including the Mediterranean, from intertidal rocky shores to depths of 300 m (1,000 ft). They are bottom-dwellers, hiding by day in holes and rock crevices. Some species grow more than 2 m (6 ft) long. Divers and lobster fishermen can be bitten on the hand as they reach into a hole. The black-cheeked moray of Comoros, Seychelles, southeastern Africa, and the Coral Sea is spontaneously aggressive. Wide, strong jaws and dagger-like teeth inflict severe wounds.
Needlefish swim in shoals on the surface of all temperate and tropical seas, and may grow more than 1 m (3 ft) long; they have spear-like jaws capable of penetrating the chest. At night they may rush towards a bright light and can impale any swimmer in their path.
Giant and goliath groupers range the tropical oceans, growing up to 2-3 m (4-10 ft) long, weighing more than 300 kg (660 lbs). Divers are in danger of being stunned by a head-on collision, especially around wrecks, or may be held in the mouth of the grouper until drowned.
All tropical and warm temperate seas contain species of fish with spines that can inflict puncture wounds, for example, the facial spines of squirrel fish, the fine spines and scalpel blades on the tail of surgeon fish, the prickles that cover puffers or blow fish, and the longer spines of porcupine fish. The danger is through handling, usually by cooks or fishermen. The ferocious puffer of the Great Barrier Reef is aggressive and will attack and bite humans.
Take note of any posted or radio warnings concerning risks of sharks or crocodiles. Shark behavior is difficult to predict.
Do not swim, boat, or fish in any estuarine or river waters of northern Australia or the Indo-Pacific coasts without obtaining local advice on the risk of saltwater crocodiles.
Stay away from seals, sea lions, and fish that are very large or nesting on the reef.
Do not touch or tread on spiny fish.
Look before searching rocky crevices and holes with bare hands.
Do not try to feed large fish; they may eat fingers.
Remove jewelry and watches if swimming where there are barracuda.
Bites from sharks and crocodiles: If a person is bitten, help him or her get out of the water; resuscitate if necessary, and transport to a hospital.
Bites from fish and eels: Stop the bleeding and clean the wound with topical antiseptic. An antibiotic may be needed.
Sponges are found on the sea bottom from shallow intertidal beaches to the deep ocean. Some species have prickly spicules containing toxic chemicals that cause severe dermatitis. Notable are the fire sponges and touch-me-not sponges of the Caribbean, Atlantic coast of the U.S., The Bahamas, and Canada as far north as Nova Scotia. They attach to rubble and rock and are found in sea grass and oyster beds.
Avoidance: Look carefully on rocky or coral sea bottoms if swimming, wading, or diving. Do not touch sponges unless wearing rubber gloves.
Hydroids, Fire Coral, Men-of-War, and Jellyfish
Hydroids, fire coral, men-of-war, and jellyfish have nematocysts (stinging cells). On contact, the nematocyst fires a barbed, hollow dart (through which venom is injected) into its prey or into human skin. In many species, the dart is too short or the venom too weak to cause significant symptoms in humans; however, envenomation by some species may be fatal.
Hydroids look like ferns, feathers, fans, algae, or tufted, branching weeds attached to any hard structure, especially wrecks in turbid, plankton-rich coastal waters, but also on reefs and in caves. Dangerous species occur throughout tropical and warm temperate seas, including the Mediterranean. Swimmers, snorkelers, and divers who are unaware of the risk can brush against a hydroid and get stung around the wrists and ankles. Envenomation causes a burning sensation, pain, redness, swelling, and blisters.
Fire corals have a hard skeleton and look like drab mustard-yellow or pale-brown stony coral. Their harmless-looking appearance and abundance just under the surface of shallow waters result in many painful injuries to swimmers, snorkelers, and divers getting in and out of boats around shallow reef margins. Envenomation causes transient burning pain followed by redness, swelling, and blisters that may last for weeks. Venomous species are found on all tropical reef systems except Hawaii.
Avoidance: If swimming, snorkeling, or fishing in tropical and warm temperate seas, do not brush against fernlike growths or branching coral attached to rocks, especially close to the shore. Be careful if handling seaweed or fishing nets.
Men-of-war and their tiny cousins the swimming bells are not single animals like a jellyfish, but a conglomerate of polyps and medusae, each with individual functions, linked by a common digestive tube. They float but cannot swim.
The Portuguese man-of war occurs primarily in the Atlantic but not in the Mediterranean. A visible 30 cm (12 in) gas-filled, bluish-purple float drifts in the current and wind, trailing invisible tentacles up to 20 m (66 ft) long that are covered in nematocysts. Their presence locally may be seasonal. Winds may collect huge colonies that drift onto the shore.
The blue bottle and other, less dangerous, smaller species are found throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Swimmers are especially at risk in choppy, windy conditions, when tentacles can get wrapped around an arm or leg. Waders, beachcombers, and divers who may see the float but not the tentacles are also at risk. Envenomation causes instant severe pain, local wheals, blisters, and necrosis of skin. General symptoms include nausea, vomiting, cardiac and respiratory difficulties, and loss of consciousness leading to drowning. Deaths have occurred on the Atlantic coast of the U.S. (including Florida) and some Caribbean islands.
Avoidance:
Look on the shoreline for beached colonies of jellyfish or their tentacles.
Avoid swimming, wading, or walking barefoot if jellyfish are present.
Do not handle the tentacles.
Learn to recognize the iridescent purple-blue float of the Portuguese man-of war, with its sail-like crest and long purple-blue tentacles. It is the only jellyfish that floats on the surface. If one is visible, do not swim.
A wet suit or stinger suit will provide some measure of protection.
Jellyfish are found in all seas at varying depths. There are more than 250 species, in varying sizes and colors, with varying formations of their tentacles—all of which are covered with nematocysts. They propel themselves by rhythmic contractions of their bells, but in strong winds may be blown together and dumped on shore. Their appearance locally is often seasonal or associated with a full moon. Swimmers, waders, and beachcombers are at greatest risk.
The true or bell jellyfish have tentacles arranged regularly around the bell. Many are mild, but some species cause severe and painful stings and sometimes systemic symptoms similar to those caused by the man-of-war, though very rarely fatal. Dangerous in this group are the Chinese sand jellyfish, the large lion's mane jellyfish of polar waters, the compass jellyfish of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, and Sanderia malayensis, which extends from eastern Africa to Japan.
Box jellyfish or sea wasps are box-shaped with tentacles arising from their 4 corners. Included in this group are the Australian Caruki barnesi or Irukandji, about 1.3 cm (0.5 in) across, with a single, fine, almost invisible tentacle up to 2 m (6-7 ft) long and Chironex fleckeri (about 25.5 cm [10 in] across with tentacles extending 3 m [10 ft]), the most dangerous of all marine creatures.
Chironex fleckeri is strictly tropical, extending from the northern coast of Australia as far north as Korea and west to India. It breeds in estuaries; at the beginning of the rainy season (October-May in Australia), swarms of juveniles emerge to mature in shallow coastal waters and migrate close to the coast. Children are especially at risk, as are adults who are wading, launching boats, or fishing. The Australian Chironex season ends in May, but a few remain and the risk never entirely disappears.
Chironex fleckeri envenomation causes instantaneous burning and excruciating pain, vivid redness, and wheals. Unconsciousness may follow in minutes, and death from cardiovascular or respiratory collapse. Without prompt first aid, deaths are common, especially in the Philippines.
The related Chrisopsalmus box jellyfish inhabits the tropical coastal waters of the Americas and West Africa.
Irukandji breed on the reef and are more widely dispersed and less seasonal than Chironex.
Irukandji stings are barely noticed at first, but over the next hour pain spreads over the whole body becoming excruciating, accompanied by severe backache, headache, nausea, vomiting, cough, and tightness of the chest, all of which last for up to a week; rarely, death occurs from cardiac arrest.
Less dangerous box jellyfish occur throughout all temperate seas.
Be aware of the type and seasonality of jellyfish that inhabit the area.
Heed warning notices, especially during the Chironex season in Australia.
Look out for jellyfish at sea and their tentacles along the shoreline. Some jellyfish may be too small to be seen.
Do not wade or swim if potentially dangerous jellyfish are present.
When fishing, be careful when handling the contents of fishing nets.
Sea Bather's Eruption
At certain times of year, blooms of microscopic organisms appear in the sea. They are concentrated by onshore winds and tend to get trapped in swimming suits. Initially they prickle or sting and later may cause dermatitis.
Coral and Sea Anemones
Coral reefs harbor myriads of animals, plants, and microorganisms, some of which may be harmful. True corals rarely sting, but the colonizing fire coral may cause dermatitis. Stony coral is razor sharp.
Coral cuts are common and may contain spicules of coral and soft tissues including nematocysts; cuts are slow to heal and often lead to secondary bacterial infection.
Soft corals contain minute spicules within their skeleton, which, with prolonged contact, can penetrate skin and cause an itchy rash.
Sea anemones are polyps that are permanently attached to rock or rubble on the sea bed. There are more than 1,000 species in a great variety of shapes, sizes, and colors; however, all have tentacles that surround the mouth and wave above them or are laid out around them. Sea anemones are widely distributed, and all swimmers are at risk of contact.
Contact with anemone tentacles may cause light burning, redness, or transient wheals.
Some species in the Caribbean, east Atlantic, and Mediterranean cause more painful, severe stings.
Dangerous species are mostly found in a range of habitats in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Red Sea. They cause severe local reactions and sometimes generalized symptoms; rarely, they can cause death.
Fire worms and scale worms inhabit reefs and coastal flats. They are covered in toxic bristles that break off in the skin, causing pain and blistering.
Swimmers and snorkelers on the reef should avoid touching corals with bare hands or feet.
Beware when searching with bare hands, especially at night.
Watch for colonizing fire corals and sea anemones in crevices and on rocks, often partially hidden in sand.
Cone Snails
Cone snails are highly decorated and collectable, but some are among the most deadly creatures in the sea and have caused many human deaths. Cone snails are tropical, and the dangerous species (notably the geography, textile, striated, and marbled cones) inhabit the tropical Indo-Pacific. They occupy a variety of habitats on and around the reef and hunt at night, stalking prey across the sandy bottom, shooting it with a barbed dart through which paralyzing venom is injected.
Humans are at risk when they pick up a shell.
Envenomation causes pain like a bee sting (although the onset may be delayed for hours or days) followed by numbness that spreads over the limb and body and leads to muscular and respiratory paralysis.
Avoidance: Cone shells are distinctive and attractive, but do not pick them up if found on the reef, the sandy sea bottom, or in a tidal pool.
Blue-Ringed Octopus
The blue-ringed octopus is less than 5 cm (2 in) in size. It is perfectly camouflaged by its coloration in its natural surroundings on shallow rocky pools or coral reefs. Only when alarmed does the blue-ringed octopus light up its defensive electric blue rings.
These octopi range the Indo-Pacific from Sri Lanka to southern Japan, Vanuatu, and the entire coast of Australia; divers on reefs and beachcombers of rocky pools are at risk when they pick up a blue-ringed octopus.
All octopi have venomous saliva to paralyze their prey. However, the venom of the blue-ringed octopus contains tetrodotoxin, the lethal toxin of puffer fish.
The bite hardly leaves a mark and may go unnoticed. Minutes later, tingling starts in the face followed by numbness. Victims cannot speak or swallow, are soon paralyzed, and may die of asphyxia.
Avoidance: Do not pick up any small octopus in tropical Indo-Pacific seas. The classical blue ring may not be lit up.
Starfish and Sea Urchins
Starfish have short, sharp spines covered in venomous slime. Most are harmless, except the crown-of-thorns starfish (measuring about 0.3 m [1 ft] across), which lives at the bottom of reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific area.
Snorkelers are at risk walking on the reef, especially at night, or jumping onto the reef from a boat.
Starfish wounds cause intense pain, bluing of the skin, and sometimes nausea and vomiting. Spicules retained in the skin cause persistent painful cysts.
Sea urchins resemble balls with a hard shell covered in long, fine, sharp spines. They are found in all marine habitats of tropical and warm temperate seas. Risk is greatest at night.
Anyone entering the sea where sea urchins occur is at risk, especially barefoot swimmers and waders. Even wet suits may not prevent penetration of the spines.
Most sea urchin-induced injuries cause only local problems from broken and retained spines, but the spines of some tropical species are venomous, causing pain, swelling, redness, and numbness (which last a few hours) and discoloration from pigment in the venom.
Venom of the flower urchin and fire urchin of the tropical Indo-Pacific may additionally cause psychotic reactions and paralysis.
Avoidance: Wear appropriate footwear when wading the rocky shoreline, reef, or the entrance to underwater caves, especially around Indo-Pacific reefs.
Stingrays and Other Venomous Fish
Stingrays are found in all tropical and temperate seas. In the U.S., there are about 1,500 stings from rays each year. Most species live on the sea bed or in shallow estuaries and are often obscured by sand. Eagle rays swim long distances, high in the water. The ray's flat body carries a whip-like tail that is armed with a barbed spine capable of injecting venom and used in self-defense. Rays do not intentionally attack swimmers, but they flail about if they are caught or feel trapped, and their barb can penetrate anyone nearby; they may also jump into a boat.
The main risk is to waders who step accidentally on a ray, fishermen handling a caught ray, and overcurious divers.
The spine, which may be up to 0.3 m (1 ft) long in large rays, makes a deep stab wound that turns blue and swollen and may later necrose. Severe pain lasts for hours. General symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, and shock may follow envenomation. Penetration of the chest wall by the spine may be fatal.
Venomous fish: Spines on the fins, tail, and gill covers of many fish contain venom that causes severe pain, local inflammation, occasional systemic symptoms, painful muscle spasms, and—rarely—death.
In tropical Indo-Pacific seas, extending as far north as Japan:
Catfish inhabit muddy coastal and estuarine waters; eel catfish inhabit sandy areas and sea grass and are a hazard for persons fishing.
Scorpion fish are most common in the Indo-Pacific, but the western Atlantic species cause about 300 envenomations around the U.S. each year. They are well-disguised bottom-dwellers on coral or rocky reefs, whose venomous dorsal spines are hidden among tassels.
Lionfish are elegant, with wide pectoral fins and decorated dorsal fins; they hover above the bottom, sometimes in small groups. They will attack to defend territory and are a risk to snorkelers.
Closely related to lionfish, the wasp fish inhabits soft bottoms in shallow waters and is a risk to fishermen who get them in their nets.
Stonefish are masters of disguise, immobile among rock or reef or buried in sand. Divers and waders may tread on them, resulting in excruciating pain and severe local inflammation.
Devilfish bury themselves in sand and rubble on reef flats, where divers and swimmers might tread on their dorsal spines.
In the Atlantic:
Some species of lionfish migrated through the Suez Canal and are established in the Mediterranean and have reached the East Coast of the southern U.S.
Toadfish inhabit sediment of the rivers of the Amazon basin, the Atlantic coast of South America, and the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and are a hazard to waders and fishermen.
Avoidance: Individuals who are in tropical and warm temperate seas should:
wear appropriate footwear when wading or swimming and stepping on or among underwater rocks; shuffle rather than stride or stamp the sandy bottom
avoid lionfish and stingrays
beware the contents of fishing nets
Sea Snakes
Distinguished from eels by a flat tail and absence of gills, sea snakes range from 0.5 to 3 m (1.5-10 ft) long and have short, fixed, front fangs. Sea snakes are venomous, but most bites do not inoculate venom and are harmless. Few species have fangs long enough to penetrate a wet suit. Almost all the dangerous species are in Indo-Australian waters, but 1, the yellow-bellied sea snake, ranges through tropical and temperate seas from eastern Africa to Central America.
Sea snakes hunt for prey in reef crevices or on the sea floor and may also be seen surfacing to breathe. Most sea snakes ignore swimmers and divers but may approach out of curiosity. They are not aggressive unless provoked. Danger comes from handling them, and fishermen are at risk when sorting their catch. Depending on the species, venom is either myotoxic (dissolving muscles and leading to tender, stiff muscles, red urine, shock, and collapse) or neurotoxic (leading to muscular weakness and respiratory paralysis). Severe envenomation may be fatal.
Avoidance: Ignore sea snakes; avoid touching or annoying them. Beware the contents of fishing nets.
Envenomation may follow contact with jellyfish tentacles in open sea water, from handling a venomous creature, commonly on a coral reef or in fishing nets, from treading on a spiny creature on the reef or the sandy bottom, or from the bite of a sea snake or venomous fish.
Read warning notices.
Stay out of the water if box jellyfish are present or during the northern Australian Chironex season from October through May.
Watch for jellyfish tentacles on the shoreline and in the water while swimming.
Learn to recognize the iridescent gas-filled, purple-blue float of the man-of war.
Don't duck-dive in the presence of jellyfish.
Wear stinger suits, often made from Lycra, to greatly reduce the risk of jellyfish stings.
Beware the contents of fishing nets.
Look out for spiny creatures and do not touch them. Some lie well-disguised in sand or rock, so take care and wear appropriate footwear when swimming or diving.
Watch out for sea urchins around the entrance to underwater caves.
Look carefully for moray eels, scorpion fish, etc., before reaching into holes or crevices.
Do not handle a cone shell, a tiny octopus, or a sea snake-even if it appears to be dead—most likely it is not.
Spines of coral, starfish, and sea urchins: Leave the water at once. Extract as many spines as possible, and apply a topical disinfectant. Antibiotic treatment may be necessary if a secondary infection develops. Encysted spines may require surgical removal later.
Jellyfish stings: Get out of the water. Douse the skin as quickly as possible with vinegar for at least 30 seconds for box jellyfish or a thick suspension of baking powder or dry sand for Physalia and other common Atlantic jellyfish. This will prevent further release of venom from nematocysts but will not relieve pain. Do not apply alcohol, sun cream, water, or other remedies. Remove any remaining tentacles with tweezers or fingers; apply ice packs and/or give opiate analgesics to relieve pain. In the case of Chironex, Irukandji, and Physalia stings, CPR may be necessary. Transport the victim to the nearest hospital or clinic. Antivenom for Chironex is available.
Stonefish and other severe fish spine envenomations: Immerse the stung limb in water that is uncomfortably hot but not above 45°C (113°F). This will inactivate the venom. Antivenom for stonefish, which is also effective against the venom of North American scorpion fish, is available. If a secondary infection develops, treatment with an antibiotic may be needed.
Cone snail envenomation: The victim should be transported to a hospital and may need CPR.
Sea snake and blue-ringed octopus bites: The victim should lie down and not walk. Immobilize the bitten limb and apply a firm, comfortable, compression bandage. The patient should be taken to the hospital on a stretcher. Maintain the airway if paralysis develops. Antivenom for sea snakes is available.
Sea bather's eruption and other mild reactions to stings: Apply a simple antipruritic lotion or hydrocortisone 1% ointment.
See also the article, Seafood Poisoning.
Very few marine animals that would normally be eaten by humans are poisonous in their own right. However, many have a diet of plankton or bacteria which may contain toxins that accumulate in that animal's flesh and may be highly poisonous to any human that consumes it. Cooking does not destroy the toxins.
Classic examples of poisoning from eating fish that have become "passively poisonous" in this way are scombroid poisoning from eating certain species of fish that have been improperly stored, ciguatera poisoning from eating large carnivorous reef fish, and tetrodotoxic poisoning from eating puffers freshly caught on the reef or as the Japanese restaurant delicacy fugu.
Poisoning may also follow consumption of other "passively poisonous" marine animals. Several forms of shellfish poisoning may follow the consumption of bivalve mollusks, notably mussels and clams that have fed on toxic algae. In addition, some species of marine snails, many species of crabs, and improperly prepared sea cucumbers can be poisonous.
Preventive Strategies: Prevention of ciguatera, scombroid, and tetrodotoxic poisoning is largely a matter of being careful of the type of fish, method of storage, and method of preparation in certain epidemiological settings. Shellfish poisoning is difficult to predict in countries that do not monitor algal concentrations at commercial shellfish beds.
First Aid: see Seafood Poisoning.
Know the risks of the destination, especially at Indo-Pacific locations.
Do an online search for the intended location using key words such as marine hazards, swimming, and diving.
Consult local tourist offices, scuba diving operators, lifesaving clubs, and experienced locals for information on safe beaches and dangerous creatures.
Take precautions to avoid seafood poisoning; see the section on seafood poisoning, above, and the article, Seafood Poisoning.
Beachcombers, waders, and swimmers
Take note of the season, wind, tides, and currents.
Choose patrolled beaches and avoid deserted beaches, and do not swim in the sea at night.
Look for signs warning bathers against entering the water because of weather or water conditions, jellyfish, crocodiles, or sharks.
See the water safety section of the article Safety and Security.
Inexperienced scuba divers should take lessons from a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) or NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) school.
All divers should note tides and currents.
Maintain proper buoyancy.
Look carefully before reaching into holes or crevices.
Leave rays and large fish alone.
Do not handle snakes.
Look carefully for jellyfish, venomous reef creatures, and sea urchins.
See the sections above for detailed precautions. See also the article, Diving.
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Read Next: Warner Music Acquires Musical Theater Indie First Night Records
October 8, 2015 6:00PM PT
Broadway Review: ‘Fool for Love’ with Sam Rockwell
By Marilyn Stasio
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CREDIT: Joan Marcus
Sam Rockwell, Nina Arianda, Gordon Joseph Weiss, Tom Pelphrey.
Love hurts — quite literally, in the Manhattan Theater Club’s highly physicalized revival of Sam Shepard’s 1983 play “Fool for Love.” The production originated last year at the Williamstown Theater Festival, which accounts for the easy rapport between Sam Rockwell and Nina Arianda as the battling lovers whose unbreakable bond of love and hate have made their lives a living hell. This may not be the definitive production of this iconic play, but director Daniel Aukin has done a thoroughly professional job.
Shepard’s assault-and-battery love story felt a lot more immediate thirty years ago, when the writer-turned-movie-star had recently separated from his first wife to start a new relationship with Jessica Lange. At the time, Shepard talked about “the absolute hell” of falling in love, a human condition he called “terrible and impossible.” That cri de coeur infuses the play with its dual sense of desire and despair.
The tormented lovers in “Fool for Love” are a broken-down cowboy named Eddie (Rockwell, wonderfully at ease in the role) and his beaten-down girlfriend May (Tony Award winner Arianda, exhausted from battle). May has been hiding out in a ratty motel in the Mojave Desert. It’s the kind of place where you go to blow your brains out. The kind of place where a wheezy ghost known only as The Old Man (Gordon Joseph Weiss, perfectly cast) sits on the porch to watch.
Eddie has finally tracked May down to this hellhole, and having driven 2,480 miles to find her, he’s determined to bring her back to their trailer in Wyoming. She resists — and the battle lines are drawn.
You get a strong sense that this scene has played itself out many times before, like a painful ritual that must be repeated until one or both of them collapse. These ritualized couplings (carefully choreographed by David S. Leong) consist mainly of one lover throwing the other against the wall or across the bed — although Eddie adds his signature touch of twirling a lasso normally used to subdue farm animals. His legs bowed and his posture a perpetual slouch, Rockwell is so genuinely invested in this cowboy role that anyone would take him for the real thing.
In between the bruising body contact, Eddie and May devour each other with fierce kisses. Along with all this body-slamming and lip-bruising, there is also dialogue, and some of the language is pure Sam Shepard gold. Like the anecdote the Old Man tells about finding himself in the middle of a herd of cows, or when Eddie joins him in recollecting their family drama. Rockwell and Weiss mine this old gold like prospectors who just got lucky.
But “Fool for Love” is far more physical than other plays by Shepard, and physicality is Arianda’s strong suit. The actress has a remarkably supple back, which she uses in expressive ways — curled in on itself like a beaten puppy, or hunched in a corner like a rabid dog. Long legs, strong body, she’s battle-ready and built for slamming doors (Ryan Rumery had the fun job of amplifying the sound) and kicking her lover in the groin.
Actors love this play, as do student audiences. And if laid-back Rockwell and body-conscious Arianda don’t quite have their acts together, Shepard is served well enough to satisfy his fan base.
Broadway Review: 'Fool for Love' with Sam Rockwell
Samuel J. Friedman Theater; 650 seats; $150 top. Opened Oct. 8, 2015. Reviewed Oct. 2. Running time: ONE HOUR, 15 MIN.
Production: A Manhattan Theater Club presentation, in association with Williamstown Theater Festival, of a play in one act by Sam Shepard.
Creative: Directed by Daniel Aukin. Set, Dane Laffrey; costumes, Anita Yavich; lighting, Justin Townsend; sound, Ryan Rumery; movement & fights, David S. Leong; production stage manager, Kyle Gates.
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Nina Arianda, Gordon Joseph Weiss, Tom Pelphrey.
Manhattan Theater Club
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Innovation Agenda
City without waste
Upcycle Center
Almere Raw Materials Cooperative
Urban Waste Raw Materials Citylab
Waste flows
Greenery in public space
Watercourses and waterways
Paved roads, streets and squares
Public lighting and traffic lights
Sewerage
Streetfurniture and other elements
Background of this competition
Why does Almere launch this competition?
What is the competition about?
Tender documents
UpCycle City » Waste flows
TNO did a research for Almere on waste streams in the city and volumes. The central question was: which waste fractions have the greatest potential to make a better business case through another (new) circular production process for waste treatment?
Key indicators: What is the fraction of waste? What are the processing of the waste fraction? What materials contains a fraction of waste? Which products and product components contain a fraction of waste? What materials are most valuable? What jobs can be drawn to the region? At what scale should be collected? Who are the customers?
Almere municipality manages the bulk of the dry and wet infrastructure, forest and landscape and public parks in Almere. The current management is primarily aimed at maintaining recreation, ecology, landscape, functionality (civil and hydraulic engineering, safety, traffic flow, etc.) and reducing administrative costs. The production of biomass (usually grass or pruning waste) is currently not part of the management, more precisely the control of production, since the management and disposal of biomass entails costs.
The municipality of Almere manages the watercourses and waterways in the city. The management aims to achieve good water quality, the quality of maintenance of the waterways and the navigability of waterways for boating.
Paving roads, streets and squares
Almere is compared to other cities more hardening, because here was chosen in most places for separate lanes for cars, buses and cyclists. Hardening concerns asphalt and concrete pavers.
The municipality of Almere has about 500 works (mostly bridges and viaducts) under management. These are divided into approximately 310 concrete objects, 30 steel and 160 wooden objects. The concrete and steel structures have a remaining life of at least 25 years. In recent years, though several wooden bridges replaced with new bridges. In new buildings or not carried out with steel and / or plastics (composite bamboo), or they will have a concrete implementation. Also, in the context of affordability of the management task views that bridges can be demolished and no longer need to come back. On average Almere expects to demolish the coming years 6 to 8 wooden bridges per year.
In Almere is located a separate sewer system with ca.1600 kilometers of sewer, in which the water is pumped by means of 298 sewage pumps. The accounting depreciation period of the sewage system is 60 years, but the municipality only replace a large scale if the system no longer functions properly. This means that it is difficult to predict when exactly will emerge the great wave of replacement sewer. The next 4 years, the municipality expects no large-scale replacement of drains.
Almere are 45,000 public lights. Using this average <30watt (in the Netherlands this is an average of 60 watts). 15% of the lighting columns are fitted with LED luminaires, 65% PLL (sort CFL) a 24-watts. The average life of the PLL lamps is 6 years. The municipality replaces all the public lighting and traffic lights with LED next 10 years. In Almere 120 intersections equipped with multiple traffic lights owned by the municipality.
Streetfurniture and other elements in public space
A city also has all kinds of objects in public space, also called street furniture. Benches, bus shelters, playgrounds in neighborhoods, etc. We may have a residual current that is not specifically come from the public space, but where is a good idea. For example, all the old wheelie bins from Almere, which are handed and must be destroyed. Soon there will be more information about these other waste streams available.
No items in this list
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Star Trek: Theurgy
Joining the Crew
Star Trek: Theurgy Canon
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Faceclaim Directory
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2019-04-30: Season 1 has come to an end, and we have just begun to write in the Aldea Prime Anthology between Seasons. Read more in the Main OOC thread!
2019-06-01: Until we've entered the Aldea Prime phase fully, with away missions launched and a means for In-Character recruitment to the hidden ship being set up, recruitment is now closed. This also in regard to Inheritance, not counting Applicants that have already applied for a character. The joining the crew page has been updated accordingly.
2018-12-17: Did you know that you can change the ship displayed on the site in your Look and Layout settings? Pick your favourite ship or warp fighter! You can also add writing requests to your Forum Profile.
2018-12-17: If you check your character page, and click on the Academy Class link at the bottom of the page, you can see who your character went to the Academy with. Perfect for Director's Cut board shenanigans!
Star Trek: Theurgy | Season 1
Episode 05: Courage is Fear | Part 2
Prologue: Insurgency [D05|2315]
Topic: Prologue: Insurgency [D05|2315] (Read 1969 times) previous topic - next topic
steelphoenix
Veteran Theurgist
Re: Chapter 06: Insurgency [ Day 05 | 2315 hrs. ]
Reply #25 – August 12, 2018, 08:43:06 AM
Joint Post
[ Deacon, K'Ren and R'Rori| Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] attn: all present
R'Rori blushed slightly as s/he looked down at hir body in response to Blue's words and nodded in agreement as s/he registered just how much had changed. As Blue continued speaking and answering questions from the others, the counselor took a moment to look around the cavernous room to gauge the mood. As expected, it was a mix. There were expressions of grief, curiosity, confusion, fleeting happiness, and a few more stoic. It looked like the Klingon found a friend - the scientist from earlier. And there were the other two feline prisoners. Deacon looked to be in distress and R'Rori couldn't quite figure out K'Ren from this angle. When the supplies beamed in, s/he joined the others in grabbing her box, smiling grimly at the name on it.
They know far too much about us and we too little of them.
S/he pushed aside the Twinkies for now and pulled on the suit within, unsurprised at how well it fit and the consideration made for hir tail. After s/he separated out the vegetable-based meal for hir own, R'Rori made sure to pass by Blue on the way to a spot to eat, dropping the confections for hir former patient. Hir destination was ultimately K'Ren and Deacon, whom s/he spotted conversing while eating.
"Marriages tend to come with a bit more pomp and ceremony in my experience, Deacon."
R'Rori sat down nearby in easy conversational range while s/he started on the leafy goodness their mysterious Savi benefactor had made for hir. S/he gestured at the both of them and directed hir words at the Caitian.
"Deacon here mentioned you two were bonded, I believe. He is not Caitian, though? What kind of bonding is it?"
K'Ren could feel a little of her mate's feelings, not empathy as telepaths considered it but she could feel his emotional state through the bond they shared, a dull sort of general sense of his emotional state. Strong feelings could come through louder but she'd never felt such strong emotions as she had from Deacon, or Xander, she wasn't sure which now. Resting her head against his, she gently stroked his neck. "We will get ourselves out of here mate, but for now let's focus on rest." That rest however was short-lived as a familiar whine filled the room, spooking K'Ren a little until she saw the crates arrive, not threats as she expected.
She moved to sit where he'd been while he collected their crates. She could tell from his posture, and his facial expressions, such as they were that he wasn't entirely impressed with his parcel, or at least something on the front of it. Bringing it back she saw what was causing him to react as he was, the name on the package. She glanced them both over as he offered her box to her. "They would not have known mate, could not have known unless they'd looked closely at our offspring. But yes, that is how it would have worked, perhaps even a single package for us both to share."
Opening the package she saw the nutritional items, unsure but assuming they were made for her, or at least generic enough she'd not react to any milk products in the solid foodstuffs. She wasn't sure about the uniform, would put that on later but for now the water seemed the best choice and she took a sip from it. When she put the bottle down, she saw R'Rori sitting their in front of them. "We are bonded yes. He was K'Zin but it seems the Caitian life bond, can extend to other species."
R'Rori nodded. "Similar to the bond between my parents then, though my father's human culture had a strong influence on how they showed it to others. It was a big wedding, I'm told."
Deacon tensed at R'Rori's arrival, not anticipating another to come forward to invade what he felt was a personal moment; but of all those concerned, he found he minded her presence the least. As K'Ren turned her attention to the new arrival, he opened his own box, rifling through the contents, pausing long enough to sniff suspiciously at the three Twinkies inside. He opened one, hazarding a taste of the confection, only to find it revolting, hurriedly wiping it from his tongue, clearly having missed the statement that he had once been kzin-- a statement that he no doubt would take offense to. "Fanged God," he grumbled, "are they trying to poison us?" He crushed the remaining Twinkies, tossing them into the shadows at the edge of his sight, still trying to excise the flavor from his mouth by stretching his tongue out repeatedly. Finally, he looked back at the other two to see what he had missed.
"I never knew the rituals of my father's planet but there was little ceremony on my world." K'Ren noted, thinking back to what she could still remember of her childhood. "Living on a failed colony, much of the civilized ideals never seemed present, least of all when it came to taking a mate and marriage." She paused, thinking forward to her first mate and the short life together they had. "My first mate, a human did a small ceremony of sorts when he claimed me, something about a pledge we both recited, a public display of our union and these little metal rings he made us wear."
"The wedding rings!" R'Rori exclaimed softly. "Yes. While Caitians are satisfied with a private bond, I've noticed humans like public ceremony. It's like a way of bonding the pair's families and friends along with each other. Through the ceremony, they strengthen their community through a celebration. It's interesting."
Deacon regarded K'Ren, his focus diverting again. She'd had another mate before him and a human besides. But she was no longer with him, and here he was stuck with a human face and human flesh. Would she leave him too now that he'd been stripped of much of who he was? An unsettled wave of insecurity washed over him, though he said nothing. Should he let her leave him? These were not concerns kzinti had. And yet the more he tried to struggle against the sinking morass of his thoughts, the more they clung to him, the more they threatened to swallow him down.
K'Ren glanced at her mate, feeling a sudden wave of discouragement and fear wash off him. Her human mate had been a bit less extreme in his emotional states, perhaps humans normally were less emotional then K'Zin, but regardless it didn't matter, she could feel her mate's distress and almost depression in him. Was it her remark about her first mate? She looked to Xander, "Mate?" she asked, looking to his face to guage what she was feeling in the bond, "I'm your Caitrett."
Deacon blinked, unsure of what prompted her to suddenly make such an admission. He'd heard her say it before and it had made him happy, but now he was confused. "I.. I know," he said. He wanted to say more, to assure her he didn't have any doubts, but he knew the fate of liars when they stood before the Fanged God. "I think I'm just on edge," he finally added, finding a nugget of truth he hoped would put her mind at ease.
R'Rori watched the two talk. There was this brief flash s/he got of distress and depression and it was almost dismissed as simply hir own feeling resurfacing, but it felt ... alien almost. Not hirs. K'Ren's words and Deacon's reaction confirmed a half-formed hypothesis. So his abilities are stronger than I thought. S/he spoke up then as gently as s/he could. "It's natural to wonder, especially with the changes forced on us. Perhaps ... a re-commitment of sorts could help. A promise to each other in your new bodies."
K'Ren could sense the confusion, could sense a little deception in his feelings as he responded to her. She cocked her head a little when R'Rori suggested they might recommit to each other. It'd only been, well she wasn't sure now how many days had passed since they initially bonded but long enough they'd made a cub together. Perhaps it was best they did what she suggested. She wanted to reassure Deacon, reassure her mate that she was his and his alone. She paused, was that it? Was that what was worrying him? Did her mention of her last mate worry him that she might leave. "I think we should." She looked to Deacon, "Mate. The human I spoke of, he died defending our ship. We were parted by nothing less then his death. I will not leave you until death separates us and we go the way of our ancestors."
Deacon's ears would have rolled back were they still capable of such mobility. She was in his mind. But how? He was tired, true, but had his defenses dropped so thoroughly? R'Rori, too, seemed to have some inkling of his feelings. Was this another change? Another reflection of what the Savi had done to him. Another thing he would need to control... if his emotions were bleeding out of him uncontrollably, he'd have to find a way to rein them in. But it was enough to warrant a half-smile, at least as much as he could, given his lack of practice with such an expression. He trace his hand along K'Ren's cheek. He didn't want her to have to do things just to reassure him, but that she considered it alone gave him some small joy in the face of their predicament.
She purred as he ran his hand along her cheek, tail twitching, ears flopped causally on her head. "I would have everyone here know you are my mate Deacon, I am your Caitrett, and nobody will take that from us." She nuzzled into his hand a little as they caressed her whiskers. "Please?"
R'Rori had to quickly stuff the last bit of food in hir mouth to suppress the sudden smile that wanted to crack across hir face, barely succeeding. A part of hir, the diehard romantic s/he supposed, wanted to clap and cheer a bit. It was good to see something like this in the midst of such monstrosities as they had all faced recently. S/he held hir breath, daring not to say anything that might ruin the moment. There was a detail that s/he could mention, though....
"Well, we... do have Commander Nerina here. It is custom in Starfleet that commanding officers can marry people. If you'd like, of course."
Deacon gave a slight laugh. She was asking his permission to publicize their union. There was the part of him that didn't require such a public display-- kzinti, after all, took mates as readily as they took any other possession. But that was not the way of the Federation. That wasn't the way of his parents. His father had married his mother, whether she had understood the concept fully or not. But it was the respect that he paid to her and their union, and if not for that, he wouldn't be here reflecting on them. And he had to admit, there was the part of him that wanted to declare their union to the others, in defiance of the Savi, a challenge to others who might try to claim her. It was childish, but it was still there. He placed his head to hers, nodding his consent. "We should probably be dressed for this. Monkey modesty."
K'Ren placed her head against Deacon's. "Thank you Deacon." She purred, turning her head to R'Rori. "If this Nerina is willing, we will do so R'Rori. If not, we will do so privately, Caitian custom does not require a witness, the bond between us is enough."
Deacon turned his gaze towards R'Rori. "Would you mind asking the commander for a moment of her time?" he asked, motioning to indicate his and K'Ren state of undress with a slight smirk. "We need a moment."
Last Edit: August 12, 2018, 06:14:52 PM by steelphoenix
Deacon (aka Xander Maryk)
[Show/Hide]
Lt Cmdr. Vael Kaeris
Senior Theurgist
[ Lt R'Rori | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan
R'Rori titled hir head slightly at Deacon's request, not bothering to hide the small smirk on hir face or suppress the burgeoning excitement within hir. S/he really didn't know K'Ren and Deacon from Adam, honestly, but this kind of development was something s/he could see greatly benefiting the mood and morale of the officers present with them. It would serve as a reminder of the persistence of life and perhaps offer a bit of hope. Morale officers were part of the counseling complement and such concerns about a crew's morale or mood was thus naturally an integral part of a counselor's assessment.
Also, it was cute to see two people get married.
"Of course, Deacon." S/he replied while standing back up. "I'll just be a moment."
S/he looked around to spot where Nerina was standing. Even with the changes wrought to hir body, hir natural agility still allowed hir to reach the commander deftly and with a surprising amount of speed, considering. The smirk had developed into a more natural smile as hir silver eyes attempted to make visual contact with Nerina's. S/he waved shortly to grab her attention before speaking up.
"Commander Nerina! I am Lieutenant R'Rori, formerly counselor on the Endeavour. I apologize for interrupting but I have a request to pass along. Two of the people here from the Theurgy here have been bonded in the Caitian manner before ..." S/he waved around at the Savi ship's interior. "All this happened. With the changes, they would like to recommit to each other a little bit more publicly. Their names are K'Ren and Deacon. Would you mind officiating?"
After a short pause and seeing the reaction on Nerina's face, R'Rori spoke up again, this time in a voice more somehow official. "It would be good for crew morale, I believe. There's a lot of grimness and death lately and this gives everyone something soothing to experience. It won't be a waste of your time."
Masorin
Legendary Theurgist
Ens Nathaniel Isley Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] @Triage @Auctor Lucan
https://orig00.deviantart.net/a26a/f/2018/128/3/c/isley_romulan_manifest_by_auctor_lucan-dcb0dpz.gif
When the equipment arrived Nathan walked over to it, and took a suit and a Twinkie. He changed quickly and stuffed his face with the food. When he was dressed he walked back to the spot where the two had been talking out of the way of the crowd, and took a meditative position.
"I'll be honest, if you stayed with the vulcan's you probably know more than me about the actual meditations, but what I do have, is the experiences of three different mind melds with vulcans. Everytime they are in your head, you are also in theirs, it's easy to find information after you experience it once or twice. I know how the ritual is done, but sadly." Nathan shrugged.
"When all of the Romulans left Vulcan, the few that were psionic were banished to the interior of a boiling moon tidal locked as it was the surface was either boiling hot, or extremely cold which forced those underground mining the precious minerals and creating what we nowadays call the Remans. As far as I know my mother has no reman blood, and I was raised Vulcan, my mother a spy hiding in Federation space, I attended a Vulcan school in my early years, and hated every second of it." He gave a bit of his background, and why he didn't think he would ever be able to pull off a mind meld, which was unfortunate.
"Lets talk about what happened to me first. I was put under the effect of an unwanted mind meld, and used as a weapon to kill a friend of mine." He sighed going over the different sets of memories he had at the time. "When I learned the cause of the strike i started to do a lot of reading on how to restore control to ones mind. While I don't have the psionic potential, the one thing I have been reading on is how to control the mind internally from external threats."
"Since you have the basics of meditation we are going to jump to the point I'm at, for now we will try a guided meditation. Building the fortitude of the mind, and learning for all to be quiet." He moved to close his own eyes, trusting O'Riley to follow, and attempting to guide her in meditation something that he was not the best at.
Auctor Lucan
Divine Theurgist
Game Moderator
Terminat Auctor Opus
Reply #28 – August 13, 2018, 09:16:52 PM
[ Commander Nerina | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] Attn: All
When Blue Tiran had insisted on the PADD she had in possession not being tampered with, Commander Nerina had weighed the options at their disposal. She didn't know enough about this woman from the Endeavour, and she didn't know who this Savi asset was, much less what kind of agreement the woman had made with this Savi. Then again, she didn't know Sarresh Morali or Hi'Jak either, even if they claimed they were part of the Theurgy's crew. What was the wisest decision, she didn't know, but she'd rather avoid conflict at that hour, when the two present crews needed to rest and prepare for a more coordinated effort on the morrow.
Thus, when the delivery came, she turned to Sarresh Morali, and shook her head, signaling for him to not push the issue about the PADD right then. Hi'Jak had already moved away with Dr. Saugn, whom Nerina knew well from the original medical staff on the Theurgy, likely needing medical treatment after the fight on the Enterprise since the man had fought at a disadvantage, lacking both an eye and an arm. She'd have words with Morali later, but for the time being, she joined the throng of people picking up their care packages. She used to have Klingon blood, and wasn't prude, but she'd welcome clothing.
When at the crates, she spotted Lin Kae trying to open his package with bloodied fingers, his futile efforts with the holo-emitter earlier having made him loose a couple of fingernails. After Nerina had stepped into her Savi exosuit and closed it, she stepped over to the young Bajoran and helped him. "Here," she said, getting the lid open for him, "When you've eaten, you should see if any of these people are medical staff. They might be able to take a look at your hands."
"Thank you," said Lin Kae with a defeated air about him when he met her eye. "I'm sorry. I failed."
"Don't worry, Ensign. We're still here. You did all that you could." She put a hand on his bare shoulder.
"If I may," he said, the suit in his lap, "I would like to be on the team that tries to get Thea. You weren't there, but... I helped develop her, after we left Niga, after I unshackled her. I... I think I will be one of those qualified to extract her from the kind of lab she might be in."
"Duly noted, Ensign. We'll speak more of this later." Nerina nodded, patted his shoulder, and rose to her feet. "Now, you should eat and get your hands looked at. All right?"
"Yes, Commander."
Nerina looked around, eating out of her package joylessly. She saw how the Okhala sisters moved away from the rest. The white-haired one had looked towards Nathaniel Isley and Khorin Douglas - two of the Lone Wolves that Nerina knew - but the two pilots already had company with the blonde engineer with the heavy accent and the Betazoid named Praise respectively. She tried to see where ThanIda zh'Wann had gone, but she didn't see her. She had seen the Andorian zhen collect her package and move away, but now, she was gone. Perhaps she had taken residence in one of the adjacent storage rooms.
Then, she spotted Blue Tiran, and the woman seemed to be emotional about her food. Of course, she had likely not eaten since she came aboard. Those in the Correction Program had been fed regularly - with and without tubes - and even been able to eat on the Enterprise. Lieutenant Commander Tiran had been alone, and likely without any access to food and water on the Savi ship.
With concern for her, Nerina was about to go to her, to speak with her, and start to make some rudimentary plans for the morrow. To learn more about the Savi asset, and what she had endured, and she would have done so if the Vulcan male without hair hadn't sat down next to her. It made her pause, and let the woman be for the time being.
"Commander Nerina! I am Lieutenant R'Rori, formerly counselor on the Endeavour. I apologize for interrupting but I have a request to pass along."
Nerina found a smile somewhere inside her, and inclined her head to the woman, whom seemed to not be fully Corrected since she had a tail and Caitian ears still. "That's quite all right, Lieutenant. What's the request?" she asked, and listened as the former Caitian hybrid began to explain about the two bonded members of her ship's crew, both likely additions since after she had been put into stasis. Something about the request made a warm feeling bloom in her chest, after all the horrors she and the rest had been subjected to. She only had to think for a moment. "I suppose that... since I am the ranking officer in our midst, it makes me the best candidate for it. I would be happy to do it, and I agree, I think we all need a reminder about how there is something to fight for."
She set her steps towards the two members of the Theurgy crew that Lieutenant R'Rori had indicated, and Nerina smiled to them. She paused in her eating, cocking a hip and resting her care package against it while she spoke to them. "I hear you would like me to officiate your bond," she said, genuinely happy to see that despite all that was going on, and what laid ahead, love could still prevail. "It would be my honour to do so. Do you have any requests, or shall I stick to the usual words? Either way, I just need your full names."
[ Ensign Lin Kae | Maintenance Bays | The Versant Attn: @Zenozine
After dressing in the exosuit, and getting some of the food down, Lin Kae rose from the deck and began to make silent enquiries about present medical staff. His fingers throbbed, but the blood had begun to coagulate well enough. He wasn't sure what any doctor or nurse could do for him under the present circumstances, but Commander Nerina likely just wanted his fingers to get looked at.
Eventually, he found his way to two Ovri that he recognized from the Theurgy. The two siblings had come aboard from the Harbinger, he remembered, and he had seen them from time to time when he'd had business in sickbay. He had no idea why they had been abducted by the Savi, since they didn't appear changed in any way since he had last seen them, but perhaps there was more than Corrections taking place in the labs of the Versant. Little did he know about the last inoculation that the two Ovri had gotten from the Savi, and what was in store for them...
"Hello. I am sorry to intrude, but would either of you mind taking a look at my hands? Commander Nerina insisted that I'd get them checked," he asked, the dim light catching the exotic skin of the Ovri siblings, whom would have been given the same kind of care packages as the rest.
[ Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann | Outside | Maintenance Bay Corridors | The Versant ] Attn: All
With the stolen phaser contraption in hand, ThanIda zh'Wann silently made her way down the corridor outside the bay, leaving the others behind.
Alone, she would scout the areas closest to the hideout, since as far as she had seen, there were no security programs protecting them, and no surveillance system in place. Therefore, she had taken on the duty to be the last line of defense for the abductees. As a sentry, she would sleep lightly, in a prime position to forestall any Savi security teams looking for them.
She hadn't told anyone, because she...
Admittedly, she just needed the time alone. She knew it was wrong to leave, but she refused to speak of why she had been abducted, with anyone, but most of all, she refused to be in the vicinity of the bond group that had been forced upon her. She knew that they would try to seek her out, that Shar would feel the time coming. Either that night, or the day to come. The time to pass the egg to a zhen. Would they see it as an obscene duty to their species to try to finish what had begun? She didn't know, and she didn't care.
What if they try to force me? She had been violated, again, and by Lor'Vela, Andoria would thaw before she let anyone or anything inside her again. In a way, she hoped Shar's time, the final step, would come that night, whilst she protected the abductees. In a way, she almost hoped they'd try to make her agree to it. She gripped the handle of the assembled phaser harder, her teeth grinding together.
The rage inside her needed some kind of outlet, and it was a long time till the morrow.
OOC: Here are the characters present in Blue Tiran's hideout in the Maintenance Bays, and if there are significant reunions because of this, it should be handled in Supplemental threads or mid-discussion in this thread. The naming convention for such threads belonging to this Prologue is: Prologue: Supplemental [ Day XX | XXXX hrs. ] Insert Title. Here goes: [Show/Hide]
ABDUCTEES IN BLUE TIRAN'S HIDEOUT:
Nerina @Auctor Lucan
Blue Tiran @Blue Zephyr
Lin Kae @Auctor Lucan
Zephyr Praise @Blue Zephyr
Khorin Douglas @Numen
Nathaniel Isley @Masorin
K'Ren @SummerDawn
Devyrie Okhala @Auctor Lucan
Laurel Okhala (NPC) @Auctor Lucan
Deacon @steelphoenix
Hi'Jak @Masorin
Sarresh Morali @Brutus
R'Rori @patches
Cross @Fife
Lahkesis Saugn @Absinthe
Sinead O'Riley @Triage
Hylota Vojona @Zenozine
Vinata Vojona @Zenozine
ThanIda zh'Wann @Auctor Lucan
Kelleshar sh'Zenne @Numen
IrnaShall ch'Xinya @chXinya
Sehl th'Chilnes (NPC)
+ 35 number of other NPCs. They are 57 in total.
Last Edit: September 07, 2018, 11:48:36 AM by Auctor Lucan
Sim Database
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Crew Manifest
Epic Theurgist
King of the Scary Trees
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Observation Pen | Main Research Hull | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: all y'all not-so-naked mother fuckers (and Blue)
This 'Blue' had the potential to be a right problem, Sarresh decided. It would behoove him to withhold judgement, this he knew. That didn't make his initial reaction any less cold. Yes, she'd managed rather well on her own, and yes, she was the only conduit to their savoir. And he supposed as the PADD was hers she had every right to be involved in whatever they did using it. Never mind that he and Jack had already made some pretty damn fine progress on their own. Never mind that they were all in this together. Nope, whatever.
He pinched the bridge of his nose before looking up in surprise, with all too human eyes, as the sparkle of a new transporter effect faded. He listened to the Lt. Cmdr. from the Endeavour explain what was going on. Clothes? he thought, repressing a shiver of longing. Once again he hated how cold he felt in this body. He'd started to long to be warm and here was an answer to that unspoken prayer.
(True, his mind had contemplated other methods of warmth. Methods that, unless he were very lucky, he'd never get again. He silently swore on the spot that if he made it out of this he was going to tell Sel exactly how much she meant. And then hopefully bask in that warmth.)
Sarresh stopped listening to what the woman had to say and meandered over to find his own box. The former Ash'reem wasted no time at all in fishing out the suit. It was sleek and form fitting, and if he were the least bit attached to this 'new' body he might have been self conscious, seeing as the protective (and warm!) garment left very little to the imagination when it came to his rear end. But the well toned human didn't give a targs ass about how his own ass looked. He just cared that it was warm.
Clothed, he tore into one of the rations that had been provided and made a face as he bit into it. Initially he thought it far too sweet - but human taste buds seemed well adapted to it. This was not the first time that something he would have disliked before his unwelcome transformation resulted in a taste that his new body found pleasant. This of course just angered him further, and made him resent the fact that he now liked this thing he would have otherwise liked. It was very contrary; it was very Sarresh.
He managed to swallow it down and only then noticed that there was other food in the box. Feeling a bit sheepish, he rifled through it and chose something small to work on. The time traveler knew too well, from some basic training or another (he was unsure if it were contemporary, or future based) that if he rushed into this after so little for so long (he hadn't eaten in the holoprogram, not really) that he would make himself sick.
A fat lot of good that would do you too, in your screwball attempts to get out of here and back on with the mission. Back to Sel.
Sated for the moment, and with a bottle of water in hand, Sarresh rose back up to his feet. He turned as if to go back and fetch the PADD from the pompous engineer and stopped. She was weeping. Damn He may have been a surly bastard but he wasn't about to go badger a woman while she wept. He had standards.
Instead, Sarresh found himself a corner, pulled his box over to it and sat down to brood. This had become something of a talent of his over the weeks since he had left the Relativity. A good, festering brood, and yet, his heart wasn't in it. His eyes kept flitting about, from one place to the next. His hears, straining, picking up bits of conversation. Nerina, she was called, this former First Officer. She who had fallen during the Niga incident. She was going to...officiate? Of all the stupid - now was hardly - . Sarresh stopped himself with a sigh. Oh, what does it matter?
Note: Limited availability for posting, 8/28- 9/4
Zenozine
Inactive Theurgist
[ Vinata Vojona & Hylota Vojona | Observation Pen | Main Research Hull | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: @all ]
Vinata did not take too long to find his care package, as well as his sisters beside it. The two of them opened their packs and wasted no time slipping into their suits, thankfully the feet did have a decent amount of magnetic grip that would do for the tie being, but as they got to looking into the rest of the contents Hylota scowled at the replicated food and rations, most of it human garbage that was not worth bothering to try eating. She did not even waste a moment to look over the rations, she just dumped out the case and closed it once more. She was not in the right frame of mind, she was stressed, irritated, and on edge. Hylota had no interest in working through another crisis, fighting her way to secure the right for another meaningless fight right after that. Vinata, more level headed and calm looked to his sister and put a hand on her shoulder. Hylota tensed and turned glare at her brother as Vinata spoke. "Hylota, please you need to calm down. I understand you are under a lot of stress and this is not something you want to do, but you need to maintain your composure." Vinata began to gently rub his sister's shoulder as he gave a small smile. "Just focus on keeping with the group, you do not have to fight and we will keep away from any fighting. When we get back I think it is time you finally took some time to yourself."
Hylota said nothing, she was not interested in the conversation, she had no interest in debate or fighting, she was just irritated, she was again unarmed and without medical kit, she was stuck relying on others and having to fight an uphill battle once more. Her eyes drifted among the crowd as a mocking internal voice wondered if Heather was here to paralyze her arm again. This sour attitude was thankfully ended as she began to be gently rubbed, helping her to relax as she nodded in recognition of Vinata's words, before she could talk though Lin Kae approached and asked the two from some help. Hylota looked to Lin Kae's hands as Vinata tensed, despite the steps he had taken to recover, the sight of blood all over Lin Kae's hands made him tense, his gut twisting as he remembered the warm sticky feeling of blood all over him. Closing his eyes Vinata took a moment, grounded himself in the moment and reminded himself what he needed to be doing. Hylota was much more capable of being in the moment and as she looked at Lin Kae's hands she spoke. "Yes we can take a look, sadly I do not know what I can do for you with our limited supplies, but at the very least we can see to getting the scope of your injury looked at." Hylota looked to her brother. "Check my pile for a water ration, we will want to wash his hands off to gauge the damage."
Vinata could tell what Hylota was doing, using work as her crutch, it was not going to work forever, but for now it would do. "Alright Hylota, I will get that while you give the physical exam." Hylota hummed and nodded in recognition as she walked up to Lin Kae, her large hands reaching out to take his hands in her own, showing a surprisingly gentle touch as she looked them over. "Alright we will want to go through a simple exam on your mobility. Touch each finger to your thumb from the pointer to your pinkie, then cycle back as quickly as you can. After that I want you to make a fist a few times, moving more slowly each time you clench. We will wash off the blood and see if anything can be seen from the surface...the fact that you are not in any serious pain makes it clear no tendons were damaged, such an injury would be crippling without proper tools." Hylota observed Lin Kae as Vinata sorted through the discarded rations and managed to find a small portion of water that he brought back over. "Alright once you have finished the initial examination I can wash your hands off sir so we can make the final examination. Make sure there is no risk to your hands." Vinata was polite and patient, he would do his part when needed. Meanwhile Hylota took note of any limit or sluggishness to Lin Kae's movements, seeing if the different tasks caused him to lose control or get stuck at any point, she was also looking to make sure he had his coordination still. If Lin Kae was beginning to show signs of impairment he would have to be asked to use his hands less for the time being.
[ Deacon | Maintenance Bays | Main Research Hull | The Versant ] Attn: @SummerDawn @patches @Auctor Lucan and all wedding guests
Deacon cursed under his breath at his tampered sense of balance as he fussed with the savi-provided coverings, wishing instead for the fur he'd once possessed, even as a half-breed. Even though they were monkeys, human legs were comparatively naked and the rest of them often more-so. In truth, part of the problem came in balancing between the shivering he'd only begun to notice once he was occupied with trying to make himself presentable. Some hint of nerves had managed to keep his mind focused on himself and off the emotional spectrum of those around him, but that only served to inform him that he was cold. All the more reason to bemoan his lost fur and add to the ever more complex plans of death he intended to impose on their captors.
He stood, his tail finally situated through the hole at the base on his spine, each leg more or less straightened and in place, the upper portion of the suit still hanging loose about his waist. Was this it? Was he cursed to just be miserable for the rest of his life? First life on homeworld, keeping his abilities secret for fear they would jeopardize not only his position but his grandfather's as well? Betraying the Patriarchy to the Federation in hope that cooler minds might prevail and lead to the salvation of his people only to find the Federation infiltrated and, by extension, even less inclined towards a path of peace? Catching a virus that compromised a precariously balanced immune system and undergoing genetic reversion to save his life? Being captured and having the side of him that he'd come to know and identify as stripped away at once, leaving him in the flesh of something he'd been taught to despise? His hell seemed only to accelerate the further from homeworld that he got.
Still, he paused and looked back of his shoulder at the one redeeming element that held him together, that gave him focus and solace. The one thing that gave his hearts... well, heart... contentment. K'Ren. He didn't have to be here alone. He wasn't isolated. The weight of the world no longer rested on a single pair of shoulders.
Feeling the commander's approach, he took a deep breath, bulwarking his mental defenses, determined to see this moment through without suffering, without pain, without regrets or second thoughts. As he turned, pulling up the remainder of the jumpsuit he'd been provided, his blue eyes caught sight of the commander, the faint light giving the gold in his eyes an almost reflective quality.
"I hear you would like me to officiate your bond," she said as she approached. Deacon allowed himself one more moment of mental reproach as he recognized the woman, his particular agnosia not allowing her face to blur into the obscurity as everyone else. "It would be my honour to do so. Do you have any requests, or shall I stick to the usual words? Either way, I just need your full names."
Clearing his throat as he pulled his arm through the second sleeve, thankful that the seemingly flimsy material was sufficient to block out the cold of the bay, he replied, "I... owe you an apology." This was necessary. He had questioned her before the others, doubted her claims and identity, but clearly she stood in the same predicament as the others. As ridiculous as these Savi plans seemed to be, placing a false confidant among the captives seemed all the more ludicrous. "It was inappropriate for me to challenge your identity and position." Giving a slight inclination of his head, he added, "Thank you for tending to this matter."
The details of the suit finally resolved, the wrinkles smoothed, elements properly rotated and adjusted as required, he squared his shoulders. "Appearance to the contrary, I'm not human. I have no idea what the... 'usual words' are. I will trust your discretion in that regard. As for names..." His eyes fell to the nearby box that still contained what modicum of food their so-called benefactor saw fit to send for him. With another deep breath, his eyes again locked onto the Commander, "Names are... challenging. My kzinti name is Deacon because that is who and what I am. But my parents... my parents named me Xander. Xander Maryk. Although my mother couldn't say my full name... she just called me Xan." He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, considering that the last statement was, perhaps, a little too much information, but it was his truth and the Fanged God demanded truth in all things. And it gave him comfort to think of his mother in this moment. "So... I am both." It was a painful admission, but again, truth. "Xander Deacon Maryk."
The Harvest Queen
[ Lt. JG Sinead O'Riley | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan, @Brutus, @Zenozine, @Masorin, @SummerDawn, @chXinya, @Absinthe, @steelphoenix, @Blue Zephyr, @YasyraTrill, @patches, @Fife & @Numen
The sustenance seemed oddly limited and wanting, but it was not unpleasant, nor unsatisfying. Yet her appetite was poor, as her mind was preoccupied with her concern for the captain's rescue, her guilt at committing murder of an innocent woman, and the ghost of her own self, ever-taunting, and ever-reminding of the dangers she posed. They had seen a portion of her prowess in the holodeck simulation of the Enterprise, her complete lack of hesitation to inflict murder and harm ought to have given everyone plenty of warning signs. She crammed down the last of her meal as best as she could manage. Another time, she would have relished the experience and the taste. But it was ash in her mouth.
Satisfied and pleased at least with her attire and the purpose it served, her eyes began to seek out Nathaniel, and noted that he'd returned to the secluded spot. She rejoined the Romulan, and listened to what he had to say. Her face remained unreadable and impassive, but she realized inwardly that perhaps he needed this more than she did, that it helped him to cope with the situation they were surrounded by. Danger and death awaited at almost every turn, the potential for everything going awry without warning was so high everyone would be on alert even in the relative safety of this place. Given their shared experiences of hearing and seeing things in their heads, Nathaniel could best understand what demons Sinead saw.
Looking at her ghostly self, she realized now why she saw a reflection: She was afraid of herself. For the longest time, she was subsconsciously aware of the danger she represented to everyone around her, but could never identify it for certain. Deep down, she suspected, knew, that she was capable of killing indiscriminately, that she could lose control of her own memories and morality, killing anything that moved. The Vulcans taught her to suppress her emotions, to control herself, to an extent, and to subdue the rage, but not to eliminate. How could they? The only way she could eliminate the dark aspect of herself would be to end her own life.
She joined him in meditation, never saying a word. Her hands folding together in the way she had learned from the Vulcans. Though she lacked the IDIC icon, she didn't need it for what she was going to do.
"It will no' work, Sinead," said her ghost, "no' this time."
Yes, it will, she thought back at the visage, Yeh no be little more than jus' a los' par' of meself
She reached out in her mind, seized the visage, who yelped in surprise, and as they struggled in her mind, beads of sweat formed on redhead's brows as she struggled for dominance of her mind, and to quiet the troubled sense of self that had quite literally taken on a life of her own. As she did every morning save for the most recent days leading up to now, she accepted the ghost as herself, because it was herself. It was a temporary stopgap, but a permanent solution would be needed before she could truly find a sense of peace and serenity; before the ghost within her mind could truly be laid to rest. For now, she would just live with it and deal with it on a daily basis.
"'tis gone," said Sinead quietly, "my mind be more quiet now."
Her brilliant blue eyes slowly opened and she looked at Nathaniel evenly, no longer as emotional as she had been for a while.
Heather McMillan - Krystal "Meony" Tancredi - Sinead O'Riley - Cameron Henshaw
Master Theurgist
Blue Alert
[LCdr Blue Tiran | Tears in My Twinkies | Should be a Country Song | Missing My Other Half | Live to Suffer Another Day]
@Fife
Blue was locked within her own misery.
With the reunion of the people around her, it was nice, and yet she still felt very alone. She felt ostracized as people went about hugging and segregating off with one another. She knew there were people around she could talk to. People that could be there for her. Those that had shared a history with her but right now she was not the same person. Not at all. She was hollow, her chest was gone, the soul within her had diminished severely. She still had fight, but that was because of these people. These officer she had and had not served with. She had not been able to leave them to their fates and instead had been working night and day since her escape to get them to be saved. To be all right. Not to be recycled and eaten. However, once they were safe, what would she have to live for.
She wasn't being dramatic. Those that would think so had no understanding of the weight of Ducote's soul within her being. She had been lonely and had ostracized herself from the world around her as a young girl. Her words were harsh, nasty, and her personality was cold. But then, she had pulled herself together and found a goal. Starfleet. She could not get further from her parents than out in the universe. But it had only been a different kind of lonely. At that point, Blue hadn't really begun to miss people. Honestly, she was used to it. Then there was Ducote. This man that could feel her and know her. He knew how to walk with her and not around her. He accepted her for all the pain she carried in her soul and helped her iron out all the wrinkles that had set heavily over the years. Over time he had pulled her out of her shell and allowed her to feel again. Love, determination, pride, friendship. He had awoken her.
Now, all of that was just gone.
In the blink of an eye her other half was gone from her life and Blue found that when she pondered too hard on the fact she couldn't breathe. Her chest tightened. His mere name brought a tightness that she couldn't breathe around. She swallowed the lump of sugar and dough in her mouth and just stared at the floor. She couldn't break down, not here, not with all these people here. She was already crying softly she didn't need to have a full melt down, not here. There were people here that could sense her.. probably. She didn't want anyone in her head. It was a fucking dark place in there right the fuck now. She tried to breathe, but only a shallow amount of air entered her lungs. She grabbed at her chest. Pulling on the poorly fitting suit because she hadn't actually traded it for the new one that Ectand had given her yet. She needed to do that. She should do that. But, she hadn't.
Twinkies had distracted her.
Words. She looked up, her cyrstalline, red rimmed eyes shifted upward to see Cross there. He looked different, weird, and she didn't like it. Blue of all things, loved familiarity. It was a comfortable place for her. She knew what to expect, when to expect it, and who were the annoying mother fuckers and who weren't. She could pick out the idiots and the wastes of space. But, here everything was odd and in a world that, for Blue, had lost so fucking much, she didn't need more change.
Someone the Savi hadn't fucked with.
Blue blinked. If only he knew. I might not have been corrected but there are some heinous shit that I can't forget that I have seen. She swallowed heavily and looked at Cross again, as if his words had to take time to actually sink in. She gave a nod though. Blue would actually like if the fucking man sat next to her. It was nice not to be alone, even though she didn't want to actively seek anyone out she was glad for someone that tried to bridge that gap for her. He picked up the twinkies out of his box talking about how he didn't understand Human confections. How they could create such wonderful food and then they could create this as if it was a bad thing. She looked down at them quietly, it was probably the most quiet Blue had ever been in her fucking career. She was always quick with a bit of a quip or some cursing. But this Blue, was a very lost Blue and different from the woman that Cross knew.
Probably good R'rori went and did some other shit, she'd feel me out in a heart beat. she thought as Cross held the twinkies out to her. She looked, almost like a beaten puppy in that moment. Her eyes darted from him to the twinkies and back again as if she was unsure that she could take them. As if she was unsure that he was really fucking serious. Her hand reached out slightly and snatched them from him with a quick movement and brought them closer to her, she got herself more comfortable on the floor and bit her lower lip. That movement would have moved her sleeve back enough that Cross might, if his eyes were sharp, see the self inflicted cuts all over her forearm before they disappeared again.
"Thank you." she said softly as she tore open the package. She wasn't crying any more. She had brushed the tears off her cheeks but that had left nasty dirty streaks on them because of her wiping. She tossed the cellophane wrapper to the deck plating and tore the twinkie in half before she shoved it in her mouth. Enjoying the food that wasn't really food but it was the shit she had subsisted on since she was a little girl.
"A... " Blue swallowed the twinkie piece in her mouth and her blue eyes darted back over at Cross. The only person to actually make an effort to speak with her. She didn't want to burn this bridge. Secretly, she craved the fact that he was here, and the human.. or in this case... not-so-human contact. She'd been alone for days. Suffering and hating herself. Hating Ducote. Hating this ship, and the beings on it. She had been so lost.
"Are y..you all .. all right? I mean... they haven't h..hurt you or.. fucked you over, have they?" she asked, she was honestly sincere in her questioning. Cross had kept her from murdering Shar on the escape pod and kept Shar from poking the bear that was already bereft without her sweet Ducote. Cross was someone she could count on, she thought, anyway.
Zyrao:
Eun Sae Ji
Blue Tiran:
Zephyr:
"There's no tea in this tea!"
[ Lt. Cross | Maintenance Bay | Precept-ship Versant ] @Blue Zephyr
As Blue had turned her red-rimmed gaze towards him, Cross had been struck both by how the blue of her eyes seeming more vivid in the puffy red frame of her eyelids, and by the haunted look those sky-blue eyes now held. Her gaunt face was dirty, though with several clean streaks where she had swiped at her tears, leaving several smudged streaks across her cheeks. The cleaner streaks through the grime only served to make her look even more disheveled.
As Cross watched with his characteristic unblinking stare, he recognized the all too familiar way she had glanced between his face and the twinkies, looking like an abused animal that was unsure if this was some sort of trick. The hesitant way she reached her hand out, as though expecting him to grab her. They way she snatched the twinkies from his hand and clutched them to her, as though guarding them, fearing he might try to steal them back. Her sleeve had fallen down her arm a bit when she had reached her hand out, and Cross had noticed multiple cuts on her forearm before the sleeve covered them again. Cross said nothing of the wounds, knowing Blue was in a fragile state and suspecting that questioning was the last thing she needed at this moment.
Blue thanked him for the twinkies as she tore at the packaging. She spoke softly, something that was hardly characteristic for the Blue he knew. Indeed, very little of the woman who sat next to him resembled the mannerisms of Blue Tiran, Chief Engineer of the USS Endeavour. Cross recognized the changes all too well. The hesitation, the reluctance to be within reach of someone, the mistrust of things offered. He had been the exact same way when Starfleet had rescued him from the Cardassian prison camp, behaving almost like an animal. He had seen others behave the same way following traumatic experiences. Cross sat patiently beside her, glad to be sitting with a familiar face, and at the same time worried about the person that face belonged to.
Blue spoke finally, asking if he was alright. That, at least, was a good sign. She wasn't shutting down completely. She spoke hesitantly though, something Cross knew was very uncharacteristic for Blue Tiran.
"I'm all right." Cross said, giving Blue a weak attempt at a smile. As he smiled, the movement of his face caused a few more flakes of dried green blood to fall free, sprinkling onto his lap. Cross slowly reached a hand up and touched the bridge of his nose gently, feeling the smooth surface where his nasal ridges had been. "They made me a pure Vulcan. They took my ridges, and gave me these stupid Vulcan eyebrows." Cross said, sounding none too pleased about the fact. He turned his head to take in the other people in the maintenance bay. R'Rori had gone running across the bay to speak with Commander Nerina, moving with grace and agility in hir new, corrected body. "They performed some experiments after they made their... corrections." Cross continued as he stared off into the space in front of him, the memory of him losing control in his containment cell coming back to him. "It was hardly pleasant, but it was nothing compared to what the fucking spoonheads did to me in the camp before Starfleet liberated me." Cross finally turned his gaze back towards Tiran, studying her with a look of concern in his pale blue eyes.
"I did lose my mind at one point, and I tried to kill that Klingon over there." Cross said, gesturing towards where Khorin was sitting with his arm around his new Betazoid belle. "I haven't tried to kill him for a few hours now, so I guess I'm making progress." Cross chuckled before he continued. "He's a pain in the ass, but he's on our side."
Cross hesitate now, looking at Blue and trying to think of what to say to her.
"Uh... how are you holding up, Blue?" Cross asked, unsure if he should be addressing her in that way. He had never been particularly close with the Engineer, and to say Cross was a horrible conversationalist would be an understatement of epic proportions, but she was his crewmate and he knew he had to try. "It... can't have been easy..." He began, regarding her with unblinking concern. "Being alone on an enemy ship all this time..."
Lt. Cmdr. Cross [Show/Hide]
Ensign Isel "Foxfire" Nix [Show/Hide]
[Lt. Zephyr Praise | Unknown Maintenance Bay | Unknown Ship | Unknown Crew | Unknown Space]
@Numen
He liked it, she could tell.
That quirk of his lips that showed his teeth. She couldn't help but give him a full brunt smile in response. She actually quite enjoyed the reactions she was getting out of him, how all his Klingon bravado and the like only added to the chemistry that somehow had found itself between them. She was glad for him, having met him had given her something to focus on for now. Whether it was the same when they returned to a larger ship or if they would be forced to separate because of various circumstances she was unsure. But, she was also not going to push herself into all those thoughts right now. It was something she couldn't control and more so she didn't really want to think about all the what if's. There were far too many. They would come when it was time and that was when she would have to figure it out.
Right now she would just revel in the enjoyment of being together.
They sat side by side, and she felt the warmth of his body right next to her. It was comforting to have him there, and it was nice to have someone to lean against. Especially since, she was part of none of the crews here. She had searched their faces when they had walked through the crowd earlier for fear that there would be someone here looking for her. From the Azurite station, maybe they had tracked her down, but she hadn't seen any faces she knew, no mental footprints that were familiar in any way and it allowed her to relax once again.
Khorin's large arm came around her and she leaned into him snuggling softly into his side as she opened the box of food that had been given to her. She ate the vegetables and meat without little fan fare, she was hungry but not starving. Still, they would need all their wits and strength about them tomorrow. So many people to get off this ship and things that they would have to accomplish. Zephyr's mind touched on the people around her, just getting a blanket feel for the room. Most were happy to be safe, to have food, and to be where they could just 'be' with one another. Without the threat of someone barging in and doing more experiments on them.
However, the one mind, the one odd mind that stood out for her was the young woman had been here before all of them. Their liaison to the accomplice. Her mind was odd. Full of spikes and anger. Full of rage but more than all of that was the resounding feeling of just absolute loss. As if she was lost, and someone else was lost, and she was in a dark hole. She was spiraling hard, barely holding herself together, Zeph hoped she could hold it together long enough for them all to get off this ship. Then she could help the woman, now was likely not the time nor the place to be having deep conversations like this woman likely needed.
"Part of our pack?" she looked over at Khorin and smirked softly. "Well I think that sounds nice, I liked Cross, he's funny. I don't know the woman, but she's in trouble, in her mind. Things are good for her, she'll need people around her to get her through the end game. I think it's good that Cross has gone to sit with her." she said admitted.
Khorin changed the subject to the yellow cake in his hand talking about how he had a sweet tooth back growing up but now that he was a full Klingon he wasn't sure that he could handle it any more. She didn't really seem interested in her small cakes at all. She wasn't overly one for sweet things except when it came to booze. That was the only time she preferred sweet to anything else. Zeph was tired, and wished that she could sleep. The food hit her hard and as her stomach tried to start processing such an overload of calories and nutrients it began to grind up a bit. Slowing her down slightly. She felt her eyes growing heavy but she didn't want to miss out on any time with Khorin. Still, she knew that she likely wouldn't stay awake for long given his warmth and presence.
Zeph snuggled into him. "So you grew up where there were many sweet things then?" she asked curiously. "I grew up on betazoid and a Starfleet ship when my Father and his Captain would allow. He was an Engineer, for the Fleet. I've never really understood all that stuff, but at least I was able to kind of follow in his footsteps." she admitted as her eyes grew heavier. But, she struggled to keep herself awake.
" I'm trying to make science here!"
[ LtJr. Khelleshar sh'Zenne | Day 5 | 2315 hrs.| Maintenance Bays | The Versant ]
Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Zenozine @Masorin @SummerDawn @chXinya @Absinthe @steelphoenix @Blue Zephyr @patches @Fife & @Triage
Under her watchful eyes, Shar saw how the crowd scattered in several small groups, in some cases, isolated duets, in others, larger groups. The counselor seemed to be up to something, moving swiftly between the Theurgy's commander and a feline couple. The Andorian couldn't know with certainty what s/he was up to, but she had the intuition that it would be something to encourage the morale of the group, something sickeningly sweet and cheesy that would make her want to tear her eyes out. She appreciated the... well, she didn't know whether to call her Caitian or human, but the fact was that she liked the counselor in some way, s/he was less unpleasant than most of the therapists she had treated with, but there were times that s/he was too mushy to her taste.
The young shen pressed her lips with a slight frown, while still inspecting the room, toying with the black box with her name in her hands. The survivors of the Endeavour had split into two groups, the Conn ensign had left the main group along with a human with white dreadlocks, while Cross and the Beast were still together were she had left them. From where she was then, she couldn't confirm it in top form, but it seemed that the now-vulcan had managed to get the engineer to break down over the yellow Terran sweet buns. But no matter how much she wanted to come closer to bask in the weakness of her arch enemy, she had other priorities. Although no doubt would keep that image in her brain to use it as a throwing weapon later, when it was time to vent her rage on the know-it-all.
She located the trio of antennas she was looking for close one of the walls, Shall was leaning against the plates with his eyes closed while Sehl fumbled in his box, chewing something. Shar headed towards them with a determined step and she squatted down leaving the center of the bay behind her, so that only the males could see her face. She stared them for a moment, trying to sort out what she meant to say, unaware of her clenched teeth. Shar had never been good with words; she preferred to solve her problems with actions. In fact the few times she had tried to solve her problems with words, the situation had ended disastrously, as with the whole matter of her complaint reports about The Beast to Commander Ducote. Just thinking about it made sh'Zenne's gesture sour even more for a second. Not-So-Blue had been laughing at her expense for weeks after that.
The ops officer shook her head, trying to erase that embarrassing memory and focus on what she should do. She forced her antennae to curve politely in front of her forehead, left her box between the two males and touched Shall's knee to get his attention. "Ch'te" she whispered gently, risking herself by using the name for a bondmate. Whether they liked it or not, they needed to represent a united front and maybe highligh their current status could help . "<Earlier you told me that you had information about Ida, information... relevant for our current... situation >" she murmured in their native language, the hoarse tonolanian accent evident in her words. She didn't take her hand away from the black cloth that covered the chan's leg, with her blue eyes fixed on his, trying to win his attention . "<I'm going to look for her and I would like to know that battlefield before fight on it>" As she had previously reacted and according to the efficiency in combat she had shown in the observation pen, Shar felt that the zhen's reaction to her presence would be fierce at least. Shar prided herself on having a good training in close combat, but she suspected that the zhen could inflict her a lot of damage if she wanted to. Even though she was shorter and lighter than her.
Before Shall could say anything, she quickly added. "<Let me go alone at first, give me a few minutes to test the terrain and then you and th'se can join us if you want to.>" Then she waited for what the chan could say, if he had anything to tell her at all. She didn't know exactly where Ida had gone, but she hadn't seen her in the main room. So she only had the lockers and some of the exits of the bay, however much she missed her steps couldn't take too long to find her. And she prayed to the Water Guardian to let her solve this without take too much harm. The egg must survive, that was the only thing important at that moment. It represent a torned hope, for their race... and for her too.
Lt. JG Kelleshar "Shar" sh'Zenne [Show/Hide]
Lt. JG Khorin Douglas [Show/Hide]
Lt. JG. Izar Bila [Show/Hide]
Ensign Seren [Show/Hide]
[ Khorin, son of Margon, of House Mo'Kai | | Day 5 | 2315 hrs.| Maintenance Bays | The Versant ]
Attn: @Blue Zephyr
The Klingon's heart shuddered slightly when Zephyr leaned against him and he couldn't help but stroked her hair for a moment, the desire to fiercely protect her at all costs locking itself instinctively in his guts, even though he knew she might not need it. And most likely it could be confused with a jealous and possessive behavior, something he had heard many times when referring to his father's species. But now that didn't matter, he simply enjoyed the moment, the close contact and the light conversation. The weight of her body against his. The warmth that radiated from her even in spite of the alien clothes. He only missed the contact of her mind in his, but he supposed that tiredness and worry kept her distracted from that.
Thus, he concentrated in her words, in what she kept her mind elsewhere. Zeph seemed especially worried about the woman who had brought them here, that Commander Blue. Khorin turned his gaze in her direction, seeing how she interacted with Cross. Somehow the woman seemed subdued by a kind of distress. The pilot could understand that having survived for days in solitude in enemy territory could be overwhelming for a human. Klingons used to thrive in hostile situations or died (by their own hand or in battle), but humans had to resign themselves to their ability to survive at the cost of strenuous suffering. He knew it well, having seen himself dragged towards one and the other extreme by his mixed ancestry in the recent past. "I only hope that Pahtak don't fuck her up even more ..." he buzzed to himself. Although he really liked the vulcan, he didn't think the commander needed an extra bit of bitterness at that moment. And that was what the vulcan emanate from every pore of his being.
The heavy frown that had seized his angular face eased when the betazoid began to narrate perfunctorily her background. "Well, well, so your vigilant father is a Starfleet officer? Good to know it, when I have to challenge him to be able to court you. I think I can intimidate an engineer oldman, I don't want to make a bad first impression killing a member of your family, surely it'll sour a bit the family dinners." he joked, bringing up previous conversations, when they were in their little paradise. "I'm not too skilled in engineering either, enough to know when my fighter is ready to fly and give the Flight Hangar boys a hand," he added, shrugging his broad shoulders. "I could change the armament of an Mk III with ease, but don't ask me to change a PADD's screen, I might end up destroying it even more." He added with an thunderous laugh.
"As for where I grew up ... I lived in the Homeworld until the Civil War, then the Federation evacuated all the diplomatic staff and we moved to San Francisco. It was a big change, Earth isn't too prepared for a boisterous half klingon, everything brokes too easily." Despite his cocky smile, Khorin didn't remember with love those first days on Earth, the cultural shock and the denial of his father's death had only complicated the character of the teenage Klingon, with the problems that entailed. Mainly compensation for damages and too many apologizes muttered between clenched teeth.. "Ma and I used to walk all weekends along the promenade, eating cotton candy and those things that make your back teeth squeak because of too much sugar."
Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 01:07:59 AM by Numen
SummerDawn
Resident Kitty
Re: Prologue: Insurgency [ Day 05 | 2315 hrs. ]
[ K'Ren | Maintenance Bays | Main Research Hull |The Versant ] Attn: @steelphoenix @patches @Auctor Lucan @all
K'Ren by contrast it seemed was having an easier time getting her suit on. Sitting on the deck plating she was easily able to slip on the form fitting catsuit, at least the legs and lower part went on easily enough. The one thing that felt weird, not so much that it was there but that there was so much more grown in, was this fur she possessed. As a half breed she was covered in the stuff, but it was thinner & lighter in most places, almost translucent in spots making her look more human. Now it'd grown out in such a short time into this luxurious soft covering that were it not for the instructions to wear it, K'Ren would've been perfectly content to remain without. But sensors wouldn't be foiled by anything less then this suit so she slipped the thing on as requested.
Looking up to her mate as he finished slipping his on, she wondered what the future held for them. The bond was strong, even with the alterations the Savi had made and she could feel her mate's mood even if just as snippets and impressions of how he was feeling. She wondered if Caitian's had a latent psy ability that was brought out in bonded mates, especially ones like Deacon who themselves possesed a latent empathic sense. She was however grateful that she could only feel him, not the rest of those around them as Deacon could. She stood up, the garment around her waist, smoothed out over her lower torso. Tail holes were always an issue but this one seemed to accommodate her well enough and she was soon slipping into the upper part of her suit, zipping it up just in time as this Nerina lady was approaching.
Deacon was still slipping on his outfit but K'Ren stood close as he finished, letting him take the lead. In Caitian and Federation society the notions of males leading in matters of family and clan were no longer the norm and it was common for the females to lead in discussions as required but K'Ren still felt drawn to the old ways, where the male made the first move. She still spoke her mind, but letting him lead was a mark of respect to her mate in her mind, especially given his K'Zin heritage. She listened as her mate gave this Nerina lady his name, using a full name she'd never heard him use, but it seemed aprropriate he would use both his Human and K'Zin names.
K'Ren smiled a little as when it was her term. She'd been rolling about the name in her mind, how it rolled off her tongue her mate's surname, soon enough to be legal in Federation eyes. She stepped closer to Deacon, taking his hand. "My name commander, is K'Ren. I do not have a family name in the Caitian way as my clan is not known to me, nor I to them. My bonded mate is my clan now, my name K'Ren Maryk." She looked to Deacon as the name rolled off her tongue, wanted to see his reaction to her taking his name. Legally she could, and would, but she wanted to see how he would react. "As for the ceremonial words, I do not have specific things that come to mind."
Ensign K'Ren - Fighter Pilot - USS Theurgy - [Show/Hide]
Lt jg Kala Marika - Engineer - USS Theurgy - [Show/Hide]
[ Lt R'Rori | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] @Auctor Lucan @SummerDawn @steelphoenix
Nerina's response was what R'Rori had hoped for and s/he nodded quickly in affirmation as s/he accompanied the commander to Deacon and K'Ren. S/he kept deferentially behind her as she spoke to both of the other two felinoids, hir hands clasped behind hir back. They had gotten dressed in the meantime and both looked somewhat uncomfortable. Like R'Rori, their bodies had undergone significant changes, not least of which was the level of fur coverage. S/he had to admit the texture of the suit on hir body was significantly different, not only in the materials but in actually feeling the material on bare skin rather than through hir fur.
Deacon's voice recalled hir attention to the group gathered in the midst of the dispersing crowd. He spoke of the difficultly of names after an apology. R'Rori found his explanation enlightening and had the feeling it was a very rare and candid look into a part of his identity that s/he wouldn't normally see. His choice in mixing his human and kzinti names made a lot of sense, as was K'Ren's choice in taking his last name as her family name in place of a clan. R'Rori's ears twitched at the mention of the Caitian not knowing her clan, a sign that she wasn't familiar with Caitian culture at all despite the body she inhabited. It wasn't that unique a situation in the Federation, but it was still relatively unusual for Caitians.
The usual words, hmm. I wonder what Nerina thinks are the usual words for something like this. I've heard a couple versions. R'Rori mused to hirself as s/he waited for the small ceremony to start. Legally, hir capacity here would be as a witness. If they wanted to register the wedding for Starfleet and ultimately the Federation, it would theoretically take all four of them to attest to it, depending on how bureaucratic the relevant people were feeling at the end of all this.
Assuming there's actually a happy ending at the finish line here.
chXinya
[Ens. Irnashall "Shall" ch'Xinya | Maintenance Bays | The Versant] attn: @Numen
Resting against the cool bulkhead, Shall had managed to drift off into a semblance of sleep in just a few moments. It was far from a proper rest, all he'd been able to do is relax and try to shut out everything around him, but long sessions in the lab meant such a feat was hardly difficult for the chan. As his mind re-centered and focused in on itself, Shall could swear he heard Syora calling out to him, touching his knee as she was wont to do. He could also feel Tavin next to him, close enough to sense if not touch. Smiling slightly at the presence of his bondmates, Shall opened his eyes to see if Jay was around...and he was momentarily confused when it wasn't Syora kneeling in front of him.
The memories came rushing back as his brain rebooted to full alertness, including the reason why Shar thought she could call him ch'te, an endearment normally reserved for his normal bondmates. He didn't correct her though, and hoped the surprise didn't show through his body language. They'd been through a lot together, getting mad at the shen would help nothing. As soon as his eyes locked onto hers, Shar jumped straight to business, though she didn't take her hand off of his knee.
The questions weren't unexpected, he'd wondered how to broach the subject himself after the Savi dumped them in that holodeck simulation. Ida was a very private individual and it didn't seem quite right to divulge what he knew in front of her, but Ida wasn't around (a quick glance around the room showed a distinct lack of antennae), and Shar had good reason to try to make some sort of bridge between the two of them. Nodding in agreement, Shall patted the deck next to him, guiding Shar to sit.
<I don't know everything, and most of what I know either comes from her file or I've pieced together based on what I can't see combined with how she acts.> Looking between Shar and Sehl at first, Shall's gaze then locked on some point in void, not really looking at anything in particular. <I don't know why, but for some reason she's uncomfortable around her own species. I won't say she'd been avoiding me the year we've both served on the Theurgy together, I'd spent most of it in my lab while she'd be off doing security work, and its a big ship, but in the few times we've run across each other in the past weeks, her reactions would make the Vulcan Forge freeze over.> It felt good to be speaking in his native tongue.
Shall paused there, wondering how far he should go with his suppositions, and with a roll of his shoulders figured he might as well share everything. <According to her record, Ida was a Guardsman before joining Starfleet, but for some reason she resigned, left Andoria, and went to the Academy. I haven't a clue as to why she's done so, she's never made any reference to her clan, any bondmates, or even her family.> Huffing with a quick scoff, Shall's antenna drooped a bit before resuming its usual twitching. <Most of what she has said to me has been harshly critical. I don't think she likes me very well.>
Turning back to Shar, Shall also waved Sehl closer so that the thaan could still hear as the chan lowered his voice for privacy. <Beyond whatever issues she's had with other Andorians, what you need to know the most is what happened at a planet called Niga, an M-class planet we stopped at to gather some supplies and rest. Scans and records showed that it was uninhabited, so the away teams went down for the initial survey, with Ida part of the security portion. We found out the hard way that while there may not have been any animal life, the planet's biosphere had been infected with a particularly nasty virus.> Shall broke eye contact, his gaze dropping to the deck, his face flushing a deeper blue, and his antenna hiding in his hair from the shame. <This virus propagates via sexual contact, and one of its symptoms is to increase the infected's drive to the point where all other matters are secondary. And Ida was the first victim.>
The chan remained silent for several moments so that Shar and Sehl could take in what he was saying, and to keep his composure under control. <She and another crewmember who had been infected started to spread this virus throughout the ship, base instincts having taken over their minds. In just over a day, the majority of the crew had fallen to the virus. Thankfully, our Chief Medical Officer had managed to barricade himself and a few nurses in Sickbay long enough to find a cure and get it distributed. It was a close one, there's no telling how much damage we could've done if he hadn't come through.> Looking back up to the others, Shall somehow managed to grow more serious. <I don't know if it's a mercy, or a cruelty, but one of the side-effects of the cure was memory loss. At most we just get flashes of what we'd done, but its enough. I think Ida knows enough of what had happened to her that she feels responsible for nearly causing a galactic catastrophe, and worse, some do as well.>
Taking Shar's hand in his own, Shall had to warn her about what she wanted to do. <Be very, very cautious in how you approach Ida about completing the bond. She puts up a facade as tough as any ice wall, but she's let entire swarms of ice bores eat away at her core. Uzaveth knows she needs help, but she won't ask for it. Don't try to force her either, not only can she take on all three of us at our best, she'd do it without any exertion. Besides,> Shall's eyes showed the sadness in his core, something he and his keth had talked about endlessly when together. <Without the Savi's data, if we follow through with the bond, it could open her up to nothing but sadness. The chance of a successful birth is very, very low remember.>
[ Ensign Lin Kae | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] Attn: @Zenozine
It seemed the nurses took to the situation in different ways, and the young holographic specialist could hardly blame them.
The two Ovri moved to treat Lin Kae, and he crouched down in front of the two, letting them have a look at his fingers. While he did as instructed, moving his fingers like they described, he looked between the two, trying to see what was different about them. Personally, the human part of his genome had been removed, but the two nurses appeared Ovri still, and if they had any other genes before they were abducted, it was more than Lin Kae knew.
"It seems I have full movement," he murmured, even if it still hurt, and watched as the water was being collected. "If you don't mind me asking, you still seem like yourselves, even though you were abducted along with the rest of the crew. I thought they had some kind of obsession with purifying genes, so what did they do to you here? What piqued their interest?"
When his hands were rinsed with the water, it became plain that - in the desperation to pry the emitter in the observation pen open - Lin Kae had hurt his fingernails, several of them missing. He also had several small cuts from the metal around the same area, the sharp edge having drawn blood. It hurt, a lot, but it was clearly rather superficial.
Hearing the two speak, Nerina could not quite fathom just how meaningful the partially Corrected male's name was, but she did understand the ancient human tradition of a woman taking the last name of the man. She had carefully committed the names to memory, mouthing them to make sure she got the pronunciation right. She had nodded when they had no requests, and she cleared her throat - smiling to the two of them. With Lieutenant R'Rori close by and clearly being the witness to the affair, she gestured towards the middle of the maintenance bay. "Then please follow me."
Leading the way, Nerina didn't have to say anything. The abductees not completely engrossed in conversation saw the procession and wondered what was happening. When she came to a stop, she turned towards the couple.
"May I please have the attention of the present crew of the Endeavour and the Theurgy," she said, with just a hint of authority, the warmth a greater presence in her face and her undertone. It wouldn't be lost on anyone how absurd the timing was, which only made it better in her own opinion. "On this late eve of a battle - and in spite of it - I ask you to gather here, tonight, to celebrate the wedding of Xander Deacon Maryk and K'Ren Maryk. Because of recent events, they have asked me to renew their bond, and as the highest ranking officer present, it is my honour to do so."
Nerina glanced towards the present faces. "You have come here, perhaps not by your own choosing... from different ships in the fleet, to share in this deep commitment they now make to one another again. I ask you to offer your love and support to their second union, and to allow Xander Deacon Maryk and K'Ren Maryk to restart their married life together."
By then, most people had moved to stand, forming a circle around the four people in the middle of the maintenance bay - R'Rori standing behind the couple. Since everyone were dressed in the same kind of attire, gleaming in the dim light of the bay, it almost seemed they had adhered to a dress-code for the occasion. With her hands remaining behind her back, Nerina continued, her faint smile grown more easy. "Xander Deacon Maryk and K'Ren Maryk, marriage is the promise between two people who love each other, who trust that love, who honor one another as individuals in that togetherness, and who wish to spend the rest of their lives together. It enables the two separate souls to share their desires, longings, dreams, and memories, their joys and sorrows, and to help each other through all uncertainties of life."
The greatest and first uncertainty was their survival, and escape from the ship, but Nerina did not mention this. She didn't have to. "A strong marriage also nurtures each of you as separate individuals and allows you to maintain your unique identity, and grow in your own way through the years ahead. It is a safe haven for each of you to become your best. You are adding to your life not only the affection of each other, but also the companionship and blessing of a deep trust. You are agreeing to share strength, responsibilities and love. It takes more than love to make this relationship work."
By then, there was silence in the maintenance bay, and Nerina even saw smiles among the gathered, despite all that they had been through. She continued, happy for both the couple and for how this ceremony was lifting the spirits of those attending. "It takes trust, to know in your hearts that you want only the best for each other. It takes dedication, to stay open to one another, to learn and grow, even when it is difficult to do so. And it takes faith, to go forward together without knowing what the future holds for you both."
The same was true for them all. Nerina saw that some of those in the adjacent storage rooms had come out to see what was happening, noticing the Okhala sisters further back in the crowd. She even saw them smile, and when they did, it showed how they were sisters, despite how different the Savi had made them.
"Xander Deacon Maryk and K'Ren Maryk, please join hands, look at one another now, and remember this moment in time," she said, and then turned her brown eyes towards Xander. "Groom, do you take this Bride to be your wife?"
She paused, to let him answer, before she turned her face to K'Ren. "Bride, do you take this Groom to be your husband?"
Once that was done, Nerina struggled a moment to remember what exact words came next, but it was more from the emotions welling inside her than a loss of memory. She continued with barely any pause. "If you have any declarations of your own to make to each other, please make them now, and if not, you can just ask me for the usual pledge, and you can repeat the words after me."
Nerina looked towards Xander, ready to say the traditional words for him. Then, she would do the same for K'Ren.
OOC: Here is the transcript for the usual pledge, in case they do not make any pledges of their own. After they have made their pledges, I will post again.
____________, I take you as you are/ loving who you are / I promise from this day forward/ To be grateful for our love and our life/ To be generous with my time, my energy and my affection/ To be patient with you and with myself/ To fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter/ To inspire you to grow as an individual / To love you completely/ These things, I pledge to you, ____________.
Here are the characters present in Blue Tiran's hideout in the Maintenance Bays, and if there are significant reunions because of this, it should be handled in Supplemental threads or mid-discussion in this thread. The naming convention for such threads belonging to this Prologue is: Prologue: Supplemental [ Day XX | XXXX hrs. ] Insert Title. Here goes: [Show/Hide]
Last Edit: August 20, 2018, 08:19:46 PM by Auctor Lucan
[LCdr Blue Tiran | Of All Fucking Places | Wedding Bells Are Shit | We Should be Sleeping | Neither the Time nor the Place]
There was something to be said for twinkies. They were good for the soul, at least they were good for Blue's soul. Underneath was a new uniform, something that Ectand had sent her that would likely fit a shit ton better than the Starfleet uniform she still wore and was several days old at this point. Above the suit though, was something that made her stop in her tracks. Coxinhas. The very food that she loved ... Brazilian in nature, and something that Ducote made for her frequently. It was, probably second only to the twinkies she had already consumed. She picked out one with her fingers and ate it as she pulled the suit out of the box.
Blue was actually, a rather modest person, when it came to her body. She wasn't ashamed of it or anything she just tended not to show the goods to anyone other than Ranaan. However, privacy was sorely lacking at the moment and she doubted that with everyone else already naked and only getting clothed no one would pay much mind to her own silent redressing. With a mouthful of Brazilian seasoning and meat she quickly began to shed her old uniform and placed it carefully on the deck plating. She picked up the Savi-made suit and stepped into it beginning to pull it up her overly thin body.
While others had their DNA fucked with, they had been fed and for the most part cared for. Outside of the experiments. Which Blue could attest to. But Blue had been starving and deprived of food and water for days while on the run and hiding out on the ship. Her ribs poked out, she had lost muscle mass, and the wounds on her arm had scabbed over but it was clear to the eye of a practicing doctor they were self inflicted. Soon though, they were hidden behind the fabric and she sat down to finish her meal.
Some sort of commotion was going on and Blue only barely paid attention at first until the woman who was the Commander from the Theurgy asked for their attention and what it was for. "Fuck... me..." she whispered under her breath. She didn't think that she would have been so crass as to have the fucking wedding right the fuck now even if Ducote was still alive but....
Her head swam and all color left her body as a memory took her by storm.
Blue's feet were popped up in his lap, as always. He had convinced her, or rather turned off her console, to watch a movie with him. Snacks and drinks were had. They were chit chatting while watching the movie as well. His hands worked against the muscles of her legs and massaged the appendages to help her stay put and relax. It was working too, because she occasionally forgot to open her eyes but then he would say something and she would focus on that rather than the sleep her body was trying to take advantage of. Her dark curls spilled over the couch and the arm that she had curled behind her head. Blue eyes shifted over to Ducote.
"Can you actually cook, or do you just replicate well?" she teased him as she popped the last of the Brazilian fare into her mouth. She grinned over at him, watching him give her that look, the playful warning look that she knew so very well.
"I can cook well enough, considering you'd rather eat over processed sugar anyway I don't think it'll be hard to please your palate"
Blue's grin widened. "Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's a low grade food item."
"Blue, it has absolutely no nutritional value."
"It has caloric intake, most of the time that's all you need."
"No it's-" he paused and sighed, this battle had been forged before and like all the previous times he would not win. "Well when we get married maybe we'll upgrade to an actual kitchen."
Blue's head popped up and she stared at him wide eyed. "When we... wh..what now?"
His hands paused on her legs and they just kind of stared at each other. They had been together for years, and while it was just kind of a given they would live their days together, they had never actually talked about it. Something came over his face.
"Did I no- Eraba me Hold that thought." He pushed her legs out of the way and got up smoothly from the couch.
"Hold the thought? Really?!" she called after his retreating form as he headed over towards the bedroom.
With a groan Blue rolled off of the couch and onto her feet. Tossing her curls out of her face she followed after Ducote, her feet padding quietly on the deck plating. She leaned against the door frame watching him dig through the drawer where they kept socks and other things. I feel like there is something I should remember in there... she thought to herself as Ducote came back out with a small black box in his hand. Her brow rose. Ranaan opened the box and froze, because inside was obviously not what he expected to see. Instead it was a beautiful damascus metal ring with a wooden inlay.
Oh fuck...
"Wh.. this isn't the one I bought."
Blue smirked. "It's the one, I bought, actually."
He looked over at her in surprise, she shrugged a shoulder. "Uh yeah I .. I was gonna ask at some point but shit happens and I like.. fucking forgot." She ran a hand through her hair, he was used to her absent minded behavior, but she was actually feeling pretty shit about it.
But instead, when she looked back at him, he was grinning like an idiot. Her brow rose again in a silent question as his hand reached back into the drawer and pulled out another small square box. Opening it his grin turned into a smile. Snapping the box shut he tossed it to her. She reached out and caught it fairly ninja-like and opened it herself. Inside was a blue-steel ring with an meteorite inlay that shimmered and sparkled about as well as any diamond could and it was very much her style. Clean, simple, and not obtrusive in any way. She smirked at him.
"You too?"
He shrugged and she chewed on her lower lip. "I'm wearing this shit. You're trapped now, Commander. You belong to me now, forever." she grinned as she pulled the blue ring out of the box and slid it onto her left ring finger. Perfect fit for her slender fingers and it slid into place as if it had always been made for her. She watched him do the same.
"Guess so."
Tossing the now empty box to the deck plating and the pair collided in the middle of the bedroom...
"Hey. Hey!" a voice called out to the woman that had completely spaced out. Tears ran down her cheeks again, and her hand had completely fucked over the coxinhas that had been in her hand when the moment hit her hard. Blue's eyes cleared up slightly and they slid over to the woman that was crouched in front of her. "You okay?"
"What the fuck do you care?" Blue asked the short haired brunette she had never met before.
The woman just smiled as though she didn't mind Blue's harsh words which kind of put her in an even worse mood. "I'm Zephyr."
"The fucking wind?" Asked Blue incredulously.
"Sure. If you want. I thought I'd come check on you." she said with a warm and understanding smile.
"What the fuck for, I don't know you, you don't know me. Go back to your.. own crew."
Zeph decided to sit herself down anyway. She slid her back against the deckplating just beside Blue. Her eyes shifted over to Cross, if he hadn't already left, like do you see this shit?! "I could feel you from across the room."
"I didn't ask for you to feel shit!" Blue said angrily.
"Yeah well you were projecting pretty loudly once I figured out where it was coming from."
"Well shut your brain off or something, aren't you trained for that shit. Not listening or something. It's fucking rude."
"Yeah, well I wasn't full Betazoid before a week ago so..." Zeph shrugged but looked over at Blue as the pang of Betazoid hit the woman hard.
"Go attend the fucking wedding. Get some warm and fuzzies, Leave me the fuck alone. I don't need you to sit here and play tea party with me. I've got Cross for that." She was completely unapologetic but Blue had been put through the ringer a few times.
"I don't know them." Zeph said with another shrug.
"Well you don't fucking know me either. So there you go."
Zeph grinned. "I think you're very adept at pushing people away. Except for... one person... maybe?"
Blue stopped moving, she had been, up until that point, eating the pulverized coxinhas out of her hand but she froze and her entire body tensed. Zephyr would feel something odd, it was as if Blue's mind just shut down. Completely, darkly, without anything being felt or heard... it was just gone. Zeph looked over at her in surprise. All that was there now was some kind of 'get fucked' in neon.
"Get the fuck away from me. I'm not here for counseling sessions and I don't fucking need you to be here trying to make friends with me. We're not going to be friends, go find someone else do fuck with."
"I saw your arms."
"Fuck. Off. Now." Blue's voice left little room for anything else to be said.
Zeph sighed, and her eyes searched for someone in the crowd. "Well if .. if you decide to... Im not only Betazoid but I am a doctor so... come find me okay? Zephyr, right?"
Blue didn't answer, and Zeph finally got up to go find someone in the wedding guests. Blue tossed the rest of her food against the deck plating close by and pulled her legs up to her chest. Wrapping her arms around them, she put her head on her knees letting her dirty hair cover her as completely as possible. Tears pitter pattered against the fabric of her legs.
OOC: Included Zeph in this post for some between character fun!
[ Vinata Vojona & Hylota Vojona | Maintenance bay | Precept-ship Versant ] Attn: @all ]
As the water washed away the blood enough for Hylota to get a clear look at Lin Kae's fingers, she took her time getting a a thorough look, taking in all the small laceration and shallow cuts, but also noting the ripped out nails and their exposed nail beds. The sigh of Lin Kae's exposed fingers made Hylota sigh as she shook her head. "You are lucky this is not an away mission on some planet. The sterile nature of this ship is in your favor Lin Kae. You should be fine so long as you do not go rifling through small objects or loose particles. You are also not going to have much of a reliable grip at this point either, I would advise you try and take a secondary position in anything technical, try and spare your fingers until medical aid can be given at this point, otherwise you might cause further damage." Hylota did not for a second believe that her advice would be heeded, but it would hopefully encourage Lin Kae to be careful for a little while.
Vinata looked through the loose rations on the floor and sighed as he kicked some of the twinkies aside. "A shame these kits held only food and water rations, if we had some basic medical kit there could have been more we could do for you." Vinata sighed s he looked at the items, nothing they had was useful for Lin Kae's situation. Of course as he was pondering what they could do Lin Kae brought up their reason for abduction and how it had mostly been about purifying genetics. Going off of what he had observed personally Vinata sighed and waved his hand. "I do not know why they selected us, but they did their own kind of correction for us. Both my sister and I woke up with different genitalia, or I feel it would be more fitting to say that she is now my brother and I am her sister. Our genitalia and physical builds now match the mammalian norm from the Federation. Granted I do not know why they chose us for this alone."
Hylota looked over at Commander Nerina as she began to perform a marriage, yeah this was what she needed right now, another fucking reminder. Hylota turned her back to the union as she did her best to ignore her illogical urges, there was no reasons she should be so mad, this was not about them, they had not done anything to her, there was no reason to hate them for being happy just because she was in a bad place, but as she turned her attention back to Lin Kae and Vinata's conversation she stopped for a moment and pondered what had been said. These abductions had been done for genetic purity reasons, every hybrid member of the crew was here. Hylota's eyes widened as realization began to creep into her mind, the cold grip of dread coming over her as Hylota felt her stomach sink, her mouth opened silently as she looked around, her eyes going to the corrected crewmen, looking to each face eventually coming to stop on Khorin, looking at his strong Klingon traits and remembering Maal, remembering what she lost as she looked to the marriage, and then in a quick movement Hylota looked to her brother. "Hylota what is wrong."
It was all coming apart, Hylota reached up to her head and gripped firmly. "No no. No No, No. NO! NO!" Hylota began to breath in a heavy panic as she let loose a roaring sound of raw emotion and rage. Hylota looked around frantically as she lashed out in an instant, kicking her empty care package across the maintenance bay. In a panic Vinata rushed to his sister and put his hands on her shoulders, doing his best to restrain her and keep her from causing any harm to someone or to herself. "Hylota please calm down! What is going on? Why are you acting like this?" Vinata looked up at Hylota as she shuddered and held her head. "They took it, they took it, why else would they want us?" Hylota looked her brother's eyes. "My egg, Maal's child. Why else would they want us? We managed to breed with a mammalian race." Vinata looked back at his sister and tried to keep her calm. "Hylota why would they do that, it was just an egg, how would they even-" Vinata was cut off as Hylota shouted him down. "They took everyone else, why not an hybrid egg? They had to have taken it, there is no other justification for going out of their way for us." It was clear that Hylota had taken a few leaps in logic as she had come to her conclusion, but Vinata could not deny that Hylota might have a point. Looking to Lin Kae he Vinata swallowed hard. "I fear she might have a point, our abductors might have one more of us than the rest know of." Vinata was doing his best to hold onto Hylota as he spoke, but she was shaking with the raw emotion, her hands clenched into fists against the side of her head as she made an intimidating hissing sound, her throat pulsing as she breathed heavily. Everything had been taken, every last thing was being ripped out from under her, her stability, her friends, her lover, her child, it was all gone, stolen from her. Hylota's eyes darted around as she tried to think of a solution, desperately thinking of how she could find her child, who would even have it?
Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 03:09:27 PM by Zenozine
Cross stayed sitting, having crossed his legs and settled in as best he could next to Blue Tiran. He took another bite of his food as Commander Nerina asked for everyone's attention, and listened to what the Commander said, chewing slowly as his eyebrows knit together in a puzzled expression. That puzzled expression was slowly replaced by one of concern as he heard Blue utter soft word that he couldn't quite make out, the quiet sound causing him to glance at the blue-haired woman sitting next to him.
Cross knew that Blue had been close with the Endeavour's XO, Commander Ducote. He knew they had been in a relationship, and he'd also heard it said that they had been engaged. And now, following the Borg attack, it could safely be assumed that Commander Ducote was dead, along with Kai, Annika and everyone else he'd known on the Endeavour. As he studied Blue, the Human woman seemed to be lost in thought, or perhaps a memory. Regardless of what was going through her head, she once again had tears running down her face, and she stared off into the space of the maintenance bay without seeming to see anything.
Cross was about to speak when someone else approached the spot where they sat. Cross raised his gaze to see Zephyr Praise draw closer and crouch in front of Blue. Zephyr spoke, trying to get Blue's attention, and Blue seemed to snap out of her reverie.
"What the fuck do you care?" Blue finally spoke.
There's the Blue Tiran that we all know and fear! Cross thought, fighting to suppress a smile. Zephyr may have good intentions in approaching the Engineer, but anyone from the Endeavour could have told her it was a perilous undertaking at the best of times. And these were hardly the best of times. Not that Cross was about to inform her of that fact within earshot of Blue herself. The Betazoid was on her own.
Cross shifted himself back a little as the two spoke, moving a little further away and resting his back against the bulkhead as he watched the drama unfold before him, with Blue snarling at the Betazoid woman and Zephyr remaining remarkably calm in the face of such hostility. Cross took another bite of his meal and chewed slowly as he watched the exchange, silently wondering if he was going to have to step in and break up an altercation.
"I don't need you to sit here and play tea party with me. I've got Cross for that."
The wormlike Vulcan eyebrows on Cross' face rose at that comment, and the Vulcan hardly managed to force down the urge to smile. Cross was hardly known for being good company, and it was rare for someone to prefer his company to another's.
She must really hate Zephyr... Cross thought to himself as he watched the exchange between the two women cautiously. Cross missed what Zephyr said next, but saw Blue go stock still and tense, which in turn caused Cross to tense and get ready to tackle the Engineer should she try and actually kill the telepath. Cross was still amazed it hadn't come to that point between Blue and Shar in the escape pod, though this might finally be the breaking point.
More words were exchanged between the two until finally Zephyr moved off, presumably to go find Khorin, at which point Cross silently let out a relieved sigh. Then Blue hurled the remainder of her food onto the maintenance bay deck and curled herself up as though trying to shut out the events going on in the maintenance bay. Cross watched as Blue stayed in that position, unsure of what to do. He felt he should comfort her in some way, but knew little of what that entailed.
Cross reached out a hand, the limb hovering in the air just inches above Blue's slumped shoulders. His hand floated there for a long moment, but the Vulcan found he couldn't bring himself to rest the hand on her shoulder. After another moment he withdrew the hand and let it fall to his side before taking the last bite of his meal, slowly chewing the food as he let his head fall back against the bulkhead behind him. He stayed like that, sitting quietly beside the hurting Blue Tiran. Across the bay from them, Commander Nerina spoke as the wedding continued, with most of those present in the maintenance bay attending.
In their little corner of the maintenance bay, away form the others, Cross sat quietly beside Blue Tiran and watched the wedding ceremony progress, unwilling to leave his crewmate alone in her time of pain even if he had no idea what to do about it.
Nerina began the ceremony with what seemed to be some level of practiced ease, although that could have been Deacon projecting his own desires of perfection on the rote and circumstance of it all. Being unfamiliar with the words of the ritual, he had to trust in this female he barely knew to formalize something that he and K'Ren had originally decided privately amongst themselves in a moment of intimacy. It was a tough burden to ask, trusting in another, let alone a non-kzin, and a female to boot, but there were no options.
Despite his best efforts to block out the incessant noise of emotions around him, his fatigue left far too many breaches in his mental defenses. While he could feel the sincerity and good will of those close by, the love of his bride, the support from Nerina and R'Rori, beyond, at the far edges of the crowd, there was a sense of... animosity? confusion? irritation? His eyes traced the shadows, his burgeoning anger held like a tight knot in his stomach, the desire to curl his lips and bare his fangs at the would-be detractors almost irresistible. But though his eyes were tinged with a moment of feral gold that almost seemed to penetrate the darkness of the over-sized bay, he managed to swallow the urge to lash out, determined to adhere to the expectations of the moment, determined to allow nothing to stand between him and his chosen mate.
He turned his attention back only to find that Nerina had finished her initial invocation, looking at him expectantly. In an instant, his heart sank as he'd barely managed to hear anything of what she'd said. Well, that wasn't wholly accurate... he'd likely heard every word. It was all a matter of whether he'd absorbed their meaning. An affirmation. That appeared to be her expectation. "I do?" he asked with a side glance towards the commander, hoping for some confirmation as to whether that was the appropriate response, to which she provided an affirmative nod. "I do," he repeated, his tone louder and with greater conviction, the corners of his mouth faintly upturned as he took hold of K'Ren's hands.
When asked if they had specific words to share with one another, Deacon's cheeks flushed slightly before he cleared his throat, turning his face to Nerina. "We made private vows when we first committed to one another," he replied. It wasn't that he shied away from reaffirming such words, but they were personal, for his K'Ren only. It was a vulnerability he wasn't quite ready to expose before the others, certainly not on the heels of exposing his name as he had. Besides, this was a ceremony and, to him, such things seldom benefited from improvisation. It seemed wrong to unnecessarily vary from the words set down by tradition. "I will need the words," he asked of Nerina which he repeated in steady breaks, his attention diverted from K'Ren only enough to hear the prompts.
"K'Ren," he paused, again placing his hand against her cheek, blocking the feelings of those in the shadows out of his mind, ignoring the anchor in his stomach, the weariness in his shoulders, "I take you as you are, loving who you are. I promise, from this day forward, to be grateful for our love and our life, to be generous with my time, my energy and my affection, to be patient with you and with..." Again he slowed, the quirk of a grin playing at one corner of his lips again, knowing the next word was something he seldom had the opportunity to practice of late but finding the oath intended not only as a commitment to the union of another, but to the wholeness of the speaker, "... with myself, to fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter, to inspire you to grow as an individual, to love you completely. These things, I pledge to you, K'Ren." Clever monkeys, he thought, finding the words simple yet directed. Kzinti had nothing to compare against given the blatant inequality between the sexes in their culture. He would need to introduce this concept to them one day.
Last Edit: August 23, 2018, 09:11:03 AM by steelphoenix
Attn: @Auctor Lucan @chXinya
When Shall patted a spot by his side, Shar knew instantly that the chan's story was going to be pretty long. So, without needing too much insistence, she settled between the two males, her legs bent under her rear and her arms crossed under her svelte chest. The ops officer knew that her stance could be considered defensive by most of those present, but her bowed head indicated to her kind that she was attentive and listening. The young shen knew very well that her personality was far from bubbly and cheerful, rather it was caustic and cranky, but she was trying to behave in a way that was at least neutral with her forced bondmates. Neither of them had chosen that situation, and it didn't have sense to make their relationship even more difficult, overcomplicating it with her vitriolic demeanour.
Staring at some point in the void away from the bay, Shall began to tell the story of Ida, from her incongruous disdain for her own species to her refusal to speak her aversion for her now ch'te. He also confirmed what she had suspected in the battle of engineering, the security officer had belonged to the Guard. "<Believe me, there are several reasons a Guardman could be kicked out, I know it well>" Shar pointed out, without going too deep into that open wound since she didn't want to interrupt the scientist's soliloquy.
When the narration dropped tone and took on a conspiratorial timbre, Shar leaned forward, shoulder to shoulder with Sehl, the heads of the trio of Andorians almost together, the five antennas about to rub against each other whenever one of them gesticulated with them. In that guise, Shar heard the narrative of the Niga Incident. The event as a whole had a disturbing tone, an unhealthy aftertaste that stirred the andorian's stomach. Ida's reticence and anger were now better explained, even without knowing what it was that had forced her to leave Andoria. Shar's decision to talk to her wobbled momentarily, while a bitter taste made her compose a grimace. Of course, she was going to have to change her strategy to approach the zhen.
When Shall held her hand in his, he tore her from his grim thoughts, warning her of Ida's nature and the consequences of an ill-considered approach. Shar stubbornly crushed the antennae against her skull, her determination spurred by the chan's words, even when they were trying to discourage the decision she had made. "<I know how to take care of myself, ch'te>" she huffed sharply, her tone irritated again. Then, thinking better on Shall's words, she squeezed the chan's fingers between hers, sighing slightly, trying to control her bad temper. When she spoke again, she did so by looking into her bondmate's eyes, her sullen gesture sweetened for once. "<Precisely because there are so few chances of a successful birth it's why I ... why WE need to try this. Maybe this is our only chance, however scanty it may be. Not only is our duty towards our specie, perhaps it is our only opportunity as individuals. I couldn't forgive myself at least try.>" Her voice broke with emotion when saying the latter, and looked away, without wanting to delve into her own motives in the matter.
Behind her, a small commotion was taking place between the rest of the abductees, around Commander Nerina and the three felinoids. The andorian wasn't interested in the least, but it gave her a perfect window to leave the bay and go in search of Ida. With a fluid movement she stood up and addressed a liquid gaze to the males, to the sad eyes of Shall and the scowling expression of their th'se. "<I''l be cautious. Remember, give me some time alone with her before coming to find us> ". She knew that a gesture of affection, an expression of confidence and determination, was mandatory, but she was so uneasy about everything that she only stood in front of them uncomfortably, not knowing what to say until she simply turned on her heels and walked away, following the wall of the bay.
She tried to stay away from the main crowd, as well as the smaller gathering scattered around, moving quietly around the perimeter of the room. Her steps soon took her to the small rooms that some of her misadventures' fellows had chosen to rest, but she didn't find the zhen there. Shar didn't expect it either. Now that she knew a little more about her background, she doubted that Ida was the kind of person who locked herself out of sight to wept out her distress. Her strides slowly led her to one of the bay's exits. To her satisfaction, she found it slightly ajar, giving evidence that it had been used a short time ago. Possibly she had found Ida's trail.
She allowed herself one last glance to the crowd, as well as to the two blue forms resting against one of the walls, before crossing the threshold, entering the gloomy side corridor.
For all the strangeness she felt in being in this situation, saying marriage vows in the cargobay of an alien vessels, not real idea if they would survive the next 24hrs, there were aspects of this that felt familiar, much like she'd done a few years prior, when she'd been wed to a Human male, her first mate. She could see in Deacon's eyes some discomfort, perhaps from the others feelings around him, perhaps in how he was treading unfamiliar territory. When asked by Nerina, K'Ren willingly took Deacon's hands in her own. She knew it was part of the ceremony but touch could be a powerful calming agent and for all the nerves she was feeling, she suspected, well could sense, that he was as nervous as she felt.
She waited for Nerina to ask her Deacon if he took her as his wife, smiling up at him as he said he did. Purring away, when Nerina asked her if she took him as mate, she nodded, agreeing with the words even as she kept her gaze on Deacon. "I do," she said simply. Her face flushed a little when Nerina asked if they had specific words to share. Deacon's response, his statement that the words they'd spoken were private, between them only, K'Ren nodded her agreement. She turned back to Deacon, her face feeling a little flush as he spoke the words Nerina gave him.
And it seemed so fast that Deacon said his vows to her, pledging to live with her, cherish and care for her, be her mate through everything life brought, until death separated them. Now her turn she paused breifly, she knew the words roughly. "Xander," she began, feeling her voice crack a little as she began her public commitment to the love of her life. "I take you as you are, loving who you are. I promise from this day forward, To be grateful for our love and our life. To be generous with my time, my energy and my affection." She paused briefly, looking up into his face as his hand went to her cheek. "To be patient with you and with myself. To fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter. To inspire you to grow as an individual." She could feel tears welling up as she spoke, forcing her to pause for a moment to recompose herself. She'd said same words to her last mate, only to lose him. She hoped this one she would grow old with, see their cubs grow old enough to themselves become parents. "To love you completely. These things, I pledge to you, Xander."
While Khorin waited for Zeph's response, he watched how the Theurgy former first officer advanced to the center of the cargo bay, followed closely by Neko, the murderous-eyed man and the other feline, Cross' crew fellow. The Klingon lifted his chin slightly and followed them with his gaze, furrowed brows and his ramble silenced instantly. Something was cooking up. Many of the abductees watched with curiosity the strange procession, until Nerina revealed the reason of that spectacle, his Wolf fellow and the murderboy had decided to celebrate their wedding in that ill-fated situation. Or re-celebrate it, the matter wasn't very clear to him. Of course it wasn't the time or the situation the Klingon had chosen, but it was his duty as a packmate to attend the ceremony and show his support for his squad fellow.
He raised to his feet, didn't feeling like left Zeph side, but compelled by the circumstances "Well, at least we all follow a stric dress-coat" he joked as he helped the betazoid to stand up. The woman seemed sleepy and exhausted. Khorin couldn't but help feeling guilty for not allowing her to rest and promised himself to find a place so that she could rest as soon as possible. Zephyr, on the other hand, seemed to suddenly wake up, cocking her head and looking towards the place where Cross and his crew fellow were isolated. "You go ahead to the wedding. There's someone that needs help. I'll meet you there okay?" The pilot nodded slightly in response, before she put herself on her tiptoes to kiss his scruffy cheek. He only could grin like an idiot, looking her bounce off across the bay, the tiredness reflecting on her slightly sunken shoulders despite the determination that guided her steps. The Klingon chuckled resoundingly and shaked his head before heading towards the ceremony.
When he arrived, standing in the front row, Nerina had already begun the ceremony. To his disappointment, the former Klingon hybrid had decided to hold a standard Federation ceremony, so they couldn't raid the bride and groom at the end of the ritual. Which diminished a huge amount of the fun of the ceremony. Even in spite of his disappointment, Khorin squared his broad shoulders and listened to the votes of the couple. One phrase struck him particularly: that they were more than themselves separately. That stirred a memory in the back of his brain, he remembered vaguely that someone once said that victory was hollow without someone to share it with. So those cats had decided face the incoming conflict declaring in front of all abductees that they would face the battle with someone with whom to share it, whether at the end it was a victory or another ending. For a moment, the pilot thought that the ceremony itself wasn't as crazy as he had initially believed. His eyes flew over the crowd in search of whoever wanted him to be by his side in case of victory, but the throng prevented him from finding her.
[ Ensign Lin Kae | Maintenance Bays | The Versant ] Attn: @Zenozine @Blue Zephyr
When being told he should take a back seat in any future technical endeavours, Lin Kae bit his tongue, remembering how he had just asked Nerina to accompany the team that would try to free Thea. He did not want to disrespect the Ovri in their judgement, and he would try to - literally - keep his fingers to himself as best as he might. He just hoped he would have a good team on his side.
Then, the Ovri explained that they had switched sexes, conforming to the norm. Lin Kae's eyes widened, incredulous to the fact that the Savi would go out of their way to standardise species in such a fashion. It was invasive in so many different ways, and yet... If Vinata Vojona was supposed to be - or at least identified himself - as male, why hadn't the siblings been changed so that Vinata would have a fully male body? Wouldn't it be more 'correct' if Hylota had been Corrected to have female curves along with her original sex? Was it a matter of ease for the Savi? Merely changing the genitals instead of the whole body? Given what they had done to the rest of the abductees in the bay, it surprised Lin Kae that something like that would stop them.
"You know," he told Vinata, flexing his fingers where he sat, "when the Ishtar Entity visited upon the Theurgy, I ended up switching bodies with a female pilot aboard the ship. Don't ask me why. The entity seemed to be toying with us. In any case, I can sympathise with how... odd things ought to be for the two of you. For a couple of hours, I was fully female, and it gave me... unique perspective. It helped me in my programming of Thea's upgrades, where I was able to..."
He trailed off, because Hylota suddenly seemed distraught. She began to lash out, violent because of what she seemed to have realised. Then, when she explained, it became perfectly clear. Lin Kae had only met the Klingon nurse briefly, and he didn't know Hylota had... made eggs with him. But her reasoning was solid.
"Hey, hey, easy now. There is no way to be certain... unless, we ask the one Lieutenant Commander Tiran has made and alliance with. The one who sent us these suits. He could not only tell us if it's aboard, but where it is, right?" He tried to give Hylota an encouraging smile, his hand on her shoulder, but careful not to lay his fingerstips against her. "Come, let's talk to her, and we might even ask for a medkit as well, since there are more people than me who were hurt when we fought our way into Enterprise's engineering. Come, I can do the talking..."
Kae would have attended the wedding if it wasn't for his treatment and what Hylota had said. What he did was to try and be so inconspicuous as possible as he made his way over to the officer with the blue streak in her hair. He did not want to disturb the wedding in any way, so when he reached Blue Tiran, inclining his head to the bald Vulcan sitting next to her and looking briefly towards the Betazoid that had aided them in the Enterprise simulation, he spoke in a very low voice. "I'm sorry to distrurb you, Lieutenant Commander. I am Lin Kae, holographic specialist on the Theurgy. This is Hylota Vojona and Vinata Vojona, two Ovri nurses that also served on the Theurgy. We... have a request to our ally on this ship. We need a medkit, and... we also need to verify something. It might be that the Savi also took an egg from the Theurgy, since it is an egg carrying what may become a cross between a Klingon and an Ovri. It's Hylota's egg, and she fears it might be aboard."
He paused there, clearing his throat. "Do you think our ally can find this egg, if it's aboard, and provide us with a medkit as well?"
When the two had made their pledges, Nerina smiled, and spoke again.
"Now... is where you might have traded tokens of your pledge, but this can be done later... given the circumstances." When she said this, there were a few chuckles from the crowd, the humour not lost on them. Nerina continued in an explanatory way, her smile warm. "Humans have rings, other species have other tokens, so you can choose if it's important to you. When, and if, you find something that fits your pledge to each other, you can say 'This token symbolizes my love for you, and the commitments we have made.' Personally, I'd say this is something to fight for, to trade these tokens after we get off this ship."
Having said this, she concluded the ceremony, her tone becoming more official again.
"Xander Deacon Maryk and K'Ren Maryk, you have come here today of your own free will and in the presence of your crew, declared your love and commitment to each other. By the power of your love and commitment to each other, and by the power vested in me as a Commander in Starfleet and your ranking officer, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The declaration made, it was finished.
"Congratulations," she said, remaining as she stood with her hands clasped behind her back. "Crews of the Endeavour and the Theurgy, I now present to you the newly married couple. Let's hear it for 'em!"
Despite the ordeals they had been through, the majority of the gathered applauded and spoke their support, shouting not being advisable since they were hiding on an enemy ship. Nerina inclined her head to Deacon and K'Ren. "You may now share your first kiss as husband and wife."
That was not, perhaps, true given their previous bond, but at least in accordance to the fleet's traditions.
OOC: After this wedding is done, this Prologue will now remain open for any further development in the bay at that hour. I will be writing my characters as they set up to sleep, and when we feel we are done with this thread, I will lock it. Supplemental threads are, of course, still available, and encouraged for this night in hiding. A new Chapter will be posted eventually, where the next day - and the mayhem - will begin. Here are the characters present in Blue Tiran's hideout in the Maintenance Bays. The naming convention for Supplemental threads belonging to this Prologue is: Prologue: Supplemental [ Day XX | XXXX hrs. ] Insert Title. Here goes: [Show/Hide]
Hi'Jak @Masorin (In an adjacent storage room)
Lahkesis Saugn @Absinthe (In an adjacent storage room)
ThanIda zh'Wann @Auctor Lucan (Outside the bay, standing guard)
Kelleshar sh'Zenne @Numen (Just left the bay)
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